Thrift Store Frames, before and after

A very simple project today. I was feeling to urge to spray paint something... I've been spray painting lots lately! So, I swung through the local thrift store to find some frames... I wanted to frame quotes and advice for the upcoming bridal shower, as well as photos of the bride and groom for around my mom's house. This was a great start, and the total cost was until $5!

Frames @ $0.99 each from Value Village

I did about three layers of Matte White Paint (Ace Brand Quick Dry Spray Paint). I just took the backing and glass out, set them on newspaper on the front yard and then let them dry (less than a half hour!) In the smaller one, I printed some wedding/love quote (this one says 'once in a while, right in the middle of life, love gives us a fairytale'.) and added a photo I had matted that would fit in the bigger frame (11X14 matted an 8X10 photo).

LOVE how they turned out, and SOOOO easy!

Chocolate Mousse Cream Puffs

Yes, I know... do I need to say ANYTHING?

Nope!

But, while doing a trial run for the bridal shower I'm throwing at the end of the month, I wanted to make sure I was capable of nailing the cream puffs... Yea, I did...

Recipe:

Chocolate Mousse Cream Puffs

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Start to Finish: 3 hours

Servings: 12 (2 cream puffs each)

Chocolate Mousse

(this needs time to sit and cool, so start with making it!)

4 egg yolks

1/4 C Sugar

1 C Heavy Whipping Cream

1 bag (6oz) Semisweet Chocolate Chips (I used milk chocolate here)

1 & 1/2 C/ Heavy Whipping Cream

Beat yolks in small bowl with electric mixer on high about 3 minutes or until thick and lemon colored. Gradually beat in sugar. Heat 1 Cup Whipping Cream over medium heat just until hot. Gradually stir in half the hot cream to egg yolk micutre, stirring quickly as to not cook the eggs. add remaining hot cream and stir. Cook over low heat, about 5 minutes until it thickens (DO NOT BOIL). Stir in chocolate chips, stir until melted. Cover and refridgerate about 2 hours, stirring occasionally until cold. (start on cream puffs...) but after this is cold, you will beat 1/2 C Cold Heavy Whipping Cream until stiff, then fold in chocolate mixture, put in piping bag, or spoon into cream puffs when they are ready.

Cream Puffs:

3/4 C plus 2 Tbsp Flour

2 Tbsp Baking Cocoa

1 Tbsp Granulated Sugar

1 C Water

1/2 C. Butter or Margarine (I used Margarine and they were just fine!)

4 eggs

Heat oven to 400 degrees F; mix flour, cocoa and sugar in small bowl, set aside. Heat water and butter to a rolling boil in a saucepan. Stir in flour mixture; reduce heat to low and stir vigoriously over low hear about 1 minute or until mixture forms a ball. remove from heat. beat in eggs; all at once, with a spoon. Continue beating until a smooth dough/batter forms. drop by scant 1/4C. about 2" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 35-40 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Cool on a wire rack until cool. Once cool, with a serrated knife, cut off the top third of each puff, pulling out the strands of soft dough on the inside, to make the puff hollow. Pipe or spoon mousse into puffs, replace tops and store in fridge until ready to eat.

Orange & Creme Wedding Card

My best friend, Steph is going to a wedding this weekend; and the colors for the wedding are Orange and Creme. She asked me to make a card that would go with the wedding colors, and I was thrilled to oblige. Our [original] wedding colors, incase you don't know were also Orange and Brown; but Orange was sort of sidelined when I stumbled upon the girls attire, and boys attire and changed my mind a week or two before the wedding. :-) Our colors ended up being Purple and Green.

Anywhoo, the background paper I used for this card was actually the inside of one of our wedding invitation envelopes, I just cut to size (since our invites were 6X6 I had plenty to work with).



The orange is from PTI-- Cream is from my stash, and the little prima flowers were from last years CK Scrapbooking Convention (which I AM also going to tomorrow!!).

I popped up the cake for some dimension, and I know you can't tell (becuase that was the goal) but I put a piece of cream cardstock under the satin ribbon since you could see the pattern through it.

I also chose to line this card (which I don't do very often) since it is for a wedding, I wanted to make sure the writing inside could be easily read.

I am hoping to post some photos of the CK Scrapbook Expo tomorrow, I'll probably spend some time at Lila's Booth since she is down there also, and I've been saving my pennies since I found so many great deals last year, I didn't want to have to hold back!

Talk with you soon!

Dawn

Keepin' the Kiddos Busy... for three months?!!?

Since Zoe is only 3 (and a half; she would tell you) she isn't in school yet; and actually she doesn't go to daycare of any sort of 'away from mommy' care. She is with me; basically all the time at either our home, or my work (which is actually sort of like daycare since she hangs with her uncles in the shop or on the paintball field [when it's NOT open] and plays or watches toonies, or cleans cabinets, etc.)

We came home from work early today; because I couldn't resist a day like this:

Which is Washington, translates to this:

Nothing stellar and hot, but comfortable, warm and DRY!

Anyways, we've been trying to figure out things to do outside, because we're stuck in the house so often in this part of the country. I know I won't melt if we go for a walk in the rain, but you'd like Adam and Zoe would.... maybe it's him being raised in the midwest... or her believing this antics. We have lots of slugs and snails at our house, and they come out moreso when it's cool and damp, so our city's slug population has dramatically decreased in the last two weeks and we've probably gone through 10 pounds of salt killing them... but she has fun hunting them... and I can't help but do an evil laugh knowing they aren't going to eat my strawberries again anytime soon!

Over at Lauren's Creative today, she posted some cool projects she did with her daughter, who is about the same age as Zoe. This tells me, it's do-able with Zoe and if she eats it, she isn't going to get sick. :-)

Sidewalk 'Chalk' paint was as big of a hit in my house as it was in hers! How cool it was to 'splatter paint' the from patio, and draw, color and write with it!

Oh, and making this mix is totally a mommy job, because with little hands helping, I ended up with a pink hand... and it doesn't just wash off! Darn food coloring!

And, no matter how careful we tried to be, she was bound to splatter herself too, so the Uggs (costco, baby!) she was wearing are splattered too, so I'm hoping I can wipe it off and the color want stain the suede...