Earth Day: Upcycling - Making A Play Kitchen From Boxes

A few months ago, my daughter recived some hand me down kitchen playset full of dighes, pots, and pans.  She loved playing with them and sometimes we'd set up a box in the kitchen so she can "cook" with me. I started thinking about making her a little kitchen out of the cardboard boxes we had.  So with a free weekend, and a plan, and some imagination, we created one for her.  Here's how we did it.

We colllected boxes and moved them around to see which would be the best stove, sink, and refrigerator. 

 We got some supplies...  contact paper, duct tape, foam sheets, mixing bowl, and hooks.  Not seen are the glue gun, packing tape, pump from a liquid soap dispenser, foil.  I think for this project we spent approx $13 for everything.  

Before covering your boxes with the contact paper, try to figure out which side will be the front and back, where you door opening will be.  Draw them on with a black marker so that when you cover them box with contact paper, you can see lines.  For the hinges of the door openings, score  the inside of the box, where these will be, then cover your boxes with contact paper.  We used the clear packing tape to keep things in place.  Once covered, start cutting you door openings.  If you scored the hinge side of the door from the inside, your door should open easily. 

We then measured and cut holes for the mixing bowl and the "faucet".  To secure the faucet, my husband drilled a hole in the bottom of the pump dispenser and then put a screw in horizontally so it would stay put once installed.  I used the hot glue gun to secure the rim of the bowl to the box.  Remember to put the glue on the rim and then press down onto the box.  If you use the gun on the box, the heat from the gun could possible burn a hole in your contact paper.  

I added the colored duct tape to the sides of our appliances so it would help reinforce the contact paper.  I cut the foam sheets for the burners (mine are the size of a CD).  I also used foam sheets for the handles and hot glued them on.  For the oven, I made brackets out of bent cardboard and hot glued them to the sides of the oven walls.  I then covered a sheet of cardboard with foil and then hot glued the piece to the brackets.

I also secured 2 hooks on the side to hold her grocery bag, dish towel, or purse.

The box we used for the refrigerator still had the Styrofoam packing pieces still in them, so I used them to create the shelves in the fridge.  I did the same thing here as the oven...made brackets out of extra cardboard, then glued the Styrofoam shelves on the brackets.  I had an extra box that fit perfectly as a crisper drawer, so I covered it in contact paper and loaded it up with her Ikea play veggies and fruit.  I also glued a velcro circle to the door and shelf so that the door can remain close.  

 My daughter had a ton of kitchen stuff passed down to her so we just stocked up the kitchen cupboard with her extra dishes and cooking equipment.

Voila!

Here is Cora enjoying her new kitchen with her Daddy!

A Year In A Flash - Celebrating Cora's Birthday

A few months ago, I was hunting for cute birthday party themes for Cora's First Birthday. I came across Stacey's party and thought it was the perfect theme for us. Here's what we did...

I created a photo collage (above) on my fav photo site picnik (so sad this site will be shut down in April). The collage was used for the invitation and for the cake.

The Invitation

The invitation was created on Paperless Post. I'm not the biggest fan of paper invitations

because of all of the paper waste, but I understand that some people don't have e-mail (like my mom). Paperless Post allows you to create beautiful e-invitations/e-cards, but you also have the option to print them out. Here is what the invitation looked like. I just printed this on nice card stock.

Timeline Banner

Since the venue for the party was already beautifully decorated, I kept my party decorations fairly simple. I knew the colors of the room had a lot of earth tones, so I chose pink and green for the party colors.

I created a timeline banner of Cora's first year. I painted clothes pins in glued on the number medallions with a hot glue gun. The medallions were just a punch of paper and the numbers were cut from my Cricut machine.

The timeline banner held pictures of Cora from each month of the past year.

Treats

I had two tables of food. One table was a snack table and the other was a yummy treat table. Here are the details...

My uncle and I made the wonderful cake pops. I find that traditional cake balls are too sweet, so instead of balling up cake and icing and dipping them in chocolate, we just just cut out pieces of pound cake, inserted the pop sticks, froze, then dipped in colored chocolate. The decoration on the pops are from chocolate transfer sheets. the flower pot was $0.79 at Ikea. I just cut out a large flower and a C on the Cricut and glued it on.

The cookies are done just like my easy no bake thin mints. Except that I used colored chocolate instead of Andes mints and used the chocolate transfer sheets again.

The popcorn bags were made from small treat bags. I used the Cricut to cut out C's and 1's and glued them on the bag. The popcorn was a salty/sweet mixture of cheese and caramel popcorn.

More Goodies!

I knew I'd be crunch for time to do a cake so I purchased a 1/2 sheet cake from Costco and asked them to only ice it in white. I took a jpeg of the collage picture from Picnik and had an edible sugar sheet made at a local cake supply store. I also purchased the colored Sixlet chocolate balls to border the cake. I found the CORA letter candles at Party City.

In keeping with the colors of the theme, I offered 2 beverages: pink strawberry punch, and cucumber water. I put them in beverage dispensers.

Since my party started at 2:30 in the afternoon, I just had deli and veggie trays, love dip and chips, and fruit skewers. The chocolate oat crisp cookies came from Ikea (I love those cookies!).

Photobooth and Party Pics

I made fun pink and green shades and moustaches. I also made talk bubbles out of chalkboard contact paper, matting board, and wooden dowels. I hired a photographer who captured photo booth type pics and all of the other party pics. I really love how this turned out!

Party favors

Last but not least, since I had leftover chalkboard contact paper, I decided to make mini talk bubbles to put in the party favor bags. The kids got mini talk bubbles, chalk, stickers, and other various goodies.

We had a wonderful party and Cora was showered with a lot of love! I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Have a happy day!

An Amazing First Year

I can't believe my little girl is a year old! Time really does go by in a flash! What a amazing year it has been! I made a little video in honor of Cora's birthday. I hope you enjoy it!

Happy Birthday Cora!

I had a few friends over for dinner tonight. For dessert I decided to try out a new recipe I spotted in All You. This cake had rave reviews and was pretty easy to make. I posted a pic on Facebook and a lot of people asked for the recipe, so here it is...

Molten Chocolate-Nutella Pudding Cakes

• YIELD: Serves 6
• PREP TIME: 25 MINUTES
• BAKE: 30 MINUTES
• COST PER SERVING:$1.12
• COURSE: Desserts

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons Nutella

Preparation

• 1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Mist 6 6-oz. ramekins with cooking spray. Place a roasting pan in oven; pour in 1/2 inch of hot water. In a bowl, whisk flour, cocoa and baking powder.
• 2. Combine chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe bowl; cook on high, stirring once or twice, until almost melted, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk until smooth. (I only needed to microwave for 1 minute.)
• 3. In a bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat eggs, vanilla, sugar and salt until pale yellow, about 5 minutes. Beat in melted chocolate mixture. Stir in flour mixture. Spoon half of batter into ramekins. Drop 1 Tbsp. of Nutella into center of each. Cover with remaining batter.
• 4. Transfer ramekins to roasting pan. Bake until cakes have risen and are cracked on top, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes. Serve warm.

You can prepare the ramekins up to a day ahead — do not bake, just cover and refrigerate. Bake the cakes for about 5 minutes longer than the recipe states.

Enjoy!

Cora Update

I know it's been a while since my last blog post. I went back to work last month. The transition has been good. It helps that I can work a day from home once a week. Cora is a happy little girl. She will be 4 months old next week. Can you believe that? Motherhood has been absolutely wonderful. I have been blessed with such a sweet baby that is full of smiles. She sleeps through the night (10-11 hours) and she has recently discovered "talking". She has been a chatterbox for the past few days. It's pretty funny, because she seems to have some important stuff to discuss... Here is a video of my little chatterbox...

I also decided to enter her in the Parents 2011 Cover Contest. I never thought I'd be one of those parents, but c'est la vi. Check out her album here.

I am so behind on my blog reading. I hope everyone is doing well.

Have a fab day!

~Hillary

Off To A Good Start

I completed week two of acupuncture and week one of Bodybugg and I am down 4.2 pounds overall. I try to get to the gym at least 2 times a week for cardio and in the for next couple of weeks, I'll add strength training. I've also cut down my sodium. Most of the food show above was made with salt free seasonings (unless I added a sprinkle of cheese). I really wanted to post a screen shot of my Bodybugg stats, but I'm having issues with it since I am using my husband's computer (mine is being repaired). Once I get my computer back, I'll post those up. As far as the acupuncture goes, I do think it's working. I've noticed a big difference in my appetite and I haven't had any late night snacking. I'm hoping to have another great week!

This past weekend we celebrated the upcoming wedding for my dear friends, Melissa and Larry. We had a Jamaican themed couples shower and everything turned out beautifully. We served jerk chicken, rice and beans cooked in coconut milk, plantains, Jamaican patties, fresh fruit, rum punch, and pineapple upside down cake. I made the pineapple tree with fresh fruit and the pineapple upside down cake. Our party favors were coconut cups. Most of our guests enjoyed their rum punch in their coconut cups :-)

Of course, I can't post without mentioning my little one...

Ready for Spring!

I found this cute dress at Costco!

Someone is hogging the bed :-)

Actually just a snooze while I got ready for the day.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy day!

Turning 38

Yes, this past week, I turned 38. Seriously, where does the time go? This year I decided to keep things low key. I went to brunch with a few close friends and went home and enjoyed my little chocolate and raspberry mousse.

I finally got my new Bodybugg to help me track my calories in and calories out. I've used the device before and got great results (40lbs lost). I decided to update my device and got the new SP version. Thanks to the bluetooth in this device, I can sync it

up with my iPhone and track my results as I go. On the old version I had to wait till I got to my computer (which was usually the end of the day). So I'm excited about using it. I'll post my daily log and results on my blog like I did before, but probably not as often since it's hard for me to blog sometimes.

Along with the Bodybugg system, I am adding a little acupuncture to help me with my late night snacking and stress eating. I've never done it before, but I was expecting to lay down while the doctor sticks a bunch of needles in me... Wrong! For weight loss, I wear 3 tiny needles stuck to a band-aid like piece in each ear for a week. You can barely see them. I go in every week to get them changed out. Here's a close-up of what they look like...

The pressure points are suppose to help me with stress, hunger, and to slightly speed up my metabolism. So far I've worn them for a week and I noticed that it does help my hunger. The jury is still out on the stress eating. I did stress eat once during the week, but that is less than the previous week. When I get stressed, I am suppose to tap on the little needles to stimulate them. I'm not sure if it really works of if it just distracts me and reminds me not to eat. At the end of the week, I was down 2.5 lbs. The entire acupuncture treatment lasts 10 - 12 weeks. I'll report my results when I get to the end. Let me know if you've tried this and what you thought!

Shellac! I thought shellac was just for your average home project, now they are putting it on your nails. I went to go get a mani/pedi with my mother in law and the manicurist was telling me about the shellac gel they are now using. It's not suppose to harm my natural nails and the polish is suppose to last for 2 weeks without chipping. Since I am constantly washing bottle, dishes, and doing all the other household choses, I decided 2 weeks of a chip-free manicure may be worth it. It was! My nails were just as glossy and chip-free on day 14 as it was on day 1 and I even peeled 5 lbs of crawfish. The only thing you saw were the new nail growth below the polish. I took a pic of my day 14 so you can see it. I didn't think to take a day 1 pic of my first shellac manicure, so I took a pic of the day 1 of my 2nd shellac manicure. That's why you'll see 2 different colors on the pic.

The pros: high shine, lasts for 2 weeks, no chipping, completely dry when you leave the nail salon, great if you need your mani to last through a vacation

The cons: removal of the polish requires you to soak in nail polish remover for 10 minutes, longer process since you have to throughly dry after each coat

Of course I have to mention my little sweet pea. She got a beautiful hand knitted dress and bonnet from a good friend of mine. I can't believe she made this! Thank you Pat for the lovely dress. It's such a wonderful keepsake.

For Rachel!

Here is a little collage of my fav pics of Cora over the past 2 months.

I hope everyone has a happy and healthy day. I'll try to post up daily logs and results often.