Cute as a Button

My students are learning about all the different types of figurative language, including puns, idioms, metaphors, personification, alliteration, etc. They would be thrilled to know that I used a simile in my title! But that's life in the fifth grade for you.

I found a cute idea for a quick and easy button bracelet. They come out pretty adorable, 

but I think this looks a little more appropriate on younger girls than on an adult. 

However, I wanted to share because they are a simple way to add some interest!

 Lay out the pattern you want; I played around with mine for a while before I found one that I liked. After doing this first one, I found that smaller buttons work better.

 Create a loop in your yarn (I used plastic coated but anything durable would work) and knot it off. Begin to "sew" the buttons on to the strands, criss-crossing as you go.

 Ta-da! I made two different ones, but honestly, the possibilities are endless and 

this only took about five minutes to finish. Not to shabby!

Hardest part: Cats wanting to "help"... thanks Ellie.

February Food

No, we didn't go hungry in February (far from it... the workouts start TODAY!) but we weren't quite as creative as in the past. Our "sprinkling" of failures became more of a downpour, so we stuck to simplicity, for the most part. Below are the smattering of successful, and delicious meals we were able to concoct, and weren't too time consuming either.

First up, we have something my husband is very proud of, and it is his favorite food... breakfast! Yes all breakfast foods make him happy, but he made a really delicious cinnamon orange french toast with cheesy scrambled eggs. Yum.

The trick is using really thick, crusty bread to soak up all the custard. The orange zest makes this really delectable, and compliments the cinnamon well. And nobody makes better scrambled eggs then my husband. Sorry, he wins!

Next up we started to have more failures in the kitchen, but something I found on Pinterest that was easy and quite yummy was White Cheddar Mac and Cheese with Broccoli. It was a basic mac and cheese beschamel sauce with broccoli thrown in. I know that everyone says that recipes like this are a "good way to sneak veggies into kids" but get real. Kids aren't stupid. They can see the vegetables and will know that it's broccoli. Who cares if it is Macaroni and Cheese, there are green trees in my food! But, if your child LIKES broccoli, then this is definitely a winner! (Please excuse the gladware container on the counter... kitchen photo-bomb.

Finally, we got ambitious again this week and tried Ricotta Spinach Stuffed Chicken, recipe courtesy of Pinterest (where else?) and it was delicious! A little more labor intensive, but still not too hard, and it comes out really great. The recipe calls for panko bread crumbs, and being the rule followers that we are, willing obliged to this part. However, I think regular bread crumbs, or Italian style ones would work even better.

That looks like it for now. Hopefully more to come soon... and more "light" option will be in our future... like I said, the workout starts today!

For any of the recipes that sound good to you, check out my Pinterest page by clicking the link on the right menu bar.

I'm Back!

I know it's been over  month since I posted anything, but life got quite busy for a while, and basically my creative side was stunted. In the month of February, we didn't do too much, and most of our food consisted of pastas or something equally simple to make. As far as my crafting goes, that was hit or miss on any given weekend, with more misses than hits. I've begun two large sewing projects, which I can't show on my blog yet because one is a gift, and one is still in the beginning stages. I'm not sure if anyone still even checks here, or really how many people checked to begin with, but I will be better about posting now that the depressing "winter" (or what we here in Texas like to pretend is cold) has cleared out, and spring is around the corner.