DIY Gift Tag Roundup

 

I have seen so many cute printable gift tags around the blog and pinterest world! Click the links below to download and print these super cute tags!

World Label

 

Creature Comforts Blog

 

Sass and Peril

 

Kelli Murray

 

In case you list my last post, here are my cute gift tags I made!

DIY Gift Tags

 

I had a blast making these easy, inexpensive and adorable gift tags! I picked up some supplies at the craft store and gathered some existing craft stuff I had and went to work. These gift tags add such a personal touch on your presents and look 10 times cooler than traditional tags. I used two kinds of washi tape, stamps, glitter snowflakes, blank gift tags, and bakers twine. That’s all you need! With the Christmas stamps I had, I was able to mix it up and create different looks on the back of the gift tags.

 

Stay tuned for the gift tag round up I will be posting soon!

Recipe Review: Crunchy Parmesan Ranch Chicken

I just posted a recipe for the Crispy Chicken a few weeks back. I loved that recipe and have since found a similar one. I just made it and it is oh so delicious! Thanks to Erin from How to Nest for Less for providing such a yummy recipe I found on Pinterest! It’s a very easy and quick recipe to make.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups crushed cornflakes
• 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 packet dry Ranch dressing mix
• 1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine – melted

DIRECTIONS:
Mix together crushed cornflakes, parmesan cheese and ranch powder package in a container large enough to put your chicken pieces in.
Cut chicken breasts in strips (or chunks) and dip in butter. Then coat with parmesan cheese, ranch and cornflake mixture. Try to cover nearly all the surfaces.
Either place chicken on a baking stone, or in a pan sprayed with olive or vegetable oil. If there are bare spots that the mixture hasn’t fully covered, you can always sprinkle another layer of the mixture on top. Depending on the size and thickness of your pieces, you will bake for 20- 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Just be sure the chicken is cooked through.
I thought the chicken turned out amazing! I used fresh parmesan cheese which I think made it a bit too greasy. In the original recipe she used Kraft parmesan cheese which is pretty dry and powdering so I would suggest trying this type of parmesan cheese versus the shredded fresh cheese that is next to the cheddar shredded cheeses. I also think the greasiness could have been from dipping this in butter, next time I will use egg whites, much healthier!

Color Series: Green

 

I wanted to continue the color series fun with green since it’s Christmas time! Stayed tuned for red later this month! Green can be a tricky color to do in a space as it is such a strong color so it has to be done right! Right now I’m loving emerald green, mint green and bright greens.

Erin Ever After

 

Sustainable Savoir-Faire

 

Ninbra

 

Creamy Life

 

House Beautiful

 

Desire to Inspire

 

Design Milk

Christmas Printable Art

I love that Pinterest has made it so easy to find printables! Every holiday or season I find a printable I love, trim to size and put in my white picture frame. It is the easiest and cheapest way to add some fun décor to your house. To get the printable I have below, go to Design Dazzle.



Here are some other fun holiday printables I’m loving!
Large Christmas Lyrics
Subway Art
Big roundup of Christmas printables
Chalkboard printables

If you missed my tutorial on the gold glitter deer above, check it out here!

Gold Glitter Deer Artwork

 

I have seen several images floating around Pinterest showing gold deer or reindeer art and really wanted to make it. I already had a canvas, craft glue, a pencil, a paintbrush and cardstock. I stopped by Michaels and picked up some gold glitter and got to work. I found a deer image by Googling deer silhouette, then printed it out on some cardstock. I cut out the deer image and lightly traced it onto my canvas. I then used some “glitter glue” that came with a set I had to cover the entire area of the deer. Unfortunately there wasn’t quite enough, I should have added more craft glue but instead I applied the glitter. I was sadly disappointed when awhile later I took the glitter off and I had all these empty spots. My biggest suggestion is to thoroughly cover the area with an even coat of glue. I continued adding glue to the empty spots and applying more glitter. I had to go through this several times and then my lovely boyfriend decided he wanted to help and add eyes and a mouth to it. Really?! This just caused nice clumps on it. Finally I applied a thorough and even coat of glue to the entire thing and coated it with glitter. I let the glitter sit in place for awhile to really get adhered. When I finally shook the glitter off I had my complete gold glitter deer art work. It turned out to take way longer than it should have but I love the result!

I think this project would be pretty cute to do with any silhouette. If you wanted to create a holiday one you could do an ornament, tree, snowflakes, gifts, a bow, etc. Have fun crafting and glittering!

PS Glitter has been banned from the house now after this project!

Easy and cute holiday cards

I always enjoy making cards for my loved ones at the holidays but boy does it take a lot of time! Last year I decided to make digital cards and couldn’t have been happier. I was able to get 50 cards with envelopes and four mini calendar cards for $9.99 through Costco! Currently they are $14.99 for a set of 50, 6 x 7.5” in size. You can create larger ones and more elaborate ones if you like.  I couldn’t believe how cute the designs were! I highly recommend making them there if you are looking for an easy and affordable Christmas card. Below are the cards I made last year. I need to figure out what to do this year as I haven’t found the “perfect” picture. I had an amazing idea for a photo but the idea got shot down by someone…
                        

                          
What do you do for your holiday cards? Hand make them, digitally make them or just by generic cards?

Recipe Review: Crispy Chicken

I remember my mom making this crispy chicken I always loved because it was so moist and I loved the crispy coating. I recently came across a similar recipe from Real Simple and it pushed me to make it. One trick I remember from my mom making it was using a stoneware piece. I recently got a stoneware platter from a friend who sells pampered chef. I haven’t used it as much as I should but it is great for making pizza and chicken. I know with the chicken it makes it a lot juicier. The recipe calls for crushed multigrain cereal flakes (I used corn flakes as that’s my moms recipe) and it is delicious! I highly suggest trying this recipe out, especially if you have picky eaters!

Ingredients

• 1 3 1/2-pound chicken, cut into 10 pieces and skin removed
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 2 cups multigrain cereal flakes, crushed
• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• kosher salt and black pepper

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400° F. In a large bowl, toss the chicken and mustard to coat.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the cereal, 1 tablespoon of the oil, and 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Coat the chicken with the cereal mixture and bake on a baking sheet until golden and cooked through, 45 to 50 minutes. This time varies greatly if you chicken is frozen or thawed and how big the pieces are. I cooked my thawed small pieces for 30 minutes and it was a tad too long.

Recipe from Real Simple

Inbox out of control?

My personal inbox has been out of control for along time now. I continued to sign up for things wanting to be in the know, receive coupons, follow blogs/websites, etc. As you can imagine, it soon became way to overwhelming as I had 5,000 emails in my inbox. Often times I would briefly see it and not have time or the interest to thoroughly look at it, so they kept accumulated. I recently read about an amazing program called unroll.me. I do not remember where I initially heard the concept, but forgot to do it then and just revisited it. Essentially, it connects to your email, finds all your subscriptions( I had over 200) and then allows you to add them to your rollup, keep receiving by themselves in the regular format you are use to, or unsubscribe from them in one click. Daily you will receive a digest (called a rollup) of all of these subscriptions, instead of clogging up your email with 50 sale notifications at all your favorite stores. I was able to QUICKLY go through and identify things I no longer cared about (or really hadn’t subscribed to) and click unsubscribe and it was done. Then I added most my subscriptions to my rollup. Some emails were important enough that I wanted to keep them separate and to continue receiving them by themselves.


As you go through it, I love that it gives you a visual of what the email is. If you are interested you click on the image and it opens up the full email. From this rollup, you can easily unsubscribe, stop including it in your roll up and categorize it.


This is a game changer. I can’t wait to start living in a simplified world with my email. Now, if I could just get my client emails this organized and to the point…

PS I was not paid to post about this I just thought it was an amazing tool that others would find useful!

1920’s Flapper Costume

                     
I have always wanted to dress up as a flapper for Halloween. This year I neglected to buy a costume and was just going to wear something from a year before. I was lazy and didn’t want to drive across town to my parents so I threw together a flapper costume for a last minute party I attended. It was super easy! First I looked up flapper costumes and descriptions to make sure I had a clear idea in my head. The standard costume is the fairly shorter red or black fringe dress, but I actually read that oftentimes the dress was below the knee and above the calf. I found a perfect dress hidden in my closet that I haven’t worn in years and it was just right. I grabbed a long pearl necklace I had, looped it around my neck and knotted it at the bottom. The only fishnets I had were thigh highs and they never stay up so I went with  fun kinda lacy nylons with patent leather mary jane small heels. I used hot rollers to curl my hair, but I did see this cute tutorial on how you can do the classic bob when you have long hair!  For my makeup I did a semi dark smoky eye with lots of mascara and the reddest lip gloss I could find. I really wanted a super red lipstick but when I searched, I could not find one at my house. Now for the fun part! I made the feather headband/headpiece and it was super easy! I went to the fabric store and picked up black sequin stretchy trim material, measured it around my head making sure it was tight and had them cut it. Then I really scored when I was looking for feathers, I was going to just get one large feather but they had a huge assortment! I was able to get a clump of feathers already on a clip for $3.99! I had never been to this store before so I didn’t know how much they would really have. I highly suggest the Mill End Fabric Store if you are in the Portland area. Then at home I hand stitched the piece of stretchy sequin material together to make the head band. Anyone can do this, its easier than sewing a button. So all in all, I put together an adorable outfit for $5.11! I’m use to spending at least $50 on a costume and I hate it, so I was just thrilled with this!


                    

Hope you had a wonderful time celebrating Halloween!