Happy Saturday

Well it's Saturday and after a day spent cleaning my kitchen looks like this:

My dogs feel like this:

But our bellies of full of homemade goodness: 

I'm not sure what made me decide to go to grocery store, but I did it all the way. I planned on making (from scratch) chocolate chip cookies. But luck had it that I had the ingredients for the BEST parmesan chicken with tomato sauce I have (or will ever) have. Boyfriend made the chicken using the recipe. 

It's a lot more ingredients than the recipes we typically go for. But man, oh man I am in love with this chicken all the way from the brine to the melted cheese on top. Then, the tomato sauce, I will NEVER buy Ragu again. I cannot go on enough about the flavors in this dish. Every bite is a new flavor of goodness. 

The recipe for the cookies came from my favorite cookbook . The cookies were yummy chocolate goodness, but I burnt my thumb trying to get them out of the oven. Anyone have some Aloe to spare? 

Warning: if you do not have a dishwasher (or any space in your kitchen for that matter) these recipes will turn your kitchen up-side-down! But it's completely worth the effort. And that's part of what Sunday's are floor anyway :) 

This is how Vday went down.

I'll start with Valentines. I know it's late but does it really matter? These are the things I did for V-day.

For starters, I took a card my mother gave me last year and posted it in a frame. I also made some framed quotes about love . . . but the dog ate them (literaly). I haven't gotten back around for a redo, because I can anticipate what will happen. (love you Zeus!).



Then I made V-day gifts for my neice and nephew. (Thank the Lord my nephew approved of his and didn't ask me to take it back) The first is for my neice, I made the hair bows and the card. The card consisted of two construction paper hands held together with a line of construction paper folded like and accordian. It read "i love you" . . . "this much"

Much like this but more 'homespun' (aka hand written and not cut with a dye cut)

For the nephew, I was going to get a hot wheels car and write "I Wheelie love you" but I found a Cars Lego set instead. So I wrote, 'Don't Lego of my heart":

Boyfriend found out 52 reasons why I love him. Which was a bigger task than I anticipated it to be. Not because I couldn't think of the reasons but because I had to do EVERYTHING 52 times. Cut 52 reasons, glue them to 52 scrapbook backs, cut 52 backs, attach them to 52 cards (which didn't stick and I ended up stapling because I ran out of time. Then, I still need to punch out 104 holes to attach the dern things so we can stop playing 52 card pick up. Oh and did I mention how difficult it becomes to keep them in order, why did I think it would be cute to put a number on each card. Note, if you plan to do this don't number your cards!

He also got a set of Taylormade Penta golf balls and a card. Then, for our centerpeice at dinner I made this:



Side note, I bought this piece at Hobby Lobby, it lives on my table at all times and I rotate out what I put inside. For Fall it was candy corn, Halloween I used candy (gumballs that looked like eyeballs), Christmas was ornaments, New Years I fell slack, and Conversation Hearts for Vday. Every filler I buy is from the dollar store, I will buy 2 bags of candy to get it halfway full. It's been the cheapest and most fun deocorative peice I've bought so far. Wish I could say the same for my flag stand.  

Then I got these delievered to my work, beautiful and bragging rights? This boy knows me well!

They are just now opening for me so it something I get to enjoy for a while. Almost makes up for the fact that I've spent the last two Tuesdays (including Vday) and will spend next Tuesday at the dentist office.

Cookie Sheet Calendar Part 2

Okay, okay I know. I am falling off the wagon again. I've let school get in the way of my blogging/crafting habits. My friends keep reminding me that I am supposed to be a crafting fiend. Don't get me wrong, this is much more fun than research for class.

Let me say, when this project started I knew it would be difficult. I knew this project would consume an obsence  amount of time and I didn't plan on having a usable calendar until February. This part will cover creating the months. The only things left is the holidays and extra days. I've learned a few things along the way:

   - don't leave the supplies or calendar within reach of your 1 year old puppy
   - the adhesive on the back of the magnets requires hot glue (possibly multiple times)
   - this will take longer than you expect (even if you expect it to take a really long time).

Yeah, those are the most important rules.

Anyway, for the months. The supplies remain the same, except a few changes. For the days, I used Mod-Podge to adhere the paper to the chipboard. Then, for the months I used scrapbook adhesive stickers:

  Next I bought special letter stickers. But I wasn't happy with the way they looked. It was difficult to ready, but January through March suffered a little bit.

So I started using the stickers I had on hand.

I superglued strips of magnet to the back and they live on my fridge for the moment. You might notice that I had the smart idea to round the corners . . . why did I not think of that before?!?! But I kept with the moto that less is more. 

 July

October

Tell me what you think. Hopefully the next part will come soon. But we'll have Valentine's day crafts coming soon!