I Pinned it, and I did it!

It's Christmas break and before school and I am trying to get all my pinterest time out of my system. Needless to say I have been pinning like I have never pinned before. Sunday Erin and I decided to have a crafty day with each other. Drew and David had both left town and we were a little bummed, so why not craft and watch Four Weddings. I love wearing headbands, especially since I got my hair cut at the end of the summer. Headbands are really expensive and I find them falling off my head, so I looked on pinterest for an easy, no sew headband tutorial. We went to Walmart and I purchased 5 different colors of leather string typed material. Erin let me have a few hair elastics and I had tons of ribbon. I also purchased some scrap cloth out of the craft section at walmart. It helps if you place the hair elastic around something, say your foot if your me, to hold it steady while you braid. I made 6 different headbands on Sunday and it was a success. I like the headbands because you can make them as big or small as you need. You could even make them for a baby, and it is super cheap (if you have tons of ribbon like I do). I also liked this project because it was stress free. Most crafty things stress me out because I am not particularly crafty but I want it to turn out well. If you are a headband wearing gal, I suggest trying this super easy pinterest craft!

Here is one of my favorites that I made. I used a lace ribbion, a red ribbon, and a red leather string.

Here are  the hair elastic ends to the six headbands that I made. 

Here are the tops: a pink flowered, a giraffe print, a black one, a navy/green one, the red one, and a navy and cream .

I Pinned it, I Did It!

I didn't have to work until 7 tonight, so I made supper for my parents today. I looked through my pinterest recipes because I wanted to try something new since I had some free time today. I decided to go with this Rotel Chicken crockpot recipe. It looked simple, and I love anything of this cuisine. It turned out pretty good, it wasn't the best thing I've ever eaten, but I would make it again. The recipe calls for 5 things, but I added one more to make 6. I  made it exactly like the recipe called, but I added a can of green chilles for a little more flavor.  I also used fresh chicken because we didn't have bagged chicken, which I'm sure would work the same way. If it looks super gross in the crockpot, then you are probably doing it right. I poured mine over Rice Sides Mexican rice and added a  spoonful of salsa and a side of chips. It fed all three of us and could probably feed us again. I still feel like it was missing something though, I may try and add the taco seasoning next time. Here, is the recipe and I promise it taste better than it looks!

Pinning it, and doing it!

I swear my life doesn't revolve around Pinterest. I may spend most of my breaks at work on pinterest, but I'm not addicted. I am not a morning person, at all! Ask anyone who knows me. If I could get away with getting up at 6:30 and leaving my house for school at 6:45 in the mornings, I would do it. I also love food, and being in class all day I know I will get distracted if my belly isn't full. Basically, I need breakfast but I make myself rushed. I have no time for cooking in the mornings, and I'm not a big cereal fan. Needless to say, pinterest to the resuce. Earlier this summer I pinned a strawberry muffin recipe that seemed pretty easy and actually healthy. I decided to make them Tuesday so I could have them for breakfast this week.
They are super simple, filling, easy and of course yummy!
 Strawberry Muffins
 I made them exactly as the recipe called, but I used regular sugar. I did use the lemon juice, but I don't see it making that big of a difference.

The muffins are a little gooey in texture, so don't expect a normal muffin texture. They don't take long to make and if you make them the night before you can just pop them into the microwave the next morning. Also, I used aluminum  liners and had no problem with sticking. I thought that I would have extra muffin batter, but I just filled them really full because they don't raise a whole lot. I just realized too that my batter was much thicker than the one in the picture, so I probably could have blended it better in my mixer.Next time I'm gonna try it with blueberries! Another thing that makes these muffins so great is that they are only 93 calories, and the oatmeal keeps you full till lunch time!

Happy Baking!

Oops I Pinned It and Did It Again!

Yep, I did it again. I pinned it and actually did it. I'm proud that I'm actually using pinterest for what it's for. I  saw a recipe for rainbow cupcakes a few weeks back. I thought they were pretty neat, but I didn't really have a reason to put that much effort into a cupcake. However, I finally found an excuse to make them when I planned the Back to School Bash for my Junior Church kiddos.
Rainbow Cupcakes
 I bought 3 boxes of white cake mix, but that number's totally not necessary. I made them just like I normally would and split the mixes into four different bowls

Then I added food coloring to each bowl. I chose blue, yellow, green, and pink(I would have rather had red, but I didn't wanna add 40lbs of food coloring so I gave up at 20lbs). Then, I added a little bit of each color of cake mix into the cupcake pan.


I popped them into the oven and voila'. 

I used a Pampered Chef icing tool that I would normally use to decorate cakes, to icing my cupcakes. To complete the look of my rainbow cupcakes I added sprinkles, because what's a cupcake without sprinkles. 

I Pinned It, I Did It

Chocolate Cake Batter Cookies

Last night David came over and we made some pretty delicious cookies. I found this recipe yesterday when I was searching chocolate cookies on pinterest, because I know David is a big chocolate fan. This recipe was pretty easy, however our cookies did not look like the picture at all. If you are like me, you will probably doubt this recipe because I found it hard to believe it would turn out like a cookie. It actually is more of a brownie consistency rather than a cookie. The recipe says to use either 1/2 or 1/3 cup of vegetable oil, and I just used what the box called for.  I added a few peanut butter chips and semi sweets to the mix as well.  I would definitely make it again, but it wasn't the best cookie that I had ever tried in my life. It would be a good recipe to use for a quick get together or just to snack on something sweet.

I pinned it, and We did it!

Last week my parents were out of town and I had the house to my house, so what does that mean! Time for a girls night of cooking and making a mess in the kitchen! The girls came over and we enjoyed some time in the pool for a while before we headed to food city  for supplies for dinner. We decided on cilantro lime chicken, black beans, rice, and sauteed peppers! We had a blast being super loud at the grocery store, and even had a customer exclaim near the meat department "do you have conversations like this throughout the entire store, can I video you? I'd make a killing off of you guys!" After spending longer the necessary at the grocery store we make it home to finally cook supper. A few months back I posted a pin on my recipe board on pinterest for cilantro lime chicken for the crockpot. We made the exact same recipe but just cooked the chicken and then added all the ingredients in a sauce pan. Here is the recipe , but we added green chili's and a little extra cilantro than the recipe calls for. Our meal was pretty yummy and we had a great time with each other having great conversations! Then rest of the night included playing the piano and singing silly songs which was hilarious and resulted in lots of tears from laughing so hard of course. We did this of course when our cupcakes were cooking in the oven. We chose to make Mini Oreo Surprise Cupcakes. The only thing that I did differently in this recipe was chop up the oreos and add it to the cream cheese mixture instead of just placing the Oreo on top of the cream cheese mixture. Definitely worth trying if you are an Oreo fan!

I Pinned It, I Did It!!!

Tonight we had a fun night for bible study. We had tacos and played Family and it was a good night of fellowship. I knew I wanted to make something sweet for them to eat to go with the tacos. I wanted to make something homemade instead of brownies or some variation of brownies. I wasn't sure what I wanted to make because I had so many desserts when I went home for Easter weekend. I finally decided to use a recipe that I pinned on my recipe board on pinterest. I'm so bad about pinning them, but never doing them. I decided to use a simple 5 ingredient recipe with m & ms. I'm all about simple, and plus I had all the ingredients except for the M &Ms at my house.
M & M Peanut Butter Bars

The only thing that I did differently than the directions said  is how many m&ms I added. I wasn't sure what the directions meant by a bag of m&ms. Does it mean a single serving bag, a sharing/2serving bag/ a large bag, or a box like you get at the movies. So I went with the big bag and added about half the bag to the mixture at the end. You can probably add as much as you want, but I would add them gradually. Always remember "You can always add more, but you can't take it out once you add it!" Here are some of my pictures. I don't understand how they can always make them look so good in pictures. I promise they were tastier than what they looked like from my iphone camera.

I pinned it, and I did it!

Most people have either heard of pinterest, or are like me and are addicted to it. I love finding crafts, recipes, and other fun things on pinterest to do. Unfortunately, in most cases I don't do anything but pin something that I think I would enjoy doing. This time, though I actually did it. A couple of months before Christmas I found a blog about making homemade wreaths on pinterest. It seemed simple enough that I could do for a present for my mom and Traci. I adjusted the directions a little bit, but for my first project I think it turned out pretty well.


Homemade Wreath
(this wreath looks much better than the one I made, but it was worth a shot)
1. Find long foam tubing. You can buy it at Lowe's for about 97 cents. I got the smallest size they had because it seemed to be the strongest. I decided to buy two and tape them together instead of using one bigger one.

2. Tape the two tubes together from beginning to end. I tour strips of tape just long enough to wrap around both pieces of tubing once. If you continued wrapping the tape around the tubing it caused the tubing to become warped.

3. After the two tubes are completely taped together form it into a circle and tape together.

4.Then take twine and use a hot glue gun to glue the beginning of the twine before wrapping it around the wreath. To make sure that it was secure, I would cut it after a while of wrapping around the wreath and glue the ending piece to the wreath and begin again.
5. continue wrapping until the wreath is covered in twine
6. You can really add anything you want to make it a little snazzy, but I decided to add a wooden letter to it for my mom. I painted the little red and hot glued it really well to the wreath.