Clever Bachelorette Gift {needed}



Hey everyone! I NEED YOUR HELP!
One of my best high school girlfriends is getting married this year and I unfortunately can not make it up to Jersey for the bachelorette party weekend. I want to send a clever gift; this is where you come in.

Does ANYONE have any awesome, fun, clever, racy, etc bachelorette gift ideas (that they would be willing to share)?!

I have done some research online and a few have stood out to me:

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1. Wine gift basket - give a few bottles of wine and have cute tags on them thay say, "after your first fight as a married couple", "1st anniversary", etc.
This is SUPER cute!! Although difficult to do from afar.... and I think I'm going to do it for the wedding since I'll be up there early enough to get it done.
2. Clone-a-...er.... member - Give this gag gift with a note that says "Since you are now married, you should never be without your husband". Funny :) But I would want it to be returnable so she can maybe get something she WILL use like lotions or oils (.... unless she actually decides to make this... but anyway).

The BEST one BY FAR.... was used at my OTHER best high school girlfriends bachelorette party...

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3. Get a pretty vase, container, etc and buy a dozen underwear, each with a tag on it saying "for your wedding night", (a pair of pink and blue panties) "for when you start trying", ... etc... up until a pair of the largest granny panties you can find with a note saying something like "when your old and gray these will be the only underpants you should be wearing"... or something.

BUT... THIS bachelorette was there.... so I can't use it.

SO.... do any of YOU have any ideas?!?! Please please please!

Pizza Night #12: Spinach, Ricotta, and Mozzarella (Oh My!) Pizza

... and there's some pesto in there too.
Oh. My. Awesome. Pizza! I was looking for a white spinach pizza recipe and wasn't having much luck until I happened upon Selfish Mom 's Spinach Pesto Pizza. I REALLY liked the idea of the pesto and spinach, but I'm not a fan of refrigerated pizza crust OR feta cheese. So I took the spinach, pesto, and tomatoes and then added in some ricotta and mozzarella (and fresh pizza dough). AWESOME!

Spinach, Ricotta, & Mozzarella Pizza
Pizza Dough (I prefer freshly made dough from my grocery store bakery section)
4T pesto (I use Barilla jarred pesto)
8 oz fresh mozzarella
14oz can petit diced tomatoes, drained
8oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
4oz ricotta (I am guesstimating here, I put in a few spoonfuls)
3T butter
~1/2 t garlic salt
~1/2 t cajun
cornmeal

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400*
2. Combine thawed/drained spinach, pesto, diced tomatoes, & ricotta in a bowl and set aside.
3. Roll out and/or toss pizza dough and place on pan/pizza stone (yes, I still need to buy a pizza stone)  covered with a handful of cornmeal.

4. Melt butter and add garlic salt, cajun seasoning and mix.
5. Brush butter mixture onto pizza dough and bake 6 minutes.

6. Remove from oven and spread spinach mixture onto pizza dough.

7. Top with slices of fresh mozzarella.

8. Bake 15 minutes or so until mozzarella cheese is melted.

Yum yum yum!!!

The ONLY thing that would have made this recipe better was to add some diced up chicken... and some fresh basil leaves on top!

Pizza Night #12 - TOTAL COMPLETE Success!
Movie Night: Rango (not a fan of the movie... kinda a weird, but whatev)
Enjoy!

Linking up: Little Rays of Sunshine, Running with Glitter, Sarahndipities, Delicateconstruction, Making the World Cuter, Tales of a Trophy Wife, Sweet Ps and BB, Women Who Do It ALl, Dragonfly Designs, Crafty Blog Stalker, House of Hepworths, It's A Keeper, Momnivores Dilema, Ladybird Ln, Naptime Crafters, Delicate Construction, Just a Girl, Faith Trust Pixie Dust, Making the World Cuter, Keeping it Simple, Remodelaholic

Luau Party: The Menu

One of the best parts of a good party is the FOOD! And I ALWAYS over do myself... I just can't help it. Here was the menu.

Meats

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Ham and Grilled Pork Tenderloin
Served room temperature with Harry & David's Sweet Pepper Relish, spicy mustard, and honey mustard on Hawaiian rolls or water rolls.
Grape/Chili Meatballs
1 crock pot
2 jars grape jelly
2  jars chili sauce (found in condiment section)
1 bag of meatballs
Combine all and warm in crock pot for a few hours prior to beginning of party.

Killer Appetizers

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Shrimp Cocktail
Spinach Dip in a bread bowl served with bread and crackers
Marinated Cheese (most requested appetizer)

INGREDIENTS
½ cup olive oil
½ cup white wine vinegar
1 (2-ounce) jar diced pimiento, drained
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
3 tablespoons minced green onions
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sugar
¾ teaspoon dried whole basil
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 (8-ounce) 5 ½ x 2 x 1-inch block sharp cheddar cheese, chilled
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, chilled
Fresh parsley sprigs (optional)
Combine first 10 ingredients in a jar; cover tightly, and shake vigorously. Set marinade mixture aside.
Cut block of Cheddar cheese in half lengthwise. Cut crosswise into ¼ -inch-thick slices; set aside. Repeat procedure with cream cheese. Arrange cheese slices alternately in a shallow baking dish, standing slices on edge. Pour marinade over cheese slices. Cover and marinate in refrigerator at least 8 hours.
Transfer cheese slices to a serving platter in the same alternating fashion, reserving marinade. Spoon marinade over cheese slices. Garnish with fresh parsley sprigs, if desired. Serve with assorted crackers. Yield: 16 appetizer servings.

Tomato & Mozzarella Skewers drizzled with balsamic dressing
Fruit Salad in homemade fruit bowls (half a pineapple and quarter of a watermelon)
And lastly to munch on...

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Chips & Salsa
Store bought hummus & pita chips
Veggies & Veggie Dip
8 oz sour cream
8 oz cream cheese softened
1 pkg Lays Garden Onion Dip Creations (new!)
Nuts (you can't go wrong with a few containers of mixed nuts, almonds, or cashews)

AND for dessert we had

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Beach themed cupcakes
Chocolate boxed mix, homemade vanilla icing, ground graham crackers for the beach, a mint beach ball, and drink umbrella.
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies (1st time using this recipe and AWESOME!)

... and a cupcake closeup

Linking up: Little Rays of Sunshine, Running with Glitter, Sarahndipities, Making the World Cuter

Pizza Night #11: Portobello Pizza (Take 2)

For this weeks pizza night we decided to one-up one of our favorite pizzas so far! We tried the Portobello Pizza again with a few minor tweaks.

If you'll remember, we thought that the pizza had a bit too much liquid pooled on top of the pizza which we determined was probably from the mushrooms or the tomatoes. SOOOO this time I cooked the mushrooms a little more to try to get rid of ALL the excess liquid. I also removed the juicy seeds from the tomatoes when I diced them. It seemed to work, but even though there was still some liquid on top the pizza did not get soggy at ALL because...

(tweak #2) ... we took Jessica, from Cajunlicious | All things Cajun,'s pizza dough tip of brushing the dough with an oh-so-yummy butter mixture and baking it for a few minutes before adding the toppings. And let me tell you, the smell wafting about our kitchen as the dough was baking for that few minutes was heavenly.

We used a whole grain dough this time, and to be perfectly honest.... it doesn't hold a candle to the original dough... but it was STILL a great pizza!

And still one of our favorites so far.
Pizza Night #11 - Yummy!
Movie: Harry Potter (yeah, my 2 year old now requests Harry Potter)

The Luau Party: Other Decor

Entryway
... kind of speaks for itself; "C'mon I wanna lei ya!". A basket full of leis, a dollar store pig centerpiece, shells, a few lanterns and then I made a cute sign and put it in a frame.

 Add to it a grass skirt and a dollar store sign and we're in business.

 Welcome to the party!

Bathroom Sign
At any party, of course you want people to know where your bathrooms are, right? We had 2 accessible to party guest one from the inside and one from the backyard, so of course I had to create a pretty sign. I looked up in a few places how to say "bathroom" in Hawaiian. Here, here, and here all said that bathroom was "Lua". So that's what I used.
When one of my girlfriends comes to the party (whose family happens to live in Hawaii), she informed me that she thought it wasn't "Lua", but it was something else, probably "Lumi 'au 'au " (which the 3rd link said was an option). Oh well... I tried! No one else knew, right?

I found the lei border online and... er... tweaked it... then printed it out in word and laminated it.
Voila. Bathroom sign.

Food Marker Tags
I like having tag that tell people what they are munching on at a party so back to the trusty computer I went.
I did a search on word templates for tags and whatnot but didn't find much. I DID find a "Christmas in July" label which is super cute, so I filed that away for later. I also found one food tag, but it wasn't the fold over/tent that I wanted so back to the drawing board.
I ended up opening a return label document with 3 columns. The width of each row was a little to narrow for my taste so I changed each row to about 1.5" and then put my lei border graphic in every other row. Printed out, it looks like the following:

Then I used my paper cutter to separate the rows.

Then I cut them in between each label and folded them to make the tents.

I was going to print what the food was on the label, but since I had friends bringing food I decided to just write it in my hand.

The rest of the decorations
I picked up at the dollar store or at Joanne Fabric when they were having 70% off their summer decor. You can't go wrong with cheap tacky luau decor!

However my FAVORITE part of my decorations was the scene door hanger! I plan to use this every year and put a card with the year on it so we know when it was taken!

Linking up: Handy Man Crafty Woman

The Luau Party: The Wreath

A few weeks back I happened upon 2 wreath frames from a fellow Freecycler; now when I was heading over to go pick them up, I (for some reason) thought I was picking up 2 grapevine wreaths since I had never heard of "wreath frame". Imagine my surprise when this is what I picked up:

Hmmmmm.... luckily it only took a short while to figure out what to do with this wreath. I immediately thought about the Patriotic Wreath I made a little while back (wrapping garland around a wreath) and decided that that was what I would have to do with this. AND I had just the "event"; The Luau Party!!

Unfortunately, I didn't happen to find any "luau" garland but I DID find a whole lotta leis (dollar store 6/$1 packs - best deal I found).

So what I did was cut the leis so I had one long strand. Now be careful, we all know that leis like to unravel QUICKLY... so I took some thick clear plastic tape and attempted to tape it to itself (it didn't always work, but the lei was like... $0.15 so no BIG loss).

Anyway, I wanted to use all the colors, so I secured the start of all colors with clear plastic tape at my beginning point and started wrapping around the wreath.

I kept wrapping around (as tight as I could without unraveling the lei) until I ran out of my first color yellow. I then opened a new 6-pack of dollar store leis and cut them in half. Using clear plastic tape, I taped the end of the 1st strand of yellow to my new yellow. I did this to the rest of the colors. Only one of the colors happened to be taped together at the front of the wreath.... but you couldn't notice too much.

At the end of 2 packs of 6 leis (12 total) I was left with a large empty space. Instead of opening another 6-pack, I decided to find something to put there instead :) (in other words, I was lazy).

Pig? mmmm nah.

Dollar store funky totem pole topper luau centerpiece...PERFECT!

Add a dollar store "Tiki Bar" sign and we have the FINAL wreath.

And lastly... the wreath in action :)

There you have it, my Luau wreath, which cost me $3 total! (plus cost of tape, lol)

Linking up: sweet Ps and BB, Someday Crafts, Handy Man Crafty Woman, Twin DragonFly Designs, Sew Much Ado, My Girlish Whims, Ginger snap crafts, Delicate Construction, Sarahndipities, Making the world Cuter, Tales of a Trophy WIfe

Surprisingly Awesome dinner

I was in Publix (for those of you not in the south, it's our grocery store) yesterday around lunchtime with my little helpers and they happen to be featuring one of their Apron meals. Being lunchtime, Charlotte and I decide to have a sample and it was good, I mean REALLY GOOD!!

It was Shrimp Salad with warm bacon dressing and summer bruschetta (ok, I think I was drawn to the bruschetta more). I take a look at the recipe card and realize that I have shrimp leftover from Saturday's party, score!! We have a basil plant in our yard, peaches purchased this past weekend, fresh mozzarella cheese (leftover from the party), pesto (always), and olive oil; meaning I only had a handful of ingredients to buy to make this. Sweet! And to make it easier, Publix pulls the ingredients required for these recipes and puts them in one spot right by the sample!

As the day progresses I start to get a little nervous. I mean, it was lunchtime and I WAS hungry (I know, never go to the grocery store hungry), AND the last Apron meal wasn't as good as I had remembered in the store.

Jump ahead to dinner time and... AWESOME!! Definitely a keeper!!

I was pleasantly surprised with the peach in the salad. I've done strawberry before, but never peach (this recipe does say you can substitute strawberries if peaches are not in season)! Also, you can't go wrong with a warm bacon dressing, can you?

I especially LOVE the summer bruschetta; it has pesto on it!! This recipe calls for a baguette cut in half, which was tasty, but next time I will used frozen sliced french bread/baguettes that I keep in the freezer. I love having sliced french bread in the freezer because at the last minute you can take it out, butter both sides, and bake it to make nice crunchy, crispy, buttery bread. I would use that bread, baked but un-buttered, and THEN put the summer bruschetta mixture on it. Talk about yum!!

In case the recipe link does not work, here it is:
Shrimp Salad With Warm Bacon Dressing and Summer Bruschetta
Publix Apron Meal

Total Time - 25 minutes
COOKING SEQUENCE
Prepare bruschetta - 10 minutes
Prepare salad and serve - 15 minutes

Shrimp Salad With Warm Bacon Dressing
Ingredients:
1 bag fresh spinach leaves (6-10 oz)
2 cups fresh pre-sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup fresh pre-diced tomatoes
1 lb cooked shrimp, peeled/deveined (thawed)
4 slices bacon
1 medium peach
1/2 cup fat-free sun-dried tomato vinaigrette
1/2 teaspoon green pepper sauce
Prep
Place spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, and shrimp in salad bowl.
Cut bacon into bite-size pieces; place in microwave-safe bowl (wash hands).
Steps
Cover bacon; microwave on HIGH 3-4 minutes or until bacon is lightly crisp. Wash knife and cutting board with hot, soapy water.
Peel peach and cut into bite-size pieces; add to salad bowl.
Stir vinaigrette and pepper sauce into bacon and drippings. Cover and microwave on HIGH 1 minute or until hot. Pour mixture over salad; toss to coat. Serve.
CALORIES (per 1/4 recipe) 350kcal; FAT 14g; CHOL 240mg; SODIUM 740mg; CARB 25g; FIBER 3g; PROTEIN 30g; VIT A 150%; VIT C 50%; CALC 10%; IRON 35%

Summer Bruschetta
Ingredients:
1 Bakery baguette
4 large fresh basil leaves
2 oz fresh mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup fresh pre-diced tomatoes
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons basil pesto
1 tablespoon diced pimientos
Prep
Cut bread in half lengthwise, using an electric or serrated knife.
Stack basil leaves and slice into thin strips; cut mozzarella into bite-size pieces. Set both aside.
Steps
Cut bread in half lengthwise, using an electric or serrated knife. Stack basil leaves and slice into thin strips; cut mozzarella into bite-size pieces. Set both aside.

Combine remaining ingredients in small bowl; spread onto bread halves. Top with mozzarella and basil. Slice bruschetta and serve.
CALORIES (per 1/4 recipe) 370kcal; FAT 22g; CHOL 10mg; SODIUM 600mg; CARB 33g; FIBER 2g; PROTEIN 9g; VIT A 6%; VIT C 10%; CALC 2%; IRON 10%

BACON HINT: I don't know about you but I NEVER use a full package of bacon. So this recipe calls for 4 slices, that leaves, what, 9 slices left. What I do is cut the bacon in half, and then put 4 (or so) half slices in each sandwich bag, then put your sandwhich bags in a freezer bag. That way, when you need bacon for recipes like beans, or just want to add it to breakfast, you have some!

Linking up: Homework, Blackberry Vine, A Bowl full of Lemons, Everyday Tastes, Delicate Contruction