American Flag wreath!

Soo...today I was feeling very crafty..okay I have been feeling like this all week!! I actually have made something new every day this week! But today I wanted to make a new wreath for our front door. My awesome cousin Courtney informed me that tulle was half off right now at Hobby Lobby!! 

The closest one to us is about 30-40 minute drive, but since I was really wanting a new one I made the drive down! On the way home almost had a heart attack because right after I passed a cop he swung out..lucky for me it was the guy in front me going way too fast..whew!!

Anyways..I am not sure if any of you had seen these tulle wreaths that everyone seems to be making! Well today I am one of everyone! So here I am to share with you on how I did it, and you can take it as advice or if you are just too lazy to make one you can order one from my cousin Courtney by clicking here ---> Courtney's site She is a perfectionist when it comes to her work so it is well worth the money people!! Plus you are support a local business and not some big blue box company!!


Now, for those of you who want to venture out and make your own you will need a few things before you start your project!

You will need:

Tulle

depending on how many colors and how close together you like your tulle id get at least 25 yrds of each color! 3.99 for 25 yards at hobby lobby(plus half off this week!)

Styrofoam wreath(I used 14")

Scissors

A board or cardboard about 12-14" long

Optional:

whatever you want to hot glue gun to your wreath, in my case I used stars! 

Now to start off you will need get a board or cardboard piece that measures anywhere from 12-14 inches, I used a wood piece I had left over from another project!

You are going to need to wrap the tulle over and under do it covers the board, you will wanna do this twice at first to make sure its the length you like!After that do it as many times as possible where you can still cut it, then cut the top and bottom so have a pile of tulle! As you can see I went ahead and did the white and red because that is what I used the most of!

Next you are going to want to tie the tulle to the wreath, I just wrapped it around so it was even on both sides, and double knotted it! I did my blue first since I only needed about a quarter of blue! I did however tie a few red on first to make sure I liked the length! I had 100 yards of red an only 25 of blue so I didn't want to waste any blue just in case!

Tie them on just like this! If you want them longer than that you will need to cut them longer, so hopefully you tested the length out before cutting a bunch out!! 

After doing the blue, I just did red and white over and over. Now I didn't like them too close together so I ended up not using too much tulle at all. Some people like them pushed very close together. It is all up to you and your liking! So if you like them closer, expect to use more tulle!

After about an hour and fifteen minutes it was done. I know like it seems forever, but it really did not take that long at all! This is what it looked like almost finished

I just trimmed up the lengths to they were all pretty even, and again I am not too picky on that part so it wasn't a huge hassle!

After that I took out my wooden stars that I bought- painted them white and wrote our last name on them! I bought 5 stars so one letter on each star! Fairly easy task! You can do whatever you want though, I have seen everything! Make sure you use a hot glue gun to put them on though!! It is the best and will actually last!!

ahh yes my pretty glue gun..haha!

Once I was done gluing I let it sit about 10 minutes to dry completely! Just to be safe ya know! After that I cut a long piece of the white tulle to use for hanging the wreath! And like magic I was finished!!

TaDa!! It is done! What do you guys think?!

Happy Halloween( a days late)

Happy Halloween Everyone!! I know I am a tad late on posting this but eh what are you gonna do about it!! LOL 

For Halloween Jake and I did some pumpkin carving!! We may not of had the most creative idea's but we still had fun doing it! After our carving we cleaned up the seeds then roasted them!!

Sadly though, on the actual night of Halloween .No kids came to our house :( We even lit up our pumpkins  and kept the porch light on! I suppose it has to do with the fact we live around a bunch of college students...darn! Maybe next year!

Creamy Avocado and Roasted Tomato pasta!

Hey All!! I know I have been slacking a bit bunch on my blog, but I promise I will update it all this week!! I still have some awesome pictures and a blog saved from Connor's first birthday party!! Ah what a cutie he has grown to be..

Anyways last night I made a very very tasty Avocado Pasta and a few friends asked me to share the recipe! So here I am to share with you all, now I found this recipe on pinterest a few weeks ago, but I cannot remember from who..so I apologize if it is yours an I am not giving you the credit! I did tweek it a bit, for two reasons..one I didn't have all the ingredients and two I wasn't a fan of all the ingredients haha!

Sorry if my pictures aren't all that, I was just trying to be a pro just snapping them on the great iphone haha!

Creamy Avocado and Roasted Sauteed Tomato Pasta

4 servings of Angel hair pasta, or whatever pasta you like

12-16 grape tomato's

4 tbsp olive oil

2.5-3 ripe avocado's(I used 3)

2 garlic cloves (minced garlic will work too)

1//2 tsp salt

2 tbsp lemon juice

Parmesan cheese

Chicken or Shrimp(you can add whatever protein to if that you seem fit, I used chicken)

2 chicken stock cubes(again optional)

To start, I preheated the oven to 400, topped my chicken with olive oil, salt, pepper and some garlic salt. Stick it in the oven so it cooks while you are making the pasta!

To start off, I added the two chicken stock cubes to water and brought them to a boil. Add your pasta(I used wheat so it cooks a tad longer than regular) I like the chicken stock because it gives the noodles that extra kick!

While pasta is boiling add the avocado's, garlic, salt and lemon juice to the food processor. Pulse until it is a nice creamy mixture, you can leave a few chunks in there, I did! As you can see I also added a little bit of Tastefully Simple's season salt, just to give it a little more flavor. Totally up to you on that one!

Next I cut my tomato's into quarters, added a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and garlic salt and sauteed them. While the recipe is called roasted tomato I should of said sauteed haha! 

See..ahh so pretty!!

About this time your pasta should be done, strain it and put it into a bowl or back in the pot! I left a little of the chicken stock in the pasta to make it a little more tasty(plus it helps in mixing all together)

Add your avocado mixture and tomato's to the pasta and mix well. If you opted out of leaving some water you will probably need to mix a tad in or maybe add some olive oil for ease! It isn't the easiest to mix it all together so I recommend adding the avocado mixture first then the tomato's!

Now at this point my chicken was done as well! I took it out, added it to the plate and Volia! I had the best avocado pasta I have ever had!!

Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on there and you have yourself dinner! I must say this was very tasty, I had left over's for both Jake and I to bring to work tomorrow today!

Hope you all enjoy it! Let me know what you think, and if you stumble upon this and you know the original post please share so I can share :)