Valentines Banner

So, I love valentines day, it's one of my favorite holidays!! A day devoted to telling people you love them! Plus pink and sparkles! I recently made a quick little pennant banner to hang by my fireplace for valentines. It was super easy. I used my friends Cricut and punched out th letters. Cut burlap into triangles. Painted the edges with pink acrylic paint. Then strung it up with pink ribbon! I love how it turned out. When my entire mantle is decorated I will post pictures!

Chalkboard Wine Glasses

I LOVE chalkboard paint! It's the school teacher in me and the artist in one medium, so fun. I have wanted to make wine glasses but never knew who or what for. Well my friend had her birthday and I thought they would make a cute gift, with a bottle of wine and some nice chalkboard pens. It took longer than expected and was a little tricker too. Drying the glasses was the hardest part making sure they dried evenly and with out any dried paint globs. I think they turned out great! Just remember...Once glasses are done, they should only be hand washed.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

I had been wanting to make these pancakes for a while, but they are so sweet and so NOT good for you that I felt like I needed to wait for a special occasion to make them.  I decided that New Years Day was the occasion I had been waiting for and they turned out to be so good!

I had looked at several recipes for these and they are all kind of the same, just with a few tweaks here and there.  

Before you start, you need to prepare all the components.  So make a batch of your favorite pancake batter (I ALWAYS use Bisquick.  I have a funny family story about that...I'll put it at the end of the recipe).  Then mix up the cinnamon filling.  

Cinnamon Filling:
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
 ** this makes enough for pancakes for 2-3 people (i was making them for 5 people, so i doubled it)
Melt the butter, add the other ingredients and put in a zip lock baggie

Then make the glaze that goes on top of the finished pancakes:

1/2 stick butter (melted)
2 ounces room temperature cream cheese
3/4 cup powdered sugar
splash of vanilla extract
Over low heat melt the butter, mix in cream cheese, then stir in powdered sugar. set aside.

Now start making your pancakes.  Add your batter to the pan.  Let them cook until bubbles begin to form.  Then take the zip lock bag with the cinnamon filling and snip the corner of the bag.  Starting from the center of the pancake, squeeze out the filling in a swirl shape.  Just keep the filling about a 1/4 inch away from the edge of the pancake.  Cook for another 2 minutes or so (until the bubbles on the surface are popping) then flip the pancake over and cook till finished.  Keep doing this until you run out of batter or filling.  

When you serve the pancakes, drizzle a little bit of the glaze over the top of them.  

These are SO sweet but SO good!  Plan on 2-3 pancakes per person. 

So my family are pretty loyal to Bisquick pancakes.  My grandma (who is famous for her pancakes) swears by it.  My Papa used to be a traveling salesman and as he would go on his sales route, he would stop in various restaurants.  One restaurant's pancakes were, in his opinions, "heavy as lead balloons" and were clearly not made with Bisquick.  My Papa asked to talk to the chef, told him his opinion of his pancakes and explained that using Bisquick would fix the problem.  The next time my Papa ate there, they were using Bisquick to make their pancakes. :o)

When we were little, we'd ask my grandma to make our pancakes in different shapes (our initials, hearts, etc).  With a bunch of hungry people around the table, she didn't have time to make all those shapes, so she would make normal circle pancakes and tell us they were planets, soccer balls, basketballs, golf balls, tennis balls, etc.  Took us a while to catch on... :o)

The "Blue Room"

So, third room started out as a office... Then came the crafts... Thus it became the office/craft room. Well, if you also open the closet it has more crafts BUT it has my bags and clothes as well so it's now just being called "the blue room" I love the blue room! It's also bright in there bc of the windows and gets tons of light. I have been spending lots of time in it which is great. Well, I feel as though the room is pretty much organized as much as it can be. Here are the latest pictures of the peg board, which is next to my computer which also doubles as the TV. I took these pictures while Sitting on opposite side. i also finished reorganizing the back of the door organization as well! When I look at it just makes me smile. So colorful! Organized! Fun things!