So yesterday I decided it was time....I needed to embellish my phone case/cover....here is the final result...

The pearls are from want to scrap.  The rhinestones are from the dollar bin at JoAnns'.  The pearls had adhesive.  The rhinestones I used liquid glass from creative memories to get them to stick.  It took about 5 to 10 min to do...and now I have a one of a kind case for my phone!

Mini muffin appetizers

A long time ago I bought a mini muffin pan thinking I would use it...well since I don't make muffins I've never used it until recently.  Thanks to my pinterest addiction I have found many uses for my pan, all you need are wonton wrappers!  So the other day I made chicken taco's.  Now today, after 3 or 4 meals of chicken taco's I'm kind of sick of them but I still have chicken left.... So I got out my mini muffin pan and wontons.   

So I put the wonton wrappers in the pan and filled them with my left-over chicken.  I like it spicy so I put some drops of siracha sauce on top.  I then baked them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 15 to 20 min., well at least that's how long I intended to bake them for...

Well my ADD kicked in, I had checked them and they only needed 1 or 2 more min. next thing I know I'm bringing in the recycle bin and getting the mail...then I remembered I had something in the oven lol!  So as you can see they are a little burnt.  As my husband likes to say, the kitchen is smokey, Tanya must be cooking :)  So anyway, I pulled them out of the oven, topped them with a little cheese and put them back in the oven (which I had turned off in case I was distracted again) just long enough to melt the cheese.  

I then topped them with sour cream, broke off the burnt edges and ate them.  They were pretty darn good, although next time I'll add more cheese (cause it's my favorite food) and use the timer on the oven lol!

Now the best part about these is you can put whatever in them.  You could do beef taco meat, top with sour cream, guacamole, salsa, or a jalapeno.  You could mix cream cheese with crab and chives or green onion and make baked crab rangoons.  You could put gyro meat with feta and top with tzaziki sauce (not sure if I spelled that right) for a greek version.  You could put mac n cheese in them and have baked mac n cheese bites.  You could skip the wontons and make bite sized corn dogs.  Just slice a hot dog and put a piece in each one and then fill with corn bread batter.  The options are endless and so yummy!!!

Breakfast Burrito's

Hey everyone!  As my mom just pointed out so lovingly to me :)... It's been awhile since I posted anything.  I love you mom!  Anyway, about a month ago I saw a recipe on Pinterest for breakfast burrito's.  Now breakfast is probably my favorite.  I love eggs, sausage, bacon, omelets, hash browns, home fries,....I think you get the idea.  My problem though is, I absolutely hate mornings.  I have to be at work for 7am, which as a non-morning person does not leave me time to make breakfast.  Then I saw this recipe and thought, that would be perfect!!!   I could just grab it out of the freezer and warm it up once I got to work!  so here is the result.

Ingredients:

1lb breakfast sausage (I used turkey sausage)
1 bag hash browns
12 eggs whisked w/ milk (I used one 32oz container of egg substitute, no milk)
Whatever veggies you like in your eggs (I used onions and mushrooms and jalapenos - I like it spicy)
8 in. tortilla shells - enough for all the egg mix.
Cheese of any kind (I used sliced cheddar and sliced pepper jack)

So first I threw the veggies and sausage in the pan and cooked them.  I then took that out of the pan...leaving the grease to fry the hash browns in.  Once the hash browns were done, take them out.  Now put your eggs in  the pan and cook them.  Once they are cooked throw the sausage/veggies/hash browns back in the pan and mix together.  Spoon onto tortilla shells, top with cheese and wrap up like a burrito.  Individually wrap each burrito in saran wrap then store in ziplock freezer bags.

So as you can see above, some are wrapped in saran wrap some I still have to wrap.  Now I kind of ran into a dilemma when making these.  I have to use corn tortilla's due to gluten issues.  For some reason I thought I had like 5 times more corn tortilla's then I actually did.  So as I start filling my tortillas I realize I am going to run out....so I searched the fridge and found some regular flour tortilla's that I had bought for my husband (who does not need to eat gluten free grrrrr!)  Then I ran out of those, so then I found some 10 in four tortilla's and made HUGE breakfast burrito's.  I still had a little bit left...I ate that for lunch that day w/ hot sauce.  They were super yummy!  Since making these I have decided that I really do need to learn how to make my own tortilla's.  As anyone who has used corn tortilla's know's they are NOT user friendly.  They fall apart and crumble which made it very difficult to roll into a burrito.  Also the next time I make them I think I will add green pepper.  Happy Breakfast!

Canning Frenzy

What a busy day today!!!  I have been canning pretty much all day.  My friend Zoi gave me a ton of tomatoes, like 50 cups diced!  Yesterday I did most of the chopping: onions, jalepeno's, green pepper, and of coarse all those tomatoes!  So today I made 20 pints of salsa, 10 pints of marinara, and 4 pints of diced tomatoes with garlic and basil.

Here are the fruits of my labor :)   I used the same recipe for salsa and marinara that I used last year, just switched it up a little bit.  I added cilantro to the salsa and zucchini to the marinara.  The diced tomatoes I kind off made my own recipe after looking at several different recipes online.  Only 1 jar of salsa did not seal...love hearing that popping sound.  Everything else sealed.  So I guess that's the jar of salsa we eat first lol!  I also made a spicy mustard for my husband and I to try, its still chillin in the fridge.  Later this week I plan on trying my hand at Jalepeno jelly and rhubarb marmalade.  Thanks for stopping by!

Yarn wrapped wine bottle

I have yet another pinterest project...Yarn wrapped wine bottles.  I used clear tacky glue to glue the yarn to the bottle, a friend of mine used Elmer's glue, and they both worked perfectly.  Gluing the yarn to the bottle was a little putzy and messy (I had glue stuck all over my fingers) but was pretty easy to do.  Here is the finished product.  

Here is a close up of the charm

The charm is from Fairy Tale Bead Treasures, I bought it at Hobby Lobby.  The twine and the corsage pin are both from close to my heart.  The grapevine that I have sticking out of the bottle I also bought at Hobby Lobby.  The yarn is the same yarn I used for my wrapped letter and it was also purchased at Hobby Lobby.  Happy Crafting!

Lamp shade

So the other day I was on Pinterest (big surprise!) and I saw these cool felt flowers on a lampshade.  I thought that was the perfect way to dress up my lampshade!  For supplies I had 2 pieces of ivory felt and Spare Parts brads from Hobby Lobby, and designer brads from close to my heart.  The lampshade I've had for awhile.

So above are the brads I used, I wanted a different brad for each flower for variety.

Above are the flowers I cut out.  I made three sizes per flower, small, medium, and large.  To cut the flowers I made a little snip (you can see the snip in the middle) inserted the brad I wanted and basically free cut the flower around the brad.  I then but the second layer on and cut that around the 1st layer just a bit larger, and then the same with the 3rd layer.  To add dimension I added a stitch to each petal on the 2nd and 3rd layers.  I then put them all back on the brad and turned the leaves until I liked how they looked.  To attach them to the lampshade I just used a single stitch and tied them on.  I played with them a bit first to find that perfect layout.  

Here is the finished product.

Some up close pics.

And the entire finished product!!!!  The whole thing took me about 1 1/2 hrs to finish.  Looks so awesome in our bedroom!!!  Hope you enjoyed this post!  Thanks for stopping by!

Yarn Letters

So I've been seeing all these cool ideas on pinterest (I'm seriously addicted!) using yarn to wrap items.  So I decided to give it a try myself.  I wanted to wrap a letter to use as decoration on our front door.  Here's how it turned out.

Fortunately it turned out better than I thought it would :)  So I used a variegated yarn to wrap the letter with.  The green flower I found at Hobby Lobby and hot glued it on.  The white lace in the center was just a bit of scrap lace that I ran a stitch through and then pulled tight to make it puffy then hot glued that to the green flower.  I made the corsage pins myself and just stuck them in.  My friend Chrys introduced me to them and now I am addicted.  I make them to put on almost all of my scrapbook pages and other projects!  Here's a close up of the flower.

As you can see, I used a couple of different beads to make the corsage pins.  Thanks for stopping by!

Scrapbook Expo

I went to the scrapbook expo in Milwaukee this past April.  If you ever have the chance to go it is AWESOME!!!  We had a blast!  Even if you're not a scrapbooker, there are supplies for all sorts of mixed media art.  My friend Chrys won this fabulous craft cabinet.  We were quite worried on how we were going to get it back to Green Bay but we just managed to squeeze it into the back of Chrys' SUV!

My Craft Room!

So like I said, I've been very busy working on my scrapbook room....above you can see where I started at, which isn't much lol!  Just bare walls and a couple tables.  So after quite a bit of work on my dad's part (I helped a bit) I now have walls up and electrical installed :)

So now this is what you see from the same view.  I left a window on the right side because the basement window is right there and I like having as much natural light as possible.  Now for the good stuff :)!

This is the left side of my room.  For the desk I used a $20 shelf from Walmart and the top is pre-made from Menards for about $22.  We anchored it to the wall w/ 2x4's and L shaped brackets.  The and green baskets are the perfect size for close to my heart stamps.  I got those at the dollar store.  The green baskets on the wall shelf I got on clearance at Joann's for about $1.50 each.  The awesome ladder shelf that I have my pinter and my cricket on was a gift from my in-laws.  As you can see, I still have a lot of work ahead of me, the ceiling needs to be finished, I have to do something w/ the back wall and the other side of the room.

So far the peg board is my fav!!!!!  I saw this idea on pinterest and fortunately for me the previous owners had left this when we bought the house...score!!!  I put 1/2" thick wood between the holes on the back to attach the hangers to and to also have space between the board and the wall for the pegs.  Then of course I had to embellish it w/ some ribbon.  I hot glued the ribbon to the back and also where the ribbon intersected, otherwise the ribbon would sag.  I bought the smallest diameter round curtain rod that I could find to hang my ribbon.  The buckets I found a Target in the dollar bin.  I still have so much room to hang things!!  I am in love :)!

So I've doing a lot of work on my new craft room!!!  Very excited about this, but I've been on a string of 12hr shifts so...my next day off I'll get some pictures posted.  It's turning out better than I imagined :)

This is my first blog...just figuring out how to get started and all that good stuff!  Plenty more to come soon!