Wooden Letters

These are on the mantle in my Dining Room. A fun and easy craft to personalize any room in your house (I have the letters Joy for Christmas). Pick up plain wooden letters at your local craft store. Pick out paper that match the room you are decorating, trace in pencil the letters and cut them out.I painted the edges and back a coordinating paint color.  I used modge podge to put the paper on each letter. I added little embellishments such as a key and heart. I modge podged on top to keep the paper and embellishments together on the letter. This is also fun to do if you want to do a big initial or you can also hang them on a wall with a pretty piece of ribbon.

Necklace Holder

I needed something to hold my bulkier necklaces because I was running out of room in my jewelry box. I browsed etsy and saw an idea I loved and figured I could make it in the colors I love. I still have to get Kyle to hang this up for me in our bedroom but I wanted to share some photos. It's painted a dark gray to match our bedroom which is a lighter gray. I got the knobs from Target, the paint from Lowes and the flowers from my scrapbook collection that I added jewels to the center.

To make get a 2x4 at Lowes and had dh cut it to 20" long (you can make this any length you wish), completely sanded all sides of the piece of wood. Marked out dots for Kyle to drill the holes in for me. I painted a few coats of my paint, added the knobs on and added the flowers. The flowers perfectly cover up any inperfections in the wood.

Black and White Smore Cookies

Black and White cookies are one of my favorite cookies and when I found this recipe on pinterest from The Good Life Eats blog I had to make it. They were really good and dh isn't a big sweet person and he loved them.

• 1 1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup softened butter

For the marshmallow icing:

• 1 cup marshmallow creme
• 1 - 1 1/2 tsp hot water

For the chocolate icing:

• 4 oz semi sweet chocolate
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp corn syrup

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Combine cracker crumbs, flour and baking powder and set aside.
3. Creme the milk and butter till combined. Slowly add in the dry mixture and mix till combined.
4. Drop tablespoon sized balls on a cookie sheet about 2" apart
5. Bake 8-10 minutes.
6. Let cool before icing.
7. Combine all chocolate icing ingredients in a bowl and microwave, stirring in 30 second intervals till melted and combined.
8. Use a spatula to spread on half of each cookie.
9. Stir marshmallow creme with 1 tsp of hot water and stir till smooth. If too stiff to spread, add 1/2 tsp hot water.
10. Spread on other half of each cookie.
11. Place cookies in refrigerator to set.



Grilled Pizza

I love when the weather warms up and Kyle starts to grill more. Saves me on those nights I'm not in the mood to cook, especially on those really warm summer days when you don't want to heat up the house with the oven. We do a mix of toppings for our grilled pizza. Sometimes I make the dough, other times we have this small amazing market up the road we can buy homemade dough at. We do a variety of toppings, for these pictures we used my homemade sauce, mushrooms, fresh mozzarella and pepperoni. I got this grill pan a few years ago at Williams Sonoma.

As you can see no grilling experience would be complete without our grill helper - Princess. Can't wait till we grill up some pizza again.

Chocolate Chip Banana Cake

I've been a bad blogger and am going to try and post a lot more often. A friend of mine had a bunch of bananas and shared them with me. I wanted to make something different instead of my usual banana bread or muffins and I remembered this cake I saw while watching the Chew. It was amazing so I had to share.

• 2 Cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup softened butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4-5 mashed bananas
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips or chunks

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9x13 baking pan
2. Beat butter and sugars till fluffy, add egg.
3. Add vanilla and bananas and mix till combined.
4. In separate bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt.
5. Mix dry ingredients into wet and mix till combined.
6. Stir in chocolate chips and place in baking pan.
7. Bake 35-40 minutes.