Crepe Paper Flowers

One of the bigger projects I had for the wedding was the flowers. After looking at several different options, I decided to make all of my own paper flowers instead of getting real flowers. I picked up this kit to do a little experimenting to see its done and how long this would take me to make all of these.

It actually came with supplies to make some of these flowers, and after trying them out and seeing how they came out I decided to go for it. I ordered more crepe paper sheets and get the wire and LOTS of floral tape and went to town.

These were a little tricky at first, but once I had a system down of cutting and taping it went faster. These were a cut and tape individual petals, and you just have to be okay with your hands being all sticky from that wonderful tape. I was very happy with the result of them, and while they were time consuming they were worth it. Here are some pictures of some of the completed flowers. These aren't the way the final bouquets looked, but a good idea of it. I actually don't have a picture of the final bouquets at the moment, but I'm sure someone has one that I'll get soon enough and can share.

Martha has lots of paper flower tutorials on her website, and my original intention was to just pull her off of there. But, once I saw this kit for $12 with supplies to experiment, I thought it worth it for the testing. And, there were enough types of flowers in there that I didn't need to print and figure out the online ones. 

Linked up at:

Mr & Mrs

We've finally gone and done it! I can't wait to share more pictures of the big day, and all of the prep and crafting pictures leading up to that. Stay tuned, they are on their way!

<3 The Mrs.

Stephanie Plum

Ok another book post already, but the Stephanie Plum books are so easy to get through!

I just finished Smokin' Seventeen, and it was great. If you aren't familiar with the Stephanie Plum series you need to get squinted. Yes, they are on book 17, and 18 comes out in just a couple of months, but don't let that scare you. These are fun, quick reads that you'll want to jump to the next one on.

Stephanie is an average girl in Jersey who, for lack of a better job, becomes a bounty hunter. She isn't good at this job, and usually catches the bad guys by sheer luck and coincidence. Her sidekick is Lula, a plus size lady is size 2 spandex and stilettos, who means business. She also has a couple men in her life that she just can't pick from.

This book she is up to her usual antics of cars being destroyed, people out to kill her, and having no luck catching anyone. There are some fun new characters in this one that she has to catch, including a senior citizen who thinks he may be a vampire. Her mom adds to her Morelli/Ranger dilemma by trying to set her up with the former high school football star, and Morelli's grandma Bella is putting the eye, and other of her 'curses' on Stephanie left and right.

If you are already a fan, be sure to pick this one up her back and forth between the men is worth it! If you aren't then go get One for the Money and get reading!

Oh. My. Goodness!! I'm so glad that I have just Googled One for the Money, because I just saw they are making a movie of it that comes out in January! Now, Katherine Heigl is playing Stephanie, which I'm not totally convinced about, but I'm sure a preview will be out soon and we'll see.

J-E-L-L-O

I have gotten the chance to make a couple things out of the Baked: Explorations book! The first thing I did was the Jello salad. I wanted something light and fruity, and this seemed like a great combo of salty & sweet without being heavy. It turned out very well and everyone enjoyed it!


It is a three layer jello salad, with a pretzel crust, a cream cheese layer, and then the jello with fruit on top. It was pretty simple and would be a great picnic or potluck item. In the picture in the book they made nice slices of this, we opted to do scoops since the crust wasn't holding together. (probably because I didn't have enough butter to get it all stuck to itself)


Here it is
Jell-o layer:
1 (6-ounce) package strawberry Jell-O
2 cups fresh strawberries (about 14-ounces), sliced


Pretzel Crust:
8 ounces salty pretzels (about 4 cups)
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces2 tablespoons firmly packed dark brown sugar


Cream Cheese Layer:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
¾ cup heavy cream


Jello layer: Make the Jell-O according to package directions. Stir in strawberries and refrigerate until partially set. Make other parts of recipe while this sets. *The book says it should be partially set in 5 min-1 hour. I did not find that this was the case, it took a couple hours for mine partially set. That could be because I had it in the front in a deep dish and kept opening to see if it was ready though... :)


Pretzel crust: Heat oven to 350. Butter or spray sides & bottom of a 9x13 pan . Crush up the pretzels. I used the tried and true put them in a bag and bang on them really hard, but you could always use a food processor if you wanted to. You just want to have chunks, so don't grind them into a powder. 


In a medium saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Whisk in the brown sugar and remove from heat. Stir in pretzel pieces until combined and put into prepped pan. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan, but not up the sides. Bake for 10 minutes, then let it cool completely. 


Cream cheese layer: Put cream cheese and sugar in goal and beat on medium until well combined.


In a another bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form. Using rubber spatula, fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese.


Assembly: Spread cream cheese mixture over cooled crust. Chill for 5 minutes in the fridge. Pour almost set Jell-O over the cream cheese layer. Refrigerate the dessert for about 2 hours, or until set.

Who needs power?

This is what we are suppose to see when we look out the front of our apartment complex

Well, almost, I live on the other side of the buildings, but you get the idea...
Last night this is what it looked like from my place.

No power across San Diego county yesterday, starting about 3:40. The lights here are from the cars on the freeway. After making it home, the hubby to be and I decided to take a nap and see if everything came back on quickly. When I got up an hour or so later and looked at the news on my phone I realized this was not the case. So, we found the flashlights, grabbed the steaks out of the fridge and headed up to community balcony to BBQ. Some other neighbors had the same idea, so we all sat around and used the BBQs and ate. One of the neighbors even got out some firecrackers to entertain the kids that were out there.

Once it started getting cold, we headed back inside and played some board games and listened to music on the ipod til I fell asleep. About 1:30 there were people in the complex and on the street cheering, which we knew meant power was back on! So, we managed to survive our 10 hours of powerlessness pretty well. Thank goodness for the BBQ, or we would have been eating PB&J and Cheez-It's for dinner. (Not that those aren't wonderful things) It seems that they were able to get power to some people in just a couple hours, and by the early morning power had been restored all over.

Since the initial thought was power might not be back on until mid day today, all the schools were cancelled throughout the county. And, my work got closed for the day. So, I'm starting my vacation time a day early!

I say potato

One of the soon to be hubby's favorite things to eat is rice. He wants to eat it just about every night with dinner, no matter what we are having. Chicken? Rice as a side. Fish? Rice as a side. Steak? Let's have rice with it. To save on trips to the grocery store I buy rice in 25 lb bags at Costco, the small grocery store bags just don't last long enough.

A couple weeks ago I had a bag of white potatoes, and suggested we have those with our pork & veggies for dinner instead of rice. His initial response was no, but I told him I was going to prep them differently and he said he'd try it. This is what I did.

I just sliced the potatoes and wrapped them in aluminum foil with some onions and salt and baked them with the pork in the oven. They came out wonderful. We put a little spray butter on them (If you don't have spray butter, go out and get some, it is awesome) and enjoyed. He has since requested them a couple times, and has even made them himself. They do take a while to bake through, so if whatever you have going in the oven takes less than 40 minutes, just throw these in a little before you do the others.

I'm Down

I've just finished my most recent book and I wanted to share.

Yep, I'm Down. I came across this book as I was doing one of my favorite ways to pass the time...doing a Google image search to find a funny picture to use to reply to an email. I wanted to let whoever it was at the moment know I was on board for whatever shenanigans they were planning, so I did an image search for 'I'm down.' This popped up first, and I promptly used this a reply to the email. I then had to know more about this book.

So, I read the synopsis and immediately reserved it at the library. Well, I got it and held off for a few days before digging in. Once I started, it was a quick finish. Here is the synopsis from the book cover:


Mishna Wolff grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who truly believed he was black. "He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esqe sweater, gold chains and a Kangol--telling jokes like Redd Fox, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson. You couldn't tell my father he was white. Believe me, I tried," writes Wolff. And so from early childhood on, her father began his crusade to make his white daughter "down."

Unfortunately, Mishna didn't quite fit in with the neighborhood kids: she couldn't dance, she couldn't sing, she couldn't double Dutch and she was the worst player on her all-black basketball team. She was shy, uncool, and painfully white. And yet when she was suddenly sent to a rich white school, she found she was too "black" to fit in with her white classmates.

"I'm Down" is a hip, hysterical and at the same time beautiful memoir that will have you howling with laughter, recommending it to friends and questioning what it means to be black and white in America.

I really enjoyed this read. Mishna is able to portray her young life with humor, but able to make you feel like your right there with her in the neighborhood or at school. There were parts where I felt sympathy for her in life, and places where I laughed out loud. (Just wait til you read about her little step brother falling out the back of her dad's van when they hit a pot hole, you'll be laughing hysterically as well.)

Pick it up and try it out, it's a fun, quick read that will make you ponder a bit as well!