Ceramic Egg Cartons Make Me Happy

...that's basically it. I bought two of these ceramic egg cartons at Ross this week for $2.50 each. I would have bought more but two is all they had. There is no name on them and I couldn't find a version like them when I checked eBay and Amazon.

I just love looking at them in my fridge or on my counter.

I was making EatingWell.com's vegetable fried rice when I took these pictures. The recipe is fantastic, a couple of my omissions include: the ginger & the hot red pepper sauce. I used less garlic and I will use less soy sauce next time (coming from a lover of soy sauce).

Fancy Two-Bite Brownies

Cheap & Easy!

I went to good 'ol Wal-Mart looking for a silicone brownie-pop maker I saw just last week, to my dismay it was nowhere to be found. Instead of the brownie-pop maker I settled for a mini muffin pan that makes a whopping 24 "muffins". I'm really happy that I couldn't find that flimsy silicone pan because this mini muffin pan makes a perfect little two-bite brownie, it makes twice as much as the other pan, and it cost half as much (right around $5)!

I chose the easy route for batter

Dollop 1 heaping Tbsp in each 

I had to adjust the bake time for the brownies to about 22 minutes. Just keep a close eye on them to make sure they don't burn. Remove the brownies as soon as you can insert a toothpick in the middle of one of the brownies in the middle of the pan and it comes out clean. 

During bake time you can melt almond bark and then add oil until you get the consistency you desire. Thanks to my friend Kristy for giving me that tip : )

I made my chocolate runny enough to drizzle easily

Let the brownies sit for a few minutes after removing them from the oven, then take them out of the pan and transfer them to a piece of wax paper on your counter. Now you can drizzle your chocolate over them or dunk their tops in the chocolate... I did a little bit of both.

If you were only going to do one kind of topping you could just put the brownies in the fridge for a little bit to harden the chocolate. Since I did some with vanilla topping on them as well, I used the freezer to harden the layer underneath quicker. The freezer worked fast but that also meant that the brownies got a little hard and had to thaw back out. I would just suggest to take them out of the fridge an hour or so before you plan on serving them so they aren't cold or hard. I plan on serving these at a party next weekend and since my husband (the pickiest person alive) likes them, I think they'll be a hit!

When Going on a Beach Trip

I have a hard time figuring out how to pack when I go certain places. I'm getting better but I've learned a lot by struggling through situations that I was ill prepared for. My little family of three recently took a weekend trip to stay with some of our friends in a condo right on the beach. This was after Fourth of July weekend where the healthiest snack we toted to the beach were my husband's home made boiled peanuts and fruit kabobs accompanied by marshmallows. The kabobs were not very easy to transport and after we polished off the peanuts I ended up noshing on chips for the rest of the day - not good!

So, this time I was determined to have easy to eat snacks prepared for the whole weekend that were also more on the healthy side and this is what I came up with:

• Snapea Crisps -a good alternative to cheetos, can be found near lettuce/salad packs
• PB&J Crackers -I meant to get just PB crackers but the kids loved these and they were an alternate to messing with sandwiches
• Goldfish -not the greatest but better than chips in my opinion and I get the whole grain version to feel better about it too!
• Cherries -just make sure you take a baggie for the pits
• Grapes -perfect no-guilt snack
• Apples w/dipping sauces -dips include yogurt, PB, & caramel and none were too high in calories

I hate how some packaging can get glommed
up at the beach so this was the solution for
the Goldfish and crackers.

I have a great cooler tote bag I got for donating blood that I shoved all the fruit in with ice packs. I love that tote and will covet it forever. (on a little side note: I highly advocate giving blood, it is one thing we can give that doesn't cost us anything but time and you can get cool garb on top of it! win/win!)

I found similar totes while I was browsing Big Lots today that came with one big tote like mine and a mini one for $20. Worth the investment, you will not be sorry!

Big Lots - $20

The cooler tote fit in a big old Victoria's Secret beach tote along with the dry snacks and we were good to go. Once we got to the beach I ran down to the gas station and got a little styrofoam cooler to fill with ice, water, and juice which would have been cheaper to have gotten before we went to the beach, but there again, you live and learn! I should probably go back to Big Lots and just pack drinks in a separate tote with ice packs (so long as the drinks are pre-chilled)...

House Warming on a Budget

My childhood BFF recently bought her first home. She is one of the most amazing people I know and I really wanted to make an extravagant wreath for her housewarming party but it fell in line with my finals; therefore, I had not a lot of time but I still wanted to do something more thoughtful than a gift card. While browsing Pinterest I ran across a moss letter hanging on a door by a burlap bow, and bam! I found what I could manage to make my friend with the time (and money) I could afford. This project cost me roughly $5 per letter and about an hour of time per letter.

Now, I have mentioned Morgan, one of my favorite bloggers, here before and I feel obligated to mention that she has done the moss letter as well and her's is fabulously from her own brain. Me, I need inspiration.

I already had this light cinnamon paint, sponge, and
random piece of bubble wrap.

The letters I found at Michael's were white so I brushed the
paint on them dryly with the sponge brush so there was
practically no dry time.

Each letter was about $3.50 and I also used a 40% off
coupon I printed from Michael's' web site.

All you have to do is use a glue gun ON LOW (I can't stress this enough, I tried using the high setting to rush getting the "P" done at the end of the night and burned the snot out of my palm) and just glue and pat, glue and pat (the moss on, that is).

I bought moss from the Dollar Tree for $1 per bag and I only used a little over a half a bag for both letters combined. I got the black satin ribbon on sale for $1.99/spool at Michael's and thought it added a bit of sophistication to the "green" nature of this project. 

I used a staple gun to staple the ribbon to the back after I tried the bow where I deemed appropriate.

"D" for BFF's last name & included
a 3M Wall Hook w/ Command Adhesive
strip for no-muss hanging and removal.

"P" next to our front door
(I still had a DIY wreath from last year up)

Viola, friends! Enjoy!

Relics of Workout's Past

I was obsessed with Minna Lessig (blonde on the left) back in the day. She was my Jillian Michaels of 2000-2004, I did her tapes religiously and actually saw results. I can't believe it's been so long since I've visited her. 

As I was finishing up day 3 of the 30 Day Shred (again), I found myself reminiscing about the VHS tapes of yore that I used to get in shape during high school... I'm not one to save things so I was pleasantly surprised to find these two in our stash of movies we don't watch! 

I think my best friend Jill actually gave me these tapes and I knew I had bought another tape of Minna's but quickly remembered that I wore that sucker out, so... Amazon to the rescue! For $2.99 flat I will have my missing VHS by Tuesday, I can hardly wait! In the meantime I plan on doing Minna's workout through Quick Fix: Arms & Legs tomorrow morning ; )

My missing tape. $2.99 on Amazon,
free shipping with Amazon Prime trial.

A Tweet & A Post

Hey all! I just tweeted this picture of my newspaper nails and got many requests for how I did it. I am not the pioneer of this technique at all and I'd feel bad if I took any credit for coming up with it.

I used Sally Hansen "Made You Blush" and Sally Hansen
Hard as Nails for my top coat

I am subscribed to nguerriero19 on YouTube and she is the first glance I had at this technique. Happy polishing! Oh, and check out the rest of her vids and subscribe, she's super cute and positive : )

Friday Fancies: Food & Jewelry

This is going to be a shorty, I have a Finance exam on Tuesday so I'm freaking out!

First of all, I've been a smoothie maniac for the last month, averaging one every other day. Smoothies are a great meal filler when, frankly, I have no time to think about making something for myself. I decided to share my favorite thus far with you, I'll call it the Bodacious Banana Smoothie : )

Ingredients:

1 & 1/3 bananas (this is only b/c my daughter had a piece of leftover 'nana)
3 heaping tsp. peanut butter
1 scoop Jillian Michaels' Whey Protein in vanilla
1 handful of crushed ice (sorry no specific measurement, just add enough ice to make the smoothie cold and a little thicker)
Milk (no specifics on this one, I usually use less than a cup of 1% milk because I like a thicker consistency, more like a milkshake; it just depends what thickness you prefer)
Blend!

There was more leftover from after I poured this in the glass. I drank all of it.

Secondly, I have found that I have to force moderation on myself with any "snack" food I buy because I'm a student who munches non-stop when studying, I have zero self control, and I will polish off a container of anything in one sitting. Not good!

Craisins are BOGO @ Publix, making each
bag about $1.25. Thrifty snack alert!

Five servings in ea. bag = 10 snack bags @
$0.25 a pop!

My solution is to split up snack foods immediately so I do not have the chance to keep going, and going, and going... until I have to have my test-proctor-man come and give me my exams at the house because it's too expensive to cut me out of it! 

Finally, the pretties! I've been reaching for these pieces of jewelry that are bargains yet fast becoming staples in my day to day look.

Cupcake earrings from Forever 21: $1.50

These are sweet (haha) and not too bold so the people who would criticize them haven't even noticed and the people who love them have. I love how that works! I looked for them on the site tonight and couldn't find them but I encourage you to look at the rest of the $1.50 earrings on F21's site, they're darling and you can't beat the price!

Crisp White from The Prim Trimmings shop

Not to be cliche but I really do wear this ring quite a bit, it seems to go along with a lot of my wardrobe. I'm also really loving white for the summer, it's so refreshing. 

Well, wish me luck on this mother of an exam and I'll probably post shortly after. Have an awesome weekend!