Pill Box Travel Organizer

I saw this on a camping blog and thought it was a very good idea. We just went on a road trip and I tried it out - much more compact and easier to use than other ways I've tried to organize meds in the past (especially when I would just put them all randomly together in a small baggie haha!).  Each day of the week is holding a different pill (aspirin, tylenol, benedryl, etc.) or vitamin, to remember what's what I put a piece of paper in the bottom of each compartment and wrote the name of the med on the underside. When packing for a short trip I don't need the whole bottle, this way I just have a few in case I need them and they are all organized together in one place. A little mini medicine chest!

2021 update - just fyi I still use this exact pill organizer, I take it everywhere in my backpack - it's so handy!

Mini Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I have made individual pineapple upside down cakes before using a regular sized muffin pan, this time I decided to try making them in my mini muffin pan - they turned out exactly as I hoped and since they are so little you can eat a couple and not feel too guilty (or save room for other dessert if you make these for a dessert buffet)! 

Preheat oven 350'. Spray the muffin pan with non stick spray, put a little butter in each cup and stick in the oven until it melts, remove from oven and mix a little brown sugar in with melted butter (I didn't measure, just wing that part). Top that with a maraschino cherry and 1Tablespoon drained crushed pineapple. (The picture below is me putting the pineapple over the cherry). For the cake batter I used a small Jiffy cake mix (follow directions on the box for mixing into a batter) and poured over the pineapple, bake for 10 - 12 minutes until cake is done. Let the cake cool for a couple minutes before removing from pan, but don't let it set too long or the sugar hardens onto the pan. Run a knife around the edge of cakes, put a sheet pan over the muffin pan and invert onto the sheet pan. Any pineapple/brown sugar that stuck to the pan I just spooned out and filled in any cupcakes that needed it. 

Purse Charm

I have a long pompom bag charm that has been on my backpack for years - I've recently been seeing shorter purse charms in the stores and wanted to try making one for my new purse...cuz why leave anything alone if you can decorate it?

I made two small pompoms from yarn - wrap 3 colors of yarn around a 2 inch card 50 times each. Tie off one end, remove from card and cut the other end to create a wild crazy pompom. Then start trimming the pompom until you get the size you want, the shorter you trim it the fuller the pompom will be. I tied the pompoms to a long cord.

On a key ring I added the pompom on cord, additional leather cords, and a ribbon. Look around for charms, buttons, beads - whatever you can find - and add those to the cords and ribbon. I wrapped a short piece of cord around the entire bundle at the base of the ring to keep everything in place and hooked it to my purse.

Black Friday

just thinking about black friday crowds gives me anxiety...

...this is much more me :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey Napkin Folding

Last minute idea for setting your Thanksgiving table. For our Thanksmas dinner I folded some napkins into turkey shapes - I just googled how to do it and found easy to follow instructions from Chinet.

I can't figure out how to post the actual instructions here, if you click above on Chinet it will you take you the written instructions with diagrams, and a video.

Each one took 2 dinner size paper napkins and were very easy to do, doesn't take long at all - super cute addition to your table!

file:///Users/jmpasant/Downloads/Turkey_Napkin_Fold_Diagram1.pdf

Gravy!

 I love gravy and have followed the same recipe for years with total success......
mmmmmmm gravy.

After roasting the turkey drain off the drippings and measure out 1/2 cup of fat (it's easiest if you have a fat separator but you can separate by hand - let the drippings rest in a clear measuring cup until the fat rises to the top then spoon it off). If you don't have enough fat add enough butter to equal 1/2 cup total. Heat the fat in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in 1/2 cup of flour and cook, stirring constantly for a couple minutes to cook off the flour taste. Remove from heat, gradually whisk in 4 cups of broth (I do this very slowly, maybe 1/3 cup of broth at a time stirring constantly until its incorporated into the flour, then add another 1/3 cup... continue adding slowly so you won't have lumps). After all the broth is mixed in, return pan to heat and cook until bubbly, thick, and smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Makes 4 cups and its yummy.

Cookie Cutter Organizing

I have a lot of cookie cutters - and trying to find the one I'm looking for is always a pain. So I decided to organize them a little bit...took me long enough to finally do this! 

I sorted out different categories (Christmas, animals, flowers, etc.) and put them in labeled gallon size zip lock bags and put in a rubbermaid tub. The cutters that are oversized I just put loose in the bottom of the tub. So much easier to find what I'm looking for!

One other quick tip - when I'm rolling out a small batch of sugar cookies I use my big wood cutting board (I actually use the back side, the front side has a groove around the edge to catch juices from when we slice meat), lightly flour and roll out smaller balls of dough to keep on the board. This makes cleaning up the mess so much easier - when I flour the counter it ends up everywhere :).

Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made these (along with pumpkin roll) for my niece's birthday at her request. She found the recipe on Pinterest from the "ambitious kitchen". While making them I was thinking how much work they were and I should have known that a recipe from someone called the ambitious kitchen was going to be challenging but didn't think they were going to be anything special...and then I ate one. I take back that they were too much work, it's totally worth it! Once I figured out how to roll the dough around the nutella it wasn't hard at all,  really - you need to try these cookies.

rolling the dough around nutella

The time consuming part is rolling the dough around the nutella so the nutella doesn't leak out, I followed her directions and then added little bits of dough to any places on the dough balls that I thought might leak and it turned out great - didn't have any that lost it's filling. The final touch is sprinkling coarse salt on top after baking...OMG delish.

a different step for me was browning the butter
before adding it to the dough - browning adds
an almost nutty flavor and smells so good!

Pupcakes!

Happy Birthday to Sarge - he is 3 today.


To celebrate I made him "pupcakes" - I thought he would gulp this down faster than I could take his picture, but he was quite confused actually...we don't give him people food so when I set this down he just stared at it, the only thing he really wanted was the "candle" (he recognized the crunchy stick) and when he accidentally licked the yogurt he sat down and had to think about what to do haha!!

The "cake" base is my regular meatloaf recipe that I divided; before adding the chili sauce, salt and pepper I held out enough meat, bread crumb, egg mixture to make 4 pupcakes and with the remaining mixture I added all the other ingredients (I shaped a few into cupcake portions and the rest I put in a 9" round cake pan like I usually do), topped the people version with glaze made from chili sauce and ketchup (leave that off of the pupcakes tho). I put a baking sheet under the cupcakes to catch any grease and baked them at 350' for about 25 minutes. The 9" pan bakes for 50 minutes or until done.

doggie cakes without glaze

the finished cupcake has plain greek yogurt "frosting", bacon
 bit sprinkles, and a crunchy stick for the "candle"

Leaf Lanterns

Saw this on BHG, had my doubts since I've never seen this done before but since I have everything on hand decided to try it. Look how cute it turned out :)

Click here for full details and video, I'll summarize what I did:

cut 4 wax sheets 12" x 8",  arranged dried leaves on one half of each sheet,  folded them in half  (so I had 4 leaf packets of 6" x 8"), placed an old white t-shirt over top and ironed until the wax paper stuck together.











Then I trimmed each one to 7.5" x 5.75" so they were all exactly the same. Taped together all 4 edges using washi tape in a coordinating color forming a 4-sided lantern. Put around a votive.





 You could make this any size you want, if you can find small leaves it would be cute to have a bunch of little lanterns. I would make sure the paper isn't too close to the flame though, I have no idea how flammable this is? Use good judgement and keep an eye on them just in case (or use flameless candles)!

Personalized Tote Bags

For Thanksmas I made everyone a personalized tote bag in place of a traditional stocking - instead of names I used a picture that made me think of them. 

Picked up some plain tote bags at the craft store (3 for $8 before my coupon) and fabric transfer paper for light and dark fabrics. Just like the Halloween shirts I did for my niece, I downloaded images from my computer and followed the instructions on the transfer paper to iron onto each tote. A very simple project that everyone seemed to enjoy and I had fun creating (and filling!). 

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

My favorite thing to do with end of season cherry tomatoes - I cut them in half (green ones too!) and roast with olive oil, salt and pepper (sometimes I'll put italian seasoning on) at 350' for a couple hours. It's SO good - I put it on anything I can think of, tonight it'll be over creamy polenta. 

I make this any time of the year with store bought cherry tomatoes and it's delish - but of course using home grown tastes the best! 

You can also freeze this, I put in small freezer bags and squeeze out as much air as possible (using my straw method - close the ziplock around a straw and suck out all the air, remove the straw and quickly seal the ziplock to close). 

Thanksgiving Tree

Made this Thanksgiving tree as part of our Thanksmas decorations, saw the idea in a magazine but as usual I can't remember where..

I found a piece of wood in the yard that the tree trimmers must have missed and drilled a small hole in it to fit a branch that I collected on one of our dog walks. Cut some leaf shapes out of  plain and patterned scrapbook paper, wrote a few things that I'm thankful for on the plain ones. Hot glue the leaves to the branch and it's a Thanksgiving tree!

This is how I organize my scrapbook paper - works good for me. In a hanging file holder I have all the paper in different sections (cardstock, 12x12, patterned, smaller sized paper...) and in an expandable folder I keep scraps of paper - I find that I need a small piece of paper for lots of projects so I keep the leftover scraps to use so I don't have to waste a whole sheet when I just need a little. Then I have the paper standing on a shelf in my craft closet along with other types of paper organized in a standing file holder. 

Cookie Stand

For Thanksmas I made cookies - half shaped as turkeys, the other half I did Christmas shapes -  I'm going to have everyone frost their own (will they choose Thanksgiving or Christmas?).  I didn't have a stand to put them on so I stuck a plate and a plant container together to create a temporary one using craft putty/earthquake putty/museum putty (whatever you want to call it!), that way I can take them apart afterwards.

There are other ways to join the pieces together depending on how permanent you want it - you can hot glue them together and still get them apart later by placing the stand in the freezer for a half hour to shrink and harden the glue making it easier to peel off, or for a more permanent solution use craft adhesive. I probably wouldn't use my nice or sentimental dishes to make a stand just in case something went wrong with the hot glue or adhesive though! I got this plate at the craft store on sale and used an old plant container that was in the garage - I tied a bow around it so you can't see how stained the pot is :)

Thanksmas

It's beginning to look a lot like...
Thanksmas?

We don't usually get to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with my sister and family, this year we decided to combine the Holidays so we can be together - it's Thanksmas! I have the dining room set up for Thanksgiving with fall decorations on the table  (note that I did use my ugly centerpiece from class on the table - mixed in with gourds, candles, etc. it looks just fine). I put candy corn and popcorn kernels in glass candleholders to jazz them up a little...




...and the living room is Christmas with a small tree and a few decorations (pillows on the couch, candles on the coffee table, etc). I'll tell you a little secret that I started doing a while ago - I don't take the decorations off this small tree after the holidays...lazy, right? I have a shelf in the basement that I store it on (and another that is the same size but decorated with a doggie theme - milk bone ornaments, etc) covered with a garbage bag, so when it comes time to decorate for Christmas this in one less thing I have to do. Turns out it's perfect for Thanksmas, I didn't have to get out all the Christmas decorations to set up for our early celebration!




Thought it would be fun to have frost-your-own Thanksgiving turkeys or Christmas bells and stars so I made up a few of each and will put out on my new cookie stand (I'll show you how I made it tomorrow), along with vanilla frosting and lots of different sprinkles - it'll be a cute
 little thing to do between eating and opening presents.








Merry/Happy Thanksmas to all!!