Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Ya'll!  I decided I need to take a break from cooking...Well I am really taking a break because I might be mad, because one of my cakes broke in two when I tried to remove it from the pan.  {sigh...} Sad.  Tall Tan Man just called me, and he is having Christmas brunch with some Aussie friends.  It is pretty weird that he is always a day ahead of me.  I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas.  It is so easy to forget the reason why we celebrate Christmas.  It is not just about family, giving presents, eating obscene amounts, and watching football {gosh dangit cowboys}.  I am so thankful for Jesus.  He is my savior, redeemer, and I do not want to even know the person I would be without him.

 

Miss Him...

{Leslie}

Last Minute Homemade Gift Ideas

If you waited to the last minute, or you have just been at a loss what to get that one person, here are some ideas {you know you only have 4 days...}!  I have officially handed out about half of my gifts so I can post this.  If they are married you could make one of these:

Make sure you get the year right :)

I found this idea on Jones Design Company.  HERE is the tutorial of the one I made for my favorite baby Parker on the day he was born.

Framed scripture.

My sweet friend Ashley gave me this yesterday:

She found this free printable on pinterest.  By the way...I might of watched Dirty Dancing several times over the past couple days... Sorry Tall Tan Man, Patrick is a sexy. {sigh}  Hope your having a great week!  

{Leslie}

Pie Tin Stand

I might be slightly obsessed with making dessert stands.  I am in love the industrial chic look.  I made this pie tin stand for only $10.  I found all three of these pie tins at an antique store for $8.  They look pretty warn and that makes me happy.  :) I got the candle stick at goodwill, and candle holder at side of the road flea market (only $1 each).  I used epoxy that I already had to attach everything.  

I first measured the center then taped a circle where the object was going to be.

This made applying the epoxy easy!  I did this over 2 days to make sure everything was attached well.  I placed some light weight medicine balls on the top of the candle sticks to make sure they were secure. 

This is part of my Christmas decorations.  :)

Here is my tree.  I turn it on every night even though it has just been me.

My apartment is only 770 sq feet so I had some challenges making room for the tree...

Yep.  My favorite red chair had to make it's way to my bedroom.  Almost didn't make it...good thing I was a math major and I understand angles:) haha Have I mentioned that wrapping Christmas presents is one of my favorite things?

5 days and counting!!!

{Leslie}

White Chocolate Peppermint Oreos

If you like Oreos then you will LOVE these cookies!  My good friend Kelli, found this recipe on Pinterest.  You can find the recipe on Cupcakes and CrabLegs (click HERE).  I changed the recipe a little so it would make 5 dozen (I am going to a cookie exchange).  You will need:

• 2 Packages Oreo Cookies
• 2 Packages White Chocolate Almond Bark
• Crumbled peppermint

Place 1 package of almond bark in microwavable bowl.  

Melt chocolate.  Be careful not to burn your chocolate.  It is best to usually start by melting it for 30-45 seconds.  Stir.  Melt in 15 second increments. 

Drop oreos into chocolate and flip using a fork.  Remove oreos with a fork.  Place on wire rack with wax paper below, or drop oreos onto wax paper.  The second option might be better so the bottoms are flat.  Sprinkle oreos with peppermint. Now repeat with the other half of almond bark, and remaining oreos! 

 Delicious!

{Leslie} 

All the Single Ladies Christmas Card!

You do not have to be married to have a fabulous Christmas card... These are a couple of my wonderful coworkers Kelli and Cathy!  We had so much fun making this, and putting it up in the office! :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

{Leslie}

M&M Chocolate Pretzels Rods

 I know this is my second chocolate pretzel post is the last month...I just can't help it.  The salty and sweet combination is just too good to resist.  The last pretzel post I had was a Chocolate and Peppermint Pretzel.

I am not sure which one is better...So I will call it a tie.  I found the measurement for this recipe HERE.  All you need is:

• 24 Pretzel Rods
• 12oz Semi Sweet Chocolate
• 1 TBSP of Crisco
• 1 Bag Red and Green Mini M&Ms
• 2 Squares of White Chocolate Almond Bark

1.  Melt Chocolate and crisco in microwave.  Be careful not to burn your chocolate.  I melt it for 30 seconds, and stir then begin 15 second intervals. 

2.  Dip pretzels in chocolate.  I had to use a spoon to make sure the pretzels were well covered.  I left about an inch and a half without any chocolate. Make sure you read step 3!

3.  Allow chocolate to cool a little {not completely!} and sprinkle M&Ms on top!  

4.   Melt Bark in the microwave.  Using a fork, sprinkle the pretzels with the white chocolate. 

Done :)  Have a {sweet} week!  2 weeks until Christmas which means I only have 5 more days of work!!! WoooWooo!

{Leslie}

p.s.  Tall Tan Man, I miss you dearly.  Hope you are picking up an accent, and me some UGGs in Australia :)

Ikea Tray {chalkboard}

Good Saturday morning to you!  Well, I guess it is noon, but I am still in my PJs and I am drinking coffee.  :)  Love these kind of weekends.  Decorating for Christmas is one of my favorite things.  If you read my previous post about Moving Out of my Parents House again you know I lived at home for 2.5 years after college.  Over this time I continued to buy Christmas decoration during the after Christmas sales.  I had so many things I do not remember buying {probably not a good thing}.  When I was at Ikea the other day I found this silver tray with all the Christmas stuff. I just had to have it {do I have a problem?}!  I thought this would be prefect to put it on this skinny wall:

Chalkboard paint it pretty stinkin' awesome.  I love it.  I just taped around the inside edges:

Then I painted away.  I think it fits pretty well on the wall.  My handwriting is not a strength of mine.  I might of wrote "Merry Christmas" 35 times {no joke}.  

Hope you have a productive Saturday!  

{Leslie}

PW Flat Apple Pie

I love everything about pie.  Some people like the crust more than the filling or vice versa, but not me.  I love it all.  Just thinking about thick flakey crust with warm apples, and maybe some vanilla ice cream makes my mouth water.   I found this recipe in my Pioneer Woman {PW} cookbook. 

 {source}

This book is fabulous.  If you are wondering what to get your friend that likes cooking for Christmas, get them this!  Another gift you could get for a friend that likes to bake is this apple peeler, corer, and slicer.  It is wonderful.  Even if you only make one apple pie or crisp a year it is totally worth it.  You can find it at Williams~Sonoma for $28.  It is absolutely fabulous.  

All you do is place you apple on the skewers.

Wind away!

Keep winding!

Ahhh beautiful.  This makes apple pie making MUCH easier.  

This recipe turned out delicious.  MmmMm I wish I had some left...but for the sake of my skinny jeans it is probably good that it is all gone.  Now, I might be lazy or I might be a little worried that copying a recipe straight out of cookbook might be plagiarism; so I am not going to put the recipe directly on my blog.   This would be a good questions for me to ask someone in the English Department {I am a high school math teacher if you were wondering}.  If you have any insight to this feel free to drop me a comment. I did find the recipe on someones blog {HERE}.  

This is really good.  I love the crust, and perfectly sweet apples.  Pioneer Woman does not fail me.  This Thanksgiving I got to spend some time with my Dad's side of the family.  I love them all.  The dynamics have changed over the years.  We now have some very precious babies...

I love these little ones.  Your heart cannot help to melt when they smile at you {am I being too cheesey?}.  I meant to get some more pictures of everyone, but I forgot.  We celebrated on the Saturday after Thanksgiving {the day Tall Tan Man left...}, and I made it to dinner just in time.  The drive from Denver to Oklahoma City is a little brutal, especially because I was already missing my man.  Oh!  Speaking of my man.  I forgot to give him some A LOT of credit for helping me with my PHOTO WALL.  

 Well, it Tuesday.  Hope I make it to Friday with my sanity :)

{Leslie}

Bow Pillows

When I moved into my apartment I knew I wanted to find a new couch.  Couch shopping is terrible...It took me forever to find a few I really liked, and then I chose this one hoping it would look okay in my living room:

I loooove my new couch!  Minus the ugly pillows that came with it {sorry Cindy}.  The couch is from the Cindy Crawford line at Rooms To Go.  The pillows remind me of a really bad sweater I loved in middle school.  It took me a while to decide what color I wanted the pillows to be {this couch needs pillows}.  I went with boring black.  Black is my go to color, for not only decor, but also clothes...furniture...shower curtains...I had been eying these bow pillows for a while:

 This is from IvieMade

There is a tutorial for the pillow {HERE}.  Here is my version:

My sewing could use some work (the pillow pulls a little funny in the top right corner)...I really like the black pillows and I think it looks a lot better :) As you can see mine don't really have a full bow.  I thought it would be too much. 

Have a great week!!!

{Leslie}

My Own Wall Gallery

 I was looking for something to put on a wall in my living room that wouldn't be too hectic, but would take up a good portion of the wall.  I have seen many people do photo walls before and I thought this idea would be perfect!  My cousin is actually the one who inspired me to do this when she was buying her frames at Ikea.  I also got most of my frames from Ikea, and  some from Homegoods.  A couple of the frames I already had :)  I first laid the pictures out on my floor, and moved them around until I was happy.

Then I cut tissue paper {I didn't have anything else to use} to the size of the frames, and taped the paper on my wall.  I actually nailed the photo hooks directly through the paper, and that worked great.  I just had to measure how far down on the frames the hooks would need to be.  This made placing all the frames on the wall easy!

These pictures bring back great memories.  Most are from when I went backpacking in Europe with my bff from High School (Rome, Amsterdam, Paris, Florence, and Switzerland).   Some of the other pictures are from Cabo San Lucas, Scotland, and the Grand Canyon.  As you can probably see I still have one frame to be filled, and one frame needs to get a colored version of the picture.  I actually did order them, but the quality came back poor :(  Also, it looks like I need to straighten up some of my pictures.  A professional blogger would of probably straightened up her frames before taking the picture {I am not OCD at all}...Maybe I should just take pictures at an angle.  

We are half way through the work week!  YAY!   I joined 24 Hour Fitness today to fight back against the ridiculous amount of desserts I eat this time of year... :)  Tall Tan Man is off to Sydney today {he is actually a day ahead of us}!  I sure am jealous! 

{Leslie}

Paula's Strawberry Pretzel Salad

If you have never experienced Paula Deen's Strawberry Pretzel Salad you are missing out BIG time.  This is what I am responsible for making every year for Tall Tan Man's family Thanksgiving.  If you are looking for something else to make for Christmas dinner this would be perfect.  You can find the recipe HERE.  The only thing I change is I make 2 different crusts to make everyone happy.  I halved the pretzel crust which is what the recipe calls for, and the other half I make a graham cracker crust.  Not everyone loves the pretzel crust {crazy TTM}.

I am telling ya'll, {trust me} this is delicious.

I wanted to get a pretty picture of single piece with all the layers, but before I knew it this happened :

Here is a picture of Tall Tan Man and I on Thanksgiving.  This makes me miss him, and my summer tan...

Thanksgiving part two will be coming soon.  :)

{Leslie}