Busy Week

I was a little busier than usual this week since I'm taking a summer class and we had inventory at work so I didn't have much free time to play in the craft room. But I did finish off a couple of head wraps that had been laying around waiting for flowers and buttons. I've also made two felt dahlias that I'm not 100% sure yet what I want to do with. 

Head wraps 

Summer Ombre

Neopolitan

Folklore

And the felt dahlias

The pink one was my first attempt and the petals aren't distributed as evenly as I would like them to be

The purple one was definitely an improvement

And I'm not working half what I did last week so hopefully I'll have to to make something fun or at least do some cooking!

Weekend Crafting

Here are some of the things I've made in the past week. 

A head wrap:

Some t-shirt flower bobby pins made from t-shirt material

And this one was made from an actual t-shirt

A t-shirt flower that would make a great brooch or glue it on a headband or shirt or purse or something, made out of an old t-shirt

And a birthday card for my godfather made from Tim Holtz Lost & Found paper

Cajun Shrimp Casserole

I stumbled upon this recipe on pinterest.com last week and had to try it, I LOVE shrimp and I love spicy! It really wasn't too hard to make, but make you read the recipe correctly! I misread the whole rice part and just figured it called for uncooked rice, but NO it calls for COOKED rice. It all turned out alright but I had to cook it almost twice as long as the recipe said to make sure the rice got cooked.

Ingredients:

2 lbs large fresh shrimp
1/4 cup butter
1 small red onion chopped
1/2 cup red bell pepper chopped
1/2 cup yellow bell pepper chopped
1/2 cup green bell pepper chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups fresh or frozen sliced okra
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 (10 3/4 oz) can cream of shrimp soup*
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (more or less to your liking)
3 cups COOKED long-grain rice
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Chop your onion and peppers while melting the butter in a LARGE skillet or dutch oven (my LARGE skillet about overflowed after everything went in). Add the onion and peppers to the pan and saute for approximately 5 minutes or until softened.

Add the minced garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add okra, lemon juice, and salt and saute for 5 minutes. Add the shrimp and saute for about 3 minutes or until the shrimp turn pink. Add the remaining ingredients except cheese and stir until well incorporated. Pour into a lightly greased casserole dish and top with the cheese. I split the casserole into two smaller dishes so I could make a spicier batch for Luke and I and a more tame batch for Jack, so I used less cayenne pepper than it called for for the whole recipe and after I split it into the dishes I added more cayenne to the dish I wanted to be more spicy. And Jack absolutely loved it so I call this one a winner!

Bake for 15-20 minutes (or about 30 covered with aluminum foil if you forgot to cook the rice) or until bubbly and cheese begins to brown. Garnish with lemon, or parsley sprigs if desired.

*Cream of mushroom soup can be substituted for cream of shrimp (my grocery store didn't have cream of shrimp)

Original recipe: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/cajun-shrimp-casserole-10000001108225/

New Craft Room!

Over the past week or so I have moved all of my craft madness out of my bedroom and into its very own craft room. I purchased several Jetmax storage pieces to make everything super organized and it looks so pretty! So hopefully now I'll be putting up more crafty posts instead of just food.

So the room looked pretty rough while I was building things, oh what I would have done to have an electric screwdriver!!!

And then here is the beautiful final product! We'll see how long it stays this pretty!

I have wanted this piece since I first saw it several years ago...

Look how organized the paper is... (I sat in the middle of the floor and went through all my paper and separated everything by brand and collection, disgusting I know...)

I even made little labels for all of the drawers

The magazine holder ended up being perfect for my clear/cling stamp folders 

I bought a strip of magnets to put my stickles on this magnetic board that is part of my revolving organizer that also has all my Distress ink, blending tools, and some ribbon

And look at all that yarn.... I've got a lot of knitting to do this summer to get ready for the arts and crafts fair in November!

Now here is the graduation card I made for my friend Amy that graduated from OU on Saturday. So proud of her! 

I used my new Everyday Pop-Up Cards Cricut cartridge 

And here is the card 

With a pop up "Congratulations!" on the inside!

And you always have to stamp the back!

And this weekend my adopted mom Leanne and I went shopping in Denton and got lots and lots of stuff to make jewelry and well just about any kind of crafts and I found these really cool beads that I just had to have and so far I've only made the earrings but I figured I might as well put them on here because they are so cute. Necklace coming soon!

Seafood dinner

Well I didn't take any pictures because my kitchen was just whirling with all kinds of things being cooked and people helping me out, but Luke and I had our friends Aaron and Elizabeth over for dinner last night. And since Luke and I have become quite the Take Home Chef addicts, we of course used Curtis's recipes! For the occasion we decided upon Sugar cane skewered shrimp, marinated with lime, chili and chives (minus the sugar cane) with avocado, lemon, and organic yogurt dip, http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/takehomechef/recipes/nicole/sugar-cane-skewered-shrimp.html, which we had tried earlier and the week and absolutely loved! Baby baked potatoes with sour cream and chives, http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/takehomechef/recipes/michelle/baby-baked-potatoes.html. And the main course was Spaghettini of crab, lemon, and parsley, http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/takehomechef/recipes/michelle/spaghettini-crab-lemon-parsley.html. For the Spaghettini we used canned stewed tomatoes instead of boiling our own to save a little time and we also eliminated the ginger because we don't necessarily care for it, but the dish turned out absolutely amazing. I will definitely be making it again!

Rainbow Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes last week and the recipe could not get any simpler, and its low fat! Who could argue with that???

Ingredients:

Cake:
1 packaged white cake mix
12 oz Sprite Zero
Gel food coloring

Frosting:
8 oz light or fat-free whipped topping
1 oz fat-free sugar-free pudding mix

Yield:

Approximately 16 cupcakes

Now to prepare the cupcakes:

Preheat oven according to package directions

Line a muffin pan with paper liners

Mix cake mix with the soda until incorporated

Divide the batter evenly into as many bowls as needed to make your desired colors (I made 5 different colors) and use gel food coloring to color the batter

Now using a spoon or tablespoon, spoon the batter into the paper liners one color at a time (I used the ROY G BIV color scheme minus the colors I didn't make) until all colors have been used

Don't worry about smoothing the colors into even layers, it will still look cool no matter how you decide to slop it in there.

Bake according to package directions and be sure to do the toothpick test (insert a toothpick into the cupcake and if it is clean upon removal your cupcakes are done!) to make sure they are done

Remove from oven and place onto a cooling rack

Now for the Frosting:

Whip together the whipped topping and pudding mix until well incorporated and fluffy.

After the cupcakes have cooled pipe frosting onto each cupcake.

These were super fun and they taste great! I'm sure they would be a huge hit with children.