Autumn Themed Dress/Costume

Autumn Leaves Dress

This year, our office decided to make Halloween even more fun than it already is by writing down random costume ideas, putting them in a bowl and blindly choosing your fate. I was truly lucky with my pick: "The Season of Fall."

I immediately knew I wanted to incorporate beautiful Autumn leaves that we never get to see here in Houston. I've had the pleasure of seeing them in Philadelphia once and they're {amazing}. I tried to find leaves at Michael's, but they were all really small and sad looking. So...I took a look at the Autumn wreath on my front door and decided that the leaves would look gorgeous as a dress. I actually scored the wreath at a garage sale for $3. Win!



Leaves, needle, thread, pins and dress

 You really don't need a lot of supplies for this one. I used an old navy blue dress that I hardly ever wore anymore, leaves from my wreath, some thread and a needle and pins to hold the leaves in place. The process is tedious, though if you're good with a sewing machine (I'm still learning!), I'm sure this would have taken a lot less time. I think it was a total of 1.5 hours, including the time to strip the wreath. Total cost: $0.

Leaf collage!

My sewing process was very simple. I started at the top of the dress and layered the leaves all the way down. I only stitched each leaf twice to the dress because that was enough to keep them in place. I overlapped the leaves a little too much and learned that I could have left my wreath a little less barren, had I planned the layout more.



Lady of Autumn

 The hair piece was really simple as well. I used a hot glue gun to attach the leaves to a piece of felt that I then hot glued to a plain hair comb. I added gold, red and orange accessories, fake eyelashes (because, why not?), glittery gold heels and was out the door.

The costume was a hit and everyone knew who I was, so I was happy! I already have offers to purchase this costume, but I'm kind of in love with it. What do you think?

A Manly Bouquet

My boyfriend's birthday was about a month ago and I had been planning his gift for months. I usually hate getting gift cards for people because I think it's a cheap way out of buying an actual gift. I {love} giving gifts and I usually spend a lot of time planning them out. So I knew exactly what I wanted to get him, but because I didn't know the right sizes and I was afraid of getting the wrong ones - I got him a gift card to American Muscle. This, to me, was super lame, so I had to dress it up and make it special.

Enter the Manly Bouquet

I searched the internet and came across this blog (from Connoisseur of Creativity) that does a great job explaining the steps to make a pretty awesome bouquet of your man's favorite things. It included liquor as well as other goodies, but my guy likes candy.  A lot. I got him a ton of candy. I think that was his favorite part...at least until he opened the birthday card and found the gift card. :)

Some of the stash

I had originally planned to use a vase as the base, but decided against it because I thought the mug idea was much better! Don't read too much into the random stuff here, a lot of it has to do with inside jokes. The bare necessities include: styrofoam, a vase/giant mug, tape and some kind of skewers.

Tape your goodies to the sticks

I had my doubts as to the strength of the tape holding everything up, but I had zero problems!

I bought the mug from Spencer's and at 50 ounces, it is ridiculously big and heavy. This definitely helped keep everything from toppling over, so it was a good investment.

Line with tissue paper and fill with styrofoam

Now comes the fun part! Arrange your goodies like you would a bouquet of flowers, or if you're not gifted in Ikebana, just jam the sticks into the styrofoam any way you like. I'm sure your guy won't really notice the arrangement anyway because he will be too excited about (in my case) CANDY.

And here's another view!

In case you're wondering, he loved the bouquet and tore it apart in minutes. The candy is long gone, but the mug isn't far from sight and it serves as a reminder that sometimes silly ideas can be quite fun!

Vintage Sails Painting

Vintage Sails - Merlot2Masterpiece

Has anyone else noticed the number of Painting Classes that have popped up recently? In Houston, there are at least 3: Painting with a Twist, Pinot's Palette and Merlot2Masterpiece. I recently found a Groupon (thanks to Monica!) for Merlot2Masterpiece and decided on a painting called "Vintage Sails" - because my dad's birthday is in September and he grew up by the Adriatic Sea, so I thought this would be a great gift! And if I messed it up, I had a month to figure out something else to get him.

This was my first time taking a painting class solo, and since it was far from home, I didn't bring any wine. If you do bring something else to drink, be careful not to dip your paintbrush in the wine glass - yes, this is from experience. :( The class was not entirely full, which I enjoyed because I didn't have to fight for elbow space. The artist was very passionate, full of energy and seemed to enjoy teaching us, despite our incessant questions. Upon arriving, Susan (Sue) handed you a paper plate with the necessary paint colors and you could choose your seat.



Paint colors and blank canvas

I picked a seat up front because I wanted to make sure I had a good view of what needed to be done. Sue was very kind in explaining steps several times to make sure we understand exactly how to replicate the above painting. Of course, if you are at ALL artistic, you can take your own spin on the painting. I'm not artistic, so I followed directions as much as possible.


Background layer


The first part seemed easy enough and the colors were gorgeous, so I was happy, though a bit dubious as to how this would all turn out. Sue walked around to help guide anyone who asked or looked like they needed help. I think we all accepted a little help. It's amazing how a little one-on-one guidance can help you get just the right looking wave or mountain. We got a little break after doing the background layer and those that brought food or drinks could refuel and refill while the painting dried. It was a light, chatty and fun atmosphere. It was also really fun to walk around and see how everyone's paintings looked slightly different. The lady behind me LOVED using globs of paint and I think her's looked awesome.


Addition of mountains and sky


The rest of the painting (until we got to the boats) was fairly straightforward. If you messed up, you could just go over it with another color and try again. This was my saving factor! I took another class at a different place and the painting looked great until we got to the bench. My bench looked like a tanning bed. It was a disaster and I was so upset...so when we got to the boats, I was nervous. It takes a little talent to be able to see the parts of the boat and replicate them with paint. Sue used a white board to draw out the shapes for us and I think this was genius! It helped me a lot and after looking at other people's paintings, I think it was an all-around success.


Final painting! Vintage Sails by Sara

And there you have it! Of course, there are parts that I don't absolutely love, but overall, I think it turned out great. I even got it framed while I was there. I hope my dad likes it! What do you think? Have you taken any of these classes? I think they are a great way to spend a few hours with some friends, or alone! Even if you have no talent, you can laugh at your finished product and remember the fun you had creating it!

Mini Lasagna

Mini Cupcake Lasagna

 Who doesn't love bitesized food? Mini morsels are great for on-the-run, snacks or portion control (though you'll see that these are SO good that you really have to have some self-control to NOT eat all of them in one sitting).

My boyfriend and I had been talking about making lasagna for weeks, but considering our attempts at eating healthy, we knew it would be a bad idea. I used to make lasagna that would take two people to put into the oven because it weighed about 20 lbs - and I'm sure 16 of those lbs were cheese. I love cheese. Best lasagna ever, but I don't even want to think about how bad it was for me (this was back when I broke 200 lbs...hmm...probably had something to do with the lasagna).

Anyway, I came across this recipe from The Girl Who Ate Everything and it seemed like a great alternative. I liked the idea of using wonton wrappers (or skins) instead of pasta because it was a lot lighter. Another perk was that each morsel was an end piece {my favorite} and deliciously crunchy. Yum!
 

Main ingrediants

I think I spent about 30 minutes at HEB (and yes, I asked a few people for help) before I found the wonton wrappers (skins). They were with the vegetables and tofu...whatever. Extremely cheap (less than $2 for 50 of them!) and easy to work with.
 

Spray tin with Pam

 It turns out that I don't have a cupcake/ tin...of course. These are things I should have checked before deciding to make this recipe. Luckily, I had a mini cupcake tin and I think I like them this size. They are tiny, which means you use fewer ingrediants per cupcake (and only one layer), but still great!
 

Wonton wrappers

 The original recipe suggests using a round glass to create circles out of the wonton wrappers, but I used a can of diced tomatoes since it was sharper. It worked great! I could cut out several at a time. (Just make sure you clean the can before doing this.) You also could just use the wrappers as they are and you'll end up with crispy tips.


This is what happens when you make too much...


 Of course, since my cupcakes were MINI, I had a lot of leftover ingrediants. I pulled out this nice bakeware set my mom gave me years ago and decided to make slightly larger mini versions of lasagna. I used two wonton wrappers, slightly overlapping, and still only did one layer of everything since these were not very deep.


Looks good, huh?

Here is the recipe for the mini cupcakes (should make about 48):

Ingredients

• 1/3 pound ground beef
• salt and pepper
• 48 wonton wrappers (or less if you use them wisely)
• 1 3/4 cups shaved Parmesan cheese (7 oz)
• 1 3/4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (7 oz part skim)
• 3/4 cup ricotta cheese (3 oz reduced fat)
• 1 8 oz can of tomato sauce
• Pam cooking spray
• minced garlic - 2 cloves
• (optional) basil/oregano/rosemary for garnish

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray mini cupcake tin with cooking spray.
2. Brown beef, season with salt and pepper and drain. Add tomato sauce and garlic and cook on low for 5 minutes.
3. Cut wonton wrappers into circles using the top of a drinking glass or anything else you can find. You don't have to cut one at a time or at all if you don't want to!
4. Begin with a wonton wrapper and press it into the bottom of each muffin tin. Sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese, ricotta cheese, and mozzarella cheese in each. Top with a little meat and pasta sauce. Reserve 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese and 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese for the top of your cupcakes.
5. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until edges are brown. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes. To remove, use a spoon to loosen the edges then pop each lasagna out.
6. Garnish with your favorite herb (I used fresh rosemary) and serve.

I think we finished this off the next day. It was delicious! These would be good to serve as appetizers or bring to a party. Are you hungry yet?

Vegetarian Buffalo "Wings"

You don't even miss the chicken!

I'd like to start off by saying that I'm not Vegetarian (or Vegan for that matter), but I do like veggies and I don't mind skipping meat most of the time. My buddy, Lauren, once decided she wanted to try being Vegan for a month and I joined her. It was not easy, but I learned a lot of fun recipes and I only really REALLY missed cheese. Real cheese. I tried the Vegan stuff and it was just slimy and not the right consistency. Maybe it's evolved since the last time I tried it...but OH the real stuff is so good.

Anyway, I found this recipe on Pinterest (where else?) and it originally comes from PETA. The only adaptation we made was to use fat free milk instead of water or soy milk...for no particular reason.

Cauliflower Buffalo Wings

1 cup fat free milk
1 cup flour (any kind will work—even gluten-free!)
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 head of cauliflower, chopped into golf ball sized pieces
1 cup buffalo or hot sauce (sounds like a lot, but you'll need it)
1 Tbsp. olive oil

Instructions:
-Preheat oven to 450*F.
- Combine the milk, flour and garlic powder in a bowl and stir until well combined.
- Coat the cauliflower pieces with the flour mixture and place in a shallow baking dish. Bake for 18 minutes.
- While the cauliflower is baking, combine your buffalo sauce and olive oil in a small bowl.
- Pour the hot sauce mixture over the baked cauliflower and continue baking for an additional 5-8 minutes.
- Serve with ranch dressing and celery sticks. Yum!

Makes 4 servings (we could barely finish half a serving!)

So filling!

I think this recipe is awesome! We just ate half of what is on the plate and are incredibly satisfied. The buffalo sauce was great and you can't even tell you're not eating chicken. Maybe next time we will try another sauce just to change it up. I am hoping that these will be good as leftovers because we have a LOT left. And I don't even miss cheese right now. :)

Three Years and 50 lbs Ago

So much closer to my goal weight!

Once upon a time, there lived a girl who just loved food. LOVED it. It was no secret, because all her life, she was chubby...or according to the evil medical terminology - obese. Yea. At 204 lbs and 5'7", I was obese. The top left picture is the one that finally opened my eyes.

That was back in 2009, when I was living in Croatia and eating all of the goodies my family bestowed upon me. It was also after college, where I gained about 40 lbs over the course of 4 years. It just creeped up on me somehow. I don't even remember it getting so bad. That picture showed me and I knew I had to make a change.

I was depressed at the time since I just graduated and everyone was dying to hire me. Except they weren't. I didn't have a real job for a whole year. So I decided to work on myself instead. Over the course of several months, I managed to lose 25 lbs and felt good. I had done it by completing the Couch to 5K program and began running 5Ks for {fun}. And I hated running. So much so, that I would force myself out of bed in the morning before I could even see and before my brain knew what was happening...and just start running. The hardest part is getting started.

Find friends to encourage you!

Once I was on track, I made friends who also liked running (I still hated it until about 1 year after starting) and started doing races with them. I won't pretend exercising is fun. It's hard. It hurts and I've wanted to cry a lot. But I've learned that you have good days and AWFUL days. If you can work through the rough days, you'll be so proud of yourself.

I had a terrible day yesterday at boot camp. Lap 1 (out of 6): I got a cramp and wanted to fall over and call it quits. Instead, I walked for a bit until the cramp went away and pushed through the rest of the work out. My time sucked. But I FINISHED. And I felt good about it.

The most I've ever run: 10 miles

My goal this year is to run a Half Marathon. I signed up for one yesterday, the RunGirl 13.1 on December 9th in Houston. I'm both excited and terrified. When I ran the 10 mile race in Austin a few months ago, I had not trained. Not because I thought I could do it without training, but time just flew and the race started before I knew it. I WAS doing boot camp several times a week, so my endurance was pretty decent. My time for the race was 1:48. It felt great! I will definitely train for the Half Marathon and have already found some friends interested in signing up with me!



Stay Active!

 I love my family, but our genes are what I call fat genes. I know that I have to be careful what I eat and I have to exercise more because I'm more apt to gain weight. It's just fact. I can either sit on the couch and be fat or get off my butt and move! I signed up for kickball, I play softball now and I go to boot camp about 3 times a week. On top of that, I started cycling recently and I hope the change of pace will help me break through my weight plateau.

22.5 Mile bike ride on the 4th of July

I won't tell you that I only eat salads and work out every minute I'm awake. That's silly. I eat mostly fruits, veggies and lean meat...but occasionally I cheat. If I know I will cheat (like on the 4th of July), I will try to work out extra to make up for it. It may not be a proven method, but I'm still the girl that loves food. A LOT.



Work out buddy

My boyfriend has helped a lot with this entire process. He's there at boot camp, sweating and cursing our trainer under his breath while STILL providing motivational and encouraging words to me. I'm not kidding about crying at boot camp. I've come close so many times. I've punched my trainer (jokingly...mostly) and told him I hate him. We have a love/hate thing going on. I love him when I'm not there and my pants are falling down (dropped 6 pants sizes by the way!), but I hate him when he tells me to do 50 box jump burpees. So, it helps to have my boyfriend there as a buffer, telling me I'm doing great. He's kind of awesome.

So, here I am, some 50+ lbs lighter and happy with the progress. I'm still not done, and the progress has slowed down lately, but I'm not giving up. If anyone is reading this and needs motivation, I am rooting for you! Don't give up! Cry if you need to, but keep going. Sweat is just your fat crying, right? ;)

 

 





Ticket Stub Shadowbox

Pinterest was the source of this great DIY! I found a pin for Foursided, a company that sells these great shadowboxes, but instead of purchasing one, I wanted to see if I could do it myself. I think it turned out pretty sweet!

This was a ridiculously easy project that took about an hour, maybe less. I bought the shadowbox from Michael's on sale for $12. I had the background paper already and designed and printed out the {admit one} label on regular paper.

Step by step:

1. Take off back of shadowbox and cut a slot at the top. I had originally wanted to cut a slot in the top of the box like the ones from Foursided, but my box was plastic and it would have cracked. The boyfriend cleverly suggested this alternative. :)

2. Cut paper to dimensions needed to cover the entire back of the shadowbox.

3. Secure paper with hot glue and be sure to overlap the slot opening with the paper for a seamless look.

4. Reattach the back to the rest of the shadowbox and remove the stray hot glue strands.

5. Fill with your ticket stubs and enjoy!

Overall a very easy project and a great way to keep all those ticket stubs and memories of fun times!

love birds painting

<3 birds

I finally got around to tackling this project! Luckily, my boyfriend agreed to help me with it and I think we made a great team. I saw a similar painting a few months ago on the internet and knew I wanted to attempt it. I'd gone to some painting classes, but I wanted to try this without the aide of an instructor. I got the canvas from a garage sale for 50 cents. It had a painting already on it, but I figured if the person was selling it, she wasn't too attached.

I used Acrylic paint from Michael's and a foam brush for most of the painting in order to cover the canvas. I didn't really have a set plan or pattern, I just mixed colors I liked and went to town.

This was my first finished product for the background. My boyfriend {correctly} suggested I make it lighter so that the birds would show more (the light part in the picture above is the flash). I added white and basically hated what it looked like after I was done. Hated it. I actually gave up and went to bed because I thought I ruined it.

So it sat for about a week, lonely and forgotten, until I finally decided to try again. My boyfriend helped and I actually like how it turned out the third time the most!

adding the black line with a thin brush

We added black to the edges and dabbed away some of the paint from the middle with a wet paper towel. Weird, but it worked! We added the black line and the birds for the final product!

Here is a computer edited version of our painting IF we had gone with more blue.

I think both look awesome, but overall, I'm very happy with the painting. Can't wait to do more!

Amazing! Curried Sweet Potato Soup

Eating healthy doesn't have to be boring or bland. I found a recipe yesterday for what seemed like a really simple soup with few ingredients. I like simple. Sadly, I can't locate the original recipe, but once I do, I'll add the link here to that site!

Ingredients

* 1 large onion (chopped)
* 2 sweet potatoes (cubed)
* 1 apple (we used Fuji, cubed)
* 1 tbsp olive oil
* Pinch of Salt
* 2 tsp Curry Powder
* 3-4 cups of broth (we used Better Than Broth Chicken)

That's it! First, you need to heat up the oil in a large pot (nonstick is best). Sauté the onion until lightly browning. Add the sweet potatoes and apple with the salt and curry powder. Cook until you see that some of the sweet potatoes and apple scorch on the bottom of the pot and stir often.

sweet potato love

Don't worry if the pot seems dry, as soon as you see some scorching, add the 3-4 cups of broth and bring to a boil. We used about 3 because I wanted a thicker soup. Cover and reduce heat. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are soft. I chopped them into small pieces, so they cooked quickly. Once the potatoes are soft, puree the soup.

hand blender works best

If you don't have a hand blender, you can transfer everything from the pot to a blender. You can puree as much or as little as you want. I like a fairly smooth soup.

time to eat!

I should've waited for my boyfriend before digging in, but I had a taste and WOW. The flavor of this soup is so amazing. I had a bowl right away. And then another. I wanted more, but decided it would be just as good tomorrow. Can't wait for lunch tomorrow!

yummy-goodness