A Little Down Time

Greetings from Minnesota!

I took a mini-vacation to the St. Paul area to babysit/housesit for my relatives and decided I'd take in some local flavor with my aunt before I drove her and my uncle to the airport. So far I've been to farmer's markets, the Mall of America, apple orchards and everywhere under the sun.

After two days of this I had to take a break and try shopping via the internet. My dogs were barking so loud I had to soak them in a nice bowl of hot water while I perused the World Wide Web!

I can't seem to get enough jewelry these days and after a few failed attempts at making my own necklaces, I searched for personalized jewelry and found Wildflower-lane.com.

Now that I've grown up a bit, especially since leaving school, I want jewelry a bit more streamlined and sophisticated and Wildflower Lane delivers. The Triple Strand Rice Pearl Necklace was so pretty I had to force myself to hold back and search the rest of the site.

I was excited to learn that they also had wedding gifts; my roommate is tying the knot in a few months and I wanted to get her something original and lasting. The Star Letter Opener caught my eye, if only because Sarah's very organized, plus I can personalize it. She's going to be opening lots of Christmas cards once she becomes a teacher :-)

At some point, I'm going to have to try making my cat, Theo, a little collar, but until then, I might be investing in some pet stuff.

All in all, it was an appealing site and colorful! There are so many site now-a-days that are so blah and boring; Wildflower Lane was the complete opposite, full of beautiful, personalized
things.

Happy Shopping! And more stories from Minnesota to come :-).

Fudgerific!

Yesterday while I was nannying, I decided to try out Jaime's fudge recipe. The oldest child, Dev, really took to the idea, especially b/c I was allowing her to mix in gummy bears.

Sadly, my camera decided to fail at the most inopportune moment (I will be investing in a new one asap!) but I'll post below the greatness that followed, as well as the recipe in its entirety.

Jaime's Fudge Recipe (which can be found on Cooking for Engineers!)

1 can of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 stick of butter
A bag and a half of chocolate chip (Jaime uses milk chocolate, but use whatever you want!)

Take a 13x9 pan and grease it ALLLLLL the way around. (use a smaller pan for thicker pieces of chocolate)
Melt the butter and the sweeten condensed milk over a double broiler (a pot of simmering hot water with a metal mixing bowl on top) once that is melted and mixed together add the chocolate and mix until all the chocolate is mixed. Once it is all mixed and melted together, pour in the pan and put it in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Cover the chocolate with plastic wrap if you're going to leave it in the fridge for more than a day.

I thought it would be fun if I brought a whole bunch of add ins for Dev and let her choose what exactly she wanted to mix into her fudge.

**If you're a babysitter/nanny/mother's helper, I would suggest asking the parent about allergies first, just in case.**

On the counter, I laid out things like plain M&M's, sprinkles in various shapes and colors, walnuts, pecans, chopped up Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and some gummy bears. The bears I put in the freezer first so they wouldn't melt when they were put in the hot fudge. What I could have done is wait for the fudge to cool a bit, but when you have impatient kids, it's just not worth it :-). There are various other ingredients I could have added in, even things like sprigs of mint or dried fruit.

My mother uses a Fannie May Candies recipe that has been a big hit every Christmas, but I swear she keeps it under lock and key because for the life of me I could not find it. In any case, Jaime's recipe was a hit (and I guess we owe the success to Cooking for Engineers as well!) Dev just loved the chocolate and so did her moms.

When making a base fudge, do not hesitate to get creative! It makes the best gift (besides cookies!) for a party, especially around the holidays. I'm a tad ahead of myself holiday wise, but with all the decorations out for Halloween I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon.

For some Halloween fun, add gummy worms, candy limbs or even pumpkin seeds to your fudge and see what happens!

Up next: Kaitlin reviews different jewelry websites! I've found the most individual pieces when shopping online...it's a great way to be unique, look chic and save some cashola.

Happy Fudge-making!

Gettin' Crafty

Yesterday was the aforementioned craft fair in Flemington, New Jersey. I was hoping to gain a few ideas for some do-it-yourself projects and I definitely wasn't disappointed. Between running to the town hall to watch my dad's quartet Untamed perform (and also take pictures for their website) and wandering the streets of Flemington for a few hours, I came up with two possible craft ideas, both involving jewelry.

My activities went something like this:

Scope out the area...lovely downtown Flemington, NJ

Watch my dad (he's on the far right!) sing with his quartet Untamed.

Take a picture of the Union Hotel before it's knocked down or something of that ilk. The UH was in business since the 1800's. Definitely charming, but up close it's starting to fall apart :-(. I really liked the colors of the hotel, but we'll get to that part later.

Taking a coffee/book break on the steps of the town hall. PS, great book.

A little more four part awesomeness brought to you by Untamed, performing on the porch of the Union Hotel, across the street from the town hall...

...which looks like this.

This whole day reminded me that the best way to get ideas is to embrace what you love and work from there. I love watching my dad sing and I truly enjoy getting out and being amongst a crowd. Had I not been a constant pain to the vendors, asking them about materials and fashions, I never would have bought the two things I hope to work with:

These earrings, which are made from little glass beads of light blue, clear and purple fake pearls. The girl who made them said they were pretty simple to put together and gave me a quick run through of how she did it. My mother makes earrings too, so between her guidance and the maker's directions, I should be able to do some myself at some point! I liked the colors of the Union Hotel from before and I spent some time looking for similar beaded goodness in the same shades. Sadly, none existed. I'll just have to make them myself!

I found this pendant at a stand filled with jewelry made out of natural stones. Oddly enough, I'm not super religious, but recently they've been making Jewish rosaries, so I thought I might try something with a positive historical figure that women can relate to. Feminist rosaries, perhaps? Joan of Arc was quite the powerful woman, who used her relationship with god to save her people from British rule. Since I was going into NYC last night, and REALLy wanted something original, I took thread out of my mother's sewing kit, cut equal length of black, silver and peach thread and wove them together (it gave a little color to the gray and black I was already wearing) to create a sturdy chain.

This was the result:

I apologize, first off, for the poor quality of the photo. Secondly, for the poorly tied end. I had already worn it and had to cut it off in order to take this photo.

What I hope to do in the future is get a nice long chain and sort of make my own rosary to St. Joan, with differently colored glass beads or something. I'm not attempting to be blasphemous with this charm, but hope to sort of embrace a very influential role model.

Up next week...Kaitlin tries out Jaime's fudge recipe. My good friend from school, Jaime, makes excellent fudge...with only three ingredients! I'm going to see if I can live up to the deliciousness, and perhaps elaborate to make it my own.

Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Attempting an Art Project

Hello all!

Since Wednesday I have been working on a small collage I hoped to frame. The inspiration was a friend of mine from school (who I will most likely send this to!) and the outcome was this:

Today, I took a trip to the nearest Target (about 4 miles from my house) and purchased a white picture frame for about a $1.48 (on sale!!). Since it's so light I hoped to paint it or decorate it in some way, but sadly despite the amazing amount of Halloween inventory, there was little else to be had. Next week I'll try driving to Michaels or AC Moore to see what I can dig up!

I've been putting together collages since middle school. I consider them the best way to express yourself if you can't draw/paint your way out of a paper sack *points to self*. As I grew older, I realized that collages didn't have to be brightly colored or reeking of adolescent quality; instead, I could form them into themes and work from there.

Below are Kaitlin's instructions on how to make a collage into art!

Start with a wide array of magazines (below is a sampling of the ones I used):

Cut out as many pictures as you want and put them together in any way you desire. If you're working with younger kids make sure they have a supervisor. Mine for the day was Denny; just in case I slipped up, he'd be there to help:

When you're satisfied with your collage and you've found a frame, you can slap it in there any way you like. My collage was rather small, so I had to do a little grunt work to make the background. I wanted it to be black. When I finished the mini collage there wasn't much black to be had in my magazines. In order to make the dark background, I took the sample sheet they had inside the picture frame and put pieces of black magazine pages on the back haphazardly. It gave it a slightly edgy look, which echoed the collage.

A little magazine chopping never hurt anyone...

Putting the pieces together

Finally, the page was all black! I glued on the mini collage and centered it exactly how I wanted it until I came up with the final project:

And a close up:

The project was simple enough, and it has to be one of the most fun things to do with kids (make sure to lay down some newspaper to make clean-up a cinch!)

Coming soon...Kaitlin takes a trip to a craft fair! My father's part of a barbershop quartet and they are slatted to sing there tomorrow and Sunday. I'll try and take some good pictures so everyone can see what went down. Craft fairs are the best way to get inspiration for DIY projects and pretty fun to boot.

Happy Collaging!

Launch Day!

Hello and welcome to Launch Day for the Start Up Gal!

My name is Kaitlin and I'll be your blogger for this adventure.

First order of business is to start you off with a little get to know me:

I'm a recent college graduate without a full time job, and as I have lots of free time on my hands, I'm attempting to do some projects around the house on my own. My focus is on house warming gifts for all my friends that have left my hometown to work in various places around the US of A. The process for each gift will be listed (with pictures!) as I finish it, though as the glue dries I'll be bringing you all some helpful tidbits to online shopping. More often than not it will be for new clothes since I'll probably end up destroying the old ones, despite the smock.

To start off, I'll be supplying a recipe that has always worked for me as a gift when going to houses at Christmas, Fourth of July, heck, anytime! Many of you might recognize this cookie recipe from the back of the Nestle Toll-House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips bag, but I've revamped it with my own personal ad-ins.

Kaitlin's Top Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies (made public!)

2 salted sticks of butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract, any brand will do (I prefer McCormick)
2 eggs, room temperature
a little bit of cinnamon (at your discretion, be frugal or pour it in)
2 1/4 cups of flour (they say measure exactly, but give or take a little won't kill you)
1 tsp salt (I do a little less, but again, discretion)
1 tsp baking soda (arm and hammer works great)
The ENTIRE bag of chocolate chips!

Blend butter, granulated and brown sugars and vanilla extract together. Add eggs and blend again. Add flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda to the mix and blend until smooth. I usually stir the chocolate chips in with a wooden spoon (or spatula) rather than using the electric mixer...the chips tend to jam up the beaters (as I learned the hard way...)

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Baking time will always vary oven to oven, so I suggest setting the timer at 8 minutes and giving them a peek before adding two minutes. They should be nice and gold colored, though a little browning won't hurt either. Make sure to use non-stick cookie pans!!

If you want to spice things up, feel free to put some cayenne pepper and dark chocolate chips into your batter. I tried it once and it turned out fabulous! Trader Joe's has the best semi-sweet chips (shh...don't tell Nestle I've cheated on them!), but do not hold back! I've also thrown in M&M's, sprinkles, anything that doesn't melt horribly in an oven. My attempt at gummy bear cookies was a disaster!

Over the past decade I've brought these chocolate chip cookies to parties, to school, to work, and I've even used them as gifts to friends who put me up when I visit them. People appreciate you when you appreciate them, and cookies are the way to a person's heart (and stomach).

Happy Baking!