Pocket for a card in a wrapped gift

My sister did this for my birthday last year and I decided to give it a try. Now there's no more losing the card. No more taping the card to the paper.

First, cut your paper to fit the size of present you are wrapping, leaving about 6 extra inches for your pocket. Then, fold the paper in about the half, then back up, making about a 2 inch pocket. After that, fold you're present like usual. And lastly, put the card in the pocket! Easy. Simple. Useful.

French Tips with a Flare

I went to visit one of my friends recently for a vacation. I rarely get to do my nails in real life because it's a time consuming project that I frankly just don't have time for. Since I was going to be on a week long vacation with no child, I decided to change things up a bit and make my nails pretty for once.

First, I decided to do French Tips with a Flare.
You'll need some supplies to achieve the look that I was going for. You'll need the basics like white nail polish and a good top coat. Beyond that, I bought this from Wal-Mart:

Then, I also bought some art tools like these from Wal-Mart:

First, I put the strips where I want them, paint the tips white, and then remove the strips when they're dry. (I've made the mistake of being too impatient and pulling the strips off before they were dry enough and it turned out TERRIBLE!)
Then, use the nail art tools. Paint a strip of silver right beneath the white that you just painted.
Next, use one of the stencils that comes with the nail art tools to add a little something.
Last, put a couple of layers of top coat to finish everything off and you'll end up with this.

Going to the Zoo

When you go to the zoo, don't forget to take pictures. I prefer to bring my zoom lense. It seems like the animals are always pretty far away from where everyone actually stands. We went at pretty much the worst time to go to the zoo. It was July. It was super hot. A lot of the larger animals were sleeping, but I say that you can make the most of anything. For me, there was no other time to go since I brought my 2-year-old son with me and we had a one hour drive before we got there. I think next time we go, we'll go during the Spring or Fall so that it's not quite as hot. We went to Brookfield Zoo near Chicago, IL. It's a great zoo! The only thing it was missing was an elephant or two. Just remember, have fun!

While I don't have any in this post, don't forget to take pictures with people in them when you go to the zoo. It might be tempting to just get the animals, but the reactions on people's faces can be priceless.

Grilled Mac 'N' Cheese Sandwich

So, my husband and I came up with this idea to combine two of the greatest cheese dishes together: grilled cheese and mac 'n' cheese! (I'm sure someone's done this before, but I'm not sure who and I don't remember seeing it.) It was absolutely delicious! Our son really loved it too.

First, we made a box of ordinary mac 'n' cheese. Follow the directions on the box.

Then, butter two pieces of bread. Unwrap two cheese slices so that they're ready. (After all, we want this to be super cheesy. It also helps keep the sandwich from falling apart.)

You can do this on the stove top, but we already had our griddle out and that way you can do more than one at a time. Make sure your pan/griddle is heated up before starting. We had our griddle set to 400 degrees which is the highest it will go. Put down 1 piece of bread, 1 slice of cheese, enough mac 'n' cheese to cover the sandwich, 1 more slice of cheese, and then the final piece of bread.

I usually leave my grilled cheese alone until it stops making the sizzling/hissing noise and then check it periodically until it's brown enough for me. Then flip it over and do the same to the other side. Now your sandwich is done!!

Making a cardboard box into a toy box for your child

My son has a TON of cars. He just loves all kinds of matchbox cars and monster cars...everything! When we travel, it's difficult to keep them all straight so my dad gave me this box he got from work. It used to contain chocolate bars and he thought it would be perfect for my son's cars. It works great! but I really wanted to make it look a little better. Here's how I did it! 1. Get all your supplies together: -box -paint -paintbrush -mod podge -sticker letters (if you can find them. I got mine at Dollar Tree.)

2. Paint the box

3. Put stickers on the box

4. Mod Podge over the stickers so they never come off. I know my son and he's very destructive! This last step isn't necessary, but for my kid, I sure felt it was.

And now you have a cute little box for your son's toys!

21st Birthday Cake

So if you follow my blog, you will remember that my best friend just turned 21 a couple of weeks ago. Well, I made her a cake a couple days later when we had a little party for her at home with the girls. It was funny. It was cute. It was slightly inappropriate! We call her wasted Barbie.

She threw up a little. Her hair is a mess. She's missing a shoe. She fell asleep with a cigarette in her hand, holding a bottle of booze. (FYI, we got the mini bottles of alcohol from the liquor store. They're only a couple of bucks so they're perfect. Plus she was able to drink them!)

This was just a plain cake made from a box, covered in icing, and decorated. I hope you have as much making a cake like this as we did. It was hilarious!

Chocolate Ganache Peanut Butter Cupcakes

I made these for my family and they were AMAZING!! The next time I make them, I might make mini cupcakes instead of full sized ones because they are kind of rich, but they're still some of the best cupcakes I've ever had.

Ingredients:
CUPCAKE:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup baing cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup strong brewed coffee, room temperature (if you're not a big fan of coffee flavored things, like myself, don't let this scare you off, you can barely taste it.)
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
FILLING:
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 to 4 tablespoons 2% milk
GANACHE:
2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons milk, or as needed
2 cups confectioners' sugar

1. In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients. Whisk the buttermilk, coffee, oil, eggs and vanilla until blended; add to the dry ingredients until combined. (Batter will be very thing.) Fill paper-lined muffin cups 2/3 full.

2. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. (If you make mini cupcakes, cook those for 10 minutes.) Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.
3. In a small bowl, cream the peanut butter, butter, confectioners' sugar and enough milk to achieve piping consistency. Cut a small hole in the corner of a pastry or plastic bag; insert a small round tip. Fill with peanut butter filling. Insert tip into the top center of each cupcake; pipe about 1 tablespoon filling into each.

4. For the frosting, place chocolate chips in a small bowl. In a small saucepan, bring cream just to a bowl. Pour over chocolate; whisk until smooth. Dip the top of each cupcake into ganache; place on wire racks to set.

5. Place the butter and peanut butter into a medium bowl, a beat with an electric mixer. Gradually mix in sugar, and when it starts to get thick, incorporate milk 1 tablespoon at a time until all of the sugar is mixed in and the frosting is thick and spreadable. Beat for at least 3 minutes for it to get good and fluffy.
6. Place frosting in a pastry or plastic bag with large star tip; pipe onto each cupcake. Top with leftover ganache (if you have any).

"Days Until" chalkboard

You will need:
a 4x4 piece of wood that is about 2 ft long. I bought mine from Menards. It was sold as an 8 ft long piece and I brought it to the lumberyard and had them cut it into 4 pieces for me.
chalkboard paint
black paint
paintbrush
letter stickers
mod podge

First, paint the piece of wood black. Let dry.

Second, tape off where you want your chalkboards to go. Paint. Let dry. Remove tape.

Third, place stickers in the middle to spell out "days until" (I put "days 'til"). <--I got mine from Dollar Tree. They're pretty bright colors so I had thought about making four of them since I have four pieces of wood. They could be one for each season. Cover with Mod Podge to make sure the stickers don't come off.

When you do a birthday bar crawl...

So one of my best friends just turned 21. She wanted to go on a Taylorville Barcrawl (our hometown). One idea that we had was to take a picture in front of every bar so that you can remember where you went!

As you can probably tell, we tried to take the pictures in front of the signs, but in small towns, they don't all have them.

Map and Picture Life Moments

I made this for our wedding. It's a map of where we were married and a picture from that day.

You will need:
Mod Podge
2 pieces of wood (I got mine from Michael's)
map (I actually just copied a map online and printed it off at Walmart when I printed off my picture for this project.)
picture
hinge (I couldn't find any small hinges so I bought a small wooden box for $1 and used the hinges off of that.)
paint
paintbrush

I painted the pieces of wood black on one side and blue on the other side. I did this because the colors matched the picture I chose. I know any colors would look good. You just need to use your own judgement on this.

After the paint is dry, attach the hinge. At first, I tried to glue it, but either the glue was taking too long to dry or just wasn't working so I ended up screwing the hinge on. I didn't screw them in all the way because the piece of wood I used was really thin. From the front, it looks great! This turned out for me exactly how I wanted it to. If you end up taking what I've told you and change it up to work better for you, then my goal with this blog has been accomplished.

I then put the map and picture onto the wood. You first put down a layer of mod podge. Then place the picture where you would like it and finally put another layer of mod podge on top.

Now you're done and ready to put these in your house!