Celery Art

In my quest to do/try more things I have pinned in pinterest, I made a quick piece of wall art last week.

This was actually one of the first things I had EVER pinned, so I was pretty psyched to try it after I made a fruit and veggie trip to Costco. After I had cut up and prepped all of the food for eating, I realized, that I had left over veggies for an art project!!

Here is the original "pinspiration":

Using cut celery as a stamp!! Genius, right?

Well, I learned some things along the way. I started with some thick watercolor paper. I didn't want to use regular printer paper, so I just grabbed this so the colors wouldn't bleed. I had 4 cut celery stalks and I picked some paint.

I dipped the celery end into some paint and made sure it was squished around really good and picked up the paint.

Lesson 1: Don't cut the celery stalk down too low or the "flower" is all mushed together and then the paint just looks like a blob. Make your lowest cut up farther on the stalk so there is room for the stalks to "spread out." You can see what I mean in the picture below (look at the middle of the stalk...it's a big blob).

Lesson 2: Don't push too hard on the celery stamp when you use it or the paint just bleeds together and there is no stalk separation (lesson 1).

Lesson 3: If you don't push hard enough, it looks like an accident. And this is definitely art that you want to look intentional. Do you see the top left light blue stalk? That was one that didn't get pushed hard enough.

It was a fun, quick project, but probably not something I'd frame or hang. Now if Avery had done it, I'd be the proudest Mommy in town. It was fun, but might be cuter in red or pink on ivory cards for Valentine's Day or something.

I did this project in less than 10 minutes, including set up and clean up. Easy peasy. I think it would be fun for kids too, with hand guidance so that you didn't end up with celery flowers on your wall :) I'm glad I practiced and I might be trying this with Avery the next time I buy celery. Happy stamping!!

Anyone else try something they saw on pinterest lately? Did it go according to plan?

Making Freezer Crock Pot Meals

I think this is a common emotion that many people feel when it comes to the execution of projects, recipes, or home decor on pinterest:

I have really really been trying to have more execution of pins. On days that Troy and I both work all day, we have this conversation around 430 or 5 when we both get home.

Natalie: What do you want to do for dinner?

Troy: I dunno. Whatever you want.

Natalie: You're cooking if you don't tell me what you want me to make.

Troy: Uh, chicken something.

Natalie: We had chicken last night.

Troy: Okay well don't ask me what I want for dinner and then shoot me down when I tell you.

Natalie: Frozen pizza?

Troy: Okay.

And then we high five the lazy.

To stop the frozen pizza cycle, I started searching for some crock pot recipes on pinterest. Then I found this one. 8 meals. MAJOR win.

I made a list of things that we needed and the meat was definitely the most expensive part. I needed 8 chicken breasts, 3 lbs of beef stew, and 2 lbs of ground beef. I got everything from Costco and probably spent about 25 dollars just on meat. Most of the other stuff was stuff we had on had already (potatoes, onions, and carrots). If you click on the link, it has the recipes I used and also a whole list of grocery items.

It took me about 1.5 hours (during Avery's nap and Troy's homework time) to do all the prep and cooking required for these meals. There are 8 bags and 4 different recipes with 2 bags of each recipe.

Here is the beef stew and the teriyaki chicken up close. I wrote ON the bag if there are any additional instructions (add water, serve over rice/egg noodles, cooking time, etc) for each recipe.

This is the BBQ chicken and beef goulash.

Troy stacked up 4 in the freezer outside and we stacked the other 4 inside. There are only 3 bags in the picture because we decided to have the bbq chicken recipe for an early dinner the next day and wanted it thawed, so that one is in the fridge.

And here is the BBQ chicken cooked and served up hot. It was delicious. Highly recommend so far. Happy cooking.

We had the beef goulash yesterday for brunch with egg noodles. DELICIOUS! I liked it better than the BBQ chicken. YUM.

PS. The author of the original pin (the website with the recipes above) suggested some changes to the recipes that were a little bland. I did the additional ingredients she suggested to give them a little oomph. So far so good. I'm all about easy.