Bunco Hostess Gift

One of my good friends hosts a bunco night occasionally and had one this past Friday (and I actually won for once! woo hoo!) Her birthday also happens to be right around the corner so I thought this would make the perfect hostess/birthday gift for a bunco queen!!

Bunco towels to match her pink and black bunco set!! Thanks to Elizabeth and her mom for making these happen. :)

It wouldn't be a true bunco gift without a bottle of wine! I heard by word of mouth (or maybe just Erica) that the cupcake wine in Angel Food and Red Velvet is really good. So I picked up a bottle to give her along with the towels...Now can you guess how I wrapped everything?!?!

If you answered a gift with a gift, you are correct! I think I saw somewhere (probably pinterst) the idea of wrapping a wine bottle in a towel so I just kind of ran with that idea...

At first, I tried wrapping the bottle with both towels like the black one, but decided I liked the look of the pink one acting like a koozie better. To secure the pink one I used a small piece of tape in the back and as you can see to make the black towel stay up I tied some checkered ribbon around it. I just love how it turned out!!!

Pumpkin Spice Popcorn

A little variation on my chocolate covered popcorn. Back at the beginning of October when we were at the ranch, my brother's girlfriend and I discussed how good pumpkin spice popcorn might be after eating an entire square of pumpkin fudge! Well I decided to put it to the test and what do ya know...it's pretty darn good!

Above is everything I used for this batch. As you can see there is no chocolate candy coating and no toffee bits. I was unsure of how the toffee bits and the pumpkin kisses would mix and I also thought adding chocolate candy coating would hide the pumpkin flavor which we wanted. I also forgot to buy the regular popcorn I use (Orville Redenbacher's Natural Popcorn Simply Salted 50% less fat) so I used the Jolly Time Healthy Pop Butter variety I had on hand instead.

Here's what I did...

Step 1. Pop the popcorn and then pick out the un-popped kernels and lay on a wax paper covered baking sheet.

Step 2. Melt your vanilla candy coating according to the package and try and spread as evenly as possible over the popcorn

Step 3. Melt your pumpkin kisses in the microwave with intervals of 30 seconds and then spread over popcorn as well

Step 4. Sprinkle half a bag of your Fall Harvest M&Ms over the wet chocolate

Step 5. Stick in fridge for a few minutes so the melted kisses will harden

Step 6. Enjoy!

The entire batch was intended for my brother's girlfriend, but once my brother and her dad got a hold of it they didn't want to share. I already have requests to make more for Thanksgiving when they are back in town...ha ha.

Movie Round Up

I hope everyone had a very happy Halloween! In honor of Halloween and to check another thing off my fall bucket list I went and saw a scary movie...eek!

Paranormal Activity 4


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When I heard they were making another one of these, I was super excited. I love being scared...I know I'm weird. I rounded up my new scary movie buddy and headed to the theater after work Monday. This movie was freaky, creepy and good! I think the best part is that they left it open for more...woo hoo!

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In other movie news...I've been watching a ton of Netflix (ok mainly Rules of Engagement). Here are my most recent movie watchings from good ol' Netflix...

The Five Year Engagement



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I don't think I can actually put into words how bored I was with this movie. First of all, I'm not a huge fan of Jason Segel. Yes I have laughed at some of his stuff before, but overall he in general bores me. However, I tend to like the movies Emily Blunt does so that is my main reason for wanting to watch this movie. Sadly she didn't impress me this time. I felt like the whole movie was really soft spoken and I couldn't get the movie loud enough...so maybe I just didn't hear the funny parts.

Mary and Max



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Yet another boring movie. Some parts were cute and it had a good ending, but overall I couldn't wait for it to be over. This was a claymation movie with not much color. If I recall correctly, red was the actual color shown and everything else was shades of brown in Mary's world or shades of grey in Max's world. Anyways, since I had never heard of this movie until it was recommended to me, I figured most of you reading this probably haven't heard of it either. It's about a little girl in Australia who becomes pen pals with a older man in New York. They are both friendless and have a mutual love for chocolate. They write each other for years with a few breaks in between when one or the other have mental issues.  

Happy Halloween 2012

Hope everyone has a great Halloween filled with lots of candy, funny costumes and blinged out spider decor! Unfortunately I'm not dressing up this year, but I will be sporting my new skull scarf and possibly my skull earrings (if I can find them)!

Oyster Crackers To-Go

I have a friend who I don't get to see very often (I think the last time might have been March 2011), so when I found out another friend would be going to visit her I thought I would send one of her favorite treats along for the road trip...oyster crackers! (click here to see how I make them).

Of course I couldn't just send them in a plastic bag, I had to dress them up a bit! I used a quart size mason jar, some left over teal fabric, kitchen string (the same kind I use for pinatas) and I made a simple sticker tag for the top. I love how it turned out and it's more eye-catching than a plastic bag :)

Spiderman Pinata!

I was asked to make a Spiderman look-a-like pinata for a Superhero birthday party! I have to say it turned out pretty good!!!!

I started with just a balloon blown up as much as possible with out getting a funky balloon shape and I think through out the paper mache process it loss some air, but it was still plenty big to put 3 bags of candy in and to end up weighing 7 pounds!

The red crepe paper I fringed a little smaller than the Elmo Pinata since Spiderman isn't supposed to be furry...ha ha. Once all the red was on, I traced/cut out the eyes on plain white paper and glued them on (all glue was in the form of a glue stick).

Then I went to work on the black streamers. To get the streamers thinner, I cut the roll into three strips. When putting the "web" on I would run my glue stick over where the black would start and then stretched and tried to arch the black strips to the next spot and cut/glue them down. As you can see there was a lot of cutting to make them somewhat rounded lines.

And there you have it...the many angles of Spiderman! Now I wonder how long he will last once the kids start hitting him?!?!

October Meal: Chicken and Dumplings

I don't think I can express enough how much I enjoy chicken and dumplings! If I go some where and see it on the menu...that is what I'm ordering :) Elizabeth sent me the recipe that she found and liked over at Bubble Crumb.

I have a fairly small crock pot so I halved the recipe to be on the same side.

I used:

2 chicken breasts
1T butter
1 reduced fat cream of chicken
1/2 can of low sodium chicken broth
1/3 cup of diced onion (maybe even less I just eyed it because I don't like onions)
1/2 T of dried parsley
5 Grands Jr. flaky biscuits

What I did:

Lined my crock pot with a slow cooker liner (wanted to try it out)
Placed chicken on bottom of the crock pot
Added butter, cream of chicken, chicken broth, onions and parsley
I cooked mine for 5 hours on high before adding the biscuits
I pulled apart each biscuit into at least 4 pieces and threw it in the pot
I then let it continue cooking on high for another 45 mins (I lost track of time watching a very boring movie)
When the 45 mins were up I took 2 forks and shredded/mixed it all together then severed myself some in one of my favorite oversized mugs.

I kind of wish I hadn't of thrown out the rest of my chicken broth and added a little more at the end because it got really thick! But I still loved it and I'm looking forward to eating all the leftovers!! Yum!

Click here to go to the original recipe from Bubble Crum