DIY Thursday: Cute Planner

Its DIY Thursday!

Today I used quatrefoil vinyl to make a simple green planner look custom! I am so in love with the way that it looks and totally proud to whip that baby out in front of people! Head on over to EAD Designs to see how I did it!

Colorful Deviled Eggs

Oops! I totally forgot I did have one other Easter project that I did on Saturday to share with you! In addition to the Waffles, I decided to make deviled eggs. But I did not want to make just any deviled eggs, I wanted to make them festive! Here is a little tutorial for ya!

First, get a glass for every color of egg that you want. Fill the glass about half full of water, add a little (I mean little bit) of white vinegar which is optional, and a few drops of food coloring.

 I wanted to do the whole rainbow! For the purple I just mixed blue and red drops.

 Take your shelled hardboiled egg and cut it in half.

 Carefully pop the yolks out and put them in a separate bowl.

 Then, you want to drop one or two egg halves ino each glass and let them sit for 5 minutes.

 Carefully scoop the egg up to see if it has reached the desired color. If not, put it back in for another 3-5 minutes.

 Once the eggs are the color that you want, lay them face down on a paper towel to dry.

 While the whites are drying, smash up your yolks in your bowl. Add mayonaise and mustard to get desired consistency. I just sort of do this to taste. I also add just a pinch of Splenda or sugar and a tiny dash of salt.

 Put your yolks on whatever you intend to serve the eggs on.

 Usually I use an icing bag for this step, but I was out and this is more for the everyday person that does not keep icing bags handy! Just fill a ziplock bag with your egg filling and snip the corner off.

 Squeeze the bag to swirl filling into the hole of each egg. I would recommend starting by filling each egg just enough and then go back and add more, to make sure that you fill all of the eggs.

 The last step is to add a dash of Paprika to each egg!

There you have it! Super cute, colorful deviled eggs good for any Spring get together! I may have to make some if we have a Mother's day party too! And for the summer, you could make red, white and blue! How fun!

Easter 2012

Happy belated Easter my friends!

I took the weekend off from blogging, etc. to enjoy celebrating Christ and relaxing with my family. (by relaxing, I mean spring cleaning all day Saturday, but relaxing for Sunday and Monday!) We had a little get together at our house for Easter Brunch on Sunday. I was a horrible blogger and did not take many pictures (like I said, my mind was not on blogging) but I wanted to share the few that I did take with you!

For centerpieces, I made these cute little Easter trees! I got those teal pails from the Target dollar bin. You will see those again this summer! And the eggs and Easter grass there too. Then I just cut dogwood branches from our yard. They are held in place in the buckets with rocks and I put a little water in there too.

 Here they are on the tables. We had to tape the cloths to the tables because Easter decided to be really windy! And since we don't have a large dining area inside we had scrubbed down and set up on the carport. The day turned out to be perfect, despite the wind.

 Everyone brought yummy brunch items, but alas I did not get a photo of those. I did get a picture of our cute little waffle irons pre-action! I made waffle batter from scratch and we had our and my parents waffle iron cranking out fresh waffles! I can't stand frozen waffles, but give me a warm fresh waffle any day!

Sorry, that is really all I've got! I hope that your Easter was blessed, that you celebrated the true reason and had some fun with the others as well. (I love the Easter egg and Easter bunny traditions myself!)

DIY Thursday: File Cabinet Makeover Pt 2

Its DIY Thursday!

Today's project continues my file cabinet transformation. I am LOVING the way that the cabinet is turning out! It looks so much better in the office, and I am not even finished yet! Head on over to EAD Designs to see how I did it!

Easter Cake Balls

On Sunday we had a cookout with some friends from our community group and I volunteered to contribute the dessert. Since most of us are working on eating healthier, I wanted something bite-sized for dessert so that I that we would not eat 1,000 calories worth of dessert. So I decided what better bite-sized dessert is there than cake balls!

On Saturday night I whipped up a batch (using the crubmled cake-icing method for the inside), dipped them in fun springy green white chocolate, and covered them in Easter Sprinkles!

 

Once the chocolate had hardened, I placed a piece of parchment paper in my easter basket and arranged them inside.

 I love the "eggs in the easter basket" look! Such a fun way to transport cake balls!

 Really, they just made me smile! I love love love this super easy dessert! Makes me want to make another batch just to look at them!

Spring Flowers

You may remember when I shared my Spring Mantle (here) that I opted to use real flowers that I found in our yard. Well, a week later they were starting to get a bit crispy. So I threw out the old, and set about finding new blooms...still from our yard!

I started with some beautiful dogwood branches in the vase on the entryway table. They had just bloomed and still look fresh!

 For the pitcher on the mantle, I did something I thought I would never do. I stole flowers from the outside! We planted parrot tulips a couple of years ago and they just came up about 2 weeks ago. I love the way that they dress up the outside of the house, but I figured three for the mantle was no biggie :)

 I love the way that they just sort of have a mine of their own. And they are a lovely pop of color!

 I also replaced the old branches in the mason jar with dogwoods.

 I think they are so cute! I really love the look of fresh flowers in the living room!

Also, for a little bit of accountability for us, I wanted to put this out there. Michael and I have decided both for the sake of our dietary changes and mainly for the sake of finances, we are going to take a fast from eating out (lunch, dinner, dessert, etc.) for the entire month of April. We figure we spend $300-400 a month on that junk and its something that we can live without for a month to help pay off other things. I am also hoping that cooking at home a lot more will give my diet another kick-start!

So, my local friends/family, if you invite us out and we politely decline, know that we love you and have a conviction and a reason for turning you down. We are totally okay with having people over or eating in at other people's houses, just trying to cut the money for a bit! :)

Mom's Birthday Cake

Hey friends! I for once have quite a few little projects that I need to get posted on here! This one, I could not WAIT to show you guys!

We celebrated my sweet momma's birthday on Friday. I was commissioned to make the cake. I have this bad habit of putting lots of effort into cakes that I am being paid for, but then slacking when I make them for the ones that I love. So I decided to make this one a labor of love and part of our gift to her. She has always loved when I did basketweave piping on cakes, but it has been years since I have done it! So when I was planning her cake, I knew I wanted to incorporate that at least on part of it.

 I wanted to fill the basket with something, like maybe fruit or flowers. I settled on hydrangeas because they are one of the prettiest spring plants in my opinion!

 Here is the top view. I decided to mix the blue in for some contrast.

 I had initially planned to make the bottom cake white too, but then I thought it would be really fun to make that lavender. That is actually what inspired the hydrangeas. I could not be more pleased with the way that it turned out!

So one last time, Happy Birthday Mom! I love you and I hope that you enjoyed (and are still enjoying...I made way too much!) your cake!