Recipe Box Shower Gift

So one of my oldest friends, Lauren, is getting married in about 2 months and the rest of the bridesmaids & I are throwing her a recipe shower at the end of the month. We're each getting a gift for her and since I'm doing the invitations (we're sending out recipe cards for people to fill out & bring to the shower) it was only fitting that I would get her a recipe box too. I think I'm pretty safe on posting this as I'm about 95% sure she doesn't read this blog. I've been searching for the past month and haven't found ANYTHING that I really like for her so I finally bought one that I was a fan of the shape but not as much of the look, which I can fix.

Its bamboo & kind of blah looking but when you flip up the lid it has a nice little ridge where you can put the card you are referencing while you cook.

I gave it a light sanding and went over with one coat of copper craft paint, it was the kind of paint that comes in the $0.50 tube at Hobby Lobby.

You could still see the wood grain so after it dried I added another coat of copper giving me the look I was going for.

I placed some stickers saying "LHK's Recipes" on the front to protect it from picking up the next color I planned to layer on top and lightly coated them with the copper color hoping to help prevent bleed of the paint.

I went over the top of everything with a very light sage green color. (the straight pins are placed in to keep the top from sticking to the rest of the box)

After that coat dried for a bit I added another coat to it so only light streaks of the copper were showing through and while it was still wet I started pulling off the letter stickers. (apologies for the terrible picture!)

After pulling off all of the stickers I found that I had a little bleed under the stickers so I let it finish drying.

Once everything dried up I touched up the parts where the green had bled into the copper. Here is the final piece, hope she likes it!

Butterflies in My Stomach

So I'm a little nervous. I've always thought about making things to sell but never really committed to it. You may remember this post of the Crayon Art I made for my cousin. Well it received such a fantastic reaction at the shower that I decided to finally just suck it up & try my hand at peddling my wares. Here goes nothing!

So here is a reminder of what you can get when you visit my shop:

See, they really do make excellent baby shower gifts! Or for that special teacher in your life? Please be sure to tell all of your friends so I don't feel like a loser. (did the guilt trip work? :) )

Thanks all!

Where We've Been

So although the last few months have been filled with chemo, dr appts, work and lots of other not as thrilling things, we've also managed to pack in some really fun times as well.

We had a HUGE snowfall back in January that is the largest we've had in a very long time.

That turned into an ice skating rink on all of the roads that lasted for the next couple of days due to the state running out of salt...seriously (we don't have the manpower/equipment for snows like this down here!).

My office put together an incredible benefit for Tim at a local restaurant where the turnout was overwhelming to say the least.

Some girls on my team at work also put together a bake sale at the office on Valentine's Day. We've got some incredibly talented folks here who can also bake like nobody's business!

Some friends of ours also put together a golf tournament & dinner with a silent auction that was also overwhelmingly amazing (& SO much fun).

Tim & I went to Disney World & managed to get in all 4 parks in 2 days...

Threw a wedding shower with some friends for the soon-to-be Mrs. Adams

Our niece turned the big 0-1

Threw a baby shower for some sweet friends

Went to a wedding at Old Edwards Inn (LOVE that place & so glad we got to go back)

Unfortunately had to miss the future Mrs. Adams bachelorette bc of it but I mailed myself down to make sure I was a part of the festivities.

Had our annual Family Reunion where it rained so we all got to get nice & close...

My boyfriend also turned the big 0-1 this year

Got to see the hubs back in uniform for the annual Carolina Alumni vs. Blowfish game...he's a hottie!

Also found this hanging on the wall of the stadium from his coaching days

FINALLY ate the top of our wedding cake, it was still SO delicious

Went to the beach for a week with my family

One of Tim's best friends got married

Went to a shower for one of my best friends

The best part? We've still got SO much fun stuff coming up this year that I'm pretty excited about!

Clean Eating Begins!

So tonight we started (restarted?) our healthy eating. We technically only have to plan a full week's worth of meals every other week (due to Tim's chemo schedule) which will be a nice way to get started on this whole thing.

At the same time as learning how to eat & cook in a healthy manner, we are also trying to finish off some food that has been in our freezer (and that we've been avoiding for some time now). Lets just say its slightly complicated to get excited about our food right now...

So tonight we decided to finish off the Gyoza & some of the Organic Brown Rice (frozen), both from Trader Joe's. We also needed to finish up some eggs so we decided to do a little stir fry.

Started out by sauteing some carrots in a large fry pan (in some olive oil).

Next I added in some onions to brown up

Next up I added some butter because "that's what they do at Kanpai"

promise it just looks like more bc it melted...really (ok maybe I'm lying...my idol is Paula Deen)

Moving on...I added in some green beans from my parents garden, garlic powder, salt, pepper & ginger (i cheated & used the powdered kind)

After everything softened up I pushed the veggies to the side, added the eggs into the center & scrambled them up.

After everything was all mixed up I added in some fresh corn off the cob the frozen rice & a cup of chicken stock before covering up the pan and letting it all soak in for about five minutes.

Here is how it turned out

In the meantime we steamed the Gyoza

Here is the final product!

The rice is a little chewy (which we've discovered with this rice is always the case) but otherwise it was delicious and actually healthy. I can't say that we will be doing this again but we're starting to learn!

Rainbow Effect

So I was inspired by this picture I found on Pinterest:

My cousin's baby shower is coming up & I decided that this could be a really amazing gift for the nursery (well, I'd put it up in there at least...hopefully she will feel the same!). I decided I would try it out.

I bought a canvas and a 64 pack of crayons as well as some Gorilla Glue. First thing first, I grouped the crayons by the color of their wrapper. From there I placed it in ROYGBIV order (is my OCD showing?) and glued them all to the top of the canvas.

After letting it dry I then borrowed a heat gun from a friend of my dad & blasted away at the crayons until they started dripping.

After that dried up and cooled off a bit I blasted it with the heat gun again.

and again

one last time...

until I got my final product (sorry the picture is so bad, I had Tim hold it & we were both laughing)

Hopefully she really likes it!

I'm Back!

So its been a crazy few months but I think we have our feet (mostly) back under us again (as they should be). I'll spare the details but essentially Tim is still on chemo and likely will be indefinitely. The good news out of all of this is that we now know the drill and have a schedule of basically holing up in the house every other Wed-Fri as he receives treatments.

My job has been AMAZING, I can't say enough good things about them. They've allowed me to work from home on the days Tim is getting treatment which is such a huge stress relief for me and it allows me to make sure he is getting enough fluid intake.

In the midst of everything else we've also seen just how incredible people are. We've been surrounded by an incredible generous group of friends & family which we've known for some time but all of them as well as many strangers have gone above and beyond the call of duty to help us through some of the most trying of times over the past few months.

I haven't been up to too much over the past few months but I have made a few edits to the house here & there & have picked up a few skills (that I'm still pretty rusty at) to help with stress relief and keep me busy. We're working on improving our eating habits (its a sloooooow improvement) so I'll be sure to start sharing the recipes that are actually good in case anyone else cares to clean-up their eating as well. I will state for the record that I really miss processed food right now :).

So lots to come! (ok, technically not lots as of right now but I work in advertising so I had to add a little spin!)