Day 22--Parmesan Potatoes & Orange Julius

I've pinned & made a few different potato recipes on Pinterest. All have been yummy.  Today, I decided to try a new one--Parmesan Baked Potatoes.

The tutorial doesn't have exact measurements for the ingredients, so I measured while I prepared.

You'll need:

*Potatoes--I used red potatoes since it's what I had. I used 5 potatoes. Just use what you need & what will fit in a pan.

*1/4 cup butter, melted

*1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

*1/2 tsp garlic powder

*1 tsp Italian Seasoning

I measured what I used. If you want more or something different, go for it.

Cut potatoes in half lengthwise. 

Melt butter & spread evenly on bottom of pan. Sprinkle cheese & spices evenly over butter.

Place potatoes cut side down in pan.

Bake at 400 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

Let rest/cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Don't they look YUMMY?!?!?!?!

Well they were!

We had with fish...

You can buy the fish at Costco.  

We like to top the fish with this sauce from Trader Joe's.

It's so good. Can't find anything like it anywhere else.  So last time we were in Nashville, we bought 6 bottles. :)

Needless to say, dinner was fabulous.  Try the potatoes, you will love them!

After dinner I made Copycat Orange Julius drinks.

I linked the recipe above.  The frozen orange that I bought was 12 oz. The recipe called for 6 oz., so I ended up doubling the recipe. I made a big mess, but they were really yummy!

Try it for yourself!!

Day 21--Nutella Hot Chocolate & Taco Seasoning

I know, weird combo for a blog entry.  :)

Today was a busy day. Annual doctor's appointment followed by errands & lunch with Savannah & Nana. I was wishing I had saved yesterday's blog for today since it was such an easy post.  But I didn't so I had to figure out what to do for today. I have a couple of craft ideas coming up soon, but I needed something quick for today.

First, I tried printing on brown paper lunch bags. I had pinned a tutorial that seemed easy enough.  Turns out, it wasn't. The bag jammed in my printer.  Oh well...

So instead I made Nutella Hot Chocolate.

Of course, the pin did not lead to an actual link on how to make the hot chocolate. Luckily, someone had put the recipe in the description box.

You will need:

--small saucepan

-- 1 cup milk

--1-2 spoonfuls of Nutella (depends on how sweet you want your hot chocolate.)

--A whisk

--Mini marshmallows

Heat the saucepan over medium heat. Add the milk & Nutella. Whisk together. It doesn't take the Nutella long to melt. Continue whisking & heating. 

I heated about 3 minutes.

Pour in a mug, add marshmallows & enjoy!

It was DELICIOUS!! The only bad thing...since I made cookies, pop tarts & hot chocolate, we are nearly out of Nutella. :(

Taco Seasoning

Remember yesterday's post about how dinner was going to be Taco Cupcakes?  It helps to have taco seasoning when you are making these.  No need to panic...I remembered someone had pinned a recipe for homemade taco seasoning!

A quick search on Pinterest brought up several pins!

I decided to pin & make this recipe for taco seasoning.

Thankfully, I had all the ingredients needed!!

(Yes, that's right, I didn't have a packet of taco seasoning, but I had every other spice needed to make my own.)

I tripled the recipe so I have enough left over for next time!

If you need taco seasoning, I recommend making your own. The ingredients aren't anything unusual, you may have all the spices already too!

Day 20--Fleece Blanket & dinner idea

No-sew Fleece blanket

Last year a group of ladies from church decided to make several blankets for a baby blanket ministry. We ended up making 111 fleece blankets!

This year we decided to meet monthly to make more.

We use this tutorial for a no-sew fleece blanket. It's an easy to follow tutorial. Rather than a tied edge fleece blanket, this is a single layer of fleece and you finish the edges by weaving/crocheting them.

The best part, 1 yard of fleece will make 2 baby sized blankets!

Here is one we made last night.

My sister made several of these for Christmas gifts for kids. She made them larger using the full 1 yard for one blanket.

A simple blanket to make for yourself or a gift!

Taco "Cupcakes"

We've made these once before for dinner. They are yummy and I plan on making them tonight!!  Easy & delicious.

Find the recipe here. 

(Picture from blog linked above)

You will need wonton wrappers to make these. At Kroger, they are found either in the produce area by the herbs & bagged salad OR in the organic refrigerated area. 

Here is what they package looks like.

Make and enjoy!!

  

Day 19--Chevron Frame

Chevron patterned items seem to be everywhere these days. I pinned a frame, as well as a couple of tutorials on how to paint a chevron pattern.  So here is today's project...

The original pin came from here. She up-cycled a mirror and turned it into a frame.  I figured I could easily paint a $1 frame from Michael's to make the same type frame.

I referenced these two tutorials for painting a Chevron pattern. Found here and here. 

I measured my frame, divided by 3 the best I could and made a pattern to use out of card stock.

Since my frame is on the small side, I figured it would take me as long to tape it off as it would to just paint slow & steady. I painted a base coat first. That will be the background color. Then drew my chevron stripes.

Painted red stripes, let it dry then roughed it all up with sandpaper.

I painted the letter "H" using the same red as the stripes. Michael's & Hobby Lobby have several letter choices.  I bought a chipboard letter. You can rough the edges up just like a wooden letter. 

Glued the letter to the front using Tacky Glue, added a super cute picture of the kiddos & it was done!!

Easy project and now we have something with a Chevron pattern in our home. 

Day 18--Burlap Cross

I pinned a Burlap Cross on my Craft Ideas board 40 weeks ago.  It linked to an Etsy shop, but is no longer available to buy. I always knew I could make it myself, just hadn't taken the time to do so until today.  

I think it turned out pretty!!

I folded my burlap in half & drew the cross I wanted, then cut both layers together to make my front & back.

While spray painting my chalkboard plate from yesterday's post, I spray painted my burlap cross pieces. I did this so my paint would not soak through quite so much and adhere to the burlap better. It worked well.

You can kind of see in the picture above that I traced circles on various parts of my cross.  I chose 5 colors & ended up with 10 circles. So 2 of each color.

I painted the center of each circle so I could paint a white border around each.

The acrylic paint I have dries fairly quickly especially with a fast ceiling fan on to help it out :)

Next I painted all the rest of the cross and added the word "Rejoice".

I glued the two crosses together using Tacky Glue. I've used hot glue before & sometimes it comes apart especially when outside in the weather. I left an opening on one side to stuff the cross after the glue dried.

Then I stuffed the cross with Kroger plastic grocery bags. We have a ton of them, might as well use them!

Glued the hole shut (held it together with binder clips & clothespins until the glue dried a bit).

Put some wire through the top corners to create a hanger, sprayed it with clear spray to help seal it & it's done!!

Hanging on my front door!!! I love it!

Day 17--Updated plate

I got started on this project on Friday.  Worked on it yesterday in between being busy & lazy.  Sorry it's a day late. But technically, I did try 2 Pinterest ideas, so it's a 2 for 1 day.

 Here is my up-cycled chalkboard plate.

I pinned this idea from here. Once again, it's a good tutorial, so need to reinvent the entire wheel here.  Will just tell you what I did--what worked & what didn't.

I bought 2 of these plates on a Facebook Resale page for $5.  There are several of these pages in the Memphis area.  Unfortunately, they are as addicting as Pinterest...

It's like a yard sale on Facebook.

I bought Puffy Paint at Wal-mart for $1 and did this on the edges of the plate.

This is why I started it on Friday. I wanted to make sure the Puffy Paint was good & dry before continuing.

The tutorial says to spray this first with a plastic primer.  Too bad I didn't remember that while buying supplies. I decided to go ahead and try the project without taking this step.

I sprayed the plate with several coats of white spray paint. 

Can you see the puffy paint details around the edges?  Turned out cute!  Can you also see that a couple of the corners just did not want to let the spray paint cover them? This is probably where the primer would have helped.  Oh well, next time.  I do have another plate :)

The tutorial stopped at this point, using the plate as a display piece. (Obviously it's not safe for serving food.)  She did mention maybe painting the center with chalkboard paint. Sounded like a great idea to me!!  I just happen to have a pin about making your own chalkboard paint. 

Find it here.

The "recipe" calls for 1 cup paint mixed with 2 Tbs. powdered grout. I bought this grout at Lowe's for under $5.

I also bought an 8 oz bottle of black acrylic paint.  

8 oz = 1 cup, so just buy an 8 oz bottle.

This made a good amount of chalkboard paint, which is good because I have another pin planned where I will need more.

I painted the center of the plate.

Another reason why this post is a day late, I wanted to make sure the paint was good & dry before I tried to write on it with chalk. Worked great!

So there you go!  An up-cycled plate with a chalkboard paint center.   Not a difficult project, but will use primer next time.

If you have a project that calls for chalkboard paint, I recommend this recipe to make your own.  It works great!! You could use any color paint, too!

Day 16--Bed Warmers

We have a lovely pillow thing that I call "The Beans".  Kevin & I disagree on where it came from. Regardless, it's fabulous! 

(I call it the beans because I didn't know what it was filled with...)

My little sister requested that I make one for her. I pinned a couple of tutorials on Pinterest and they looked easy enough to make. This tutorial seems to be the best. 

I bought this fabric at Wal-mart. It was a remnant and it's some sort of cotton blend. It's a little heavier weight, which is what you need to hold the filler.

It was creased in just the right spots :) so I cut along the creases. I used pinking shears to avoid fraying.

I cut long strips and folded in half so that I only had to stitch 3 sides. Fold right sides together to get ready to sew. 

They ended up being about 10x14 inch rectangles.

I stitched the edges with a zigzag stitch leaving about a 3 inch hole to turn them right side out & fill.

Turn it right side out and fill up!!

I found this Feeder Corn at Tractor Supply for $4!!

(It's an 11 pound bag of wild bird feed.)

I tried using a funnel, but the corn was really too big to fit through it. So I rolled up a piece of paper to use as a funnel.

I filled each bag with 7-8 cups of corn.

I ended up making 4 warmers with this bag of corn. You don't want them super full.  Standing up, like in this picture, the corn fills about half the bag. When laying flat, the corn will fill the whole bag in a nice even layer.

I stitched up the hole and they are done!!

There are only 3 in this picture, because I heated one to make sure it worked :)  And it does!!  I typically heat in the microwave for 2 1/2 minutes.  Definitely don't heat for any longer than 3 minutes.

The tutorial linked above calls these bed warmers. I use ours to help with back/neck pain.  If I have a sinus or migraine headache, I heat it up & put it on my head.  Now that we have a few extras, we can all use one & not fight over "the beans".

Our "beans" have a pillow case type covering. You can certainly make one for your bed warmer too. I'm trying to decide whether the ones I made need a case or not.

The tutorial shows how to make a much fancier version. Not difficult, just prettier. These are easy to make and would make great gifts. Make them as fancy or as simple as you want!!

Productive day--4 bed warmers made & Day 17 project started :)