WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO AND SO SHOULD YOU!

The Shrine/ An Argument by Fleet Foxes

I know this isn't newwww, but that's okay! This is one of my all time favorite songs.

-Jerica-

FONTS TO KILL FOR: PART I

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Not to mention, freeee! Now go murder people over these fonts.
If you aren't sure how to install fonts, there is a guide here!

-Jerica-

VINTAGE COOKBOOK UPCYCLE

Well this project was quite tough to name...it's a cookbook upcycle to well... a cookbook! Jerica and I both love to try new recipes and cook for our friends. Inspired by a post from one of our favorite blogs A Beautiful Mess, we both started our own cookbooks. This is a fun alternative to store and archive all of our favorite recipes so it is quick and accessible in the kitchen as we cook (instead of having our laptops in the kitchen- can't tell you how many times I have almost spilled on my laptop)! This if a fun, easy and progressive project you can always be working on. It also gives a lot of room for creativity. As you can see there is no one way to do it and each and every book will be unique and one of a kind.

All you need to do is find a old cookbook that you do not really care for (Jerica and I both picked ours up at the thrift store) and paste in your recipes however you like! Jerica (bottom of image) used different types of scrap paper and magazine pictures for a border around recipes that she edited with cool fonts and printed out on the computer. She also added category tags to section off her recipes in her cook book!

For mine ( image top) I hand wrote my recipes and titles on lined paper and pasted them in. You can really do whatever you want with it! I followed the original book's sections and categories and pasted each of my recipes under the right section.  We both left parts of the original pages visible to preserve the look and feel of the original cookbook. Another cool idea is to add in your own pictures the recipes as well! My book was a little too small for that but maybe for another book! 

-Amy-

CREAMY CHICKEN SAUSAGE PASTA

I devoured this for dinner and then the next day for lunch. It was delicious, quick, and suchhh a comfort food. And I love any dish with wine, my most favorite comfort food. Cause I'm a girl and all. Get it?? ahhahahahahahahhhahha. But back to the recipe....

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 lb hot or sweet Italian turkey or chicken sausage
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/4 cups dry white wine
• 3 1/4 cups water
• 8 oz (2 1/2 cups) penne, ziti, or rotini pasta
• 1/2 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, rinsed, dried, and chopped fine
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup to 1 cup heavy cream or half-and-half
• 6 oz fresh baby spinach
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add sausage, breaking it up with a spoon, and cook until lightly browned. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant (about 30 seconds).
2. Stir in wine, water, pasta, tomatoes, and salt.  Increase heat to medium-high and stir often, until Penne is tender and liquid has thickened.  Stir in 3/4 cup of cream or half-and-half; increase the amount up to 1 cup if the dish needs a little thinning after you add the spinach in the next step.
3. Stir in spinach, one handful at time, and cook until wilted. Remove from heat, add Parmesan and salt & pepper to taste. Enjoy! Recipe adapted from here.                                                            -Jerica-

GRILLED SWEET POTATO WITH GARLIC BUTTER & THYME

 So I have made this snack 3 times since I discovered it... 3 days ago. Only a few ingredients, so tasty and soooomewhat healthy! This was one of the dishes Amy and I were considering for our Thanksgiving Dinner but it ended up not making the cut so I had six sweet potatoes on my hands! I didn't have rosemary so I just used some Thyme and it was delicious. The first time it was for my boyfriend and I as an appetizer, but I ended up eating the whole first batch myself. Whoooops.

 

INGREDIENTS

• 1 large (2 small) sweet potatoes, washed and sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
• 2 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 tsp finely diced fresh rosemary
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• sea salt, sprinkled on top

DIRECTIONS

1. Wash and slice the sweet potatoes into 1/2-inch rounds and place on foil sheet.
2. Melt the butter in a bowl and add the chopped rosemary and garlic.
3. Stir and spoon/drizzle on each round.
4. Lightly salt the tops.
5. Place on grill and cook on low, about 5 minutes each side.

Recipe found here

-Jerica-

DIY CHRISTMAS CARD

 

I recall doing this back in days in one of my art classes- probably in middle school. Its a pretty fun project but a lot harder than I remember. I managed to cut myself 3 times on 3 different fingers. It takes some patience and time. Its cool to have your own custom stamp though! You can do hand drawn typography or print something out and use it as a template! For this project I printed out what I wanted in Helvetica- I love hand drawing type but since this is my first go at this since middle school I decided to just start with something easy. With a hand drawn type I would need draw it out large enough, scan it, print it, etc. Which I plan on doing now that I got the hang of it. I already have some ideas brewwwwwing in my head and tons of doodles in my sketch book.  

Materials:

Linoleum sheet- ( get this from a craft store)

Linoleum Cutter Assortment ( I got mine from amazon!)

Laser Printer

Paper

Iron 

Exacto Knife

Ink

Kraft Card 

1. Design what you want on paper or computer ( if on paper scan it to you computer) 

2. Using your Exacto knife cut out a piece of the Linoleum sheet to fit your design

3. Print out your design on a Laser Printer in Black Ink 

4.Immediately iron it onto your linoleum and push firmly down until the ink transfer over onto the linoleum. If you are doing typography it will transfer on backward- that is why you dont have to worry about mirroring your image before you print.

5. Use your cutter and the appropriate head and start carving around the template printed onto your linoleum. Try to cut it as low as possible without thinning out your linoleum to much.  

6. Ink up your stamp and stamp away! If you have time you can trim a piece of wood to the same size of your linoleum cut out and paste it to the back to give it a better handle. 

haha igonore the fact that my n looks backwards in greetings. I apparently messed up somewhere in the processs ;) but whatever it adds character!What better way to show that its homemade than typos and mistakes. I am sticking with that story! 

-Amy-

DIY: ANIMAL JEWELRY HOLDER

How awesome is this?! This is an inexpensive DIY alternative to the $65 version found here.

That one is still super cute but there's no way I could pay that much! All together this project cost me probably $12 in new material. Not too baaad. I had been watching at the thrift store for a bag of plastic toys but finally gave up and went to Hobby Lobby for some. This was probably the most expensive part at 8 dollars. The wood plaque was half price at 4 dollars.

MATERIALS

Plastic Animals

Wire cutters

Gold Spray Paint

Mod Podge

Gloss spray paint

Hot Glue

DIRECTIONS

1. You may paint the plaque if you want, but I chose to leave mine plain. If you do paint it, let it dry thoroughly then paint mod podge over the entire thing and let that dry. Finish off with gloss spray paint. If you choose not to paint it, simply use mod podge then the gloss spray.

2. Cut the animals. This is the hardest part. I found some very sturdy wire cutters in my house that ended up working great, but use whatever you can use to get these guys cut!

3. Use gold metallic spray paint (got mine from wal-mart) to spray the animals and let dry. You can use any color here, or omit this step entirely. Originally I had left them unpainted but thought it looked kind of kiddy.The gold paint looks soooo adult and sophisticated :)

4. Place a dab of hot glue on the back and press hard until glue cools. I wasn't sure how well this would hold up initially, but it has done just fine. Just don't hang super heavy jewelry on and you should be good!

-Jerica-