Dollar Store Valentines Day Decor

So it's 10:30 Tuesday night and Valentines Day is Friday.  That means that me posting about Valentines Day decor is borderline ridiculous.  Actually.....I don't think it even qualifies as borderline anymore....I think it is just full fledged redic....but I'm gonna post it anyway.  There's always next year right?

I love to decorate for the holidays but I can't stomach spending alot of money on it.  Mostly because I'm cheap but also because I like A LOT of decorations and doing it on the cheap means I get to buy more.  My collection is slowly growing.  My Valentines decoration box was kind of lacking so I hit up the dollar stores and added this to the mix

That is just a 5x7 frame painted pink.  I used glitter heart table scatter and hot glued it to some pink chevron print scrapbook paper I had and called it a day.  I found the pink vases at 99c Only and I love them so so much!  I love how basic they are so I can use them for so many different things.  It's hard to see in the picture but it has a great milk glass look to it.  Just throw in some themed picks or flowers and you have a very easy pop of holiday festiveness. 

Lastly, I found this cute double heart frame at 99c Only too.  I debated just putting pictures of me and The Boy in it but decided that was too obvious and boring.  Soooo....I got in touch with my tweener days and made a Valentines themed collage.

I don't know about you but I was allllll about collages from ages 12-15.  Every single binder of mine was a collage,the cork board in my room, even my first recipe box was covered in magazine cut outs.  Cute boys, food, music,....anything "me"  I think it's just at that age where you feel like you want to define yourself and all your likes in a collage for everyone to see is the best way to do it.....plus we always had an excess of magazines.  (I don't know.....there's my psychological take on it for ya.)

I put them all together just for the pictures sake but spread around the house it gives a nice amount of holiday cheery without punching you in the face

Combined with my Valentines Day Pillow

And my wreath

This house is really feeling the love

Cupcake Liner Valentines Day Wreath

Sooooo guess what?!?

Today is The Busy Broads Birthday!

Yup........my bloggerversary!

One year ago today I wrote my very first blog post

And it was terrible.

No really......god awful!

You can go look at it and laugh if you want....HERE.......I really won't mind.  Promise.

But I started off with a Valentines Day pillow....so I figured what better way to celebrate than with another Valentiney project

That brings us to a wreath.....cuz I'm a wreath makin fool

And for the very first time I think in history.....I made a wreath where the basis WAS NOT the shreddy paper gift basket stuff

If you look under my "Wreaths" tab you will see that pretty much all my wreaths start that way

So I decided to step outside the box and try something new

That something new ended up being cupcake liners

It's pretty crazy that I haven't used them yet considering I'm cupcake crazy. I collect all things cupcake....it's getting out of control actually

So I bought three different cute patterned cupcake liners from the dollar store

Even though the bottoms are totally cute....they don't matter at all

That part gets glued down so find ones with cute sides

All you do is flatten them 

Then fold them inside out and crumple them into a kinda sorta flower shape

And hot glue them all the way around your form.  In my case it's always cut from scrap cardboard

It's not hard, just take a little while

Then I went simple and embellished it with a few hearts that I pulled off of picks from the dollar store

That's all there is to it!

I really like it much better in person where you can better see the mix of polka dot, hearts, and chevron stripes in different shades of pink and red.  I like that it's not as matchy matchy as I usually tend to go

Now I think that since it's our first birthday me and the blog should get to wear a diaper and smash cake into our hair while everyone watches.....what do you think?

He's a Crafty One

I wish I could take credit for this awesome idea.....but I can't. This came from the brilliant mind of my adorable husband.  For Valentines's Day he made me a "Whitney's" sampler box to look like a "Whitmans"  box of chocolates.

  He hand drew it all.  He even went so far as to write "Presents and Love" in both spanish and french because the original has "Assorted chocolates" in both languages.

See...

He filled the box with a bunch of small things that I love.  Very "stockingish" (and stockings are my all time FAVORITE part of christmas gifts)

  New socks, animal print supplies for my craft room, cupcake paraphernalia, and of course my Diet cranberry juice so I can booze it up guilt free.   What a guy!

Valentine's Day Picnic

So Valentine's Day is less than a week away.  Still have no clue what to do?  Well....people gotta eat right?  And while a restaurant is cool.....picnics are even cooler!  Last year I took my boy on a picnic up in the White Tank Mountains.  Nothing too fussy to be a pain in the ass but creative enough to look like I'm thoughtful haha    Here's the spread

When I think of guys I think of meat and potatoes. When I think of picnics I think of sandwiches and  potato salad.  Put them all together and you have yourself a man-friendly feast.

For starters we had an antipasto platter.  Pepperoni, Genoa Salami, Kalamata Olives, baby heirloom tomatoes, and mozzarella balls marinated in balsamic vinegar and basil

I made steak sandwiches for our main course.  Toast yourself some nice crusty/chewy bread like ciabatta.  I made a simply basil aioli using about a 1/2 cup mayo,  2 tablespoons of chiffonade basil, a clove of garlic, and a squeeze of lemon.  Season some steak liberally with salt and pepper.  Cook to medium and thinly slice on an angle so it isn't chewy.  Pile it all up on your bread with some provolone, arugula, and roasted red peppers.

Now, you probably don't believe me judging by the photo....but this is a potato salad with green beans.  I can't see a single freakin bean here, but I promise they're there......somewhere.  Here is one of my non recipe recipes.  Very rough and just a starting point for you to adjust to your taste or how big of a batch you want.

 Red Potato Salad With Green Beans

3 lbs of red potatoes (cooked, diced, and cooled)
1 lb. Green beans (cut bite size, blanched and shocked)
1/2-1lb bacon diced and cooked
(I pretty much use a full pound of bacon anytime I use it because really...what the hell else are you going to do with a few left over strips of bacon?.  And it's delicious so why not?)
1 bunch of green onions  chopped
1 cup (or so) of Romano or Parmesan cheese

Toss the above ingredients together and dress with your choice of vinaigrette.  I like to make my own red wine vinaigrette

1 cup olive oil
1/2 c red wine vinegar
1-2 cloves of garlic (I like a punch so 2 for me)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Whisk well and pour a little at a time over your salad to make sure you don't over dress it.  Let it all sit in the fridge and soak up the flavors.  Add more dressing if needed while it sits.


And last but of course not least.... Coconut cupcakes!  My boy loves him some coconut so it was an obvious choice for this occasion.  And cupcakes are good travel food.

 
3 sticks butter softened
  2 cups sugar
  5 eggs
  2 teaspoons vanilla
  1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
  3 cups flour
  1 teaspoon baking powder
  1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  1/2 teaspoon salt
  1 cup milk
  14 oz bag shredded coconut (make sure to get the sweetened)

Sift together all the dry ingredients and set aside.  Cream together the butter and sugar.  Let it get light at fluffy.  I used to make the mistake of only doing it for a minute or 2 but let it beat for about 5  minutes...it really makes a difference!  Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs one at a time.  Then mix in the extracts.

Alternate adding the dry ingredients and milk to the egg, sugar, and butter mixtures.  Mix until it just all comes together.  Then carefully fold in half the coconut.  Pour into cupcake liners and bake at 350 until a toothpick comes out clean.  About 15-20 mins.  After they have cooled, frost them with this delicious cream cheese frosting.

2 blocks of softened cream cheese (16 oz)
3 sticks of butter
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond
1 1/2-2 lb powdered sugar

Cream together the cream cheese and butter.  Stir in the extracts then slowly add the sugar a little at a time.   Start with a 1 1/2 pounds and check for the consistency you want.  Sometimes it can take up to 2 lbs depending on the day.  Frost the cupcakes and then roll them in the left over coconut.

There ya go!  A meal and somewhat of an "event" all in one. 

DIY Valentine's Day Pillow

I decided I wasn't too thrilled with the last.  I saw this cute "Love" place mat at Michael's and decided to give it another whirl.  The last one wasn't quite big enough so you couldn't really tell it was a heart.  This one came out much better.  I made it just the same as my last one

Valentine's Day Pillow

So I had this vision of having cute little pillows for each holiday.  At Dollar Tree I found these great felt "Wall Decorations" as they call them and thought they would be perfect!  I looked around for a cheap pink pillow, but with no luck decided to make my own pillow.

I bought 1.5 yards of this pink fabric for $2.50 at Walmart.  Fold the fabric over.  I then just laid my heart over the top and used a straight edge and my fabric chalk to mark how big I wanted to make the pillow.

Cut it out and then iron out all the wrinkles

Line the fabric up as good as you can and then pin the 3 sides of the pillow and start sewing away.  Now, if your lucky and have a sewing machine you can get this done pretty fast.  I on the other hand can't seem to justify such a big purchase at this point because 1.) I'm a cheap ass and 2.) Until I start doing more projects that  require sewing I can gravy train off my sisters OR get over it and hand sew it like I did this

Start sewing at the corners where the fabric is folded and meet in the middle of one side, leaving a small space big enough to fit your hand through open

Use that hole to turn the pillow inside out.  Then I used Aleene's fabric glue to glue on the heart.  You could sew it, but the felt was very stiff, thick, and intricate. I knew it would be too hard to hand sew.  I let it dry for 24 hours before  stuffing the pillow and then sewing up the open space.

Here it is all done

Not professional grade, but not too bad for a newbie at hand sewing.