Somethin' Smells Good!!

You know, if I had an endless amount of money, an incredible and huge kitchen, and all the time in the world, I could probably stock up my kitchen with all kinds of amazing ingredients and experiment until something good happened. But, that is just not reality so I generally go recipe hunting to find a yummy, healthy dish that doesn't require 80 ingredients that I will never use again that end up costing me $150. I also usually aim for something rather quick and easy. That is not always an easy task, especially because Cooper is SUCH a picky eater! So, when I see something that looks like it fits all my criteria, I jump on it! Welllll, low and behold, I'm on Pinterest the other day and I spot a yummy looking picture. I immediately click on it to find out that it is a simple little crock pot meal!! After reading the ingredients I realized, this was right up my alley! 
Here is the picture of the dish I found on Pinterest: 

I decided that it sounded like something that Cooper would eat and definitely something that fit into my budget and time schedule! 


So, the next morning I went to the store and got the ingredients: 

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 bag of red potatoes (you only need 4-6, cut in half)
• 1 bag of baby carrots (you only need 1/2 bag)
• 1 bag of shredded Parmesan (you only need 1/2 cup)
• Italian Seasoning (I used Paula Deen's)
• 1 16 oz bottle of Italian dressing (I used low fat and I had to get the Newman's Own Organic Italian  because Cooper insisted!)

As soon as I got home from the store, I got to work (not that it was much work). I got out my trustee ole crock pot and put a slow cooker liner (genius invention) in it. I then did exactly what the recipe said....  I poured a little of the dressing in the bottom of the pot, put in two of the breasts, put on a little bit more of the dressing, and sprinkled on some cheese and Italian Seasoning. Then I put the other two breasts in the crock pot (you gotta try not to stack them directly on top of the other two if possible), sprinkled on the rest of the cheese, dumped in the carrots, poured on some more Italian dressing, sprinkled on some Italian Seasoning, and then dumped in my potatoes followed up with the rest of the bottle of dressing and a little more Italian Seasoning. I put the top on that sucker and put him on low for 8 hours and BOOM, dinner is done! 

Here is how mine turned out: 

Although it doesn't look as pretty as the picture from Pinterest (nothing ever does), it was so delicious and tender, when I tried to get the chicken out of the crock pot, it literally fell apart! I served it with a lemon/olive oil salad and, Voila, a healthy dinner that Cooper and I both loved! Definitely something that everyone should try... You could definitely make it your own by throwing in different spices and herbs (not that it needs it) but the dressing definitely does a great job at flavoring the chicken AND keeping it from drying out! 

Thank you to The Cook for blogging this recipe! 

So... What's it supposed to be???

Last night I was on Pinterest, yet again, and I saw this great crock pot chicken recipe that I wanted to try (which I did and will write about in a later post) so I got up early this morning to go to the store to get the missing ingredients. Well... Of course you can't just go in Wal-Mart and only get what you originally came for. So, I got a few things to do a craft with. I actually got two clay pots and three different sized clay pot saucers.

Let me start off by showing you my inspiration...

Here are the supplies I had...

Now, I already had the paint and the painting supplies.... So I painted the outside and bottom of the saucers and the clay pots chocolate brown. Then, I painted the inside of the saucers turquoise.



Once everything had dried, I stacked them as shown in the picture and I just didn't like the way it looked... It looked a little too "homemade" to me. At this point I remembered that I had some little $1 candle sticks in my craft cabinet so I decided to use those instead.... here is how it turned out!

I think it turned out pretty dang cute except the way the glue dried on the candle holders! I don't like that you can see the white, foggy glue on the inside! I am trying to think of a cute way to cover that up.... Please comment your ideas!!

Who doesn't love the Salvation Army?!?!

For a while I have been wanting/needing some piece of furniture for my home. Something with drawers that I could put against a wall with a nice lamp on it or something. I just needed some storage, but I wanted something that looked nice too. Well, I am just too cheap to go buy something new. As luck would have it, I ran into the Salvation Army one day to see if they had anything worth getting and, sure enough, they had a great antique piece for $50 and it was actually on sale for $35! I was so stoked! It was definitely in rough shape but I knew I could get it looking better.... Or I could at least give it a try annnnnd it was a huge possibility that it would be an epic fail. Now, I didn't turn out exactly how I would have liked but I think it looks pretty good! So, here is how it went for me....


After I got the big honkin piece of furniture back home, I went to home depot and stocked up on supplies for my first project. I got: 


One small can of beige paint
One small can of dark brown paint
Painting supplies
Primer
Sandpaper 

Because it is such an antique piece I really wanted to keep an old, worn feel with it so I was planning to distress it. 


First step, I attempted to take off the pulls on the drawers (I was planning on replacing them) but I couldn't get them off. They were all rusted and some were bent a little and I really didn't want to mess up the wood trying to get them off so I just had to work around them. But if anyone has any advice on how to get those suckers off, please comment! 


So, I moved on to priming. After I had her all primed up, I painted on a coat of beige paint. Once that was dry, I then painted on one layer of dark brown paint. 


After all the painting was done, I sanded away at the top coat of paint to get the beige to show through. This was the finished product....

I wish I would have taken pictures throughout the process but I didn't know I was going to be posting about this. From now on, I will be taking pictures, step by step! 

Ready... Set... Craft!

So, since the whole Pinterest thing has caught on, I, like every other girl in the world, have become obsessed! I mean, it is getting bad. I started with one thing a few months ago, then I started another project a few weeks ago. Today, though, I have tackled two brand new ones in one day. And I am sitting here planning my next one (or 50)! So I am going to start blogging about all of my attempts and what I have found to be the realistic outcome of the "oh so simple" projects posted to Pinterest. Now.... Let's get started, I've got a bit of back blogging to do here!