White Wine Sangria and Summer Cheer

One of my favorite drinks during the summer is sangria. Specifically white sangria. Nothing says summer like a chilly glass of wineful, cirtrusy deliciousness. I've never really followed a "recipe" for this sangria. Each time I make it tastes a little different. It really depends on what wine you chose, what citrus looks good at the store, and how patient you are!

Here's what you'll need to make your own White Wine Sangria!

A Big Pitcher

Wooden Spoon

Sugar

1 Bottle White Wine*

Various Citrus Fruits**

1-2 cups Ginger Ale

Ice

For white wines, I tend to stick toward Riesling and Chardonnay for my sangria (just personal taste). I never know what will go in my sangria until I get to the produce section! Lemons, limes, and oranges are pretty much a staple for me. After that, I pick the rest of my fruit based on smell/looks. Today I added peaches, a champagne mango, and a granny smith apple. 

My secret to making cheap-ish wine taste awesome is this little lovey. Best Christmas present ever! It aerates and filters as you pour. We found ours here.

To make the sangria, juice your juciy fruits (like limes, lemons, oranges, etc.) and pour them into the pitcher with the wine. The "whole" fruits like mango, peach, and apple can be cut up and floated in the rest of the sangria. At this point, stop and taste. Then start adding sugar (typically around 1/2 - 1 cup total), mixing thoroughly and tasting between each addition. Keep in mind you'll be adding ginger ale (which will add some sweetness). 

Once you feel like your sangria is delicious, you can do one of two things: you can be very patient and go put it in the refrigerator overnight OR you can be super impatient like me. If you're patient, the next time you take out the sangria, add a cup or so of ginger ale and serve in chilled glasses. If you're impatient like me, immediately add the ginger ale and serve over ice.

Wouldn't this be yummy with strawberries, blueberries, or pomegranate seeds/juice? The possibilities are endless!

It's officially summer. Well, out here in Lubbock it's been summer since March. We were at 110* today. We've been at over 100* for well over a week now. Thankfully, we haven't had any rain so its a dry heat. Much better than 110* in Dallas. I felt the need for a little pick-me-up today, so I went wandering through the flower section of our grocery store and found these little lovelies!

Happy Summer!

Planned Crafting

I can tell when I get stressed. I craft. I want to make something. After a few "scheduled" crafts, I am so glad to get back to crafting because I want to and/or need to. Crafting without a deadline is my favorite. I'm more productive when I have a schedule to keep to, but it can quickly turn into a chore.

I have a ton of projects on my to-do list. Thankfully for my skinny wallet, I already have the supplies for most of these projects!

Here's what I want to work on over the next few weeks....

Cover My Cookbooks

I'm hoping to actually make my cookbooks functional. Cookbooks are inherently hideous. Well, most of them are. All of mine are. The ones I like are all different sizes, shapes, and colors. I've purchased some basic cream fabric and some earthy muslin to cover each book. I haven't decided quite how I'm going to go about it, but I'll figure that out eventually.

I'm looking for the cohesive, neutral look you can see here and here.

TPRoll Art

TPRoll meaning toilet paper roll. Yes. Toilet paper roll art. I'm very picky about wall art. I love the look of iron, but it can get expensive fast. This, however, is an awesome and nearly free idea.

Counter Cook Book

Along with my cook book project comes this one. I love my recipes. I find a ton online. Those don't come in a cook book obviously. So what do I do with those? This. I've already started creating my recipe cards, and I have my photo book purchased. Someday I'll get it put together.

Paper Clip Bows/Tags

I use a lot of paper clips at work. They're just...not...pretty. I have a lot of fabric scrappies I can't seem to part with. Solution? Paper clip bows. Genius! See these tutorials here and here.

I also have a few miscellaneous projects waiting to be completed. A lamp here - some candle sticks there. We'll see what all I actually accomplish!

reDIRKulous

reDIRKulous!

Paper Napkin Flowers

I recently ran across an awesome tutorial at MADE for Simple Wedding Flowers. I sent it to Courtney, and thankfully she agreed to let me give them a shot at making some rehearsal bouquets for the bridesmaids for her Memorial Day Weekend wedding! The flowers are made of...get this...napkins! Yup! Napkins!

I used three colors - purple, white, and silver - to create 6 inch flowers. After many trials, I settled on three color combinations I loved. Purple with white middle, white with silver middle, and silver with purple middle. 3 of the 6 inch flowers created the perfect bouquet size. 

I used 4 beverage napkins for each flower (12 layers total after separating the napkins) - 3 of the outside color and one of the inside color. Each layer of napkin was smaller than the last with the outside layer being the largest and the inside (different) napkin being the smallest.

After cutting the napkins down to size, I scalloped each napkin's edge. Then I accordion-folded the napkins and secured them.

Instead of twist ties, I used coated floral wire which is forgiving and can be cut to whatever length is necessary. This allowed me to leave a "tail" to twist with the other flowers to create the bouquet.

Separating the napkins was a challenge. The white napkins were easy, but it seems that the more color that is in the napkin, the more difficult it is to separate the layers. The purple was by far the most difficult to separate. 

After everything was separated, I was able to fluff the flowers and twist the edges to create a more cohesive flower look (instead of bow-tie). 

For the "stems" I used 3 wooden dowels painted with a shimmery white/silver paint. I hot-glued the "tails" from the flowers into the middle of the dowels. I just hot-glued until they felt sturdy.

The bouquets held up well, and looked great in pictures! Here is Courtney and one of her bridesmaids getting ready to practice the wedding entrance. Courtney has the rehearsal bouquet I talked about here, and Julia, the bridesmaid, has the flowers from this post.

My SIL and MIL are starting to catch the DIY bug, too! They created these super-fun wands for the flower girls to carry during the rehearsal. Aren't they precious?!

I'm linking up to...

Crafting and Container Gardens

So for my SIL's wedding, I was asked to make her rehearsal bouquet. If you ever want a good laugh, just google "rehearsal bow bouquet." Hours of fun await you! 

Typically, they're a hodge-podge of bow-tacularness. Not always pretty for pictures. I wanted to create a beautiful bouquet for my SIL. 

She was showered with many gifts, and there were plenty of materials to work with. I had thought ahead (knowing that the bows would be used in a bouquet) and given Courtney a big silver/white sparkly bow. That became the centerpiece to her bouquet. Her wedding colors were to be silver, purple, and white. The big silver/white bow was accented with purple ribbons, creating a cohesive focal point. Remaining silver/white bow tails and purple ribbon were used as streamers. Curling ribbon bows were used around the focal point and all over the back of the bouquet.

Travis made the perfect model for pictures!

In other news, we're starting a container garden in our back side-yard. We're researching what plants to use and trying to decide how/where we want to put everything. We'll probably start with just a couple of herbs (and maybe a vegetable if I have anything to do with it) and grow from there.

Right now that side-yard looks like a jungle. A weedy, spidery, trashy jungle. Here's hoping that I survive the clean-up!

I'm linking up to...

Weekends and Weddings

Whew! The last half of May was a blur! 

Hannah came to visit us for a week. She is interested in going to physical therapy school once she graduates, and it is encouraged that she get some observation hours in a variety of settings. She was able to observe two wonderful physical therapists that I work with, and she said she really enjoyed it! She was tons of fun! We cooked some awesome food, shopped till we dropped, and crafted all sorts of fun things.

Strawberry'N'Cream Trifle

 Homemade Lemonade

For Memorial Day weekend, we took off to Dallas for Courtney and Sam's wedding weekend. We were so thankful to be a part of such a wonderful wedding!

Our first wedding event was the bridal tea Courtney hosted for her bridesmaids. It was held at the tea room in Nooks 'N Crannies in Plano, Texas. 

Next up came the rehearsal. Courtney and Sam were married at a lovely venue, Reflections on Spring Creek, in Plano, Texas. For the rehearsal, I made some mock bouquets for the bridesmaids to carry. I also put together Courtney's bow bouquet, made of the bows from her showers. More pictures of those to come!

Next up was the rehearsal dinner, hosted by Sam's family. The dinner was held at a local Italian restaurant. It was a great chance to get a picture of the family including it's newest (official) addition, Sam!

The next day, it was wedding time. Courtney asked me to tie the bow for her wedding cake. Talk about nerves! 

Here I am trying to decide on the proportion of the bow for the cake under the watchful eye of the beautiful bride and with the help (finger) of Travis.

The wedding was amazing. Courtney looked beautiful and everyone was so happy! The bow turned out beautifully. and looked great in pictures! I can't wait to see the real photographer's photos!

Not the best picture, but I was glad to see Alexa and my mom, too! Miss Alexa recently graduated from Heath High School and will be heading to Texas A&M in a few weeks to start classes! I am so very proud of her.

Like I said earlier...whew!

It's So Fluffy I'm Gonna DIE!

These little guys are pretty much the cutest thing since forever. 

Love this idea so much. I saw this over at Love From The Oven and had to give it a try because her tutorial was awesome....and who doesn't love peeps?

It was super easy. I was worried about the marshmallow peeps melting from the chocolate, but they were magically A-ok. I ended up doing two thinner coatings of the white chocolate bark so that the peeps eyes and colored sugar were covered completely. I also used some minty green nonpareils, multi-colored nonpareils, and some pink sparkle sugar as my decoration.

My favorite part about making fun stuff is giving it away. These little lovelies went to a co-worker and her family. But...I have another package of peeps waiting to be bedazzled!

I'm linking up to:

Weekend Wrap Up Party