Need a Halloween Costume?

Halloween in almost here!
Mwwhaahahaha!
Do You Have A Costume?
If you're like me, it's about this time every year that you realize you don't have a costume.Then it's a panicked me running to the costume store, realizing everything is too expensive, and finally settling on dressing up as a witch again.
I have yet to finish mine for this year, (No more witch costume for me!) But in the meantime I did a little bit of digging and came up with some cute costumes that you could DIY in a crunch!
A lot of these are kids costumes but I bet you could make it work as an adult costume too :)

Cookie Monster Tutu

Bee, Owl, and Shark

Gnome

Knight in shining armor, and Dragon

Baby Peacock

Shark Attack! 

Moose

Candy Corn

Raining Cats and Dogs

Comic girl

Smore's Family

Octopus

Kissing Booth

That adorable teenage boy in the kissing booth is my brother! Pretty cute right? 

Hopefully you found something fun to dress up as! If you already have a costume leave a comment telling us what it is! 

Love ya' people!!! Have a great day!

Tried and True Pin-spirations

I would like to share with you this delightful little recipe that I tried out today.
A week ago I was meandering around pinterest when I came across this picture.

How could I not try it out? Lucky for me, the recipe was super easy! And it was SO worth the 30 minutes I spent wandering around the grocery store looking for flax seed. (Is that sad that I have never cooked with it before? I didn't even know what it looked like!)
It's easy.
It's pretty healthy.
And it's Delicious!
Here is the recipe:
1 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/3 cup honey, 1 cup coconut flakes, 1/2 cup ground flaxseed, 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, and 1 tsp vanilla.
Mix it all up, throw it in the fridge for half an hour, roll it into balls, and enjoy!
I didn't feel like buying mini chocolate chips. I used regular ones. And it was still so great. My pictures might not be as aesthetically pleasing, but they tasted just as good!

Thanks to smashedpeasandcarrots.blogspot.com for sharing this awesome recipe! You should swing by sometime and look at that cute blog!

I wanted to share one more pin-spired cooking adventure that I went on this week. This one is a little different than anything I have ever done.
I was feeling a little needy of a really good pumpkin desert recipe to try this year. I couldn't just let Halloween pass by without making Something that tasted like pumpkin! I went to pinterest, and as usual, she delivered.
This is what I found

Pumpkin Monkey Bread. Looks good right? I wouldn't know. I pulled it out of the oven about 5 minutes before I had to go to work. I told my husband to wait until it was cool, try it, and if it was good to take it over to our friends house and share some of it.
By the time I was done with my 4 hour shift. It was gone.
I can only assume it was so good it made two grown men go a little bit crazy so that they couldn't help devouring the whole thing.
It's not a hard recipe, but it is a little lengthy. I would recommend planning to do this when you have a couple hours around the house so you can leave it to rise and then come back to it.
Pumpkin Monkey Bread
For the dough:

• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp cloves
• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup warm milk
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2/3 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

For the coating:

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 stick butter, melted

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and spices. In another large bowl, whisk together the milk, water, pumpkin, melted butter, sugar, and yeast. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add in the wet ingredients. Using a wooden spoon, gently stir until the dough comes together. Turn out on to a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes.
Spray a clean bowl with cooking spray and place the dough inside.Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about an hour.In the meantime, mix together the cinnamon and sugar, and melt the butter for the coating. Spray a bundt pan with cooking spray.
Once the dough has risen, shape the ball into a large rectangle. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into roughly equal-sized pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Dip each ball of dough into the melted butter and then the cinnamon-sugar mixture, layering them in the bundt pan as you go.Once you’ve used all the dough, cover the bundt pan and let the dough rise again for another hour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the bread until golden brown, 30-35 minutes. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before turning out on to a platter. To make the glaze, stir together the powdered sugar and maple syrup. Pour over the bread while it’s still warm.

For the glaze:

• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1-2 Tbsp pure maple syrup

Thank you sugarcrafter.net! You made two men very happy!
Do you have any great fall/holiday recipes you couldn't imagine not having? Please share! And don't forget to smile!

Fantastic Fabric Flowers

Ok, so I know I am way late, but I would like to jump on the fabric flower bandwagon please?
After pinning practically every picture and tutorial of all of those adorable fabric flowers people are making, I finally got my act together enough to try to make one.
Success! Turns out, they really are not that hard! The only problem now is that I am addicted. I have different colored fabric flowers laying around my house. Today I even cut up one of my old huge t-shirts and made a bunch of flowers. You could say I have a problem.

Yes I am still taking crappy pictures. But that will soon change. Hopefully by Monday. Just bear with me.
I firmly believe that everybody should make at least one of these flowers. They are adorable and easy and cheap and frankly, it's kind of empowering to whip a couple of these bad boys up real fast with little to no effort.
You start with a strip of fabric about an inch wide.

I have experimented with a bunch of fabrics so far. Pretty much everything works. I haven't tried felt yet though. If you try that go ahead and let us know how it worked!
Roll the edges in toward the middle. So that the frayed edges are not showing. I wasn't that careful and I think the occasional frayed edge makes it look kinda cool
Tie a knot in the end.

This is where the magic happens. Take your hot glue gun and put a dot of glue about a quarter of the way around the knot. Then take the long end of the fabric, twist it a little, and then put it in the glue.

Keep doing that until you run out of fabric! Glue the end to the bottom of your flower.

So there it is! I know there are other kinds of fabric flowers out there, these are just the ones that I have perfected. Try it! PLEASE! I know you will love it too!
Have a great day! Take a minute to think about how much you are blessed!

Burlap Wreath Tutorial

This is my first tutorial EVER so please forgive me for all of the Awful picture quality, missing steps of pictures, gross looking door, etc. 
I was inspired by this pin on pinterest. I was so excited to find something so adorable that was easy to make And affordable!
(Again, I'm sorry about the bad picture quality!)

Here is how it all came together. I made a few mistakes (just enough to give me a headache) and I will be sure to let you know what they are so you can avoid them! Life is to short to live it with headaches!
I started out with a trip to Home Depot for a length of plumbing insulation ($1.50) to be my wreath frame. However, in my crazed eagerness to get started on my project, I cut the insulation too short. Here is what it looks like when that happens.

No. Bueno. also don't try to hot glue the ends together. That was a major duh moment for me. (It's plastic... So it melts...)
And so I made another run over to Home Depot. This time I measured my insulation before cutting it to make sure the circle didn't crease.
TaDa!

Just Duct tape the ends together and you have a perfect wreath form!
The next step is to cut strips of burlap (I cut mine about two inches wide) and wrap it around your wreath frame. Make sure they overlap a bit so you can't see the foam through it.
That another mistake I made. For an unknown reason I figured I would need about three yards of burlap for this project. And then when I got to JoAnnes I decided to buy five yards. Just in case.
Really?! I have sewn before. Five yards is a ridiculous amount of fabric for a wreath. I don't know what I was thinking.
If you are going to go out and buy burlap for this project go ahead and get a yard. It's like $3 and unless you have a 50% off  coupon and then it's less. You will probably only use half a yard but burlap is so versatile. I'm sure you will figure out something fantastic to do with the scraps. 

I forgot to take a picture of the good wreath form with just the burlap. But essentially this is what it will look like.
The next step is to make flowers! You will need a hot glue gun, a few pieces of misc. fabric, and a little bit more burlap. All you do is cut out different sizes of circles in the burlap and fabrics and layer them a few different ways to make it look interesting. Glue them together and arrange it on your frame. Move stuff around until it looks right to you. You will probably want to space the different colors equally through the wreath. I also added buttons to add some dimension. You can also use scrapbooking brads or whatever else strikes your fancy!

Glue 'em on, and Hang it up!

I love it. I Love It I Love It I LOVE IT!!! Go ahead and try it. Link up your pictures when you are done!
Smile! Today is a great day!!!

Dear Stress,

I apologize for my absence in the blogging world for the past couple of weeks! I got a job at a new store and we were required to work full time for three weeks to get it all put together. Now it is the most beautiful, fun store I have ever seen! And now that the three weeks is over, I am back to part time. Which means I have time to start blogging again!
I have been wanting to do a couple projects around the house for about as long as we have lived here (which isn't really that long) and this weekend I finally got the stuff I needed to make them!!!
And then...
It all went wrong.
Have you ever had one of those days where Nothing works right? You see in your head what a project should look like but when you are done it just looks... Bad?
Today was SOOO that day.
Bad for me, but good for you! When I finish these projects I will show you all of the (many) mistakes I made and hopefully you can avoid them!
For now, take this to heart. 

I have such an on-again, off-again relationship with stress. Every time we break up I feel so liberated! But it always seems like we end up getting back together! No bueno. Kick that sucker to the curb.
And don't forget to Smile!!!