My Mom's Recipes: Pinterest Challenge

Last week the lovely Katie and Sherry announced the Winter edition of my most favorite link-up, the Pinterest Challenge. This time they bringing in Megan and Michelle to co-host with them. The basic idea is to take something that you have pinned and do it. I love this link-up and I have only missed one (the first one) since they started it. However, there has not been a lot of time for DIY in my house lately. During the week, I have just been too tired to do much when I get home from work, and lately my weekends are spent organizing my mom's estate. But it was my mom's estate that actually inspired my project for this challenge.

My mom was a pretty good cook. I can't actually think of anything I really didn't like that she made. One thing I really regret is not spending more time with her in the kitchen. I wasn't really interested in cooking until I moved out on my own. I lived a little over an hour away, and it was never on the top of my list to make it to her house for a cooking lesson. Of course I would call her up when I had a question, but I really do wish I could go back in time and change my priorities. (I think I just got a little too serious for a Pinterest Challenge post...)

While going through my mom's kitchen I found a few of her index cards with recipes written on them. My mom had once joked with me that you could always tell which recipes were the best ones because they were covered in splatters from cooking. Three of my favorites were the most difficult to read. I knew I wanted to do something with them. 

I love this idea from Spoonflower.

Turning hand written recipes into tea towels

But for right now, this is more my speed:

The pin didn't take me to a website. 

I gathered my three favorite recipes, scrapbook paper, frames, paper cutter and double sided tape.

Then I cut the paper, used a small piece of double sided tape to attach the card to the paper and put it in the frame.

Having these in the kitchen is a little way to keep my mom in the kitchen with me.

The three recipes are apple butter, banana nut bread, and her pie crust. I shared her apple butter before. (It's worth the click!) Here is the best banana nut bread recipe ever. (She also has a version with whole wheat flour and honey, but here is the original recipe.)

Mom's Banana Nut Bread
2 1/2 cups flour
1 c sugar
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 TBS. vegetable oil
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup chopped nuts
3-4 ripe bananas

Mix all ingredients  scraping the sides often. Pour into greased and floured loaf pan (9x5x3). Bake at 350 for 55-65 minutes.

Do you have any family recipes?

This Weekend I was Pinspired

This weekend I...

Source

... stayed far away from black Friday! Instead a friend came over and we had a Christmas Craft-a-Palooza! In a few hours of crafting, we both managed to knock out several projects on our shared Christmas Pinterest board. My favorite?

This was super easy to do. I took a wire wreath frame and wrapped two red feather boas around it. I probably could have just used one, but I wanted it to be fluffier. Then I took a thick (1 1/2 inches I think) black ribbon and wrapped it around the center. To make the belt buckle, I cut cut out a rectangle out of a thin Christmas box and covered it with rhinestones. Can I tell you how in love with this I am?
Here's my pinspiration:

Pinned via etsy

I really do like the "ho ho ho" across the top. I haven't decided if (or what) I want to put across the top of mine. Here's a preview of the rest of the Palooza:

This weekend I also...

baked the Mister some cookies: oatmeal with peanut butter and chocolate chips.

How was your weekend? Did you do any Christmas/holiday crafts?

        

Weekend (un)adventures

Honestly, we've been having some pretty low key weekends around here. I spend most a completely acceptable amount of time in my jammies. (To be fair, sometimes I shower and then put on a clean set.) That's why I haven't been doing weekend recaps lately. I changed out of my jammies a couple of times this weekend, so I figure I should document it.

This weekend (well Thursday night) I...

played in my bunco group! It was our first get together, and we are planning on doing it the first Thursday of every month. I made an amazing fruit dip. Some of the ladies even thought the home ec teacher made it, which totally made my day.

Pinned via here

I actually found this recipe on Pinterest while shopping for snacks for bunco night.  

Mix on medium speed... 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 8 ounce package of cream cheese until combined.

Add in... 1 cup sour cream and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Fold in... 1 cup (ish) Cool Whip

Let chill and serve with fruit slices. Or a spoon. It's that good.

This weekend I...

...tried to make this guy feel as comfortable as possible. 

This is Kanobi, my mom's cat. I guess technically he was my cat first. I got him when I was a sophomore in high school, and when I moved away to college he had to stay behind. If you are doing the math right, you will notice that this old man is 15 years old. He actually got out of my mom's house the day she passed away, and it took my brother almost a month to get him back in the house. Last weekend the mister and I headed up to my mom's house and were finally able to catch him and bring him to our house. Currently he has his own room in the house and we are slowly getting the other animals use to him. My dog couldn't care less. My cat on the other hand...

This weekend I...

Pinned via here

...hung out with the BFF and started to make one of these felt Christmas trees for her daughter. She is 17 months old and the idea is that she will play with this tree instead of the big one. We just were cutting out ornaments and I don't have any pictures of what we made, but I will get some once it is all put up in their house. 

How was your weekend? Have you ever played bunco?

Pinterest Challenge!

It's my favorite time of the year! Pinterest Challenge time! I LOVE Pinterest! And I love Katie and Sherry! So when the three of them join forces I do a little happy dance. This time they also invited Ugly Duckling House and Our Fifth House to play along.

Last week I teased you all with my choices for this season's challenge. After reviewing my pins, and even going back to my boards, I realized one big thing. I am a busy gal right now. As much as I love the casserole carriers (which was the one y'all most wanted me to whip up), I just did not have the time to bust out my sewing machine. I also really wanted to make the Modpodge "C." That would have been a fun little craft. Take a big C, add in a copy of our marriage license and BOOM! A beautiful keepsake of our love. BUT someone in our house (me) put our marriage license somewhere very safe. And now I can't find it. Hmm. Anyway, this long introduction brings me to my Challenge craft... A Grocery List! Ta-da! I know it's not very exciting. But I am hoping that it will cut down on midweek trips to the store when we realize we forgot something.

I found this little ditty on Pinterest via Design Sponge.

She had created a meal planning/shopping list combo. There were 3 different list templates that she created- A menu planning/blank shopping list, a typed up shopping list (with her families most purchased items) and a blank shopping list that was separated into sections. Neither of the lists was a perfect fit for my needs, so I opened up a Word document and combined all three lists into one super duper shopping list. 

My Super Duper Shopping List

I really liked how they had a place to meal plan on the shopping list. I only meal plan for dinner, so I only needed one box per day. I wrote in the foods that we use and buy most frequently. The idea is that the list is up during the week, and when one of us uses something up we can check it on the list. Then when I plan the next week's meals (usually I do this on Sunday) I can add in the rest of the things I need to buy for the meals. Then I take the list with me to the store and viola! I don't forget anything.

Here is this weeks plan. I might add in another row so the Mister and I can write in what evenings we will be home late or have meetings.

Click here for a fully editable document of my grocery list. It's not my exact document because something screwy happened when I uploaded it to Google docs, but you should be able to adjust it as needed. (If you want.) I also wouldn't mind emailing you the document as an attachment if you really want it.

Did you participate in the fall challenge?

The Pinterest Challenge is back!

Sherry and Katie announced yesterday that the fall Pinterest Challenge is back on. In the previous challenges I made a Christmas ornament out of a wedding invitation, a couple of throw pillows, and a dress out of a beach towel. That means I have a week to figure out what I am going to do. Here are my top choices:

Mod podge a copy of our marriage licence on a big C.

Pinned

Make the cuties in my life one of these:

Pinned

Casserole Carrier

Source

Necklace Upcycle

Pinned

Pet Silohettes 

Pinned

A grocery list?

Pinned

Ahh! So many choices! Do you participate in the Pinterest Challenge? Any votes on what I should try to do for this round??

My Halloween Mantle

Today the lovely ladies hosting Sunday Social have asked us to post about fall. I thought I would show you my Halloween-y themed mantle. It will get changed on November 1 and become more neutral until the big guns come out for Christmas.

Most of this stuff I made last year. I redid my mummy pumpkin this year with a fake pumpkin I bought in January last year for 90% off at Michael's. The post on the giant candy corn is here. The tray they are sitting in is a Goodwill find. I just replace the fabric for each season so you don't see the hot pink inside. Last year I also had some of that spider web stuff inside the tray, but it looked a lot like snow, so I took it out and used it in my Christmas decorations instead. New this year is the mason jars of candy corn. Totally stole that idea from here.

I also switched up my seasonal printable to this one:

Source
This is not my mantle, its just a picture from the eighteen25 blog
where they have TONS of super cute FREE printables

There are a few more things that I would love to add to my decorations:

Pinned

Isn't this wreath so fun?

Here is another wreath that I love:

Pinned

This one seems a little to fancy for me and my current mantle, but if I ever get rid of the candy and class things up a bit this would be at the top of my list.

Pinned

This would fit nicely in with my current decorations. And, I do have a 3 day weekend coming up...

Honestly, fall was always on the bottom of my favorite seasons list when I was younger, but now that I have matured (and you be mature you have to pronounce it ma-tour) I have really started to enjoy it.

How about you, do you decorate for Halloween? I don't have kids so it seems kind of silly, but every time I look at my mantle I smile.

Pinterest Challenge: Beach Towel Dress

It's Pinterest Challenge time! Y'all know I love me some Pinterest, and I always love the Pinterest Challenge put on by the lovely Bower Power and Young House Love. This season's challenge is also hosted by Centsational Girl and Ten June. This is my third challenge to participate in. Previously I made a Christmas Ornament out of a wedding invitation and a couple of fun pillows for my couch. For this installment, I wanted to do something summery, and I wanted to do one of the projects I had already bought the materials for. Confession, I pin things, I buy the materials to get them done, then I quickly move on to pinning more things before I actually make things. It's a cycle.

I started by looking through my pin boards, then at the materials I had already bought. Here is my inspiration:

Source

She had some pretty simple sounding directions. Being that I am an intermediate sewer at best, I thought I could do this. But, I have never used elastic thread, and I didn't really know what "shirring" meant. (It's when you make the fabric bunchy/stretchy in a cute way.) So after I pulled out my sewing machine, my cute beach towel, and some elastic thread, I Googled shirring and found this fantastic tutorial on how to shir fabric. But really, it was super easy. 


Basically you are just sewing straight lines the long way down the towel, back stitching at the beginning and end of each row. Really the important part is to hand wind your bobbin with the elastic thread. I had to wind my bobbin about 5 or 6 times during the whole process.

This is my artistic talent at its finest. This is a towel.

I shirred about 35 rows. In the tutorial she has the row marked with a fabric pen first. I thought that was too much work, so I just used my presser foot as a guide. When your done, spray and press. 

This is where I kind of got lost. She said "sew up the side seams and add straps." Hmm. Sew up the side seams? I decided the best way to do this was to pin the two short edges and sew a straight line, basically making a big tube with my towel. I didn't take a picture of it, but if you squeeze your eyes closed, you can probably picture it.


For the straps, I found some coordinating terry cloth fabric. and cut two pieces to 4" wide and 20" long.

Another fabulous rendition of fabric.

Fold one in half hot dog (2x20) and sew a seam. Turn it inside out and do the same with the second strap.

Next attach the straps. I put the towel tube on and pinned the straps where I liked them. I attached them with a zig zag stitch because I am fancy.

I wore my creation this weekend when we went to the coast for the day. It will for sure be in my suitcase when we head to Kauai next month.

I really like how it turned out. This is the first wearable item I have made. While I was sewing it, I just kept telling myself that this is a cover up, not a wedding dress so mistakes weren't that big of a deal. (Although, I don't think I made too many mistakes.)

Do you sew? What did you make for the Pinterest Challenge?