Month: November 2014

How To Make A New Home Map Frame

Lauren4 Comments

Oh my god, a “new home map frame.”  Did I use enough words in that description?  Sorry, I didn’t know what else to call it!  My cousin recently bought her first house and seeing as I invited myself to stay there during my mini New Orleans vacation, I figured I owed her a cute housewarming gift.  Joey found this on Pinterest (that’s right ladies, my husband is fluent in Pinterest thanks to me) and I was instantly in love!

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Don’t mind the blur, I just figured Emily probably didn’t want me to broadcast her address to the public 🙂

And I also figured I could just bypass Etsy and do it myself.  Don’t worry, this is not about to turn into a “craft blog.”  I am so not crafty.  Hannah is crafty.  She can “throw together” cute wreaths and repurpose bridal shower flowers to make some perfect centerpiece and I am like “What!  How!” But I figured if even I can pull off this craft, then I might as well share because that means anyone can do it.

What You’ll Need:

  • a sturdy piece of colored paper (or 5 pieces because you’re scared you’re gonna mess up 4 times)
  • a heart shaped stencil or traceable item (I bought a heart-shaped piece of wood at Michael’s for 99 cents)
  • an x-acto knife (also purchased at Michael’s)
  • some kind of frame (as long as it’s proportional to your paper & map, you can really choose any size)
  • Optional: mat board (to make it even fancier)

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How To Actually Make The Dang Thing:

  1. Head to Google Maps, plug in the address of the new home, use the print preview to find a map view you’re happy with, then print.  Make sure any points of interest you want to include will fit within your stencil.
  2. Print 5 more copies of the map because you’re still scared you’re gonna mess up 4 times.
  3. Open up a Word document and type “Something About Being a Homeowner.”  Okay, don’t put that but put something like “Home is Where the Heart is” or “My First Home” or any old thing you’d like in the bottom half of the page.  Print on your colored paper.
  4. Trace your stencil on the top half of the page then use your nifty cutting tool to cut it out.
  5. Position your map behind the colored paper.
  6. Frame it all up and ta-da!

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Cute as a button.

 

Weekend Things

LaurenLeave a comment

Ah, don’t you just love when you go to write your weekend recap post only to discover that every picture you took this weekend was of food?  No, just me on that one?  Well I’d like to pretend that’s not the case here today, but it totally totally is the case.  Hey, it happens!

Top Weekend Priority: (Besides food, apparently…) Not leaving the house all day on Saturday.  It snowed on and off all day and was something like 20 degrees so we lined up some cooking, some beer brewing and lots of TV binging to keep us occupied and indoors all day.  It was the best!

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Joey made banana pancakes.  A LOT of banana pancakes!

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And I did that thing where I say I’m going to relax in bed, then realized I can’t relax and got up to make us some peppermint mochas.  ‘Cept the chocolate chips never melted and the peppermint extract just floated up to make this oily layer on top…  I definitely drank it anyways, then ate the chocolate chips out of the bottom of the cup with a fork.

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Does this count as a non-food picture?!

We haven’t had beer in our kegerator since shortly after our wedding and it’s been SO weird.  And also, beer bottles take up a lot of fridge space so it was time to brew again.  This nut brown ale is SO dark.  But I feel like tis the season for dark beers so I’m excited.

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Every year, we do a trial run of potential Thanksgiving contributions and this year’s was extra delicious.  Sweet potato biscuits, wild rice dressing, olive oil mashed potatoes + vegan gravy and greens beans with bacon vinaigrette.  Let’s not talk about that part where I cut the mashed potato recipe back by two-thirds and forgot to tell Joey so he added the full amount of EVOO and spices.  Um, they were just a little oily.  But all was fixed when we bought more potatoes the next day and mixed them into the mega-oily potatoes.

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Then Joey made me eat leftover wedding cake.  He’s so mean! 😛

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On Sunday, my mom, my sister and I went out to breakfast.  Can that be a weekly tradition, please??  The restaurant we went to is conveniently close to home plus it’s cute, cozy and makes awesome food (though I don’t think I ever need to order the breakfast sandwich that’s sandwiched between TWO GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES).

Afterwards, I took myself to yoga (the class was at capacity and also my shoulders are SO SORE today — dang chaturangas!), bought an $11 jar of bottled roasted chestnuts with some help from a man named Moonstone (don’t even ask), baked cookies filled with candy and started Season 2 of Gilmore Girls.  When are they going to change the intro and capitalize the G in “girls”?!

What did you do this weekend?

Are you cooking for Thanksgiving?

Is there snow where you live?