well, hello.

it's been awhile. i get into scrap/blog mode & then fall off the bandwagon, repeatedly.
whats new you ask? delia & brigham just got haircuts & they look naked, cute, but naked :)
i found this recipe online, to make these simple, adorable easter rice krispie treats:


the only thing is, i didn't want to use their recipe, because you can tell by reading it, that it just sounds dry.

Crispy Bunny Treats

12 PEEPS® marshmallow bunnies
6 cups crispy rice cereal
3 Tbsp. butter or non-hydrogenated margarine
4 cups miniature marshmallows or 10 oz. regular marshmallows

Freeze PEEPS® bunnies overnight. In a medium saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat, add cereal and stir until well coated.

Evenly press the mixture into 13” x 9” cake pan, then firmly press the frozen PEEPS® Marshmallow Bunnies into crispy rice mixture. Let cool completely before cutting into squares. Makes 12.

needless to say, i didn't make their recipe & was on the quest for the best rice krispie treats. i found a few recipes that added a tablespoon or two more of butter & a cup or two more of marshmallows. The recipe I followed:

5 3/4 cups Rice Krispies
5 cups marshmallows
4 tablespoons butter
(instead of stirring by hand, i used my kitchenaid on the lowest speed...so much less work!)

They were good, but not amazing. have you ever had the rice krispy treats from Noodles & Co? to die for. my plan this weekend? make another 2 or 3 batches with varying amounts of butter and marshmallows until I find the ideal combo. i like my krispies ooey gooey, not dry & crunchy. I feel like adding more butter & mallows can only make them better, right?!

I finished my DT layout for The Creative Type (www.useyourtype.blogspot.com) :
this month's prompt was "Eat, Pray, Love" (I went with Eat, obviously)

(sorry for the shotty pic, too sunny no matter where i went)

close-up of the journaling:

off to relax & watch Heavyweights (questionably one of the best movies ever made)
ttys.

Current Favs

So, here are a compiled list of my current favorites so far this month:

1.) This recipe, found on my co-workers pinterest for NUTELLA BROWNIES. It is amazing & delicious & everything you'd ever want your brownie to be...and more. The recipe:

Nutella Brownies
(recipe from Noble Pig, and originally from Culinary in the Country)

1 cup Butter
2 cups Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
4 large Eggs
1 cup All-Purpose Flour
3/4 cup Cocoa
1/8 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 cup Nutella
1/4 cup Chocolate Chips
Preheat the oven to 180 deg C.

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
On a low heat, melt the butter and add in the sugar and vanilla while stirring to combine. Remove from heat and cool completely. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well to combine after each addition.
Add the flour mixture, a bit at a time, to the egg mixture until completely mixed in.
Heat the nutella in the microwave for a little bit until you get it to a runny consistency. Add the nutella to the batter and mix well. Now add the chocolate chips and mix to combine.
Pour into a square (I used a 13x9) baking pan and bake for 30 minutes. (I baked mine for 36 & they were still a little uncooked in the middle, which I personally love.) Remove from oven and cool completely before cutting.

If you think I'm kidding about how delicious these brownies are...

2.) This nail polish combo: (picture to come once I'm home!)

The colors:
Orly- Rage (my newest nail polish obsession) & a cheap little .99 Sally brand pink glitter polish. Layered on top of one another, they make my heart melt a little bit.

3.) The new Emma's Shoppe & Neighborhood collections from Crate Paper.
I just ordered the 12x12 kit of Emma's:

And the 6x6 of Neighborhood:

They should be here Monday & I'm so excited :)

I'm counting down the days till spring gets here. I'm a little over the snow & sleet & cold. Come on groundhog...

new favorites!

hey everyone :)

this post is going to be a little different. i'm going to focus on my current favorite beauty products! yay! i've bought all of these products within the last few weeks & am completely loving them.

first, i am in LOVE with this new face wash by neutrogena (purchased at target, $7.99):

It's a cleanser & makeup remover in one, which i LOVE...no one likes coming out of the shower with raccoon eyes. Before this, I was using the Aveeno radiance scrub-which is now in the trash. This face wash leaves my skin feeling super smooth & soft, and i love that it foams- really makes me feel like my face is getting clean. 

second, i bought this today from Victoria's Secret ($12):

It's an awesome, delicious smelling body scrub that smells like coconut & sugarcane. It's a nice gritty exfoliator and my skin, particularly my legs & arms felt super smooth after using. it made me feel like i was on vacation- no lie. 

Target was also clearancing out it's physician's formula cosmetics, so i stocked up on a few of their eye & face palette's, these being my favorites:

This eye palette was $5.95 on clearance & the colors are AMAZING.

I also picked up this shimmer palette which i've been in love with for the last few years:

I use this on both my eyes & my face...the shimmer is gorgeous.  It's called "shimmer strips" for those who are curious.

For awhile now, I've been looking for a good set of makeup brushes. Something soft, easy to clean & good quality without being insanely expensive. I just bought this set of brushes at Sephora and i LOVE them. These brushes are antibacterial which I love. I use bare minerals foundation, so I've been using their brushes for years- however, i found that they were super hard to clean & get oily very quickly.

To help prevent anything like that happening with these new brushes, because they were an investment at $60, I bought Sephora's daily brush cleaner & use it each time I apply my makeup. It smells awesome & dries quickly. I bought the smaller bottle, which was a steal at only $6!

I've been addicted to this nailpolish since I bought it two weeks ago. It's called "Stormy" by Revlon. It's a gorgeous grey color & it dries really fast. Plus, the color is so rich that you really only need one coat. love it!

I've been wanting to try konad nail stamping for awhile now. so naturally when kwerner posted a vid today, I couldnt take it anymore! i went to amazon & ordered quite a bit of stuff- i cannot wait to get it! when i do, i'll post some pictures of it! it says it should be here by thursday or friday! you can check out kristina's konad vid HERE on youtube.

be still my heart.

i want! perfect for the memorabilia hoarder in us all.
click on the video to see it over @ youtube on a much larger scale.
perfect for all my crap. i'll become a smashfan for sure :)

beautiful things make me happy

it's true. they do. there is nothing in the world that i love more, than looking at something beautiful & saying "i wish that were mine." So one of the gifts I made for valentine's day for john, focuses on the beauty of simplicity. i was inspired by a link posted by a fellow tweeter to make this...with my own special twist. to some it may seem corny, but i'm all about corny...bring on the corn.

it's a book called "52 Reasons Why...i love you" the crazy thing is, one night last week, i couldn't sleep, was still up at 5 am, and decided to clean our upstairs landing because...well, i knew it would make john happy & lets be honest here, almost all of the crap was mine. haha. while cleaning, i happened to find a deck of cards & almost threw them out, but something in my mind said, "hey, save these!" When i found this blog post at 1 am, my mind started racing & i was so happy i  had kept those cards! it's not 100% finished, I have to decorate the box its going in & finish his card. here are some pictures:

 (the front cover)

(the back cover)

(some of the inside pages)

the socks thing has always been a running joke- he HATES when i wear his socks, but washing socks...is just one of my least favorite things to do, and he has SO MANY pairs! haha! hope you enjoyed!

and one more of my baby brigham...in the snow, saying "let me in, it's cold!"

CHA wants....neigh....NEEDS (Part 1)

Today I thought I would share  part one of some of the new CHA releases I am beyond excited about. BEYOND.
The first & by far most exciting is the new Pink Paislee line "Daily Junque.
Here are some of my favorites:

  Gorgeous? I think so. I just love the crazy mish-mashed bits of everything. It's a paper hoarders dream!
Next are the chalkboard stickers. How cool are these? Little chalkboard diecuts...what an awesome idea!

 Their mini notes and labels set is beyond adorable as well:

Make sure to go to their blog & check out how they use it in person...it's a definitely must have for me.

Cosmo Cricket's new releases (I want them all) are something else I cannot wait for to show up at my door. Their Upcylced line is most definitely my favorite. Here are some highlights:

LOVE this collection!!!!
I want all of the new Girl's Paperie collections, particularly Kitch & Jublilee. The pics she has loaded on her site are so large, so I figure you can check them out for yourself right here! Girl's Paperie never ceases to amaze me with her fun take on new-age vintage. That's all for today. I'll be back tomorrow with list number 2!

Oh & before you go, check this out: (yes i AM 10 and I cannot WAIT to see this movie, and dont act like you dont want to see it too)

design team?!

happy thursday! I was asked to be part of design team last night & I'm pretty excited. Patty, from The Creative Type, asked me if I would like to design a layout once a month for her site & obviously I couldn't say no! the crazy thing is, the challenge this month is to create a layout using a love song, or some sort of music inspired piece- which just happened to be a layout that I've been working on! It includes the lyrics of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and I cant wait to finish it. It was inspired by this:

Isnt is amazing? i want a copy of this print so badly! I finally finished the "52 Reasons" book today, so pictures to come shortly. Cute & simple. I got the night off of work, so we went to trivia with our friends and took....*drum-roll please*...8th place of 13 teams. not our finest moment....but certainly not our worst. haha. 

right now, I want to...

buy a house. John & I were relaxing, watching some realtor tv & they were showing all of the condos/houses for sale in the area. I immediately said out loud, "maybe we should buy when our lease is up," and before I knew it, we were sitting at the computer, searching for places to live & calculating mortgage payments. who knows whats going to happen, but let me tell you...it is TOUGH to pay rent AND save to buy a home. sigh. we'll see what happens with that. In other news....I gave myself a hand tattoo with washable crayolas. one of john's biggest pet peeves is being written on, which unfortunately for him, I enjoy...especially when I know how much it bothers him. haha. do you see a future for me in the world of tattoo artistry?

I found this amazing vase on etsy that I've been wanting for weeks. it's so cheap, I'm not sure why I just don't buy it.  You can find it here.

How gorgeous IS that? And only $19! I want it for Valentines day...John doesnt seem to be getting the hint. 

I tried going to bed at 12 last night, but was instantly inspired by a blog post I saw about a little mini book called "52 Reasons" made out of a deck of cards. So I sat up for 2 hours last night working on it...I couldnt stop. I'm so excited to share it with you when its done! It will be the handmade portion of Johns valentine's gift, so I hope he likes it. It's going to be one fat little book, let me tell you! 

a place for inspiration

So this is it. This is my last & final blog. I create them with the intention of making them all about scrapping & honestly  folks, that's just not going to happen. I want to create a place where I can post things that I find that inspire me, in the hopes of inspiring others. yay!

We were expecting this crazy huge snow storm today, so we'll see if it lives up to all of the hype. I spent most of the day being incredibly lazy & doing things that made me happy. I woke up waaaay too early for having the day off. Enjoyed a delicious bowl of reese's puff's (breakfast of champions) & watched two solid hours of Martha Stewart.  I baked chocolate chip cookies from scratch just so I could bust out the new kitchenaid mixer. I only had one...err...three. They were beyond delish if I may say so myself.

Then I spent time thinking about how I could make my life/house more "valentine'sy" which yes, is a word....? I think this heart garland would look splendid. You can find it here. (Or attempt to make it if you aren't as lazy as I.)

I spent an hour making a valentine. Anytime I can sit & get my hands dirty is my happy time. Finished the afternoon off with a Lush face mask (Oatifix) & a super long, hot shower, because everyone knows those are the best. About to spend the rest of the night doing nothing productive, & I'm more than okay with that.