Saturday, April 26, 2014

DIY Gift for Mom!

Wow! It's been a really long time since I blogged. It is completely my fault and I promise to not do it again (for awhile). K and I are still transitioning to our new lives of commuters and spend about 4 hours in the car each day. Sometimes that goes up to 5+. SO, we are searching for apartments, which is harder then it sounds in Chicago. We have our eyes on two in particular, so fingers crossed we will have one of these as our new home soon.


Anyway, because I have been so busy I thought I would come back with a good Mother's Day Gift tutorial. My dear friend April, made me a jar of Bourbon Vanilla Tea Bags and a bag of Birthday Cake Tea Bags for my birthday. It was a such a sweet and tasty gift, so I did some digging and found out how to make my own teabags for all my loose leaf tea. Of course, April made hers way better then mine, but here's my tutorial below.

What you need:
  • Coffee filters
  • Loose leaf tea- do NOT use cut tea bags, usually those leaves are too small
  • Cardstock
  • Scissors
  • twine
  • stapler
So here's how!

Cut the filter paper so it makes a rectangle.


Put two small scoops of tea in the rectangle, with space in the middle. Then fold up both sides of the rectangle to the middle, so the tea is closed in.
Once you fold both sides to the middle of the rectangle. Place your finger in the middle of the two tea piles and fold the ends up to the top. (Can you see the tea forming now??)


The tea should be pretty secure with all of your folds, so fold the open top into a triangle. Then fold the triangle down so that it lays on top of the teabag.


Cut a fun shape with the card stock. Attached twine by tying then stable to top of the teabag.



I made my teabags out of apple cinnamon chai and gave them to Keith to take to work. I'm sure he loved all the hot pink hearts I made for the tags.

Happy crafting! :)
 

Friday, April 11, 2014

A Warm Up Weather Recipe

It's warm! Today reached 70. I can feel summer in the air and it's glorious. I celebrated by buying and planting new plants while listening to records today. It was magical. This weather gets me so ready to go for walks, camp in the woods, eat on the porch and of course, enjoy nice tasty popsicles!

Keith and I invested in a Zoku Quick Pop Maker. And, it's amazing. I toyed around with it for a bit, and thought I would share my favorite recipe: Orange Julius Quick Pops.

What you need:
  • 6 ounces of thawed orange juice concentrate
  • 1 cup milk (I used fat free)
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
Mix all ingriedents in a bowl until well blended. Pour into the Zoku and wait about seven minute, until frozen. Remove with the tool and devour.

Enjoy the warm weather (and the delicious Popsicles!) 

Monday, April 7, 2014

Recipe: No bake cookie butter cookies

Have you tried Cookie Butter yet? I tried it at my old office and it is delicious. I think I could probably sit down and eat it out of the jar, but I am trying to be a little more civilized, so I decided to make some really easy no-bake cookies.


What you need:
  • 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar
  • 1/2 cups of milk
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter
  • a pinch of salt
  • 3/4 cup of cookie butter (we got ours at Trader Joes)
  • 2 teaspoon of vanilla
  • 3 cups of quick cooking oats
I started by cutting up the butter and putting the butter, milk, sugar and salt in a saucepan. I heated it until it started to boil, stirring frequently. After it reaches a good boil, do not stir for about one full minute and then remove from heat. Stir in the cookie butter and the vanilla. After that's all blended, stir in the oats. All of the liquid should be soaked up by the oats. One wax paper scoop out a large tablespoon of the cookie butter/oats/butter/delicious mixture. Let them set until fully cooled and enjoy!

seriously guys, these are DELICIOUS.