Confessions

Who doesn't love chocolate?! Ty and I may or may not be the littlest bit addicted to that smooth, sensational, mouth watering, incredibly delicious substance! So much so that I may or may not be able to remember the last day that I didn't have at least a taste of that magical stuff! 

Last night... around 11 pm or so... Tyler and I were going through some serious withdrawals... I hadn't had chocolate all night long! So... we decided to make a chocolate cake! Nothing is better then cake at midnight! 

The cake is from a box because... lets get real here... it the best way to make a cake... and I'm a terrible cook... but (drum roll here) I DID make the frosting from scratch BECAUSE... Homemade frosting is the best!!!! Here's the recipe:

8 Tbsp. (one stick) butter, room temperature

1/3 cup cocoa

3 3/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

3-4 Tbsp. milk or cream

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Beat the butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy, about 30 seconds. Add in cocoa, sugar, milk or cream, and vanilla extract and beat the frosting. Add and additional tablespoon of milk or cream if frosting is too thick!

Well thats all for today! Hope you have a chocolatey day!! 

Happy Mother's Day!

To all you moms out there...

you are all rock stars in my book!!! 

Happiest of Mother's Days! 

 

Spruce it up!

As I mentioned before, my sister-in-law Aleisha wanted to spruce up her living room! Last weekend I took a trip down and we got crafty! Like all husbands do, her's set a budget and WE TOTALLY ROCKED IT!!! Which is GREAT because I feared that if I didn't stay within budget I would never be invited back :) 

So, here's the HOW TO RE-VAMP YOUR ROOM WITH A $75 BUDGET!!!

Before!

After!

Tips for decorating on a budget:

• Use things you already have! Aleisha loved her red pillow covers and there was no need to replace all of them! We found ways to incorporate things she had and loved into the new design! Frames and nick nacks are also easy to paint and reuse! 
• PAINT PAINT PAINT!!! I am a firm believer that you can PAINT anything!!!  (We kinda covered this right above but...) We painted that funky brown side table and it made a world of a difference to the room and hardly cost us anything! 
• Get out the old sewing machine! Pillow covers at IKEA are  $8 bucks a piece... not totally going to break the bank.. unless you need 5 or 6+ We found some awesome blue and white fabric at Hobby Lobby for a fraction of the cost and made our own pillow covers! 

Ways to spruce things up:

• Add a cool pattern or design on your table top!

• Change up the lighting! (Aleisha had this floor lamp in her basement so we decided to switch it out just for fun!)

• New pillows change the whole look of the room!

• Don't want to mess around with moving that artwork bolted to the wall? Add Frames on the sides! 

• Add fun accents like these candle sticks and this painted (and glittered) wooden & sign from The Wood Connection

I'd say we really spruced this bad boy up! Thanks Aleisha for inviting me to come liven things up a bit! Enjoy your new room!!!