A New Meaning to "Black Friday"

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their family and friends. We spent the morning talking with the family on Skype. Not the best, but you have to take what you can get. Since this was our first Thanksgiving by ourselves, we had our own little dinner.

There's Robyn, trying to get a bit more work in before the turkey kicked in. And yes, we have our Christmas decorations out already. Who said we had to wait until Thanksgiving was over?! We made a little turkey in the slow cooker, which made the whole apartment smell delicious. We also made the necessary sides, including the stuffing and potatoes. Everything was done in two pots and a cookie sheet, within an hour.We just had one slight issue, which is the reasoning behind the title to today's post:

The sweet potatoes were the last thing to be done, and they were well done. I set the timer for the broiler, thinking to myself that it was indeed too long, but I'd take them out before it was over. So much for that. The timer went off and when I opened the door, there was a poof of smoke. I'm most thankful that the smoke detector didn't go off last night. Fortunately, the marshmallows came right off the top and the potatoes were eatable. We also made a fall sangria, with wine, apples, and pears, which we enjoyed very much! And on top of it all, we've been having nicer than average November weather- today was 50 degrees and sunny. Last night, we turned our Christmas lights on and can now not be made fun of for having our Christmas decorations up! All-in-all, it was a nice, relaxing day.
Now it's time to get cracking on our holiday projects. Thanks for stopping by!

Kitchen Vinyl Project

I hope everyone has some fun plans for the weekend. I know that as soon as I finish posting this, we get to take a drive up to Seattle to pick up the family from Texas! They're super excited to come and explore the PNW and we're happy to have them. It's been just about two years since we've seen them, so it will be nice to have them here for the week.

Today's post is a super quick kitchen project we did a little while back. Our kitchen is decorated in red, white, and black. Since we're only renting and don't want to paint or redo anything, we mostly decorate with our appliances and other things on the counters. We found these plain red canisters at IKEA the last time we went and knew they would look much better than the gingerbread ones we had in there before. (I know, gingerbread are awesome, but not really year-round.)

 

But they were definitely boring. We gave them a face lift with some leftover black and white vinyl, with the names of what's inside each one. Since they were still a little plain, we added some adhesive rhinestones around the frame, which you can see in the next picture. They jazzed them up and made them more girly.

Thanks for stopping by!

Create with 8

Today's project was made for Joann's "Create with 8" challenge. The job was to use eight products from the list. We used a frame, cork tiles, ribbon, wood letter, glitter, paint, scrapbook paper, and a scrapbook embellishment.

It's a perfect little holder to put the recipe cards we are going to use, and to keep track of what's for dinner. We like to make a menu for the month, and cook ahead. So now, after doing the prep work, we have some place to keep notes.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wishing You...

A fabulous fall! Yesterday, we went on about how this is our favorite season. And, since it's our favorite, we decided to make it this week's theme. So, for today's quick project, we decided to show off our fall card for this year:

 

We decided that this little birdie was too cute not to use! The inside of the card says "Wishing You a Fabulous Fall" (hence the title of the post)

And what's fall without something pumpkin-flavored?! Since we're just two girls on budgets, we can't really afford to get fancy coffee drinks everyday. While we were perusing Pinterest, we came across this recipe for pumpkin lattes, so you can have them whenever you want! I love how easy it is to remember, and it takes less than five minutes to make one! I only use coffee when I make these, but if you're fortunate enough  to have an espresso machine, you can surely use that. (And how cute is that mug?! We designed them with just some Sharpies (another Pinterest project ;)

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Makes: 2 large mugs

Ingredients:

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons pumpkin pie filling

2 tablespoons imitation vanilla extract

Pumpking pie spice*
1 cup of strong coffee, prepared

Whipped cream, for topping

Caramel drizzle

Directions:

1.       In a small saucepan, add milk, pumpkin, and sugar. Heat on medium heat until steaming. Stir occasionally.

2.       Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and pumpkin pie spice.(*I usually use just enough to cover the top of the milk)

3.       Pour mixture into blender. Blend for 30 seconds, until nice and fluffy.

4.       Divide coffee and milk between two cups. Top with whipped cream and caramel, if desired 

 This recipe is obviously pretty easy to cut in half, in case you only want to make one. Or make eough for two and drink them both...

Phew, that was a long one! I think it's time for me to go make one of these! Thanks for stopping by!

Take a Stand

Good Tuesday morning! We hope everyone is having a good week so far, although it did just start. We're excited because our parents are coming to visit us for a few days on their trip across the country. Today's project is a fun one, mostly because there are so many choices and styles to chose from. As you know, we love cupcakes, and every Saturday we have a new one to share. Our biggest problem is that we don't always have a fancy way to show them off for the pictures. Usually they just sit on the counter or table, without any real flair. To fix this, we decided to make some cupcake stands:

How cute?! So these were super simple to make. All we used were some wooden pieces we found at the craft store and some acrylic paint (the blue is a glossy paint). There are so may options when it comes to making your own cupcake or cake stand. You can go to a thrift store, find some candle holders, plates, mugs, and make your own. And they're much cheaper than going out and buying a new one! You can also personalize them in your favorite colors (like we did), or paint them in the colors of your theme. For a quick cake stand, take a  large can (like the ones the mixed fruit comes in) and a piece of cardboard, cover with wrapping paper and wha-lah! A cake stand!
Thanks for stopping by! Come back tomorrow for a shawshbuckling(ly?) fun card!

Kitchen Decor

Today’s post is a project we made for our kitchen. We have one small bare wall that needed something on it. Since most of our kitchen appliances are red, we decided to use red, black, and white to decorate our kitchen. There’s not much to it, but I really like this idea! In the past, I’ve seen a bunch of different wall décor ideas, and put two of my favorites together. The first part of the idea was a set of three wall hangings that had different kitchen appliances on each one. The second part of the idea came from Sarah, who got the idea from Pinterest (a website that, if you’re any type of crafty, will get you hooked and take up all of your time!) She made us a wall hanging with buttons (you can see it in one of the pictures of our dining room). This is what I came up with:

A good day starts off with a good cup of coffee in the morning, right? I cut out the coffee cup and pot and altered them to make it look like a match. I positioned the coffee pot to make it look like the coffee was being poured into the cup. This is where the buttons come in. They are supposed to be the coffee being poured. I like these button projects because you can be random and it doesn’t have to look perfect! Now, to get another cup….Have a great day!

(There isn’t too much to the rest of our kitchen. It’s not quite in picture-ready form!)

Another Home Decor Project

Hope everyone had a good day. It was absolutely gorgeous out! A good day to do some early spring cleaning (OK, cleaning to move...) We're so excited that things are going well (*fingers crossed*). Anyway, today's project is another piece of decor we made for our new place. It is a clock for the kitchen we have in mind. Most of the appliances we have are red, so we've decided to (eventually) go with a red, white, and black theme. The clock will match so well! It was super easy to make- I think  it took all of five minutes to put together. I got the white square clock and all its pieces a few years ago from Oriental Trading. I had drawn a design on it, but it didn't match much. So, all we did was cut a piece of paper to fit and outline it with the black polka dot ribbon. We were going to paint it, but decided that this was the best way to go. This way, it can always be changed if needed.

(Sorry about the awful picture. I didn't have a very good spot to put it.)