A while ago, I was on a blog where someone had asked for recipes (ps shameless plug you guys should tell me recipes to try making as I try to figure out this cooking thing) and I recommended, as I always do, pepperoni bread, before realizing that a) nobody knows what the hell that is (I'd think it'd be obvious, but maybe that's just because I've grown up with it) and b) I haven't found an actual recipe for it anywhere online. I've found similar things, yes, but not "my" pepperoni bread. And so, you're about to read my first recipe on her, and see how messy a cook I am. These are not perfect. Or pretty. Or even done quite the same as I make pepperoni bread at home, since the closest grocery stop is slightly...lacking.
Ingredients:
1 Pillsbury bread package-thing (I like French bread loaf, but Crescents, like I use here, works too)
1 package of cheese (sliced is better, shredded is cheaper)
1 package or roll of pepperoni
1 egg
some flour or other thing to keep the bread from sticking
a tray to bake this stuff on
a mug, whisk, and frondy baster-y thingy help too
So, first, heat the oven to 350° and then go on and break your egg into your mug or w/e and mix it. Coat the pan with whatever "please don't stick to the pan" solution you've got going, roll out your dough, and use that weird little frondy thing to coat the visible part of the dough...
Next up, layer some cheese and pepperoni on all that dough! If you have a bigger thing of dough, you can do much better layering. Same thing if you're using sliced cheese.
Then you just roll them up, coat the outsides with more egg, and stick them in the oven for whatever time it says on the package/till they start to look nice and brown.
Truly, beautiful... And then they come out brown and yummy and you let them cool or burn your mouth. Either way, it's delicious, even if it isn't pretty to make.
(they should look browner than this, but the light in my kitchen is messed up :C )
And the egg isn't really necessary, btw, it's just something that makes it look nice and taste better. You can also use other meats, or none at all, or just put in whatever the hell you want and I'm pretty sure it'll still work.
...in retrospect this is a really horrible way to try to demonstrate a recipe that my family and I've whittled down to the minimum of effort possible, but oh well. I don't think anyone really has the time to make dough from scratch most of the time, so...
Hope you like this! (Also you should definitely give me recipe ideas I need to attempt to learn this whole cooking thing beyond things in boxes and pepperoni bread, please).
(This video totally fits the mood of this week, promise, plus it's great music). Being organized and having everything planned out in advance sounds great. It really does. Unfortunately, whenever I try to do that, I get bored and annoyed. Things are too predictable and there's no interest for me that way. While I wouldn't precisely say that I enjoy chaos and always being in a state of near-crisis, it definitely keeps me interested and engaged in what I'm doing. I like to have some pieces of stability and sanity, but I tend to find that in other people, rather than some sort of routine or a static environment (or too much planning ahead). This past weekend, I made the difficult decision to not form a suite (and floor) with my friends and current floormates. Part of it was that I didn't really want to adjust to a new roommate - my current one and I are practically the same person in every possible way! - and part of it was developing a sudden longing for a single room. Part of it, too, was that I feel living with the same people, in the same building, would be a repeat of this past year. I've already found myself growing restless with the routines my floor and I have fallen into. It's a very insular floor, and most of my floormates lack friends outside of the floor, and also lack interest in acquiring them. The same people are always around, and there's almost a bit of pressure to just confine yourself to the floor. Even if that weren't there, I already know a lot about these people, and I'd like to get to meet and know and live with a bunch of people I don't know, all over again. I feel like I go stagnant when I stick to the same thing for too long - I've already felt it happening this semester, and even part of last. I get comfortable with something, I get bored, but it's easy, so I just kind of go along with it and get upset with myself for not changing it, but don't do anything about it. It's a horrible emotional trap for me, and so...I did something about it!
I'm now a free-floating and unattached person with no defined plans for where I'm living next semester, other than wanting a single. It's kind of scary, but mostly, it's terribly exciting. It's like how I felt last year, once I accepted my offer of admission, all giddy and hopeful and bouncing around. It's absolutely a wonderful feeling. And it's led me to do something I didn't do last year, where I had someone else's aesthetic sensibilities to worry about (well, we wound up doing nothing to decorate our room, really, but that's okay, because we're barely in it). I've even dedicated a Pinterest board to it. Secretly. Because it'd be embarrassing if people that personally know me enter my room later and see none of the stuff I say I want to do and...find it to be boring and blank. Luckily, I don't particularly have that embarrassment on here! (Even if some people I know personally have checked it out...my illusion has not been fully shattered yet).
Some of my favorite ideas for my room next year are...
While I don't know if I'd actually be able to have this up in the dorms, I really want something bright and rainbow-y and colorful on my walls. My walls this semester have been too bare, even now that I've been printing out pictures and putting them all over. That hasn't been a particularly organized process, anyways... I like the idea of this, because it's so much color all at once, and fun.
In that same vein, I also like this style of rainbow-y stuff. It's pretty cool! (I so wish I was as cool as the gal who shared this - Gabby Noone is evidently a pretty boss kind of freshman college student, I mean, this is so thought out, jeez). It's definitely making me think about how to be more creative with my furniture organization as well, next year. I'm going to have a much smaller room, after all! Maybe I can stick my bookshelves on my dresser and save space, if it's out from under my bed? I am definitely going to have to get a corkboard/posterboard thing too. We have ones in our dorms now, though not every room had one (and some had multiples???) so I don't know how or if that's even a thing on the other side of campus. I want one, regardless!
While the Strikingtruths store doesn't offer this as a print, I feel like I seriously need this plastered somewhere in my room. Fear is so easy to bow to, and often, I really just need a reminded smacked in my face that I can't just give up on ideas and thoughts and stuff just because it's scary to go with them or defend them. (Same thing could be said for my love life, too, actually...)
Finally, a really fun thing! I really have an almost obsessive love of nebulas, so having a pretty pillow of them sounds wonderful. It's something nice to look at, and would be another great splotch of color in my room.
How do you guys handle organization and chaos? Any other cool ideas for a miniscule room?
On Monday, you might have noticed that my coat featured some interesting - and shiny - decorations not typically found on coats, especially not typically on a Forever 21 cheapie coat. (Well, relatively cheap... I considered it expensive, but as we all know, I am frighteningly frugal...) However, getting this look is really simple, cheap, and might even be free if you have something workable in your jewelry closet already. You see, those shinies on my coat aren't identical brooches - they're earrings. All you need is a coat with lapels and some earrings that you think will look cool. I got mine at Forever 21 from one of the sale bins, but if you have pierced ears (unlike me), you might not even need to bother with that.
Want a quick and easy gift for a friend? Put random shiny things and ribbons and stuff on a wooden letter. It's sweet, cost efficient, and fun.
I gave this letter out as a gift to a friend last weekend, and she loved it. My only tip is DON'T use stuff that's got a curve to it, because it may come loose. Yeah, I'm looking at that moon earring...
Make sure to take a picture of your configuration first, so you don't forget it!
I'm actually planning to get an S and paint it for myself, though I may skip the shiny things on it.
Okay, really, I haven't had time to get through the archives on over half of these ( :< ) but I will. It's summer, and when I'm in the car for hours on end...my computer will have had TONS of tabs from these amazing blogs opened and organized for me to read through as we drive across quite a bit of desert and boring places where we don't get to get out of the car. (Sadly, New York isn't near LA; I loved driving through NYC when we did, because so many wireless networks had swearword names. In seventh grade, this was hysterically funny and I spent the entire two hours drive-through refreshing my connection thing and giggling like the immature child I was). But that's off topic, isn't it?
The Sisters 4 say.... MORE is More
These gals have amazing styles. They're real sisters. Though, if you aren't into dealing with reading occasional dashes of religion/mormonism, don't touch. Personally, I think it's rather interesting to see people reflecting their faith in their personal lives. Probably because I don't run into many people who really do, despite living in the Bible Belt, going to church regularly, and attending a religious school. (Or is it because I do all those things? Sometimes, I wonder). Regardless of that, though, they have some pretty awesome diys. Also, Sis #1 and Sis #2 have some of the most adorable kids ever. They look like they could easily run anyone ragged! I think my favorite highlight from the archives so far is the no-sew cropped fringy sweatshirt. It's lovely and fun and I'm going to have to make it for ballet next year! It's so cold coming out of the overly-hot ballet room at school, so obviously an easy and awesome thing like that belongs in my life. I even have quite a few somewhere that'd fit the bill. (The no-shopping thing doesn't mean I won't try some diy projects!)
seamstress stories
I'm combing through her archives right now, but already, I'm kind of obsessed. Especially since I saw this hairstyle. It's practically the same thing I do to get my hair up at night. Plus, she's adorable - I love her long hair. And she's made some really interesting things from seemingly useless pieces - such as a sundress from two t-shirts, or awesome sandals from old ones she didn't quite like. Rather inspiring.
Classy Cosmetics
hmm. Maybe I'll actually start wearing makeup because of this. She's obviously quite good with makeup. At the very least, I should be well armed for the musical next year!
In the process of making my room fit for human habitation cleaning, I came across this little white board, buried under a few binders (math and english, to be specific). The rubber border around it had made it fall off the hooks it was attached to, because they made it too heavy. The cardboard backing didn't help either. And...it's kinda ugly too, to be honest. So I thought, Hey, I have a ton of ribbon...it might be kinda cool to put a lighter border on this so I can actually use it and have it stay put... So I did. And even if your whiteboard/dry erase board isn't having problems staying up, it's kind of a cute idea. (And yes, I did add some stuff to the plain white parts of the image - if you click on it, you can see that quite clearly).
Punch some holes in that sucker! Two is best for tying, of course, and with the width of the board, it also works with a holepunch.
To create this, I used a little bit of blue yarn from this skein, three feet of this green ribbon, tacky glue, and scissors.
Measure and cut into four pieces. Yes, one will be shorter than the others. It's kind of necessary, actually, so it can work with the holes.
See? All snipped up.
If you haven't already, if it's dirty, clean that sucker up. Mine hates the marker that came with (note to self, start using actual expos...), and I didn't have any dry erase spray, so I just wiped it off with Windex. I think it may be cleaner than it was when I bought it, actually.
Cut off a little bit of the yarn, and tie both ends through the holes. And that little tiny leftover piece? Tie it up and up as far as you can, then clip off the ends still sticking out.
Glue the first piece down to one side with tacky glue. Be pretty careful.
Then the second. And the third.
Put the first in between your two holes. Measure the length between the actual holes, than, from one end of the piece of ribbon, check it, then cut where that ends.
You should have two pieces now. Glue the bigger in between the two holes.
Measure the remaining pieces to be covered, then check that on the remaining piece of ribbon. In my case, it was equal to two squares each of the ribbon, so I snipped it in half. And then glue.
Okay, the board has rounded edges, but the ribbon does not. Fix that by snipping them to a rounded shape.
Hang, and enjoy the new looking whiteboard.
I really like it now. =D Glad I had that ribbon laying around. I used to use it as a headband, but ribbon headbands are terrible to try keeping on. I also have a ton of yarn, including that skein, on rulers, that I got from a workshop on textiles.
I bought this watering can at Lowes yesterday, since I needed one and it was VERY cheap. But oh-so boring. So, being the bright thing I am, and having tons of untouched paint at my hands, I decided to paint on it. My first idea? A brontasaurus. Then my much better idea that I did paint? Jack and the Beanstalk! I might be doing more stuff like this in the future... 8D
1. The Watering Can, as you see it.
2. I used a fairly large brush to do the beanstalk itself, and some of the leaves. I'd say do the leaves-things with smaller brushes though. Oh, and my paintbrushes are dirt cheap, if you're wondering. I also used water-soluble paints. Yeah, on a watering can. Oh well?
3. The rest of the leaf-things, painted by a miniscule brush.
4. I used the same brush as I did the beanstalk with to do the body of the cottage.
5. Same large brush was used to make the thatch roof on the house, then a brush slightly larger than my leaves brush was used to make the little flower-things dotting the beanstalk (don't question, I saw it somewhere ages ago and still like it) and the design on the cottage.
6. White and yellow paint were mixed on the back of something in order to make a slightly lighter, hopefully not too 'The Simpsons'-y skin tone for Jack and his mom.
7. Jack was painted using the same brush I used to do the leaves.
8. Ditto for Jack's mom.
9. Added another coat to all the white pieces, and done.
This was easy and fun and super quick. ^^ I certainly plan on doing some more of these, fairy tale themed of course.
Last week, my friend had a birthday. For it, I got her this cross necklace. The main problem, I realized, at around eleven pm the night before her birthday, was that I couldn't really wrap it. Until I found a tiny plastic zip lock that it fit in...and then it clicked. It matched perfectly with a tiered thing of pull-off paper that I have. They're about the size of your average Post-It notes, and I generally use them to keep notes on a mini-bulletin board made of cardboard that I keep in my room. This time, however, they became wrapping. How? I'll show you!
Here they are, in all their glory. Terrible photography, of course. The night before the APUSH exam is hardly conducive to doing anything very well (other than panicking, of course!)
So, the two sides of it, complete with their yellow borders. Happily, the colors I had are the ones she likes! I picked the green side to be the front of the package, where I would decorate a bit and write a little message, since green is her favorite color.
I had to hunt this tiny little bow down in my stacks of buttons and miscellaneous items, but it totally worked for this! I found it at JoAnn's ages ago (aka something like four or five years...) in a pack of like six. I'm not sure what happened to the rest, but this was finally found in my button box. Stuck it on with some tacky glue. But there was still a little more!
I taped it down a little more, to make it behave, then scribbled my little happy birthday to her (and a cake with something like seventeen candles on it, of course). If I do this again for something else, I think I'll have to use double-sided tape so it looks prettier. I'm also in the process of splitting the colors up so I'm not worrying about snapping things apart and just making it look nice. The colors looked sweet, but I think I'd have rather done it with say, less yellow and more blue and green. But I am SO going to try acquiring some more of these little bows or something like them. I love them!
