Monday night ramblings

It's official, 2013 will be my year of travel! It may not seem like much to some, but for me it's a big deal to be taking two large trips next year. Not to mention my very first trip overseas!! I'm more excited than a cat with catnip.

My first trip is back to my homeland, London, ENGLAND!! I say my homeland because my grandma literally came over in a boat as a child, my family has the chest she brought with her in our living room. It's legit, not antiques roadshow approved, but legitimate none the less. My school and department is amazing and is offering a trip to England during reading week that counts for a credit. Yep, I get to go on a trip AND get an academic credit for it, unfreakingreal. I mean, I do have to write a paper... but, I'll worry about that on the hungover plane ride home. 

My second trip is our yearly family trip to Florida, BUT there's an added bonus this year... Jeffrey is coming! For the first time in our lives we will be vacationing together. FINALLY. My excitement for this goes beyond cats and catnip, maybe like the way my goldfish feel about any food I put in their tanks.

Mondays suck, but this monday wasn't too bad considering it was the last day of first semester classes!

Other than that, this Monday also made me happy because I had time to think about all the things I want to do/make this week...

Food I want to make: Whenever I get groceries I try to pick 2 or 3 recipes I want to make so I buy stuff especially for that. As you can imagine, I pick from my "I like to eat" Pinterest board. Click the pictures below for the recipes.

1. Cheesy Broccoli and Rice I have some leftover ham from a Christmas dinner this weekend that I want to try adding to this recipe as well!
2. Asparagus, Mushroom & Wild Rice Asparagus & Mushrooms are two of my favourite veggies. Actually, I like almost all veggies.
3. Spinach & Strawberry Salad No official recipe for this one, just a massive craving for it. Basically it will be a mix of Spinach, Strawberries, Pecans, goat cheese and Balsamic dressing. Mmm... my mouth is watering.

1.   2.  3.

BONUS: I have some "gone bad" bananas which can only mean one thing... 

BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS (aka the perfect study snack)

I use my aunt liz's recipe to make these delicious treats, I'll post it for you later in the week! Fun fact about this recipe, it was given to by my aunt over an xbox headset, classic recipe sharing.

FUN FACT FOR STUDENTS: If you show your student card at the Superstore on Tuesdays, you get 10% off! Save your money so you can buy more than Kraft Dinner. 

Pinterest thing I want to make: DIY wall flower refills. I absolutely love my Bath and Body Works wallflowers, all 4 of them. The only problem is, the chemicals used to create the smells aren't so lovely. I sometimes try to be green, so I'm going to try to make my own homemade refills. I bought some lavender essential oil to try. Click on the images to check out the tutorial!

 

Place I want to go: My Little Tea Shop. Ever since a lady I worked with gave me this card I've been dying to check out this tea shop in Windsor. I love tea and could really use a good winter/christmas flavour. But I also want to go to do some Christmas shopping! I'll fill you in on that one later..

How I want to paint my nails: Frosty Glitter Gradient. If you noticed in my last picture, my nails look like garbage, that will be fixed this week. Now that December is finally here, it's time for some snow. I know I can't expect much being in Southwestern Ontario, but I'll settle for snow-like frosty nails. It's time for a glitter gradient nail, one of my favorite looks... as seen here on Packzi day last year. I could really go for a Packzi now, only 70 days until Fat Tuesday 2013.

And finally, here's some motivation for exam times, which can also be found on our fridge:

I hope your monday went well and that the rest of your week is even better... Can you tell I'm in a good mood?

Pinterest Project: Lollipop Cards

I've seen a couple variations of this on Pinterest, most of them only had one sucker but we had two people at each location that we were sending invites to, so it made sense to give each person a treat!

What You Need:

Printed Picture (we used 5x7)

Printed text (if desired for extra info on the back)

Exacto knife

 Suckers

1. Take a picture of the people that will be appearing on your invitations with one hand held up in a fist

2. Edit you picture to add text and a border (you can really design it however you like!). I use Adobe Photoshop CS5. 

3. Get your pictures printed and using the exacto knife cut a line near the top of the person's fist and at the bottom

4. Stick the sucker through the slits you've just cut, and voila! You're done. 

5. We needed to add some more info to the back of the card so we simply printed the details on a piece of paper that was glued to the back of the photo. Make sure you don't put glue on the lollipop sticks! 

Pinterest Project: Beer Cake

I can't get enough of Pinterest, when I find something good I have to try it, so here's my latest project..

Beer Cake 

Pinterest version: 

My version:

I saw the original version of the beer cake here, mine isn't as big but It worked out just fine! There was no tutorial online, so I decided to write up a mini tutorial if anyone else is wanting to try it out. I made this one for my boyfriend's birthday and he loved, I know he'll put it to good use!!

What you need: 

25 cans of beer 

1 bottle of beer 

decorative ribbon

cardboard/wood square, to be used for the base

number candles (optional)

1. Gather your supplies! 

Before doing the project I had no idea what I'd need, in the end I didn't use the Corona tall boys and I added one bottle of Coors light. 

2. Place cans in a circle, glue to base and secure with ribbon

You can really make the cake as large as you want, I opted for two tiers. Although I didn't do it here, you should try to glue your cans to your base. I payed for it later when the cake fell apart during transportation, luckily it was an easy fix.

3. Place a second tier of 6 cans of beer, surrounding one bottle of beer in the middle, secure with ribbon. 

I didn't glue the second tier, I didn't want the lids to be filled with glue, if you're careful you can probably get away without glue-ing them. 

4. Glue candles to the neck of the beer bottle and add some decorations if you want!