Easter Walks and Spray Paint

When I was growing up, my family always took an 'Easter walk', which has nothing to do with Easter except that we usually go on the walk on Good Friday afternoon.

We went yesterday and although it was a colder day, the water and sky were so gorgeous! We walked around the lake and up dunes, and through the woods. 

It's a great tradition that we try to do every year, no matter how large or small of group.

 

Since we have a few days off, I'm hoping to get a few project done around our house. Spray paint, pallets, staple gun, fabric, paint, oh my! Okay that was dorky. But for real. I have a lot of projects that have been in my head and now need to be done! Hopefully on Wednesday I'll show you a few of those projects. There is one that I am really looking forward too (if it works)!

 

 Happy {long} weekend!

 

 

{DIY} Metallic Easter Eggs

I find it hard to decorate for Easter. When we were growing up, we never went all out with the decorations. We usually had a small tree, much like the one that Heidi posted about here, but it wasn't the same as Christmas. Now that I have kids of my own, I want to show them that Easter is just as important as Christmas. Unfortunately, I didn't give myself a lot of time for decorating so I ended up pulling a lot of things together from things around the house. But thats ok, right? One of the projects that I completed was making some metallic Easter eggs.

I actually spray painted using Krylon metallic paint and regular plastic easter eggs. I love how they turned out! I didn't spray them completely because I wanted more of a "marble" look with a bit of the colours coming out. To make your own, grab some plastic easter eggs, some spray paint, and a nice open area that you can spray. It's important that there's no wind because the eggs tend to roll and you'll end up with quite a few eggs that have drips. When you are spraying, keep the can about 2 feet away from the eggs and only use small bursts of paint. If you use too much, you'll end up with uneven paint. Unless of course, that's what you're going for. Let the eggs dry over night and then decorate with them to your hearts content! I wouldn't use them in an egg hunt or let my kiddos touch them because they are painted. You never know if they'll end up in their mouths or not!

Both Rust-Oleum and Krylon are great brands to use!

Here is what my spring "mantle" looks like:

I got the topiary balls at the dollar store for $2 each!

How is your Easter decorating coming? Are you all ready to go for the weekend? 

Framing Jewelry

For the past couple weeks months every time I have wanted to wear a necklace or a pair of earrings, I have been dumping out a whole mess from a small basket that is beside my bed. I then have the choice (depending on how much time I have before I have to be out the door) to untangle the piece of jewelry or just put on the same pair of earrings that I have been wearing because they aren't in a tangled mess.  


I did some Pinterest research (the best kind of research) and saw many ideas that got the wheels of my head turning (you can check out my board with those ideas here.) 


After my research, into the picture (get it? Cause I'm using a picture frame. Funny) came a big picture frame that had the glass unfortunately smashed. The glass was already gone, so I just spray painted the frame outside. While I was at it, I also grabbed a small frame from the dollar store and spray painted that as well. 


I decided to staple small branches onto the back of the big frame to hold my necklaces. I had priced out decorative metal from Lowes for my earring holder, but it was way too expensive. I found this and thought it would work for now: 

So now my frames were spray painted a lovely shade of navy blue, I had my twigs, the gutter guard mesh (a.k.a. earring holder) and staple gun. 

After I made sure everything was stapled down nice and tight, I hung the frames on the walls, and then I got to the "fun" part. Untangling the jewelry mess and hanging them up in their proper homes. 

It is so nice now to be able to see my jewelry, pick what I want and not have to untangle everything every single time. (Of course that means that I actually have to hang the jewelry back up after I'm finished with it.) 

I'm not the only one who has had a big jewelry mess: Melody also did some jewelry organizing a while ago, which you can read about here. 

So, how do you organize your jewelry? Anybody else spend hours untangling their jewelry every day? 

Linking up to: 

Broccoli & Three Cheese Lasagna

As you know, I love to try out new recipes, and this past weekend I found a great one on Pinterest for Broccoli & Three Cheese Lasagna. This was my first go at making any kind of lasagna, and it was so easy! I always think of lasagna as a difficult meal to prepare, unless its frozen and all you have to do is heat it up in the oven. This recipe calls for zero meat, which is great if you have any vegetarian friends over for dinner, and a no boil lasagna noodle... simple! 

Serves 4| Hands-On Time: 15m | Total Time: 1hr 10m

Ingredients

• 1 15-ounce container ricotta (about 1 3/4 cups)
• 1 pound frozen broccoli florets—thawed, patted dry, and chopped
• 2 1/4 cups grated mozzarella (9 ounces)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan (2 ounces)
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 1 16-ounce jar marinara sauce
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 no-boil lasagna noodles
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for the foil
• 4 cups mixed greens
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400º F. In a large bowl, combine the ricotta, broccoli, 2 cups of the mozzarella, ¼ cup of the Parmesan,½  teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. In a small bowl, combine the marinara sauce and cream.
2. Spoon a thin layer of the sauce into the bottom of an 8-inch square baking dish. Top with 2 noodles, a quarter of the remaining sauce, and a third of the broccoli mixture; repeat twice. Top with the remaining 2 noodles and sauce. Sprinkle with the remaining ¼ cup of mozzarella and ¼ cup of Parmesan.
3. Cover tightly with an oiled piece of foil and bake until the noodles are tender, 35 to 40 minutes. Uncover and bake until the top is golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes.
4. Toss the greens with the olive oil, lemon juice, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper. Serve with the lasagna.

Hope you are able to try out this recipe! I am definitely going to incorporate this lasagna 
into our monthly meal plan, its great!


  

A Good Reminder

I have been having one of those "weeks". Actually, scratch that. One of those "two weeks". As I write this, my husband and Bella are on the couch with some sort of stomach bug, and Sienna is teething and hasn't slept in ... forever. My life is not always glamorous. I have been thrown up on a lot lately.

When I was sitting in church yesterday, our pastor was talking about this verse from Revelations and how we needed to memorize it. Since I feel it applies to my life a lot right now, I decided to make it pretty and frame it so that I can see it and be reminded that my life is "not that bad". So, if you would like a copy for yourself, simply enlarge it and "copy and paste".

Enjoy!

(For personal use only. Thanks!)