DIY Personalized Coasters

Hello friends.  Well, this semester is crazy-busy and I don't see it getting calmer anytime soon, so my posts will be sporadic.  I still want to share fun things as I can, though, so I'm taking pictures and keeping notes for the rare moments when I can squeeze in a post!

In August, I went to visit my best friend right after she moved into a new (gorgeous!) apartment in DC.  I wanted to bring her a little housewarming gift, so I turned to my oft-admired and rarely-used Pinterest boards.  I decided to try making some custom coasters for her.  The link to the original website doesn't work anymore, but I was able to gather enough information from the picture and caption to get started.

Materials needed:  4 x 4 plain tiles from a home improvement store (I got mine at Lowe's super cheap, like $0.15 or something), pictures/ scrapbook paper/ whatever you want to use to decorate, a permanent marker, a straight edge (i.e. a ruler), a utility knife, Mod Podge, a paint brush, clear spray paint, scrap paper.

First, gather your supplies and lay out the scrap paper to protect your work surface.

I wanted to color the edges of the tiles to make them look more polished, and I initially tried painting them.  The paint wasn't going on well, so I switched to a permanent marker which worked much better.  Bonus - no drying time!  It really wore down the marker, though, so use an old one or mourn the loss of the nice, crisp tip of the marker.  (Or maybe that's just me... I have a strong attachment to Sharpies.)

I used a black marker to stick with my black and white theme, but you could color coordinate your edges with your pictures/ designs.

I previously chose some digital pictures that I wanted to use to decorate the coasters, made them black and white on my computer, cropped them so that they were square and slightly smaller than 4 x 4 inches, and printed them out on resume-type paper so that they were a little sturdier than regular office paper, but not so thick that they would be raised up on top of the coasters.

Then I used a ruler and utility knife to cut them out - you want your edges to be as straight and clean as possible.

I printed out a few extra pictures so that I could see what looked best on the tiles.

After you've chosen and cut out your pictures/ scrapbook paper, use a paint brush and Mod Podge to adhere the pictures to the tiles.  My ink bled a little bit when I did this, so I kept a rag nearby to wipe off any discoloration.

After the Mod Podge dries, you can put on a coat of clear spray paint.  This is important:  go outside!!!  I'm speaking from experience here... it's not pleasant to spray this in the house, and you might feel like you're going to die from the fumes for the rest of the night.  Oh, and your family/ roommates/ pets will really not appreciate it.  (My dad: "You care about everyone's environment except for mine!!"  Woops.)  Yeah, I know, who uses spray paint inside?  But it was clear...  clear = harmless, right?  Not quite.  Definitely a blonde moment.  Don't be like me!

After the spray paint has dried, stick four protectors on the bottom of each tile.

You could use felt protectors, or little plastic ones like I chose.  Or you could even use a hot glue gun and make little dots (but I tend to burn myself with hot glue guns so I didn't attempt that method).

And there you have it - personalized, homemade coasters.  They're not very expensive to make, and I think they make great housewarming gifts, or even gifts for birthdays and other holidays.  And it was really fun to choose pictures specifically for my best friend!

I wrapped them up with a pretty bow,

and added a container of homemade red velvet macaroons to go with them.

If any of you read The Fitnessista, you know that Gina has a famous and secret macaroon recipe.  She recently shared her red velvet variety, and I was so excited to try them out for myself!  My grandma let me borrow her old-school dehydrator - doesn't it look like a space ship?

They smelled gooooood.

Yummy.

And they're the perfect little sweet treat to go with a cup of tea!

By the way, my favorite tea right now is Lady Grey - like Earl Grey, but more refined :)  It's decaffeinated, and I think it has a lighter, smoother flavor than Earl Grey.

Even though I'm not usually a big fan of coconut, I did enjoy these a lot.

And they got good reviews from my best friend, a neighbor, and my grandma - so I think they were a success!

Okay, that's all for now - hopefully I'll be back soon with some more fun updates.

Song of the day:

"Blown Away" by Carrie Underwood.  Loving this song right now.

Weekend of Celebrations

Hey y'all!  (I wish I could say y'all in real life.  It might be worth moving down South just so I could say y'all.)

I have a bunch of random things to throw together in this post.  First up:  my new favorite breakfast combo:

Scrambled eggs with salsa.  I microwaved a leftover soft taco shell for about 10 seconds, topped it with 2 scrambled eggs, and added some Trader Joe's salsa.  SO good!  With a juicy peach and a cappuccino on the side, this was an amazing brunch.

I put together that brunch after my visit to the farmers' market last weekend.  I love that they have live music there!  So fun.

This time I picked up a pound of organic spinach for myself.

This should last me through the week!

This weekend I got my craft on.  My grandma's birthday was on Saturday, so I made her a birthday card.

My mom's really good friend is an expert card maker - she creates the best designs and her cards always look fantastic.  I think it's so special to receive a handmade card from someone.  My mom's friend taught us the basics of card-making when I was younger, and we have a huge stash of card stock and matching envelopes, stamps, ink pads, confetti, etc., so I rifled through our supplies and put this card together.

I stamped some birthday candles on the inside, too, and glued a piece of birthday cake confetti to the envelope.  I love when I have some time to work on a little craft like this.  My sister got the real creative/ artistic genes, but I like to dabble once in awhile.

I gave my grandma a copy of The Pioneer Woman's book From Black Heels to Tractor Wheels: A Love Story, which I read a couple of months ago and absolutely loved.

Since Sunday was Father's Day, I also made a card for my dad.

I downloaded a free card design from this website and then used double-sided tape to attach it to some heavier card stock so that it would look a little nicer and more polished.  And then for one of my all-time favorite gifts:

I got my dad Snoop Dogg's voice for his GPS.  My dad loves Snoop Dogg, so when I heard that you could download his voice for a TomTom GPS, I knew I had to get it for my dad.  It's so hilarious!  I'm not sure I would actually be able to use it for directions because I'd be laughing too hard, but it's a lot of fun.

On Sunday night, we went out for a really nice family dinner at Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse to celebrate my grandma's birthday.  I ordered the chicken Milanese, which was described as crispy romano-crusted chicken in a white wine caper sauce.  My eyes bugged out of my head when they brought my plate and I saw that I had not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR chicken breasts.  Um, whoa.  So I ate one that night, and it was delicious.  I also had some amazing steamed asparagus, and very yummy bourbon maple whipped sweet potatoes with caramelized marshmallows on top.

And I had three chicken breasts to take home with me.  An unnecessarily large portion, but at least I have lots of leftovers for lunch this week!

Yesterday I made an epic salad.  I used some of the spinach I got from the farmers' market, and topped it with a chicken breast, asparagus, Trader Joe's marinated artichoke hearts, sliced almonds, and zesty Italian dressing.  So.  Unbelievably.  Good.

I will be having this again today... and tomorrow :)

One last thing before I go - yesterday I was outside and heard something which I thought was a little prop plane or something, but it kept getting louder and louder and then I saw the Goodyear blimp fly right overhead!

Things always look further away in photos, but this seemed super close in person.  I'm sure that whoever was inside could see me gaping and running around the yard to get pictures, haha.

Well, I think that's enough random updates for today.  See ya later!

Song of the day:

"Lovely and Blue" by Ryan Adams & the Cardinals.  There's something slightly dark and sinister about this song that I really like.

Making Banana Pancakes

"Can't you see that it's just rainin'
There ain't no need to go outside"

It's overcast and rainy here today, but my morning was delightful thanks to these delicious banana bread protein pancakes.

I really love the ingredients in these pancakes:  1/2 cup old-fashioned oats, 1/2 banana, 1/4 cup cottage cheese, 1 egg, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.  It's basically oatmeal, but in pancake form.  Very healthy!  I used a blender to mix everything up, which created an awesome texture.  I topped my pancakes with syrup (of course I just recently said I didn't think I'd ever go back to syrup, haha), plus the other half of the banana and a couple sprinkles of pumpkin pie spice.

Growing up, my mom rarely made pancakes, but if she did, it was always with Bisquick.  Same goes for waffles.  I guess that made me think that making pancakes from scratch would be difficult, but it's not at all!  I think I could improve my cooking technique, though - I hid a very ugly pancake under the 3 decent-looking ones for picture purposes, haha.  My family used to go on vacation with another family, and I'm still in awe of the awesome pancakes that the other mom made - she could pretty much make any animal you wanted.  It was so cool!  My favorites were a squirrel and a grasshopper - impressive, right?  I'm lucky if I can make a decent circle.

I enjoyed my pancakes with lemon water, my vitamins, coffee with cinnamon and almond milk, and read The Girl Who Played with Fire while I ate.  It's the first book I've checked out from the library on my Kindle.  Normally I prefer reading an actual book, but I decided to ask for a Kindle this past Christmas for practical purposes of being able to easily take it along with me when I'm traveling, or if I have some time to kill on the go.  And when I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I went ahead and put both the book and Kindle versions of the 2nd book in the trilogy on hold at the library because I couldn't wait to start reading it!

Also, happy Earth Day!  Are you doing anything exciting to celebrate?

I try to be environmentally conscious in my day-to-day life, but there are always more things I could be doing and things I need to improve upon.  Something I try to be really diligent about is taking reusable bags to the grocery store with me, and reusable mugs when I get coffee.  And something I need to work on is taking shorter showers.

One thing I started doing recently that is kind of environmentally conscious, as well as economical, is making some of my own cleaning supplies.

When I finished up a bottle of store-bought daily shower spray, I decided to mix up my own solution.  I followed the instructions here and used 1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide, 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol, 2 teaspoons dishwashing liquid (I used Method brand, which is what I had on hand at the time), 2 teaspoons JetDri, and filled the rest of the bottle up with water.  I also added 10 drops of grapefruit essential oil, which is completely optional but I thought it would be a nice touch.  It works just as well as the store-bought stuff!

I also just mixed up some all-purpose cleaner.  I was inspired by this idea that I originally found on Pinterest.  Since I've been drinking a lot of lemon water recently, I had a lot of leftover lemon wedges.  So I filled a mason jar with white vinegar (leaving some room at the top to allow for the citrus to be added) and every time I squeezed a lemon into my water, I would put the leftover wedge into the vinegar.

When I couldn't add any more (which took about 2 weeks, I think) I strained out the lemon and added the citrus-infused vinegar to an empty spray bottle.  I filled the bottle halfway and left the remaining vinegar in the mason jar to have on hand for another batch.

I filled the other half of the bottle with water, and that's it!  I feel better cleaning with this mixture, especially in the kitchen, because it doesn't have any harmful chemicals.  (Neither do Method cleaning products, which I love and is what was in this bottle originally, but they're also pricey.)  I tried it out on my counters and it works great.  

This was my view last night:

Gray, dreary skies - but I love the strip of clear sky right above the water.  An "orange lining," perhaps?

Since the weather is so crappy out today, here is a picture of my favorite place on earth:

This is in Michigan, where my family goes on vacation.  (The same place where I got to eat those awesome animal-shaped pancakes!)  

I hope you had a relaxing weekend and got to do something to honor Earth Day.  See ya later!

Song of the day:

In keeping with the title of this post, "Banana Pancakes" by Jack Johnson.  A classic that I still enjoy every now and then.