Homemade: Fall Burlap Wreath

Hi Gang. Wow am I behind on post topics! This lovely wreath has already been on the door nearly a month.  The previous door hanging, my flag book was inspired by a fellow Christy, but who lives in Texas and has a far more consistent (nearly famous!) blog. Seriously. Go read it for a while then really need to make fancy cupcakes and make a tu-tu.  Christy (the cooler one) posts pretty much every day so I love reading all her stuff.

Burlap is nothing new to the Cooler Christy, but it (and wreath making) was pretty new to me.  Being a newbie, I bought the smallest possible wreath at the store and then Zach (true love here) went with me to JoAnn's to get burlap. (Then I went with him to best buy to but something to enable a new video game. Craft Store / Video Game - I guess we are even then...and sooooo obviously not parents!!)

Anyhow. I was feeling lazy (i.e., didn't want to burn myself with the hot glue gun) so I decided to give the stapler a go.  I cut some strips and successfully got burlap fuzz all over my pants and shirt.

 I folded the burlap strips in half for more wrapped flair and stapled a bit on the back as I went along. Note the bandaid? Yeah...great thing about sharp knives, is, they are great at slicing things. The downside to sharp knives is...well...you take a guess.

 Wow...I did not realize it would be nearly so....messy with the threads.  A couple snips and that was solved.

 Then I took a lok at my fall pretties. Mostly from dollar section of Michaels.  I wasn't sure how I was going to attach the flowers, so I tried some stiff felt, trimmed, and stapled my treasures to that.

 Then I stapled the felt to the wreath.  It worked well enough, with a lot of stapling, that I did not get up and go get the hot glue gun.  But if you come to my house, just don't look TOO hard at it, ok?

 Then, (2nd half of above pic) I tried to tie a bow. Not that it needed a bow, but I tied a PERFECT ONE (in my opinion.) Downside? Completely upside down. I'm certainly no Martha Stewart in the bow department.

 Here is a collage of the final product. Sorry its so small. You can't see all the staples in the back like I thought might show in the picture.  I would have preferred to put the top yellow flower a little more on the front of the wreath, but my patience with the stapler was dwindling.  And the best part? When Christmas comes, I can pull off the fall pieces and re-use the burlap and/or just the wreath!

More UK Treasures: Shopping at their "Wal-Mart"

These two over-exposed camera phone treasures were discovered by Zach and I on our trip in August. We were wandering the aisles (I was eagerly wanndering around, Zach was patiently following) and I came across tissues. But..."MANSIZE" tissues?  Notice how the first box looks like a box of golf balls.

And just to confirm that it wasn't a fluke, right next to it was another box. "Super soft mansize" tissues.  Next trip I just might have to buy some of these and do a side by side comparison with regular (womansize?) tissues.

I love wandering the aisles in stores in foreign countries! 

November Meal Planning

I think I’ve mentioned before that I try to plan our meals and shop at the beginning of each month. I’m going to try to post some of the meals so I have a little more accountability (and get some suggestions from you all!). Last week I finally made Enchilada Pie after it was on the monthly meal plan for around 4 months in a row.


This month I will be gone for a week or so, so I wanted to make sure I had some tasty, vegetable filled, meals in the freezer for Zach. So far I have 2 sausage/pasta mixes (one with red pesto, the other…I think a creamy sauce). Plus last night I made a huge vat of Chicken Tetrazzini so that is lunch today and a freezer meal! (I’ll post something else about that meal in detail, because it was oh, so, good.)

Also up this month are: tri-tip steaks with potatoes, creamy tomato soup (I plan to add some rice to it), Eggs and Noodles, pesto salmon, fried rice with pot stickers, tortilla soup, pizza, and of course our Monday regular – chicken strips and tater tots! I spent like a year (an hour) chopping and prepping veggies for easy side salads too. Yummmmmy!

Okay…so that is what we are eating…what are you eating? Any good fall recipes? Next month I am going to try and use my crock pot…that’ll be a first for me…I am nervous!

Pie Pops: Bite sized treats!

So, previously I promised a post about the pie pops. I made these for a pot-luck, where I wanted our dessert contribution (since most people were bringing desserts) to be bite sized and easy to handle.  Enter: Best Bites creations here.  I always think "small" desserts are "easy" and realize half way (or several hours in) that I AM TOTALLY WRONG.  Anyhow.

 I missed pictures of the creation part (pie crust making, apple shredding, etc) but I do have the finished product...at least the ones that didn't get "taste tested" by Zach and I prior to the pot-luck.

 Also an oversight with the "easy dessert" concept is how messy my kitchen looks. I actually take a lot of pictures like this, when I get caught up in one (or 4) cooking projects and I totally destroy my kitchen. Usually I just delete them, but not today (LUCKY DUCKS!). 

Have you been baking anything extra tasty lately?

When did I start liking pie?

Ok. First of all, check out this super awesome sign. Seen at Apple Hill. For those of you with terrible eyes, it says "NOT A THROUGH ROAD." Below that, a man-made sign, says "YOUR GPS IS WRONG."

Anyhow, that sign just cracked us up. The lack of apples at Apple Hill, not so funny. Boo, weather.

Not that something like a lack of apples could REALLY keep Zach from getting some pie. So I made pie pops (future post, just realized I didn't write about that yet).

So we had some extra pie crust left after the pie pops, so I made Zach a personal pie in one of our Ramakins (THANK YOU MELISSA!) and then applied my fancy lattice-making (just learned) skills to the top.  I'm really not that amazing or anything, I learned it at ourbestbites.com. They should sponsor me for all the references I make to their blog!  So seriously, my first pies were a homemade crust, which was totally flaky. Since making thist first one, my mom told me to substitute half the water for vodka, which dries up during baking to aid in the flakiness.

This particular variety is strawberry apple, dreamt up and mixed by Mr. D himself. Also consumed by him. And loved by him.  I have since made more apple pie creations and developed a love for it myself. More posts on that to come. Apples and apples and more apples.

Oops I baked them again!

I had intended to shrink my apple heads a little at a time, like an hour in the oven (at 100) then sitting in there with the door closed. Then I turned on the oven, went to work, finished work, took a shower, got taken on a lunch date, came home...and noticed the oven.

Shrunken-ness complete!  

Now the dilemma is where / how to put them up. Right now they are chillin' in a jar on the table, held in place by some lemons. Zach wants to hang them outside for trick-or-treaters, but I'm not sure if we can figure out where...we have the world's smallest porch!  Maybe if I put a TV stand outside against the side of the porch...and a pumpkin!! Ooh, inspired! Generally, I don't like to make a big deal out of Halloween, but I think we might have a lot of kids in our neighborhood of apartments, and since we are the ONLY house, I kind of wanted to do something -- at least to NOT be the corner house with all their lights off.  We'll see, I suppose!  

Last days of Summer

Hey! So as it turns out, I am capable of posting about non-food, non-decor.  Zach and I recently got bicycles as a late wedding gift.  They are AWESOME!  After a minor blowout / trip to get a new tire tube / why the heck does a new bike have a flat tire / incident, we were on our way.

We have a bike trail not far from our house going to Shoreline, which is beautiful!!!  Unfortunately, I only have some ride pictures, not the lake.  Now that it is all rainy, I'm not sure when I'll be able to get more pictures, but I'll certainly try!

 Oh yeah! Sexy helmets, yeah?  And below, we bike too slow for our friend Cris so he rollerblades along side.  His wife, Anna, pulls him up and over this partiuclarly bumpy bridge.

 Here I was taking pictures over my shoulder while trying not to fall off my bike. 

Yay for getting a little exercise!