Ham and bean soup!!

Now that the weather is getting cold and winter is upon us I find myself carving warm soups. One of my personal favorites is ham and bean. I remember my mom making it, not only on cold nights but as a way to reuse ham before it goes bad but in a way that is different than eating it straight off the bone.

Normally I would also try to use leftovers, however I live by myself so I didn't want to go out and buy a whole ham just for some soup. I did find a small chunk of it on sale in the meat section and figured it was a sign.

I also bought beans (personally I like red kidney beans, pinto and navy but really almost any bean will work), chicken stock. salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and curry.

All I did was chop the ham into bit size pieces and throw all the ingredients in a pot together. Heat it to a boil and let it simmer for a while to really get all the flavor from it.

I added some tobacco sauce to my serving because I like a little bit of heat. You can also play around with different spices. I have used Italian seasoning, parsley, and basically whatever else catches my fancy and it usually still turns out good.

if you find yourself with a lot of leftovers, this soup freezes great!

Co worker Christmas Gifts!

This year I am happy to say that I work in a department that is mainly women, which is exciting since I find it much easier to buy gifts for women than men.


So I decided to do a tumbler that was filled with cute little surprises. I really took advantage of black Friday sales and got hand sanitizer and hand lotion from Bath and Body works. I then picked up a chap stick from Wal-Mart and some candy canes.


I put all of these little items into tumblers from Gordmans, along with some tissue paper for filler and wrapped it in a cellophane Christmas bag.


All in all it was a very quick, easy and cheap gift and so far everyone loves them!


Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures before I gave them out but hopefully it is a pretty easy gift to imagine.

Dollar Tree Wine Glasses

A few girlfriends of mine are obsessed with the St. Louis Blues, so I decided to mix one of our favorite girls night activities (drinking wine) with something both they and their significant others love. Thus the Blues Wine Glass was born!


I started by going to dollar tree for glasses because well it's cheap and the glasses are actually very nice. At first I was going to get the ones that look normal until you realize that they can fit half a bottle of wine (trust me I own several of those) but while perusing I came across these that were already tinted a very pretty blue. Since the Blues colors are blue and gold I figured it was a sign and bought four.


Next was applying the note. There are several ways you can do this:
1. Glass paint.
       You can get some cheap at Wal-Mart or Martha Stewart has a great line at craft shops. Follow the instructions on the bottle and paint away.
2. Modge Podge and paper.
        I did this once with a beer stein. It works great, as long as you remember to hand wash and don't try to heat it up in the microwave.
        Print the note out on paper, cut and Modge Podge it to your glass.
3. Vinyl
     This is the route I went since I recently invested in a vinyl cutter. For this you simply download the image from the internet and cut and place. Easy peasy.


I am probably going to spice them up a little by adding chevron or some other pattern to the bottom but for a quick and cheap gift I think these are perfect.

Tile Coasters How-To

For Christmas this year, I decided to make some tile coasters for a friend and her boyfriend. They are huge St. Louis Blues Hockey fans so I wanted to incorporate the Blues Note in the coaster.

To start, you will need:

Ceramic Tiles (you can find these at Lowes or Home Depot for under 50 cents)

Modge Podge

Minwax sealant

Scrapbook Paper of various designs

Felt or felt circles

For the Note design I used my Silhouette cutter to print the design. I found this a lot easier than trying to paint it, however I have painted it in the past using tissue paper to trace the design. 

Start by tracing a square on the different scrapbook papers. I picked designs that were mainly blue since that is the main color of the hockey team.

Once they are the correct shape cut them out and attach the paper to the tile using modge podge. Once it is firmly attached apply a thin layer of modge podge to the top and around the edges of the paper. Be sure to even it out so that there are no bubbles connecting the paper to the tile. If you find bubble, while the modge podge is still wet use a credit card or other squeegee to push them out. Lay this to the side to dry.

Once your first layer is dry attach your symbol using the same method. 

Apply 3-4 more layers of modge podge being sure to allow each layer to dry completely before applying another.

Then apply 3-4 layers of minwax sealant to make the coasters last and help to waterproof them. Again be sure that each layer is completely dry between each application.

Finally, attach the felt to the bottom of the tiles. If you just bought sheets of felt then you can either cut one large square to cover the bottom or small circles for the corners. Personally, I like to find the small felt circles or squares that are made for the bottom of furniture. They include a self adhesive so that you don't have to worry about glue or cutting anything they are already perfect.

You now have some adorable coasters to decorate your home or give as a gift. 

The bottom of the coasters with the felt attached.

Completed Coasters

Marley Lilly Tassel Bracelet May Be My New Fav Accessory!

If you love monograms than you probably already know about Marley Lilly. For those of you who have not yet discovered the amazingness of personalizing everything Marley Lilly is a website which sells adorable clothing, jewelry, drink ware and almost anything else you can imagine that comes personalized with your monogram or name at no extra charge! The monogram is included which is absolutely phenomenal when you are obsessed, like me!




The other day I received a package in the mail from Marley Lilly and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had been chosen to try and review one of their monogrammed tassel bracelets. First let me say that Marley Lilly has some of the best item packaging that I have seen. Their branding is crazy amazing including cards, stickers and inserts all letting you know that you have received a product from them. They are also very good at making sure that your item arrives in excellent condition with no damage, which is very reassuring because when you order something online there is always that small part that wonders if it is going to arrive in good condition or looking like the website described. Thankfully that is not an issue with Marley Lilly.

Now on the bracelet. When I first opened it I was pleasantly surprised to find the monogrammed tassel bracelet. I have seen them on the Marley Lilly website before and thought that they were cute but didn't think that they were really my style. This is one of those items that I would probably have never bought for myself, however I admired how cute it was. After wearing this for one day I have to say that my mind has completely changed. Although the tassel did take a little getting used to I am now completely in love with this bracelet. The big gold links add a very classic and simple vibe and it is adjustable to account for a variety of wrist sizes. The tassel is small enough that it does not get in your way when doing things like typing or talking with your hands, which I tend to do a lot, but large enough to be noticed when wearing a long sleeve shirt. I decided to try this with a casual outfit of leggings and a denim button up and was completely pleased with the look. Not to say that this is a casual accessory. Today I am wearing it with a sweater dress and heels at work so it is great on both a casual or dressy outfit. The monogrammed disk adds just the perfect hint of personalization and this may just become my new go-to bracelet.

I love that the bracelet is gold and the tassel is a nice neutral tan color, however it is important to note that on their website they do have the tassel available in a variety of colors, including pinks, blues, greens, black etc. You can also get a bracelet in silver instead of gold if that is more your style.

Altogether I give this bracelet 2 thumbs up, for its simple lightweight feel and originality of the tassel. I encourage everyone to go out and get there own, I am sure you won't be disappointed!

To find your own go to MarleyLilly.com or follow the link below.

https://marleylilly.com/product/monogrammed-tassel-bracelet/?sku=EN-LDB5968-TAN40A



All you need is a canvas, paint and little imagination!

My boyfriend is celebrating his birthday today and although I ordered his birthday presents online with more than a week to ship over the weekend I became scared that the actual gifts were not going to make it on time. I didn't want to show up to his birthday dinner empty handed (and look like an awful girlfriend), so I decided to use two of the spare canvases that I have and paint him some pictures!


He is a huge fan of St. Louis Blues hockey so I used that as my inspiration. I did a Google image search to start and try to come up with some ideas to try out. I ended up finding two that I really liked and decided to go with them. The first was a canvas with a painted blues jersey on it and the second was a yellow and gold canvas, with the blue on it dripping down the canvas and the blues note right in the middle.


I started with the jersey since that was going to take the most time and involve the most details. I pulled the image up on my computer, sized it correctly based upon my canvas, and traced it onto some tissue paper. I than placed the tissue paper on my canvas and traced it using a sharpie. This provided all the lines and everything since I am not even close to good enough to freehand anything.
Then it was as simple as color by numbers. I would suggest using paint pens as much as possible, esp with the straight lines and edging as it helped so much! I started with paint all over and thought it looked kind of sloppy so I switched to paint pens to clean it up. If I ever do this again I will do mostly paint pens to keep it clean from start to finish.

There are still quite a few lines that I would like to straighten and I think next time I might try to space out my own triangles and basic shapes rather than just going by the traced image but I still like the outcome and think it's different from most other Blues signs you see.

My second canvas did not go as planned. I couldn't seem to get the blue paint to look good. I tried to make actual drips and that looked gooey and gross, and when I tried to paint the drips it looked very unnatural and again not good. So I scrapped the idea and decided to try something else. Since I already had a lot of paint on my canvas I was just going to paint it over with white to start clean. I used a blow dryer to dry the messed up paint and starting brushing white paint everywhere, however most of my blue paint had not dried yet so it just ended up smearing a lot. This is when I got the idea to go with the smeared look and just started lighting brushing paint on in white, blue and gold. I found a central point the did large strokes out in the varying colors. I made sure to mix the colors while on the canvas but also left some by themselves so all the colors were represented.

Looking at it is almost looks like a firework! lol

I let that dry and then added a blues note on top. Even though it was not what I originally wanted I am still so pleased at how it turned out.

Here are the two final products side by side. Overall I think they are a great last minute present and I hope that he likes them!

You Can Make Pizza Cake.....Well MY Day Just Got Awesome!

So while stumbling around the twitterverse I came across this amazing article about a girl making pizza cake for the first time. My first thought what in the world is a pizza cake? Is it a hybrid of the two? Do you make a pizza with cake dough or something crazy? My second thought was why have I not had this yet!?!


To see the original post go to: http://www.bustle.com/articles/41974-i-made-the-pillsbury-pizza-cake-because-i-needed-to-know-that-miracles-do-exist


After reading that I wondered why I hadn't heard of this amazing evolution of arguably one of the best foods in the world (pizza). So I google searched to see if this was a real thing or something somebody just kind of made up. Low and behold there is an actual recipe for Pizza Cake on Pillsbury's website. My jaw dropped and my head exploded and then I made a shopping list. My weekend of being lazy and binge watching #Outlander while also reading the books just became binge watch Outlander while eating Pizza Cake and reading the books.


I will be sure to post how my escapades turn out but just in case you want to try your own pizza cake here is the recipe from the Pillsbury website
http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/pepperoni-pizza-cake/a39070fb-2d1a-462c-a557-5876909c247c?p=1





I am also going to try adding some veggies like mushrooms and black olives to this to see how that turns out. Hopefully delicious because I means its pizza it's one of those foods that even when it's bad it's good.