Happy Valentine's Day!

May your day be filled with love and chocolate.

My favorite holiday is finally here! While I was on my arts and crafts kick, I decided to make small Valentine's treats for some of my friends instead of buying generic candy. And since we are all "trying to eat healthy for spring break," I knew it had to be something simple and not too crazy. I decided to go back to the basics of just plain chocolate...which I melted and drizzled into wooden spoons.

I love this "recipe" because it can be adapted for every holiday. All you need are spoons, bakers chocolate and sprinkles. Melt the chocolate as directed on the packaging (it is very easy to burn), pour it into the spoons, tap the spoons on the counter to spread the chocolate evenly, lightly place the sprinkles on the chocolate, and let cool. Simple as that!

Valentine's Week: Homemade Love Notes

Don't get me wrong, I love a good Hallmark card every now and then, but there is always something special about a homemade card. Not only is it one of a kind, but it comes from the heart.

This year I chose to make my Valentine's Day notes instead of buying them. I always love a good craft project and it gave me something fun to do this weekend. I ordered black and white prints of my favorite photos, bought every piece of Valentine's scrapbook paper at the craft store, and set about making personalized love notes.

PS... For those of you stuck in snow storms, this might be a spoiler, but at least you know you have a card coming your way!

Supplies included: scrapbook paper (reds, pinks and patterns), neutral cards and envelopes, tags (which I punched an extra hole in), hemp, a hole puncher, a paint pen and photo tape.

Happy almost Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's that time of the year again.

The one day where it is acceptable to be cheesy and romantic, and the one day everyone simply loves each other.  Even though my friends still make fun of me, I love celebrating Valentine's Day in every way possible.  The apartment is decorated, the chocolates are set out, the desserts are made and I am sitting here in my Valentine's pajamas... I am ready.  This year, the festivities started last night when we had our friends over to our apartment for dessert and wine.  Everyone had to pair up and bring a Valentine's dessert  that they found on Pinterest.  We also asked that everyone wear their Valentine's gear, but that didn't work out so well.


Before everyone came over, a few of us spent the afternoon baking and creating.  Brenna and I chose to make chocolate chip blondies, which neither of us had ever made before.  We didn't cook them all the way through, but they still turned out pretty good, and they were even better when paired with vanilla ice cream.  The recipe is very simple, but I will post it soon.  Cara and Paige came over to bake as well.  While Paige made some adorable pretzel buttons, Cara took a stab at making red velvet crinkle cookies, and man were they good.  Probably my favorite dessert of the night. She will be posting the recipe here soon.

Chocolate chip blondies with Valentine's M&Ms

Our creations

Cara's amazing red velvet cookies

Paige's pretzel buttons

Mel's assortment of cupcakes from Polkadots

Stacy and Jess' chocolate covered pretzels

It's February 1, Do You Know What That Means?

It means it's almost Valentine's Day- the best holiday ever created.  Maybe it's because I am hopelessly in love, or maybe it's because I grew up in a house that was always drenched in pink and red for Valentine's Day, but either way, I love Valentine's Day.  As a child, the best time of year was watching my mom tear down the Hanukkah decorations, and put up the Valentine's decorations.  The rugs and hand towels were switched out for heart shaped rugs and red towels, every door knob had a heart on it, and the front of the house always had six giant tinsel hearts (one for each door, of course).  My little brother and I were always the first kids in line to buy Valentine's for our class, in fact, I still pass out those cheesy Valentine's to all of my friends.  What a fabulous tradition- props to whoever invented those.  Every year I also brought homemade cookies-on-a-stick for my classmates.  Yes, you guessed it... Sessy made giant conversation heart cookies with sayings like "HUG ME" and "YOU'RE MY BFF."

But my favorite part of Valentine's Day was not the Valentines or the teddy bears or the cookies, but instead it was a tradition that my parents started when I was little.  Each year, before I went to school, I got to unwrap a present, and inside that present was always Valentine's pajamas.  To this day, my mom still sends me Valentine's pajamas, and I always wear them- no matter how ugly they may be (sorry, mom).

It is sad being in college and not being able to go home and see all of the Valentine's decorations.  So this year I had a bright idea, and asked my mom to bring the decorations to me.  We had so much fun hanging the decorations in my apartment, and now my roommates get to live in a love shack for the next month (they are thrilled, I promise).

Anyways, hope you all are enjoying the countdown to Valentine's Day as much as I am! ♥