Snow Day: Valentine's Day Crafts

[Pardon the quality of some photos. During some of this, my camera's battery was dead and I used my phone.]

Well, I got a little antsy yesterday. The boy is just fine lounging around watching movies, but I've always got to be doing something, whether it's playing online, folding laundry or crafting.

So, since he wanted me to watch movies with him, I got to searching around online for some projects which I might have the stuff for. I wanted to make some more Valentine's Day decor, so I went started looking around and stumbled on this post with lots of great ideas and was inspired by this one. It seemed like it'd be the most possible without a run to the store.

The thing is: I wanted a little color on mine. I knew where it'd be hanging and thought color would look best.

So, the wheels started spinning. Remember how I was so productive on the first snow day? Well, there are still two trash bags of clothes waiting on me to give away/donate (which, I haven't been getting out in the ice, so that'd be hard to do). There's LOTS of color in those bags I thought. So, I started digging, and ended up with this:

Lots of color, right? Then, I started working on bending a hanger.

 Then, Baxter decided he needed some attention. 

 But, I had things to do! I started cutting the shirts into little strips.

 That is, until the boy (whose mom is a seamstress) showed me a much easier way to do that... so I put him to work.

 And he created this handy little pile for me.

 And I got to work tying.

 And I kept tying until I got around the entire heart.

 Then, it was time to hang it up. I had originally envisioned hanging it up discreetly where you couldn't see any strings or anything. But, I couldn't find anything that would work to hang it where I wanted. The boy pointed out to me that one of the shirts that I cut up for the heart had strings on it (see picture above of shirts before cutting), and I thought that'd be super cute, so I used it.

Then, the more I looked at my cute little colorful heart, I thought it looked lonely... it needed something else up there with similar colors. So, I asked Leslie what I should do. She sent me this cute picture of what someone did to these frames as well as this tutorial and this one.

Now, I didn't exactly have all of the materials in those... so the wheels began spinning again. I would cut up the shirts some more for the twisting fabric, but what about the base behind it?

Remember, on that first snow day, lots of people came over? Well, those people drank quite a bit of beer... and we hadn't completely thrown everything away yet. So, I found this....

What about circles? Well, the boy has lots of drawing stuff for school (think compass), but didn't want to go get his backpack out of his car in the freezing weather. So, he looked in the kitchen for round objects in different sizes:

Isn't he so handy? So, I got started. I hot glued the end of the fabric to the (estimated) middle of the round cardboard.

... then twisted and twisted and twisted. I hot glued quite a bit throughout.

Aren't they cute?

So, using scotch tape, I attached the rosettes the the corners of my frames which were already there. I used that so they could easily come off when it's no longer Valentine's season.

This was my "fantle" once everything was assembled.

Pam Anderson's Pork Ribs

This is the life.

That's seriously my first thought this morning. Three days in a row of zero commitments or responsibilities, not setting an alarm, not rushing like a mad person when I wake up and enjoying spending my day the way I would like to spend it.

Lots of people are complaining of cabin fever... call me crazy, but I don't get it? The snow days have been fabulous for this girl.

It's also been fabulous for my blog. Why? I've had time to make a few new things and do a little crafting which I can't wait to share!

The boy (have I mentioned he's stuck here with me?) mentioned that he hadn't had pork ribs in a long time and would like some. Lucky for him, I have an Xterra and a grocery store across the street.

The first place I looked was my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. I read the ingredients to him, and he said he wanted something a little more brown sugar and barbecue sauce-esque.

Where did I turn next? Pioneer Woman, of course! When searching pork ribs, I found a post called The Other Pam Anderson. Now, this didn't appear at first glance to be a pork ribs recipe, but I knew that it had to contain something about pork ribs since that's what I searched.

So, I opened and started reading, and there it was... a recipe for pork ribs. Not any recipe, but one that included brown sugar (check one for the boy's request). It also required Dijon mustard, which I didn't have, nor did I think I'd like, so I substituted barbecue sauce and liquid smoke (check two for the boy's request) for the liquid rub. Get cookin'!

The ingredients (minus the stuff behind... I wasn't done putting away other ingredients when I got this started). I halved everything because this recipe is for 3 racks of baby back ribs and I had one rack of spare ribs.

 My sugar, paprika, pepper, garlic and salt rub. I realized while making it that I forgot to half the pepper, so I spooned some out. I think I may have forgotten to half the garlic, too, but it didn't taste like it?

 Barbecue sauce & liquid smoke rub.

 Away I went, brushing the rub on (with my adorable pink pastry brush).

 I got both sides nice and covered.

 Then sprinkled the dry rub on both sides & placed it directly onto the oven rack with foil below to catch and drippings (which weren't much).

 Came out looking like this.

After the boy cut some ribs.

First the boy's opinion: He said it wasn't what he was used to. He knew it wouldn't be when I put it directly onto the oven rack rather than in a pan of liquid. Even though it wasn't what he was used to, he said they were "really, really good."

And mine: I'm going to be really honest here, I wasn't too pleased with them. I was really weirded out for a number of reasons. First of all, I hate meat off the bone. To cater to my oddity, the boy cut it all of the bone for me. But, I still knew it was from the bone, if that makes sense. Also, the texture was strange. It had fat and tendons and stuff and I just couldn't get myself to ignore all the weirdness, so I hardly ate any.

Snow Days!

Today is day two of (so far) three snow days this week and it has been absolutely fabulous.

Why, you ask?

You see, for the most part, my life is absolutely insane. I am always at school or work or working on day to day things (homework, cleaning, etc.) that I rarely have time for extra projects that take more than maybe a half hour or so.

But, nature imposed this on me and I am definitely not complaining.

These are taken from my balcony. That's some benches and a sand volleyball court right there, in case you couldn't tell.

 The snow is so dramatic.

 So... how have I been spending all of this extra time on my hands? Well, I have to make a confession first.

I've been out of closet space for a long time. As I've mentioned previously, I grew out of this apartment a long time ago.

So, where was I storing my clothes that no longer fit in my closet? In the doorway to my laundry room, of course.

 Embarrassing, right? But - the good news! I finally had time during this break to go through my closet. I got rid of two trash bags worth of stuff and was able to move all of the clothes above into my closet. It made it much easier to spend a good majority of the day catching up on laundry. Then, I even organized my laundry room.

Go me!

After all of that productivity, it was time to have some fun. Everyone seemed to be getting mild cases of cabin fever, so I invited them to my cabin for some beverages and fun.

Let me also add that I made some chili and macaroni and cheese which were all devoured.

Jeremy and Alex: beer pong pros.

 Team Awesome has no pictures, but this is Team Shake & Bake. Jose, Jeremy, Alex & Woody.

 Crazy guys...

 Then, Taylor came. She's one of my favorites! And, even better, it was her birthday. So, I gave her a shot.

 Not bad for a shot face, huh?

 Everyone was clearly in need of an outing, and much fun was had!

Today, I've been meal planning and doing some cooking. More blogs on that soon!

I want s'more cookies!

Last week, I asked my friend, Jessica Hester, for some blog reading suggestions. The first one she sent me was Baked Perfection... and perfection it was!

Looking through, I was immediately drawn to the S'mores Cookies... they looked fabulous, and I had all but two of the ingredients and needed to go pick up some medicine anyway, so I made some impromptu cookies.

Here, we've got the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

I didn't have mini chocolate chips, so I put the boy to work chopping up regular sized chocolate chips for me.... 

 Then, I mixed up the butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla and eggs... and added the flour mixture.

 Meanwhile, the boy was chopping up my Hershey's bars...

 I stirred in the chocolate chips.

 How cute are they? I need to do a blog soon entitled "Ode to my amazing baking sheets."

 Cooked them like that for 8 minutes, then added the Hershey's and mini marshmallows. Another 4 minutes was good and I figured out the perfect color of the marshmallows for the cookies to be fabulous (very slight browning).

 I may have enjoyed some wine while whipping these up.

 Anyway, here are the beauties...

 Aren't they pretty??

Make them. Soon. You'll thank me, I promise!

Also, I'm looking for more things to try. Once again, I'm very picky... but I'm learning some good alterations to make things good (and know who to ask). I love things that can easily be frozen into portion sizes for a perfect lunch to grab and go on my hurried mornings.