Cooking & Baking Test Runs!

Mesquite Baked Chicken Breast, Baked Potato and 3 Bean Salad!

Homemade Mac & Cheese with Plain Lays Chips Crumble Top!

Banana Crumb Muffins!

Caramel & Chocolate Chip Cookies!

The easiest Peanut Butter Cookies!

I'm still just testing out recipes and tweaking them to make them my own.  A few recipes came out perfect and don't need any changes, but I've got a long way to go! :)

Pineapple Upside Down Cake!

Chicken Parm!

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting!

Almost too DELISH!  Got the recipe off Allrecipes.com and tweaked it a little bit.  The main tweak was adding Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses (exclusively at Target!) in the middle.  The end product was soooo yummy!  I will definitely be making these again this fall, but it will be a half batch! :)  Ryan had to take the rest with him to work!

From Mirror to Vanity Tray

I love going to Thrift Stores/Goodwill and hunting down Garage Sales and finding bargains.  I came across this mirror at the Goodwill for $2 and painted it black.

Here's the mirror how it's supposed to be used before I painted it

And now black and used as a perfume/vanity tray for the bathroom counter

                                    

Mirror Mirror On the Wall...

I got obsessed with finding a mirror similar to the mirror I saw in the movie He's Just Not That Into You below that Jennifer Connelly smashes.  I had been looking at ornate mirrors before I saw this one in the movie, but fell in love with it, not to mention the gorgeous sets of almost all of the characters in the movie. LoL

Here's the Mirror from He's Just Not That Into You

So I went on a hunt to find a mirror and couldn't find anything locally so I searched online and ordered this beautiful vintage mirror, but it was one fiasco after another, first I didn't receive it for almost a month, and it arrived broken, but I glued the broken piece of the frame back on (luckily it was just the tip on the top and you can't tell!) and got a new mirror cut for it.  Painted it a satin black.  I am absolutely in love with it!

Here's the mirror before I painted it

After:

I was going to clear coat it with a glossy finish, but I have a dresser with rod iron accents, and the lamp also is a satin finish- If I move it to another room someday I might want to make it glossy- What do you think?

Project Paint the Master Bath!

So I decided our Master Bath would be the first room to get painted in our new apartment.  I was thinking either a tealish color or a deep lavender.  Ryan vetoed the purple hues, so I picked a teal color, went to Lowe's and realized the color was way off from how it looked online so I went with a completely random teal I saw without even looking at the name.  I get home and go to look the color up online and notice the name of the color was "Twilight Meadow"- googled it and leads me to an article about Valspar Twilight inspired colors.... So even subconsciously I'm hooked to the Twilight Saga j/k!lol  I also wondered why on earth they weren't advertising the paint colors with Twilight posters and crap, it'd sell.  lol  Anyways here's the before and after paint, we still need to touch up a few spots, and get some "decor" for the bath but the color looks fab!

Master Bath Before

Master Bath After

My Freebie Lamp Project

I got this lamp for free off Craigslist and decided to re-vamp it!  It cost about $7 in supplies.. oh how I love what a little paint and accents can do! :0)

    Lamp Before                             Lamp After

I added beads to the lampshade and painted the lamp base a satin black

And onto the next project painting the Master Bath!

Our New Home in Arizona, Good-Bye San Diego!!

We relocated to Arizona in April and were living with some roommates and now have our own 1086 sq ft 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment in Chandler, AZ.  It's been fun unpacking and moving in and once things get a little less chaotic with projects I will post some updated pics of the apartment.  Interior Design has been a passion of mine since playing with Barbies as a kid.  lol

Here is the living room and dining area

I finally have a kitchen I can actually COOK and BAKE in!! yay! :0)

View into the Master Bedroom and Patio

Master Bedroom

Our HUGEEEE walk in closet... I LOVE it!  Makes me want more clothes and shoes! lol

Our Big Master Bath

Full-size washer/dryer in the unit, my other favorite part! lol makes laundry so much less of a chore!

Spare room

And another bathroom, has doors with access to the spare room and the hallway

Our view from our patio

And our cheesy Welcome Home gift :0)

It's bed time for me now, but I'll post more pics in the morning of the recent projects we've done!