Shrimp and Pesto Pizza with Goat Cheese

Some days our best laid plans just don't work out. Today is one of those days. This was not the originally planned post, but it was a draft that I had started. Since I'm feeling a little under the weather today, building a full post is not in the cards. That just means that one of the February planned posts will get pushed to another date. Gotta roll with the punches some times.

So I actually made this recipe last summer. I honestly don't remember where I found it since I was pulling recipes from the internet, out of random cookbooks, and from a whole host of magazines at the time. It's not too shabby. In fact, the recipe is pretty simple to eat and the pizza was pretty tasty, but we all agreed that there will need to be changes for the next go round. 

You see, I braved it with the goat cheese. Turns out, none of us are really big fans. It's just a little too sour for our liking. So next time I think we'll switch to all mozzarella. I think I'll probably add some tomato and spinach in the mix as well just to deepen the flavor profile. You know I can't just leave a recipe alone. They're always being reinvented around here.

Up for trying it yourself?

The ingredients are pretty simple...

Pizza dough mix (I used a box of Jiffy Pizza Dough Mix)
1/2 lb. shrimp (thawed, peeled, and deveined; no tail)
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/4-1/2 c. pesto sauce
8-12 oz. shredded mozzarella
6 oz. goat cheese

And so are the directions...

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare dough according to mix. Coat a 14-18" pizza pan with nonstick spray. Roll out the dough to the desired size and place on the pan. Cook crust for 2-3 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix together garlic powder and Italian seasoning. Coat shrimp in seasoning. Heat oil in skillet on medium. Saute seasoned shrimp for about 30 seconds on each side.

Spread pesto on dough. Add shrimp and mozzarella. Spoon on goat cheese. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees until the cheese starts to brown at the edges.

Can't get much easier than that.

Fold ALL the Things! Origami Flowers & Kusudama Balls

So remember how I kind of disappeared for a little while in the summer and early fall of last year? Ya...that was because of this project.

One of the first things I decided on for my wedding was that I wanted to do all paper flowers. I think they're pretty, they fit in with the vintage theme (not to mention the DIY idea) and it saved me a TON of money by not having to purchase flowers. Added bonus? They can last forever.

And that decision led to months of me doing nothing but folding and gluing paper while Netflix played in the background. Whee!

The best part of this project is that you don't need a lot in the way of supplies. You just need a lot of time, some patience, and maybe some awesome friends and family who will help you out. Though I did most of the folding and assembling on my own, I got some hours of help from Patti, Krista, Annie & my mother. And lucky them, they all learned how to fold flowers in the process. That will totally turn into a worthwhile skill you guys.

Anyway, back to the task at hand (pun kind of sort of totally intended).

If you're looking for the basics, look no further. All you need is some paper and some glue. In my case, I bought a couple of books from the thrift store (I used four full paperback novels costing me a total of $3) and some glue. I also used some tea, some mini clothespins, and some binder clips. Total project cost: under $20.

If you want the tea stained/weathered look, brew up some tea (I used three tea bags per 8 cup batch to keep it dark) and pour it into a pie plate or casserole dish. I used my 9x13" glass pyrex casserole.

Submerge the individual pages for about 3-5 minutes depending on your tea and how dark you want the paper. You can put multiple pages in at the same time, but make sure each page is fully submerged and soaked before you put the next one in, otherwise you end up with white splotches.

The pages will need to be laid out individually to dry. I literally had hundreds of pages strewn across my kitchen counters, nook table and dining room table for days on end as I stained batch after batch.

Once you have your pages, it's time to start cracking.

The majority of the flowers I used are a basic flower known as a kusudama. The kusudama is a flower historically used in the Japanese culture for potpourri and incense. The flower is an origami flower, but not in the strict purist sense, since you will use glue in addition to folding to hold all of the pieces together.

First, cut your pages into squares depending on what size you want your final flowers to be. I used 2", 3", 4" and 6" sized squares. Why so many sizes? Well...I had a lot of projects. You'll see what I'm talking about later. The 4" size is the most manageable and still produces a decent size flower (It's the size that I used to make all of the example photos.) Each flower will require a minimum of five squares, with each square eventually becoming a single petal.

Once you have your square cut out, fold it in half diagonally to form a triangle.

Now fold the out side edges of the triangle up to meet the center.

This will form a small diamond.

Take your two folded edges and fold them halfway back on themselves towards the edge.

Now it should look like a tulip. That center point is your original top point and the two half spears are your original sides.

The next step is a little tricky. Undo the last fold you did, moving back into the diamond shown above. Now slide your finger inside each half one at a time and flatten them to the side. The crease that originally ran at the center of the diamond is now the center crease of each petal in the above tulip.

Fold down the tops of each side to create a small triangle.

Now fold each side back in half, tucking that small triangle into the center of the newly formed flap.

Line the flap of one side with glue and lightly pinch together. You want those small triangular sides to be on the inside to form the center of your flower. Use a binder clip, paper clip, or small clothespin to hold the seam shut while it dries.

This is what it should look like from the top of the petal when you're done. Take care not to fold the whole thing flat. You want the petal to stay full.

Once the glue has dried, assemble your flower using five petals.You'll assemble this by gluing the outsides together and holding them with the clips until dried.

My flowers became multiple items...most notably, my bouquets.

©Broken H Photography

At the center of each bouquet is a foam ball. I stuck a couple of wooden dowels into the center of the ball to form my handle and then wrapped it with floral tape followed by ribbon. The flowers were attached using some floral wire and glue. Each flower is glued to its neighbors to keep the whole thing stable.

The centers of the flowers are either left open or stuffed with a glued in pearl, adhered jewel or glued on button. The spaces between the flowers are intermittently filled with a silver glitter tulle ribbon. There was literally glitter everywhere.

I used a few other types of origami flowers to add some dimension in my own bouquet. My matron of honor's bouquet and my tossing bouquet contained only the origami flowers demonstrated above.

The flowers were also used to make corsages for the mothers and boutonnieres for the men. In the case of the corsages they were paired with paper roses. For the men, they were paired with paper lilies. Both the lilies and the roses can be seen in my bouquet above.

Remember how I said I used 2" squares? This headband is why. It is the headband that I made for my adorable little flower girl.

In this case, the flowers were all glued together to form a bridge. The flowers were then sewn (yes, with thread) to the headband to keep them in place. It held up pretty darned well because I trussed the crap out of it. Other than the purple flower, each little mini flower was decorated with an adhesive jewel.

©Broken H Photography

And there it is on the cutie patootie.

I also used the flowers for decoration. Lots of decoration.

©Broken H Photography

I did this primarily through the use of kusudama balls.

A kusudama ball is a ball made up of twelve of the origami flowers. You basically make them by gluing the sides of the original flowers together just like you did the individual petals. It requires a crap ton of paper clips or clothespins, but they're super cute when you're finished.

I used mine to hang from my canopy as well as the ceiling decoration. I tied them to multiple strings of white twinkle lights and hung them at different lengths.

For a good visual tutorial on how to make your own kusudama ball...check out this step by step one on Wikihow. I couldn't make a better one, it's pretty darned good.

It took a TON of time and patience and the helping hands of a few friends and family members, but I literally made all of my wedding flowers out of paper for only a few dollars. Plus I caught up on more than one Netflix series in the process. 

With today's average wedding floral costs running upwards of $1000, I'd say it was well worth my investment.

Summary Sunday: Money Pit Edition

Perhaps you're familiar with this movie...

Source: IMDB

It feels like my life right now. In the 1986 film version, Tom Hanks and Shelley Long play a couple who buy a home that turns out to be a complete lemon. Things begin to fall apart the moment their purchase is final.

In our life, our house has somewhat fallen suit.

In 2009, the upstairs water heater (which was inconveniently built into a closet that prevented full access) decided to explode, sending water down through the walls and ceiling to the first floor. In 2011, the main level water heater died. I was in the shower getting ready for work when I had that revelation.

2013 was a banner year for destruction. At the beginning of last year, the wind knocked over one of our front light pillars. The second followed in August. In May, I turned on a hose in our front lawn to discover that I had left the hose on during the winter, thus freezing the pipe. It repaid me by flooding our basement. That little piece of joy took over six months to repair. In June, one of the air conditioners died.

And then there was this week. Apparently 2014 will not be the year of no home disasters. We are already expecting that we will need a new sprinkler system come spring (ours is some obsolete disaster with no clear cut ability to blow out the lines and prevent freezing and destruction of valves). That was going to be spendy enough. But it will be nothing compared to what decided to befall us this week.

I came home from work on Tuesday night and walked in the door to an odor of something burning. Turns out, it was coming from the vents. We shut off the basement heater and figured we should get someone out to inspect it...surely it needed a servicing. Oh, if we were only so lucky.

As luck would have it, we discovered on Thursday that not only do we need to replace the basement heater, we also need to replace the upstairs one. You know...unless we want to throw money at repairs that will last less than a year or we all want to die of carbon monoxide poisoning or burn down our house. And of course, they are both linked to the air conditioning units...one of which (as I mentioned earlier) died last year. Grand total for repairs? Ugly. 5 digit ugly. Needless to say, that will not be happening right away.

So...we've spent the weekend using a few space heaters to keep things warm and we'll be waiting for what we hope will be a decent tax refund to help us fix at least one of the two units.

Yup. That was my week. Fun times. What else did I do?

Posts I Posted: Most importantly, I wished my parents a happy 36th anniversary...on the correct day.

I shared my technique for getting perfect glitter distribution in mason jars and explained how I designed my own wedding invitations and saved over $200.

Oh...and I revived the post on my date box (and over 160 date ideas) to remind everyone that dating is a year round event, not just for Valentine's Day.

Books I Read: I finished two books this week and now I'm only one book behind on my Goodreads goal. Yay! Slowly catching up. I finished the Divergent series with Allegiant by Veronica Roth and I continued to read the Fallen series by finishing Torment by Lauren Kate and starting Passion.

Recipes I Tried: No new recipes this week, but it was a good week for budget friendly recipes. We dusted off my old recipe for beef stroganoff...one that I hadn't made for quite a while. It was nice to get it back in rotation. I made some super easy goulash, but used a jalapeno chili that gave me terrible heartburn. Collin also pitched in with one of his standbys, a very bachelor friendly meal we call spread.

Projects I Worked On/Finished: I started attacking the crop room clean up this week. It promises to be one heck of an endeavor. I sorted through and boxed up all of the wedding stuff that had been cluttering up a quarter of the room, so I can actually see some carpet again. I think the next step will be emptying everything out of the closet so that I can start reorganizing the shelving in there. I also have a good DIY project in mind. We'll see how it goes.

Favorite Pin of the Week: I only did a smidge of pinning this week. My time was spent on other things apparently. But I still found a couple of fun things. My favorite is simply something that appealed to my sweet tooth. It's a recipe for horchata from Love Bakes Good Cakes. I'm a big fan of the cinnamon sugar rice drink, but I've never had a recipe for it at the house. Now I do. And I intend to use it.

And that's it. Phew. Now onto a new week...let's hope this one is a little less "fun".

DIY Wedding Invitations

I've told you that we worked very hard to keep our wedding economical. The first stop for saving money on our DIY wedding was our wedding invitations.

I've been scrapbooking for about a decade and making cards here and there for about as long. I figured that I could handle the invitations. And I did. It ended up saving me about $200.

 

I chose a gatefold design...I just liked the look. And as much as I despise the task of printing on vellum, I do like the look. So I bit the bullet and designed my invitations to include a vellum overlay.

The printed portion of the invitation was fairly easy. I had to buy my envelopes, so I used them to decide on my size. I picked ivory envelopes to give everything a bit more of a vintage feel and to blend with the tea stained paper that I was using for my flowers.

The card base was a 5x7" piece of silver gray cardstock. I cut these from 12x12 sheets that I purchased for 4/$1. I chose a couple of fonts and a scroll design and built the layout in Microsoft Publisher. They were all printed on my HP inkjet.

I used the remainders of the gray cardstock to make the RSVP cards. They were also designed on Publisher.The maps and directions were designed and printed onto plain white paper.

Once those were done, I printed on that pesky vellum. I used 8 1/2 x 11" sheets with each sheet containing vellum for two invitations. I chose the phrase "Eat, drink, and be married!". It took me a day to whittle that down from three initial choices, but it seemed the most lighthearted and the most like us.

I carefully laid the vellum out throughout my scrapbook and crop rooms in order to let them dry without smudging. I did wreck a couple of them, but overall there was only a little bit of error and waste. It turned out better than I thought it would...one of those things that came from learning the hard way on other projects. The first time I used vellum it was a smudgy disaster.

It was a bit of a trial and error process to get the gatefold design just right. I started each invite with a piece of 12x12 plum cardstock. Just like the silver gray, I bought the paper at 4/$1. I wrecked a couple of sheets of paper before I figured it out.

I cut it down to a 12x7 and marked the width out 2.5" from the center on each side. I scored lines at these marks and used a bone folder to crease the paper along those lines and fold the outside flaps in.

I cut the sides down to 2.5" from the right hand crease line and 2.75" from the left hand crease line. This allowed the two sides to slightly overlap when folded into the center.

Once I had the width of my folds, I marked the center of the height and cut diagonally with my paper trimmer to the points from both top and bottom.

It was a slow process, but it went fairly smoothly once I figured out the measurements I needed to use. I also did everything in an assembly line style, completing one step on all of the papers before moving to the next step. That seemed to keep me on track and reduced the amount of errors I made in measurements.

The printed cardstock was adhered to the center of the purple gatefold with an adhesive runner. The vellum was laid over the top of the printed cardstock.

Once the gatefolds were turned in, I wrapped a pair of ribbons around (one silver, one purple) and tied a knot. The edges were cut at an angle to prevent fraying. The ribbon was tied loose enough to slide on and off the card for opening.

The finishing touch was the paper flower glued to the center of the knot. The paper flowers were fairly simple to make. I used a Fiskars flower punch and tea stained book pages. Two flowers were offset and glued together. I curled the edges and inked them purple. A purple starburst was punched from the leftovers of the purple cardstock and adhered to the center of each flower. An adhesive crystal was then placed on top of each starburst.

The total cost for my invitations and envelopes ended up at about $60. I was very happy with the way they turned out.

Now...to share a little bit of wisdom I learned along the way. Postage can be a headache. If you are mailing invitations of any kind, I suggest you go to your local post office and request a dimensional standards template.

The template will tell you what sizes will qualify for particular postage charges. In my case, the invitations were too thick for standard postage since they couldn't easily fit through the slit cut in the template. That meant that my postage was 0.60 per item.

The template was also handy for determining what postage to place on the RSVP cards. I designed them to fit within the postcard space, thus saving us about $0.13 per item.

And there you have it. If you have a little bit of craftiness in you (and access to a basic design program and printer), you can do this yourself. It's worth it if you're wanting to pinch a few pennies here and there.

Good luck!

Love Isn't Just for Valentine's Day

We're now a week out from Valentine's Day...but that doesn't mean that the month of love is over. So...this is your reminder to show love every day.

It's easy to start to take your loved ones for granted when you've been together for a long time. Sometimes seeing them every day and dealing with all the little frustrations in life (or the big frustrations) can make it simple to forget how special love is and how it needs continuous attention to stay healthy.

So...keep dating your significant other. No matter what. It doesn't have to be fancy and it doesn't have to be expensive, it just has to be you and them.

To help you...I'm reviving the posts for my Date Box.

For 160 Date Ideas (ranging from free to night on the town)...click here.

To make the box...click here.

To make the dating cards...click here.

Show your loved one that you love them 365 days a year. Happy Dating!

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad!

Today my parents have been married for 36 years. Wow. And...I remembered. Well...technically this is the second time I've "remembered" this year. I called my Dad up on January 19th to wish him a happy 35th anniversary. I was only off by one year, one month and one day. I'm an awesome daughter.

My parents were high school sweethearts.

They've set a pretty good example for me and my brothers over the years.

They show each other affection and respect. They're pretty good at compromising. They've taken care of each other and been each other's best friend.

I think it's pretty impressive. I consider myself lucky to have them as my parents.

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad! Love you!

Glitter Glue Mason Jars

Mason jars are becoming all the rage on Pinterest these days. And look at me...being cool enough to use them at my wedding. That's a first...I'm ahead of the raging trend rather than riding on the tails.

I'm not the greatest at design. My creativity doesn't work so well at putting things together. I do better at figuring out small individual projects that maybe work together somewhere down the line. So...when I thought about how to decorate for my wedding, I had a minor freak out.

I used Pinterest to help me along, as well as a few idea books loaned to me by Patti (which by the way are currently on the telephone desk in my kitchen waiting to come back to you, my friend). I managed to get some ideas pieced together. It stayed relatively simple, but I still like the way it all came out.

For the table centerpieces, I wanted to pull a few things together. I needed some color, a little sparkle, and some of us. I don't have a lot of great pictures of everything put together (I kind of failed on grabbing those pics amongst the hectic moments of the day before and day of the wedding and didn't think to ask my photographer or anyone else to grab some good angles...so what you see is what I've got.)

© Broken H Photography

They turned out pretty, I think.

I read a few Pinstrosity stories about crafts with mason jars, including this one that actually served as the inspiration for my project.

I bought some mason jars in two different sizes and just hoped that I could make it work without the clumpy results people were showing. In the end, I totally lucked out.

Here's how I did it.

1. Use Elmer's glue on a foam brush. Use the brush to coat the jar in a thin, but thorough layer of glue.

2. Use a large size of glitter. The finer grits of glitter are more likely to clump. The larger pieces will still give the sparkle, but allow the material to spread out easier and stick to the jar rather than itself.

3. Shake! Shake it a lot. Shake it and roll it as you shake to coat the whole jar evenly. Add more glitter as needed.

4. Use a battery operated light. This will keep the jar from getting too warm from a lit candle and won't allow for any melting of the glue and slumping of the glitter. It also allows you to seal the lid back on and decorate the top.

For a final touch, I tied a ribbon around the neck of the jar and adhered one of our punched out and inked paper flowers to the lid.

Simple, but pretty. Just the way I wanted it.