Inspire Your Heart With Art Day, Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day My aim today is to inspire your heart with art. I know, I know, we all love bubble wrap, but that sh*t can get old after a while. Art, on the other hand, is timeless. Enjoy!
Three DIYS to start the day off right. First from Bri Emery over at Design Love Fest and second from Connie at Salvage Savvy. Connie's reminds me of Vincent van Gogh, my long lost love. They sure make it look easy, but I wonder what mine would turn out looking like. . . Probably not nearly as elegant and appealing. Last on the DIY train, I'm going shopping today to find materials to make this next project, only in the shape of Michigan! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Now on to the professional art! Samantha French has over 70 amazing underwater prints on her Etsy site ranging from $30 to almost $1,000! They are incredible! This one makes me wish it was summer and not snowing outside! Last, but certainly not least, the epitome of art: the NYTimes Archives. So many elegant pictures to inspire any art project. Happy crafting and check out my Pinterest board for Crafty Gifts & DIYs! XO
Seeing Eye Dog Day, International Hoof Care Week Odie is not officially a seeing eye dog, but he is a service dog! He is our emotional support! So, there's my shout out to Seeing Eye Dogs, but the main event is hoof care week! Thanks to Charli from Total Beauty gave this set-by-step tutorial to The Best DIY Pedicure Tips! Step 1: Gather Materials
Choose a comfortable area of your home that's near a faucet (the bathroom's a great place for the first couple steps) and gather the following items for easy access:
• Nail polish remover • A large bowl or foot bath filled with water and bubble bath
• Cuticle oil • Exfoliating foot scrub • A bath towel • A hand towel • A foot callus file
• Nail clipper • A fine grit nail file • Foot lotion • Cotton pads • Base coat
Step 2: Remove Polish
If you have any leftover polish, use mild acetone polish remover and a cotton pad to remove it. "Acetone remover is not damaging to nails [and] cuts through pigment faster than non-acetone remover, which can leave traces of pigment on nails that can lead to discoloration over time," says nail-pro Roxanne Valinoti.
Tip: Have dark polish stains? "Orly Cutique gently removes dead skin tissue from cuticles, making them soft and pliable. It also removes stains from nails and is great for pedicures," says Jenna Hipp. Step 3: Soak
"Make an at-home pedicure more relaxing by soaking your feet in a large bowl with bubble bath for 10 or so minutes before you get working," says celeb-trusted Nicole Dihn. "Read a magazine or listen to music and just relax." Before you fill your foot bath or large bowl with water, make sure to put a bath towel underneath it to catch any spills or debris from your pedicure.
Tip: Add epsom salt to your foot bath to soothe tired feet and help reduce any swelling at the end of a long day. Step 4: Treat Cuticles
Pull one foot from the foot bath and put drop cuticle oil on each nail. Massage it in and glide a wooden cuticle stick around the nail to push back any dead skin that might be clinging to the nail plate. Switch feet, submerging your first foot back into the water, and repeat! Step 5: Exfoliate
Pull your first foot out of the foot bath and wet your leg up to your knee. Using a granular foot scrub, gently massage along the bottoms of your feet up to the knee. "Concentrate pressure where there is a callus or dry skin build-up," says nail pro Valinoti. Rinse thoroughly and repeat with other leg.
Tip: If you desire, dampen a clean towel and warm in the microwave for 15 to 20 seconds, then use it to help rinse your feet. Aaaaah. . .
Step 6: Smooth Skin
Gently glide a callus smoother or very coarse nail file over calluses to smooth (not remove) rough, dry areas on the bottoms and sides of feet and toes. Put feet back in foot bath to rinse.
Step 7: Hydrate
Remove one foot from foot bath and pat dry with a hand towel. For a relaxing, cooling sensation that will soothe feet and make them tingle for at least an hour, combine a few drops of peppermint oil with a foot lotion or rich cream and massage into legs and feet.
Tip: For more intense moisturizing, do a mask first. After removing your first foot from the foot bath, spread an even coat of clay foot mask on your foot and ankle. Wrap with plastic wrap, then a terry cloth towel. Repeat on your other foot. Wait three to five minutes, rinse thoroughly. Then massage feet with lotion as suggested above.
Step 8: Prepare Nails
Use a disinfected, curved toenail trimmer to cut the corner of each nail at a 45-degree angle to help prevent ingrown nails. Next cut any nails that are too long straight across. Finish by shaping nails with a fine (around 240 grit) flat file or glass file to smooth uneven edges and corners. Double-check for any remaining cuticle that might be stuck to the nail and file it smooth. Swipe all nails with polish remover to get rid of residual oils and extend the life of your polish. Weave toe separators between toes. Step 9: Apply Polish
Apply one thin layer of base coat, followed by two thin coats of nail enamel in your chosen color and one final thin layer of shiny top coat. Let each coat dry for about two minutes between applications. "Fix any polish mistakes by dipping a short, stiff paint brush in nail polish remover. Just glide it along the edges of your nails to clean up the paint," says Dihn.
Tip: Avoid air bubbles in your painted nails by storing polish in a cool, dry place and rolling bottles between palms, not shaking them, before applying. Wait until nails are fully dry before you clean up your workspace, and wait at least two hours before putting on close-toed shoes.
Step 10: Make it Last
To make your pedicure last longer, always use a base coat and top coat, and apply a fresh coat of clear polish every three days. Do this right after hitting the beach to make polish dulled by sand look fresh again. Keep polish and cuticles well-oiled with a purse-sized cuticle oil.
Click on the link above for product suggestions to go along with the tutorial! Thanks a ton! Looking forward to caring for these hooves!
Happy nailing it! I mean, um, yeah.
XO
National Corn Chip Day, Curmudgeons' Day, National Puzzle Day Of course, I couldn't pass up the deliciousness of corn chips, corn tortillas or corn in general in a few recipes. First, Salsa Verde Chicken Chilaquiles with corn tortillas. Second, Buffalo Chicken Dip with tortilla chips. Last, a neighbor from the upper peninsula of Michagan used to make this incredible corn casserole. Special Thanks to What's Cookin', Chicago!, Brown Eyed Baker and Denise Gerth from Rumely, MI. Yum! Salsa Verde Chicken Chilaquiles -- What's Cookin', Chicago? Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 package of corn tortillas, cut into 1/2-inch wide strips
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons oregano, preferably Mexican
1 1/2 cup chicken stock
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
2 cups shredded Colby Jack cheese
1 cup salsa verde (homemade or store bought) | |
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350º F. In a large skillet, heat oil to 350º F. Fry a handful of tortilla strips at a time until golden brown and crisp. Transfer the tortilla strips to a paper towel lined plate to drain excess oil. Continue with the remaining tortilla strips and fry in batches. Alternatively, if you have a deep fryer, you can fry batches of tortilla strips and drain on paper towels. Set tortilla strips aside.
If using a skillet, carefully pour out the all the oil but reserve 1 tablespoon for sautéing. Return the skillet over a medium high heat with the reserved tablespoon of oil. When hot, add the onion and sauté until softened. Add the chicken and spices, stirring to combine. Add the stock and allow the liquid to reduce by half. Once reduced, transfer the mixture to a large bowl. Add the salsa and 1 1/2 cups cheese, stirring to combine. Next, add the fried tortilla strips and toss until fully incorporated and the tortilla strips have slightly softened.
Transfer the mixture to a lightly greased 9x13 baking dish. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup of cheese over the top and bake uncovered in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until top has lightly browned and cheese and melted. Serve with crema/sour cream, chopped cilantro, and remaining salsa if desired.  Buffalo Chicken Dip -- Brown Eyed Baker
Michelle at Brown Eyed Baker has a "genius" girlfriend that came up with the idea to have a dip party with the girls. Count. Me. In! How fun!!
Anyway, here's the recipe!
Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, boiled and shredded
12 oz. bottle of hot sauce (I think I'm going to use Buffalo Wild Wings' Spicy Garlic Buffalo Sauce - Justin's a major fan!)
Two 8 oz. packages of cream cheese
16 oz. bottle of Ranch dressing
2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese (or both!)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Combine the chicken with the bottle of hot sauce and spread in a 9×13-inch baking dish (or any 3-quart baking dish).
3. In a saucepan, combine the cream cheese and the ranch dressing over low heat until the cream cheese is completely melted and smooth. Pour the mixture evenly over the chicken. Then sprinkle the cheese on top.
4. Bake uncovered for 30 to 40 minutes or until bubbly. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving. Serve with celery sticks (and/or other vegetables), tortilla chips or crackers (OR FRITOS!)
Corn Casserole -- Denise Gerth
Ingredients:
1 can creamed corn
1 cup regular corn, partially drained
1 Jiffy corn muffin mix
1 stick butter/margarine, melted
1 egg (optional)
Directions:
Combine all ingredients and bake in 8x8 casserole dish at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until browned and firm in center. | |
Happy scooping!
XO
_National Kazoo Day, Intimate Apparel Week _KimberlyRAWR's picture from DeviantArt says it all . . . I got nothin'. I'm drawing a complete blank on National Kazoo Day and can't really wrap my head around how to celebrate Intimate Apparel Week other than that I've been wearing fancy undies all week. Not that anyone needed/wanted to know that, but hey, I'm still celebrating! So, I apologize for the lack of excitement about today. National Kazoo Day just seems like one of those days. Please forgive me! Check out Threadcakes or google "Basset Hounds Running" if you're bored and need a good giggle. Happy forgiving!XO
_Chocolate Cake Day, Holocaust Memorial Day, Fun at Work Day _Nothing like starting Chocolate Cake Day with a good, hard workout. P. S. It's snowing!
Today's Friday (you know this), so no fun at work for me! Instead, I'll be experimenting with chocolate cake recipes. I'm going to make cupcakes using a box mix as well as a "from scratch" recipe and see if I can tell the difference. This might blow my mind and I'm a little nervous. _But first, a few thoughtful quotes to help us take pause
in remembrance of the Holocaust. _“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.” ― Elie Wiesel _“We are alive. We are human, with good and bad in us. That's all we know for sure. We can't create a new species or a new world. That's been done. Now we have to live within those boundaries . What are our choices? We can despair and curse, and change nothing. We can choose evil like our enemies have done and create a world based on hate. Or we can try to make things better.” ― Carol Matas, Daniel's Story
_“Part of her revolted against the insanity of the rules. Part of her was grateful. In a world of chaos, any guidelines helped. And she knew that each day she remained alive, she remained alive. One plus one plus one. The Devil's arithmetic...” ― Jane Yolen _“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” ― Yehuda Bauer
_Spouses' Day _Feel free to breeze past this post today. It's a mushy one. Spouses' Day: although we are not technically spouses in the dictionary sense of the word, according to Colorado, we are pretty darn close. A common law marriage in Colorado requires that a couple a) cohabitate, b) mutually agree to be married, c) openly hold themselves out to the public to be married. We basically fit only one of those stipulations in that we live together, but also have had the big marriage talk. We mutually agree to be married (someday). So there's two out of three!! Anyway, I celebrate my wonderful boyfriend (I told my mom today that I would start calling him my life partner, haha!) on this Spouses' Day 2012.
Like I said this may be a little mushy, but it also might just make you say "awe" at least once! Maybe, just maybe! _We "met" at my sister's wedding. By "met" I mean he walked down the aisle with someone else and I was the maid of honor. He was married. I was single, ready to mingle (!?). The photo above is our first real picture together (minus the staged Wedding Party pictures). Disregard us both, we were not at our bests.
My sister, her husband and Justin all went to Central Michigan University together. Brad was Justin's roommate Freshman year. Brad and Hannah fell in love (or something like it). Brad and Justin fell in love (or something like it). I went to Detroit Mercy and knew nothing of any of this until 2009 when I was living with Hannah and Brad. Justin was recently divorced and able to spend more time with his bestie so I ended up seeing him around the house more. | | _By August of 2009, we were interacting past a casual hello and before you could say "Labor Day" we had fallen. Can you really blame me with a dog as cute as this one?! Odie, the Chihuahua, is what you could call "the Closer," August 28, 2009 we made it official and have been going strong ever since.
I graduated dental hygiene school in May 2010 and we spent the summer killing time and planning our move to Colorado. Our first trip to Denver was the first time I had ever even flown with a boyfriend. We didn't know anyone, didn't have jobs, had no idea where we would live, but we did it. Two weeks later we were driving across the country to our new home. Two months later, we both had jobs, had made new friends and fell even harder for Colorado. |
_Concerts, hockey games, movies, a wedding, long walks, a PostSecret event, (almost) all 8 Harry Potter movies, a Nuggets game, down 45 lbs between the two of us musicals, a Jeep, Swan Lake, Sunday Dinners (have I told you about Sunday Dinners yet?! Oh, just wait!!), new jobs, new friends, a baby shower, camping, quitting one job, two new apartments, half a dozen hikes and a fourteener later and here we are. _In love. In Colorado. In the mood for forever.
Holy canoli, what an incredible "spouse" I have.
*warm & fuzzies* _Happy Reminiscing!
XOXOXO
_Opposite Day, A Room of One's Own Day, Mac Computer Day _Well, I just had my first official blog meltdown and only two days after officially publishing it. I didn't realize I was only making pages for each day and not real "blogs". So I got to spend 6 1/2 hours transferring stuff from a "page" to a "blog". A Room of One's Own for me today needs padded walls.
All I've got is a few quotes from The Man, Steve Jobs. Pretty inspirational dude. I need to make this short because my hands are about to fall off and my pup needs a walk (read: needs to be carried around outside) _"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."
"Stay hungry. Stay foolish." _P. S. See how I celebrated Opposite Day? My sign off was the title! So clever, I know! ;-)
XO again, anyway! . . . . . . . Eek! I can't help it! I need to share more!! Here are a few dream rooms of my own! XOXOXO
_Beer Can Appreciation Day, Compliment Day, Belly Laugh Day, Self-Love Month _In honor of Compliment Day and Self-Love Month, my team at Little Britches is getting some major love from me today! I made them Strawberry Cake Mix Sandwich cookies (recipe below!) and wrote each of them a "Happy Compliment Day" card!
I guess it's time to tell you that I (am addicted to) love greeting cards. Any holiday, event, moment or just-because and you're pretty much guaranteed a card from you-know-who. _Strawberry Cake Mix Sandwich Cookies -- Make and TakesWARNING: SOOO d@mn sweet!!Ingredients:1 box strawberry cake mix2 eggs1/3 cup vegetable oilDirections:Preheat oven to 375. Mix ingredients together. Using flour as needed, roll out dough and cut out heart shapes with cookie cutters. Bake for 7-9 minutes on ungreased cookie sheet. Let cookies cool completely before frosting "wrong" sides and making sandwiches. ENJOY!I'm also using my crock pot for the first time in my whole life to make this recipe. Wish me luck -- it smells delicious so far!! I'm thinking I'll realize what I've been missing by letting my crock pot gather dust in our laundry room. If you have any yummy recipes for the slow cooker, throw them my way!! | | _Crock Pot Cheddar Beer Chicken Tacos --- Oh, I can't wait!!Jessica at How Sweet It Is sure knows how to make me drool. I must have at least ten thousand of her recipes pinned on my pinterest! Maybe someday I'll check another off my to-try list! Happy simmering in your self-love! XO |
_National Pie Day, National Handwriting Day, Chinese New Year, Apples Month _I like to eat, eat, eat, apples and bananas! Unfortunately, my bananas aren't quite ripe enough yet so I'll have to settle for APPLES! I found this awesome recipe for a new twist on the apple pie. This is another cute idea! _Mine did not turn out nearly as pretty, but VERY tasty! _Pie a la Apple - Paper Plates and China(This recipe will make 4 baked apples)Ingredients: 5-6 Granny Smith apples that can stand on their own 1 teaspoon of cinnamon 1/4 cup sugar 1 tablespoon brown sugar Pie Crust (homemade or pre-made)Directions: Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F. Cut the top of 4 apples off and discard. Remove the inside of each apple with a spoon very carefully. Remove skin from remaining apple(s) and slice very thinly. These apple pieces will give you the additional filling needed to fill the four apples you are baking. Mix sliced apples with sugars and cinnamon in a bowl. If you prefer more or less cinnamon make adjustments as desired. Same goes for the sugar. Scoop sliced apples into hollow apples. Roll out pie crust and slice into 1/4 inch strips. I added a strip inside the top of the apple, which can be seen in the photo above. Cover the top of the apple in a lattice pattern with pie crust strips. Place apples in an 8x8 pan. Add just enough water to the cover the bottom of the pan. Cover with foil and bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown and sliced apples are soft. Yum yum, yum! I had leftover crust and apple insides so I made an apple hand pie, too! Happy apple month! XO | | _
P. S. Here's mine prior to baking. Post-oven, the apples sort of melted into themselves so I pulled the crust off and scooped up the insides to eat them that way. Oh well, they were fun to make and look cute in theory! |
_National Blonde Brownie Day _Well, I was craving brownies. I knew that Blonde Brownie Day was coming up. I mixed a little powdered sugar with cream cheese and piped some "cute" hearts onto my boxed brownie batter and baked. They were delicious, but not very pretty. Or original. Or legit. . . they were clearly Brunette Brownies. BUT, like I said, they were tasty, so that's really all that matters. Here's a for-real Blonde Brownie recipe, straight from Nestle Toll House!
AND here's what they're really supposed to look like! _Blonde Brownies - Allrecipes via Nestle Toll HouseIngredients:2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour2 1/2 tsp baking powder1/2 tsp salt1 3/4 cups packed brown sugar3/4 cup softened butter/margarine3 eggs1 tsp vanilla extract12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chipsDirections:1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 15x10-inch jelly-roll pan.2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Beat sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract; gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels. Spread into prepared pan.3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until top is golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack. _Happy baking!
XO
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