Upcycled Key Jewelry

Hello and Happy Friday Friends! It's a beautiful day in the northwoods with the sun shining on the bay. And it looks to be a promising weekend too! Before I go run errands I wanted to share more about the key jewelry I've been working on and show you some of them. 

I found a bag of old hotel keys (remember the days when you actually had to carry around a big key??) and I cleaned them up knowing I wanted to upcycle them in some way. I started playing around with some paper crafting materials, lace, fabric etc that I had lying around. 

And using some modgepodge and some jewelry glue - I went to my creative happy place and several necklaces have now emerged. ;) I liked doing layering of different kinds of materials on top of each other.  A lace backdrop with a paper crafting word.  Bits of fabric with bird stickers in front.  Whatever seemed to work with the materials I was choosing at the time. I love that when creating something new there is no right or wrong - just doing and imagination.  I attached some different colors of cording to make them a necklace and voila.  Here are some that I'd like to show you. 

I love how this one looks like the little yellow bird and flowers on the left are in front of a forest made from lace. 

Here are more I'd like to share. These next few seem especially Spring-like and Summer-like to me. 

You can never go wrong with polka dots and flowers, right??

Little chickadee over some fabric.

Pretty as a summer wish. 

I love that not only are these keys being reused and not gone to waste in the garbage, but I think they make some really funky and unique jewelry! It is my hope and plan to have my own Etsy store up and running next month. I will keep you posted on details when things are all set up.

Stay cool Friends xoxo

I'm sharing this with 

Tricky's Five on Friday

Kerryanne's Create, Bake, Grow and Gather

Cooking and Crafting with J & J

scrapality for scraptastic saturday

Easy Homemade Brownies

Happy Thursday Friends! 

Today I thought I would share a favorite recipe for easy homemade brownies. I know for my Catholic friends this may be cruel if you've given up chocolate for Lent - so I'm sorry in advance! Lol  I think I initially found this recipe online at allrecipes.com - but I'm not sure. I'm embarrassed to say I have a lot of random recipes around that I've cut out from the newspaper, magazines or  I've found online and I didn't leave info to reference where it came from. I've been a recipe collector from WAY back!! 

This is a good go-to brownie recipe if you're not making one from a mix, but still want it to be fast and easy. 

When I make this, sometimes I frost them. Usually I just add our favorite add-in's (some chocolate and butterscotch chips). They are that just right kind of chewy texture. They'd be great with walnuts too! My kiddos just don't like nuts in their dessert like this though.

Just perfect with a cup of coffee or creamy chai tea. Mmmmm Here's the recipe:

EASY BROWNIES (for an 8x8 pan)

If you want to make in a 9x13 pan, just double the recipe.

Ingredients:

1/2 c. butter

1 c. sugar

1/4 c. baking cocoa powder

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 c. flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

Melt the butter (I just do it in a bowl in the microwave). Add all the other ingredients and stir until mixed well. Pour into a greased 8x8 pan. Bake in a 350* preheated oven for 20 to 30 minutes.

***Again, I mix in about a 1/4 c. each of chocolate chips and butterscotch chips before baking. Also, if you want a full pan - just double the recipe. 

Enjoy! I'm sharing this with:  

The Charm of Home for Home Sweet Home  

 Cooking and Crafting with J & J

Pretty February Love Lunch

Since my sweet little Annie has still been on break...and also has been working on her cooking skills - we decided to plan a fun cooking and baking lunch. Today was the day! So we put together a menu that Annie felt good about helping to execute. Then we called Nana and told her we were planning a luncheon for the end of the week and wanted her to be part of it. ;) Finally, we set to work! So here are the 5 parts of a girlie luncheon:

ONE

The first step we did was to pick out a theme and make the table and everything look pretty. We had a beautiful bit of Valentine goodies we had received from my dear blogging friend Patsy - so we knew we wanted to use some of those items. We thought red, Valentine-ish, and "love" would be our main theme. We put down the pretty red runner and sparkly jewels from Patsy. As well as the pretty ribbon around some fresh flowers I had picked up at the grocery store.  We then used a valentine sign I already had about how much we love family. And finished the centerpiece off with some flameless red tealights I had. WE set the table with our every day dishes as they're already a pretty cranberry kind of red. 

TWO

Next, we got to work on our menu. Annie has gotten pretty good at making pasta (with supervision yet) - so we made lasagna pasta, salad boats, and garlic bread. We all drank peach iced tea with our meal. I usually make lasagna pasta with farfalle (bow tie) pasta as they have the ruffley edge like a lasagna noodle. But didn't have those on hand so we went with elbow macaroni. Lasagna pasta is basically pasta in a red sauce (with meat or without depending what you want), but with a bit of sour cream and shredded mozzarella mixed in to make it a little cheesy and a little creamy. I have the recipe for this under my recipe tab above. We had easy garlic bread in the freezer so just baked that up. And then we used strips of romaine filled with veggies as our salad. Just add dressing of choice, sunflower seeds, croutons etc. They're fun to eat as you can just pick up your "boat" and nibble. It was yummy and the pasta was a pretty blush red to fit our theme. 

THREE

No girlie lunch is complete without dessert of course! So for our next luncheon step we made a cherry cola poke cake. Which is basically a vanilla cake mix made according to its 13x9 directions. Once baked let it cool for 15 minutes. Then take a 6 oz cherry jello packet and empty it into a bowl. Add a 12 oz can of coca cola and 1/2 cup of cold water.  Mix together for a couple of minutes. Poke holes all over top of the cake. Pour the cherry jello/cola mixture all over cake to soak into the holes. Chill in the fridge for 1/2 and hour. Then take it out and make frosting. Take a 3.5 oz instant vanilla pudding mix and put in a bowl. Add one cup of milk and a dash of vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. Then stir in an 8 oz tub of cool whip. Frost cake and chill at least 3 hrs or overnight. To serve: cut a piece, top with chocolate sprinkles and a maraschino cherry. 

FOUR

For our next step - we decided to spend the rest of our girlie day visiting, listening to music and coloring. Nana liked coloring in the pretty flower coloring books. Annie and I decided to color in a sticker coloring book we had  -and used the stickers we colored to help make her some cards that she could bring home as her takeaway for being our guest (even if she is just Nana). ;) So we used the coloring book stickers, doilies to glue on, washi tape, lace etc and had a creative blast! Nana was thrilled with her "gifts" - as well as leftovers to take home. 

FIVE

And the final step of a fun girlie lunch is talking about and planning the next one!! So we discussed plans for maybe a St. Patty's Day girlie lunch next time. It's fun to dream and think about what we want to come up with - almost more fun than the lunch itself! Lol  Pinterest is a favorite inspiration and all of these above ideas can be found on pinterest.  I hope you can get together with the special Girls/People in your life for a treasured afternoon sometime soon!  

I'm sharing this with:

cooking and crafting with J&J

five on friday

pink saturday

scraptastic saturday