Thursday, January 29, 2015

DIY Gifts

Last year seemed to be the year of weddings for our friends and my Hubs and I were included in that group. This year is the year of babies for our friends and again, we are included in that group. 

We had 10 friends get married last year (not including us) and that gets expensive when you are looking at buying each a gift. I got creative and made each of them gifts vs. buying something off of their registry. It is beyond cheaper to make a gift vs. buying them and they mean more to the couple so they tend to hang on to it for good vs. regifting or giving them away as they no longer want or need that item. Another plus is that you can write something special on the back of the letter or plaque to the happy couple and it reminds them, 25 years from now, who gave it to them.

For the weddings I made each something similar but special to them. For a majority of the weddings, I bought a wood letter of their last name and glued (with modge podge) jewels all over it with the jewels being the color of their wedding. Another had a short last name so it bought a wooden plaque from my craft store and used smaller letters then painted the letters one wedding color and the plaque another. I also made a wreath for another couple that had their initial and the colors of their wedding were in the flowers. 





Wonderful baby gifts are baby blankets. I crochet and you can knit or sew one if you do those things. I had a girl make my first daughter a fuzzy pink blanket, now that my daughter is almost 4, she is still carrying around that blanket. I always ask what theme they are doing in their nursery so it will fit in and it is different than the normal blue vs pink. I like to youtube new crochet ideas so that no one of my friends get the same type of crocheted blanket as well plus it is fun for me to do different things each time and broaden my ability. I also like to personalize it by adding the birth stone color as a boarder or somewhere in it. This picture is for a January baby girl so that is why it has the garnet ring:


Let me know if you have any creative DIY gifts that are your go-to!

Earn Money From Home



You hear about all of these "Get Paid from Home" gimmicks all the time but here are my top three paid survey type websites:

1. Swagbucks: You sign up and start earning points to use toward gift cards. You can earn by using their search engine, taking surveys, finding swag codes and they have more info in their blog about how to optimize your earnings. It only takes 450 points to get a $5 Amazon gift card which is super easy and can be earned in a day. 

2. Inbox Dollars: Right now they give you $5 for just signing up and you can earn $.50 for surveys and $.02 just for reading their emails that they send you. How easy is it to just open an email and earn money? The earnings add up quickly.

3. Pinecone Research: This website is hard to get into but once they have openings you will earn $3 per survey. I get about 1-2 surveys emailed to me a week and then they mail you the check immediately in most cases. Right now they are not accepting new users but you can check the website daily and get in quick when they are. 

I will do more posts on my other favorite earning sites and even work from home websites soon. I have personally had success from these three sites and use them on a daily or weekly basis, but let me know about your experiences with these types of websites in the comments below!

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Baby Sprinkle vs. Baby Shower?

Should women have a shower when they are having their second baby? I grew up with people chastising those that had showers for second or third children so I am conflicted. My husband and I are expecting our second daughter this spring but I gave away a lot of her things because I was unsure if I would have any more children. We have a friend having a shower for her second but she's now having a baby of the opposite gender so I justify in my mind that she is right for having one. Our friends have talked us into having a baby sprinkle and even though we need big ticket items, I felt that it was only ok to ask that people bring diapers, wipes and clothing vs. registering for all sorts of things. What are your thoughts? 

Also something that got me in the spirit of this sprinkle party is Pinterest. Holy cow does Pinterest have some cute ideas for sprinkle parties! Here are some below:
I'm having a girl so these are all pink themed but you can easily do most of these blue or a neutral color

I love doing chocolate dipped pretzels, I make these pretty often with white and dark chocolate candy melts then I can just add sprinkles to this and done!
Yogurt or Ice cream bars are awesome! I have a chalk board that I made that I can just drawl sprinkles on because I really don't want to mess it or the frame up by plastering sprinkles all over it but I do love this idea and adding the theme into the decor as well.
Ok so here is one of my favorites because people over look these wafer cookies but they are pretty inexpensive and you can use the candy melts or icing for these to get the sprinkles on.
Rimming the cups in sprinkles?? What genius came up with this? I love it but this one can be tricky to keep them on so don't get all Pinterest fail on this one.

I have also seen funfetti cake pops and I love making rice crispy pops but what about making them out of fruity pebbles? The possibilities are ENDLESS!! 

I also found this website that sells sprinkles wholesale and all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors so you don't have to spend a ton and you can go sprinkle overboard if you want :)

I hope your creative juices are now flowing and I would love to hear what you think about baby showers vs. sprinkles and should they be the norm?

Gluten-free Lasagna

So you already know, I love hiding veggies in anything that I can. Last night I made a lasagna that was filled with them and guess what? You can make this gluten free too! 
I boiled cauliflower (this is one of my go tos) and mashed it up with a fork then added about a cup of parmesan cheese, about a cup of cottage cheese, and a half a cup of shredded mozzarella cheese plus salt and pepper to taste. That's the cheese mixture I used for this yummy meal.
 I did add half lasagna noodles and half zucchini noodles but you can use just zucchini. I make zucchini noodles for lasagna by just using a cheese cutter and make long ribbons and I use a julienne tool to make zucchini spaghetti noodles. 
I layered a ladle of marinara sauce on bottom then a layer of lasagna noodles and on top of that is the cheese mixture then zucchini layer and just repeat. I topped mine off with about a cup and a half of mozzarella cheese and a little bit of parm then baked it off at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and I served mine with garlic bread since that is what my hubs prefers but you can do this with a side salad or whatever you like with lasagna. 


My husband ate this up and didn't notice most of the veggies, if you get the zucchini thin enough, it just melts into the lasagna and no one knows it is in there.

Ingredients:
2 cups of mozzarella cheese
1 cup of parmesan cheese
1 cup of cottage cheese
1 head of cauliflower
2 zucchinis 
6 lasagna noodles (cooked)
1 jar of marinara sauce or spaghetti sauce

Directions above

I hope you enjoy and comment below if you have any questions or suggestions on how you make this!


  


Monday, January 26, 2015

Hide Them Veggies Shepherd's Pie

Have you ever had issues with your children eating the veggies you give them? Ha, who hasn't, right? My biggest problem is my HUSBAND not eating his veggies or anything of substance and my three year old normally eats what I give her. I hide veggies EVERY where that I can and the best to hide them in is casseroles and starches like mashed potatoes or baked spaghetti so shepherd's pie is the best place I can think of. I started off by boiling three large potatoes with 3 cloves of garlic and half a bag of frozen cauliflower (I use frozen because no where around here has organic, fresh cauliflower and I haven't started growing it yet.) Once the potatoes were cooked, I transferred it to a mixing bowl after draining the water and I added a stick of butter and about a half of cup of milk. Now I did just say a stick of butter but you can always cut that, I just felt like all the veggies kind of maybe cancelled a little of it out.. maybe. I use an immersion blender but you can hand mash it or put it in a mixer or use a hand blender, they all work perfect. Ok now we are on to more veggies. I cut up about two hand fulls of baby carrots because that's what I keep on hand for snack for me and the wild child and then I peeled and chopped up half of a large rutabaga and halved about a cup of brussel sprouts. You can use whatever veggies you feel like using, I stayed on the sweet side because that pleases the Hub's pallet. I sauted all of these veggies except the brussel sprouts in a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper until I could pretty much almost mash the carrots then added the brussel sprouts until they started to get soft (about 2-3 minutes.) I just dumped all the veggies into the bottom of a baking pan, I used a round cake pan but use whatever you have, and then started to brown the ground beef (I only used 1/3 of a pound but use up to a pound for this recipe.) Once the beef was almost done, I put in my beef broth which was one cup of water that had been simmering with two beef bullion cubes while I was cooking the other ingredients. I let that rise to a simmer then poured it on top of the veggies. All that was left was the mashed potato layer and I just slathered those on top and smoothed it with the back of my wooden spoon then topped it all off with a mix of cheddar and monterey jack cheese. I tossed that into the preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes and presto, ready to eat!
I should have taken pictures throughout the process and this picture isn't that great but I did take one!! I will get better at that next time, promise. 

Ingredients:
3 large potatoes
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 a bag of frozen cauliflower or half a head if you use fresh
2 handfuls of baby carrots
1/2 of a rutabaga
1 cup of brussel sprouts
1/3- 1 lb of ground beef
1/2 cup of milk
1 stick of butter
2 beef bullion cubes
1 cup of water

Directions above

GLUTEN FREE: you can make this a gluten free by changing the bullion cubes to homemade beef stock or broth or just omitting that all together because you can still get beef flavor by adding the cup of water to the ground beef before adding it to the pie.

Hide the veggies by mashing them up before adding them to the pie if you have super picky eaters, I forgot to do that and mashed up my husbands before I served it to him and guess what, HE LOVED IT!!

I hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions, please comment below!