Meet my new best friend, Bacon Maple Cupcake.  I don’t know if it was the bacon or the maple but this is one scrumptious delight that will become a regular around this house.  Okay, okay I’ll tell you how to make your own. 

*This really doesn’t have anything to do with this cupcake but have you noticed an abundance of really great baking recipes around the web lately?  I have…I wonder if it’s just the season or if our resolutions to lose weight have us thinking about food more than usual.  Incidentally that is a idea suggested in Why Women Need Fat. 

On to the recipe!

It’s Friday night, the kids are downstairs with Nate watching a movie and I’m sitting at the computer reading and filling in the squares of my calendar with submission deadlines.  I may have given up on my NaBloPoMo plans for the month but that’s only because I’ve got bigger plans in the works. 

My kids like fake tattoos and because they’re usually a whopping $1 a package so we indulge them.  The problem is they come in these horrible enveloped packages that I usually rip trying to open.  We’d consolidate, fold them over best we could, clip them with a refrigerator magnet and there they would hang. 

So the other day when the kids begged for a tattoo I thought there’s got to be a better way.  I hit my resource box (i.e. The box of packages I won’t let my husband recycle on the off chance I might be able to make something with them.) and found the brie container from this recipe I shared a few weeks back.  Then I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could get this to stick to the refrigerator and hide all the ugly tattoos inside it?

 

I’ve been a bad NaBloPoMo blogger, please accept my forgiveness in the form of this Valentine’s Day inspired cupcake.  Okay, it was also inspired by a big ole 12 pack of soda in my fridge.  You can always tell when Nate has had a four-day weekend by the soda in the fridge and the chips in the pantry. 

Two yards each of wonderfully patterned fabric that will become pajama pants and shorts for myself and daughter.

Thrift stores and resource centers aren’t just about clothes and the bits and pieces of toys no one wants. Where do you think all of us overzealous crafters take our stashes when they become too much? The Good Samaritan!

When we’ve grown tired of our decor and what a change where do we take the baskets and swags we know, “Someone will want.” The Good Samaritan!

Not everyone has an eye for transformation and when the drawer knob breaks on that coffee table, where do you think they take it? The Good Samaritan!

I could go on and on like this but instead here are a few of my most recent fabulous finds and a secret about the best day to head out to find the good stuff!

I can’t even begin to find links to the number of posts I’ve seen about making crayons with the little bits and pieces that seem to multiply like rabbits in our crayon bowls and boxes.  I wish I would have though, because there might have been a step or two that would have made mine turn out better. 

Don’t get me wrong, they’re crayons, they write, they’re shaped like hearts-Valentine’s Day is coming up, and most importantly the kids loved making them and enjoy using them!  But there was a definite learning curve.  Want to give it a try?

Last night we had some friends over and in my drug-induced mania I played supreme hostess and made these apple and brie turnovers.  Isn’t it funny how it only takes adding the name of a ‘fancy’ ingredient to make something sound like it’s really special?  Anyhow, here’s the quick recipe with a note on how to make yours even better.

I’ve posted this recipe before but here it is one last time, with a cinnamon twist.  I couldn’t resist the Cinnamon M&M’s as they called to me from the clearance aisle.  Surely they would be good in a scone right?  Well, as the picture above shows, they weren’t really made for baking, so it wasn’t pretty.  However, they were delicious thanks in part to the spectacular cinnamon glaze I threw together. 

If you follow me on Facebook you might remember my whining like a baby complaining about a  toothache on Christmas Eve.  Well after a very intense week, a tooth extraction, and a few other dentist appointments I was still in excruciating, ‘Where am I? Who am I?’ pain.  It’s been hard for me  to get anything done and there’s just so much I’m wanting and excited about doing!