A crafty frame of mind

It was about a year ago that I purchased a frame that had most likely held a mirror. I had seen some great projects on Pinterest for frames but it took about a year before I actually did something with it! I had even purchased the spray paint last year, but it sat in my room gathering dust.

Jennifer helped me spray paint it with a heirloom white then Kirk helped staple chicken wire to the back. The original Pin had pieces of wire hung across but I thought using chicken wire would provide more room to display pictures. I used wooden clothes pins and paper clips to hold the pictures on.

 
 

I am so pleased with how it turned out!! I love how easy it is to change the pictures around and how great it looks in my room. A successful Pinterest attempt!

Crayon Art

Anyone on Pinterest will recognize the famous 'melting crayon' art and I decided recently that on my day off I would also attempt this wickedly cool craft. 

I am not someone that normally ends up with a successful craft, I have great ambitions but my end results rarely measure up. This time, however, I was so impressed with my craft!! 

All lined up

Starting to melt!

The finished product!

It was such an easy craft and so fun! 

Materials needed: Crayola crayons, a hair dryer, and a canvas.

I emphasis Crayola because we attempted this at camp with different crayons and they didn't melt! It was quite disappointing. 

Now I have to find some place to hang this up. 

"Just because there is an Italian guy on it doesn't mean it is pizza dough"

I have not had much luck with trying recipes recently. I am a very picky eater and I really do not enjoy trying new recipes. So I was extremely proud of myself when I found a recipe to try on Pinterest. 


Cheesy Chicken Lasagna, doesn't that sounds good!? 

I really wanted to try this recipe out so Paige and I bought the ingredients the next time we went grocery shopping. Or at least we thought we bought the ingredients. In case anyone is not aware of this, evaporated milk is NOT the same thing as condensed milk! Please don't ever make this mistake, because the results are nasty!!!! 


As I was making the lasagna, we were both blissfully unaware of our mistake. That is until something started to happen with the chicken and the sauce. The chicken started to harden, there was a nasty smell coming from the pot and it was started to get lumpy. It was at this point that we realized our mistake. There was a moment where we decided we were just going to try a piece of the chicken, maybe it won't be that bad. As neither of us were willing to even try it, we threw it all away and had tacos instead. 


Fast forward one week and I am once again trying this recipe. This time my mom got me the correct ingredients and I was determined to make the most delicious cheesy chicken lasagna EVER! Everything was going wonderfully, until it was time to actually eat the meal. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't fantastic and not worth the effort and hype. Maybe it was just my cooking so if anyone makes this please let me know how it turns out!!


That was meal making disaster #1. Meal making disaster #2 happened last night when Kirk tried to make me supper. We have recently been going to Pizza Hut and having their wonderful calzones and Kirk decided that he will try and make one for me for supper. Once again we went shopping and once again the wrong ingredients were bought. This time instead of pizza dough, we actually bought pie crust. We didn't realize our mistake until we were cooking it. It was getting kind of flaky, like a pie crust. It wasn't really cooking and staying soft, like a pie crust. It took over twice as long to cook, which really should have been our first indicator that something was wrong. But we carried on. Lesson #2, do not try and make a calzone with pie crust. It doesn't very good at all, not matter how much ranch dressing you put on it. So we went to Wendy's instead. 

We have our calzone without pepperoni - photo credit Pizza Hut

Oh bother! Two meal making disasters, two gross results and two funny stories. Hopefully these will be the only two meal making disasters that I have but I have a feeling there will be more. 


The two life lessons learned today are:

 1 - condensed milk is not the same thing as evaporated milk. Just because condensed milk has evaporated milk in it does not mean you should use it for a recipe that calls for evaporated milk.

2 - just because a ball of dough has a cartoon of an Italian chef on it does not mean that the dough is pizza dough. 

Anyone have any cooking disasters that they lived to tell about? What has been the worst meal you have ever tried to make?

This all seems very familiar

This post will seem very familiar. This is because I have made no progress towards blogging at all. I am determined this week to not only make a list of things I need to do regarding my blogging but also to actually do something from the list. 

Hopefully there will be some progress by next week's Monday Post. I just need to get my butt into gear! 

An Awesome Thing: 

#464 When characters in movies visit a place you know

There is an ongoing gag in our house that whenever characters in movies visit a place we have been, we yell out "I've been there!!". It is amusing, most of the time. There is the odd time that I have not been somewhere my parents have been, which drives me completely nuts! Not to brag or anything, but we have been many to many places which makes this Awesome Thing completely awesome. Especially when characters go to beautiful places like Venice that I can't help grinning as I yell "I've been there!". 

Book Update: 

Still reading Oliver Twist. I also just borrowed The Blue Light Project by Timothy Taylor from the online library today. I listened to an interview with Mr. Taylor on CBC Radio and from the little bit I heard from the interview, I thought it would be an interesting read. 

A Monday Present:

This is a two part Monday Present, because I feel generous. 

This week's present was something I found on Pinterest and I have been meaning to print off copies for myself. From this website, Grace is overrated, these are journal pages. The newer pages are very colourful, but each page is filled with different sections to fill out. I thought these were wonderfully creative and helpful to anyone, including myself, who finds it hard to write everyday. 

Keeping with the journal theme, once again from Pinterest:

These journals can be found here, on Celestefrittata's Etsy shop. These are such a great idea! 

I need to make a list of things to do with my blog but I have lists for everything. Do you make lists? How do you stay organized? I would love to hear your organizational ideas! 

Monday

Nothing much is happening around here. And yet there is so much to do, which is why I figured today was a great day to sit around and do nothing.

I arrive home from the daycare around 1:30 or so and by the time I am done lunch and the barn it is close to 2. Since it is now 3:20 I have officially wasted an hour and a half of my day. 

I really should go and do something, because my list is getting larger and larger every day. Off the top of my head I have to:

• clean my desk, which has been neglected for so long I can no longer see the desk itself
• do laundry
• start some projects that I desperately want to do before school starts
• clean my room for back to school
• clean the cabin from camp
• figure out when to go to a movie with Kirk

This past weekend Kirk and I bought Avelee a wagon for her first birthday. We had decided earlier that we were just going to go and look at the wagons to see the different types available. So much for that plan. Not only did we purchase the Little Tikes Deluxe Ride and Relax wagon, we also decided we couldn't wait until September 17 and gave it to her on Sunday!! We even took her for a little ride, which was a lot of fun! 

And you should see the wagon!!! It is so cool! It comes with a cooler pack, 6 cup holders, an umbrella and one of the sides flips up so you can use it as a bench! I will see if I can get some pictures of Kirk and I assembling it Saturday night from his mom. 

And now onto the Monday Post! 

An Awesome Thing:

#840 Popping Bubble Wrap

I have been in a relationship with Kirk for over two years now and there have been little things that have happened over these two years that prove just how much I am in love with him. One of these little things happened just the other day when Kirk gave me some bubble wrap. I had recently, at some point, mentioned a bit ago how much I love popping bubble wrap. Now I can't even remember when I had mentioned this, as it was a just a passing comment. But Kirk remembered and brought me some bubble wrap from work for me. The only thing more awesome than popping bubble wrap is popping bubble wrap that your boyfriend brings you because he knows how much you love popping it. 

Book Update:

I am still working on my post for Pride and Prejudice. Stay tuned for that.
I finished The School of Essential Ingredients and you can read my review for it here.
I also finished reading Sarah's Key, which I did not love as much as I really wanted to. It was still great, but not fantastic. I will be posting a review for that soon.
I am reading Oliver Twist right now for the BBC list. It is not bad so far.

A Monday Present: 

I had a hard time finding something for this week. I just couldn't think of anything that would be great. And then I remembered this:

PINTEREST!!!!!

I am sure many people are already aware of Pinterest. But if you are not, you are welcome! It is so addicting, which is completely awful and wonderful at the same time for a university student. Jennie Guenard, one of my very first and best friends, {click here for her wonderful How to Deal With... blog and here for her amazing photography blog, Guenard Photography} told me about Pinterest. I both curse her and thank her every time I go on. Check it out, it is completely addicting and thrilling!!! Enjoy!

What sites can you not go a day without going on? How much time do you think you spend on the Internet a day?