Salted Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Bark

This is the best PMS food, ever.  It's salty, sweet, crunchy, chewy and insanely easy to make.  Don't be afraid of the word "caramel" in the title. The sugar and butter is cooked for a few minutes on the stovetop, then the rest of the cooking happens in the oven.

I made my batch on a 11x17 sheet pan and I had *just* enough caramel and chocolate.  It would probably work better on a 10x15 pan, or you could always make a bit more caramel and use more chocolate for the larger amount.

Go and make this now.nyou won't be sorry.

Stripe Play Maxi Skirt

I've finally succumbed to the siren call of maxi skirts.  However, I can't buy them off the rack, as I have to cut off a bunch of fabric from the hem so I'm not tripping constantly.

The easiest maxi skirt is just a tube of fabric with an elastic waist and narrow hem.  I decided to get a little more fancy and make this Stripe Play Maxi Skirt.  I traced a skirt I already had and cut the panels, per the diagram in the tutorial, adding 1/2" seam allowances.   It was very easy.

From Minus Minions

I got my fabric from Fabric.com.  It is a touch more light and sheer than I was expecting, but that's not a bad thing for a summer skirt.  My stripes go a differrent way than the fabric in the tutorial, but that doesn't make that much of a difference to me.  

I've received a lot of compliments already.  I love wearing it because it's so comfy yet stylish.  And it goes perfectly with flip-flops!

Tie-Dye Shirts with Sharpies

I've been trying to be better about sitting down with the girls and doing some kind of project together, especially since it's summer.  Somehow, playing in the pool, playing in the backyard, playing with the dog and eating and sleeping seem to take up most of our days.  Not that those things are bad, but the hours just get away from me, even with my best intentions.

Yesterday I finally got my act together and the girls made tie-dyed shirts with Sharpies.  This project is so easy and so mcuh fun.  Both girls got to color with whatever colors they wanted and they loved watching the colors spread together when we put the rubbing alcohol on them.

At the end, we didn't use the cups and the results were just as nice.  I made sure to cut pieces of cardboard to put inside to keep the colors from bleeding through.

The Bean's shirt looks a bit more 80's grafitti style:

From Minus Minions

While The Belly's is a little more hippy and summer like:

From Minus Minions

Bunch of Squares Quilt

After 13 months, I've finally finished the Denyse Schmidt Bunch of Squares quilt.  Granted I didn't work on it the entire year, but it was a queen-sized quilt and the largest thing I've ever worked on.

I really love the way it turned out.  The bright red, cream and floral prints go together so nicely.  It's elegant but it has a lot of personality.  I pieced the top together on my machine, but did all the quilting by hand.  A lot of work, but I find hand-quilting soothing and a good thing to do while watching TV.

The blocks aren't all squared up evenly, so some of the quilting is off center a bit.  Other blocks have a subtle print as part of the red inside border.

Now I have to figure out what kind of matching/coordinating pillowcases to make to go with it.

5K Recovery Kit

I ran my first 5k this past weekend!  I didn't finish first, I didn't DFL (dead f*cking last, as my dad would say), but I did finish, and I am a little proud of myself.

I ran with 2 friends and decided to make them little 5k Recovery Kits.  I didn't have time to make them all fancy, so it was just little Ziplock containers and a plain gift bag.  

From Minus Minions

Magnesium is really good for muscle recovery, so I gave them Calm Plus, a calcium and magnsium powder; and Tired Old Ass Soak (which you have to get just for the name), which is an epsom salt bath mixture with good essential oils like rosemary and eucalyptus.  

To help tired feet, I made a batch of Peppermint Foot Slather.  This stuff is seriously awesome and easy to make.  The neem oil does have a strong smell, but it's totally worth it. My feet are always so smooth the next morning.

And, of course, I gave them brownies. Because who doesn't love brownies? Especially if you don't feel guilty because you just ran 3 miles?

Garden Birthday Cupcakes

Since the girls' birthdays are so close together, we throw them a joint birthday party.  This means combining theme preferences. Last year, we had an Emo/Transformers party, which was interesting.  This year, the girls like butterflies and ladybugs (but still like Elmo and robots) and I was able to find "Garden Girl" themed partyware at a store, so I knew they'd be happy.

I was away the weekend before and went back and forth a bunch whether I wanted to make the cake/cupcakes myself or have a bakery do it.  I remembered one of the guests has a peanut allergy, so I decided to go ahead and make it myself.  The mixes from King Arthur are peanut (but not tree nut) free, delicious and easy.  I hadn't figured out how to decorate them until the actual morning of the party.

Amazingly, my decorating tips and bags had been unpacked.  The only hitch was that I only had 3 coupler sets, but wanted to use 6 colors.  I just cut off a small bit of the tip for the yellow and red to make the bee and ladybug bodies, put a small round tip in the bag with the black icing, and used the couplers for the pink, purple and green.

From Minus Minions

From Minus Minions

Not bad for 30 minutes, a bunch of icing and no plan.