Feeling Crafty #1: Felt Flowers & Wreaths

As I stated in my last post, Pinterest has quickly become my new best friend!  It is there that I found my inspiration for the new end of Summer/beginning of Fall transitional wreaths for my front door.  I wanted something the eluded to the coming change in season, but not something that screamed Autumn.  These, in my humble opinion, are perfect! (Disclaimer, I took the photos with my phone, so they are not the most fabulous.  Such is life.)

I made this one first, but decided it needed to go on the inside of the door.

Then I made this one (after I disassembled an old wreath that was majorly lacking in beauty).  It's perfect for the outside of the door.

They were both easy to make.  For the first wreath, I took a cheap foam wreath form, then wrapped it with felt I cut in 1 inch strips.  To hold the strips in place, I just stapled them on the back of the wreath, making sure to overlap them for better coverage.

For both wreaths, I just hot glued my felt flowers and leaves on and voila!  Told you that was easy!

OK OK, you want to know how to make those cute wittle felt flowers, right?  Those are easy, too!  Just take your felt and cut it into a circle.  You can vary the sizes.  I used a CD to trace some circles, a candle to trace some smaller circles, and just winged it on the smallest.  Then take your circle and cut it into a swirl:

Then, starting with the outside tail, start wrapping it around itself.  Work your way to the inside tail, then tuck that under and hot glue it in place.

I felt like experimenting with the method, so I also used different shapes for my felt.  I did some out of squares and some with circles with wavy lines.  

Some turned out better than others, but I loved that they all looked unique (just like in nature).

 

Even my husband helped a bit (OK, he only made one flower). Any-who, my front door - inside and out - now looks so pretty and ready for the seasons to change.  And, I am not obsessed with making little felt flowers - time for headbands and hairclips and bracelets and embellishments for shirts and and and...

Meal Planning 2011

Way back in March 2010, I covered the basics of how I do our monthly meal planning. While most of it still applies, there are some updates I wanted to share in case you were wanting to start this task in your own home. The steps are still the same (I'll explain those again here), but because we are couponing as much as possible now, I don't just do one giant grocery run at the beginning of the month now. If you're not a couponer, this is still a great method. But couponing means I need to watch the sales and coupon match-ups to make sure we are getting the best deals on our purchases, dry goods especially. So, I do still make the meal plan and shopping lists at the beginning of the month (or end of the previous month), but I plan my shopping based on the sale cycles, too. Confused? Sorry! Hope this next part helps!

How to plan your meals monthly:

1. Make a list of all the meals you normally cook, family favorites, and new recipes you want to try.
2. Print out a blank calendar for the whole month and grab a pencil & eraser.
   
3. Fill in all the days you will be out of town, have dinner plans elsewhere, or have other obligations.
4. Look at your family calendar and find the days that are super scheduled or busy, put an asterisk on your meal calendar on those days, so you can plan accordingly to cook something simple.
5. Now, take your list of meals and your calendar and start filling in the blanks. Try to plan meals that have common ingredients for the same week. For example, make enchiladas and fajitas the same week so you can use up the sour cream, tortillas, avocados, tomatoes, etc.
6. When you know a meal normally yields tons of leftovers (common in our household of 2), write in leftovers for the day following.
7. As you work, you will find meals you want to rearrange (that's why we work in pencil). Once you have it all set, you can leave it as is or type it up so it's neater. I used to do that, but eh, I've slacked on the prettiness :)

Now that you have your meals planned, you can plan for what groceries you will need for the month. I have master grocery, Costco, and Target/drug store lists typed up and printed out in my household binder (more on that in the next post). I go through my menu, my pantry, my fridge, and my backstocks and figure out what I have and what I will need.

Once you have a list of the groceries you'll need and you know when in the month you will need them, you can track the sale & coupon match-ups and further plan each shopping trip. I generally try to get all my dry goods on that first shopping trip, but I will wait for some things to get a better price.

So that's it, that is all you need to do. It may seem like a lot, but it has made our weekly living a lot easier. And on the occasions that I feel like having Thursday's meal on Monday, I can. I will already have the ingredients because of my shopping planning, so I can switch them if I want to. That's the nice, flexible part of the planning!

Questions? You're always free to comment here, on FB, or email me - my(dot)domestic(dot)adventures{at}gmail(dot)com

Recipe #37: Red Velvet Cheesecake Swirl Brownies

Pinterest is like the greatest thing ever! It's been my major time-suck lately. But, it's also renewed my creative spirit when it comes to baking, cooking, organizing, and decorating my home. Most importantly, it's where I saw the recipe for Red Velvet Swirl Cheesecake Brownies! There are so many yummy parts of that recipe title - I don't even know where to start! I knew I had to make them right away - you know, to test them for you guys! I made a couple changes to the recipe (like repositioning the words in the title), but overall they were super easy to make. And having just scarfed down a giant bite of one, I can definitely say they are beyond divine!

Red Velvet Cheesecake Swirl Brownies

Ingredients

Red Velvet Layers

• 1 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I prefer Hershey's)
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp red food coloring
• 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 2 large eggs, blended
  
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

Cheesecake Layer

• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/8 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Grease 8x8 baking dish, set aside
   
3. In medium mixing bowl, combine melted butter, sugar, and vanilla. Combine well.
4. Add cocoa powder, salt, red food coloring, and vinegar. Combine well.
5. Add blended eggs. Combine well.
6. Add flour and stir gently until well combined.
7. Pour 3/4 of the batter into prepared baking dish, reserve remaining 1/4 of batter, set aside.
8. In small mixing bowl, combine softened cream cheese, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract. Beat until creamy.
9. Spoon cream cheese mixture over red velvet mixture in prepared dish. Spread cream cheese mixture to create even layer.
10. Add reserved red velvet batter over cream cheese layer and spread.
11. Swirl through all three layers with a butter knife.
12. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
13. Cool completely, cut into squares, and refrigerate before serving.