DIY Chalkboards + Quotes!

Before our wedding, I had purchased two large rustic-looking picture frames from TJ Maxx. I wasn't sure what I'd use them for (originally, I was thinking to frame pictures from the wedding) - but I loved the way they looked, and they were only $8.99. For that price, I ended up buying both of them and knew that I'd find use for them somewhere/somehow.

Wedding time came! I wanted to have a sign by our favors (mason jars with little tags, and crab mallets with our names and wedding date etched on them), and I wanted to have a sign beside our candy bar. 

While at Michaels for other wedding supplies, I picked up a can of black chalkboard paint. (Note: Be careful when purchasing your chalkboard paint. I didn't know that there are different colors. At that time - Michaels carried green and black [now - you can get a variety of other colors], so at first I mistakenly picked up a can of green before realizing that it wasn't the black that I had wanted). At this time, chalkboard paint was becoming more popular  and I had seen other people spray painting different things to use as a chalkboard - I definitely wanted to give it a try!

My dad, a few days before the wedding, took the glass out of the frames and set up shop in the garage to spray paint them, to turn into chalkboards. Here he is getting the job done:

He went over the glass numerous times to make sure that there were thick and even layers of paint. After drying (we waited 24 hours), we put the glass back into the frames, and they looked amazing! They had looked like we purchased them as chalkboards, instead of picture frames - I was extremely happy with how they had turned out.

I used chalk to write out the messages that I wanted for our favors and candy bar. After the wedding, I invested in liquid chalk pens - which I like better than using regular chalk sticks, it's also much easier to use (also pretty inexpensive - I think the 4 pack was around $6).

I wish I had better pictures of the signs next to each of the tables at our wedding. These were taken while we were setting up before the wedding, and putting everything in place :)

After our wedding, I continue using the chalkboards for different things. They were used at my girlfriend Alison's wedding, and I used them for other parties and showers that I have hosted throughout the year. I hung one in our kitchen and I love writing out little quotes and sayings on it, and changing it up often. I find a lot of my ideas on Pinterest for lettering and different designs.

Here are a few that I have pictures of. I wish I had taken more pictures of other quotes that I had done in our kitchen, or at parties, to show. Mental note to myself for future chalkboard-ing!

This will always be one of my favorites (above) -
this song reminds me of my Pepa.

There are a ton of sayings and quotes that I can't wait to try for the upcoming holidays. For as easy as it was to make the chalkboards (and for only $8.99/each) - they sure have gotten a lot of use so far! I can't wait to see what I can use them for in the future, and will continue to enjoy updating the one hanging in my kitchen.

Quick & Easy Dinner Option: Pepper Jack Cheese and Salsa Baked Chicken

Tonight for dinner, I had thawed out chicken breasts to make but hadn't yet decided on how I was going to spruce them up. After roaming the fridge, I decided to make pepper jack and salsa baked chicken. I had tried this quick and easy recipe last year and loved it. You'll see throughout my dinner dish recipes, that we love chicken - so we incorporate it in many of our dinners. I'm constantly trying new things or looking for new ways to spruce up our chicken dishes. Hope you try this quick and easy recipe and enjoy it as much as we do!

Ingredients:

Chicken Breasts

Chunk Pepper Jack Cheese

Salsa

To start, spray your baking dish with cooking spray and place your clean chicken breasts on the pan. 

(What do I mean when I say 'clean chicken breasts'? I'm picky with meats - so when purchasing chicken or any other kinds of steaks, fish, etc. - I take the meat out of the package when I get home from the store, trim if necessary, rinse well, dry and re-package the meat in ziplock baggies to place in the freezer. That way - I know it's clean and when I pull it out of the freezer in the future, all I need to do is thaw, re-rinse and it's ready to go. Additionally, there's no need to worry about wasting time when trying to cook dinner, to trim or mess with any frozen or freezer-burnt packaging and meat.)

Next, you'll want to shred your pepper jack cheese. I used 1/4 of the chunk of cheese for two chicken breasts.

You can then sprinkle your desired amount of cheese evenly over your chicken breasts.

Next, you'll want to spoon salsa on top of your bed of shredded cheese. I recommend using salsa from a jar. If using fresh salsa, once you bake your dish - the salsa may become mushy and you'll lose the extra flavor. 

Note: Typically, I use a little more salsa to make the layer thick; however, we were running low on salsa - so this was the rest of the jar that we had on hand.

Once you've topped your chicken with the salsa, you're ready to bake! For thin chicken breasts, bake at 350 for 30 minutes. For more thick chicken breasts, bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

Here is a picture of what I had for dinner (along with steamed broccoli) - half of one of the chicken breasts I made! :) So delicious and not to mention, the kitchen smelled amazing!

Stuffed Pepper Soup

I love bell peppers! One of my favorite things that I learned to make from my Dad is his amazing stuffed peppers. They take quite a while to make, but when they're done - they're amazing! When I came across a recipe for stuffed pepper soup, I had to try it - and I'm so glad I did! I put my own little touches and additions to it, and love making it when it's cold outside. Hope you guys enjoy this recipe as much as we do!

Ingredients

3 cups brown rice, cooked

1.5 lbs ground beef

1.5 cups of bell peppers, chopped

1 cup onion, diced

3 cloves pressed garlic

2 cans (14.5 oz each) of petite diced tomatoes 

(Note: I love to use Rotel for extra flavor)

1 3/4 cups tomato sauce 

(I like to use 1 jar of my favorite spaghetti sauce)

2 cups chicken broth

Favorite spices

Brown the ground beef on high heat until fully cooked. Drain fat, if any, and add desired spices to the ground beef. Remove from the original pan, and place into a large pot on low heat. Add peppers, onions and garlic and cook for about 5 minutes.

Add tomatoes, tomato sauce and additional seasoning. 

Stir and let simmer for 5 minutes.

Add chicken broth and rice.

Simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.

That's it! Quick and easy. Here's the final result - let me know how you like it, if you try it! :)

DIY Project: Framed Sheet Music

One of my favorite (and extremely affordable) projects from earlier this summer was FINALLY framing the sheet music that I had bought of our first dance at our wedding. I had purchased the sheet music online (for only about $5) and was able to print it from my own printer.

There are obvious ways to download and print sheet music for free, but I wanted to pay for the sheet music for numerous reasons. First, obvious copyright reasons. We loved the song - as it meant so much to us, why not give the writer the credit for their amazing work? Additionally, the sheet music and website that I found, had the sheet music sized properly to fit regular computer paper, and looked exactly the way I wanted, with the proper symbols and music notations. The website also had the option to condense the sheet music to fit 4 pages instead of 7, which I knew I wanted because I needed to keep in mind the amount of space that I wanted to use on the wall in my living room. Once I paid for the sheet music, downloaded and printed it instantly - I was very happy with how clean it looked and couldn't wait to frame it.

I had purchased the sheet music the summer we got married (2013), so I have literally had this sheet music for over a year by the time I was able to carry my project out - so what was the hold up? I didn't yet have my "forever shelf" that I had been wanting for this area, and I wanted to wait until I found the shelf I had been envisioning before making any holes in our freshly painted walls to hang the sheet music. Why take the time to hang them, then have to move them, patch the holes, repaint and remeasure, in order for it to fit and look correctly spaced with the new furniture once I finally found what I was looking for? I was bummed to have the vision and the plan for my project while not being able to actually do it, but I'm so happy that I waited because it's one of my favorite things in our house.

I'm extremely picky with furniture - so over a year after I had printed the music (and about 2.5 years after we bought our house), I found the perfect shelf for the space that I had been envisioning. Keep in mind, we had planned to purchase a shelf eventually when we moved in, but I just hadn't found one that I really wanted - so the shelf purchase wasn't because of the sheet music - I just wanted to wait until I had the shelf before hanging the music :)

While we're on the topic of my shelf - HUGE shout out to my sweet friend Olga for her help with this! We had spent one Friday night HomeGoods hopping (I think we visited 3-4 HomeGoods in the area that night while our men were at work) looking for furniture for her new house, when we came across the shelf at one of the stores. She was the one that first spotted it and helped me carry it all the way to the front of the store to check out (and even asked the cashier for a discount because it had a few knicks in it - even though we both knew that they were supposed to be there because the shelf was made to be rustic looking). When I brought it home and once Eric finally got home from work and carried it up the stairs, I was so excited - it looked perfect in that area!

Okay - back to the sheet music! Now that my shelf was in place, I was ready to buy frames. For frames on my walls, I love solid dark colors because I'm all about simplicity. I found frames that I really liked at Michaels that were on sale and even better - I had a coupon to use! Overall, I think this entire project probably cost around $30.00.

Another shout out is in order! To our friend Eddie - he was hanging out with us one night for dinner and a game (right after I had bought my frames), and lucky him - I asked him to help with the measurements so that the frames would be evenly and perfectly spaced on the wall. (I'd trust myself with one or two frames that need to be centered/leveled - but with 4, I didn't trust myself and put him to work!) He did the perfect job measuring and mapping it out on paper (even showed us that the iPhone has an awesome level app as part of the compass that's already on the iPhone) - and that night after Eric took Eddie's measurements and marked the nail holes on the wall - my sheet music was FINALLY hung perfectly, the way I had been envisioning it for the past 1.5 years! :)

Below is the final project. The picture absolutely does not do it justice - it looks so great in person. As said above, it's one of my favorite things in the house - every time I look at it, it puts a huge smile on my face, as it brings back amazing memories from our wedding :)

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post. We just got home from Ocho Rios, Jamaica! It was a beautiful, amazing trip (and we had quite a weather shock when we got home to 40 degree weather from our 90 degree paradise!) It was an amazing trip that we shared with great friends. Wanted to share a few pictures as we are slowly uploading them from our camera to our computer and while I'm tackling laundry and getting things prepared for a busy week that's ahead of us. A huge thank you to my Dad, Mom and sister for taking such good care of our baby while we were gone - he had a blast at Meme and Pop camp this past week! :) Hope you guys enjoy these few pictures that we have downloaded so far! :)

Jamaica Bound

 

Sandals Grande Riviera

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Reunited with our baby!