Drawing 101

Having a bad day?

Take 30 minutes and print a picture you really like.
Cover the back of the picture with lead from your pencil.

Tape it to a nice peice of paper, like the kind your boss keeps hidden away so you cant waste it, because its that expensive.

Then take a pen and outline the picture.
flip up the original picture and ink over your pencil.
Knowing you can do a small task like this with success, the rest of your tasks for they day will pass with ease.

I work With Dogs all day and of course I am close with all of the staff dogs, and this is Molly a rarity in general with one blue and one brown eye plus, their are about 100 Dalmatians inside of the city limits of Chicago,  and Molly is one of them <3

Crayola Creations

After seeing all of the hype about the crayon melting, I had to try it.

You need-

• A blow dryer, preferably not a nice blow dryer (goodwill)
• A gigantic bag of crayons, remember you will not be able to use these again so do not buy new crayons, scrounge for old ones!
• A can of white spray paint (who doesn't have one of these?)
• Look around at garage sales and goodwill stores for canvas pictures and spray them white, for a project like this their is no point in buying a new canvas.
• Glue (Super glue, hot-glue, wood glue.. just strong glue) 

Be sure to,

1. Glue the crayons on together in groups and remember their will be no wax where the crayons are placed
2. lay news paper all over the floor
3. do not leave the blowdryer on one crayon for two long it will splater rather than drip
4. do not touch the hot wax not only is it hot and will burn you, it also leaves ugly finger prints.

Good Luck!

B-a-n-a-n-a-s

Chocolate covered Oreo bananas!
Remember we just started this blog so I have tons of catching up to do!
K and I make a lot of treat, we like chocolate to much, if that's possible, this is one we made over the summer at Grandma's Sunday night dinner.

These Bananas only take 5 minutes to make, so listen close!
What you need-

• Bananas
• A bag of chocolate chips
• a package of Oreo's
• skewers
• wax paper
• freezer

1. heat up a bag of chocolate chips (find some one to stir constantly, burnt chocolate really smells)
2. cut all your bananas in half(hamburger style not hotdog), unless you like'em long!
3. make sure the bananas are ripe, still a little green or they will not hold up when rolled in chocolate.
4. next crush up 1/2 to1 package of Oreo's, their are a-lot of fun ways to do this.  You can put them in a bag and jump on them, put them in a bag and hammer them with the first kitchen utensil you find or, be boring and get out the food processor. (I recommend the bag ideas they leave you with less dishes)
5. Once the Oreo's are crushed put them in a shallow bowl or a paper plate(if you really hate doing dishes that much, one paper plate won't kill the whole rain forest)
6. Now comes the assembly line effect. use skewers when dipping the banana in chocolate, then roll it in the Oreo's and put it on wax paper. Repeat until you run out of bananas and then freeze for an hour and they will be ready to serve!

Mix up your summer work outs!

 

Maxing out in Millennium Park!

Summers in the Chicago suburbs are great, barbeque's, trips to the lake, tanning in the front yard, bonfires every night.. but keeping that beach body you worked for all winter is hard with the s'mores, grilled chicken and popsicles.

A great way to get otgether and embarass yourself with zumba and some friends.

A good way to keep in shape and to keep in touch with some friends is to head down to Mellinium Park every Saterday morning at 8. No matter how hung over, tired, over worked or burnt out you are it is absoluetly worth it.

For the past 2 years my friends and I have gone for Yoga at 8am, Pilates at 9, and my favorite Zumba at 10am. All of this is free and their are hundreds of people of all shapes and sizes that crawl out of bed early on saterday morning for this work out!

This is me and my unflexable self, bring a towel, yoga matt, and LOTS OF WATER!

Holiday Treats, and maybe a boot mug too.

Holiday Market, Date night ;)

Being under 21 has its disadvantages, but theirs always a way around that, redboxing at home is not your only option youngsters, go find something to do.

K and I went out last night to the seasonal Christkindle Market in the Daily Plaza.

http://www.christkindlmarket.com/en/

If your from the North west burbs, like us take the blue line to Washington and you will see it right outside the station.

 

Perfect holiday tradition to get a family ornamnet every year to add to the tree.

This place is for everybody, hot choclate for the kids and german beer/spiced wine for the adults.

After checking out the market walk a block east to State Street for a glimpse at the Macy's Windows! Perfect date night also, if I was with a special some one other than my little sis

Christmas Greens

Christmas Decor Ideas

 Everyone is trying to find new and inventive ideas for decorating their house for Christmas, but who wants to spend money on something that will only be out for a month out of they year?

Well, I know I don't no, matter how cute everything is at Ikea I can't bring myself to buy the battery operated lights and pine cones in a mason jar for 12 dollars a pop.

1. So Stop by the dollar store and buy some glass bottles, they have a wide selection, or buy slim necked vases that would work too.
2. Then pick up some yarn. Cute yarn or string of any kind.
3. Next if you do not have a strong pair of scissors or garden clippers at home you should probably buy those to, they are totally worth the investment of say, $10.
4. Go home with all of your goodies.
5. Do you have shrubbery or bushes or anything that is green still around your house? Start clipping. Everything has to be more than 6 inches in lenght, preferably 8-10 inches, better to long than too short. If you do not have shrubery, go to the park they do, or the forest preserve (but be discrete it is kind of illegal).
6.  Now that you have you clippings go back home and fill up your vases and bottles with water 3/4ths full and then start sticking your clippings in the vase.
7.  Once it is full, or at least once it looks full tie the yarn around the neck of your vase/bottle and put it some where in your house where people will notice it, ask you about it, and you will of course, show them this blog.
8.  These can be big or small and they will last as long as they are in the water and near the sun, they might even grow roots!
9. Thank my mom for this one, she is a crafty lady!

Moving up in the world?

 Inexpensive Moving Gift

Last year I was low on funds but I had alot of time when I got out of my first semester at OCC. So I looked all over blogs for what to do and I found one idea that I fell in love with and ended up giving it to one of my closest friends for christmas to spruce up her Dorm at IU.

Of course I made a few minor changes first.

1. Go to any hardware store and pick out 50-100 paint chips any size but you probably want them all to be the same size so it looks uniform and takes less time to cut up.
2. Next PAY FOR some wood glue, do not use super glue you can see it through the paint chips after words and it looks tacky. Now you don't look like the ass-hole that came in to steal some paint chips with out buying anything.
3. Then go to K-mart or any cheap store, walmart works to of your ok with that whole miss treating you workers thing. Buy a big frame, it shouldnt cost more than 10 dollars, and get a tinny squeeze bottle of paint.
4. I forgot to mention that you really should cordinate your colors so you like the combination when you put this all together.
5. Go home and cut up those paint chips, it will take a while to so, buy a redbox movie and chill or drag your boo along to help you or in my case sence i'm lacking a boo manipulate yoursister into helping.
6. Now their are 2 options for this either you can paint words on these chips as I did with the awesome Dr.Seuss Quote, or you can use white paint chips to write a name or slogan that is of course personally fitting to your realtionship. Tip: use dense colors next to the white chips to make them stick out. (I just thought of that second option while I was writing this so let me know how it works if you try it and I will add it to my list of things to try.)
7. Back to what I was saying put on some paramore, redbox, christmas music which ever you like and start glueing you cut up paint chips to the backing of the frame, so its permenent, if your friend hates it they will just have to deal because it wont just slip out of the frame to be replaced by a poster of chuck bass.
8. This gluing will also take a while and remember with glue less is more!!

Once you have finished and cordinated your white chips into words or painted your awesome quote onto it set it up high somewhere where the dogs, parents roomates, birds do not step on it for a day then wrap it up and hand it over for christmas.
 You can aslo do this with a few small frames that all go up together to spance things out a bit their are alot of options so good luck and please give me feed back on your virsions, I plan to use this ideas for chirstmases and birthdays to come.