BRIDAL SHOWER

My cousin is getting married on May 12 2012. We have been planning for almost a year now. This past weekend we finally had the bridal shower. I have posted some pictures for inspiration. We were on a relatively fixed budget so these are some great ideas for a bridal shower, if you are currently going through the process.

 We made super easy favors, I bought fat quarters of quilting fabric and followed a tutorial I found on pinterest to make these beautiful fabric flowers.

These beauties are in a Longerberger Pitcher.
Unfortunately its not mine....But it might be one day.

I have made about 200 of these now in all different colors.
I will be doing another post on these as well.

We made Smoothies, cupcakes, fruit kabobs, pierogie casserole, donut tower, meatballs, pasta salad, broccoli and cheese bites, ham and cheese bites, calico beans and so much more I can't even think of all the food we had.

Donuts from Dunkin!

Pineapple and Banana Cupcakes

Chocolate and Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Garlic Dip, Hummus, and more Hummus.
This plate set is adorable, I am still trying to find where you can buy it.
My cousin forgot where she bought it.

My Aunt Lisa loves to cook and bake so of course she did a majority of that. I think the coolest thing she made were the pineapple cupcakes, The icing was to die for. When we were creating the menu for the shower, She had mentioned the pineapple cupcakes and coincidentally I found another tutorial on pinterest for the cupcake top that looks like a flower and is made out of extremely thin slices of pineapple. The slices of pineapple are placed in a cupcake tin and put into the oven the dry into the flower shape.



LOVE THESE!
My Aunt Lisa did such a
Great Job.  



My cousin and her soon to be husband are going to the Caribbean for their honeymoon, so there was a beach/Luau theme. I made a beach bag and we filled it with things they will need on their honeymoon, like flip flops, sandals, sunglasses, suntan lotion, towels, etc. We got her a makeup bag and filled it with travel size items, like Advil, lotion, makeup remover, tissues, nail file, etc, anything she would need on her wedding day.

I bought a beautiful white silk robe for the day of the wedding and embroidered it with Mrs. Oquendo. The robe was a great price too.

This was the perfect place to put the door prizes
and the message in a bottle.

I made these from twine I bought at JoAnn's and random burlap and satin.
Relatively easy to do.

I had the idea to include a message in a bottle type game. So I made some cute bottles and everyone wrote notes to the bride and groom, and shoved them into the bottles. Then on the night of the honeymoon, they will smash the bottle and get to read what everyone wrote. We did one for the honeymoon and one for the first year anniversary. It was super cute, especially when we put it under the fish net. We use clothespins to clip lots of pictures of the cute couple.

We played a game, in the game everyone get 2 seashells, if the person says "bride," "groom," Lauran," or "June." and someone catches you saying it, you must give them your shell. Whoever has the most shells wins. I was surprised at the response that it got. Everyone was pretty involved and tried catching each other. I did horribly and lost both my shells within 10 minutes of the shower starting.

My Aunt Lisa was following tradition and made a hat out of all the bows that were on her shower gifts, then what happens is, at the rehearsal the bride needs to wear as she goes through the rehearsal.

She is hating this right now.

She is going to kill me if she sees this. HAH.

I hope my cousin had as much fun as we planned for. I hope she loved all her great gifts. So much creativity and love was in the air. We can only hope she got everything she wanted and more.

NEXT STOP on the wedding tour, THE WEDDING.....and I thought planning the shower was a lot. These next 2 months will be busy busy busy......

Till next time.
Allylynn

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Introducing "Duke Reginald Winkler"



Duke Reginald Winkler

He is a 3 month old Havanesse puppy.

I am still getting to know him, but so far he is mischievous, hilarious, playful, curious, fearless and very independent. His tail wags every time I walk in a room.

He likes to sleep in David's Boots

He still doesn't understand the camera

He hates getting baths

He tries looking innocent, but he doesn't have me fooled.

So I was reading through my paperwork and on one of the forms it said no raw hides until 9 months old. I was concerned because this puppy likes to chew, a lot. I took him to the vet for one of his routine check ups, and casually asked the vet if he could have raw hides. I thought I was going to get the same response as the paper, no raw hides, however the vet said, yes he can have raw hides, but just make sure they aren't made in China. I thought to myself, Is she just saying  that because she wants everyone to buy American made products? Or is there something wrong with them. So I did a little research...........AHHHHH Raw hides from foreign countries altogether....Horrible.
I went to Bark.com, there is an article specifically about the dangers of raw hides from foreign counties. (its embedded and will take you directly to the article if you would like to read it more in depth). I continued to read and found hundreds of comments at the bottom of the article, people talking about their dogs almost dying because of these raw hides.
So I set out on the next mission of buying all new raw hides. I went to Petco, and found it hard to find any raw hides made in the US, poor labeling, and if I did find some, they were pricey! So I looked online, and found, American made Raw hides. After careful consideration, I decided I had enough. All this just for raw hides.
I decided to ask around as I have many health conscious dog owner friends. I was given a few dog treat recipes. The best one for my dogs is below.

Frozen Banana Ice Cubes

What you will need....

1-2 Bananas (preferably newly ripe)
water
Peanut butter

Mix all in blender until smooth and creamy.
Put in Ice Cube tray, then in freezer.
Once these are frozen, you can clean the tray and put the treats in a freezer bag. These treats are perfect for hot sunny days outside. Both my little buddies love them.
What is also great is that this recipe can be easily modified, exchanging apples for bananas or even using both. Just remember there are certain foods to avoid when cooking for dogs, so be careful.

Talk to you soon




 

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Chocolate Covered Strawberries

CHOCOLATE COVERED STRAWBERRIES- The easy way

I have found this is the easiest way to make chocolate covered anything. It is best for making small batches. If it is a loved one's birthday these are great and super easy. If you ever used magic shell on your ice cream, this is the same thing.

NOTE* You will eat them while you make them so make sure you have a few extra strawberries. :)

Every Christmas and Easter my grandmother would make homemade chocolate. Everything from pretzels to peanut butter eggs. She always used a double boiler, which is the correct way to melt chocolate, however, double boilers are pretty expensive. I don't have a double boiler so.....here it is.....

What you will need:

1 bag of semi sweet chocolate morsels
a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil
a saucepan for the stove top
as many strawberries as you want ( or pretzels, rice crispy, etc.)
Wax paper
Freezer space


First make sure you turn your burner on a very low heat. (if you have it set too high, your chocolate will burn, better safe than sorry, keep it on very low heat.

Cover to bottom of the saucepan with the vegetable oil. It should just barely cover the bottom of the pan.

Add the semisweet chocolate morsels and let them melt into the oil. You can add as many or as little as you want, but please remember that the more morsels that are added the thicker the chocolate will be.

Stir regularly

Once the chocolate is creamy you can start dipping the strawberries in the chocolate.

swirl the strawberry in the chocolate until it is coated and then lay on the wax paper.

Once you dipped and swirled all your strawberries (or whatever you have chosen to use) place the plate with wax paper in the freezer until the chocolate hardens.

yup, its that simple.

My apologies, these pictures are not great. The lighting in my kitchen is horrible, however next time I promise more quality pictures for you.

THANKS~TILL NEXT TIME

ALLYLYNN

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