Little Lovebirds

Good morning all and Happy Monday! Today I'm here to talk about my little lovebirds that I sell in my Etsy shop.

If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest (which, you should do all three. Just sayin'. ;) you've probably seen me posting these little cuties.

"Something Blue" Love Birds

"A Dapper Pair" Love Birds

Sold! :)

These are the wedding cake toppers I produce. Each one of them is one of a kind as I select all of the materials, cut, hand-stitch, stuff and bend out each wire. Sounds like a lot of work - but it's actually quite enjoyable seeing them "come to life".

Most awesomely, the brown and white pair have already been sold and sent off to their new owner. I was quite surprised at how popular these little guys are... there are a lot of beautiful creations out there, but I felt that I could offer a similar product at a more affordable price point. Others sell for anywhere from $75 to almost $200! When I was a bride, I got to have the wedding of my dreams by being thrifty, so I offer my pairs at $24.99.

I am slowly growing my fabric stash so that I can offer custom bird toppers. If you know anyone who is doing a bird theme, have them convo me on Etsy! I'd love to help them create the wedding cake topper of their dreams.

Thanks for following along!

It's Pinspired Friday! {A Whale of a Good Time!}

Hey everyone! It's Friday, so that can only mean one thing...

Yep, it's Pinspired Friday! Sorry about how late in the day this post is, but hey, better late than never eh? I was struggling to find a little... pinspiration (ba dum ching) this morning and then I stumbled across this pin:

And I was amazed at how cute and life-like the whale was... perfect for a little boy! But I don't have any little boys... and then it hit me. CHRISTMAS! BOOM. And thus, a perfect little gift for my nephew was born.

Before I begin my little tale, I would like to thank Mevrouw Walvis over at Valaan Villapaita for providing the inspiration. She does not provide a pattern as unfortunately, some people took advantage of how awesome this whale was and decided to copy it almost exactly and sell it, without giving her credit. I think I was lucky enough to get the walkthrough pictures, and for that I thank her. Please check out all of her original pictures and walkthrough over at http://valaanvillapaita.blogspot.com/2011/05/tee-se-itse-valas.html.

Back to my story...

So I click on through to the tutorial... and it's all in Finnish. Lovely photos, but my Finnish is a little rusty, as in non-existent. Google Translate here I come... and then half of the words didn't make sense or didn't translate, and there was no pattern. Usually this is where I throw my hands up and say fahgettaboutit but I decided to press on.

Studying the pictures and figuring out the patterns was the most interesting part. Thankfully, she had given us an overhead picture of her pattern pieces cut out, so I was able to copy the tail and the fins this way. The body, not so much.

The body picture was definitely on an angle, not a perfect overhead shot, so I printed it out and modified it to be slightly larger than what was shown. Pretty much the only thing I kept was the curvature where the two "body" pieces come together... otherwise I pretty much winged it.

Best idea if you go to replicate this pattern? Use jeans with a little bit of stretch to them. This'll make it easier when you turn everything inside out.

Look at that craft table! Yikes, haha

I kind of surprised myself with this pinspiration, really... I took the time to understand the pictures, and a little bit of it was trial and error. This surprisingly didn't take me all that long, this was only about an hour or two project, even with having to retrace and cut the body twice. The first time, I made it WAY too narrow... but thankfully realized it before I got too far.

An obscene amount of polyfill later...

He's about 11" from "nose" to tip of tail, and has about a 10" "wingspan", so he's a good little size! He turned out a little more cartoon-y than life like (probably due in part to my choice in eyes), but I am totally in love with him. I hope my little nephew loves him. <3

Thanks for following along in my whale adventures! If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them!

Pizza Burgers! A 4 Ingredient Dinner!

Hello all! I am back with an original recipe today. Well, sort of original. When I was younger, we ate these pizza burgers all the time, and I had completely forgotten about them until I was asking Mama LOC for ideas for dinners. This is an incredibly easy dinner, few ingredients, and relatively low cost too! As for healthy... well, it's probably not up there with the healthiest dinners out there, but it is good!

For pizza burgers, we'll need:
• A package of hamburgers buns (We use 4 buns, top and bottom for a total of 8 "pizza crusts".)
• A can/jar of pizza sauce. I did not happen to look, but I think my can was in the 12-15 oz range.
• About 1/2-1 cup of mozzarella cheese or cheese of your choice (a good recipe to use what you've got!)
• 1 lb of hamburger/ground beef, thawed

And that's it! How easy is that? A 4 ingredient recipe to the rescue. (Except for some non-stick spray, I suppose. You'll probably want that.) A full recipe without pictures is posted below, as always.

To start out, arrange your hamburger buns on a cookie sheet with a little bit of nonstick spray. Preheat your oven to 350.

 Start browning your ground beef.

When your ground beef is completely browned (but not over-browned... because you're going to keep cooking it), add your pizza sauce.

 A little bit about my pizza sauce of choice: I <3 Chef Boyardee pizza sauce (and no, I'm not getting perked or anything to say that, haha). We grew up on this pizza sauce because I was (and still kinda am) the pickiest eater when it comes to sauce, and I didn't want anything to do with chunks in the sauce. So this stuff tastes awesome, and is completely liquid. The sad part is that I can only find it at one store around here! But I guess one store is all I need, better than no stores. :)

My freshly broken-into can. Yum! Sorry about the hat, chef.

Back to the recipe... mix in the sauce well with the meat. Cooking at about a medium high heat, you'll want the sauce to boil but not burn, so you'll have to keep moving it around quite a bit. You're aiming for the sauce to cook into the meat and reduce so that in my case, the sauce is not so incredibly liquid-y when you go to put it on the buns. Soggy buns are not what we're aiming for. Put your lid on your pan to help it cook down.

After about 10 or so minutes for me, my sauce had reduced enough and soaked in enough to be just perfect.

Moving back to the buns, scoop out your meat onto the buns equally. Add a healthy dose of mozzarella cheese to each. Try to avoid getting a ton of excess cheese on the pan - it'll just burn and be unfun to clean off after this meal. Your oven should be preheated by this time, so go ahead and stick the pan in the oven for about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them though - depending on cookie sheet used (dark, light), all ovens being slightly different, etc, you don't want to end up with overdone pizza burgers.

And here is the final step: Enjoy! Your bun should be ever so slightly toasted and the cheese should be just melted.

Pizza Burgers

Ingredients

• 8 count package of hamburger buns (you'll use four buns for a total of 8 pizza crusts.)
• A 12-15 oz can/jar of pizza sauce.
• About 1/2-1 cup of mozzarella cheese or cheese of your choic
• 1 lb of hamburger/ground beef, thawed

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
1) Arrange hamburger buns, separated into 8 onto a cookie sheet coated with nonstick spray.
2) Brown ground beef in pan until just browned, then add can of pizza sauce to browned meat.
3) Cover and cook down the sauce until most is absorbed, about 5-10 minutes.
4) Scoop sauced meat onto burger buns in equal amounts
5) Sprinkle cheese atop each pizza burger
6) Place in oven for 10 minutes at 350, watching to avoid burn.
7) Burger buns should be slightly toasted and cheese should be melted when complete. Enjoy!

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Thanks for following along! Hope you enjoy this easy meal! :)

No-Cook Refrigerator Oatmeal - A Yummy Breakfast!

One of my absolutely favorite breakfast's around here is what I like to call fridge oatmeal. I'm not a fan of the texture of just plan oatmeal, and really not a fan of just plain yogurt either. I wanted something that was relatively healthy in the morning, and provided all the health benefits of yogurt... but just not yogurt. Enter no-cook refrigerator oatmeal! I stumbled upon these options by The Yummy Life - she offers 6 different "flavors" of fridge oatmeal, but I knew which one would appeal to me most - the apple cinnamon flavor. Um yum. So I've taken her recipe and modified it to easy-to-find and often on hand ingredients. 

We'll start with the ingredients - for Apple Cinnamon 'fridge Oatmeal, you'll need:
1/4 C Oats (You must use old fashioned oats - steel cut, quick oats, etc isn't going to cut it.)
1/3 C Milk (I used 2%. You could use skim for less fat but I'm using what I got!)
1/4 C Yogurt (I'm using lowfat vanilla yogurt. You could use Greek - but I am once again, using what I got :)
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1 Teaspoon of Honey or a dash of Sugar (I'm using a dash of sugar. You could use Splenda.)
1/4 C Applesauce (I'm using regular ol' applesauce, plain. Mine is the sweetened one, but without cinnamon.)

Don't forget, I include the full recipe at the bottom! :) Also important to note: you must make this the day before you want to eat it. :)

You'll also need a jar with a lid. I'm a fan of using these little glass Ball type jars... I believe this is a pint jar but I could be wrong... they aren't labeled. They remind me a jelly jar but slightly bigger.

So I don't get a million 1/4 cup measuring spoons dirty, here's what I do. Add your oats to the jar first.  Then, using a liquid measure (this is important... there is a slight difference between liquid and dry measure), add your 1/3 cup milk. This is important to do as the second step, because otherwise trying to pour milk on yogurt isn't fun. I then add my 1/4 cup of yogurt as the third step, and I just dip my (clean) 1/4 cup measure right into the yogurt. Plop that in there, then I take a regular metal spoon and dip my spoon into the applesauce, measuring it in the 1/4 cup yogurt-y measuring cup. That way, I'm not dipping my yogurt covered measure into the applesauce and I'm not getting another 1/4 cup measure dirty.

After that, sprinkle your cinnamon and a little sugar on top (I don't use much, since I'm already using vanilla yogurt and regular applesauce. Put your lid on, make sure it's tight so you don't have a mess, and shake the ever-living daylights out of it.

 I also use this size too - it's like the flatter, fatter version of the jar above.

 Here's what it looks like when it's all shaken up! Refrigerate overnight and enjoy in the morning.

Here is the yummy goodness in the morning! (Doesn't everyone eat breakfast at the computer?) The oats absorb a lot of the milk and taste amazing with the applesauce, cinnamon and vanilla yogurt. It is eaten cold - I don't think it would taste very good warm. A fantastic way to get started in the morning if I do say so myself!

 No-Cook Refrigerator Oatmeal - Apple Cinnamon Flavor

1/4 C Old Fashioned Oats
1/3 C Milk
1/4 C Yogurt
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1 Teaspoon of Honey or a dash of Sugar
1/4 C Applesauce

Directions:
1) In small jar with resealable lid, place 1/4 C oats.
2) Add 1/3 C milk on top of the oats
3) Add 1/4 C yogurt on top of milk and oats
4) Add 1/4 C applesauce on top of yogurt, milk, and oats.
5) Sprinkle cinnamon and dash of sugar on top.
6) Seal jar and shake vigorously. Place in refrigerator overnight to enjoy in the morning.