His & Hers

I've been married for 9 years last October. We'll be celebrating our 10 year anniversary October 22. That's a long time. The first few years of our marriage we never really had a place that was OURS. We had an apartment, we lived in my parents attic, his parent's basement but it wasn't until we moved to Iowa for medical school that we had to make our house a home. We moved into our townhouse sight unseen based on the help of some AWESOME people that I'd never actually met. It definitely served its purpose. It was a 2 bedroom townhouse in an income restricted neighborhood. It was perfect for us. Cheap considering our income was all of $0/year while we were medical students and lived completely off of student loans. It was then I realized I had NO idea who I was. What I liked. How I wanted my home to be decorated. It was then I started to find myself and figure out what from my past I wanted to incorporate into my new life. We lived in that townhouse for just a year and a half and moved the day my 2nd son turned 2. We moved into a house. It was absolutely gigantic in comparison. 4 bedrooms and 2 baths with a basement! It was there we welcomed our third son, Owen and I was able to decorate for the first time, a nursery! We lived in that house until we moved to our first home that we bought in Kansas City. I feel like a grownup now. I can paint the walls whatever color I want (and by I, I mean my husband). I can hammer stuff wherever I'd like. No landlord to stop me.
My room has been a butterfly in the year and a half that we've lived here. Starting off with nothing but basic old stuff from my previous places and transformed and changed into what it is today. A cohesive and peaceful place that I spend way too much time watching Sons of Anarchy in. (I mean Jax Teller. Need I say more?!)
Months ago my friend Jackie sent me a text with the following Etsy listing saying that I needed to make these. It was when I was big into embroidering so we'd thought for sure they would be embroidered.

Buy Pillows Here

I'm in love with the idea of his and hers pillows. They're romantic and cute but I don't say hello there handsome and he definitely doesn't say good morning gorgeous. (Bed head, yo. It's a real thing.)

I know the last time I blogged that I blogged about Matt Nathanson, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't happy to be blogging about him again. There are other things I'm interested in, Jax Teller for instance....but today as I was listening to one of my favorite Matty songs I had a brilliant idea. It wouldn't go away so I present you with the CC&J spin on his and hers pillows. 

Here are the supplies you'll need. 

I bought a 2 pack of white shams from Walmart. I wasn't sure how this was going to work out so I wanted it to be cheap. I plan on buying better supplies (fabric paint vs. marker for one thing) and making them a bit more refined. But these work! And they were cheap. $15 for the whole project! The Fabric Paint marker was in the craft section of my Walmart. I bought the fattest one they had.
And Red Bull is optional. Unless you're in my life. Then it's a necessity.

First get your marker ready by shaking thoroughly and pressing the tip to get the paint flowing. Once it's flowing PRACTICE your writing. I practiced on my dog's pillow and also a box from my kids' crackers. I practiced mine twice and never practiced Barry's (big mistake, HUGE!).

Next lay your pillow cases/shams whatever out. I highly recommend pinning them to your carpet or otherwise securing them so that your fabric stays nice and taut. Otherwise writing with the marker is a bit of a biotch.

See I wasn't kidding about the Red Bull...delicious.

Then write your word or phrase.

Shove your pillows into the cases and then put them on your bed! Voila! Cute his and hers pillows. I can't wait to get my fabric paint! (Also, stunned looks jacked...sorry B.)

And then listen to this glorious and sexy song.

Kill the Lights-Matt Nathanson (YouTube video...seriously amazing performance)
Kill The Lights MP3

A Baking Story

I started baking about 3 years ago, nothing super fancy, boxed cakes, muffins, and brownies.  You know the stuff you secretly love but you're not supposed to use anymore because the internets is full of tutorials on how to do it from scratch?  That stuff.

Little by little, I started baking more and more from scratch and like the rest of the world, fell in love with cupcakes.  I found baking blogs and started buying cupcake everything.  I started with a whisk, graduated to a hand mixer, and finally after lots of sweat and tears because my buttercream wasn't fluffy enough, I earned my KitchenAid mixer.  In the process of baking cupcakes on a regular basis I acquired a ridiculous amount of stuff: cupcake pans, liners, pastry tips, sprinkles, food coloring, toppers, cupcake books, cupcake kitchen decor, so much cupcake stuff.  I had huge pans, regular pans, mini pans, and then all of a sudden cupcakes were too much.  They were too dainty or too much work or too sweet, basically they just weren't me anymore. So I stopped with the cupcakes and moved on.

I started making simple cakes and cookies, I stopped using all of the extra stuff and fell in love with a few staples.  A few cake pans, baking sheets, a sturdy rubber spatula, and parchment paper.  I'm still learning, I'm not an expert and on occasion I have massive baking fails that make me want to cry, but I feel more at home in my kitchen now.

We finally finished moving into our new place last week and I got rid of all that extra stuff and it was a GLORIOUS feeling.  I'm a huge fan of purging in general but something about purging in the beginning of a new year, in a new place, just felt right.

Lately, I've been stuck on this recipe.  I followed the directions but I used 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and added 1 vanilla bean, because. Vanilla bean.  Biscotti with a cup of coffee and a new book?  I'm in.

Also, my KitchenAid.  She's red and beautiful and her name is Lucinda.

-J