Just Make Stuff

G3: May

Three years into this little monthly project, it's amazing how grumpy we can be in the few minutes it takes us to snap a photo. Sean was a casualty of this attempt...which is ironic because he was actually the least grumpy. We went out to the backyard to get this photo last weekend before we went off the Patchwork craft show...and before Sean started digging out the tree stump you can see next to Mac's head. 

This month...

• We all realized that this whole cheerleading booster board president gig is going to be a heck of a lot of work.
• Sean finished coaching for the school year.
• I went for an interview at the school I really wanted to teach at...and was offered a class next fall. 
• Mac can almost land a cartwheel. 
• There was some actual scrapbooking accomplished.
• Mac made his his first fashion video for You Tube.
• Sean coordinated 43 meetings with parents of incoming 7th graders that his department hosted all in one day.
• We cooked shrimp for the first time.
• And Sean ran 108.32 miles.

{G3 is a end of the month wrap-up for our little family}

It was a good month...

I realized last summer that Instagram was my favorite aspect of all this social media stuff, yet this was the first month that I consistently used it to document happy little details. Looking back at all of these images has been a great reminder that these past 31 days have been pretty wonderful.

Loaded Baked Potato Salad...

While Sean and Mac were digging out a tree this past weekend I was doing the super strenous work involved in prepping dinner. I was going to make some Dill Potato Salad, but when I saw five lonely pieces of bacon hanging out in the fridge and decided to try to make this Loaded Baked Potato Dip recipe into potato salad. It worked and was really good with dinner, but the next day it was so much more amazing. Something magical happens to potato salad when it is made a day in advance.

Loaded Baked Potato Salad

• 1.5 pounds red potatoes; boiled until tender, cooled and chopped
• 3 tablespoons of whipped cream cheese; at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1/3 cup of mayonnaise
• Green Onion; small bunch finely chopped
• Bacon; six to eight slices cooked crisp and crumbled
• 1.5 cups shredded cheese (I really like Trader Joe's lite three cheese blend)
• Salt 
• 1/2 teaspoon of onion powder
• 1/8 Lawry's season salt

Mix together room temperature whipped cream cheese, sour cream and mayonnaise. Season with onion powder, season salt, sea salt and pepper, if desired. Combine mixture with chopped potatoes, crumbled bacon, green onion and shredded cheese...breaking up and smashing the potatoes a little as you mix it together. Best if made in advance to allow flavors to meld.  

Well Wishes...

Just a card I sent to my sister a couple of weeks ago.

The countdown is on...

Starting today Sean, Mac and I have thirteen school days left this year, so I thought it was a great time to start a summer countdown.

I made a super simple print and made some numbers to cut apart and change out every day as the total gets lower and lower. I placed it on a magnet board frame we actually made for Halloween a couple of years ago. Around the countdown I included some photos from past summer fun.

In addition to the big frame, I sewed a messy banner full of bright colors. I changed the colors on some summer subway art from Eighteen25 to match a little better. I also dug out a sun I made out of patterned paper last summer and added a few random items I had to have from the Patchwork show this past weekend. 

If you are still in school and are counting down the days, you can download the Days Until Summer Countdown Print...and don't forget the Numbers too.

Weekending...

We ate lots of fresh corn.

I sewed a banner for over the mantle.

We drove slowly through the cemetary, right down the street from our house, to see all the flags.

We spent an afternoon shopping.

Some paper was watercolored and punched.

Sean and I wents on a few walks.

We met my sister's family at the Disneyland Hotel for the best night ever.

We watched the fireworks (photo credit goes to my brother).

We joked that we were digging for a pool, but it's just trying to get out the roots of a twenty year old ficus tree.

We ate Sean's pancake breakfast.

We watched for the fighter planes that fly over the cemetary's Memorial Day service to circle our house...it's always one of my favorite moments of the year. 

Hope you had a wonderful weekend too.

Patchwork...

Sean, Mac and I wandered over to the Patchwork Craft Show for a little while this afternoon. A big cone of french fries was devoured and a bag filled with all kinds of crafty goodness came home with us. If only we could spend every afternoon like that.

Some favorite shops were... Urban Octopus//Two Hand Design//Bazaar Latino//Dino Perez Graphic Design//Oh Hello Friend//Junk Art Gypsyz//Courtney O Quist//Be Studio 182//Morgan Noelle Designs//Love Nail Tree//Luna Reece

Project time...

Summer vacation is fast approaching...filled with its seemingly endless opportunities for house projects. We have a couple planned already, but yesterday a huge idea started developing.

Switch the living room with the dinning room.

It's not exactly a new idea, we have done this before on an as-needed basis, and my mom has actually mentioned a couple of times that we should consider it as a more permanent option. Our dining room usually hosts a couple dozen parties each year...whether it's Mac's friends pumpkin carving, family art exibits or even sociological statistics.

Yesterday I took a few minutes to really start thinking of the possibilities. It would be amazingly helpful to open up our dining room table to it's full fourteen person capacity on a regular basis...even with eight it is a tight fit in our dining room. At the same time, though, a fair amount of parties we host need space for everyone to gather in numerous ways. To just have a sitting area confined to the dining room area could be a little problematic. Until the really crazy DIY idea came to me. 

Take out the banister dividing the rooms. 

Then my heart started beating much faster when it occurred to me that I could make the new, massive dining room an homage to the backyard on Parenthood. 

I sat Sean down last night to start mulling it over, since the prime project time of year starts in a few weeks.

He didn't say no. 

You have to try this...

Even though it's been a couple months, and it's really all I know how to do, I still love just mixing watercolors together. All you do is take a wet brush, dip it onto the dried watercolor to pick up some paint, make a puddle, clean the brush in some water, pick up a second color, or a third, or a little bit more of the first color and mix together whatever you would like in order to make a new shade. As I start to brush the paint onto paper if there is too much paint/water I dab some off on a lightly damp sponge. I really love that you will never get the exact same color twice.

I really wish I could send everyone supplies to have some water coloring fun, but I was able to gather some for two people. I made a little set of six of my favorite colors, I have a brush, a sponge and a little tray to mix colors in...two envelopes of supplies are packed up and ready to be sent off. If you would like one, leave a comment with your very favorite color. Please make sure that you have shared a current e-mail address that you check often. I will randomly select two people on Friday morning and, instead of announcing it, I will email you directly to get your mailing address.

Oh and my very favorite color is chartreuse. Can't wait to hear yours...

Well Wishes...

Sent these cards to three friends last week for no reason...which actually seemed like the perfect reason.

Stamp from Catslife Press.

A little something for lunch...

I have plans for lunch today with a good friend I've had since high school. Since we are celebrating our belated birthdays I am bringing along a little gift. She has two little boys in school now, so I made a super simple set of little lunch box notes for her to surprise them with occasionally.  

I know the end of the school year is coming up fast, but here is the set in case you would like to tuck a note in a lunch box you're packing... Download Lunch Notes

Honey Lemon Shrimp...

Sean and I went to a cooking demonstration this weekend and learned about grilling shrimp on a Himalayan salt slab. We immediately bought the slab and went in search of shrimp for tonight's dinner. I just decided I actually like shrimp a couple of months ago, so I was eager to figure out how to cook it. I took the recipe from the class, made a couple of adjustments, and found my new favorite dinner.

Honey Lemon Shrimp

3 tablespoons butter

1 small shallot, peeled and finely minced

2 medium garlic cloves, peeled and finely minced

4 tablespoons honey

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 pound large shrimp, cleaned

Sea salt, as needed

In a small saucepan melt butter over medium heat. Add shallot and garlic and cook until softened, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the honey and lemon juice and stir to combine. Taste and season with salt as needed. Pour half the sauce into a small bowl to brush onto the shrimp and leave the remaining sauce in the pan to toss the shrimp when they are finished cooking. 

Heat a grill or saute pan coated with a little olive oil. Place shrimp in the hot pan and brush with the honey lemon sauce. Cook until lightly browned, about 2 to 3 minutes. Using tongs, turn shrimp, brush again with the sauce and continue cooking until the center is slightly opaque, about 2 to 3 minutes more. When the shrimp are done cooking place them in the pan with the sauce to toss them and keep them warm. Serve immediately.

Layouts...

I mentioned that I actually scrapbooked a couple of weeks ago, but I never shared the photos...you can find them here. 

Ampersand card from the Life Love Paper shop....and one my favorite sets of alphabet stamps.

Stand up...

I decided months ago that I would rather stand when I am crafting things. So at the end of April I replaced the table in the closet of my craft room with a taller one. I bought a file cabinet off of Craigslist, which Sean spray painted green for me. 

The television set was mounted on the wall and one extra cord gave it the option to be a computer screen...because accessing ideas on Pinterest can be completely essential to the creative process.

I have made more stuff at this table in the last three weeks than I had made in the six months before it...maybe there is something to this whole standing up thing.

Well Wishes...

The watercolor splatters I shared last week were actually thank you notes for my birthday gifts, but I didn't want to share the whole thing since some of the individuals that received them read this blog thing. Every time I get to craft up a set and send them off I cannot help but think how darn lucky I am.

Here are birthday thank you notes from year's past...2012//2011//2008//2007

The end of an era...

He got them for his thirteenth birthday and he has worn them constantly up until just a couple months ago when all of a sudden they hit the hallway counter right outside his room, which is code for "I've grown out of it". 

My friends, who all have little kids are constantly trading off hand-me-downs. We have had a joke that one day, when their kids are older, I will be able to pass down the infamous yellow skinny jeans.

But the truth is I am never getting rid of them. It was in this pair of jeans that Mac discovered his love for all things fashion. Nowadays he is watching fashion videos every spare moment he has. He is a voracious consumer of information on the topic and dreams of being a stylist. So I am keeping them and, on the day he finds his dream job, I will bring out the yellow skinny jeans that were the beginning of it all.

The other holidays...

As I'm guessing you might know by now, I love wrapping up lots of piles of gifts during the holidays.

Then a few months later it's springtime and I get to wrap one more pile. My mom's birthday always falls right next to, or sometimes on, Mother's Day and it is one of my very favorite reasons to wrap gifts. Love you Mom.

Caramel Brownies

This week I was notified that I had been given an outstanding professor award from the disabled student services department and that I had missed the ceremony. To say I felt like the most reprehensive person to walk the earth is an understatement. In addiditon to apologizing a hundred times, which they were exceptionally kind about, I hoped the situtaion might be made a little better with a batch of brownies. We learned about these caramel brownies around ten years ago now from a math teacher I worked with when I was a high school instructional aide and they are easily a top five favorite family recipe around here. 

Caramel Brownies

14 ounce bag of individually wrapped caramels

2/3 cup of half & half – divided in half

Package of German Chocolate cake mix

½ cup of butter, melted

6 ounce bag of chocolate chips

Set oven to 350 degrees, melt caramels and 1/3 cup of half & half until smooth (it is not neccesary to stir constantly). Mix remaining half & half (1/3 cup), melted butter & cake mix with electric beater. Divide mix (it’s really thick) into 2 parts, spread ½ in 9x13 pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Bake for 6 to 7 minutes. Take pan out of the oven, top with chocolate chips, then caramel mixture, and then rest of thick batter (batter best if dropped on in pieces since it’s too thick to spread without mixing everything up). Return the pan to the oven to bake for another 20-25 minutes (closer to 25) and make sure to cool completely.

Splatters...

A nice and neat house is ridiculously important to me, so you can only imagine Sean's surprise when he came home from work yesterday to find me in my craft room happily splattering tiny watercolor droplets all over paper with no regard for the carpet below. Not sure how I came to the decision that making a mess was a good idea, but it sure was fun.

NSD...

This past Saturday was one of my favorite national holidays. I celebrated by spending all day scrapbooking. Miraculously I cranked out thirteen pages. 

I should do this way more often.

Holding my breath...

This is my favorite skirt...it's my first day of class skirt and has been my interview skirt and I am really, really hoping it continues to be my lucky skirt. I wore it yesterday when I walked back on to the campus of the community college I attended. I spent the last day on that campus all the way back in 2007 dreaming of the day I would walk back on for a job interview...and yesterday was my chance. 

Sundae Sunday...

I decided awhile ago that to celebrate my birthday I just wanted to have ice cream sundaes and play some games out in the backyard. Sean was really awesome about putting everything together and set up a sundae bar with all my favorite toppings...homemade whipped cream, heath bars, caramel sauce, oreos (that have been crushed, combined with melted butter and frozen so they are like a cookie crust) and my mom's fudge sauce. It was really nice to have family and friends stop by and just hang out for a little bit. Too bad every Sunday can't be a sundae afternoon. 

Oh and here is my mom's fudge sauce recipe. It comes together easily, reheats really well, and is the most wonderfully rich chocolate sauce you'll ever taste. 

Mud Pie Fudge Sauce

2 squares Bakers unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon butter

2/3 cup evaporated milk (whole carnation, not fat free)

Use a double boiler to start melting chocolate squares. Add butter and sugar. Slowly add evaporated milk. Cook over hot water until it is thickened. Stir occasionally…it takes awhile to thicken. This recipe makes a small amount, so you might want to make somewhere between two and four batches at once.

A birthday gift...

Last year I had a giveaway on my birthday and decided to make it a tradition, so I packaged up three little favorites to share today. I am obsessed with this super wide roller ball pen, a roll of my most recent favorite washi tape pattern, and a little Starbucks gift card since I continue to be utterly addicted to iced caramel mochas. 

I would love to hear if you have any newly found favorite items...or you can always leave a "pick me". I will do a drawing for the little sewn sack of favorites on Friday afternoon.

By the numbers...

Thirty-six was a darn good year and all I can hope for from thirty-seven is more of the same. Here are a few numerical details*...

2 graduations//15 years with Sean//7 trips to the beach//19 recipes actually cooked out of the thousand I've pinned//15 times we watched Mac cheer//1 Watercolor Class//3 couch camp-outs//27 cards made//3 drafts of my resume//2 orders of cheese fries at Shake Shack//114 photos Instagramed//0 Facebook status updates//1 broken tooth//4 rooms in the house rearranged//1 dream job that I wanted since I was twelve years old. 

*a few are rough estimates