Cooking & Crafting Thursday: Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken & Current Project

 

Hello my Friends!

Happy Friday Eve and officially September. Yay! 

Kids are heading back to school, the nights are cooler, and football starts next week. I can just feel the anticipation of the Fall season ahead. 🍎🍁

If you saw my title, then you see that I thought I'd throw in some crafting on these Thursday posts with you. I always tend to be working on something. So let's begin with the crafting today, shall we? 

I have done lots of cross stitch things through the years...but I never tried my hand at embroidery. I thought it was time I taught myself so, I'm using some friends of mine as guinea pigs. 😂 I found a couple of cute Fall/Halloween kits (they both have Autumn birthdays) and I'm learning as I work on them for gifts. I've just begun on one of them and here it is. I will keep you updated on the progress I make (hopefully). Lol 

Speaking of Halloween, I caught this cute photo of Bubbs this morning. He is such a perfect Halloween kitty, isn't he?? :) 

And I'm SO excited to share this gorgeous gift we recently received in time for our 2nd wedding anniversary. My dear friend Alison made this for us. She lives with her sweet family in England. We met through blogging many years ago and started corresponding here. And then we started sharing letters and packages, and also lots of chatting and sharing photos on messenger too. We share a lot in common as she's about my age, has always been active in Mom life, and she also volunteers in hospice. She has a daughter about Annie's age and for several years they were pen pals too! I treasure Alison and her friendship so much. Matt & I were both touched (and I was so moved 😢) by this sweet and very thoughtful gift that must have taken her hours! We plan to hang it in our bedroom. It matches our wall color in there perfectly! And those sunflowers are stunning aren't they? Just like our wedding day. 🌻💛

I just love this blogland space for that very reason. To feel such a friendship with someone I've never even met in person. I just think it's something so special about blogging. 💗

And I think I may have shared a bit about this - it's a little mixed media piece I made and framed (I used the little black frame you see the edge of at the top). I forgot to take a completed pic of it all put together. But I sent this and a card I painted to a special Aunt for her birthday. That was my most recent completed craft. 

And I have another idea for a little decoration with a cute halloween jack-o-lantern pin I recently found at an antique store. So stay tuned and I will share that on another Thursday. 🎃

Ok, on to the cooking portion now which includes the honey garlic chicken I mentioned earlier in the week. This was such an easy recipe and was so tasty! I found it on social media and I included the person's name in the photo of the recipe below. First I put some boneless skinless chicken thighs in the bottom of the greased slow cooker. Then I made the sauce and put it on top and let it cook. Then towards the end of cooking time, I added a cornstarch slurry to thicken it. We had it with jasmine rice and some green beans from the garden and some broccoli. For the veggies - I just blanched them and then sauteed them in a little oil and with some garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and tiny bit of sesame oil. I then topped them with sesame seeds. 

we had a little sprinkle of peanuts on top for crunch too

The next day I thought it would be fun to make some crispy rice cups for our lunch (Matt works from home) and to have some of the leftover chicken on top of them. So I took the leftover rice and packed it in a sprayed muffin tin and baked them at 400* until they were crispy. About 15 minutes but keep an eye on them. I had jasmine rice which doesn't stick as well as regular rice so I actually added some cheese as a binder. But regular leftover white rice should stick just fine. Just push into the bottom and up the sides of the muffin tin wells.

 Then we put the reheated chicken on top along with some sriracha mayo and chili crunch (our favorite toppings!) They were so tasty and Matt said he loved the crispy rice addition to the leftovers.  

As you can see, I like to experiment and try different things. It's really become a hobby for me to have fun in the kitchen. Do you like to play in the kitchen too? And do you have any crafty projects in the works?? Curious minds want to know 😉

Oh, and last night I made a sheet pan chicken fried rice that was a stellar recipe! We have been on an Asian food kick here as you can see. I will share that recipe soon too! 

If you try - enjoy! 

xoxo

Vintage Charm Party: French Inspired Vintage Spring Decoration

Good morning Friends ☀️

I hope you've been having a splendid week so far. I've been treasuring the time with my Annie and we went and spent time with my Mom and step Dad yesterday. It was so nice. 

I thought today I'd pop in (while she's still sleeping) to share a little craft I did recently. I wanted to make a little something for Spring/Summer. I had an old frame sitting empty and that gave me the initial inspiration to create something I could put in there. 

I started rifling through the treasures I have in my craft room. And I found a vintage pin I really liked. When I go to antique stores (a favorite past time) - I often look at the old jewelry, the pottery, the linens/doilies, and the old paper things like cards etc. As a scrapbooking enthusiast I love paper ephemera. 

The old pin is a floral one and even though it was missing a few gems in some of the flowers...I just thought it gave it more charm. I pinned it to the old doily piece I found. So I went through my scrapbooking papers for a backdrop. I glued the doily piece to the paper after I cut and measured it to fit the frame.  I also looked through some vintage French inspired papers & tags. I loved this French lady so I adhered her to the top corner. 

And since I was giving it French flair, I felt like it needed a French quote. So I found this one by Victor Hugo who wrote Les Miserables. 

I put it all together in the frame and took the glass out. 

And it now lives on our front foyer table next to a vintage Hull piece of pottery. 

This is our front foyer, however I recently changed the rug out (this one was really old). And we're going to be changing out the light fixture pretty soon for something a little more updated. So stay tuned for a the full reveal in the future on that. :) 

I love that it only took me minutes to complete this little project and I now have a one of a kind decoration from things I sourced in my own home. 

Do you like to be craftsy sometimes? And do you like vintage things, or more modern? I think I'll forever be a vintage girlie - as my daughter calls my style: Grandmacore. Lol 

I'm sharing this with the blogs Our Hopeful Home and My Thrift Store Addiction for Vintage Charm Party Wednesday. Feel free to join along!

Blessings

xoxo

Five on Friday: Fall

 Hello Friends~ 

I hope you've had a wonderful week and you're gearing up for a fun weekend ahead. I'm still enjoying every last drop of summer. I promise I am.  Although, I'm glad the recent heat wave has stopped and it's cooler today. However, even though I'm still loving many things about summer... August always seems to bring a shift around here. It becomes pre-Fall, as well as summer. Preseason football. Cooler temps. Annie starts school this month. Geese start doing some practice runs over my bay. Autumn begins to spice the air a bit - especially living as far north as I do. So here are 5 ways I know Fall is on my mind...

1. I'm getting all of the Autumn feels and start really anticipating it's return. 

🍂 🧡

2. I have a can a pumpkin and I'm not afraid to use it! Lol I found this in my cabinet and I'm thinking of baking some pumpkin bread or muffins. Just to get a little pre-taste of Autumn. 🎃 

3. I'm learning new vocabulary. 🍁 

4. I'm having fun looking at Fall crafts - especially different ways to decorate pumpkins. And I'm loving all things black cats, that's partly in honor to Bubba who is a part of our family now.  🐱 🖤

5. Photos like these makes my heart go pitter pat 🧡🧡🧡

How's about you? Are you only team summer right now? Or do you let a few thoughts of Autumn anticipation creep in? 

**All photo honors are thanks to pinterest 

Beating the Heat and a Little Blog Break

Hello my dear sweet Friends!! 

I hope that wherever you are - you're not burning up like we've been doing here today.  It was overcast (& very muggy) earlier in the AM, and we did get a little bit of rain, but it's been full sun the rest of the day and close to 90*....and just humid feeling. Yuck! We northerners aren't used to these days and I think we suffer extra for them. Lol  We're known as being pretty tough folks  - but throw a hot humid day at us and we're a bunch of wimps! 

I had to take Ruby to the vet earlier and run a few more errands. We have a soccer game to go to tonight for Annie and I'm NOT looking forward to sitting out there! I want to stay in my air conditioning!! But enough of my whining...

 I've been beating the heat today by working on some things in my office.

I LOVE this new planner I picked up from Michael's. I was told how wonderful they were by my blog buddy Row at Coffee with Row.  She told me they were even doing classes about how to use them and decorate them up! It just fits in perfectly with my scrapbooking world here - so I was all over it! ;)  I have a bunch of fun washi tapes and different stickers to use. I also got a pack of stickers just related to health and working out goals. The calendar lays nice and flat and has a flat marker pen with it - plus the stickers to add in the months, days of the months, sayings, stars, hearts, arrows etc to mark special events. There is a holder in the front to hold the stickers or other things. Then the basic layout of the whole month, and then pages for each week with the day of the week and a column below it to write in what you want. I'm planning on using mine to keep track of birthdays, my blogging stuff and my exercise all in one spot. Plus, I'm having fun decorating it up too! Love it!!!  As you can see I've started planning ahead and was working on next month.

I also had fun picking out some new flowers as they were on sale 40% off and I couldn't pass that up. We're planning on changing a few things in Annie's room this Fall and we have plans for these pretty pale peachy-pink lacy roses. Plus I have plans of my own for the hydrangea and branches I grabbed too.

Whooooo's hot?? I AM!!!  

Love this owl that I picked up at a local specialty shop in our area. They make a lot of their own items (like this adorable owl) and reimagine uses of old things (like furniture, doors, windows, doorknobs etc) by reusing existing older items and making them new in some way again....just in a different way. I love browsing in there! I couldn't pass this sweetie up and love that she's in Fall colors - and is it bad that I can't wait that Autumn is finally right around the corner?? 

 We have relatives coming for a visit this weekend and I've been tidying some things up. Thus, that's also why I'm working in my office - only a little bit of play and a lot more organization and clean up. My house just needs a good deeper clean anyway, so that's my focus this whole week. I'm going to take a little break from posting and hope to be back for Happy Homemaker on Monday.  I still plan to catch up on my blog comments soon and come around and visit you Friends when I'm able to though. It will be a nice clean up time for my blog and my house. Until then - blessings to you! ;) 

Five on Friday:Christmas in July

Happy Friday Friends! 

For my five today I thought I'd share some of the recent fun (on the 25th of course) we had celebrating Christmas in July.... for one day only! 

ONE

On the 25th my Mom and one of my daughter's friends came over and we got the Christmas music going and played it all day long! Nothing like Christmas music to put you in a great mood. ;)  And it's extra fun when it feels almost "naughty" as it was 85* F outside. Our fun began with my daughter doing a fashion show of some of her new school clothes (I'm just posting a few) and new headbands that she had made.

TWO

I didn't get a photo of the after, but during that morning I also got a big bone-in skin-on turkey breast slow cooking away in the crock pot. It's a yummy and easy recipe where you cook up some onion and celery in butter and toss it with easy boxed stuffing and dried cranberry and water or broth and let the turkey slow cook over it all day. I rub an herbed butter all over the top of the turkey skin and place some under the skin. All the yummy drippings go down onto that stuffing. Kind of an easy version of a holiday meal! You can find the recipe here.  We had a wonderful dinner that night of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn and cranberry sauce. Loved it!! And leftover turkey melt sandwiches the next day of course.

THREE

  

We worked on some fun holiday crafts together that we can keep for when the true season comes around. It was fun to think holiday thoughts while we sang Christmas carols and worked on these. 

FOUR

Of course it wouldn't be Christmas without some baking. Thankfully we have air conditioning, so we fired up the oven and did some easy Christmas cut-outs. If you look closely you can see we did still celebrate a bit of summer too with a butterfly cookie cutter and a flower cookie cutter - to go along with the star, snowman and tree. 

And what are Christmas cookies without cream cheese frosting and sprinkles?

And I even indulged in baking some holiday bars that are favorites of my Mom and me. They use almond paste and almond extract and have that subtle  Christamsy cherry flavor. I usually only make them at Christmastime - so it was SO fun to taste them in July!  Here's the recipe out of a favorite Taste of Home Fall and holiday baking magazine I picked up many years ago:

FIVE

And what good would any "Christmas" post be without some beautiful photos of the season. These are all off of my instagram from this past holiday season:

We had SO much fun and this is definitely a tradition I intend to keep. I'm linking with Amy of Love Made My Home for Five on Friday.