Spinach Artichoke Pasta

Spinach Artichoke Pasta

I got this recipe from here and it is amazing.. I altered it a tiny bit to our liking of course. But I was seriously surprised how good it was. Plus the husband even liked it and that is always a bonus. It makes tons so you can have some for lunch the next day or just left overs for when  you don't have time to make dinner one night. 

INGREDIENTS: 

5 Tablespoons butter
6 cloves of garlic finely minced
1 18 oz bag of frozen spinach
2 cans of quartered Artichoke Hearts drained
4 Tablespoons flour
3 Cups whole milk
A couple dashes of red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
3/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1 1/2 Cup Mozzarella Cheese
12 oz of Pasta
2 Chicken breasts shredded (more or less if you like lots of not so much chicken)

DIRECTIONS:

* Cook chicken however you like it ( i fried mine so it could be frying while I did other things)
* Cook the pasta
* Thaw or cook spinach if you don't have the frozen kind. (Ill be honest i just threw mine in the microwave)
* In a pan melt 2 Tablespoons butter and add garlic and frozen artichoke hearts. Leave them in there until the hearts start to turn brown then remove and sit aside. 
* Reduce the heat to low add 3 tablespoons of butter to the pot. When the butter is melted sprinkle in flower and whisk until combined then add the milk and let it cook for 3 or 4 minutes add your cheese and salt and peppers. 

* if it looks like your sauce is too thick add a little chicken broth to it

*Add the artichokes back to the pan along with the pasta and spinach and the shredded chicken and gently mix it all together and your ready to eat.

Fabric Flower #2

FABRIC FLOWER #2

 

This flower is super simple I found a couple different ways of doing it on pinterest and then kind of made it my own. So this is what worked best for me.

 

Step 1. I cut out a flower shape out of paper and then pinned it on the fabric to cut it out. I am not good a drawing flowers freehand so i traced a quarter 5 times you can see it in the picture below and that made it so it was pretty even.

 

 

Step 2. For this flower i cut out 14 flowers. It depends on how poofy you want your flower most of the tutorials i saw only did 10 flowers it just depends on what you want. Anyway cut out however many flowers you want and 1 felt circle for the back.

 

Step 3. Fold the flower in half. And right where my finger is I put a small dot of hot glue and folded it in half again just to kind of keep it together.  So 1 pedel will be folded in half twice. You dont have to glue it in the middle like i did i just found the flower stayed together better.

 

Step 4. Place 4 pedals side by side onto the felt. Just put a small dot of glue in the middle and place the four around it. like the picture below.

 

Step 5.Do that same step again ontop of the ones you just glued in the spaces between. I did 3 rows of this on my flower.  Then for the top two just put a dot of glue and stick them in there so they are fluffed up. You can also not put the top 2 in and just put a button instead.

 

Side note. This works better for light fabric. I used just plain cotton for mine and you can see the right and wrong side. It would have probably looked better if you couldn't see the wrong side but oh well i still think it tured out pretty cute.

 

If you like this look better (the yellow flower below) It is the same process but instead of cutting out the flower with 5 pedals at the first it is just a cirlce. Then you just fold it in half and in half again just like before. The only difference is that its a circle and the red one was cut with pedals.

fabric flower 1

Fabric Flower #1

I have had quite a few requests on how I make my fabric flowers for my headbands. So I thought I would post 1 flower a week or maybe 2 depending on how it goes.This flower is super super easy. Lets face it most everything I will post on here will be easy because I don't have time to make hard complicated things and I like easy things.

Supplies.

Felt

Fabric

Sissors

Hot glue gun.

 Directions

Step 1.

Cut 1 circle out of felt for the back. Any color will do because you wont see it. 

Step 2. 

Cut out lots of circles of the fabric of your choice. I did about 15-20 circles. (see photo below)

Step 3.

Take one circle at a time and fold sides inward. (look at photo below). Put some hot glue on the bottom and glue it to the felt then keep squishing the circles in next to each other so they are all bundled up.

Eventually after you have glued a bunch on you will have a beautiful fluffy flower. I turned it over and cut off the excess felt but you don't need to unless it is showing. Just remember to try and glue all the circles as close together as you can it will make it look more full. 

You can put them on headbands or hats or whatever I think they are super cute! 

UPDATE: 8-27-2013

The blog now has instagram so please follow me!  I will always post a picture on there when there is a new post on the blog so you don't have to keep coming back to the blog until the picture comes back on insagram!! FOLLOW ME

Thank you cards

Thank You Cards

As I have been cleaning out my craft room I noticed I have way too much stuff. So I started thinking of things I could make and have on hand that i would need all the time. Cards immediately popped into my head because we have a huge family on both sides and we are always needing birthday cards and thank you cards and on and on. So I thought I would save a few pennies by making my own cards to have on hand. Seeing how we live in the middle of nowhere it is kind of hard to just run to the store when you need a wedding, birthday, baby, or thank you card. So today I will show you how I made these super easy 5 min thank you cards. 

Supplies:

Scissors
Card stock paper for the actual card part
Background paper any pattern will do.
A solid colored paper
A scrap piece of white card stock for the thank you circle.
Glue Gun.
Tape

Step 1.

Cut the card stock paper in half horizontally. (now u have your 2 cards)

Step 2. 

Cut out background paper to cover the entire front of the card and tape or glue it on which ever you prefer. I use double sided tape. 

Step 3. 

Take your solid colored paper and cut 2 strips out of it. I cut 2 strips of 1.5 inches wide by 12 inches long. Then I realized i didn't need 2 that long so i cut one of them in half.

Step 4. 

Fold the strip back and forth like a fan. (See picture below)

Step 5. 

Tape the 2 strips together forming a circle. If you get 1 strip of paper long enough you wont have to use 2 but I didn't have one long enough. (See photo below)

Step 6.

Now this took me forever to figure out. I could not for the life of me figure out how to get this to stay glued or taped to the card then it hit me. Cut out a small piece of card stock and hot glue it to the back. (see photo below) Now it will be easy to stick to the card.

Step 7.

Tape or glue the fan circle is what i will call it, to the back. Again I used double sided tape.

Step 8.

Now if you don't like your hand writing like me you can print off  thank you on card stock and cut a circle out of it or you can write it out by hand. I tried both. I liked the printed better. But either way cut out the circle and I found that hot clue works best again. So just hot glue the thank you on and your done :)

I liked up with Highheelsandgrills you should go check out her site its amazing.

Toddler Bed

TODDLER BED

Well my cute little son found out how to get out of his crib. So we had to make him a new bed. (**side note we made his crib also). So here is his new bed. We had some extra wood so my husband made a cute little toy box to put at the bottom to put all his toys in so maybe his room would stay clean. I am very pleased at how the bed turned out. I was nervous at first to have him have a bed he could get out of but he loves it and he stacks all his little trucks up on the shelf above the head board. 

For those of you who are nervous about switching your baby over to a toddler bed I say wait until they are 100% ready. We had to switch my son over because he kept throwing him self out of the crib and now sometimes i find him wondering around at night or he will come into our room in the middle of the night. At first he came into our room every night for the first month or so but now he stays in his bed until its light outside then he will come wake us up. 

Now I honestly love it. When he is tired he will go crawl in bed and when he wakes up from naps and stuff he can just get up and come find us it is very nice. Anyways i am very pleased at how the bed turned out. I must say I have a very talented husband to be able to figure it all out in his head then build it. with my help of course.

sugar cookies

Sugar cookies

These sugar cookies are delicious! It seems like the only time I ever make sugar cookies is around valentines day. But they really are good and the cute way to show your kids or loved ones you love them ;)


Ingredients
1 cup soften butter. Not melted just soft
2 eggs
1 to 1 1/4 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup sugar
5 cups flour
4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
* you can add some powered sugar if desired to make a little sweeter.



Directions:
Mix together butter, eggs, sour cream, and vanilla.

In a separate bowl mix all dry ingredients.

Slowly add dry ingredients to the butter mixture.

Roll dough to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. And cut out cookies.


*don't over bake. Cook until bottom is barley brown



Temp:350     Time:8-10 min.

valentines table runner

Valentines table runner

Remember when I made the tutorial how to make these types of table runner. Well I decided I needed something simple to add a Valentine feel to our home and decides a table runner would be perfect. I will attach the link to my tutorial when we get my computer working. But if you would like to see it feel free to look under my diy projects.