A little sweet app called "Happier"

I came across an app today in the App Store under the New and Noteworthy section.

I should be up front and tell you it's a social media app (like we need more of those) but I wanted to try it out and so far I like it.

It's just an app to share and save little things that made you happy thru out the day.

Here's more info from the app page and some of my screen shots.

Be "happier" and download this.

DIY chalkboard

My friends and I have fancy dinner once a month and it's so much fun! There's a total of 6 of us and each month one of us hosts the dinner party at their home.

It was my turn to host in February and I served Italian food and wanted to go all fancy with my table setting. I was searching for new place mats when I came across chalkboard place mats and fell in love with them, but not their price tag. Two mats were $25 and I needed 10.

So I said to myself  "Self, you can make these!" and my response was "Hell yeah I can!"

And guess what...... I DID!


This project was super easy and only cost $26 and some change.


Things you'll need from your local hardware store:

-1- 1/8" 4'x8' tempered hard board (cut into 12 x 18 pieces)
-Smooth roller
-Paint pan
-Rustoleum chalk board paint
-2 rolls of fabric shelf liner (enough to cover the amount of place mats you want)


I went to Home Depot and got all the supplies except for the shelf liners. I picked those up at Target.

The wood can be cut up at Home Depot and it's a free service. YAY!

Instructions:

Some of the board will need to be sanded to smooth them out. In all honestly only 3 of these needed to be sanded down. The paint says to do a primer but I did two thick coats and had no issues.

Let dry 4 hours between coats.

After the 2 coats have been applied I waited till the next day to apply the shelf liners on the back. I did this by using a hot glue gun around the board and then did an necessary trimming once dried.

I got 12 boards made from the one piece of hardwood. These are great for children to use, place mats, dinner parties to identify your appetizers with, or art for your home.... the possibilities are endless.


NOTE- Easy to clean with a washrag.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I added Italian words to my hand made napkin rings & wrote the definition on the back.

I hope you try making these and let me know how it goes. 

Wine party

I had a wine and vinyl party a couple months a go and it was a huge success!  I wanted to keep it intimate so I only invited 10 people. Each person brought their favorite wine to share and their favorite album to play during our drinking and eating time.

I made cupcakes, a couple of appetizers and served 3 kinds of cheese.

Instead of buying wine charms I made my own and because I'm narcissistic I used images that I was in. 

I printed off colored images about the size of a nickle and attached them using a thin ribbon. I made 2 extras with images of corks and a wine glass, just in case an unexpected guest showed up. (which they did)

I printed off signs for the cheese and included the name and where they were from. The image of the cheese below tasted like butterscotch. It was delicious.

I recycled some old blue wine bottles added some stickers to spell out water and placed them on the table for my guests to use.

For the frames around the images I used an iPhone app called Instaframe and then emailed them to my gmail account, saved to my desktop opened them in word and sized them down.

I can't wait for it to warm up a bit more and have another wine and vinyl party.

Bird nesting cage

Our backyard is full of trees. I love it during the summer, but curse it during the fall raking season.

As you can imagine our trees are full of birds. All types of birds. We already have some existing nests and yesterday I saw some birds picking up twigs and making some new ones. I was thinking what a cool idea to get them some supplies for their nest and give it some color!

I went to a local craft store and bought some colored wool, yarn, feathers and picked up a bird feeder at Target.

I wore plastic cooking gloves so my smell didn't get on the supplies.  I stretched the wool apart and balled into the cage. I added some cut up yarn in various sizes and multi-colored feathers and just layered them on top of each other.

When it was all done I hung it up near my existing bird feeder and threw some seed into the nesting material cage so it would attract them.

Fingers crossed for some pretty bird nests!

 

 

A basic but delicious hummus

My hippie friend shared this recipe with me that she came across on the internet. I don't remember the page she gave me, but I do remember the ingredients and we changed it a little bit.


Ingredients:
1/4 cup Tahini (usually found by the peanut butter)
3 T lemon juice
1/2 t of minced garlic
1/2 t Cumin
1/2 t Kosher
2 T olive oil
1 can of 15oz Garbanzo beans. (also called chickpeas)
2-3 T water if you are having consistency issues
Paprika for garnish

 

 

We found the yummy pita bites at Target.  I do like to flavor my own pita chips and I'll share my recipe later with that.

 

NOTE* Can use a large lemon fully juiced and 2 cloves of garlic minced. Another suggestion is add in 1/2 t of paprika and 1/4 cup chopped olives.  Really this is good starter recipe and you can go anywhere with it.

 

 

Bacon wrapped blue cheese stuffed dates

Bacon wrapped blue cheese stuffed dates

 
For wine night I made some yummy appetizers. I first had these in Las Vegas at a Tapas restaurant called Firefly. This is my take on them.

Things needed:

-1 package of bacon
-1 pound of dates
-6 oz blue cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees - Slice dates in half & remove the pits - Stuff with blue cheese - Put the halved date on top & wrap with bacon - Secure each one with a toothpick - Place on baking rack with lined cookie sheet to catch the grease - Bake for 30 to 40 minutes (till bacon is crisp) - Turn dates over after 15-20 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sadly I didn't get a final product picture, they were all eaten before I remembered to get one.

Make lots of these because they go FAST!

I'M BACK!!!

I know it's been awhile since my last post, but its been a busy 6 months.

I have lots of recipes to share, lots of stories to tell and looking forward to sharing my up coming vacations with you.

I hope you all have been well and I look forward to sharing my blog with you.



-Mary