glorious glossies

One of my favorite indulgences is magazines.  I was given a few subscriptions this past Christmas, earned one using kitty litter points (yes, kitty litter points) and Dear Mother is kind enough to scavenge the free bin at the local library and bring me the promising ones on occasion. 

I used to keep a basket full (me, a basket? no..) of unread issues in my office, however over the course of the past few months I finally went through them pulling out ideas, recipes, and articles I wanted to keep.  I finally made it through my backlog this weekend and thought it might be fun to share how I organize all those torn-out pages. 

This system works for me because it's pretty simple and low maintenance. After I read a magazine, the pages I want to keep just get tossed in this little guy in my craft room/office closet:

He holds my magazine pages in the top drawer, printer paper in the second, and large scrapbooking papers in the third.  I think I've had this container for about 8 years now.. I can't seem to ever part with it.

The pages aren't in any order, yet.  Sorting through them and trimming the rough edges is saved for one of the Man's game nights.  He plays video games, and I watch something cheesy on the laptop while I scatter little slivers of paper all over the carpet after trimming the brimming bin of pages.

Once I've trimmed the pages, and somewhat sorted them into the loose categories of "to eat", "to decorate", "to think about," and "tips to remember" I slip each pairing of pages into clear page covers.

A while back, I just grabbed a simple white binder and used some pretty leftover papers to decorate the cover. I keep the binder right next to my inspiration bin and craft supplies--

 in easy reach, but still out of the way.

Hopefully soon, I'll have time to tackle some of the awesome ideas that live in that three-ring binder.

How do you keep track of things that inspire you?

what a lovely crafternoon...

A while back, I had some of "the girls" from work over for a crafter-noon

(which later turned into a crafter-night.)

The goal was to make coffee filter wreaths, and I think we all were successful-- after many glue gun burns, curse words, tales of woe over low-carb diets, much comiserating, and a little help from a sugar rush.

It wouldn't be a soiree at the nerdy nest if sweets and copius amounts of snacks (and the occassional spirit) weren't involved.  Meet the cake for the occassion-- a neopolitan cake with buttercream frosting:

I tried another technique with the frosting.. there's something about messy repetitive patterns that just seem to work well in buttercream.

It was a potluck, but I couldn't resist making a few of these:

We also had chicken ranch dip, rotel, sausage cheese balls, mini-sausages, shrimp cocktail, and meatballs... needless to say, these crafty chicks know how to throw down.

Now to plan the next crafty adventure... I have a few ideas, but not enough time. 

 Have you been crafting lately?

tomato tracking

We are clinging desperately to our hope for a green thumb at the nerdy nest this year.  The Man has recently lovingly referred to me as a "serial killer" of plants.  I deny the claim, though I may need to confess to being homicidally negligent when it comes to certain past forays into foliage.

Still, it's never to late to turn over a new leaf!

(Yes, it's lame.  Yes, I went there.  And yes, I'm proud of it!)

We planted tomatoes in our little retaining wall/garden bed in the back yard.  So far, they're off to a rocky start, but I'm hoping with a little miracle-gro they might actually survive.

For now, it's not much aesthetically-- but I'm hoping that eventually we'll have a lovely little garden and greener thumbs.

 We've planted roma, gladiator hybrid, juliet, and patio tomatoes. 

Hopefully we'll have plenty to share with family and friends. 

Did you plant a garden this year?  It seems to be a growing trend. 

(tee-hee.. growing.. garden..get it?)

on the go hello

The Man finally convinced me that we needed smartphones, and I am officially spoiled. Constantly having a camera on hand is awesome so far, and allows me to capture random shots like this of Inari, one of our spoiled kitties.

This is my first mobile blog post, so please forgive me if it's wonky.

mom-o-rama

Dear Mother is pretty lucky.  Her birthday fell on the same weekend as Mother's Day.  At her request, we planned a FULL-Saturday of Mom-approved events.  One of the main things she wanted to do was to tag along on a yard-saleing adventure with her darling daughter (haha).

I arrived at her house at 5:45, about as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as one can be that early on a Saturday.  We lucked out with the day, becasue there were about 15+ yard sales in our area that morning (which is a TON for the Auburn/Opelika area). I had even mapped out our plan of attack:

The first few sales we didn't find much.. and I was growing a little concerned.  I'd hate for her Yard Sale-ing birthday bash to turn into a big Birthday Bust.  Thankfully we both found a few things over the course of the morning.

She picked up a cute Vera Bradley purse, some CD's and a Badmiton racket -- to kill bugs with apparently.

I found a few lovelies, a basket (of course!), a pretty detailed mirror, the cutest yellow pitcher, and a spunky kelly green planter.

This picture shows more of the detail of the planter.  Now to decide what to plant ...

I also found something pretty darn amazing, maybe one of my best yard sale finds so far.  Let's just say I was dancing in the street (okay, the median?) when I loaded it into my car.  I'll share more about that find later...

Any good finds lately?  I haven't been thrifting in a while, but mainly because I've been saving up for a little retail therapy.  Home decor mecca... I'll be there soon!

semi-homemade apple cinnamon bread

Do you watch Food network?  Sometimes I think that (plus our daily dose of GMA) is the only reason we keep cable.  I've caught a few episodes of Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade, and though I like the concept of quick and easy semi-from scratch meals, I find myself wanting to punch her in the face.

But this post isn't about my love of almost all things Food Network, or my surprising addiction to the morning "news", it's about a simple  semi-homemade apple cinnamon bread recipe.

Makes 3 mini loaves:

• 1 package Kroger brand (or any generic) apple cinnamon muffin mix
• 1/2 can apple pie filling
• butter
• milk
• oil
• cinnamon
• sugar

When making the muffin mix- replace the water with milk, and use the oil as listed (but also add about 2tbs melted butter.)  I then added about 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and 1/8th cup sugar.

After blending the mix until wet, take your 1/2 can of apple pie filling and smoosh (?) it with your wisk.  You want to break up the apple slices into smaller chunks, then fold into your batter.

Spray your loaf pans generously with Pam (I use Baker's Joy-- it has flour mixed in) and spoon the batter into the pans, filling them halfway.  Sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon and sugar on top and bake at 350 for the time indicated on the Muffin Mix packet.

Enjoy!

a little love for the lawn

When we first bought our nest, the deal was made that the Man would handle all the lawn care.  I had no desire to even attempt cutting the grass on our beloved hill. 

To give you an idea of what we mean by "hill," here's a shot from the street:

Granted, it's no longer snowing

(though with the recent CRAZY weather in Alabama, I wouldn't be surprised)

but that shows you exactly how steep our little lawn is.

As things have started to green up it seems our lawn is missing a key component... grass.  We have lots of weeds (okay, lots and lots of weeds.. maybe even alot of weeds) and the anthills are starting to take over.

We decided to try a hearty dose of "weed & feed."  Since we don't really know what type of grass we have, if any -- it was recommended that we try Bonus S for southern lawns. I was excited to find the "Bonus" because it is supposed to help keep fire ants at bay.

We picked a big bag up at our local Lowe's.  It was about $35, but we got a rebate for $20 off some other fertilizer. 
Whoo hoo for deals!

After a little bit of time spent with our $5 yardsale-find of a spreader, and a lot of time with the watering hose (to prevent any damage to the grass that *may* exist) we're left to anxiously await the results..

For the other total "lawn care" newbies out there, any tips or tricks?