best ever hot cocoa recipe

I love getting crafty and I love it even more when I'm paid to do it. Everyone is working on projects at the office (it's slow season) and I offered to make some gifts for agents, attorneys and clients. There is always a lot of baked goods going around and it is so hard not to eat cookies and donuts when they are sitting around the office all day. 
I wanted to do something cute that can be taken home and used over time.  I decided to come up with my own recipe for hot cocoa and put the mix in mason jars. 
The best hot cocoa recipe ever:
2.5 cups instant non-fat milk 1 cup cocoa powder 2 cups powdered sugar 1 teaspoon corn starch 1 teaspoon salt 2 pinches of cinnamon pinch of cayenne pepper
Mix ingredients well and store in air-tight container. To serve, mix with hot water. I preferred about 2 tablespoons of cocoa to water ratio, Joe likes his more like 2 to 1 water to cocoa.
Top with marshmallows and miniature chocolate chips for fun!

ikea hack plan

Joe and I have been talking about transitioning Emmy's nursery into a toddler room. As in, removing the side bars on her crib, taking out the changing table and making more play space. I've even had miniature fantasies of Christmas morning- imagining her room glowing with the little fairy lights hanging in her play house,  she'd hop down out of her bed and run in to our room to wake us up for Santa, too excited to sleep and begging us to take her downstairs so she can open her presents. 

Okay, I realize this isn't going to happen this year but I'm still so excited about Christmas. This is likely the last year we get to pick all of her gifts so I'm focusing on what she needs but will also love.

She doesn't really need "toys" anyway. She plays with toys all day at school and when she's home she really only has a few favorite stuffies and toys that she chooses to play with. One thing she definitely loves is coloring and toddler-sized furniture. Have I mentioned how much I love her Pottery Barn anywhere chair? It's still one of my favorite purchases of all time and will probably last much longer than I originally thought. 

 Emmy spends almost an hour every night playing in her room. Most of the time she plays by herself. I felt a little guilty about it at first but then I realized that it's great that she can entertain herself and I don't have to watch her every minute, she'll be okay (plus I keep the monitor on).

So, here's the plan...

The Ikea "latt" table and chairs are only $19.99 as a set (available online too!). I plan to paint the top of the table with black chalkboard paint. Then I will paint the table and chairs a combination of white and gray. I picked out these fabrics from www.hawthornefabrics.com - confetti dots in shell and charcoal at $20 for 2 yards. I'm hoping to cover the seats with the pink shell and then make a bag or satchel of some kind with the charcoal print to hold all the chalk. 

I'm just so excited to see her reaction when she comes downstairs on Christmas morning and sees her own art table with new little stuffies sitting in the chairs with books and lots of art supplies for her to try out.

I'll post the pictures of the complete project on Christmas Eve!

  

free alphabet download

I found this on Pinterest but when I went to the website to purchase a print, the item was no longer for sale. I started looking for similar fonts to make my own and what do you know? I found the exact font and it's a free download (here)! Feel free to save mine and print one for yourself! 

halloween decorations are up

With only two weeks until Halloween, I figured it was about time to decorate the house!

I found this print on one of my favorite blogs, littlebabygarvin. The artist/blogger had a baby due a week after Emmy's due date so I followed her pregnancy and have watched her little girl grow up with Emmy. There are so many similarities between our daughters and her easy, friendly style of writing always make me laugh and smile. I always look forward to a new post and I figured spending $18 for her print was worth it, even if to just say "thank you". Plus, it's digital so I printed one for my office too! 

Floating hats! This was my favorite decoration but I have to be honest with you - they kept falling. Layers of tape and sticky putty later, I gave up and tied them to various objects around the house. Oh well.

I got the black and white garland at Target on clearance for less than $2 (RUN. GET YOU SOME!). I love that these green and natural looking pumpkins are in. The green color ties in well with our living room and it will make a nice transition into thanksgiving decorations. I did learn that it is essential to shop for pumpkins early. It wasn't easy finding a gem out of what was left!

Going up the stairs are 3 more lil'  bit pumpkins. I love these but Emmy does too, she spent half the night carrying them one at a time to her chair in the living room, grunting all the way and so proud of herself. 

Although most of my decorations came from Target, I made a stop at Hobby Lobby. Is it just me or does it seem like everything is 40-50% off all the time? So much is on sale that I really feel jipped when I pay full price for anything. 

I picked up this lamp from Hobby Lobby (50% off), and the frame and owl from Home Goods last month.

I found this jar at Target for $5.99 and wanted to fill it with candy corn but that stuff makes me sick (when I eat it in huge quantities) so I opted for the family favorite: oreos. BIG mistake. Honey boo boo spent the other half of the night pointing at the jar and crying. I'm thinking about replacing the oreos with a popcorn/candy corn/pretzel mix so I don't have to feel as guilty letting Emmy dig in. 

I spruced up Emmy's chair with her chevron blanket from Target's clearance (last year) and a $1 Minnie Mouse book. She points at a character, I say their name, she turns the page, points at the next character (repeat ONE THOUSAND times).  

Have I ever mentioned how much she loves her chair? Best purchase ever. She still likes to climb up on the couch and sit in my lap but when I'm cooking I'll tell her to go sit in her chair and she will. She loves to lay her baby on it face down and pat her back. At night, I put her blanket and a few cute toys on her chair and every morning she throws them all on the floor so she can sit in it.   

For the front door, I made these little ghosts with styrofoam balls and muslin. I found some cute ones at a store for $7.99 each and thought I could make them cheaper but I ended up spending around $30 and not totally loving the final product. My mom said they looked like three casper the ghosts, since our family of 3 is so pale, they are perfect!

I will probably regret doing all of this so last minute when I have to take it down in two weeks. I can't help myself though. Some of my happiest childhood memories are of the holiday season. I think back to the time in my life when family meant so much to me. From maybe age 5-15, the best age for getting dressed up for Halloween and getting awesome gifts at Christmas. This is also back when I was watching sitcoms like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Home Improvement and the Disney Channel (in general) and they would go all out on the sets with holiday decorations. That's how I imagine a happy home, festively decorated. My parents always decorated our home too and anyway, it's exciting to see your house a little differently for a while and I want Emmy to have happy memories of the holidays too.

living room painting

It's amazing what a little color can do to transform a room.  When Joe and I bought our house, we only intended to live here for 3-5 years. We were hoping to buy when prices were low, make some payments and sell for enough to help out a little with the downpayment on our next home. We decided to leave as much of the paint and general condition of our house as close to original as possible so we wouldn't be too bold for a potential buyer. 

We have lived in our house for four years now and it looks like we will be here a while so time to settle in I guess. Besides, we couldn't match the current paint color so the walls were getting pretty dirty. 

Here's a look at our living room last week:

I bought that picture from World Market during a 50% off sale and thought it looked much bigger in the store and I haven't loved it at home. I used to have 8-10 black and white photos covering the wall and got tired of it. Once I took them down, everything looked overly simple so I ignored my instincts that it looked plain and let it be. 

Rufus, AKA "my shadow" made it into most of the pics ... he's such a ham. 

And now... the new color and layout!!

I am completely obsessed with this color. I didn't edit these photos in any way but I would say that the color is slightly more blue in real life. The color is Benjamin Moore "coventry gray". I was at bunco last week and a friend had this color in her dining room. She casually mentioned the color and when I was in the store looking at colors it happened to be on the swatch I pulled = FATE! I promised Joe that I would only paint small places so we could live with the colors and do the actual work next weekend.

I don't think he was all that surprised when I decided to go ahead and finish the whole project that day. I never leave something unfinished for long, I can't stand it!

The artwork featured behind the couch is by a local artist, Mary Margaret Brinkley. My mom bought this for me for my birthday. I was completely obsessed with this picture from Ballard Designs. And by obsessed, I mean that it is my iphone background so I look at it all day, every day. It's pricey for a giclee print though. And the one my mom bought is even bigger and more importantly... it's an original so there's not another one like it anywhere. 

I love to sit in my chair sipping my earl grey and dreaming of diving into the serene lake. Alas, Joe has the news on and relaxation is over.  

See the little bowl with fruit in it? That's some of our Pepper Place farmer's market bounty. I woke Joe up Saturday morning with the promise of a fun day. He didn't want to go to the market but I begged and begged until he gave in. Emmy was in a slightly better mood and we all really enjoyed walking around and checking out local produce. Joe thought it would be expensive and brought a "budget" of $40... but it was actually cheaper than the grocery store! We got 1 pound of local honey for $7 and 6 tomatoes, 7 peaches, 5 zucchini and a bunch of okra for $13. That left us with $20 for going back next week!

The painting was so much more work than we anticipated. It always is. We knew we would hate it but Emmy spent so much of the day just whining and crying that it made the work so much more frustrating. We didn't blame her for getting bored with us but somedays we just can't accommodate her and Joe and I handled it pretty well seeing as not long ago a nuisance like that would send us over the top with each other.

There is another piece of artwork in our home that I don't think gets nearly enough credit. It's also a local artist's work. I picked it up in Homewood as a gift for Joe. The artist signed it right there and explained to me how he got into art and what all is in each picture. He is really wonderful and I wanted to get a good frame for Joe. DAMN, MICHAELS... 50% off is a joke! I remember this one costing $50 for the signed print and $200 for the frame. But, it is beautiful. We had Joe's sword from Scotland hanging next to it but decided Emmy is getting too curious for medieval decor to be safe. We moved it upstairs where Joe's "man cave/movie room" is getting a makeover. That's his birthday present from me, I purchased some poster from Etsy and can't wait to post pictures!

You can buy this one here. 

I received the most amazing birthday present from Joe and my dad. I finally got a big girl camera!! It's a Canon Rebel EOS Ti3. So far, it's extremely easy to use and takes AMAZING pictures. I plan to do a post about it and take some fun pictures of Emmy. I just need to stop spending my weekend on so many other projects!

personalized project

I am exhausted from a weekend of projects. We painted the whole living room and moved around furniture and pictures. Everything looks amazing. It's perfect.

Except for this one wall. It's lonely and plain. I started obsessing over finding a "family rules" canvas picture at Home Goods or Target that I liked enough to hang in the prime spot next to our kitchen table. Most of the ones I saw were too small or the wrong colors. So I looked on Etsy where I found them for $130 - yikes- not in the budget after everything else! 

I decided to play around on my photoshop and design one myself. FOUR hours later, it's been ordered from shutterfly and thanks to two coupon codes, it was $68 including shipping and tax!

I definitely know why they charge so much on Etsy but I love that this one is so personal. Who knows... maybe some friends and family members will be getting one for Christmas!!

pinterest project

I was on pinterest again.

I see some ideas and I think - BRILLIANT! I must do this! I found this link on pinterest with "Easy DIY wall art". As soon as I saw the canvas with lights I decided I knew how to do it and only needed to buy lights so it would be super cheap. 

The thing is, it's not Christmas so the only quantity of lights Target had was 100. Not a big deal, though, so I bought them. 

A while back I purchased several Martha Stewart paints from Home Depot for $1 each. I picked a light pink and mango pink and did an ombre effect. I *almost* stopped there because it occurred to me that I could put pictures of our family all over it and make a really cool collage but I felt bold so I went on with the project.

I got to work poking holes randomly in a sort of circle fashion. Towards the end I realized I should test the holes to make sure I could get the bulb in. The bulb nearly doubled the size of the hole so all of a sudden my designs were too narrow. I didn't leave any room for all the cords and boy, 100 lights are really bright. 

I somehow managed to jam all the lights in and only had to use a little tape to keep them in place on the back. I ran up to Emmy's room, plugged up my art project and WOW. It was bright. Like way too bright to use as a night light. I tried to cover up some of the lights with a picture but 100 is too many. I had hoped to be able to leave this on but I also feared that it might catch on fire with all those lights so close together. 

Emmy loves it though. I let her sit up there and touch the lights for a while and I leave it on while we read books and she plays in her house. I'm not a very patient person but if I were, I might have actually checked on the source link for the project and read the tips on the size canvas you need (mine is way too small) and how to space and design your pattern so that it doesn't look like a glob. Oh well, not too much time or money wasted so I'll just call it a win.