Free Museum Admission

The pilot is home this week so I took a day off work to spend some quality time with him and visit the Museum of Science and Industry Chicago.  It has been on our to-do list for awhile now since our last trip there together was over 10 years ago. 

The top two reasons why we have not visited in over 10 years:

1. Whenever we think about going we then realize that all of the schools are off on that day.  That means that there will be hordes of parents trekking along their children for a fun (extremely crowded) day at the museum.  I'll take a rain check.
2. The exhibits we want to see the most are too much money in addition to the overly priced $30 regular admission.  Do you know how much clearance fabric I can buy for that?
   

Well you can imagine the overwhelming excitement I felt when the pilot shared the news that the day we wanted to go was an "Illinois Free Day" and a weekday when school is in session!!!!  Yes and yes!

Did you know that all of the Chicago museums have days when the admission is free?!  Luckily they publish the dates in advance so started planning your year now.

Here are links to find out the 2012 free / discount dates for some of my favorite Chicago museums:

• Adler Planetarium's "Discount Days"
• Art Institute of Chicago "FREE Admission Days"
• Chicago Children's Museum's "Free Days"
• Field Museum's "Discount Days"
• Museum of Contemporary Art's "Free Tuesdays"
• Museum of Science and Industry's "Illinois Free Days"
• Shedd Aquarium "Illinois Resident Discount Days"

Of course we had to check out their airplane exhibit!

Friendsgiving

Right before the hustle and bustle of the holiday season I received an invitation to Friendsgiving hosted by my fabulous best friend Sarah.  She wanted to make sure we devoted an evening to celebrate the joyful season, not with family we are born into but with the family we choose... our friends.

The hostess-with-the-mostess Sarah and my two other besties MariKate and Lauren

Sarah did a beautiful job setting up her city apartment for this gourmet feast.  She rearranged her living room so that hosted one long elegant table furnished with 20 lovely place settings.  Seriously she busted out her Martha Stewart skills to create a scene we will always remember as our first Friendsgiving.

Now to help feed the masses we were each responsible for bringing a dish.  In addition to Sarah's chicken tetrazzini, we devoured a gorgeous salad, "crack potatoes", broccoli casserole, pieorgis, Polish sausage and sauerkraut plus some apps and desserts.  Oh, and my Italian Roasted Veggies.

As promised to my soon-to-be-new-followers (right Erica?), here is the recipe for my Italian Roasted Veggies.

Italian Roasted Veggies

• Dressing
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 tbsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tbsp dried parsley
• 1/2 tbsp dried basil
• 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tbsp salt
• 1/2 tbsp black pepper
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• Veggies you want 
• I included zucchini, cherry tomatoes, red onions, sweet peppers (green, red, orange and yellow), summer squash and some carrot
• Chop up all of the veggies and place in a bowl.  In a separate bowl mix up the ingredients for the dressing.  Once mixed, pour the dressing into the veggies and stir.  Cover a baking sheet with foil and pour the veggies on top.  Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees.  (Hint: you can keep the veggies marinating in the fridge until you are ready to bake.)
  

 

Truly, it was an awesome night!  We even went around the table and announced to the group what we were thankful for and it really shed some light on how lucky we are to have such great friends. 

Looking forward to many more Friendsgivings to come!

DIY Yarn & Felt Flower Wreath

One of my best friends, Lauren, has always been crafty.  Even in high school she would give us homemade cards for our birthdays.  So after we discussing our recent projects she had the idea to start a crafting group.  We'd choose 1 - 2 nights a month to get together and work on a new project.  While we thought this was a super fun idea, our other friends teased us so our crafting group ended up as a crafting duo :)

 

One of Lauren's specialties is wreath making.  Each season she embellishes her city apartment with new wreaths and also gives them out as gifts to her family.  And since I am the only female living in my condo building BUT also the only door without a wreath I asked Lauren if we could have that be our first project.

I decided to attempt a yarn & felt flower wreath while she opted for the fabric flower wreath.  This post will just focus on my wreath first and save hers for another post.

Materials were simple:

• 12" styrofoam wreath circle ($4.99)
• Yarn ($2.99)
• 5 sheets of felt ($0.39 each)

To create the felt flowers, I cut out different size squares from the felt.  This was my first time using my rotary blade and cutting mat and I am in love.  This is going to save me so much time!  Obviously the bigger the square, the bigger the flower so be sure to cut out different sizes.

Once I cut out the square I cut a circle within.  Then I started a spiral cut beginning with a thin slice and gradually increasing the width.  Check out Beth's video tutorial at Home Stories A 2 Z to see how to do it.

Start with the thin side and then spiral around and hot glue the end.  Again, watch the video for much better directions.  Here are the flowers I created.

The yarn part was simple... hot glue the beginning piece and wrap around until it was covered.  Then I just hot glued the flowers on in the order I wanted.  To add a little more texture I hot glued mini flowers in the middle of some of them.  See the finished product below.

Check out Lauren's blog post about her fabric flower wreath.  Here's a sneak peak...

Stay tuned for other crafting duo projects.

DIY Placemats

I really love my dining room table and the pilot loves it even more.  The problem with our table is that we live in a condo so that gorgeous dining room table is more like other people's kitchen table, a.k.a. the holding spot for all your crap and the only table we eat at.  To make sure we keep this table for a long time we have always used placemats.  Since I am like a 5 year old when I eat and can be quite messy, we use the ugly plastic ones.  As soon as I got my sewing machine, the DIY placemats (inspired by Jen at My Own Road) were the first project I thought of to enhance the look of the table.  

I've learned that sewing can be an expensive habit so I have made a promise to myself that I will only buy fabric on clearance.  This means I probably won't find the perfect fabric on my first trip so after a few visits to two different fabric stores I finally found an outdoor fabric on clearance in colors that match my home!  Plus the felt fabric for underneath was on clearance.  Now I was specifically seeking out outdoor fabric for on top so it would be easy to clean and the felt on bottom to protect our table.

First I used a disappearing ink marker to measure the fabric I needed to sew each placemat.  I gave myself some extra inches on each side, just in case.

 

Now that I had my pieces cut I needed to create the lines to sew on to make an appropriate size placement.  I used an extra large calendar we had (it has cool photos of airplanes that I plan to frame... one day) as the tracing tool because it was a great size (17" tall and 20" wide) for my table. 

After I drew the lines I pinned it with right sides (the good one you want people to see) together.  I sewed along the lines leaving 3 inches at one corner.  The opening is to turn the placemat inside out.

 Once I finished sewing I trimmed off the excess fabric.

 Then I turned it inside-out through that small opening.  To help get the corners you may need to stick something inside to poke it out.  I had a sewing needle right by so I just used that.  You can see that it was bubbled up which is not surprising because this is how you would make a pillow.

I pinned the open corner so that I could get it ready to stitch up.

Then ironed the placements flat.  This will help make sure you have straight, even lines.

Instead of drawing lines on the nice side of the fabric I just made sure that it was at the same mark on the sewing machine and I feed the fabric through.  After I did all four sides I was done!  Now being a beginner I had a few issues adjusting the thread tension so it bunched up under the fabric a few times so I made sure to keep the pattern on the top side. 

Here one of the corners is folded over so you can see the felt fabric on the bottom sides.  I'm so happy with the result because not only do I have much nicer placemats but it was super cheap too!

Cracked Make-up Fix

How many of you have found your make-up looking like this?

Isn't that the worst when you open up your make-up bag just to have all of your favorite cosmetics covered in broken make-up?  Or when you accidentally drop one? Ugh - it is so frustrating just thinking about!

Well luckily there is a solution for us ladies and it come in a bottle of rubbing alcohol, which I bought at for $1 at the dollar store. 

Simply pour a few drops into the make-up...

 And rub with your finger until smooth, or at least smooth enough :)

Let it dry and now your make-up is back to good!  Isn't this a great way to save money?  In the past I would have gone to the store and bought a new one.  Now I can delay that trip a little bit more.

What are your favorite household tricks?

Beer Battered Avocados & Jalapenos

Holy guacamole!  I made beer battered avocados and jalapenos and boy were they good.

This week I was so preoccupied on my projects that I didn't take the time to meal plan and go grocery shopping.  As much as I love to plan, I secretly enjoy when I do this because it forces me to be creative in the kitchen.  Looking around my kitchen I decided to make a side dish that was inspired by a meal I had at Rock Bottom Brewery.  It was a limited time special (of course it was!) that came with my plank grilled fish as the side: fried avocado rings.  It had the perfect amount of crunchy batter with a creamy deliciousness inside.  Seriously it was heaven. Sadly I have yet to find this side dish again at a restaurant so it was about time I made it.

I didn't follow any particular recipe and instead just whipped up a beer batter recipe that I have used for onion rings and chicken.  I ended up with so much extra batter that I looked for something else in my kitchen to fry and that resulted in my fried (fresh) jalapenos.

Now let's make the beer batter...

First you need one cup of flour.

Next you need one egg.  Beat it and mix in with the flour.

Then add 1 tsp of garlic powder and 1/2 tsp of black pepper.

And of course, one cup of beer.  This part of the recipe requires you to drink the beer left in the can / bottle as you cook.  You're welcome.



Mix it all together.  You can essentially use this
beer batter for anything you fry: onions, chicken, zucchini, pickles, fish, etc.  Usually I use my hands or a fork to coat the food in the batter but with the avocados being soft and delicate you will want to use a slotted spoon.

 I tried to make avocado rings but was unsuccessful so it was more like avocado chunks.  For the fresh (NOT canned / jarred) jalapenos I just sliced into coins and removed the seeds.  If you are unfamiliar with fresh jalapenos just remember that the seeds and veins are where the heat is.  Be very careful in handling them!  Avoid touching your eyes and wash your hands.  In fact, you may want to wear plastic gloves or even use plastic baggies on your hands.

If you don't have a fryer (I don't)  then just heat some oil in a deep pan.  To test if it is ready, put a drop of the batter in the oil and if it bubbles right away, it's ready.  Gently fry a few pieces at a time and make sure you flip them over while they are frying to get an even golden outside. 

Remove the fried goodies and drain on paper towels to remove the excess oil.  I sprinkled them with sea salt, but as you can see, maybe a little too much for your liking.  Nonetheless, I loved them.  Surprising I enjoyed the jalapenos better than the avocado!  It is a bit of a mess and a little time at the stove but if you're looking for something fun to make, I would recommend them. 

Paper Bag Popcorn

Seriously I feel dumb for not knowing this sooner.  Did you can skip out on the extra chemicals and save a few bucks by making your own microwave popcorn?  At least now you are learning from a friend.  I had to learn from this pin.

All you need is
- 1/4 cup popcorn kernels (I prefer white kernels)
- brown paper lunch bag
- your favorite popcorn toppings

Ok, now this is really hard to follow.

First you measure out 1/4 cup of popcorn kernels

Then you dump them into a brown paper lunch bag. Now you put the bag in the microwave and hit the popcorn butter.  We are almost there...

Once there is about 3 seconds between each pop, it is time to take it out.  The bag will most likely tipped over.

  
Then you simply add your favorite popcorn toppings.  Instead of fatty butter (ok, I will admit that I have a bottle of that buttery popcorn oil that I break out in emergency situations that require a little more comfort) I use I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray.  Sometimes I add reduced fat parmesan cheese with garlic salt or taco seasoning.  Really it is up to you and your taste.

So I lied.  This was extremely easy to follow.  Hopefully you forgive me once you realize how awesome this new trick is.  Enjoy!