A DASH OF ASH: September 2012

Friday, September 28, 2012

'tis the season

Fall is here and do you know what that means... Halloween! I recently talked to someone who moved here from Washington and she said she had never lived in a state that went all out for Halloween until she moved here, and she immediately felt pressured to decorate her house for it. Halloween and Christmas tie for my favorite holidays. It helps that it also symbolizes the start of my favorite season (fall)! So yesterday I was all too excited to go buy some decorations. First I went to my Holiday Pinterest and picked out the crafts I wanted to do this year. I picked the following:

So starting from the top... The glitter pumpkin in this picture was made using a styrofoam pumpkin, but I'm afraid that would catch fire so I'm thinking about using some small gourdes We will see. The ghosts I plan on hanging from our balcony, which I've already draped some fake cobwebs from. I made the mummy pumpkin last night which look slightly different:

I made sure to use a super scary filter on my iPhone camera if you couldn't tell. I painted the eyes because I used large pumpkins, and I don't think they make googly eyes that big. The pumpkin above was wrapped in bandage wrap which can get really expensive, but I found this bloody cloth at the dollar store and thought it would work perfectly. I'm still deciding if I want to paint a mouth.

I saw those candy corn bottles a while ago and a friend of mine made some so I thought I would take a crack at it. Of course he is gay-fabulous so mine probably will look 1/2 as good. In the next picture I'm going to make the bat tree by finding twigs outside and spray painting them black. Then I'll cut out bats from crate paper and hang them and put the twigs in a vase that is already sitting on my mantel.

Last night I went to 2 different dollar stores. I highly recommend going there for crafting needs first because they actually have some great things. I even bought one of those glitter skulls that have been floating around Pinterest. I wanted to make one but when I found this I bought it instead because it was only $3 and the skull+ spray paint +glitter would have been more than that. I also got a skeleton garland that I hung on the mantel as well. My favorite find though was a wreath hanger! Dumb I know but I want to make a wreath for every holiday and wreath hangers are like $14 at Walmart. Such a steal!

On another note:

For my graduation present my sister Emilee got me this iPhone case full of my favorite instagram pics of Spencer and I. I can't wait until it comes in the mail!!

And lastly here are the 2 Pinterest recipes I tried this week:

Homemade Baked Mozzarella Sticks

These were super easy and good. They aren't fried so they aren't going to be as crunchy as your normal fast food style but the trick is to freeze the cheese or else it will melt before it browns. I didn't freeze it for that long cause I was impatient! :) You'll find the recipe here. If you want an even healthier alternative try the zucchini version here.

No Bake Cake Batter Truffles

...Or as Spencer calls them... Diabetes. Haha. They are super good but they are full of sugar. I haven't perfected my dipping skills but the second picture is just about what mine looked like in the end ;). Recipe here.

Well Spencer will be out of town this weekend so it's a girls weekend! Sleep over at my house! Love ya! Ciao!

Monday, September 24, 2012

iphone purge and reupholstered chairs

So I've been looking for some chairs for our bedroom. One to go with the desk, and the other to sit in the corner by a side table my dad is fixing up for me. These oval back chairs have been pretty pricey on ksl/craigslist, and are even more pricey from the store. BUT I lucked out and found two identical chairs sold together for only $40. They are so cute! I've been meaning to take the next step in the crafting world and reupholster these. I've never reupholstered anything but my mom is great at it so she is going to help me out. I'm going to paint the chairs white (like the ones below), and then pick a navy blue and white fabric print. Wish me luck!

Here are the chairs. This was a picture of my computer screen so it's really bad.

And now a few words from my iPhone:

Had some girls nights

Date night with my sister Emilee.

Went to Spencer's flag football game and watched them dominate with a DP in hand.

Sunday night cruisin'

Our little balcony tomato plant is still blessing us with gifts

Homemade fries & a Swiss, pastrami cheese sandwich.

Nail ring! Always wanted one!

I make spinach smoothies every morning, and sadly our dishwasher somehow was set on "pots and pans" (which is suuuuper hot) and therefor warped our $100 Ninja Blender. I cried. But we still have a few Bed, Bath, and Beyond gift cards so I know what those are going towards!

So I love studs and I love white, so I was way pumped to get this case, however the plastic was super cheap and started cracking the first week I got it. I had another iPhone case that I didn't use anymore and the plastic was really sturdy so instead of buying a new case, I just spray painted my old one white, ripped off the studs, and glued them on to the painted one. Viola!

We went to the Barnum and Bailey Circus! It was so fun! I was obsessed with the animal tricks!

Friday, September 21, 2012

wedding pics are here!

So I have to say I am very grateful for all the support on my last blog! I got a lot of people telling me they had never heard of moissanite before and they were converted! Either way you go, as long as you are happy with your ring, that's all that matters!

Well folks, the day has come! I finally got my wedding day pictures and videos back! I am in love with them all. Not much needs to be said in this post but I will say this...

I may or may not have had a small break down over this picture below. I thought I was pretty much over the wedding catastrophe, and I kept telling myself that it didn't matter because I had those around me that I loved, but it was really hard for me to see this picture when I got them back, and see what my wedding COULD have been. And for those of you who are lost and didn't read my wedding post or weren't there, my wedding was met by a very rude storm about 5 minutes before it started so everyone moved everything to the church. Therefor you are going to get a mix of outside pics and church pics. I'm glad I have the pictures though so at least my hard work showed through, even though I didn't get to enjoy it.