Catching Up

Whew! So sorry for the lapse in blogging. Didn't intend on taking a 2-month hiatus, but it sure was nice to just relax after the holidays!

In January, Travis and I celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary! For our anniversary, we decided to cook an oriental-themed meal complete with sushi and fried rice!

In February, we took a trip with our friends to Breckenridge, Colorado. We were so glad for the time away from work and Lubbock. It was great to see everyone! We had a group of 10-12 for the long weekend. We stayed in a ski-in/ski-out cabin that was lovely! We did joke that the cabin was more of a pole-in/ski-out because the run that ended by the cabin was pretty flat.

I've also had the opportunity to go back to Rockwall in the past couple of months. My Nonnie turned 84! We had a lovely get-together with family. My mom came up with an awesome idea: create a poster that had 84 reasons why we love and appreciate Nonnie. It was so great to get to sit down and actually think about all the many reasons why I love her with all my family.

More new posts to come soon!

Christmas Gifts 2011

This year Travis and I decided to make Chex mix for our co-workers. Not just any Chex mix. Pumped up Chex mix! We settled on 4 different kinds: Original, Chipotle, Apple Cinnamon, and Dark Chocolate Coffee Toffee. (I bet you can't guess which one was my favorite! Ha!)

The recipes we used were modified from the basic recipes on the Chex website. Of course we couldn't keep them all the same!

Our chipotle chex mix was modified to include canned chipotle in adobo instead of powdered chipotle. The apple cinnamon chex mix was modified to include cinnamon chex and cinnamon apple chips. The dark chocolate coffee toffee chex mix was modified to include dark instead of semi-sweet chocolate, extra pecans, big chunks of Heath bar, and Starbucks Christmas Blend instant coffee!

 We packaged them in treat boxes from HobLob with that great black/red/white ornament motif. Love it! Also, I saw some cute red glitter gift tags for sale while I was shopping for the treat bags. Unfortunately, they had "To" and "From" written on the back, and they were made with crummy glitter (that kept falling off everywhere). So....I made my own! The glitter paper in the scrapbook aisle was $1.99. It cost exactly the same to make 12 ornament tags as it would have been to buy them. Only mine don't shed glitter everywhere, and I wrote whatever I wanted on the back.

Here's another perfect bow! (squeal!)

Christmas Presents 2011

Our wrapping theme is red, black, and white to go along with our Scarlet and Black Tree this year. I found all of my wrapping paper at HobLob over the past 3 years. I tried to stick with graphic prints in the target colors. Polka dots, stripes, and swirls. Also, HobLob had a whole black, red, and white sparkly ornament line of Christmas decor this year! Yum!

Also, note that there are no plastic-y bows to be found! Mr. Baxter and Mr. Winston love plastic-y bows...and curly ribbon...and sparkles. So, in order to avoid a ginormous vet bill, we opt for classic fabric bows. A tad more pricey, but not as expensive as an x-ray and surgery for the little ones!

I love tying bows. I don't know why. Just plain old bows. Not fancy ones. I love the look of a perfectly tied fabric bow.

I also added a few embellishments this year, including a sparkly snowflake and some jingle bells.

Christmas Tree 2011

Our house is a perfect Christmas house. I know a lot of people say this, but ours is, too! We have a great space to entertain, a warm and neutral palate that compliments Christmas colors, and a perfect spot for our tree right in front of the window!

We didn't have a Christmas tree for our first Christmas. I saved a bunch of money for a whole year so that I could buy Christmas ornaments on the day after Christmas. Then, I saved a bunch of money for another whole year so that I could buy our perfect first tree. We ended up having to call the tree company because the middle strand of lights was out, but it was well worth it!

And let me tell you...this is our perfect first tree!

Our tree is a red, black, and silver Texas Tech tree! Since we are both alumni living in Lubbock, we figured there would be no better time in our lives to have such a tree. We've been collecting Texas Tech ornaments to add to the shatterproof (kitty-proof) red and black bulbs.

It's still a work in progress (as every tree is), but I'm so happy with (and proud of!) what has taken 3 years to come together!

Tacky Christmas Sweater Invites Round 2

So earlier I showed off 2010's Tacky Christmas Sweater Invites. Here are this year's invites!

• To make these, I used my Silhouette Studio to create mini sweater outlines which I arranged into a Christmas tree shape.
• Then, I printed the invites on white cardstock using St. Nicholas font. 
• After printing and drying, I used my Silhouette SD to cut out the Christmas tree sweaters.
• I glued glitter cardstock in appropriate colors to the back of the cardstock and mounted it on some more glitter cardstock. (The tackier, the better!)

Once again, I hope everyone is enjoying this holiday season!

Tacky Christmas Sweater Invites Round 1

Fact: I love Christmas weather.
Fact: I love Christmas time.
Fact: My house is a perfect Christmas house.
Fact: I like to have fun and be goofy.
Fact: It's Tacky Christmas Sweater Party time!

Invitations are an easy way to spend extra creativity. Also, they're necessary for a part-ay. There are some important things to remember when crafting your invitations.

1) Crafting invitations is not cheaper than making them (unless you use what you already have...in which case they're free!). Well, its not cheaper than the invitations I would buy (but I'm a cheap-o with paper products), but it may be cheaper than custom ordered invites.

2) Buy on sale. Buy on clearance. Or with a coupon. Basically never pay full price for your paper or craftiness supplies. Most stores have email coupons, newspaper coupons, online coupons, and in-store coupons. Use them.

3) Plan ahead. I always plan my cards out in powerpoint or paint.net so I know what they'll look like, print like, and what supplies I need.

These are last year's invites. I love that each one is different.

• The font I used was Bodie MF Holly found here.
• First, I printed on the white card stock in green and red.
• Second, I matted the invite on red or green card stock.
• Third, I cut out and glued my sweaters from glitter paper in red, green, and silver.
• Finally, I glued on my embellishments and sequins to create a truly tacky sweater.

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season!

Halloween Cake Pops

Whew! It has been a crazy couple of weeks.

Quick catch-up before the cake pops...

The Mortons (+ a few others) came to visit for the Texas A&M v. Texas Tech game. We had a house full of Aggies (I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere). The tailgating was great! More on the recipes from that later.

My sweet husband and me.

 My two Aggie sisters!

Travis's Grandfather passed away the following week somewhat unexpectedly. He was well-loved. We went home to be with family and were able to help out some. It was great to be able to share all our memories.

The next weekend brought a Texas Rangers loss and a huge Red Raider win. One week later we had an opposite experience (which was quite painful!). Travis's parents came to visit, and we had a great time tailgating!

On to the cake pops!!

I love chocolate. Not sure if I've expressed that enough. I also love brownies. I eat too many. Solution? Brownie cake pops! 

I used my Babycakes Cake Pop Maker. There's a bunch of recipes online, and much debate about boxed recipes. I threw caution to the wind (when my family was visiting) and gave these little guys a try. Result? Delicious!

Step 1: Mix
Mix up your boxed brownie mix. I used the recipe for thicker/cake-like brownies.

Step 2: Babycakes!
Preheat your Babycakes Cake Pop Maker.

Step 3: Zip Trick!
Load up your brownie mix into a big old Ziploc bag (I used 1 gallon). Cut the tip like the picture below.

Step 4: Fill 'er Up!
Fill up the wells of the maker. The instructions says to not overfill the wells and to use 1 tablespoon (if my memory serves me right). You know what? Forget it! Fill up each well to the top. You'll have some spillage, but it results in a perfect spherical cake ball each and every time.

Step 5: Cook! 
After some experimenting, we found that 6 minutes is just about perfect. If you overfill the wells, add an extra minute or so before taking the brownie balls out.

Step 6: Stick It
Insert your sticks in the brownie balls and let them cool (I stick them in the fridge for a few minutes here).

Step 7: Dip*n*Decor
Dip in chocolate and decorate as you'd like! I fixed these up to take to work on Halloween. Yum!

Hope you have a Happy Halloween!