The Cucapple

THE WHAT?!?!

The cucapple. It's green, its good and it's healthy! Or so I'm told. It's a juice that a friend told me about. She has been juicing for awhile now and shared with me and my circle of friends all the benefits. I wanted to try but I didn't have a juicer. Well, my MIL (mother-in-law) bought one for me. It's this one.

http://www.blackanddeckerappliances.com/p-53-citrus-juicer.aspx

I'm not too sure it can do what I need/want it to do. Ya see, I have no clue about juicing and before I tear this gift up, I need help! And besides, it says it's for citrus only.

When I think juicer, I think Jack Lalanne and his commercial grade one!

Anyway, I'm gonna play around with my juicer and the cucapple tonight and see if I can get it right. One of two things will happen. 1) I'll be sipping a yummy concoction or 2) my juicer will be smoking and will have to go into the garbage.

If you were wondering what the recipe for the cucapple was I have been ever so nice and posted it below. Should you try it, let me know what you think. ALSO, if you have some juicing tips, let me know those too. 

PLEASE!

~Bugs & Fishes,

Aleigh

The Cucapple

-1/2 cucumber

- 2 apples

Remove stems from apples, cut a cucumber in half and juice.

The nice thing with apples and especially cucumbers, is you get a lot of juice out of them. This is great when you just need something quick.

Chevron!

It's everywhere right now. On pillows, walls, curtains, bed linens and clothes. I've even seen it on jewelry. I love this pattern. Always have, even before it became popular. 

Anyway, when Little Man was going to turn 2, my plan was to redo his bedroom and surprise him with it on his birthday. I had bought some cute stuff and my theme for his room was "subdued nautical". I had purchased bed linens and some wall art as well as a wooden sailboat. It's all in tones of grays and light blues and of course white. Little Man's favorite color has been orange for quite some time now so for that SPLASH of color, I was thinking orange in more of a cremecicle tone. Well, wouldn't you know it, my friend told the Hubs that she was gonna sell her son's bedroom stuff and thought she would ask us before she put it on Craigslist. The Hubs jumped on this and so the theme I had was out the door and in came his car bed, gas tank lamp and bookshelf. This stuff is cute but I was kinda sad. Little man and Hubs were overjoyed. When we revealed his room on his birthday last year he loved it. He told anyone who would listen he had a race car bed with tires. OK, OK so it turned out great. BUT, I still have all my "subdued nautical" stuff in his closet for later. Like, 2 more years later. Hubs is hanging on to that bed for dear life!

Where I'm going with all of this is that, one of my projects that had me MIA for a bit was an over sized picture that I may use as a headboard for L.M. when I finally get to redo his room. See, last year I had a friend of mine cut out some vinyl for me. I gave her the font style and wording along with the size that I wanted. She cut it out and mailed it to me. It has been sitting in his closet for a year!!!  Well, I decided that enough was enough and took it out. I measured it and went to Goodwill. I was on, yet again, another hunt. I needed to find a HUGE picture and/or frame for cheap! Good news. I found the size I needed and it was orange tagged. On this particular day, orange was half off. Not to mention it was a good sign since...orange is his favorite color. I bought the picture and brought it home.

Here it is in all of it's Southwestern glory. PURDY isn't she? It's huge y'all.

Little Miss got her hands dirty helping me out. I bought the paint from Ace Hardware. Talk about luck, it was an oops color for someone but perfect for me. I only paid $4 for it. SCORE!

When I had my base color down, I measured everything off and then taped. I had some help from A step in the journey blog with an instructional post on how to do these. I had to make my measurements larger but this was easy to follow.

http://www.astepinthejourney.com/2011/06/chevron-stripes-how-tobecause-its.html

After that, I painted the white stripes and once dry, applied the vinyl. Took a step back and admired my handiwork. I like it. A lot. Turned out great and Little Man?

He likes it too!

For now, it sits in his room mixed in with his basket of stuffed animals and his baby rocker from when he was teeny tiny. 

To break down the cost of this "craft" I have listed it for you below.

Goodwill Picture:  $15.00

Oops paint $4.00

vinyl with shipping $10.00

painters tape and white paint I already had

TOTAL COST: $29.00

Now, I'm not an art junkie, but I know a picture of this size would run you far, far more than what I spent on all of it so in that aspect I'm really happy with my total cost. BUT, the cheapskate in me wishes it had been less.

~Bugs & Fishes,

Aleigh

Little Man turns 3

Little Man loves Super Heros. Don't ask me how he knows about them or even their names because we don't watch it but he does. His favorites are Spiderman and the Hulk. So when it came time to plan his birthday, he said he wanted a Spiderman birthday. Well, I took that and ran with it. I scouted out Pinterest for ideas and found a bunch. Some I really wanted to do but knew I couldn't pull off in time so I went with what I knew I could do. 

The front door greeted you with this silhouette of Super Noah. The conversation bubble says "Welcome to Noah's 3Rd birthday party!"

The picture frame that I have by the front when you first walk in always has something in it representing the season, holiday or special event. This time, I had this little saying. "Little Boys are Superheros in disguise"

 I made a happy birthday banner with a comic book I bought from The Dollar Store, construction paper and a free happy birthday printable from Pinterest.

close up shot

I also decorated the drink dispenser with comic book words and a copy of an old comic book page. The drink was lemonade so I thought Radio-Active Man was perfect!

His cake came from the bakery at out local grocery. He picked out chocolate. I had them ice it with whipped cream and then decorate it with blue and red and the spiderweb.  The comic words are again ones I printed out and glued onto a skewer.

The candle I made from an Ironman one I found at Party City. It was on sale for .50. I just took him off and glued on a Spiderman I found at the Dollar Store.

The Birthday Boy wore his Spiderman shirt and superhero shoes. They had wings I had made from 2 colors of card stock and then glitter glue. He thought they were pretty cool and made him run super fast!

 Even big Sister got in on the action with a Batman shirt and frilly, black skirt.

The Littles making silly faces!

And Little Man with his favorite gift. He wanted an orange guitar so Grandma and Grandpa found an orange ukulele  It's his size and he has already serenaded me with ABC and If you're happy and you know it.

He had a blast on his big day and I gotta say, I did too. It was a small party with a few friends and family and even though I cheated with buying the cake, I was happy with how it turned out. So the lesson here was, for a few dollars at the Dollar Store, you too can have an awesome Hero party. On decorations, I spent about $5 and on the plates and napkins and such, about the same. 

~Bugs & Fishes,

Aleigh

A fairy party fit for a Queen

Party decorations and ideas I have a ton of. Mainly though, I scour the world wide web for them and sometimes, if I'm lucky, happen to find some cool and easy tricks. Like this one.

http://www.academichic.com/2009/05/26/how-to-make-tissue-paper-flowers/

OH, you best believe I did those! They took me about 45 minutes and I had made about 10 of them. Talk about cheap and easy. NO, I'm not talking about that crazy family member.

I had them set up in different locations around the party area along with some butterflies and a rose garland (both already decoration in Little Miss' room),

hung some paper lanterns in pinks and greens 

and I even placed a few fairy friends of Little Miss' around the food. 

We ate things like chocolate mushrooms, marshmallow fairy wands, flower cupcakes, a watermelon tea cup with berries, grape caterpillars and pink pixie punch. 

Each little girl that came to the party got her own fairy wings, fairy wand and butterfly hair bow. They were awaiting the girls in a vase of flowers and branches. A tiny gnome was sticking out and peeking at you as you went up and made your choice of butterfly clip. 

Mostly it was Little Miss, the Fairy Queen herself, that stole the spotlight. She knew what she wanted to wear and so I did my best. She and I went shopping at TJ Maxx and she found the perfect all white dress with a bit of pink and sparkle. She told me she wanted a crown of flowers with a butterfly flying so, off to Michael's we went. I was in luck. In the dollar section at the front they had these big butterflies in purples, pinks and blues. She chose a pink one. She already had a pair of pink fairy wings thanks to a pixie hollow friend of Tinkerbell's named Rosetta.  After about 10 minutes constructing the crown and another 10 for fixing her hair, my little fairy was ready for her party!

After all the girls arrived, we did a quick scavenger hunt in the backyard. The girls had to find a fairy and 2 gelflings. Gelflings are fairy friends. (aka, colored pom poms) 

Once they were all found they came to me for their prize! It was clothes for their fairy which was, in turn, a paper doll I had printed out on card stock. Each girl got a different color. I found these thanks to a search I did on Google. 

I made her cake in the shape of a toadstool. Since pink is her favorite color the top was fondant I colored pink. I didn't mix it all the way so that it would have a marble effect and look a bit more "real". It sat on a grassy field covered with wild flowers and a sprinkle walking path that led right up to the front door of the fairy house. The candle was a small flower and when lit, looked like the chimney! The cake flavor was pink lemonade. It was good but more Little Miss' liking.

 All in all, her party was fun and very girly. Very Little Miss and I was happy that at the end of it all, she told me she thought it was pretty. It made all the hard work of preparing and planning worth it. 

  

Don't get me wrong! After all the guests left and I cleaned up the bomb that had exploded in the house, we all changed clothes and by 7pm, were in bed and out like a light!

~Bugs & Fishes,

Aleigh

Tricycle Redo

A great family friend of ours is moving into a smaller home. Her Husband passed away last Christmas and being alone in her big house makes her sad. It makes me sad. I know I couldn't do it but I pray for her daily. I can not imagine loosing the Hubs. Sigh. 

OK, moving on from the sad. She gave me 2 trikes and a wagon that use to be her Grandchildren's. They have moved away so instead of giving them away to a stranger, she asked me first. Well, Y'all know me. I scooted over to her house and loaded them suckers up! They were in bad shape as far as looks go. Rusted, torn seats and faded red paint. I took the Little's to Ace and they picked out a can of paint. Little Miss picked out a can of pink properly named Sweet pea and Mr. Little picked out a color named orange. Why, because it was orange and that is his all time favorite color!

This is what I was working with y'all!

See? Talk about a mess. When I got them home and unloaded, the Hubs was very interested in what I had and what I was intending to do with it. 

"Well, I got these from ---- and so I'm gonna sand them down, paint them and redo the seat. Some type of vinyl should do it."

"You're gonna sand them down?"

"Yep."

"Uh huh"

Sigh. OK, I gotta be honest. I was wanting him to do it. The sanding part because it's a pain in the biscuits to do all that sanding by hand. Ya know what he said after a moment of pause and watching me wrestle the tricycle around?

"Let me take them to work and I'll sandblast them for ya."

God love him. Music to my ears. I couldn't let him know I was relieved to hear him come to my rescue so I nonchalantly said,

"Well, do you think that'll be the best option?" to which he replied with a serious look into my eyes. No words needed. DANG IT! This man knows me better than I thought.

So, after a few days The Hubs came home with freshly sandblasted trikes that were ready for painting. He, however, did not let me paint them. He wanted to do it. Wait, what? This is my project. I got the bikes, the paint, the plan. Why does he want to paint them? I told him no, I got this. Ya know what he did? He painted them anyway when I wasn't home. THAT BRAT!!! He blamed it on the Littles. Said they wanted their bikes and that Daddy should go ahead. Sigh. Oh well, it made him happy and the kids happy so who was I to complain. I did get to do the seats!

The After shot! Little Miss added her Disney Princess bike "purse" to her handlebars and is now ready to roll. I love these bikes. They are just so...cool! 

~Bugs & Fishes,

Aleigh

Paint, patches and cartwheels

OK, so yea,I've been MIA for about a month now. I have been busy and some of the reason is crafts. I made a bunch of stuff for the Littles birthday parties but I'll fill y'all in on that stuff in a later post. I also made a HUGE (and I mean huge) art piece for Little Man's room as well as some updates on old tricycles that a family friend gave me.

But, today, I'm gonna share with ya some of the other stuff I had my hands in.

First up is my ball cap.

Now, I don't know about y'all, but I LOVE me some HGTV and I have some shows that are by far my favorites. That being said, one of those shows would have to be, hands down, Junk Gypsies. Not only do I love their style, the accent and mutual love of junk, but I just love it period. One of the things they have that I was IMMEDIATELY drawn to was a hat that both girls have worn in different episodes.

This is it.

It's not a crazy thing. Not something you would necessary look at twice but I like it. A lot. SO, when I went on their site and saw it was for sale my inner child immediately jumped for joy and did cartwheels. Then, I looked at the price. Now, $20 is not a lot of money to pay for a hat but me being me (aka, cheap) I knew I could try and make my own. SO, the very next day I loaded up the Littles and off we went to Goodwill to find a ball cap; and a cap I did find!

IT'S GREEN!!!! That's my favorite color. Plus, at only $1.99 it came home with me. I did like that wild child was on there. Kinda funny to me since that's what my Mama calls me. I looked in the shirts to see if I could find one that had a patch or something that I could affix to the hat but no such luck. Hmm, if I were a patch where would I hide?

We went to an antique store down the road a piece and low and behold, they had a box of old patches for sale. The prices ranged from $.50 - $2.00 then they had an extra 20% off the entire purchase thing going on so, I picked this little beaut out.

It was originally $2.00 because of it's size but with the sale I only paid $1.40. See?

When I got home, still on a high from my two finds, I took the cap outside and splattered paint on it. Now, I know the original one has more of a droplet pattern but I was too excited and didn't check my reference pic before I went off with the paint! Now, I do love the fling pattern though. It's more crazy and less controlled. Me, in a nutshell.  

After the paint dried, I tossed it in the washer for a quick wash and then the next day affixed the patch with my glue gun (DON'T JUDGE ME) and put that bad boy on my noggin' and stepped out on the town in my very own Junk Gypsy inspired lid.

 How'd I do?

If you want to purchase your own JG hat, go here.

http://gypsyville.com/products/junk-gypsy-born-2-roam-cap

Seriously, all their stuff is awesome! AND, I have a mid years resolution. Next May, come hell or high water, I'm gonna attend their Junk-O-Rama Prom. I've already started scouting out stores for the perfect vintage prom dress!

~Bugs & Fishes,

Aleigh

I. Am lame

Sigh. 

Yes, it's been almost 2 months since I've been here. I am lame. I could tell you the reason (Daughter's birthday, Son's birthday, my birthday and then I had surgery for this pesky little thing called Thyroid cancer) but you wouldn't really care and well, who can blame you? I do, however, want to get back into my groove and post all the cool and not so cool things that have been happening in my little part of the world so I hope to start that with you tomorrow. Well, once Little Miss is at school and the Little Mr. is taking his nap. 

See ya then?