Craft Weekend 2011

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of spending time with some absolutely wonderful crafty ladies! We met in person back in April at Creative Estates, and have been inseparable online ever since. I even told you about them when I came home from the conference.

We knew we had to get together again and so we planned a getaway girls weekend in California. Blessed with a free beach house for the weekend, we all packed up our bags and made the trip out west!

Here are just a handful of pictures from that awesome weekend, and don't worry I'll do a separate post on some of the fun recipes I made when I got to play chef all weekend.

Enjoy!






















{ Jacqui of Craftee McGee } :: { Amy of Amy Cornwell Designs } :: { Nicole of Olive Blue } :: { With us in spirit from her home, Alison of aPearantly Sew } :: { Megan of Flawed Perfection Jewelry } :: { Elizabeth of Sew Chatty } :: { Kristen of Rock-A-Bow }

New Camera Strap!

Getting packages in the mail is always exciting, but when this package arrived, I was particularly giddy:



I've been ogling at cute camera straps on Etsy for quite some time, but when I found the lovebirds fabric camera straps from PhatStraps, I knew it was the one for me!



They carry neck straps and wrist straps, but since I was looking to use this as more of a hand strap, the lovely lady made a custom shorter strap that fits just great on my camera!

And not to mention, it has a soft, fuzzy black lining so it's super comfortable.



I just love it!


Do you have a camera strap you love? Where did you find it?

New Year, New Look

Happy 2011!

The start of a new year always brings a list of resolutions, from "lose ten pounds" to "paint the bathroom." If you'll notice, the majority of those resolutions have to do with making something look better.

If you're reading this post directly on my blog, you may have noticed that things look a little different around here! Ok, a LOT different. If you're reading this post in a reader, get over here! In the season of redesign and reinvention, Food, Wine, & Mod Podge has undergone a complete makeover!

Thanks to Jenna over at q.a. design, FW&MP is cleaner, classier, and just a joy to look at! She did a crazy fantastic job listening to every suggestion I had, and last night the emails were flying like paper airplanes as she redid every nook and cranny! I couldn't be happier with the final product. Thanks Jenna!

Along the lines of a new look, you'll also notice a little purple icon in the top of my sidebar over there to the right... Yes that's right, FW&MP has jumped into the world of Twitter! I'll be honest, I was pretty against Twitter for a long time. And I really still am for my own regular life, because I really don't need to update everyone to say "I'm at the mall eating a pretzel." But, from a FW&MP perspective, I really see the benefit! I always see cool new ideas or products that aren't really worth a whole blog post, but should be shared! Also participating in crafty discussions via Twitter is always a good idea. So hop over to my Twitter page, I'd love a few followers if you're interested!



Thanks so much everyone for all your readership, support, and lovely comments over the past year+. It's been a great journey so far, and I hope that with the new blog design comes more cooking, crafting, and of course, wine!

Love It or Lose It!

Hello there!

If you're popping over from Crazy Domestic, welcome! Take a look around! As you can see, I have a few interests...three to be exact: Food, Wine, & Mod Podge! Well, all crafting in general, but Mod Podge is a particular favorite. I love doing new recipes and projects, and posting pictures and directions along the way.

For my regulars, you may be wondering why I'm welcoming new people. Well, for the month of January, I'm going to be hosting a little challenge over at Crazy Domestic:



You can hop over to Crazy Domestic for the full rundown of the rules, but basically this is a challenge to make yourself wear all those clothes in your closet that you hold on to but gloss over when you get ready in the morning! You pick a handful of items, and each week come back to Crazy Domestic to link up whether after a day of wearing, you love it and will wear it more, or hate it and it's time to lose it and donate to charity!

I hope you play along with me over at Crazy Domestic!

A Review, a Recipe, and a GIVEAWAY!

That's right, it's time for my first giveaway!

I'm so happy to share with you this awesome product I picked out from Cookware.com, a CSN Store.

But before we get to the giveaway, I have to introduce you to this little gadget so you can get to know each other!



This shiny little tool is a double-bladed herb chopper.

Oooooooh.

Ahhhhhh.

I picked this tool mostly because I chop a lot of herbs, and I always find it hard to really mince them well. I've tried the roll and chop technique, but after the first initial roll, it's hard to roughly chop past that without getting the herb all over your hands. I loved that this has two blades, and is rounded so you can easily maneuver around the heap of herbs without having to constantly reposition them.

When I first opened the box, I must say, I was surprised at how sharp this thing is! I mean, it is sort of a type of knife, but I knew right then it was going to do some serious chopping!

For my first experience with the chopper, I grabbed some cilantro for a marinade.



And in just a few quick rocks back and forth...



...it looked like this!



So easy! And cleanup was a breeze, I just rinsed it off and dried it. Since we're only dealing with herbs, there was no need to worry about cleaning it thoroughly.

And now on to what I did with those herbs!

I threw them in a ziplock with chicken breasts and this:



This is one of my favorite marinades for chicken. So much flavor! And letting the cilantro marinade with it all really lets out all the great flavor it brings.



I let this marinate overnight to get all the wonderful flavors to seep into the chicken.

The next day, I got out the chicken, Chris started the grill, and I started to make some pseudo-Mexican rice. I say pseudo because I didn't have any sort of a recipe, sort of just threw ingredients into the rice cooker!

I started with some red onion...



And some cilantro, which I chopped with my Cuisinox herb chopper, of course!



I put it all in the rice cooker with some rice, some Chipotle Tabasco Sauce, some generic red taco sauce, and salt and pepper.



I threw some water in, turned on the rice cooker, and when it was done, plated it up with the chicken! Super easy!



Very tasty meal, and there were so few steps! Not to mention my handy-dandy new Cuisinox herb chopper made it even easier!

How would you like to add one of these to your kitchen?? Well you can! The wonderful people at CSN Stores have given me the opportunity to give one away to one of my fabulous readers!

**The Giveaway**

The giveaway for this Cuisinox Double-Bladed Herb Chopper starts right now (yes, right now!) and goes through Sunday, October 3rd, Midnight CST.

To enter, comment on this post and tell me what was the best meal you made in the past month. Easy peasy!

For extra entries, blog about the giveaway, post it on Facebook, tweet it, or any other way of sharing it with others! Then come back here and leave me a new comment for each extra entry.

To be eligible to win, you must be a follower of Food, Wine, & Mod Podge, and a resident of the US or Canada.

I will announce the randomly-selected winner on Monday, October 4th, so keep a watch out for it!



Good luck!

A Crafty Chair Makeover

What a fun weekend this was!

I started it off by learning some new tricks and crafts at the Chicago Craft Social, and I got to meet some great new friends!

Then, I followed it up with a weekend of some great projects with a wonderful, helpful, and I must say patient friend.

So, let's kick off this post with one very fun project, and a recap of what I started with:



Remember this black chair I shared with you last post? This chair was destined to become my craft chair, to go with my new craft desk. But the all-black was just not nearly creative enough for a craft chair, so I had to give it a makeover!

I started by removing the seat cushion (which was only attached by 5 screws) and began to spray paint it.





We were very careful to do very light layers of spray paint, and allow time to dry between coats. Since I started with a metal surface, I wanted to make sure not to cake on the paint and thus give it the chance to chip off later.

After a lot of patience, we were here!





We were SO LUCKY - the single can of spray paint we had was exactly the amount of spray paint we needed. Even a little less would've resulted in some patchy spots!

We then moved indoors and began to recover the chair.

We started by removing the black faux leather fabric that was currently on the chair. Then, we cut a square of this fabulous Robert Kaufman fabric, and began to staple away!



When all the staples were in, we trimmed the fabric to be closer to the staples, and to expose the screw holes.



Finished!



Then, all it took was screwing it back on, and the chair was done!



I absolutely love my new craft chair. Now I can't wait to tackle the craft desk redo so that the chair has somewhere to live!

A Menu Planning Must-Have

The other day, my husband shared this AMAZING online tool with me that I just couldn't wait to share with you!

It's an interactive Food and Wine Pairing guide, and all I can say is

Where have you been all my life?!

Ok ok, not to be overly dramatic, but this thing is awesome. Planning a dinner for friends, family, parties big and small? Trying to impress your significant other? Check this out!

There are two ways to use the guide.

The first option is to match food to wine. In other words, you have a type of food that you plan to prepare, and you want to know what will pair well with it.

So, let's pretend you're starting with a cheese appetizer. You click the little icon that looks like cheese. But then the tool starts to work and you get three options: Blue (Bleu) Cheese, Hard, Flavorful Cheese, and Soft, Rich Cheese. Since you just bought some awesome reggiano, you choose Hard, Flavorful cheese.

And magic!



Amarone goes great with reggiano, but other choices are cabernet sauvingon and Montepulciano. How cool!

Ok, now on to the meat course. Yes we're still playing pretend.

Say you planned to make chicken. More specifically, a nice slow-roasted chicken.

BAM!



Chardonnay, or white Burgundy!

Seriously man, I'm in love.

But wait! There's more!

Say you want to plan a menu, but you want it to go well with a bottle of wine you already have...

The tool also has another option to match wine to food!

I'll use a real-life example for this. As an anniversary gift, Chris' parents gave us a bottle of Paul Hobbs Pinot Noir. (yum!) What should I make with it?



Well, I should clearly pick a lighter-flavored dish. I like the suggestion of salmon! But look in that last box on the bottom right side. I love that this tool also tells me what not to pair with this wine! With this knowledge, I know to make a very clean preparation of the salmon, not a butter-heavy preparation.

I am so glad someone put together such an easy-to-use tool. Having the option to go wine to food or food to wine, and also including things that don't pair well in addition to what does pair well is absolutely invaluable!

Have some fun playing around the site... I know I will!



Note: I was not contacted by the maker of this site to do a review or to share it with you all. I honestly just think it's that cool :)

Featured Tutorial!

What a great surprise to find sitting in my inbox this morning... I am being featured at SomewhatSimple!

Steph chose my embossing tutorial to be the featured tutorial today.

You can check it out here!

SomewhatSimple

While you're there, take a look around. She's got some really great projects and stories!

My Favorite Things... Mother's Day Edition!

Today, in honor of my mother on this wonderful Mother's Day, I thought I'd do a special edition of My Favorite Things! In this post, I'll feature something in each of the Food, Wine, & Mod Podge categories from my mom!

My Apron



This apron is truly one of my favorite things because of the story behind it. My mom has almost an identical apron in style, but in blue. This apron was her mother's, my grandmother, and it is the most practical apron ever. It's got a huge pocket (great for my camera!) as well as a dish towel sewed right into the waist. Absolutely practical in every way! And then it's cinched at the waist so it's adorable on.

My mom knew I loved this apron, so she offered to make me one of my own for my birthday one year. Since she only had her own apron as a guide, she pulled in my father's mother, my other grandmother, to help figure it out. My grandma is a farm woman who grew up in Iowa and has been sewing all her life, so she's pretty good at making things without a pattern. The two of them worked so hard to make this beautiful apron for me, and it is so special.



I wear it nearly every time I cook, and every time it makes me smile! This is so special because the original design is my mother's mother's, and then my mom and my father's mother helped bring it to life for me! I don't think there's a more special object to bring up on Mother's Day!



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Anniversary Wine Bottle Lamp

My mom is the queen of meaningful gifts. This is actually a trait that I treasure in myself which she taught me. There's giving somebody a gift that's just a gift, and there's giving someone something that touches their heart, makes their eyes sparkle, or makes them smile from ear to ear. I've been blessed to have received many gifts along the years from her that fit into this category (see apron story above!) but another that comes to mind is the wine bottle lamp she had made for me.

She bought a lamp that looked essentially like white christmas lights strung through the bottom of a wine bottle as decoration for her house at some home store one time. Though it was never an actual wine bottle, it was just for looks, that got her thinking that maybe she could have a special wine bottle made into a light as a gift. Having no glass cutting tools of her own, she actually did research and hunted someone down that was willing to do this for her!

Now to where this story comes to me. I had been holding on to the bottle from the wine that Chris and I shared for our first dating anniversary. This is a bottle of 2003 Trefethen Chardonnay, and it's something I hold dear to my heart. Well, she took this bottle of mine, which was just sitting there collecting dust, and had it made into a beautiful light!





This is a great addition to our home, and now something we can cherish forever.

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and finally....

My Creativity

I owe so much of my creativity to my mom. She always helped create fun new things, whether it was getting consumed with scrapbooking, splatter painting my bedroom walls, or nailing patterns into tin for a vintage kitchen cabinet redo. She always taught me that if you get an idea in your head, you can always figure out how to do it.

Even now, even though she's miles away, she helps out whenever possible with my creativity. About a year ago, I decided to make a wine label decoupage, and to help out with this massive effort, she saved all the labels of all of the wines she and my dad drank and mailed them to me. Also, just recently, she helped with the great Mod Podge Filing Cabinet Overhaul, shown in a post just a month or so ago. I can only imagine what projects we'll come up with next!

So thank you, Mom, for being such an influence in all the parts of my life!

Favorite Things... Volume 2

I thought it was about time for another episode of My Favorite Things!

We start off today with a tradition my mom started when I was a wee little one: the tradition of the birthday donut. Every year on my birthday, my mom would wake up super early to go and get me donuts at Dunkin Donuts. But not just any donuts, strawberry frosted donuts. Why are those so amazing? Because they're pink, of course, and every little girl loves pink!

This tradition still goes on today, mostly because I have made it perfectly clear to my darling husband that every day on my birthday, he must get up well before the crack of dawn (and since I leave for work 2 hours before him, this really shows how much he loves me), and get me a donut.



Donut smile!

I love that this tradition is still living on :)


Favorite thing #2....



Chipotle Tabasco Sauce

...mmmmm....

I originally learned about this stuff in New Orleans, and ended up buying it in the airport Tabasco shop on the way home. My...oh...my... It is SO good. It's spicy, but smoky, which is not something original Tabasco can say. I find excuses to use it in everything! In guacamole, in BBQ sauce (see my BBQ sauce recipe from the Brisket post), on tacos, in sloppy joes.... the possibilities are endless!

These are a few of my favorite things...

I'd like to start sharing some of my favorite things from time to time. I have plenty of things that I love for many reasons, and it seems fitting to show some of them here.

First off, since I'm in Chicago and the weather is starting to become lovely, I'd like to share one of my favorite Chicago items: Sofie Belgian Style Ale.

Sofie is made by Goose Island Brewery, a local Chicago brewery started in 1988. The distinctive craft beers became very popular, and by 1995 they had to expand production to a much larger facility.

Goose Island is now a staple in Chicago -- many of its beers can be found in just about every bar that has beer on tap. Some of the more popular beers include 312 Urban Wheat and Honker's Ale.

In addition to the usual beers, Goose Island produces 4 "fancier" Belgian style ales, one of which is Sofie. Sofie is not offered on tap at the Goose Island Brewpub or at any bars. It is only sold in single 22oz bottles. Now, I'm sure you're asking why I'm going on and on about a beer? I mean, I'm not really a beer connoisseur. But any beer that has directions like this is worth a try:

Serving Suggestions:
Preferred Glass: Wide Mouth Glass
Preferred Serving Temperature: 40º
Food Pairings: Sofie pairs with a wide variety of foods, its light and refreshing qualities complement lighter flavors like fresh oysters and contrast rich shellfish like lobster.

Yes, I think any beer that suggests I have some lobster is a good beer for me! Not that I've ever tried it with lobster, but just to know that it's recommended is a good feeling.



This truly is one of my favorite drinks, beyond just beers. It even ranks up there with some very good wines. This is why I decided to add it to my wine label wall art I made last year. The piece is supposed to be all wine labels, but I couldn't help but add my beloved Sofie among the other labels, because that is where it belongs.



If you ever get the chance, try it!


Ok, now on to favorite thing #2...



Brach's circus peanuts!

Let me emphasize that...

Brach's circus peanuts.

You heard me.

None of this knockoff brand stuff. You want the real, good, delicious experience that is fresh Brach's circus peanuts.

My mom sent these to me for my birthday because she knows I love them. She loves them too. So did my grandma. My grandma's love of good, fresh circus peanuts was passed down to my mom, and to me. And I will pass it down to my children someday.



The key is to get the really fresh ones. Unlike most candies, circus peanuts do have a shelf life of sorts. Since they're a type of marshmallow (sort of), they will get hard after a while. And since they're a fairly under-appreciated candy, they've often been sitting on shelves for a while. Fresh circus peanuts are so soft, and melt in your mouth as the fluffy sugar dissolves quickly. It's kind of like the best parts of marshmallows and cotton candy, combined. But old circus peanuts are chewy and not as pleasant. Oddly enough, the best, freshest circus peanuts can be found at the JC Penney outlet. Don't ask me why, but we seem to consistently be able to find them there! So next time you're there, if you see them at the checkout, give them a little squeeze to see if they're soft. And if they are, buy some and enjoy!