Burrito Soup

I found a recipe on Pintrest a few weeks ago that I was excited to try, it was called Taco Soup. I have to admit that I am TERRIBLE at following recipes. I always, always add something else once I have it put together. I am pretty lucky that it turns out pretty good most of the time. Thankfully, Dave and Chelsea are great about giving me honest feedback.
   We had a snow storm coming so I hit the grocery store with the list of things I needed to make the soup. I through the soup together and let it simmer for a couple of hours that afternoon. But, as usual, I added more to it, so I felt it only appropriate to change the name. When I told Dave that I was calling it Burrito Soup he looked at me like I had lost my mind (which is a normal thing here). After he had take a couple of bites, he said "Wow, this is really good....I take back the crazy look".
  List of ingredients:
  1 lb of ground beef
  1 small onion (I only used 3/4 of the onion)
  2 cloves minced garlic
  1 Tablespoon Cumin
  1 tsp Chili powder
   8 oz of Cream Cheese
  2 -16 oz cans of Rotel tomatoes
  32 oz of beef broth
  1 cup heavy cream
  1 can of sweet corn
   1/2 cup of rice

Directions are super easy:
  Brown your ground beef. While your ground beef if cooking cut up the onion. Once beef is brown, add the onion, garlic and spices. Cut up the Cream Cheese into blocks and add it to the beef mix. Mash up the cream cheese while it melts with the meat. Add the Rotel tomatoes, beef broth, cream, corn and rice. I don't know exactly how much water I added, I would say probably close to 3 cups of water just to thin it out a bit. let simmer for at least 20 minutes before serving. The flavor is great! It does this happy little dance inside your mouth and is just the right amount of spice without being too spicy.
  We ate the leftovers for probably 3 days off of this. I also put some over a big blob of mashed potatoes and it was very filling.

Happy eats!
 

Home made fake tree

I love plants in the house, anything green to me, just makes a home look more.....homey! I have a bunch of plants around the house, but taking care of them and running around three levels of the house to water then two times a week....well, let's just say I am a little lazy sometimes- especially when it comes to stairs. Our stairs in particular. But, we also have only a North/South exposure, which usually means most of the plants end up on the south side of the house because of sunlight, and we have areas of the house that don't get much sun. The other issue is that we also have two landings half way up each set of stairs- so we have two very dark landings. The landings are rather large and I have spent the last year trying to figure out what I wanted to put in them for decorating. 

I have liked the look of the fake trees, but I am a cheap skate and think it's positively absurd to pay $120 for a piece of plastic. Right after Christmas I was perusing the craft store for bargains and found some fake trees on clearance, but they were still over $50 which was not appealing to me. I was looking at the tree and the trunk of the tree caught my eye and I stepped closer and had to laugh. The craft store had gotten crafty. I called my 19 year old daughter over saying "Chelsea...look at this!"

 She looked at it and said "ya...OK?" 

I told her "NO....look at it! What is it made of?" She looked closer, squinting her eyes and started to laugh. I was thrilled beyond belief when we left the store. I had a nice looking tall vase, greenery foam, decorative pebbles and greenery in our bags. All for less than $30. The vase was on clearance, plus I had a 40% off coupon. The vase was originally $60, I got it for $15. The greenery was 50% off too. 

 List of supplies you will need:

Tree trunk (small and dead)

Floral foam

Small decorative pebbles 

Greenery bunches (I used two but if you want a taller or fuller tree you might want 3 or 4 bunches)

Hot glue gun

Drill with a bit

Wire cutters

Here is how I did it- and this is how it was done at the craft store!

    I have some tree trunks in my backyard that I brought down from the burnt forest behind our family cabin in the mountains. I used one with no bark on it. (Don't want to worry about bugs) I used Aspen with the bark taken off of it. It was just the right height already so it didn't need to be cut. I would estimate that it was about 3 feet tall. 

  I took the floral greenery and cut it (what a mess that makes) to fit the top of the vase and then put a hole it in to inset the trunk into. Make sure that it sits securely so that it won't fall over. I cut the whole a little small and had to force it in. Then I took the drill and bit and drilled a bunch of whole at the top of the trunk. I cut the wholes at an upward angle. Then I took the greenery bunches, and cut them off of the base they came on with the wire cutters so that each one was separate. I took each branch that I cut off, added a dab of hot glue and placed them in the drilled hole. (I would recommend starting at the bottom and working your way up so you can see what you are doing.) Once I had all the branches in the holes, I bent the wire in the branch just a week bit so that they fanned out a little. That gave it a natural tree look to it. 

   Then I took the small pebbles and hot glued them to the top of the floral foam so that they completely covered it.

   Better pictures to come soon- with more close up's and when the lighting is better. I probably took me about an hour to put it together. not too bad really. I am quite pleased with it and may do another one in the near future. But, I will have to find just the right priced vase first. 

Spring decorating started

I have fallen in love with Cherry Blossoms this year. In my efforts to force Spring into happening I decided that I would decorate in Cherry Blossoms. I don't usually decorate in pink, but these were irresistible. They were easy to make and I am enjoying the compliments that I have gotten so far on them. I think they will be out for a while because they add a nice splash of color.

They were very easy to make and I had everything I needed laying around the house so they didn't cost me a dime. LOVE that. I had some branches laying around my craft area that I was saving for just the right project and this happened to be the right one, plus some light and dark pink tissue paper, and of course a crafter's best friend- the hot glue gun. 

They were very easy to make, in fact I had so much fun I made some for my daughter to take home with her while she was in town visiting the next week and then I made more for our kitchen.I have to confess, that this idea was taken from Pintrest, so I can not take all the credit for it.

The directions are easy:

Find some dead branches laying around out in nature. Cut out a template of a flower. (I used a piece of cardboard). The template doesn't have to perfect or professional looking- as you can see with mine. 

I cut out two different sizes for this project. 

Then I applied the template to the tissue paper and cut and cut and cut. This picture shows two different sizes that I put together, I also used the same size for other flowers and sometimes I even used the same color for a single flower for variety. 

Take the flower, fold them in half (again, it doesn't have to be perfect), then I took the center of the flower at the fold and then twist the center. Then glue the flower to the branches. Waalaa...it's that easy! 

Bee's (Clean) Fabric Find

They're clean!
I survived a five day trip, total 8 hours in the car, tunderstorm, tornado warning, blizzard and now two snotty and stuffed up toddlers to bring you this picture!
As Truly By Julie said "That's like winning the lottery!"
And you know what?
It really is.
-Bees

Of hoarding other people's trash

I'm horrible at life because I can never throw anything away. I can't even let other people do it.
For example, today when I was throwing out the trash, someone set out a box of things that they wanted to throw away.
Things that could be turned into something else.
And that's even worse than normal things to throw away.
In truth, this was a box of fabric. Really nice fabric.
A really nice, obscene amount of matching floaral and country and solid print fabrics.
Like, has to be at least 25 yards obscene.
So I took it. And I'm not ashamed. And I'm washing it.
And even though I don't have a sewing machine (that works) and I don't know how to sew, I'm going to use it.
This also won't be the first time that I've ever pulled "trash" out of the trash for my own sake.
Oh, no.
In the bathroom, hanging up on the wall, is an enormous old picture frame but I removed from the trash can.
I painted it blue, I hung it with strings and hooks, and now it holds all of my jewelry. Well, actually, I didn't paint that. My sister did while I was unpacking my new house, but you get the point.
So what will this fabric wind up being? New pillows? New dresses?
Only time will tell.
- Bees (the novice hoarder)

April Craft List

1. Finish the crochet blanket started for Boy Bee's crib. Only two more sets of 14 different colors left!
2. Finally get around to painting the ancient Ethan Allen dining table pulled from the trash nearly 2 years ago. I'm thinking marigold yellow.
3. Collect an obscene number of paint swatches from either Wally World or Home Depot. Cut them up. Make mobiles; stars and paper airplaines foe Boy Bee and hearts for Girl Bee.
I would add more but having two toddlers has taught me that the more I put on a list, the less will actually happen.
I promise that when I finally get around to Easter crafts the pictures will follow soon after.
Happy Easter, everyone! And Happy Crafting!
- Bees In My Basket

Truly by Julie's To Do list (wish list)

1. 1.       Decorate for Spring- make Cherry blossoms

2.       Turn old dresses into skirts for Spring & Summer- I have a pile of dresses that have sat in the corner of my room since last summer that I have been trying to figure out what to do and it hit me this week- I need some new summer skirts! 

3.       Finish painting bedroom- Need a couple of nice warms days out so I can open windows- keep your fingers crossed!

4.       Curtains up in the man’s bedroom- Not going to wait for him to get around to ordering them....when he comes home from his ski trip this week- curtains will be up!

5.       I love you gift for the man- I have this idea that has been brewing in my head since Valentines day, I need to get the puzzle pieces put together and put pen to paper and watch it grow from there.

I will commit to no more than this as I am a full time student now, but have made a commitment to have one day a week free from homework so I can do crafts. Plus I have Spring break starting in a couple of days and the guys will be gone skiing, so I will have spare time on my hands! Yea!