Valentine's Goodies

X's and O's (Kisses and Hugs)

Chocolate Cupcakes with hearts

Conversation Heart cake pops

Sprinkles

More sprinkles

I heart you!

This and more can be ordered over at my Cakes Before Me blog!

Recipe of the Week - Mexican Lasagna

This is a recipe that I found in the coupon/ads and I altered it a bit to fit our tastes.

Ingredients:
2 to 3 cooked, boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cut into small pieces (about 3 cups), divided
1 can (28 oz) or 2 cans (15oz) mild red enchilada sauce
1 container (8 oz) of sour cream
1 can (12 fl oz) Evaporated milk
2 cups (8 oz pkg) shredded cheddar cheese
1 can (4 oz)  of diced jalepenos or if you want it less spicy use diced green chilies, undrained
1 pkg (12 tortillas) 7-inch corn tortillas


Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 13x9-inch baking dish.

Combine enchilada sauce and sour cream in medium bowl. 

Combine evaporated milk, cheese and jalepenos in medium saucepan.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until cheese has melted and mixture is smooth.  Remove from heat.

Spread 1 cup of enchilada sauce mixture on bottom of baking dish.  Layer with 4 tortillas.  I had to tear mine to fit in the pan.  Then put on another cup of enchilada sauce mixture and 1 1/2 cups chicken

 And then 1 cup of cheese sauce.  

 Repeat the layers one more time, starting with tortillas.  

Top with remaining tortillas, enchilada sauce mixture and 

cheese sauce.  Cover with foil.  Bake for 40 minutes. 

Uncover; cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Valentines Topiary Tutorial

Here is a cheap craft to add a little romance to your decor.  I think the whole thing cost me less than $5.00.  The part that took the longest was making the paper roses.  It took me about 3 hours and I didn't have enough paper to cover the whole ball.  So there is a bald spot in the back but it faces the wall so no one sees it anyway.

You will need:
1- 2.5 inch styrofoam ball
5- sheets of 12x12 paper
1- bamboo skewer
1- small terra cotta pot
a small styrofoam ball that will fit in the bottom of the pot
hot glue gun
white paint
candy hearts

To make the rosettes you just make a spiral and the bigger you make it, the fuller your flower will be.

Then you cut out the spiral and start rolling it tightly from the outside to the inside.

 If you let it loosen a little then it will have more open petals.  

I just played around with it and made lots of different ones.

When you have it how you want you put some hot glue on the tail 

end of the spiral and set the flower down on top.  

Press it down to make sure that the paper gets glued down to it.

There's the bottom of the flower.

Once you finish a flower or two you can start gluing them 

onto the styrofoam ball.  I only had 4 sheets of paper and I think 

if I had had one more sheet it would have been enough 

to fill it up.  I wish I would have covered my ball with 

some red tissue paper so that it would disguise 

the holes that my flowers didn't fill.

I sprayed the little pot with 2 coats of  chalkboard paint.  I did 

this outside and it was a beautiful sunny day so it dried fast. 

I painted the bamboo skewer with white acrylic paint and broke a little off the end so it wouldn't be so tall.  Then I pushed the pointed end about halfway into the flower covered ball.  I hot glued the small styrofoam ball down into the bottom of the little pot and then pushed the other end of the skewer down into it. 

 I filled the rest of the pot up with conversation hearts and 

drew a heart onto the outside of the pot.  The fun of the 

chalkboard pots is that you can write whatever you want on them! 

 Here's the finished topiary, I wish I knew how to take better pictures.  

I don't think I got a picture of it that really does it justice.
  I love it!  Happy Valentines!

Winners of Safeway, Betty Crocker and Gladware Giveaway

Thanks to all who entered the giveaway! I am very excited to announce that:

Raven In A Blue Room is the winner of the prize package that includes a $25 giftcard to Safeway, a bag of Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix and some Gladware storage containers!

She said...
"Google Friends Connect - following your blog publicly as Louis
Thank you for hosting this giveaway

Louis
schnitzomage {at} gmail {dot} com "

And...

redraw**
J.C.--who said:
"Three-in-One Chocolate Bars looks great to try."

Congratulations to the winners!  And thanks again to MyBlogSpark, Safeway, Betty Crocker and Glad for supplying this giveaway.

The winners have been contacted via email and have 24 hours to respond or new winners will be chosen.  

Vote For Me!!

 

I submitted my post, Repurposing Old Jeans, to the blog Saturday Mornings contest called: Strut Your Stuff Best of January 2011.  There were a lot of great entries, over 300!  I was selected as a finalist and I am super excited!  There is a prize if I win and what is even cooler is that Dana (the writer of the blog) will do a feature post on the winner.  How cool is that?! 

So please take a moment to go and vote.  You can vote for 5 different people and you can vote once a day, every day, until February 4th!  Thanks in advance for your support.  *Squeals of excitement*

Fabric Rosette Pin

I've been wanting to try to make a fabric rosette for awhile and then I saw a tutorial for them at AliLilly and thought she made it look pretty easy.  I was able to follow her instructions and make my own fabric rosette pins.  I made six of them.  5 for gifts and 1 for me!  I put mine on the strap of my purse and I love that it adds a little bit more "girl" to my purse.

I also followed her tutorial for making these tissue paper rosettes.  She made a heart wreath with hers but I made some decorative balls with mine.  Again, she had good instructions.  The only thing it did not say was that it takes a long time!  In my opinion.  It is definitely not a quick craft, especially if you are covering a lot of area with your little rosettes.  But it does look pretty!

This button links directly to AliLilly for all her fun tutorials:

Want to win an iPod Touch?

Last week, I posted about Moody Publishers and the launch of their new blog called Inside Pages.  The blog was created to "start a dialogue on faith, publishing, and literary culture, in which we welcome your insights and offer you a behind-the-scenes look at the book industry." 

Last week they gave away a Kindle....

They are doing another giveaway!!

So head on over Inside Pages to enter the giveaway for an iPod Touch.  This would be an awesome piece of technology to have!

Visit Inside Pages by clicking on the link below!
 insidepages.net

Repurposing Old Jeans

I've had a pair of blue jeans that I probably paid more for than any pair of jeans I've ever purchased.  I haven't been able to wear them for 2 years but I haven't wanted to get rid of them.  Honestly I'm glad that I haven't been able to wear them...they are too big!  They also have some bling on them and I don't think that is my style anymore.  Of course that could change again.  So I've had these jeans in my material box because I knew I wanted to make something out of them.

 I often start crafting without a real thought of what I want to do or make in my mind.  However, when I opened my material box I spotted the jeans and decided I wanted to do something with them.  So I used some of the material from a leg to make rosettes for a new wreath for my front door.  I'm not sure if it is finished yet though....I feel like I need to add something red.

I'm wondering if I should have used red yarn on the wreath since my front door is white?

I used the top part of the jeans to make a sling for the remotes and other TV paraphernalia.  I just had to sew the bottom closed and sew on ribbon loops on each side.  Then I hung it on the wall and dropped the stuff in!  I like it and Caleb said it was "cool"!

I put it right by the TV for easy access.

There is a closeup of my blinged-out remote sling. 

I still have some blue jean left...but I'm not sure what I'll be doing with it yet.  I'm glad I'm getting use out my pants again though!