Week 14: Holiday Sangria

Hi all!

I don't know about anyone else, but during the holidays I like to meet up with my friends and have some lovely drinks and good conversation.  This past Saturday I got the chance to hang out with my friends and I brought over a nice holiday sangria that I found on Pinterest (actually, I have at least 3 sangria recipes I want to try from there, but this one was specifically called holiday sangria and it had a bunch of fall-ish ingredients).  I had no idea making sangria was so easy.  Throw a whole bunch of ingredients together and let sit over night or so.

Inspiration Pin-
http://pinterest.com/pin/191191946650321988/

Here is the website I got the recipe from.  And honestly, I picked this sangria because the website is Deep South Dish, and honestly, southerners can cook, so why wouldn't I pick this sangria!  This site also has a bunch of other good drink recipes I want to try too.

Ok, so straight from the website, here are your ingredients:

1 bottle (750 ml) of red zinfandel (note: I did not use a red zin.  I used Rene Barbier Mediterranean Red.  For you Denver/Boulder peeps, the lovely liquor store attendant told me this is the Red wine they have used at The Med for their house red and also their red sangria.  I've had The Med's sangria.  I was SOLD and it was $5.99 and cheaper than the red zin I picked out that was $7.99)
4 cups of Cranberry Juice (I used Ocean Spray regular cranberry juice)
2 cups of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
1 cup of Orange Juice (I used Tropicana no pulp)
3/4 cup of simple syrup (note: I had no clue how to make this and googled it.  I did the 2:1 ratio of 2 parts sugar to 1 part water and I did the boiling method; more on that later.  Apparently you can also buy simple syrup)
1 apple (I used Honeycrisp), unpeeled, cored, quartered, and sliced thin (I don't read directions and I peeled my apple).
1 orange, halved and sliced thin
1 lemon, halved and sliced thin
1/2 cup fresh cranberries (not pictured)
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds

Optional for after the sangria is made:
San Pellegrino Sparkling Water (I bought the Target version)

Let me start by saying this.  If you missed the memo like I did about needing the simple syrup (again because I apparently choose not to read), it is easy to make.  Before I started anything else, I made the simple syrup.  I brought my water to a boil and then poured in the sugar.  And then you stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.  Take off the heat and let it cool.  While it's cooling...

Prep your fruit.  Heck, if you want to get fancy go ahead and pre-measure your liquids.  Once you're ready, combine all of your ingredients in a large storage container (it would also be useful if this is also the same container you're going to use to serve your sangria).  Stir your sangria and taste and adjust to your liking (I found this is definitely on the sweeter side.  If you like a drier sangria, I'd say add some more wine or cranberry juice).  Chill 4 hours or overnight (I let mine sit for 16 hours.  I did try it when I first got up (so 8 hours) and it did taste really good, but I think the 16 hours was real nice).  Stir before serving and transfer to your serving container if you did not prep in the serving container.

The lovely people on Deep South Dish also say to use tongs to get out the fruit and put in each glass, with ice, pour the sangria and leave some room for your sparkling water.  I would say if you want to make this sangria in the summer, you really don't need the cranberry fruit or the pomegranate seeds since the fruit itself doesn't really add the the sangria or absorb the sangria.  However, if you're like me and like to eat the fruit, it is very tasty in general.  They also tell you on the website that the flavor is really coming from the juices, so you can use red or white wine.  They suggest cabernet sauvignon, merlot, rioja, shiraz, or beaujolais.

Here is my final product:

Final verdict: MAKE THIS!!!  This is actually really good to do at the holidays because all of the juices I used were on sale at Target, and most of the fruit was too.

Week 13: Christmas Window Display

Hi all!

While I know that it isn't even Turkey Day yet, I did do some Xmas decorating this past weekend.  I felt I was justified because I wouldn't have been able to decorate our window once the Christmas tree went up, so I had to start now (or at least this is how I reasoned it out to Scott.  It had nothing to do with the fact I bought a whole bunch of cheap Xmas stuff at IKEA and Michael's...).

I have been wanting to do some kind of window treatment for our arched window for the (almost) whole year we have lived here, but I didn't know what to do.  When I saw my inspiration pin, I knew I could either use the Command hooks or tape to keep that sucker up and I didn't need to have a curtain rod to hang the garland.

Here are a couple of alternatives I could have gone with, or you could go with too.  If you hate garland, you can always just tape the ribbons to the wall or you could tie the ribbon around a curtain rod (again, if you have one).  Also, I would imagine if you have a curtain rod, you can just wrap the garland around the rod or tape it to the rod.  All that being said, onto the pictures!

Inspiration Pin- http://pinterest.com/pin/191191946650241636/

My materials:
Ornaments
Various Ribbon and Twine
Big Red Bow
Garland
Command Strips
Tape

First, I made sure my 9 ft would actually fit around the arch, and it did (I did measure before hand).  If you have too much garland, you can double the garland over or cut to where appropriate.  I also stuck my mini- Command strips up and let those sit for the suggested hour while I was prepping my garland.  Now, I would highly suggest using the regular size strips because they can hold up more weight (not that this is particularly heavy, but I guess each of these mini strips only hold up to 1/2 pound each and you won't have to use tape to also hold this project up like I did when it started to fall.  I only got the minis because Michael's didn't have the full size ones in the check out line area and I really didn't feel like making a second trip to Target).

Next I "fluffed" the garland so the branches were separated and the garland looked full.  Next I determined my halfway point wrapped my bow around a branch.  I originally started planning out the garland and the length of the ribbons on the floor, but with the dog passing threw this became impossible, so I hung the garland and worked from there.  Considering I couldn't get the correct arch in the amount of room I had anyway, this worked just fine.

The rest was really easy.  I just picked out my ornaments and held up the length of ribbon or twine I thought would look nice.  I wanted to add more ornaments, but Scott did think it would start to look cluttered considering I used some larger ornaments.

Here is the finished product (I think it came out real cute!):

By the way, the Michael's near me had grab bags for $2 each.  Here is everything I got in my 2 bags (I also got a 3 pack of 8x10" canvas flat panels not pictured).  30 flowers, a fall wreath, 2 halloween sticker books, a 2 pack of candles, a fall bow, and 2 sets of scented pine cones.

I estimated the retail value to $125.50 (most of the items still had the original tags on them) and I spent $4.00!!!

Week 12: Canvas Artwork

Hi all,

So I wanted to make some artwork I could hang up post holiday season, and I asked for Scott's feedback since he's been so good about my projects.  I decided to do some spray paint art in Denver Nuggets colors (as close as I could at least).  Again, since I am sooo behind on my posts, I'll post an in-depth tutorial later, but here is the basic gist.  Pick out a canvas to the size of your liking (I had 3 12x12" wrapped canvas that were on sale for 1/2 price at Joann's).  Get some masking tape and make random patterns.  Make sure the tape is bubble free so the spray paint doesn't bleed under.  Then spray paint.  I suggest 3 coats and let them dry pretty well in between.  When completely dry, remove tape.

Inspiration Pin-
http://pinterest.com/pin/191191946650269138/

My materials:

The process:

End Results:

Week 11: Fall Tulle Wreath

Hi everyone!

Keeping with the fall theme, I wanted to tackle making a wreath.  There are TONS of wreath ideas out there (see pins below), and yet, I had issues finding blog tutorials out there.  I talked to one of my coworkers who is SUPER crafty and took her advice on how to make this project. a couple of weeks ago, Joann's had a 60% off sale on tulle by the yard (depending on the kind).  So I got a bunch of tulle for REAL cheap (less than $15 as opposed to close to $25-$30).  Not knowing how much I would need, I ended up with about 24 yards in 9 different colors.  I also got an 10 inch wire wreath form for $2.49.

Since I am soooo far behind on my posts, I wanted to put up some pictures (just in time for Thanksgiving) if anyone wants to tackle this!  I was originally going to make this with an 18" wreath and do big chunks of colors, but decided to switch to the 10" wreath and alternate the colors.  SO EASY.  And since I didn't have to glue anything, it was really easy to start over and move colors around as needed :)

The incredibly short version of this tutorial is the following.  I cut the colors into 15" long strips (my tulle came doubled over when I unwrapped it from being cut at Joann's, and this was perfect) and they were about 6" wide.  I believe I used 81 strips altogether (9 different colors, 9 strips of the same color).  I just did a slip knot around the wreath form and "fluffed" the ends of the tulle so it would look nice and full.  I also hot glued some leaves and fall twigs to a ribbon and tied that ribbon around the wreath (so that I could take off the leaves and twigs if I hated it).

Pins-
http://pinterest.com/pin/191191946650255544/

http://pinterest.com/pin/191191946650255552/

My materials:

Putting the wreath together:

The optional materials to add the leaves and twigs:

Gather and bundle to your liking (I used floral wire) and then hot glue to ribbon:

When dry, tie ribbon with leaves around the wreath:

Final Product:

Since I did get this up so late; here is a Pin of an Xmas version that could be made too :)  This one has felt flowers, but you could do the same thing with ribbons and hot glue like I did.

Pin- http://pinterest.com/pin/191191946650255546/

Week 10: Halloween!

Hi everyone!

I love the fact that I can use Pinterest for holidays, and so can my friends.  I went to a halloween party on 10/29/11 and I decided to try to experiment with eye make up.  I unfortunately, did not get a good close up of my eyes, but I'll tell you I used and what I tried to do!  My costume was a Devil in a Blue Dress and I thought it would do so so so fun to try to do up my eye makeup.  I really have no clue how to do my eye makeup, but I figured it was halloween, so it wouldn't be a huge deal if I screwed it up.  I wanted the eyes to be a tad evil-ish looking and found a pin to help me.

The inspiration-
http://pinterest.com/pin/364130088/

First I needed the make up.  I have a few blacks and greys, but no red.  I wanted to keep it cheap because realistically, when am I ever going to wear red eye make up???  After searching high and low in Target, I saw the ELF Never Too Much Palette; 144 eye shadow pieces for $15.  I figured, I may not use a majority of these colors, but many of the browns/bronze colors were so pretty, I was able to justify the $15.  I also decided to experiment with some liquid eye liner, so I picked up a black liner from Almay.

Basically, at this point, I just went for it.  I first primed my eyes with Benefit's "That Gal", then I applied their "Some Kind of Gorgeous" (foundation faker) all over my eyes and under my eyes just so everything looked even, and then for a final touch I applied their "High Beam" for a good base highlighter to my brow bone and the crease of my eye.  Then I started to apply the various greys, blacks, and reds.  It was very fun :)

Also, my friend Allison used Pinterest for all of her snacks!  Here are some pics :)

Week 9: Pumpkin Cupcakes

Hi all,

I haven't baked in forever!  I love to bake in the fall and the winter, especially at Halloween as I feel like that's a neglected baking holiday (although, it looks like more and more people are baking for Halloween from all the stuff I see in Target, Wal-Mart, Michael's, and Joann's, but I digress).

I am heading off to brunch today with some of my girlfriends and said I would bring dessert, as I needed a blog for this week anyway!  I have seen the 2 ingredient cake mix and pumpkin filling EVERYWHERE, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I'm sorta surprised I'm only just hearing about it since it looks like the original from Robin Sue at Big Red Kitchen has been posted since 2008!!!  If I also had the mason jars that I didn't see the point in buying right now, I woulda baked these bad boys in there (scroll down her blog for ideas), but cupcakes it will be.  I really wanted to make the apple cider glaze that she made with the cake, but I figured since I was doing cupcakes, I'd go with some Cream Cheese Frosting.  Of course, I can't find my recipe that I liked anywhere.  So I figured the lovely pinners at Pinterest could help me out.  Low and behold, this one recipe from Not So Humble Pie kept popping up and getting repinned, I figured it had to be good, especially since she uses this recipe for a whole bunch of stuff on her website.  So here we go.

Pins that inspired-

http://pinterest.com/pin/357157023/

http://pinterest.com/pin/367558829/

Let me tell you, the prep time took longer than the rest of this.  SO EASY (ok the frosting was a bit of a challenge because I didn't realize you had to WHIP the heavy cream, but I'll address that later).

Here are my ingredients-
1 Box of Betty Crocker Yellow Cake (really, you can use any cake.  I had one friend do this with chocolate and another who used Spice Cake.  The list really goes on)
1 15oz Can of Libby's Pumpkin (you can use whatever you want for the pumpkin, the Libby's was there.  Again, I've seen variations that use other pie fillings and yogurt)

So, I preheated the oven to 350 while I was out walking the pooch.  When I got back in, I lined my cupcake pans.

Next, I opened up the cake mix and then poured in the pumpkin and mixed for 2 minutes.  Now, those of you who made the cinnamon pancakes, the consistency is about the same.  VERY thick!  I filled the cupcakes up about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up.  I only got 18 cupcakes out of this as opposed to the usual 24.  I did notice these bad boys rise a tad more too.  I baked for about 19 minutes (tested with toothpick to make sure the toothpick came out clean).  I took them out and let them cool.

Next, the cream cheese frosting.  I only made half the recipe that Not So Humble Pie made and all was well.
3/4 c powdered sugar (you can add more to make a little stiffer so it's easier to pipe if you want to be fancy)
8oz of cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 c heavy cream

So because I'm super awesome, I did not read the recipe all the way through before making.  Here is my suggestion.  You should make the whipped cream first.  You need to whip it until it forms stiff peaks (aka whipped cream).  Then you'll incorporate that into the rest of the frosting. I'll share what I did.

First, beat with a paddle attachment, the cream cheese, powdered sugar (which I did not sift b/c I tend to think the frosting comes out a little off, but to each his own), and vanilla until smooth and no lumps.  Then I saw I had to actually turn the heavy cream into whipped cream.  For other recipes I had normally just poured it straight in, not so much.  So I tried to actually use a whisk and that was going to take forever.  Luckily, I did not use my whisk attachment, but I did use my actual bowl that fits on the KitchenAid.  I didn't want to empty out the already sitting frosting because I was going to have to beat this all together anyway so, I stood there and held the bowl under the KitchenAid until I got my stiff peaks.  If Scott hadn't already left for the day, I would have made him take a picture because I looked ridiculous.  Anywho, when that was all done, I incorporated the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture and very briefly (like less than a minute) beat the two mixtures together.  I let the frosting set up in the fridge for a bit.

Because I was running late (as per usual), I decided everyone could frost their own cupcakes!

Overall, I think this was super easy and came out really well.  It isn't a normal cupcake consistency (as one of my friends said, it was a tad crumbly), but it was still really good!  I'd say definitely try this one out :)

Week 8: Antique and Glitter Pumpkins!!

Hi all,

Brace yourselves.  It's Sunday and I'm posting my blog ON TIME!  Yesterday was beautiful and I figured it may be one of the last weekends that I could go outside and spray paint without freezing my tail off, so I got real crafty yesterday.  I was going to wait and save this post until next week, but I figured in case anyone got inspired and wanted to do glitter and antiqued pumpkins this week, I'd get to posting :)

I have decided that I really enjoy the fact that I have decided to have more of a "Fall" theme instead of strictly Halloween.  First, I can keep these up through Thanksgiving (for the most part).  Second, I figure with the money I am spending to make these crafts, I should be able to enjoy them for more than a couple of weeks.  For you Crafty McCraftersons who already own a bunch of this stuff  (read spray paint, gloves and masks, masking tape, etc), I'm sure these already pretty cheap projects are even cheaper for you.  I am finding this is starting to be the case for me too, thank goodness.

Enough of the justification of spending money to decorate; on to the pins!

The pins of glitter and antique pumpkins are endless.  Instead of posting a bunch of pins, here is one that has both-
http://pinterest.com/pin/329499638/

First, I'm going to go over the glitter pumpkins.

Here is my disclaimer/advice on these glitter pumpkins that I haven't really read anywhere else, so I apologize for the massive paragraph of advice I'm about to give you.  You can make these pumpkins a bunch of different ways.
1) Krylon now makes glitter spray paint.  This is the way you should probably go.  I would have done this if I hadn't already bought glitter and spray adhesive.  I thought this would be WAY easier than option two-
2) Glue or Mod Podge and then glitter.  I really didn't want to have to sit there and paint glue on a pumpkin and have it drip everywhere.  The advantage to this though, would be that you could probably do these inside.
3) Spray adhesive and glitter (the route I went).

Now, if you decide to do spray paint pumpkins and glitter pumpkins in the same day (and you aren't going the glitter spray paint route), here is some advice.  I would suggest doing the spray paint pumpkins first, and here is why:  SO YOU DON'T HAVE GLITTER EVERYWHERE (glitter sticks to everything in case you live in a cave and didn't know this).  Now, the only reason why I didn't follow my own advice that I had thought of the night before is because it was a tad windy outside.  I didn't want spray paint blowing everywhere (like in my face before I had bought the mask and gloves).  I thought I could just do the glitter pumpkins inside...  WRONG (for me personally at least).

Here was my process and my materials-
Pumpkins from Walmart $5 for 8 and some random leaves.
Masking Tape
Paper plates
Glitter (I refused to buy Martha Stewart's $4 glitter, I wanted to, but glitter shouldn't cost $4 per color).  I went with $0.97 from Walmart and $5ish variety pack (I think there was 12 or 14 mini bottles) from Michael's
Spray Adhesive (I got it at Michael's for $6; apparently Wal-Mart had it for $4 or $5).
Clear Acrylic Sealant
Newspaper (or anything to lay down to catch the glitter.)
(the other spray paint and coffee filter is for the antiqued pumpkins)

I decided to use the lighter color pumpkins because I wasn't positive how coverage would work.  After making these, you can use whatever color you want, the glitter will cover.

Some blogs say to use painters tape to cover the stems, but I used masking tape and it worked just fine.  I highly suggest doing this so you can grip onto something that isn't covered in glitter.  Plus, you'll smudge the glitter if you pick up the pumpkin and it kinda makes a mess and it's hard to fix the mistake (trust me, I did this by accident).

My original idea was to run outside, spray on the adhesive, and come back in and glitter.  This is why that wasn't the best idea- that spray adhesive stinks just as bad as spray paint, if not worse.  Plus the poor dog kept wanting to run back and forth with me.  I packed everything up and moved outside.

So I resprayed the pumpkin and started to sprinkle on the glitter.  Martha Stewart says to sprinkle the glitter in sections, and once coated, move onto the next.  Maybe it was because it was windy, maybe it was because it was 8 am and I didn't have coffee, but this didn't really matter as much.  I tried a variety of techniques- in sections, doing the top first, rotating and sprinkling; it all pretty much worked the same for me.  What I did do was have 2 paper plates in rotation.  The first one caught the glitter.  Then, I switch out the first one (full of glitter) with a clean one and sprinkled the glitter from the plate over the pumpkin (so now i had 2 glitter filled plates).  This worked pretty well.  The cool thing about the spray adhesive is, you can respray it on while you're waiting for the pumpkin to dry so you can do the second layer of glitter.  I don't know how many "layers" I did per se, but here are pictures of just one layer and then pictures after i resprayed and used more glitter.
"one layer"

"resprayed"

I let them sit for a little bit (mostly because it was windy and I had glitter going everywhere and I wanted to clean up before I started the sealant).  Another piece of advice.  Use gloves.  I still have sealant on my nails today (no glitter, thank God).  Ok, moving on.  I followed the directions on the can.  I did 4 or 5 short bursts that covered the pumpkin.  I let them sit for 15 minutes and then sprayed side to side.  I let them sit for 15 mins again and repeated.  3 coats seemed to work well.  After they were dry, I took off the masking tape.

My final verdict- this would have been better if it weren't windy.  It was actually really funny and I laughed a lot, but it was still sort of a pain.  Advantage to glitter is you can do so many colors!!!  My Michael's glitter was much more shiny than my walmart glitter, but the walmart glitter gave the pumpkins a vintage-y and more refined feel.  I don't think the glitter spray paint comes in as many colors.

Next, the antiqued pumpkins-
Krylon spray paint in Black (flat finish)
Krylon spray paint in White (flat finish)
Krylon brushed metal spray paint in Nickel (satin finish)

These were so easy.  Lots of techniques you can use.  I went the lazy route and only used spray paint.  I tried to layer the spray paint and wipe every with a coffee filter and foam brush; this did not work.  It would have worked with actual stain, which I did not buy.

First pumpkin- I just sprayed with the Nickel and I LOVED it.

Second pumpkin- I sprayed white (which was adorable) and then I sprayed with the nickel (this was when I tried that trick and it didn't work).  I resprayed with nickel.
Third pumpkin- I sprayed with black and then I added the nickel on top.  AWESOME.  Repeated with fourth pumpkin, when a happy mistake happened.

The wind picked up and some of the black went onto pumpkin #1 (which is the pumpkin on the left in front, you can't really see on this angle).  It looked AWESOME.  So I did quick bursts of black over the nickel.  Final verdict- this was great!  You can also do these in other colors (like the gold and bronze in the pin above), but I liked my color palette I had.

Here is what my mantel looks like-

From Left to Right- Orange Pumpkin I bought on sale (from Michael's) on spray painted candle stick (from week 5), black glitter pumpkin (using Michael's glitter), spray paint antiqued pumpkin (black, then nickel finish), orange/rose glitter pumpkin (using Wal-Mart glitter), spray paint antiqued pumpkin (white, nickel, black finish), Mod Podged pumpkin and spray pained candle stick (from week 5), orange glitter pumpkin (Michael's glitter), spray painted antiqued pumpkin (nickel, black), black glitter pumpkin (Wal-Mart glitter), spray paint antiqued pumpkin (black, nickel finish), and purchased antique pumpkin (from Michael's on sale) on spray painted candlestick (from week 5).

Love, Love, LOVE all of my fall decorations :)

Keep on pinning,
Marissa