Going PINK... A Recipe For the Cause!!

I was invited by a fellow blogger to participate in a blogging event for a really great cause, breast cancer awareness. You can visit the main link here. Even though I don't have an inspirational story to share, I do support this cause to the fullest. I have really enjoyed blog-hopping and reading all of the inspiring posts, as well as checking out all of the fun Project P.I.N.K. ideas. Mine is one of those- a simple, fun recipe to do & share with all of you. So, here goes my Project P.I.N.K. post...

I made my sweetie's favorite dessert one night last week, Rice Krispie Treats. This is actually the first time I have ever made them. Isn't that sad?? His favorite dessert, we have been married over three years, and this is my first attempt at it. They are so incredibly easy, so I really don't have a valid excuse. I did offer to make them once before, and he didn't want them (dieting reasons, I believe), so I did offer once before.

Anyway, super easy recipe:

- 3 tablespoons butter
-6 cups Rice Krispie cereal
- One 10 0z. bag of regular marshmallows
(The first time, I used a jar of marshmallow creme. The second time, we used the 16 oz. bag- much better!)

Put butter & marshmallows in bowl and microwave 3 minutes. Stop to stir after the 2-minute mark. You can also melt & stir on the stove, which Zach did with his. After butter & marshmallows are melted, mix in the 6 cups of Rice Krispie cereal. Mix until well-coated with mixture. Spread in a 9 X 13 well-greased dish. Let cool and enjoy!

After I tried the recipe once, I decided to go a step further. This afternoon, my sweetie decided to make some. So, I added 3 little drops of red food coloring for the perfect pink. These are so cute!! They would be adorable for a little girl's b-day party or a Valentine's Day treat.
You could use any color.

This first picture shows the mixture after one drop of red food coloring.

After two drops...

...and after three drops...

Perfect!

It was a little stickier with more marshmallows, but the taste of this second batch was so much better. (It may be because my sweet husband made them, and not me!) After spreading the mixture, they didn't look as pink, with the cereal mixed in. This next picture doesn't do the color justice, but you get the idea. The last one shows more of the color close-up.

So that's it for my Project P.I.N.K. post. It is so great to see so many participating in this! Here's to all the other blogs who have painted the blogosphere pink today!

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! I am now off to enjoy the rest of mine!

More Thrifty Finds

A quick personal update- I have gotten lots of exciting news this past week! One of my best friends, Sheena (also one of my sweet bridesmaids), is engaged! And, last week I found out that my best friend Jen, who was my Maid of Honor, is having a baby! I'm so excited for them! I told Jen she would have to fill us in along the way (she lives in Massachusetts now), and give us tips for future reference. My goodness, big life changes are happening everywhere now it seems. We're at that age I guess. Getting old! :)

And, on a personal note, I also have a new addition on the way! It's in the form of an overhead projector, but I am still over-the-moon about it! I ordered it a few days ago, so it is on its way to me as I type!! I have so many painting projects lined up for it already, so I cannot wait to get to work! I will post about my love for it
as soon as it gets here!

I hope to post on my project (that I promised I would post about) tonight. Don't hold me to that, though. It is Friday, you know. It is done, but waiting to be hung up. My sweet husband & I had a little "hang-up party" last night, but we didn't get to that one. Maybe tonight...maybe...

...Anyway, another week means yet another trip to the thrift store. I only scored a couple of things this week, but they're good ones, so I had to share.

 

I am in love with just about anything Fitz & Floyd, so this caught my eye from the moment I walked in. I have always wanted a pretty Santa plate, but either never found one I liked and/or didn't want to spend a lot on it. This was perfect, and 2 bucks.

Yes, please! It would be perfect for cookies for Santa, wouldn't it?

 

This little jewel is just beautiful, I think. I picked it up right from the start & lugged it all around the store with me. I didn't want to pass it up. It looks like it would be a little heavy, but it's not really. I am thinking about possibly staining it to make it a little darker, but we'll see. Right now, I am trying my hardest just to find a place for it in the house. (This happens a lot.

I think I just need a bigger house.) :)

 

This last item was actually purchased on a thrifting trip earlier in the year, but I don't think I ever posted on it. I actually just now put it to use (sad, I know). It is a really nice charger plate, and I knew the gold would work well on my table at Christmas.

It actually works just as well for Fall, which is why it is now being used as a tray for my beautiful red mum.

I love the way it looks on the table!

I will close with a little sneak peek for ya'. I don't normally do this, but I am so stinkin' excited about these. I am planning on having a Disney Christmas tree this year (two of our favorite things in one- Disney & Christmas!) I started on the ornaments last night, because I couldn't wait any longer. Who knows, the tree may very well be up & decorated by early November. :)

Hope everyone has a great, restful weekend!

Take A Picture-- They're Actually Being Sweet!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We LOVED our Alabama win, and are anxiously looking forward to our game in two weeks. We'll definitely enjoy that week off this Saturday too! Oh, and I will do a project post this week. I have one completed-

it's just waiting to be hung up.

So, I started this post a couple of weeks back, and I finally remembered to remind Zach to send me the pics he took. 

We got a chance to snap a few quick pictures of our two babies- actually being sweet, actually being calm & behaving- together. :)

I was on my armrest pillow with a blanket one night (after a full night of Zumba, vacuuming the entire house & folding/hanging up clothes, though), cuddling with Daisy girl, and Cosmo decides to join us.

I happened to look over at them at one point, and see this...

Their sweet little paws together! All together now..."Awww!"

 It was so cute, his big paw over her little paw.

He's her little protector. :)

 This was almost at the point where they were getting tired of all the picture snapping. Zach was sitting in his recliner,

snapping them with his phone too.

 (Sorry, Zach, for the leg shot in this one.) :)

...And, it's over. I guess their looks in the last one are telling me to give it a rest. Oh well, it was adorable while it lasted.

Here's a few more randoms of them, just because I love these. (And to show I'm not vain, I won't cut myself out of
the last two) :) ...

I love my little cuddle bugs. :)

Disney Pics From My Talented Husband

This is a bragging post. It's my blog, and I can brag if I want to. Especially when it's about family.

I am so excited to share with you a few of the photos my talented husband took on our 3rd Anniversary trip to Walt Disney World. There are beautiful sights all around you at Disney, but he captured so many of them that I would have never noticed otherwise. It was hard to narrow down the favorites for this post, so I encourage you to visit his Flickr link (just click on "Flickr link" to visit), to see all of the others. He still didn't include all of them on his Flickr portfolio, but the ones he posted
are the cream of the crop. 

I had to include the main ones of us, just because I love them so much. All the rest are faves of mine & his. Get ready for, yet again, too many photos...

Ones of us:

With Donald Duck...this one turned out to be my favorite out of all the character shots

With the wonderful Minnie & Mickey :)

With Cinderella, my favorite princess

With the beautiful Belle, Zach's favorite princess :)

With Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)...She told us we needed to go on a double with her & her prince sometime. :)

This bell is the only one on the planet die casted from the same mold as the Liberty Bell

Me in front of Cinderella Castle... This was the day we got there. The 1 1/2 hour flight was awesome! We gained a full day

by flying instead of driving.

My prince in front of the castle :)

My sweetie in front of his favorite, The Haunted Mansion. This was taken on the Liberty Belle.

After the fireworks

Some randoms:

This may be my favorite picture from the trip, after the ones of us, of course. I just love it!

 Lovely Fall decorations

 The train station at the entrance to Magic Kingdom

 LOVE this!

We went to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, and we highly recommend it! Candy galore, and a great parade & unique fireworks show. This was one of our favorite parts- the "headless horseman" galloped down Main Street,

holding his pumpkin head. A-mazing!!!

The beautiful castle during the "Kiss Goodnight"

And some faves of the fireworks... I think fireworks are his specialty! They definitely take a lot of skill to capture, and man, does he have skill!! :)

Podged Pumpkins!

Like most of my other posts, this one is a little late.
Oh well, better late than never.

A quick personal update for my benefit first: We had a wonderful weekend. We spent the day Saturday with Zach's mom for her birthday. We went to Boathouse for lunch & got to sit outside near the water. It was a beautiful day for that! We then headed home after lunch & a little shopping, to watch the Alabama game with my fam. Mom & Jonathan came, and my sweetie grilled burgers for us. They were out of this world- just ask Mom & Jon who kept bragging about them. :) Saturday would have been Mom & Dad's 28th wedding anniversary, so we definitely wanted to keep her company that day. We really had a great time watching Bama win...and win big! On Sunday after church (which was amazing, as always), I had a full day of lunch with Mom & kid's choir all afternoon. We are gearing up for our Christmas play that will be here before you know it! Zach headed to our niece's 1st birthday party with his family. It is amazing how fast a year has flown by!!

So, back to my post...

I'll confess something... I bought Christmas stuff this past week. And a good bit of it at that. I'm talking a smaller tree for our master bedroom, some ornaments for an upcoming project (for my sweetie, and I'm oh-so-excited about it), and some beautiful glittery branches & foliage for our big tree. I cannot tell you how giddy I was (and still am) about getting this stuff! I had first talked myself out of buying the tree, when I found it earlier in the week. But, I talked myself in to going back and getting it, after thinking of how sad I would be to find them gone a few days later.

I'm most excited about the glittery goodies. Something about spending anywhere in the neighborhood of $10 or more each on these little doo-dads at, say, a Hobby Lobby just irks me!
Even on sale, I just could never bring myself to buy them last season, even though I wanted them oh-so-badly.
I'm glad I toughed it out and waited. I scored these for $1 each at the dollar store. They are not as big as what you could find at
Hob Lob, but at $1 each, I could happily spring for more.

Now, back to my post topic AGAIN :) ... I managed to squeeze in a little project last week (well, I had started it much earlier the week before, got lazy busy, then finished it this week). It seems like with each new blog follower & each sweet comment, I feel more & more inspired to get to work! I say keep them coming, because I love staying busy & keeping a creative frame of mind! :)

A quick Before & After to start off my post...

BEFORE

AFTER

I am so excited about this thrifty little craft! I have seen a few posts of these here & there in the blogosphere, but I'm posting
this one from A Diamond in the Stuff  since it's my favorite. So, just for the record, I did NOT come up with this idea myself.

I just loved it and had to try it! I also don't usually copy another project spot-on, but this one was adorable!
I've seen many other copy cats since starting this project too! 

I spent all of $1 a piece for these little pumpkins at the Dollar Tree. They are mainly styrofoam & are advertised to be "carvable." I didn't have the intention of using them for that though. I can just picture that being nothing but a big mess in the floor, little styrofoam pieces everywhere, with nothing to show for it but a disfigured, jagged jack-o-lantern-like face...

...Anyway, I bought them only for the purpose of a pumpkin form. I took them home, and many lazy days later grabbed up my Mod Podge (love this stuff!), and an old hymnal, and got to work.

Here are some more pics of the result in stages:

The last one is me putting the final coat of Mod Podge all over.
I did this just for protection, and to make sure the ends of the papers would stay. (I'm loving my nails this color, by the way.
It's Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Gunmetal.
It's cheap and it's awesome!)

I just LOVE the antique look of these! I made sure to use an old hymnal with yellowed pages to give it that look. You could also use pages from a newer book and just brown the edges.

After the podging was done (which took two different days of working on it, because you have to complete the top & let it dry before finishing up the bottom), I did just as A Diamond in the Stuff did (see, I told you it was a total copy- I loved her version too much!), and cut the stems off. I then made a hole with my scissors, and stuck a cinnamon stick in as the new stem. It makes the room smell so Autumn-y too! (Yes, Autumn-y is a word.) Her idea was to put Spanish moss around the base of the stems, because it really doesn't look very glamorous in that area, but I was able to piece some of my music sheets to where it covered most of that area. I made a picture of both...

I only started out with two pumpkins. I had planned to do both of them this way, but after finishing the first, I truthfully didn't have the oomph to complete another one. I had a better (quicker) idea in mind. I had purchased this spray paint...

Google Images

...that I had mentioned in this earlier post. I have been dying to spray something with this since I bought it weeks ago. So, the pumpkin was my victim. It turned out beautifully, and it really adds a pop of color in the room. Here it is, the first showing its color which was actually difficult to capture in the light (in other words, these next two pics aren't great), and the second showing it on our entertainment center, with my little cornucopia I scored from the thrift store...

And for the other, what better place to have it but on my piano? :)

To close out my little post, I wanted to include something I found on Facebook this week...

Thou Shalt Laugh

It's not necessarily funny, but it is sweet to think of it this way.
My husband is one of Apple's biggest contributors, that's for sure. Just about every electronic/tech device in our house is from Apple. And, if it's not, it probably will be soon. :)

 I know Steve Jobs will be truly missed, and I'm sure his absence will be evident in the company, atleast for a while now. The world definitely lost one of its greatest innovators in Steve Jobs.

And, back to my picture... I'm sure he would be happy if that's
the job he's doing right now.