Another Coconut Oil Pin....Can it make my hair silky smooth??

I haven't tried a coconut oil pin for awhile and thought I would give a new one a try that I found outside the list I had been using. This was another hair mask, but wasn't coconut oil alone so I figured it was worth a shot.

3 required ingredients

 

Spoon a few tablespoons of coconut oil into a microwave safe bowl (The more hair you have the more oil you'll need. I have medium length hair so I used around 3 big spoonfuls).

Coconut Oil

Microwave for about 30-45 seconds until the oil is completely melted. Then add in a tablespoon of honey (not much more according to the original pin, it probably would get pretty sticky) and one raw egg. Whisk together.

Finished product

Go to your bathroom, throw a towel around your shoulders and start spreading this on your dry unwashed hair.

My dry unwashed hair

The consistency is runny and surprise surprise very oily. It doesn't have a strong smell but their is a bit of a funkiness to the mixture, which I'm sure comes from the egg. Cover all of your hair and then when mixture is gone put a shower cap on or wrap you hair up in plastic wrap.

After the mixture was on my hair

My super sexy shower cap

Now set your timer for 30 minutes and find something to occupy your time for the next half an hour. I told Siri to play Bruno Mars and I picked up around the house, but to each their own. After the timer went off I got my shower. I used the spray nozzle to rinse as much of the mixture out as possible and then washed and conditioned as usual. I used Head and Shoulders shampoo and Loreal EverClear conditioner. After my shower I dried and styled as normal.

 

My assessment: My hair did seem softer and a bit shiner than after a normal shampoo and conditioning session but it wasn't anything amazing. The downside was that even after shampooing and conditioning I thought my hair still had a bit of that funky smell. Nothing too overpowering but I did still smell it. By the next day I didn't smell it at all anymore, but I also used a bit of dry shampoo to help cover it up. I'm not sure how often someone would have to do this treatment to see a huge difference, or if you would even if you did it frequently. It was worth a try and others who don't have color damaged hair like I do might have better results. I encourage everyone to give it a shot if they have the time and see if it works for them.



Styled as normal-Hair dryer and straighten with a flat iron









Our Take on a Superhero Nursery

Since I just posted the awesome superhero t-shirt quilt that my friend Z and I made, I thought I would share how the nursery came out. A few things to remember, we live in a rental house (although they let us pick out the color of the room) so we didn't want to hang up too much and have been serious users of Command brand hooks and picture hangers.

The letters were done back in January and the process can be seen on the blog http://pinterestingsummer2012.blogspot.com/2013/01/mod-podge-superhero-collagesay-that-3.html
The bookshelf is from Ikea, baskets from Walmart, and the glider is a hand-me-down from our daughters room.

The wall signs were from Amazon.com from a seller called Poster Revolution. They were around $9 a piece and we have Amazon Prime so we didn't have to pat for shipping. The quilt we made, the crib and sheet are from Target, and my friend Z made the chevron bed skirt from material she bought on Etsy.

We lucked out and the rental house had a built in desk and shelves that happened to be the perfect size for a changing table pad. The small baskets are from Target and the Fantastic Four comic picture was given to me at our baby shower and fit in perfectly.

The picture is from AllPosters.com and I got the frame from Michaels. I am going to put in a white wall shelf on one of the empty walls to hold some of the small superhero knick knacks that we have been given. I am very happy with how it turned out and glad we tried something out of the ordinary.

Superhero T-shirt Quilt

Before we knew if we were having a boy or a girl my husband and I decided that we wanted to do a retro looking Superhero nursery if we were in fact having a boy. Well, in November we found out that we were indeed having a boy and Pinterest has been consulted greatly in the decorating of his room. We didn't want to just choose one superhero or buy things that were too commercial so I knew that I (with a lot of help) would be creating some DIY stuff for his room. I came across an awesome t-shirt quilt picture on Pinterest that I knew I wanted to do for his bed (as I could find no bedding set on the market that matched what I was looking for).


This is the inspiration quilt- Picture from http://tinyurl.com/bwyu5eq

 

I just happen to have a friend who is an awesome seamstress and she said she would help/teach me to make a quilt like this. After a few trips to thrift shops, a donation from my wonderful husband, and a trip to Jo-Ann's for some flannel fabric we had all the pieces we needed to make the blanket. We decided to follow the picture above except to add an extra column, and not to use minky fabric (as I was told it can be a pain in the butt to work with).

Measuring and cutting the big squares



 

The big squares and starting to figure out the small ones

 

I won't pretend to be an expert on this process or try to give you a step by step account, it took a lot of work, time, and decision making to figure out exactly who we wanted the blanket to look.

With the small squares figured out

Starting to sew the fabric on the back of the big squares

 





We ended up using the yellow, cityscape, and extra grey fabric we had to make the back of the quilt. It was stressful at first trying to make the back look good and work with what we had but in the end we were pretty happy with how it turned out.

Sewing big squares to the little ones

 

My friend Z did a lot of the sewing but she showed me how to use her machine and by the end of it (after a lot of rethreading and small fixes) I felt like I had an OK handle on the process. I also realized that I want a sewing machine really bad (there is always Christmas) and I am excited to try other sewing projects. It took at least four different 3-4 hour long sessions to complete the quilt (and a lot of Fuzzy's Taco's Chicken Fajita salads) but in the end it was totally worth it (and not just because of the salads).

This is after it has been sewed, the ends of all the squares snipped, washed, and tumbled dry on low. It makes A LOT of lint so if you try this be prepared to be cleaning out the lint trap on the dryer.

Close up on a small square section

 

It definitely has it's imperfections, but I think that is what makes it special. I can tell my son that his Mom and Miss Z worked together to make him something unique and one of a kind. I love it and I hope he will appreciate it as well.

Hanging in his room, waiting to be used. (Miss Z also made the awesome grey chevron bed skirt as well, because she is awesome!)

Easter Haystacks or Should I Say Bird's Nests

I saw this pin about a month ago and thought it would be perfect to try for Kathryn's school Easter party. My friend M makes haystacks at Christmas and these are only slightly different and only need a few ingredients.

not pictured is bag of Cadbury Robin's eggs

 

The pin I used didn't include measurements bit I know I needed to make at least 27 of these. I lined the muffin tins with cupcake liners to make these a bit less messy for the kiddos. I have a Wilton chocolate melter (buy one of these if you don't have one, totally worth the 20 dollars) and threw in one bag of the butterscotch chips. Once the chips were melted I added in a bit of coconut oil (about 1 teaspoon) to thin the butterscotch a bit (you could use Crisco if you don't have coconut oil). I added about 2/3 of the bag of chow mien noodles to a bowl, put in the melted butterscotch and mixed them around until all of the chow mien noodles were covered.

I then spooned the chow mien noodles into the cupcake tins (this part is messy, be prepared). I placed three Cadbury eggs in each nest. I was about 7 nests short so I melted half a bag of butterscotch and mixed in the rest of the noodles to finish making the nests. I put them in the fridge overnight to harden them.

The kids really liked them, I got compliments from K's teachers and luckily two ended up coming home with her. They tasted very good and were super easy. This would be a great for older kids to make but again I recommend using the chocolate melter over having to use a double boiler or regular pan to melt the butterscotch.





Another Double Post- At Least this One is Tasty

Like I said yesterday, I am trying to catch up on all the Pinterest things I have done in the last few weeks so I am doubling up my posts.

Post 1- St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes: My first one is pretty simple though. Kathryn's school allows parents to bring in homemade items for parties and birthdays and what not so I have had a habit of trying out my Pinterest creations on unsuspecting 4 year olds. Her birthday was on the 13th so I decided I would make some St. Patrick's Day inspired cupcake for her classmates. I had seen ones on Pinterest that used the marshmallows from a box of Lucky Charms to decorate the green colored icing and thought I would give that a shot.

I didn't take a picture of the ingredients but all I used was a box of Betty Crocker yellow cake mix (and all of the ingredients that requires), green Wilton brand gel coloring that comes in the small screw top containers (I got my set of eight colors from Michael's), and a tub and a half of Betty Crocker White frosting (I was pretty liberal with the icing), and one smaller box of Lucky Charms. I followed all the normal cake instructions, adding in the gel icing into the batter with a toothpick (a little went a long way). While that was going on I separated the marshmallows from the cereal. This was probably the most annoying part of the whole process and you need to be sure you have absolutely dry hands.

So if you ever wondered what the marshmallow to cereal ratio is in Lucky Charms, your question has now been answered. Then I colored the icing green with the same gel coloring and used a piping bag and a star tip to make the icing swirls. I thought I could just sprinkle the marshmallows on the top but they didn't stick so I ended up just placing 6-7 marshmallows on each cupcake and then sprinkled on a little green decorative sugar I had left over from Christmas cookies.

Taste wise, these were delicious. The icing and the marshmallows complimented each other and just made the whole cupcake taste awesome. Since her birthday was during Spring Break, the class size was a bit smaller and we came home with some cupcakes. On the second day the marshmallows had gotten soft and started to look a little sad. They tasted fine but had definitely lost their eye appeal. I would make these again but I would wait to put the marshmallows on until right before I served them to keep them from getting all soft. I ended up making 30 cupcakes and only had a very small amount of marshmallows left over (which my husband so graciously offered to eat).

Post 2- Cheese Tortellini (Soup)

As soon as I saw the pin for this one, I was excited to give it a try. I had most of the ingredients and got lucky and got the refrigerated cheese tortellini on sale at Target.

 

The original recipe can be found here, http://littlefellows.blogspot.com/2011/11/best-crockpot-meal-ive-tried-yet.html. I changed a few things based on what I had around the house and my attempt to make this a meatless meal (I'll get to that in a minute). You start by throwing in the tortellini, one full box of chicken broth, as much baby spinach as you think looks good (I probably did two decent handfuls), 3/4 a jar of pasta sauce (whatever flavor you have lying around), 1 can of Italian tomatoes (which I didn't have so I used stewed tomatoes and sprinkled on some oregano and garlic flakes to the top), and one box of cream cheese cut into cubes.



Put on the lid and and cook on low for 4-6 hours. I stirred about once every hour to help melt the cream cheese. I usually use crockpot liners but I ran out and the picture below shows why I am such a fan of crockpot liners. It was no crockpot chili in terms of cleanup but I would have much rather had the bag in there than had to scrub the pot.



Now I had intended this to be a no meat meal for a Friday during Lent. I thought I was being an awesome wife of a Catholic and trying something outside our typical Friday Lenten meals. It didn't dawn on me until the tortellini was almost done that I had used CHICKEN stock as a base. I fessed up to the hubs and told him of my meatly accident. We decided to save this for dinner on Saturday and we ended up having fish sticks and french fries for dinner that night.

It turned out super tasty, and might have even tasted better eating in the next day. It was not soupy though, I guess I could have added more broth but honestly this worked just as well as a saucy tortellini meal and I probably won't worry about making it soupy the next time I make it. We ended up eating off of this for a few days and I even put a good sized portion in the freezer to save for a meal later. The original recipe calls for sausage and next time I'll probably make it with meat to try it that way, but it didn't need meat to make it taste good. This is really good and worth adding into any dinner rotation, especially if you can get the tortellini at a good price.

Been away for awhile, but gotten a lot done

So 3rd Trimester pregnancy has been kicking my butt. I hate complaining because I have been very lucky this pregnancy and haven't had any issues major or minor. That being said, insomnia has taken hold and I'm only getting 5-6 hours of sleep a night (and I know it's only gonna get worse). I haven't had the energy to blog, although I have completed a lot of Pinterest projects in the last few weeks. I'll put a few up here on this post and then try to do a few more this week. Once the little man shows up, I know there will be another blogging lull and I don't want all these perfectly good pins to go to waste.

1st Pin of the Post- Simple Crockpot French Dip Sandwiches

I had this one pinned for awhile and was waiting to see some chuck roast on sale to try it. The recipe is pretty straight forward and all you need is 3-5 pounds of chuck roast, beef broth, french onion soup, and a can or bottle of beer.

Put the roast in the crockpot, pour in 1 can (or half a box) of beef broth, 1 can of french onion soup, and 1 can/bottle of beer (BL was all that was in the house, feel free to use what you have). Turn the crockpot to low, and cook for 7-8 hours.

After 7 hours on low

 

The smell was amazing and gave me (and my husband) pretty high expectations for how the roast would taste. The meat was tender when it came out of the crockpot and taste wise was very good. There was a tiny hint of the beer, but honestly if I hadn't known there was beer in the broth, I wouldn't have known that's what I was tasting.

The downside was that this meat was intended to go on hoagie buns with provolone cheese and dipped in the aus jus. Although the meat tasted great and the broth made a great aus ju, the meat was still fairly tough and more along the consistency of pot roast. This made it hard to eat on the bun and you ended up with big  bites of meat or of bun but not a lot of bites of the two together. I would most definitely make this recipe again, but with the intention of eating it like a traditional roast with vegetables, not as a sandwich filler.

 

 

2nd Pin of the Post- Banana Oat Cookies or aka Not as Good as You Think They Might Be

I had seen the pin of making "Banana Oat Cookies" (in parenthesis because I don't think they really classify as cookie) with just bananas and oats (and chocolate chips if you want). I figured if these were good I could make them in a weak moment when I wanted cookies but didn't want to consume all the calories. The concept seemed simple enough, mash up some bananas with some oats, mix in a little chocolate, bake it for a little bit and BAM you have a healthy dessert.

 

I didn't have chocolate chip so I though a little cocoa powder might give it a little extra flavor without adding calories.

Two bananas (medium sized), 1 cup of oats, and 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder into the food processor for about 30 seconds.

The consistency reminded me a lot of my Grandma's no bake cookies and I spooned the batter onto a cookie sheet and into the oven at 350 for 10 minutes.

They came out looking like a drier version of my Grandma's No Bake Cookies, unfortunately that is where the similarities ended. They tasted terrible. You could taste the banana but they were dry, bland, and the consistency was weird. Now I know I didn't use chocolate chips, but I doubt those could have saved these impostor cookies. I had a friend over and even she said they were pretty abysmal. I do have friends who have made these and said they really liked them, so I will only say that they may be an acquired taste. I might try this one more time, when I do have chocolate chips and I might throw in just a bit of peanut butter (or Nutella) for a little extra flavor. This recipe is a "try at your own risk" but I would love to hear from anyone who gives it a try and lets me know about their experience.

 





Pinterest inspired Crockpot Chicken Enchilada Soup

Normally my goal is to recreate a Pinterest recipe to the exact specifications of the recipe. Sometimes however necessity (i.e. not having all of the ingredients) dictates small changes and sometimes personal tastes and desires means changing the recipe a lot. When I decided to try this specific recipe and I actually pursued all the ingredients I decided that this would become a "Pinterest Inspired" recipe, not quite a recreation and not quite an original  I was taking a chance since I would be changing so much of the amounts and some of the ingredients but I figured when it comes to this blog a little failure never hurt anyone (and I always have oven ready pizza on reserve in the freezer.)

The original recipe comes from http://themomthehousewife.blogspot.com/2012/09/chicken-fiesta-soup.html and I am sure it is delicious in its own right. This recipe to helped me to clean some items out of my fridge to make room for the new groceries I bought this morning. So here are my recipe amounts, but keep in mind I was winging it so this could easily be adjusted to fit the tastes of the chef.

2 shredded chicken breasts (I had these in the fridge already, I cooked about 5 chicken breasts a few days before in the crock-pot so I would have shredded chicken to eat all weekend. I had about 2 breasts worth by this morning.)
Half a bottle of V8 Low Sodium- about 32 oz
2/3 a 24 oz jar of mild salsa
Half a box of chicken broth (about 16oz)
1 can of mild Enchilada sauce
1 can of corn (slightly strained but you can leave some water in it)
1/2 a small sweet onion chopped
Spice wise I sprinkled in some salt, pepper, cumin, red pepper flakes, and smoked chipotle Tabasco. I tend not to like things too spicy and I was hoping I could get an almost 4 year old to eat it so I didn't go to heavy on any of the spicy stuff.

Throw all of these ingredients in the crock-pot, stir to mix everything together, and put the heat on low. I set the timer for 5 hours since the original recipe called for 4-6 hours on low. I happen to be tracking calories on MyFitnessPal (a great website and app by the way) and put the recipe in to see how many calories was in it. Now don't quote me on exact amounts but if you split this recipe in 6 servings (which would be pretty large servings) it would only have about 198 calories per serving, so obviously it is pretty low calorie (without the garnishes which we'll get to in a second).

After the timer goes off just put it in bowl with as much cheese as you would desire (we used the Great Value Mexican Cheese Blend). I also added a spoonful of light sour cream to mine as well.

With cheese

After sour cream and cheese mixed together

We ate this with tortilla chips as well (which obviously throws the 198 calories a serving thing out the window). The hubs and I thought it was delicious and even the kid ate a good bit (by her eating standards). The flavors came together very well and had just enough spice to add flavor without it being too hot. The thing I love about this recipe is how easily it can be adjusted for personal taste. You could add more spice, more heat, different salsa, different types of beans, different chilies and it would still turned out good. We have 2 small servings for lunch tomorrow and one large serving that will be going in the freezer to save for later. You could also add more of each ingredient in a larger crock-pot and easily serve a crowd. I highly suggest trying this recipe and then letting me know what changes you made and how it turned out. There is nothing better than an easy and highly versatile recipe to have ready in your cooking arsenal.