Art Day

My niece (aka munch, as in munchkin) came out to visit!  Let me tell you, that little girl makes me so happy.  The only sad part is she is not so little anymore.   There have been times that I look at her and can see how much she has grown up since I moved away.  :(  I used to tell her I was going to shrink her on her birthday so she couldn't get any bigger.  I really wish I had that power.  Look how grown up she looks.........

(@ Coors brewery)

So far we've done lots of fun stuff on her visit, but my favorite day was yesterday when munch asked to have an "art day."  This worked out well for me because I had a lot of Pinterest projects I wanted to get done.  So we set off to the thrift store and craft store. 

First up on our project list were button trees (a pinterest idea).  Very simple project... 

Next we decided to put a coat of spray paint on a thrift store vase we found

($1.99)

And also add one to a frame I bought a while ago that is going to be turned into an idea board in my craft room.  

While we were waiting for those to dry (I'll show you the finished projects at a later time, as in when they are actually finished) we moved on to pinterest project #2, a felt wreath.  We have to trace and cut a bazillion circles, maybe not quite that many but it felt like it.  Maybe it's because some little stinker got tired of projects and only traced a handful and cut out a whopping two of them.  

I got them all put on the wreath but it turns out we need more circles... grr!  So now I have 3 halfway started projects and one completed one.  Oh well, it was still a fun craft day.  

Plus when we were done it was time to go up to Daniel's park for a dinner picnic and fun.   We got there right at sunset so it was perfect!! 

 (love these two sooo much)

 (munch is a pretty good photographer too)

This girl better get into softball because she is a natural.  After all, she didn't get the nickname Mini Me for nothing!  :) 

Trust me, I'm a dietitian

This is the best chip dip recipe out there.  It is super simple to make and crowds gobble it up. The hardest part of the recipe is waiting overnight before you eat it.

Cowboy Caviar

• 3 cans of beans drained and rinsed (I like black, butter and pinto)
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 medium onion
• 2 green onions
• 1/2 large red pepper
• 1 small green pepper
• 1 jalapeno
• 1 cup sweet corn
• 1/3-1/2 bottle of light Italian dressing. 
• Salt & pepper to taste

*Please note this is all an estimation.  Go by the color of the dip, the more colorful the better. 

Mix all of the above together and let it sit at least overnight.  The longer you wait, the better it is.  Serve with tortilla chips.

Hope you enjoy!

Oops!

I might have let my blogging slip a little recently.... just a little.  I promise I have good intentions on blogging.  I take pictures of projects I work on, think recipes I try would be great to share, keep cliff notes on books I've read and want to update on all the fun stuff I've been up to.  But then I don't......and I really don't have a great excuse why.

But that is no more.  I am determined I will update more often!  Girls Scouts honor!!  (ps... I dropped out of girl scouts half way threw the year I was a part of it, so don't get your hopes up too high)  :)

Project list lately:

• Quilt for the husband!  He's excited for his very own quilt!  It's going to be light blue, yellow and gray. Don't tell him, but I think I'm going to like it so much that I steal it and he'll get the old blankets instead. I've got everything cut and have started sewing.  My goal is to have it done and ready to go to the top quilter people by Sept 1st. 
• Baby gifts.  Cousins and coworkers are popping out babies like crazy these days.  I was able to make one of my co-workers a really cute baby quilt in January with scraps left over from a previous quilt I had made.  It was so cute that I didn't really want to give it away, but instead stash it away for my future babies.  However, the husband gets creeped out when I do that so I had to part with it.  (We just won't show him the stash I already have!) Look how cute though... 

I have also been able to whip up some cute burp cloths as well.  They kind of look like giant maxi pads when they're not being used on a shoulder by a baby, but we won't mention that.  See cute again....

• Home improvements.  We finally have all but one room completely furnished.  We were able to buy some new couches and I found an thrift shop dresser that I turned into a TV stand.  It's a nice gray and light blue room.  My current favorite color combo. Check out the before and after.

So I guess I have been pretty busy looking back.  Sorry for the lack of blogging..... I really will try to do better. 

Until next time!

Forrest Gump

To help celebrate the start of fall (on an 80+ degree weekend) I decided last weekend would be a good time to puree my own pumpkin.  

I bought these

 Cut one like this and roasted it

Pureed it and put 1 cup worth in a bag

 labeled and froze

1 small pumpkin made 7.5 cups.

What am I going to do with 7+ cups of pureed pumpkin you might ask.  Well I'll make:

pumpkin muffins

pumpkin lattes

pumpkin cookies 

pumpkin cheesecake

pumpkin ravioli

pumpkin dip

pumpkin snickerdoodle 

pumpkin trifle
pumpkin bread
pumpkin cake
..........

Happy Fall 

:) 

Nice little weekend

Just had myself a very nice little weekend.  I got to do a few things that have been on my list forever.  The first was use my soup pot to make some homemade chicken noodle soup.  The husband convinced me to add an entire box of paste to the soup.  It didn't exactly turn out as soup-like as I would have liked.  Lesson learned: don't listen to the husband.  :)

The next thing on my list was finally re-painting the Abby room. Remember how I said I wanted to find a color that was fun, inspiring, peaceful and pretty.  Yeah well I couldn't decide/find a color that fit all those.  I have a bazillion paints chips in my house and none of them seemed right.

 So finally I just went to Ace and stood in the paint aisle and told myself I was leaving with the color I would use.  Thankfully it was getting close to closing time so it made me hurry up a little. I don't know why picking a color is so hard for me, but I seem to out WAY too much thought into it.

Here's the color I decided on.  Sorry this pic is horrible, the color is a light minty green-blueish color. I think it looks great with the nice crisp white trip.

The best part of the room though is what's in it.  My sewing machine finally has a home!  I can't wait to get started on some projects.  I went to Michael's and got some of the supplies I needed for some of the zillion projects I've found on Pinterest.  Haven't been on pinterest yet??  You should.  Just be warned, you will now spend way more time looking at projects then you will actually doing them. 

Out of ideas

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.. the new house has taken over my life!  It seems I can't ever get a room completely nice, clean, and organized the way I like it.  I'm not the cleanest person in the world (no comments Mom!) but I do like things nice and neat for the most part. I'm hoping this week I find some motivation to get started on the last bedroom that needs to be painted.  It's going to be my sewing room so I want it to be fun, inspiring, peaceful, and pretty.  Any ideas on a color that does all that?

So far we have:

 bright aqua'ish  (nice quilt huh?!)

 Koala.. calm and cozy

the metallic purple might just be my favorite!

greenish-blue... not in love but it matches the awesome new back splash really well.

There's also another brown/grey room for our guest room that I'm loving too.  But back to the sewing room... any ideas???? 

WAY too long!!

I feel like I haven't been acting very Mildredy the past few months. Makes me sad.  However... tonight I did finish the forth and final Lang kid quilt!  I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out since I didn't have a pattern picked out when I bought the fabric, but I am very happy with how it turned out.  Again, I didn't use a set pattern for this one.  I'm starting to like the whole find something that looks good and try to recreate it.  I like that when you look at the quilt from a different angle it looks like a different pattern by taking away the diagonal color pattern.  I'm a little geeky when it comes to geometry stuff like that.

Luckily I was able to find some nice snuggly backing that had all the right colors on it.  I hope the Lang family likes all their quilts.  It is a little nerve wrecking trying to interpret someone else's color selection and image of the layout.  Hopefully I wasn't too far off.  It was great to find someone to fuel my desire to make quilts when I didn't have any more beds to put them on in my house.

Here's to me keeping up on my Mildredness.