Mission Organization: Cupcake Liners

Hi my name is Nadia and I have pack rat tendencies. Yes, I admit it! I get it from my Father. I have a hard time getting rid of things that I might use or reuse. I have quite a few jars laying around the house... some with a plan in mind (like my painted jars), some are used for spices, and others do not have a plan yet. Some of these jars my Father has given me, some I have collected, and one a good friend kindly gave me when I told her I had a larger version of it at home.

The jar pictured below is one that my Father gave me that did not have a plan... until this past week. 

Step one: Wash the jars and let it soak to remove the label.
Use goo gone if needed to remove any remaining stickiness. 

Due to my love of baking and my love of fun colorful things I have collected quite a few different cupcake liners. Originally they were stored in a drawer with my baking items but over Christmas my collection grew considerably and a new solution was needed. While organizing my jars I came up with the brainy idea to make a cupcake jar!

Everything in my kitchen is green so the lid must be too!

Ta Da! My cupcake jar!

Happy Crafting!

Poached eggs

Saturday morning I was feeling kitchen crafty and decided to make eggs benedict for breakfast. I thought it would be the perfect breakfast since 1) I love eggs benedict 2) we had leftover ham from Easter 3) I felt adventurous. 

Making eggs benedict might not seem adventurous to most people but it is for me! Mainly because I had never poached an egg. To remedy that I read up online how to poach eggs. It seemed simple enough: simmer water in pan, swirl water with spatula and gently drop in egg. Well apparently that is to difficult because I ended up with chunky egg water. For my own ego I won't be sharing pictures of my screw up. I ruined two eggs this way.

While searching for how to poach eggs I came across a woman who poaches her eggs in the microwave. While at first that didn't sound appealing to me I figured it should be simple enough and we could still have breakfast as planned! Thankfully it worked! The only downside is that I like my eggs lightly poached so that the yolk is still runny and I couldn't achieve that in the microwave.

Breakfast was delicious and almost all of the leftover ham was used!

Knit Apple Dishcloth Updated 1/31/2013

Now that I'm almost done knitting this apple dishcloth for my mother in law I'm learning it is better to follow the pattern then to try and figure it out on your own LOL! I made some minor changes in the beginning and I chose thicker yarn because I wantes it to be a pot holder instead of a dishcloth. By this point it's more of a trivet! Can't wait to show you all my finished "dishcloth" lol!

Knit Apple dishcloth pattern can be found here.

Update 1/31/2013: The last picture show the apple "dishcloth" finished product. Ready for my mother in law's birthday!

I knit i-cord for my apple stem. You can find the tutorial on how to knit i-cord here.

Happy Crafting!

Cleaning a burnt stove

A burnt stove is what happens when I'm trying to multitask. I tried boiling chicken while doing other things and the pot boiled over. I found this method of cleaning the stove on pinterest (Imagine that!) and thought I would give it a try. To my surprise it worked VERY well and I didn't have to use a ton of elbow grease! It's a keeper!

What you'll need: Rubber gloves, Baking soda, Bucket of hot soapy water, and a towel or cleaning rag

The burnt stove before cleaning.

Step one: Generously cover area with baking soda.
I was very generous with the baking soda and would use less next time I do this.
It made a bit of a mess with this amount of baking soda.

Step two: Place towel/rag in bucket of hot soapy water
(mix some dawn dish soap into the hot water),
ring out so it is wet but not dripping. Place towel over baking soda area.
Let sit for 15 minutes. 

Step three: After 15 minutes are up scrub the stove in a
circular motion with the baking soda. 

*Note: Ladies you will definitely want to use the rubber gloves 
for this part because the baking soda is very harsh on the hands!*

Viola! Good as new!

Happy Crafting & Cleaning!

Pretty Pantry Part 2

I have two words for you... Con-tact paper! I'm tired of my pantry being plain and today starts with con-tact paper! My inspiration. This project was great motivation to clean out the pantry and reorganize!

This project was definitely time consuming.
The most frustrating part was that the shelves were not placed evenly
so I couldn't just cut all the pieces at one time.
But it was SO worth it!

The end result is a pretty pantry that is no longer just dull white and boring!
Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE green.
Everything in my kitchen is green and now so is the pantry!
LOVE my pretty pantry!!!

Project Pretty Pantry Part 1

Have you ever been perfectly content with something that is fine not realizing there is something better out there? I've had this realization about my pantry. I was perfectly fine with it's fairly organized state and it being plain white until last week and discovering a SPECTACULAR pantry on another blog. Now I am on a mission to pretty up my pantry! My inspiration.

 Here is a picture of what the pantry looks like after cleaning it out. It hadn't gotten a good spring cleaning so I threw out everything that was stale, got rid of boxed and put the crackers in air tight containers. Items that needed to be grouped together went into baskets to keep things organized. I now have a basket of baking supplies that stay in the pantry, a basket full of top ramen, and a basket with different sizes of disposable plates and napkins. I LOVE having the pantry organized! It's great to get rid of the boxes and having snacks in clear containers you can see.

The pantry is still a work in progress. I still have BIGGER plans for the pantry so stay tuned!