Ice Cream Bar Date Night

The other night Cold Stone had a dollar scoop day. I signed up for my local Cold Stone's texting club so every now and then I get deals sent to me. It's very exciting cause I love getting a bargain! Free food is even better, but most of that happens on my birthday week. Any other time that Matt and I have taken advantage of dollar scoop day, we've each just picked one flavor, but this time I did something a little differently; I got 6 different flavors!

These are just the cute little cups. Sure, I could have gotten WAY more for a dollar just a few doors down at King Soopers, and those would have come with stuff inside of it. But I thought this was more fun! When I got home I got to work adding fun things to each ice cream to make 6 very unique ice cream sundaes. Here's what I came up with:

Chocolate ice cream with mini M&Ms.

Mint ice cream with traditional mini chocolate chips and some chocolate syrup on top.

Blueberry frozen yogurt with graham cracker and chocolate drizzle. 

Banana ice cream with toffee bits, white chocolate chips, and caramel drizzle.

Oreo creme ice cream with 2 whole Oreos. 

Salted caramel frozen yogurt with a caramel candy crushed up and caramel drizzle. 

All the flavors were really good! The blueberry tasted like blueberry pie. The salted caramel was my favorite flavor but the consistency was weird with it being a yogurt instead of an ice cream. Matt loves most things with Oreo in it. And the banana mixture was fun; it had the most in it and tasted like a banana split. 

All in all a fun date night! Before trying this be sure to check with your significant other to see if eating so many random flavors all at once sounds good to them or not. I did not do this... Poor Matt. 

Towel Origami - Dress Shirt and Tie

Once upon a time I had a clamorous job at a Holiday Inn cleaning up after people. It was magical. In this amazing kingdom that constantly smelled of beach, I learned a few fun towel tricks. Today I'll show you how to make a dress shirt and tie. Super easy. All you need is a hand towel and a wash cloth. 

Dress shirt and tie towel origami. 

Lay out hand towel upside-down. 

Fold each side in to meet in the middle. 

Turn folded towel over. 

Now fold in half, but unevenly so the top overlaps the bottom a little.

On the overlapping side, open the towel up.

Fold the top under and shape the front like a shirt collar. 

Now lay your wash clothe flat. 

Fold one corner in unevenly, so the bottom is fatter and the top makes a point. 

Have the other corner mirror the shape, folding over as needed so the edges don't so when you flip it over. 

Position the tie towel on the shirt towel, overlapping a bit. 

Tuck under the tip of the tie into where the collar is. 

There we go! Completed dress shirt and tie. 

This is fun and easy and makes your bathroom a little fancier for guests. I like to try and pick out designs and colors that would actually be used for a shirt and tie, but that's just me.

Animal Baby Shower

I recently hosted a baby shower for a friend who was expecting a little girl. My Pinterest is full of baby shower ideas, which is sad because I don't have any children. I guess me having a kids board is like someone having a wedding board who isn't even dating someone... Either way I was excited to put a few of the ideas together. I'm not sure where all of these ideas came from because I went through the pictures of multiple party ideas. But what we were going for was a zoo animal themed. And she had told me the nursery was purple with flowers so I tried to incorporate a bit of that in, but I did mostly pink.

Food Table

I wrapped the water bottles in duct tape to match. There's fruit dip and animal crackers.

More animal crackers. Also the back of the table had stuffed animals and pink, purple, and clear glass bottles. 

Cupcakes. 

Baby face cupcakes.

Veggies and dip. 

Hanging decorations. 

Baby bottle party favors full of baby themed candy like "sugar babies".

St. Patty's Day Kid Project

I got the idea for this project while searching Pinterest for anything St. Patty's Day themed. I saw this project and really liked the idea. I told Matt I wanted one with both our hand prints on it and he said "no" faster then he's ever said it before! Maybe when we have kids he'll do dorky crafts with me.

So I help out with an after-school activity day for girls at church. They wanted to do an art project so I decided to have fun with them and exclude Matt completely!

First I already wrote out the saying "I'm so lucky to have you" in different sizes and fonts for the girls to choose from. You can pick any saying, obviously, but I liked that the word "lucky" was included.

Then I had them add four-leaf clovers in thumbprints to different parts of the paper. I used card stock to be sturdier and so the paint wouldn't soak through.

It was very simple to do. Have the kids dip 1 thumb in the paint and then rub their two thumbs together. This makes sure the paint isn't too thick so you can tell it's a thumbprint and so it doesn't take all day to dry! Then with your pinkie finger dipped in paint, drag out from the center to form a stem. 

Once they were dried we doodled all kinds of festive things on there like leprechauns and rainbows. It was a lot of fun! I wanted to get stickers or things to add. Here's my final project:

It's nice to craft like a kid every once in a while. And I don't get the chance unless I have someone else's kids around! I would still very much like to make one with Matt and I's hand prints making the clovers like it shows on the link, I think that would be very cute. One day when he owes me a HUGE favor I might call it in for this!

I'd love to see pictures if you do this craft with any kids for St. Patty's Day this year!

Banana Bread in a Mug

You know what? I talk too much. Let's try this different, shall we? An entire post of recipe and instructions in just photos. Should be fun, huh? Here's banana bread in a mug.

In a bowl add 3 tbsp of flour.

Add 1 tbsp + 1 tsp sugar.

Add 2 tbsp brown sugar. One of my favorite things in the world is how brown sugar keeps its shape when you drop it in a bowl. 

1/8 tsp salt

1/8 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

Mix together.

Add 1 egg.

Mix well. 

Add 1/4 tsp vanilla.

And 1 tbsp vegetable oil.

1 tbsp milk. 

Mix in and smoosh up a banana.

The batter will be a little runnier than a bread dough would be.

Spray a mug with cooking spray. 

Dump batter into mug.

Cook for 3 - 3.5 minutes.

Let cool because it will be super hot!

This is not the BEST banana bread I've ever had, but it was the fastest and least messy. It has a cake consistency to it and made enough for two if you feel like sharing. 

Thanks for experiencing my picture blog and thanks to Pass The Sushi for the recipe. Enjoy!