Tried It Out: Jello Wedges

I did these quite some time ago, but I thought I'd post about it finally. I did these for a Pampered Chef party I had and I was suprised they worked. I know that sounds funny, but some things on pinterest I just never know if they'll work or not. So..

This is the original picture I saw on pinterest:

Source

Cut an orange in half.

I didn't have a juicer so I just scooped them out with a spoon.

From there mix up your jello and pour into the oranges, let it set in the fridge..

Once they're set, take them out and cut into slices. Make sure you have sharper knife or it may get difficult to cut.

Yum! Simple, easy, and quick!

Signing off,
Ida Jade

Tried It Out: Homemade "Ice cream"

Okay so it didn't end up being "true" ice cream it's a bit "ice-y", but we did this without looking at any recipes..just kind of went for it. This was actually more of my hubby's project than mine, but it was fun to do none the less and the results are quite yummy. So I thought I'd share.

What You'll Need
*Ice (lots of it)
*Blender
*Vanilla Extract
*Whole Milk
*Sugar
*Fruit (optional).. We used strawberries, blackberries, oranges, and even lemons

Fill with ice, almost to the top

Add about a cup of sugar (or less/more depending on desired "sweetness")

Fill with milk to almost cover the ice completely

Add some vanilla extract and blend until the ice is just about "gone"

Add your fruit or "flavor" and bend

Half way through the blending

We stored them in old cleaned out coffee cans

That's it! We ended up making:
*Strawberry
*Vanilla
*Blackberry
*Lemon
*Orange

Yum! Hope you enjoy!

Signing off,
Ida Jade

Tried It Out: Holiday Wreath

Okay, the slacker in my is getting back on board.

Holiday Wreath
Okay, so this one didn't come from Pinterst or any other site for that matter. Josh and I were getting in the Christmas spirit and all of the wreaths we camea across were just too expensive. So we decided to head to Michaels and purchase our own supplies and make it ourselves. It turned out great, in my own opinion. Let me know what you think!

Plain wreath purchased at Michaels.

 

Glitter Purchased at Michaels and Left over spray glue from wedding crafts (love this stuff)

Josh and I took turns spraying the glue and sprinkling the glitter.
It held up pretty well, but we still had to shake off the excess.

A better representation of what it looks like. Snow. =)

We picked up a one "bunch"  of poinsettas and decontructed them. If you pull on the flowers "head" it will "pop" off. We took pipe cleaners and use them to secure the flower the wreath. Easy and subtle.

We then used our judgement and added the flowers and some pincones
we picked up for a different project (blog to come later)

The finished product.

I think it took  maybe 10 minutes total to complete this. Simple, easy, and so pretty!

Signing off,
Ida jade

Brown Sugar Oatmel Body Scrub

This one started out as a Pinterst find, but ended up being me googling and experimenting. I saw this pin that had Lauren Conrad as the picture and her "recipe" for an exfoliant and all it was, was baking soda and water. I didn't feel like this would be too healthy for your skin, so I started to Google.

I came across this recipe for a body scrub...

Brown Sugar Oatmel Body Scrub
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup of ground oatmel
- 1/4 cup of honey
- base oil (jojoba, coconut, olive oil..)
- essential oils

Oh I guess I should say that the reason I started looking for something was to exfoliate before using my self tanning lotion I purchased, Jergens Moisturizer.

I ended up using:
- 3/4 cup mix of brown sugar and regular sugar (I didn't have quite enough brown sugar)
- 1/2 cup ground oatmel
- 1/4 cup of honey
- olive oil
- lemon juice (the one the little plastic lemon bottle)

It was pretty simple, the goal is to gently take away dead cells so it really did the job and it smells really good. I've used it twice now and my skin has been super, super soft! I believe what I made will last me for 2 months, maybe even more, and that's with using it every other day.

I encourage you all to try it, it took no time and stores nicely in just a regular plastic container.

Signing off,
Ida Jade

Chicken Noodle Soup

Tried It Out Thursdays. (A day late)

For the past 3 weeks or so I've really been craving homemade chicken noodle soup, so while browsing on Pinterest I came across a pin for homemade noodles. Yumm!

Here's the original link that I used to make my noodles.

Ingredients:
3 1/2 Cups Flour
3 Medium Eggs
1 Tsp Salt
3/4 Cup Cold Water



Stir all ingredients together until you see small crumbs begin to form..



Step 1. Combine Flour and Salt in a mixing bowl, create a well in the middle, and add the eggs..

Step 2: Slowly add the water in and stir together, as you do you will begin to notice it "clumping" more.
Continue to add the rest of the water until all the crumbs are gone and you have one firm, elastic, dough ball left.
*I will say that I ended up using my hands to knead it all together, using a spoon didn't seem to get the job done*

My dough ball, close to being ready. Once you have one smooth ball, sit aside for 10 minutes.

I have no idea if this is myth or not, but something I picked up from my mom is to use a towel to cover the bowl with dough. She always did it when we made pizza dough. Not sure if it "truely" makes a difference, but it seems to.

Step 3. Roll out the dough as thin as possible on a floured service. Honestly, the more flour the better (that way it doesn't stick). When the dough is boiled it will incease about 3x in size (they're really not joking about this one..that's why I say the thinner the better).





Then using a pizza cutter, make your strips. I probably cold have made them smaller and froze what I didn't use, because these ended up being a bit long.

*If at any point the dough sticks to your hands, sprinkle flour on your hands and continue. It works, I promise.*

I took 4 chicken breast and cut them into vertical strips and then I cut them horizontally to make little cubes. I took these and began to boil them in a large pot while I prepared the rest of my ingredients.

I took 2 boxes of this chicken broth and 2 cups of water and combined them to boil everything in. I added on chicken bouillion cube as well to liven the flavor just a bit more.

I cut up 1/2 of an onion and small bag of baby carrots and added them to the pot.

The spices I added were a little bit of Garlic Powder, Black Pepper, and Salt. I'll say the black pepper made the biggest difference, it added just the right about of "spice" to the soup.

I added the noodles in about 20 minutes into the boiling. I then let it boil another 15 minutes. That length of time varies though on how you like your noddles. Just taste them!

I put together a quick salad then too.

It was simply delicious and I know Josh appreciated it. I don't get to cook much with the schedule I have. I'm hoping to be able to more since my casino schedule is down to 2 nights a week and only the 7pm-3am shift instead of the 11pm-7am (SO much easier!).

Signing off,
Ida Jade

Pantry Makeover

Tried. It. Out. Thursdays
So I did this one about two weeks ago, but I'm so proud of it and believe it or not it still looks like this!





Icky contact paper..

This was just ONE shelf..there was alot that
1. Was Expired
2. I Didn't Know We Had
3. We Don't Use

Removed the contact paper..

Painted the Shelves

Painted the same color as our kitchen cabinets on the inside

Added this easy storage shelves I purchased on clearance from Walmart

This is the project I did that was inspired by Pinterest. Here are the examples:

So I took a similiar shaped box we've had laying around forever from our dvd player and measured out the cuts..
I then used a box cutter to cut it.



I used this alot for our invitations for our wedding and I loved it, so I pulled it back out for this project.



 

I used scrapbook paper and cut it to the same shape.



This worked so nicely, such a space saver.

 And again..the finished product!



Signing off,

Ida Jade