Summer Recipes

During the summer, I usually get really excited about trying new recipes.  I suppose it's because I am off during the summer, and there is more freedom and relaxation. Anyhoo...my summer starts in about 2 weeks! EXCITING!! I have been perusing Pinterest to collect my MUST TRY recipes for the next month.  Thought I would share these yummy prospects with you all! :)

Summer Vegetable Crepes

Smashed Chickpea and Avocado Sandwich

Double Crunch Honey Garlic Chicken

Avocado Pasta (I kind of have a thing for avocado)

Watermelon, Heirloom Tomato, and Feta Salad

Pasta Salad with Tomatoes, Zucchini, and Feta

Lighter Chicken Enchiladas

Hope these inspire you, like they have me! Happy cooking.

Tracy

Easy Peasy Blueberry Cobbler!!

Deeeeeeeeeeeelicious Blueberry Cobler.
OH! and Easy. ohhh so easy.

This is a seriously summer dessert, and have had a hankering to make a cobbler for weeks. This is as easy as it gets, folks. (As all good summer things should be...)

Here's what you need:
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup self-rising flour
1 stick of butter
1 qt. fruit... I went with blueberries...

Here's what you do:
* Heat oven to 350 degrees
*Melt butter in baking dish.
*Mix milk, flour, and sugar thoroughly. Pour into baking dish evenly over melted butter.
* Pour blueberries over batter.
*Bake for 1 hour.
* Serve with yuuuuuummmmmmy Vanilla ice cream.

Did I mention easy?

Yields 6-8 servings....try not to eat ALL of them. It will be a difficult task.

Photo Challenge #2: What Makes You Smile?

Ok. I have to admit something. I DID take these pictures...However, I didn't take them this week. These are actually from earlier this summer while on vacation. This week was my first week back to school after two months of vacation. (I teach 5th grade.) It's been soooooooo busy, and I have been sooooooooo tired, that I have come home and CRASHED every night this week.

Next week will be better!! Hopefully, my body will be back on the "5:15 am wake up call" routine, and won't leave me in a slump by 5pm everyday. :)

Enjoy the shots anyway. They are plants from my grandparent's house. I love their structure and repetition.

Linking with:

Fried Green Tomatoes-Guest Post

Ya'll have quite the treat today! I attend a book club once a month with 6 other fabulous...FABULOUS...ladies. We have been meeting for SIX years now! Anyhoo, I love these ladies so much that I wanted to introduce them all to you all.

(Me and Julie a couple of weeks ago.)
I am proud to call Julie my dear friend, and I know you all will love her recipe. I look up to Julie as a teacher and a mom. She is a beautiful woman of God, and I totally appreciate her love. Meet Julie and enjoy her southern hospitality!!

Hi everyone!! I am Julie, and I wanted to share one of my favorite recipes with you. What says the south better than fried green tomatoes? Don’t be put off the word fried. It is a nutritional requirement to have something fried every once in a while.

What you need:

4 large green tomatoes

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 quart vegetable oil or bacon grease

What to do:

1. Slice tomatoes ¼ to ½ inch thick.

2. Whisk eggs and milk together.

3. Scoop flour onto a plate. Mix cornmeal, bread crumbs and salt and pepper on another plate.

4. Dip tomatoes into flour to coat.

5.Then dip the tomatoes into milk and egg mixture.

6.Dredge in breadcrumbs to completely coat.

In cast iron skillet , pour vegetable oil (or bacon grease, if you have some) so that there is 1/2 inch of oil in the pan, and heat to a medium heat.

7. Place tomatoes in skillet. The tomatoes should not touch. *If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, any skillet will do.

8.When the tomatoes are browned, flip and fry them on the other side. Drain them on paper towels.

Serve with some fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and iced tea and watch the movie Fried Green Tomatoes.

Thanks Tracy, for letting me share today! It's been fun!!

Bitter+ Sweet does NOT = Bittersweet (TODAY)

Hellllllllllooooo!
Here it is...Friday. Monday I go back to work. (insert conflicted sigh.) I am really excited about the new school year because I will be teaching at a new school, and it's an awesome place to be. (AND Cash will be attending KINDERGARTEN there, too!!)
However, I am kind of sad cause it means that life is going to get crazy busy again. Days at the pool will be practically non-existent. No more pretending I am a stay at home mom, with a blog on the side.
It truly is BITTERSWEET.

However, here's something that is not bitter in ANY way! It's quite sweet, actually.
It.Made.My. Day.
Fo Realz.
Brandi over at B.Cheniful gave me the coolest shout out ever, and it's made this last Friday of my summer stand out.
Check it out here. In fact, check her blog out while you are at it. Brandi has some freak'n rock'n cool tutorials, and of course, always interesting to read about her Annual White Trash parties. Pretty entertaining stuff. :)
Isn't she just a cutie patootie? She doesn't look white trash at all, does she? :)
Thanks B. Chen!!

Big Grins-
Tracy

Another Summer Wreath!!

I finally got around to making a wreath for my own front door. I bought the yarn (at Big Lots for super cheap!) at the VERY VERY beginning of summer, but I am so very A.D.D. I ended up starting multiple projects, and this one ended up last on the list. Ahhh, like I always say...,"such is life."

It's pretty cute, and my ode to the ocean. :)
I used the same technique as I have for my other yarn wreaths to wrap it, but since it was a rectangular frame the corners were working out kind of weird. I ended up just leaving as you see, and I am ok with that.

The rosettes were made with left over fabric from all the stuff I have been making for my new classroom. (Will post that stuff later when it's ALL done.) I am totally in love with these prints and colors.
What's that? Want to know how to make the rosettes? Is that the murmur I hear from the crowd? Well, you are in luck. I posted a tutorial back in the spring, but plan on posting another one with pics later in the week. Stay tuned.

Hope everyone is having a fabulous week! It's bitter sweet for me. I go back to work on Monday after being off for two months. I am trying to get every little drop out of this free time this week!


Summer lov'n ...had me a blast...-

Tracy

Linking to :

Embellished Sandals here at Paper Wings

In case you missed it over at A Bird and A Bean yesterday....

I wanted to show you an easy way to take plain jane sandals and make them your new favorite "Shaaazam!" Sandals. :)

What you need:
sandals
needle, thread
beads
hot glue (optional)

I did this to another pair of sandals using bigger beads, too. You can check them out here.

I thought of this before school even got out (I am a teacher), but haven't had time to get to it until now. I have had these gold sandals for probably close to two years now, and even though they are ok....I always thought they could use a little som'em som'em to spice them up. They are from Payless, so not expensive (aka...if I screw them up, not a huge deal.)
BEFORE:

The beads were found at Hobby Lobby, and were half off, so I got all I needed for about $3. Can't beat that kind of up-grade.

First, I played around with the beads to decide the pattern I wanted them to flow in, and then took the shoe into consideration to determine the path of the beads. I decided to work in a 'T' shape, took my needle and thread, and simply threaded right through the sandal. Once I had the needle through, I just threaded the beads onto the needle . (seen below)
Since these were small beads, using hot glue to help secure wasn't really an option, so I threaded the needle back through the sandal every couple of beads. This helped to keep them secure on the sandal, so they weren't too loose.
(If you check out the link to see my black sandals, you will see that they are bigger beads. For those, I just used a little hot glue under every couple of beads to keep secure.)

When I got to where the lines meet in my 'T', I just tied the thread off as you normally would.
I continued doing the same thing for the other line in my "T" shape. When I finished up, I dabbed a wee bit of hot glue to the thread knots on the underside. This was just another added measure of security.

There you go! WaaaahhhLLLaaa! Fancy fancy.

Honestly, after I worked on my black sandals, I was a little nervous that they would break. HOWEVER...I wore them on Girls Night Out, and they held up perfectly! If they can make it through that, then they are ok in my book. :)

Go ahead, razzle dazzle those sandals up!!

It's been fun, and hope you pop in over at

Paper Wings!

- Tracy :)

Linking up with....

WE ARE THAT FAMILY

Easy Embellishment

Hey everyone! Remember those black sandals I embellished? Remember I said I would show you how I did it??? Weeeelllll....I am guest posting over at A Bird and A Bean today. Skip on over there and check out how I did it! :)


Loving this summer season-
Tracy

Flip Flop Fun~ guest post

I am super psyched to bring you Paper Wings' first guest post! To top it off, I am excited to bring you one of my besties! Meet Erin from A Bird and A Bean. Erin and I have been friends since college, and have traveled this blog journey together. We joke that she is the KY chapter of me, and I am the TN chapter of her. hee hee. Needless to say, she is an awesome mom, super artistic, fun, and an awesome blogger! It really is kind of weird how we are always thinking alike. For instance, today she is going to show you how to create some freak'n cute flip flops. (I know, she sent me a pair, and I {heart} them BIG TIME!) Tomorrow, I will be guest posting over at A Bird and A Bean, and I will be sharing how I embellished my sandals. (That's a plug for my guest post, if you didn't catch it...)
Anyhoo- point being...we didn't plan it...just worked out that we were both thinking "FEET." :)
Ok, so check her out over on her site, and check out my post over there tomorrow!

Hey everyone! I'm Erin from A Bird and A Bean.I ran across this cool idea a while back here at The Mother Huddle. I LOVE flip flops and wear them all summer (and most of spring and fall too... even though my mom constantly reminds me how terrible they are for backs, feet and posture.....I just can't help it. Sorry Mom)

Anyway, we're going on family vacation next week and I decided it would be fun to make a little gift for all the girls (myself, my mom, sister, sister-in-law and of course ....the bird). I made a few extras for some friends, too. I just couldn't stop. They are so easy. Instant gratification. I think they turned out really cute. They're super comfy....like you aren't even wearing shoes. You could even make them with old flip flops and scrap fabric. You don't have to leave your house for this project!

Here's what you need.....

fabric (1/4 of a yard off the bolt...or scraps)

flip flops

scissors

hot glue (optional)

Here's what you do.....

* Cut your fabric into four 4 1/2 X 24 inch strips. (two for each shoe) I actually made mine a little thinner because my fabric was kind of heavy and I couldn't get the knot to hide in the divot on the bottom of the shoe at 4 1/2 wide. So, you can use less fabric. Mine ended up being more like 3 X 20. They still look good, just less bunchy. I also left the edges raw, cuz I rock the funky tattered look....OK - it's because I can't sew. But, if you feel the need, go ahead and sew your little heart out, but just know that they look fine with a raw edge....maybe even better.

* Cut the original straps off of the flip flops.

* Cut your fabric strips into points.

* Thread both strips through the top hole at the same time.

* Make a good double knot on the bottom and push it into the divot under the shoe. You can use hot glue at this point if you desire. I did.

* Turn back over to the top of the shoe and tie a knot about one inch from the hole, this is the part that will go between your toes. Hold both straps together to tie it. Tie a tight second knot right behind the first knot. You can put it through your toes at this point and adjust a bit if you need to.

* Pull the two straps through the side holes and put the flip flop on. Tighten it to the top of your foot. Carefully take it off and tie knots on the bottom of each side. Tighter is probably better since fabric stretches and you don't want them to be too loose after a few wears. This is where it was a little tricky to make them for someone else, since I tightened them to my foot and not the intended wearer....but I'm sure it worked out.

* Hot glue the knots on the bottom and cut the tails.

* Be cute in your rocking new summery flip flops.