DIY: ANIMAL JEWELRY HOLDER

How awesome is this?! This is an inexpensive DIY alternative to the $65 version found here.

That one is still super cute but there's no way I could pay that much! All together this project cost me probably $12 in new material. Not too baaad. I had been watching at the thrift store for a bag of plastic toys but finally gave up and went to Hobby Lobby for some. This was probably the most expensive part at 8 dollars. The wood plaque was half price at 4 dollars.

MATERIALS

Plastic Animals

Wire cutters

Gold Spray Paint

Mod Podge

Gloss spray paint

Hot Glue

DIRECTIONS

1. You may paint the plaque if you want, but I chose to leave mine plain. If you do paint it, let it dry thoroughly then paint mod podge over the entire thing and let that dry. Finish off with gloss spray paint. If you choose not to paint it, simply use mod podge then the gloss spray.

2. Cut the animals. This is the hardest part. I found some very sturdy wire cutters in my house that ended up working great, but use whatever you can use to get these guys cut!

3. Use gold metallic spray paint (got mine from wal-mart) to spray the animals and let dry. You can use any color here, or omit this step entirely. Originally I had left them unpainted but thought it looked kind of kiddy.The gold paint looks soooo adult and sophisticated :)

4. Place a dab of hot glue on the back and press hard until glue cools. I wasn't sure how well this would hold up initially, but it has done just fine. Just don't hang super heavy jewelry on and you should be good!

-Jerica-

ALMOND PESTO & SPAGHETTI SQUASH

Almond Pesto with Spaghetti Squash

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 Cup Raw Almonds

1/4  Cup Olive Oil

1/8 Cup Truffle Oil 

3 cups Basil chopped leaves
3 Cloves Garlic
1/4 Cup  Parmesan Cheese
 1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Teaspoon pepper

1/2 Teaspoon Lemon juice

1/2 Teaspoon Truffle

1 Spaghetti Squash

2 Zucchini- shredded into thin strips  

2 links Italian Sausage

1/2 Teaspoon dried Basil

1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Salt

1/2 Teaspoon Italian Season

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F

2. Cut and take out the seeds from your spaghetti squash. Drizzle squash and shredded zucchini with a tablespoon of Truffle oil. Sprinkle with Garlic Salt, Dried Basil, and Italian Seasoning Roast, then place spaghetti squash in the oven for about one hour or until tender. Bake the zucchini for 30 mins.

3. Bake Sausage according to instructions as well! I do it all at once to save me some time.

4. Using a food processor blend together almond, basil, cheese, garlic, olive & truffle oil, lemon juice, salt/pepper, truffle until it forms a relatively smooth paste.

5. Shred your squash and mix with pesto and sausage!

6. Enjoy!

-Amy-

ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS TREES

Finallyyy it's after Thanksgiving, and socially acceptable for me to start decorating for Christmas! I'm one of those obnoxious people that loves that they have started playing Christmas music a few days after Halloween. If I start listening to it and decorating only after Thanksgiving, Christmas seems to come to quick and I don't feel like I have sufficient time to enjoy it! It's the build up to Christmas that I love, not necessarily the day itself.  Its just such a nostalgic and fun time, I'm able to relax for a month from school and have Christmas lights all over the house without appearing like a poor college student. ANYWAYS here are some awesome ideas for alternative Christmas trees if you don't have room or the money for a real (or fake) one! Click pictures for links and more information.

 

This tree is simply made using fabric and chalkboard paint!

 Put all those Christmas cards to WORK. I wish I got cards that cute!

 from Almost Makes Perfect, use blueprint printouts from Kinkos to print large photos. 

Gorgeous idea from Free People

This is such an interesting tree! Among the ornaments it's adorned with doileys, buttons, and cute figurines. The key to this one is sticking to a color scheme, as long as you have that you can add pretty much anything!

 I looove this minimalist tree

-Jerica-

DIY MAP WALL ART

MATERIALS:

Canvas

Spray Paint

Maps

Alphabet Stickers or letter cut out

Super simple project! That requires a little patienence. First, mod podge your maps onto the canvas and let it dry for 24 hours. Stick on your letters or self-made letter cut outs, place onto the maps and spray paint. Let the paint dry and then just peel the letters off! For some more DIY map art, check out these shelves!

-Amy-

RECIPES TO GIVE THANKS FOR

Jerica and myself threw a fancy dinner party last night.. okay not really fancy at all. It was more of a pre-Thanksgiving with tons of food, friends, and alcohol. We gathered together all of our dearest friends for a night of thanks and tons of food. Since Jerica and I love to cook,  a Thanksgiving dinner sounded like the perfect project for us to do together. We spent all Saturday cooking for our friends and made up with some really great dishes.  

Appetizers: Butternut squash hummus, baked brie with caramelized onions, baked brie with sun-dried tomato and thyme. 

 Dinner: Orange and onion stuffed turkey, green bean casserole, bacon & apple roasted yams, bacon & cheese cornbread ( I am obsessed with bacon!), herb stuffing, roasted vegetables in a sun-dried tomato and thyme infused olive oil, white cheddar mashed potatoes, Gravy

Dessert: Homemade Pumpkin Pie with a Macadamia Nut Streusel  & made from scratch Ameretto Tiramisu

Here are some of the recipes we did that were more of cook as we go kind of deal:

Baked Brie with Caramelized Onions

1/4 Sweet Onion

1 Tablespoon of Sugar

1 Teaspoon of Olive Oil

Brie

Caramelize your onion with sugar and oil on the stove ( or for better results use a sweet balsamic vinegar- we didn't have any so we improvised) until the onions are soft and brown. Top over your brie and bake in the oven for 15 minutes at 325 degress. Enjoy! Trust me this is amazingggggggggggg- you will not be able to get enough of it.

Roasted Vegetables in a Sun-Dried Tomato and Thyme infused Olive Oil

Infuse some olive oil with strips of sun dried tomato and sprigs of thyme. Pour over your veggies of choice. We chose zucchini spears and red bell peppers, toss with salt and black pepper and grill till tender

Stay tuned for the Amaretto Tiramisu recipe in our next entry.

FAUX COW SKULL

Believe it or NOT (believe it) this faux cow skull is completely made from Resin! I had been wanting to get this forever from Hobby Lobby but it was $35 dollars so I couldn't bring myself to get it. This particular one I found in the Western theme section, and they had other neat antler and skull stuff as well. I love this one because it has a completely flat back unlike a real skull so it can hang perfectly on a wall. Finally I went and saw they were having a 50% off sale on Men's Resin! Uhh whatever that meansss....

I had seen a post on Free Peoples' blog a long time ago and have been wanting to put something like this together since the dawn of time. I gathered up some feathers and dried flowers I had from different occasions to put in the eye sockets, and the color on the antlers is just embroidery thread. 
When you're wrapping the thread it's best to start by wrapping it once around then making a knot in the back, leaving a large amount of the end of the thread sticking out, and not making any cuts yet. Continue to wrap the antler and when you're finished, cut it and tie it to the thread sticking out from where you made the first knot, so that each color is one continuous portion of thread. Basically you just want the knots to be in the back. I hope that makes sense!

If you want to buy this bag as a tote, click on the picture below!

 
-Jerica- 

SUMMER TRAVELS

Lately I have been trying to organize all my pictures and have been super nostalgic. Some of my favorite pictures are of the landscapes I've photographed across Europe on a few of my family's summer trips. So far we have been to Norway, Sweden, France, England, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. They all so seem so dream-like now.  I'll let the pictures do the talking IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!

Any readers out there from, or recognize these places? Holllaaaaaa at ya boyy!

-Jerica-

WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO AND SO SHOULD YOU!

Dive by Tycho

Perfect for charging on homework.

-Jerica-

MY LIFE VIA INSTAGRAM

It's like I am living in the museum of natural science and history! Everywhere I am surrounded by Druzy, Geodes, ammonites, and stalactite! My work is creeping home with me! Check out my sweet geode drawer knobs (mine are from the clearance section of anthropologie) but we have an awesome DIY copy cat version a few posts back! Plus some pictures of the geodes at my work !

 -Amy-

AUTUMN CRAFTS

Some more fall decoratingggg! I saw a post on Pinterest where someone taped dried herbs and flowers to the inside of mason jar lids and placed them in windows. If you do it with smaller flowers you can choose to hot glue the stem to the lid, and then store the jar upside down, so that the flower is standing straight up. I don't think you could do that with these leaves but you could try! Once I get some more jars in different sizes I am going to hang up all different shapes and colors of leaves. You could also do this with pine cones when Christmas comes! Super easy and took me all of 2 minutes. You just have to make sure you offset the tape on the string a little bit, so that the leaf is hanging in the center. 

Another tip I saw online was to dip the leaves in wax to preserve their color. I didn't do that here but they have been hanging for a couple weeks!

I also made this really cute acorn garland to go with it, found here!

-Jerica-

HOMEMADE PEANUT BUTTER DOG TREATS

I got this recipe from a dog food cook book a few years back that is super simple and quick. It is peanut butter dog biscuits! 

INGREDIENTS:

1 Cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 Teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 Cup of Peanut Butter

1/2 Cup of hot water

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and mix all of your ingredients in a bowl.  Once everything is mixed together roll it out and use a cookie cutter ( I used a jar top) to cut out the shapes that you want. Then bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown! Make sure to let it cool on a cooling rack before giving it to your pups! 

I made these the other day for a friend and his adorable dogs. For the jar I used a old salsa jar and glued on a plastic dog to the top and spray painted it black. I cut a strip from a brown paper bag to make the label which I then glued to the jar. For the gift tag I used an old map (I chose a map of Detroit because that is their hometown!) and cut it into a gift tag shape with trimming from the same brown bag I used for the label. 

This is such a quick gift to put together. With the baking and all, it took me about an hour to finish! 

-Amy-

BUTTON BROOCHES

For this project I bought a bag of pins with a flat back to glue to the back but already lost it! During my move I have basically just dumped everything in my room on the floor and haven’t cleaned it up… and continue to just dump stuff in there. So nowwwww I have absolutely no idea where they went so I used safety pins instead. Not as good of a base but until I do find them these will just have to suffice.
Another simple project- paint wooden buttons and pins to make button broches! Simple as that! Paint on your design and glue on the button to the pin!

-Amy-