Disney Mini Autograph Book

Last year when planning my vacation, I decided to avoid the beaches, which is really really rare of me. I am all over sun, drinks, and beaches. Snorkeling. Ahhhh.
Instead we went to Disney land. I hadn't been since I was a kid, and hubby had never ever gone! So off to see the Mouse.

I decided to make an autograph book, mine would be much cooler than the store bought kind. Duh.
Hubby laughed at me and thought I was too old for an autograph book. Well, age doesn't matter in Disneyland. So I made a cool book, and the characters loved it. It made for some great picture moments and even hubby helped collect a few autographs. Its that Disney effect I'm telling ya.

Fast forward to this year, now of course all my friends are going to Disneyland over the next few months. This only make me want to go again very very badly. Hubby says no, something about saving up for moving next year which is all my idea. Sigh. Being an adult is hard.

Well, one of my friends asked me to make a couple autograph books for her kids and I leapt for joy!!!! YAY I could pretend to go to Disneyland!!!!!!

Here's my pictures, I hope you enjoy. Of course, there are so many different kind of autograph books you can make or even buy. Some are complicated, some are put together after the trip, some are as simple as the t-shirt and sharpie idea.

First step is to collect cereal boxes. I know the paper is pretty tough, but I like having the cereal boxes to help give it some structure while the characters are signing away.

My silhouette Cameo got a great workout and cut pages and pages of cereal boxes. I like having a few fun pages in there that aren't all squares. Keep the same size cut out on the silhouette and use it for cutting paper. Using different colors: white, pink, green, blue, etc. I like to match up some of the pages for the characters to sign. I made the mistake last year of not making a page for the Mad Hatter, and oooohhhh he was so "upset" in only the way the Mad Hatter could me. So I gave him the page I made for Baboo. Don't ask why I made for Baboo and not Mad Hatter. So, if you make an autograph book, make sure to make a fantastic page for the Mad Hatter.

Decorate your pages however you want. Then I used Lori Whitlock's style for binding the album together. She has a few different styles. This is the one I used. Lori Whitlock Youtube Instruction

I have to say it almost took as long to piece it all together as it did to make the individual pages. To be fair, I made a lot of pages, 13 total, space for 26 signatures or pictures. YAY for Disney! I really want to go back. :(

Love the princess silhouettes that are available for download through the Silhouette store.

My favorite page to have fun with is Winnie the Pooh.

Then decorate the cover as you will. There's so many choices, and its Disney so the more fun the better it is. I stick with the black/white/red motif, its the easiest and all matches, but themed ones would be fun if there's a favorite character.

Those are my autograph books. I give them to their new mommy owner tomorrow and then they make the trek to their destination Disney next week. I really hope the kids love them as much as I do.

Chocolate Chai Pancakes

Fair warning, I am not a food blogger, I love reading food blogs, but the time between picture taking and food entering my mouth always catches me off guard. If it smells good, I want to eat it.
But this recipe was amazing. So amazing I am writing this while eating. Getting peanut butter oil on my keyboard.

So my husband and I have this running joke going. I say I'm a horrible housewife, he says yea, but you make a wonderful wife. I threaten to go find myself a housewife, he says yes please.

So dear hubby usually makes the pancakes around here. They are perfect, the incredibly fluffy, cooked and deliciousness through every bite. Every time I make pancakes, even from the box, they turn out flat, crispy, undercooked or overcooked. I trick him by putting the pretty sides up on his plate. Let's just say he never goes back for seconds.

Well, here I am this morning, and I am starving! That horrible, don't ask me to do anything, I can't even think straight until I get some food in this tummy!!!

I was burnt out on toast (hehehe) so that wasn't an option (well, wasn't preferable anyways), not in a cereal mood.

Most of you would think, easy, whip up some eggs, some omlette, whatever. There's actually quite a bit of breakfast options out there. The problem is this, I ran out of eggs, and almond milk. The only thing in my fridge was chocolate almond milk and Chai latte mix.

So, I do what I usually do when I need inspiration, off to Pintrest I go. I am such an addict.

Found a vegan board, and thought, ooohhh, no eggs needed there. Watch out for the egg substitute though, (yea, I need to go grocery shopping ASAP)

Found a recipe for pancakes, mmmmmmmm, every day is a good day for pancakes.

5 Min Vegan Pancakes - no eggs required. any kind of flour, and a quick substitute here and there.

So, I mixed my batter, dry first, I used wheat flour as I was running out of GF flour, (did I mention the need to go shopping?) sugar, baking powder, teeny bit of salt, stirred with a fork. Have I mentioned that I don't use measuring spoons. I use measuring cups no problem, tablespoons and teaspoons I just eye. Probably explains my previous pancakes.....)
Wandered over to my fridge, figured almond chocolate milk was just as good as reg. almond milk. Besides, who says no to chocolate?

The batter was really really thick. I took that as a great sign. BTW, sorry about the quality of pics, my camera does not do well in my kitchen. It is yummy and smells good too.

As I was waiting for the first pancake I made myself a mix of Chai and Chocolate milk. I was super nervous about this as I took my first sip. OH WOW !!!! LOVE AT FIRST SIP

If you haven't tried this, go do it now. Promise, it was amazing. And if you have tried this, WHY DIDNT YOU TELL ME ABOUT THIS BEFORE?

 

     I cooked up my second pancake, and my stomach won out, I tried a small bite of the first finished pancake. OOHHH that was good, and fluffy. so thick. I would even go as far to say better than my husbands in texture. Small bite quickly turned into devouring. Took another sip of my amazing drink, then lightbulb went off.

Uhhhhh, why not add some chai mix to the pancake mix? It was a really thick batter anyways, so why not? Help thin it out a bit.

So the last half of my pancakes are now Chocolate Chai pancakes. There's a definite but small taste difference between the first half of the batch and the second half. Both are good, but I will definitely be adding Chai to my future batches. Not going to lie, I might have to make these again tomorrow morning. Yep, that good.

My regular topping on pancakes is peanut butter. Don't judge. I love it. I'll go on a healthy thing and say it adds extra protein to help me get through the day. MMmmmmmm

Super easy, and with stuff I have in my kitchen at all times even on grocery shopping day. And if I can get them light and fluffy, so can you, trust me.

I am going to go enjoy the last of my pancakes. Tomorrow I'll make an extra batch just to throw in the freezer for future cravings.

Now go! These are relatively healthy. Healthier than other pancakes anyways. Mmmmmm


Recipe

1 cup wheat flour
1 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. baking powder
touch of salt
1 cup chocolate almond milk
1/3 c Chai latte mix
2 tbsp. Olive oil


1. Make sure you have all your ingredients

2. Pour some of the olive oil into the pan and set on med heat.

3. Mix up dry ingredients, then add the liquid ingredients. Stir together, I used a fork, no need to get all the lumps out of it. Batter will be thick.

4. Pan should be ready, so measure some of the batter into the pan, and continue to cook like normal pancakes. Flip when bubbles appear, enjoy with toppings of your choice.

I am going to freeze some for future. This made me about 6 pancakes. Would easily serve two, maybe three.

Let me know if you try it and how it turns out!

It is a bit sweeter, I would probably lessen some of the sugar due to the sugar being added in the chocolate milk. But play around with it to your tastes. I didn't want to do maple sugar syrup cause that would have been incredibly sweet.

Painted beauties for the Garden

So, this is all in response to some lady called the Pintester (Sonja  Foust, she' actually quite hilarious, go check out her blog NOW) who decided that we should actually DO the pins we pin!!! Outrageous. But totally fun. And there's a whole list of ladies who decided to follow this craziness too!. To get the full list, go check out the original page The Pintester .

Eventually I will look at a few myself and post a few of my favorites too. We pintesters have to UNITE.

So the first challenge is to decide, which, out of the hundreds and hundreds of pins I have personally pinned, to focus on.

Does anyone else do this? The following conversation:

Me- la dee da dee da

Hubby- Hey hun, whats for dinner?

Me- Oh, is it that time again! I don't know.

        Scrambling for the ipad to pull up my Pintrest page (its permanent on my browser)
        Quickly check out the 5 different boards that I have recipes to, look briefly at the pictures to see if anything sounds appealing. (Let's face it, good recipes require good pictures)
        Go to webpage link to check out the ACTUAL recipe and see if all ingredients are available.

Me- AHA! How does so-and-so sound?
 
        Running to kitchen and get started on dinner.

       Last, after dinner, depending on how it went, I will leave a comment on the pin to any adjustments and such.
     
       In other words, I consider Pintrest to be my own personal cookbook. Yep. A majority of my meals come straight from Pintrest. YUM. 

       So in this challenge I didn't want to do a recipe, too easy. One of my current big projects is my vegetable garden. I realize its June and I am cutting it close. And it seems to be coming along nicely.... I'll let you know once the veggies start blooming.
       But I needed something pretty among the dirt and budding leaves.

       I saw this pin, I immediately pinned it. Unfortunately theres no link to go back to. So if this is your original pin, Please let me know!

          Fortunately, it seems simple enough to figure out on my own.

         I was waiting for a sunny day, here in the Pacific NW we had a great beginning of May, and then it rained and rained. So sunny days temporary gone, and deadline approaching, I decided Kathy Lee and Hoda would be good entertainment while painting my rocks.

First step, Go out and pick out some rocks. Rivers or creek beds seem like a great place to get some nice round flat rocks.
I live near the beach, that would be a nice place too. Instead, I headed to the front yard. I got all sorts of fun shaped rocks. But next time I will be on the search for some fun rocks.

       Tossed them in the sink and gave them a rinse. I suppose you could use a brush or something to get all the cracks, but I just wanted a simple project.

            Gathered up all my supplies, some cheap paint, cheap brushes, water, paper plate, and divided up my rocks into smooth rounded ones and oddly shaped ones. I had a plan.....

                 If you noticed in the paint above, I was missing red. I wasn't too worried about it at first, but then I realized that red is vital. Ummmm, tomatoes, red peppers, those are red. DOH! So I have a few rocks set aside for when I get to those. So the ones I managed to do were green and white.

                I have a whole new appreciation for those painted garden rocks that you find on the internet. I like to think of myself as a beginner artist. I won't give up! Although sometimes I think I should haha. Well, I will be the only one who looks at them in the veggie garden, and of course all the people who come check this page out.... Powers of the internet.

           With the oddly shaped ones, I decided to have a bit of fun. That butterfly turned out a bit wonky in the picture, but that's just the photo, the rock itself looks pretty neat. These are my fun novelty ones that can be spread out anywhere in the garden.

          Yep, I brought out the glitter. And pixie dust yells glitter!!!! This was fun. I may add glitter to more rocks. I love it.

OH YEA, I almost forgot. When its all done. Put some sealant on those rocks. That way your hard work can last for a while. I sent hubby out, and he was great enough to get me some Glossy sealant and protectant. Yay for gloss to top off my glitter rock. I may add more glitter to the other rocks....

         So that's my pintrest challenge. Thanks Sonja for pushing me to paint a bit more, and heck, even post some blogs! I am going back to scrapbooking now. Hubby was kind enough to walk by and compliment the rocks. I enjoyed that too.

OK now to look at a few other pinster challenges, I will post my favorite here.

Have fun! Hope you are inspired to take that pin and DO IT.


Three for one deal Glitter, drinks and pretty rocks
Its Boozy Candy , looks weird but people enjoyed it. 
Lotion? maybe not I enjoyed this one cause it shows the stupidity of sooo many pins out there.
Using pantyhose for making a cute t-shirt
Pretty bracelet
Weaved tshirt rug - this one made me laugh, lots.
She just makes it look so easy peasy Cherry Pie

Tackling the Pinster procrastination

Alright, just a teaser!

One of the Pinners I follow has challenged everyone!

You know those pins you repin, thinking, "This will be awesome, and so easy to do when I have time! I will pin this and do it for sure!"

Then months go by, you repin and the list gets longer and longer till you decide it's just not worth the effort anymore, yea I knew you knew what I was talking about :)

Actually, the pins I look at the most and actually replicate are the scrapbooking ones, those are great for the brain freeze moments. I'm actually very proud of one of my scrapbook pages I replicated.

I'm recently unemployed. I was upset at first, but then, I realized this gives me lots of time to work on those projects that never make it to the top of the priority list. So after the tears dried up, it was off to the scrapbook room I went!!!!

Last Sept my hubby and I went to Southern Cali, visited SeaWorld, Universal Studios, and of course, Disneyland!!!! Now, that's a lot of memories to scrap, so just one page at a time.

I saw THIS page of SeaWorld, and its just gorgeous. So I had to steal it.....

Two pager. and I love Love LOVE it.

oh, I digress....

So the whole reason for this is, drumroll please!!!!!
Pinster has issued a challenge, one of those pins we talked about earlier.... DO IT and BLOG about it.

All the details are HERE
So, if you need just a little bit of motivation to do that really really cute pin, then this is your bit of motivation.
I am excited. But maybe that's because I am super bored and home way too much now and just looking for any kind of entertainment   :)

So, check back May 30th, I am going to try to find an epic Pin to try.

Happy Weekend!

A Sunshine Kind of Day

Todays a good day. And I feel the need to share it so that I can look back on it later on. Sometimes we need a little reminder on our happy days, for those crappy "I hate myself" kind of days. Well, lets stop talk ing about that and focus on the positive.

I think it started yesterday,
A miraculous thing happened
My cat laid on my lap and purred

Now to most of you cat owners out there, you are probably thinking, well duh, thats what cats do.
Well, not my cat. He's a big bully. Even as a kitten he would fall asleep with his teeth in your hand. My dogs were scared of him, as a little itty bitty kitty.
I would be on my laptop and he would come up behind it and shut it, stare at me, then sit on top of said laptop. If I moved, he growled. Yep, we were being terrorized by a cat.

                                              Notice the cat claws, Notice the terror in the dogs face


So last night, he came up and curled up on my lap and purred, and I was actually able to pet him for a little while. Granted, he had one paw, claws extended into my thigh. Small steps. Small smile

Moving on with the original story of feeling good.

I continued painting my kitchen. I feel much better at it than my original go at it. And I challenged myself even more this round. It always feel good to redo a project and it improves. Now while that should also be  a given, practice makes perfect and all that stuff. But there are some projects that you start, and hate half way through, I know you know what I am talking about. And sometimes it can be nerve wracking to start it over again, hoping for better results. I was so nervous to attempt painting the scene again I stalled for 6 months. I wanted to move on to another project, but dear hubby of mine said "NO, not until you finish previous half done projects!"

So, it's going, and its going well. That brings a smile to my face.

This morning I woke up and went to the gym. I, like most of America, struggle with weight. I always knew, and always said I would do something about it. I avoided taking pictures of myself, avoid mirrors, all that jazz. Until our trip to Disneyland a few weeks ago. I forced myself to look at the pictures that we had taken, and I did not like what I saw. First thing on the to do list when we arrived home- get the personal trainer.
Health should always be a priority, money shouldnt factor into it. Eating healthy, gym memberships, etc, it adds up quickly. But this was it, I needed to change, and I needed some outside motivation to help.
Deciding there was nothing wrong with asking for help was a huge step. As soon as I decided that I needed to share this burden, have someone hold me accountable, and be my personal cheerleader, my confidence went up, even though my wait size hasn't shrunk, yet.

Its truly a mental change in myself, watching what I eat, deciding that 2 oreos is better than 10.
I figure that laughing through an hour workout is a good sign, and I left the gym Smiling

It's been a good day. For no real reason, but just a bunch of little reasons. And those little reasons mean the most. For those tough days, when its one BIG reason thats bringing down the day, just focus on the small things. A dog's tail wagging, a cat purring, or just a bit of laughter.

I wish you all some smiling pixie dust today, and don't forget to look at the small stuff today.

A Perfect Anniversary

We just returned from Disneyland a few days ago, I have a cute project I made that I will share a bit later. For now, i just wanted to share a little bit of happiness.

7 years ago on Sept 9th I married my husband in Kauai. There was no proposal, it was more of a, "Hey, lets go on vacation and get married while we are there. "
Not very romantic, but I love him, and we got married nonetheless.

He knows I want to redo our wedding vows for our 10 year, but refuse to think about it until I get a proper proposal  :)

So, for our anniversary, I arranged for us to have dinner at Ariel's Grotto at California Adventures. Yep, lets call it a present for him cause he got to see pretty princesses, but in reality, it was me that was gushing over Aurora (she is my FAVORITE!).

If you haven't been to Ariel's Grotto, its so pretty, the outside patio overlooks the water, the sunset sets in front of the patio, next to the ferris wheel which has sparkling lights around Mickey.
After all the princesses came by and visited, my dear husband asked me to go up to the front of the patio to watch the sunset. We walked up there, and he said all the perfect, if you were a write for a fancy sitcom the girls would cry, proposal. In front of all the other tables of little princesses in training!! He even got down on one knee and asked me to marry him all over again.

Sigh, blush, butterflies in tummy

I feel so lucky, and so in love. 7 years late, but still just as perfect.

Peacock lane

I really got to get used to this blogging thing :)
The good news is that I finally FINALLY finished my office ( much to my husband's relief). Let's put this into perspective. I started this project last November. My office is my creative place. Where I scrapbook. Where I write essays. Escape from real life. So I wanted it to be fun. But so many color choices and combinations, how do you choose? My friend suggested I get inspired from a scrapbook theme. Duh. So simple and BRILLIANT! Last summer BoBunny released a line called peacock lane. Love it. Purple, turquoise, girly but without the flowers (very important).

Of course when hubby saw it he just kind of rolled his eyes, but thats ok. This was destiny. I have a habit of going with hubby to the hardware store for one reason and one reason only, to look at the "oops" paint. Once I decided what colors I needed, I found them all within a week at four different hardware stores! A gallon of dark purple, gallon of mint/light turqoise color, and a quart each of lavender and dark tuqoise. YAY for all paint costing less than $20!

Gathered all my paint, brushes and such, and just started painting. All of its hand painted. Luckily its only one focal wall, one half wall (it has two doorways) and the other two are blocked by desks and such so they are just plain mint color.

And this is my wall between the two doorways.

SO fun, I love coming in here now.
Now its time to add all the little decorations and finishing touches.

Tell me what you think? Would you ever paint anything like this in your office or personal space?