Menu

wrapped

The Key To My Heart

, , , , , , , , , , 1

Tomorrow is a very special day.

Our 8 year wedding anniversary….

October 23, 2004

The perfect San Diego Fall afternoon for nuptials in Balboa Park followed by an Old Town celebration late into the evening ~ more to come on that tomorrow, but today I wanted to share with you something fitting that I purchased this morning as a little anniversary gift to us. {but only I will wear it! ha!}

{via}

I’ve been admiring Leslie’s upcycled, vintage treasures since she opened her shop {Salvage 517} and when she Insta’d that she had some new beauties listed this morning, I took a peek and knew I had to have this little key around my neck to remind me of how lucky I am to have found Jay and start our life together officially almost eight years ago.

I adore it. And I adore Leslie. I had the pleasure of meeting her briefly a year ago at Blog Sugar and from the minute I met her I knew she had a heart of gold ~ a beautiful, vintage gold heart hugged by several gorgeous beads and strung on a bright and vibrant ribbon, of course.

You can find her sweet, inspiring blog here.

Annnnnd to top it off, she owns an adorable senior citizen dachshund that looks just like Rascal.

So, go and check out her Etsy shop and pop in and say “Hello!” on her blog.

I also couldn’t resist this fabric wrapped frame housing a vintage Thanksgiving greeting for our November mantle…

Love. Love. Love.

And I love you, too, Jay! Can’t wait to celebrate with you tomorrow!

Thank you for holding the key to my heart…

XO

I’m Not Afraid Of Yarn Anymore

, , 1

I’m always a little behind when it comes to {trendy crafts}. I love looking at what everyone’s doing and learning what craftiness is all the rage, but I immediately think that it’s too hard and will take too much time, blah, blah, blah.

Yarn wrapped frames, letters, bottles, wreaths, you name it are all over the blogosphere. I used to think yarn had no place in my life since I have ZERO interest in knitting ~ just not my thing.

This past weekend I learned from my craftabulous friend, Richelle, just how EASY it is to wrap a cheap, ugly oak frame from a garage sale and transform it in about an hour to this…

…how cute is that?

Just hot glue the end of your yarn to the back of the frame and wrap, push together and tighten the yarn around the frame. The corners are a bit tricky…I went all they way around the frame, skipping the corners, and then came back to tackle them separately. Once you have covered the whole frame {like I said, takes 30-40 minutes ~ but I am kind of a perfectionist when it comes to things like this}, cut and glue the end of the yarn to the back of the frame. Then, put a dab of yarn next to the corners and wrap away. You need to put glue along the edges of the corners to get the yarn to stick, but there is no rhyme or reason to this…just wrap away until the frame is covered, cut and glue down on the back of the frame. Do this process on all four corners and you’ll be all done and ready to find a spot on your wall or a home on your mantel!

I just framed the kids’ initials outside their bedroom doors and I love the way they turned out!

Definitely adds some pizazz to our whiter than white walls, wouldn’t you say?

You can also take fabric and cut or rip into strips and use that to cover your frames. This technique would be muuuuuch quicker depending on the width of your strips! I plan to cover a few with some fun fabric and will let you know how those turn out, too! Can’t wait….

It’s A Date

, , , , , , 1

I’ve never really given much thought to dates.

I think of fruit cake when I think of dates.

But all this changed 4 years ago at Jay’s company holiday party. For they past four years his company has hosted the festivities at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley and for the past four years I have enjoyed almond stuffed, bacon wrapped dates at the appetizer station. Every year, not only do I look forward to attending this event with Jay, but I look forward to coveting these sweet, salty, crunchy morsels and overindulging in them.

I plan to make them soon using this recipe…

{may or may not use the goat cheese}

Last week at Elliott’s dance class, I overheard two other moms talking about a date smoothie. I see the medjool dates all the time at Trader Joe’s and thought I’d pick up a package and add them to my morning smoothies to change things up a bit.

Enter the {Spiced Date Smoothie}…

{2 cups crushed ice, 1/2 cup vanilla almond milk [or milk of choice], 1/2 cup plain yogurt, 2 seeded & chopped medjool dates, 1 medium banana and a sprinkle of cinnamon}

Blend until smooth and enjoy! I will say that the dates are pretty hearty and it may take a minute or so to process them in the blender. The package said to refrigerate them after opening which makes them a little harder and more difficult to blend. You can either chop them fairly well before blending or throw then in just halved or quartered to get bigger pieces in your smoothie. I like to use the big milkshake straws and get bigger chunks of dates up the straw from time! They are nice and sweet and chewy and add texture to the drink.

{milkshake straws via}

I found my straws at Ralphs hanging on those random little clip racks in one of the aisles.

This smoothie reminds me of the boba teas in that you get a little surprise up your straw every once in awhile as you sip, but instead of it being a tapioca ball, it’s a chunk of date!

It’s yummy.

So, don’t pass up the dates next time you’re in Trader Joe’s or your local grocery or market. They have lots of health benefits, too!

Happy Humpday!