Artwork Redo

We've been working on staging our house to sell it (don't you just love moving?!), so we've been buying artwork and decorations.

We're decorating the second master in kind of a shabby chic style, so I've been looking for something to hang on the wall in there. I found a few things online, but I just wasn't ready to commit to any of them.

Then we went to Hobby Lobby and wandered and wandered...

And my husband found this (on clearance!):



He has a good eye. The color wouldn't work, but we looked it over and decided we could take it apart and paint it.

We painted the birdcage "Catalina Mist" and the wooden part is a cream colored crackle paint. As an aside, we should really learn to READ the paint cans because the crackle paint was supposed to be step 2 of a 2 step process. Whoops! It didn't crackle all that much, but we were ok with the results.






Before and After:



If only the walls weren't white, but I'm not painting them just to move! :)

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Two Girls and a Party

Pinterest Picks 2

Here are a couple of Pinterest things we've tried recently.

Cream Cheese Filled Chicken

I was a little skeptical of the dredging on this one because it says to dip it in flour, then egg, then corn flake crumbs. I thought the egg would wash off the flour, but actually I think it made the rolled up chicken hold together better. I didn't have a lot of problem with the cream cheese mixture oozing out of the chicken, so I would call that a victory.

It was pretty good. The prep time is minimal, and that always makes me happy! I used pressed garlic instead of garlic salt, and I think maybe I didn't add enough salt to make up for it, but you live and you learn.

Soft and Chewy Springtime Blondies
Do you know of my Cadbury Mini Egg addiction? Well when I saw a dessert that incorporated those little pieces of heaven, I knew right away it would be a winner. I even let a bag of Mini Eggs languish on my kitchen counter for a week or so because I wanted to try this. Well, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. I ate the eggs, folks. I still wanted to try the recipe though, so we made it with chocolate chips instead. I'm always skeptical of brownie/blondie recipes because I don't like for them to be cake-like. If it's not chewy, it's not a brownie/blondie. The texture of these are just right and the possibilities are endless as far as what you can mix into them. I have a feeling that we will make lots of variations of these!

What have you tried lately?

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Make, Bake, Create

This Week's Pinterest Picks

I have a slight addiction to Pinterest. I use it mostly to find recipes to help me get out of the recipe rut, but sometimes I find other things of interest. Mostly I just pin them and never look at them again, but I try to find a couple of things per week to actually try.

Here are some things I've tried recently.

Borax Ant Trap Recipe

It's suddenly like I'm living in a bad 80's movie starring a legion of nasty old ants. My favorite ant killer is Terro Liquid Ant Bait, but it's not always easy to find. The active ingredient in it is Borax. I like it because it's a natural substance and though you wouldn't want to drink the stuff, it's not a pesticide, so it's not as harmful as regular ant killers. Plus, it works REALLY well.

Anyway, my sweet husband searched the world over for it on his way home from work and couldn't find it, so I told him to just grab some Borax so I could make my own.

I put it out last night and when I checked the first trap, I thought it was a flop. My mistake may have been labeling it as ant bait. Maybe ants can read?




Anyway, then I checked the other one and BINGO!



The website says it works overnight. I think that's a bit of a stretch. Even the Terro kind takes a few days to get rid of all of the ants. When I refill it, I will put less liquid in the trap. I want them to drink it and take it home with them, not drown in it. The website says to soak it up on cotton balls, but I didn't have any.

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Sticky Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki

This smelled so good cooking! It's always a bonus when I run across a recipe that I have all of the ingredients for. It's also a bonus when I can throw it in a slow cooker and forget about it! I didn't have the ginger this called for, but it was fine without it, and I served it over quinoa instead of rice.

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Melt in Your Mouth Chicken

This was so easy that I was able to prepare it while the cranky teething baby was still awake. Granted, I had to put some gangsta rap on Pandora and sing along while changing the words to make the words baby appropriate. And I had to randomly hide behind the island and jump out to make him laugh, but it worked! My oven has a fancy "cook time" feature that will turn off the oven when the timer goes off, so it worked perfectly for me to pop in the oven just before beginning the marathon that is trying to convince The Baby Fish it is his bedtime. It was a little salty, but I think it was just because I cooked half the amount of chicken the recipe calls for and didn't half the coating. If you're concerned about salt, maybe use a little less of the seasoning salt. You can always add more when it's done if you need to.

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I move all of the recipes I try to my Tried and True Recipe board so I can keep up with what I've tried.

If you've tried any Pinterest experiments this week, share them with me. It's always interesting to see real reviews.

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