Sneak Peak

It's my little one's first Halloween and her costume is not quite complete, but I thought I'd share with you a quick sneak peak ;)

 Any guesses?  

I'd love to hear them.

And no, it isn't a princess dress.

Far from it actually...

A Toasty Bread Pudding Recipe

Nothing like a warm cinnamon-y treat to cozy up to a generous helping of vanilla ice cream.  I asked my sweet hubby bunny to buy me some croissants.  And...

I got two dozen. 

 So if any of you have some killer croissant recipes, please PLEASE email me so they don't go bad. I would hate to waste the flakey, buttery goodness that they offer.

But the reason for the rather large purchase in the first place was a recipe that I found for bread pudding.  Yum.  And it is {trulie} YUM.

Here's the recipe.  And the explanation of the sliced thumb and sugar burn.

Epi's Bread Pudding:

(I really wish I had taken more pictures, but there was much going on at the time.  Enough said.)

What you will need:
12 large croissants, diced
1 tbsp cinnamon
7 large eggs
1 quart half-and-half
1 tbsp vanilla
2 cups sugar
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced

{**I halved this and used a 9x9 pan, and it was plenty}

What you DO:
Dice your croissants in to buttery little chunks into a large bowl.
DON'T dice your finger.  My Spunky had just sharpened our knife and it was killer sharp and it got me.  Good.

Add cinnamon to your diced bread and toss together.

In a separate bowl, mix eggs, half-and-half, vanilla, and sugar.  Beat well.

Pour egg mixture over croissants and stir to moisten all the pieces.  Let it stand for 30 minutes, then stir again.

Dice apples and add to the mixture and mix all together.

Oil a 9x13" pan.

Fill with the bread mix and pat down firmly.

Sprinkle with more cinnamon {not MORE cinnamon, as in use the wrong side of the containers' spout and DUMP the cinnamon.  Definitely should NOT do.}

Bake for 30 minutes at 325 degrees.

While your scrumptious toasty bread pudding dish is baking...

you can whip up a batch of Caramel Sauce.

This was my absolute first time and it was a HUGE SUCCESS! I was so happy to learn that I do have some of my grandmother's candy-making genes after all. {*big smile*}

What you will need:
1 cup of sugar
6 tbsp butter
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Per my instructions, it tells me to grab ALL three ingredients before you begin.  Why?  Because it is a fast and furious few minutes and it gets kind of intense if you have to leave the stove to grab something.  Believe me, you turn your head for one second and before you know it, you're flinging boiling freaking hot sugar at your finger and it instantly blisters and makes you curse a little.

Ahem.. 

As the directions say, and I quote:
"Safety first-make sure there are no children under foot and you mat want to wear oven mitts; the caramelized sugar will be much hotter than boiling water."

I apparently did not heed.  But really, don't let my experience scare you out of making this, because it is SO delicious.

What you DO:
Heat sugar on moderately high head in a heavy bottomed 2 or 3 quart saucepan.  As the sugar begins to melt, stir like mad with a whisk or wooden spoon.

 As soon as the sugar comes to a boil, stop stirring.
*Note: If you don't have a heavy bottom pan, add a 1/2 cup water to the sugar before you start melting to help the sugar cook more evenly.  It will take a little longer since you have to let the water evaporate, before the sugar can caramelize, but it will be worth it :)

As soon as all the sugar crystals have melted, it should be a dark amber color;

 like so.

Immediately add the butter to the pan.  Whisk until it has melted.

Once the butter has melted, take the pan off the heat.  Count to three, then slowly add the cream to the pan and continue to whisk.  The mixture will foam up once you add the butter and the cream, hence why we're using a 2-3 quart saucepan.

Whisk until caramel is smooth.

Let it cool in the pan for a couple minutes, then pour in a glass mason jar and let it sit to cool to room temperature.

Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Warm before serving and dripping on your delectable bread pudding like so:

Enjoy with a glass of milk, vanilla ice cream, or whipped cream.  

{If it was me, it would be all three...just saying}

Enjoy {trulie}

A Case of the Bad Days:

Have you ever had a day that's been completely less than perfect?  You could say that today was that day for me. But it was less than less than perfect.  Just too much going on.  

Can I cry you a pretty little picture?

Not that you have much of a choice, right?  Baha.

• I sliced my thumb... like really, not even exaggerating, sliced.  More on why later ;)
• Flinged boiling sugar on my knuckle which resulted in a gnarly (VERY ugly) blister.  Again, will explain later.
• Dealt with a baby who is teething who bit me hard enough to make me want to cry as I was trying to rock her to sleep and growled at me for singing to her.  Then violently wailed for a half an hour (because I simply had had enough) and eventually fell asleep at 10:30p.  We started bedtime is 7:30p, but whatever... 
• Dimolished two hobo spiders when I did not have any idea I had anything but dang flies in my house.  EEK.  (I HATE spiders.) Even more upset that I had to kill them.  By myself. 
• My husband didn't respond to any of my calls or annoying texts and text pictures while any of this was going on because he was slammed at work, so I had no sympathy sad face texts from him. :( 

Sad. Huh?

It was kind of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  But funny enough, my iTunes knew exactly what I needed to hear.  No joke, started playing my go-to I'm-having-a-bad-day-album that I always listen to when I have a case of the bad days.  Love my Jagged Little Pill.

  So at the end of today,

 I've got one hand in my pocket and the other one is giving a-

You Live, You Learn.  I certainly do.

~Ashlie

Fall/Halloween Link Up

A Fall/Halloween Link Up, could it get any better?! Link up your warm autumn recipes, costume ideas, and crafts here :)

Halloween/Fall Linky

How would you guys feel about doing a Fall/Harvest/Halloween link up?  As I may have mentioned before, fall is the bomb {dot} com according to me and I would love to see the things you come up with.
Link anything from recipes {yum-o!}, crafts, and costumes {oh my!}, to traditions and your favorite things.

I will spread the word, as I encourage you to do, and I'll set it up on Friday.  I'm sure you won't be too sad if I do that instead of my creepy eyelid facts about camels, right?  I need a break anyway from Fruity Fact; I'm learning so much it's making my head hurt each week, as I'm sure yours does as well :}

Happy Thursday!

Make your own crib/toddler sheets

One request for making your own crib sheets, coming right up!
I wish I had some pictures during the making process, but it's really so simple you really won't need 'em.  But if you do, here's the website I got my idear from; one of my absolute favs: MADE.

Early on, being such a thrifty newlywed, I scored some white king sized sheets at Freddy's.  Only problem was my bed was a queen.  BUT, I thought they would totally work.  And they did, but then I got realistic and quit using them.

So as they sat, I thought about making some sheets for my sweet little E and really was dreading buying fabric because it takes me SO long to make even the simplest decisions.  SO I had a great idea of cutting up my king sheets and making her crib sheets out of them.  A pure genius moment, right?  It worked out just perfectly since I was able to get two sheets out of one.  I wish I could have made a couple more, but  I previously threw the fitted sheet away due to some gnarly holes in it.  Can't really understand how that one happened still to this day.  But, eh.

According to Dana, she suggests you use two yards of fabric and 80" of 1/4" elastic.  Besides coordinating thread and a sewing machine, (and scissors and a safety pin) that's about all you need.

I cut my sheet into two yards (72" x approx 54") I believe I actually measured my crib mattress then added about four inches to each side (for the fitted part).  Sewed a little bit less than a 1/2" inseam with a hole at the end for my elastic.  Guide your elastic with a safety pin.  I used {two} because I usually end up losing the end and have to redo it at least twice before I finally get that what I'm doing isn't working :}  I pin one end at the opening and stuff the other one through the lining.  At the end I sew both sides of the elastic together and then do a final stitch to seal the elastic in its casing -FOREVER :} hehe.

And there you have it!

Fresh homemade crib/toddler sheets for your sweet little one out of an up-cycled sheet.

10 Minute Lamp Recover Project

Can I just tell you one of the hardest things about a baby, for me at least, would have to be the well thought out design and follow through of the nursery.  

As you may have deciphered over the course of following our blog, I-Ashlie, am kind of a perfectionist.  Some may say it's a good thing, but for the most part, I consider it not so much a good thing.   

So back to our nursery!  It's been a work in progress for nearly a year and a half.  You may say, but your baby is only 10 months old?  Yes, it took me a year and a half to get my fabric. 

Luckily I knew I wanted the room painted gray.  So that's the first thing we did.  I had seen way too many rooms online painted pink and it just made me think Pepto...just saying.  So gray, I thought can go with anything.  And I {trulie} love it.  (Although it could be just a tad lighter....eeeeek!)  

  

Then about June/July she got a crib skirt.  Such an easy project that I could kick myself at how long it took me to get around to making it.  Can I also mention I made her crib sheets out of an white king sized sheet that wasn't being used?  Easy, peasy, porridge and pie! 

With a cute little slit!  It's my favorite :)  

So, after that project was completed, I moved on to her lamp....three plus months later.

I bought it at Wally World for less than $6, (Whoo!) but wasn't crazy about the zebra.  It didn't match.  So logically, I thought about covering it with some excess fabric I had left over.

I first spay painted the outside of the cover as to attempt to cover the stripes so they wouldn't show through my fabric.  

Then I got a sheet of freezer paper and traced the top and bottom of the shade...

Like so.

I started with the seam at the very edge of the paper and rolled and traced at the bottom until I reached my seam again. 

Then did the same thing with top then cut out my new pattern to pin to my fabric.  I added about an extra 1/4" top and bottom to allow me extra material to fold over the lamp edge for a clean finished look. 

Now, insert my new favorite tool HERE:

Spray adhesive.  

How awesome is it? Just spray on your cut out fabric and smooth over the surface.  Making sure you have no bubbles or bumps.  

Fold over the edges.  I cut a slit to let the material lay a little bit nicer.

I then went around the bottom and top with a glue gun to secure the material so it doesn't flip up.  The spray adhesive on the body of the lamp will stay just fine.  

 Lastly I folded over the end seam twice for a clean edge.  Sprayed a nice film of adhesive and finished!  

This project literally took me 10 minutes to do and was very simple.  To jazz it up even more, you could run ribbon along the edges for a nice coordinating accent.  You can also dazzle it up with buttons, ruffled flowers, whatev.   I would, but it would probably time me another three months to get around to it. :)

Happy Monday!

fruity Fact Friday

More fascinating facts for your happy Friday!

Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backward.

Cats have over 100 vocal chords.

Camel’s milk does not curdle.

All porcupines float in water.

The world’s termites outweigh the world’s humans 10 to 1.

Practically FREE mounting hardware for your {Perfect} Plate Wall Decor

There is one more phase in my {Perfect} Plate Wall Decor tute that I technically had and that is the mounting hardware.  

It's annoying (and expensive!) to go out and buy, so I cheated and used safety pins.  Yup! As if this project couldn't get any easier and cheaper!  I found this website to help guide me, but turns out I had dried up super duper glue and only had glue gun glue.  So here's what I did to improvise since I was too lazy to go buy some :) 

I used a highlighter to mark the middle of the plate (I eyeballed it)

Used a corner of sand paper to rub off some of the glaze to help set the glue.  As Craftaholic says you really only need to rub for a bout 5-10 seconds. 

Set your safetly pin in your glob of glue.  I globbed my safety pin then flipped over it and globbed it some more to make sure I had a good glob amount and secured the top portion.  It's not the loveliest mounting hardware job, but eh, it works :)

 I then left them out for 24-48 hours to let them completely set and dry. 

{It so did not take me three weeks to hang these... I just wanted to make extra sure they would stay.  Yeah, that's it ;} 

And done!  You're own little mounting hardware pieces that you never knew you had just laying around.

Enjoy!

The {Perfect} Plate Wall Decor in Thirty {two} Seconds

Cold season has already started at my house and it's been blaa-central for the last couple of days.  Mainly for me, which equals no motivation for anything.  

Boo.

But I've got some really fun and NEW crafts that I am planning to be motivated to post so WATCH out for them :)  One involves $1 plates that I found and a lamp shade makeover ...

but not together...

That would be weird.  

Plus I've got a {scrumptious} recipe coming your way so take heed and check back because they are coming!

Fruity Fact Friday

A honey bee can fly at 15mph.  That's some fast, flying honey!

A queen bee can lay 800-1,500 eggs per day.  Talk about baby making skills...

A bee has five eyes. All the better to steeing you with.

The average speed of a housefly is 4.5 mph.  So fast they can fly into your house no matter how fast you shut the patio door.

Mosquitoes are attracted to people who just ate bananas. Monkey? or Mosquito?

ew.

My Closet is Prettier Than Yours Giveaway Winner!

K, I meant to get this up waaay earlier, but here she is, Miss Adelina, our Closet Challenge Winner-Whoo!!
Again, a big thank you for her for her awesome participation :)

Have you all seen this challenge over at Trulie Scrumptious? It's the "My Closet is Prettier than Yours" challenge. Ash and Roz have dubbed September Organize your closets month.  This last week we spent organizing our Linen Closets or bathroom closets.  You can see my before pictures over here.

I probably would have been done a little sooner this week, except I get hit with a head cold/flu bug yesterday and was completely laid out!  Thankfully I woke up this morning feeling a million times better, although not 100%, enough to actually do some organizing.

And with that, here are my after photos!

This is the top half of the kids/guest closet. Even I have to use a stool to reach the top, so I decided instead of crowding under the kitchen sink, I could store all the cleaning supplies up here. There is no way the Princess' are going to get into those.  And then of course our stock pile of lotions, shampoos, and potty training reward jar (empty yes, it hasn't been used for awhile).

Here we have the bottom half the kids/guest closet. Thanks to pinterest, and some googling, I found a lot of people putting their laundry baskets on the bottom shelf of their linen closets. I loved this idea! We had been alternating between in their bedrooms and in the hallway, and I didn't like how either of those looked. Now it is hidden away, and the Princess' find it fun to toss their clothes inside the closet.  I then used some wicker baskets I had laying around; one for all the combs and brushes, and one for all the washcloths.  Thanks to Mark's mom we have these nifty plastic containers that are helping store all the little hair clips, ties, nail polish and clippers.  I love our newly organized closet!!

If you recall, we don't actually have a closet in our master bathroom. So we have this behind the toilet shelf unit. It has been really handy, but very disorganized. I am now pleased to say, that this "closet" makes me very happy. The decoration on top, followed with useful organization on the next two shelves is very refreshing.

Admittedly though, this photo is a bit staged. We have many, many more towels that will be on the bottom shelf. They are just all dirty at the moment due to a lack of washer/dryer this week. So instead of letting it look empty I dressed it up a bit with the hand towels, and washcloths.  I do wish it could always look like this though.

~Adelina.

We also thank those who have participated in spirit :) What a great month to get the closets clean!  Can't wait to see what October has in store!  YAY!

A Little Halloween Project

Since we will be going into one of my favorite seasons, I thought I would share a little Halloween project.  I just love the colors, the leaves, and the cool crisp air.  Maybe because it reminds me to mention  how much I love apple crisp, pumpkin bars, and hot cocoa with marshmellos...with a candy cane to stir it with. Mmmm.

I also love to "borrow" ideas from other creative peoples' blogs and make them into my own.  These guys are so cute all lit up in the dark.  I also have some orange lights that light up up on my planter shelves and when I have them both on... they look really GOOD!!

Don't ya just love 'em?!  

What are your favorite fall/Halloween decorations?

Idea borrowed from : NotSoIdleHands.blogspot.com