Friday Letters.

Man, can it seriously be Friday already?  This week flew by!! Happy almost weekend everyone :)

Dear Weather, I'm totally fine with it being -5 degrees but I would prefer some snow along with it.  I heard it's supposed to rain next week and if that is true you and I are going to have some words.  Dear Rice Krispy Treats, I love you!  Dear Anyone who gave me a Dunkin' Donuts Gift Card for Christmas,  today I had to make my first cup of coffee since Christmas, so thank you for giving me 30 days of deliciousness in the new year.  Dear 3 O'clock, please get here faster. Dear Husband, I'm looking forward to our weekend together and answering some fun newlywed questions tonight! Woot!

Jury Duty Savior - Chocolate Oreo Truffles.

Today I'm at jury duty which I know most people truly hate but it gives me some time to get some posting done and maybe, if I'm lucky some school work too.  But we'll see.  Blogging first....

Something that is seriously saving my day today is the fact that I have a nice little snack waiting for me in my lunch bag.  It's something I made for the first time over the weekend and I need to share this recipe with you because it would be really selfish to keep it to myself.

This past weekend, the salon my sister works at had a CUT-A-THON to benefit Sandy Hook.  I felt the need to chip in and get active in this so I organized a small bake sale to help them bring in some extra money.  Did I mention I had the idea for this bake sale less than 48 hours before the CUT-A-THON?  Nonetheless, I think it came together fantastically and we brought in an extra $100 for the salon's donations!

I tried a few new recipes for this event.  I know, I know - it was a risky move seeing as I was selling the snacks for charity but in the end, it worked out really well.  All of the recipes I tried out are ones I will definitely make again. The one I'm going to share with you today, Chocolate Oreo Truffles is super easy and ridiculously delicious.  I'm warning you now, if you can't controll yourself around chocolate or oreos STOP READING NOW!

Here's what you'll need:

1 Package of Oreo Cookies

1 8oz. container of cream cheese (softened)

4 cups choloclate chips

That's it!  

Here's what you do:

To start off, place your Oreos in a plastic bag and crush the crap out of them.  This can be done with a rolling pin but if you had a particularly trying day feel free to use your fists.  It's great anger management!

Empty 3/4 of your crushed Oreos into a bowl and place the other 1/4 into a seperate bowl. Put the latter to the side for now.

Add  your softened cream cheese to the first bowl of crushed Oreos and mix thoroughly.  Be careful using your hands for this - it's super messy and you'll have a chance to get your hands dirty in just a second.  Patience.

Line a baking sheet with some wax paper or foil.

Here comes the messy part.  Are you ready?  Using a spoon for guidance, role the Oreo and cream cheese mixture into 1 inch balls and place them onto the baking sheet.  When you first start rolling them in your hand it will seem like they aren't going to stay together but keep rolling, it will happen!

Set your baking sheet full of Oreo balls to the side and wash your hands!  Next, melt your chocolate chips.  I prefer to do mine on the stove (low heat, stirring constantly) but you can also do it in the microwave ( 20 seconds and stir, repeat until melted).  

Dip your Oreo balls into the chocolate one at a time, making sure each one is coated completely.  I found the best way to do this was to put the Oreo ball into the chocolate, throw some chocolate on top of it and spread it around until it was completely coated.  Then I used 2 forks to get them out with as little extra chocolate as possible.

Place them back on the tray and sprinkle some of your leftover Oreo crushings on top.

Place in the fridge for at least an hour and serve or eat up!  

Be careful if you pull these out to eat at home as a snack.  It's easy to eat 2 at a time...or 3 or 4 or 7...I suggest making sure you share them with friends so you don't eat the whole batch.

Hope you guys enjoy these as much as I did!

Wedding Weekend - Giving Back to Your Maids!

Hello blogosphere!  Happy wedding weekend.  It's been a while since my first wedding weekend post and I swear I wasn't just procrastinating and being lazy.  I only have so much wedding stuff to post about because, well, I only had one wedding.  So I'll be spreading out my wedding weekends a bit to make my material last for a while.

This week I'll be talking about a little surprise I lined up for my bridesmaids that was easy, quick, inexpensive and fun for my most favorite girls in the world.  Your bridesmaids give so much of their time, money and effort to be apart of your big day.  I truly didn't realize this until I was a bridesmaid, but it's a ton of work.  Who knew? And your girls will do it for you without complaint because they want you to be happy and because they love you.

Attendants Gift Part I: Hand Made Clutch

My bridesmaids did so much for me it would be hard to name it all.  They were there for me on every little detail and every time I needed them, they threw me a kick-ass shower and a damn good bachelorette weekend.  I felt like I couldn't say thank you enough and there wasn't anything I could get that was good enough to repay them for everything they did for me.

Attendants Gift Part II: Converse for dancing!

In the end, I ended up doing a couple things for my girls to say thank you, including some awesome attendants gifts (we splurged a little on these, but again, I just felt like they deserved so much) and a tiny little surprise for the wedding day.



To personalize each of my girls bouquets I added a small picture frame charm with a picture of her and me.  I didn't tell my girls about this, I just arranged it with my florist and when they opened up their box of flowers that afternoon they had a cute little surprise waiting for them.

This project was super easy.  I purchased the picture frame charms at JoAnn Fabrics.  They come two to a bag and they cost me $6 for all six charms.  I'm pretty sure they were having a 50% off sale on these charms which is part of the reason they were so inexpensive, but if you plan accordingly you can definitely get a great deal on them. And they're nice charms too!  They are a nice hefty material, not dinky and cheap.

I originally planned to have the pictures printed through Walgreens or CVS but I realized that it was completely unnecessary.  The pictures were so teeny that I hardly used any ink and just one piece of photo paper (this included a couple of extra prints when I screwed up the sizes).

Picking the pictures was the fun part.  I picked pictures that highlighted how long I had known each girl.  My sisters picture was one of us when I was about 6 months old, a couple of my friends got pictures from high school dances, and some had pictures from college or even later.  My frame had a picture of me with all my bridesmaids from my bridal shower.  It was kinda cool to see the timeline of pictures.

After I had all my pictures printed and ready to go I just cut them down to size and placed them in the frame.  I used a small drop of glue for extra security but they didn't need them.  The first one I assembled I didn't use glue and I had to pry the picture out with a toothpick so I could add the glue in after.  Finally, I dropped them off at my florist and they took care of the rest!

This was something I considered for a while before I did it and I'm so happy that I decided to go for it.  Quick, simple, fun and a surprise for my girls!  Win!

Did you do anything fun for your girls on your wedding day?

Friday Letters.

Yesssss it's Friday!  Here are my Friday Letters this week:

Dear Homework Assignments, any chance you can get yourself done while I sleep?  Maybe?  Dear Baked Goods for the Cut-A-Thon Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to spending some time in the kitchen making you this afternoon.  I'm selling you to people for charity so all I'm asking is that you do everything in your power to turn out good.  You can take care of that, right? Dear Sirius, I know you haven't been out for a while and you have a ton of pent up energy but barking at every noise you hear, whining when I walk by the back door and shoving past me on my way out of the house will not give me more daylight to take you for a walk after work.  You have roughly a month and a half till daylight savings time,  you can do it.  Dear Long Weekend, thank you! Dear Jury Duty, most people hate you, but I'm ok with you, so no worries. See you next Wednesday.

Happy Friday everyone!

Thriftable Thursday!

Today's thriftable thursday is one I have been putting off for quite some time, not because I had better things to post about or because I didn't have time to post about it but because I could not find the item I wanted to post about!

I have been hunting for one of my favorite pairs of boots since November when it was officially acceptable to wear boots again, and I was heartbroken when I couldn't find them anywhere.  They weren't in the crawl space in a box full of winter clothes. They weren't at the top of my closet with the rest of my boots.  They weren't under my bed in my Shoes Under - yup, I said it, I use an as seen on TV product to organize my shoes and I'm damn proud of it.  My favorite boots were missing, never to be seen again!

Photographs by Marisa Pellerin Photography
Check her out here.  She's an awesome photographer!

Come to find out, they WERE under my bed, in between my two Shoes Under shoe organizers.  I found them not too long ago when my husband and I were doing a complete cleaning of our room. We removed our mattress and box spring to sweep under the bed and there they were!  They were right there the whole time! But you know what they say, and I can honestly say it is a truth that absence makes the heart grow fonder and I have officially fallen for my boots all over again.

This pair of boots was one of the first items I purchased at a thrift store that wasn't a joke or part of a Halloween costume. I got them for $15 dollars at Plato's Closet which is a thrift store that specializes in "younger" clothing such as Abercrombie, Aeropostale and American Eagle.  It's a really great store but they don't sell their stuff for super cheap, but it is very reasonable for the type of clothing they sell. You can also sell your clothing to them which is pretty cool!

I purchased these boots about 2 years ago and I still wear them several times a week.  Actually, I wore them today and noticed that they are finally beginning to show some wear and tear which made me very sad.  I've received tons of compliments on them and people ask me all the time where I got them.  I always answer honestly so I can tell people about the awesome deal I got. I love telling people about my thrifting adventures!  It never gets old!

Happy Thursday, everyone!  

Anyone doing any thrifting this weekend?  If so, please do share!

The Honeymoon Period - Fact or Fiction?

This post was inspired by Karla over at Forever Newly Wedded.  As I was catching up on some blog reading today, I read her post about how incredibly lucky she feels to have found her husband and that he chose her.  I feel the same way and a lot of times it's attributed to the fact that I'm a newlywed.

In fact, just yesterday someone asked me how married life is and I responded with "it's amazing".  She laughed and said "Awww that's cute.  You're still in the honeymoon phase."  I know that it's a common joke about marriage - you're only happy as a newlywed, in the honeymoon period but I have to say that I find this statement a little pessimistic and also a little insulting, as if the only reason I'm happy with my marriage is because I'm a newlywed.  I know the person who said it didn't mean it in that way but it really got me thinking.

Now, I'm no marriage expert.  I haven't been married for a decade or even a year.  I haven't celebrated a silver anniversary or a golden anniversary.  But I have been with my husband for six years and we've been incredibly happy for that entire period.  It's because we take marriage seriously and not as something that can be terminated when something goes wrong (coughKimKardashiancough).  We put our relationship as a top priority in our lives.  We don't scream at each other or let ourselves get irritated by the little things. We treat each other with respect always.  We think about each other's feelings.  We talk through our problems.  We learn from our mistakes and we don't let them happen a second time.

I'm not happy with my husband because I'm a newlywed, because if I really look at our lives, nothing except my last name changed when we got married. Our living situation is the same.  We have the same dogs, jobs, cars.  If anything, our lives have gotten more difficult since our wedding with the Sandy Hook shooting and the fact that Jeremie just started back to school for his masters.  I'm not happy because I'm a newlywed.

I'm happy because my husband is my best friend and because of all the reasons I already gave.  I am incredibly lucky to have him in my life and I am so lucky he chose me.  Like Karla, I'm not sure how I got so lucky but I hope I never forget it or take it for granted.

I hope when I ask someone how married life is they say it's awesome just so I can respond with "I totally agree!"

Perfect Penguin Presents!

In November of  2011 I was a Pinterest virgin - those were sad times.  Needless to say, as soon as I was on it I was completely and utterly addicted to it.  I began pinning just a month and a half before Christmas which was prefect timing for me to get some really awesome present ideas.  One of my very first pins was a picture of these super cute penguin ornaments:

I believe this is where that pin originated from.

I'm sure many of you pinners have actually seen this pin as well. Maybe many of you have even tried them out.  Last Christmas I made about 15 of these for my family as stocking stuffers and they were such a hit. Even this year, people see them on my Christmas tree and say "I want a penguin ornament!"  So I made a few more this year and I want to give a brief tutorial with some little tips about how to make these fun, personalized ornaments.

Here's what you'll need:

• 1 60 watt light bulb (white or clear - the nice thing about the 

clear bulbs is that if the paint chips a little 

you can't really see the glass underneath)

• An assortment of acrylic paints including black, white, red, orange, and blue. 

• Various size paint brushes

• Hot glue
• String or ribbon

First things first:

Take your light bulb and make a bowling pin shaped outline on it using your black paint.

Tip: I also found that using a highlighter to make the outline first makes it easier because you can do it over and over until you get your outline right. Then you can trace the highlighter outline with your black paint.  The glass of the light bulb acts like a dry erase board so you can just wipe the highlighter off after you're done!

After you do a few ornaments you'll really get a feel for it and you won't even need the highlighter.

From there:

Fill in the entire area of the light bulb outside of the bowling pin shape with your black paint.  Be careful around the metal part at the top!

You'll need two coats of black paint to really make them look nice.

Tip: Make sure the paint has dried completely on your first layer before you begin your second coat.  The wet paint slides off the glass easily so if you start painting over it before it's totally dry the paint gets pulled off and it looks clumpy and sloppy.

Next:

After your second black coat has dried, begin your first white coat in the bowling pin area (or the face and body) of your penguin. Make sure you take some time to even out the edges of his body and make them look nice and smooth.  Also, check that the sides where his tummy gets fat and round are even.  Meaning, the left side of the body should get fatter in the same place that the right side gets fatter.  Otherwise you'll end up with a lopsided penguin!

Again, wait for your first coat to dry and apply a second coat.  Take the time to make the edges of his body as nice as possible!


Finally:

Using your colored paints make two small blue eyes, an orange beak and two small rosy cheeks (I used my red paint with some white mixed together instead of buying a whole thing of pink acrylic).  To do the names and date I freehand it.  If you don't feel comfortable doing that you could probably print and cut out a stencil and then paint over them onto your penguin or possibly even try a light colored chalk to write them out first!

Tip: The end of your paint brush works really well the eyes, beak and rosy cheeks.  It's teeny and it leaves perfectly round marks!


Last but not least:

Throw a glob of hot glue on top and stick a string/ribbon loop on it. 

Tip:  Check out how big your loop is before you glue it on by holding it to a tree branch and seeing how low your ornament will hang, keeping in mind that your penguin will weigh it down a bit.  The first time I did it, I just estimated (I don't know what I was thinking because I'm really awful at guessing lengths) and it was such a huge loop that I didn't have enough space between tree branches to hang my little guy!