Buffalo Wing Seasoned Crock Pot Chicken

Today we made Buffalo Seasoned Crock Pot Chicken. It was very tasty.
What you will need:
A Crock Pot
1 cup of water or enough to make about an inch of water in the bottom of the crock pot
2 packets of McCormick Original Buffalo Wing Seasoning Mix Salt and Pepper to taste and to your liking. 1-2 teaspoons of chopped garlic

Place about 1 inches worth of water in your Crock pot. Mix in Garlic, water and 1 packet of Buffalo Wing Seasonings. Place cleaned up whole chicken in crock pot. Coat whole chicken with 1 packet of Buffalo Wing Seasonings, some salt and some pepper and place lid on crock pot. Cook on high for about 5-6 hours. Make sure throughout the day that there is a little bit of water in crock pot. It helps to keep the chicken moist. We had it in the crock pot for about 6 hours and did not have a dried out chicken. It was very moist.

My family was in love with this and they said the chicken had great flavors. I am thinking that the next time I do this, I will coat the chicken the day before with the seasonings and some salt and pepper. Either way, it was a big hit with the family. We served it with fruit, mashed potatoes and gravy. Oh and my husband added a side of Bleu Cheese dressing to dip his chicken in. He wanted to get the wing/bleu cheese flavor and experience. We have decided to start cooking our whole chickens in the crock pot, from here on out. The chicken stays moist. Here is the finished chicken.
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Bento Lunch

I found some old pictures lately of some Bento Lunches that I made for my daughter. This has always been one of her favorite lunches. In her lunch is some Mini Bagels with plain Cream Cheese cut in halves, hard boiled egg sliced and placed next to the bagels and for her treat was some fresh strawberries and bananas and apples with lemon juice, and some Cocoa Krispies for her dessert. Ashley loves her Bento Boxes. We need to get back to getting her to take luinches again.
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Paper Covered Clothes Pins

What is a good way to spend your recovery time in bed from the Stomach Flu? Well, evidently I figured that crafting in my bed was a good idea. It really isn't because it is not comfortable, but I was determined to get my clothes pins covered. Before I got sick, last week I found a tutorial on dyeing up natural wood clothes pins. I dyed them up last week and had them drying over the weekend. They were all dry by last night so I decided to bring them up to my bed, and get my crafting on! I grabbed my supplies (exacto knife, fabric cutting board, Mod Podge, Sponge Brushes, decorative paper and paper plates) got some old towels out, an apron on and started to cut and cover the dyed clothes pins with some of my fun printed paper that I have. I do not recommend crafting in your bed however unless you have the right accessories to do so and good hips that won't hurt sitting in the same position for two hours, heh. I took the appropriate measures to prevent glue from getting on the bed with old towels and a plastic cover. Just trace the pins with your exacto knife cutting out the shape of clothes pins and you will have your paper to cover your pins. Lay a coating of Mod Podge on the top of the clothes pin and lay the paper down. Let dry, then do same for other side. Once both sides were dry, I coated the top of the paper on each side to give it the Lustre effect. Below is what they look like finished.
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New Giveaway for Soap Bits

My last giveaway on Hyena Cart was a little messed up. It was my first time running one on The Creative Mamas Congo and I managed to ball it up! I decided to do another giveaway just on my basic Hyena Cart store. Up for grabs is a Mini Bag of Soap Bits in Bubble Gum Soda Fizz Scent. It is awesome! Winner pays shipping but the bag is free. Open to US and Canada folks.

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24 Hour Store Giveaway! Enter to Win my Soap Bits!

I am having a 24 hour Giveaway on The Creative Mamas Congo. Giveaway starts on March 16th, 2012 at 12 pm, and ends on March 17th, 12pm. Bag is completely free. I will cover shipping costs to the winner as long as they live in Canada or the US. :) Enter and good luck!




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Cleaning up Pure Beeswax-Kind of a fun process!

My daughter has a friend whose Grandfather is a Beekeeper, so last week I bought some Raw Honey (2 gallons) and about 4 pounds of Pure Beeswax from him. I use the Beeswax to make Lotion Bars and other bath items for the family to use or to sell in my store. Beeswax is really expensive in the Craft stores and on-line so I thought I would support my daughter's friend and their family (buy local when you can) and get the raw honey and beeswax which I bought for really cheap. I am glad that I did. I found a tutorial on-line on how to clean up the beeswax, so here is my step by step process in cleaning up pure beeswax.

What you will need:
Your unprocessed block of Beeswax, bugs bits, dirt and all
Water
Large Old Cooking pot that you don't care about getting wax in.
Cutting Board
Krinkle Cutter
Plastic Spoon
Rubber Maid Take Alongs (to pour the clean wax in)
Sifter that has tiny holes to catch bug particles in. I bought one at Wal-Mart for almost $3. I got the small sized one with very little holes. Make sure the weaving of the sifter is tight. You can see the sifter that I used below in my pictures.
Double Boiler

First step, get a rather large and inexpensive pot that you won't mind having wax be in. The wax is a bit of a pain to clean up in the pot, but it can be done. Never pour wax or waxy water down the drain as it will block up your drain, so I want to let that be known first. I was given about a 4-5 pound block of beeswax, with bug particles and all and I was determined to at least learn how to clean up the beeswa. I did some research on how to clean it up and through various websites decided to try this method. I actually found this to be fun and plan to get more wax from my daughter's friend's family.

Take your choice cooking pot that you don't mind getting wax in, and fill it halfway with water. Set in your wax block and start simmering your water until it comes to a light boil. Here is what the wax will look like as it melts and I increased and kept it on Medium to Medium High heat.


Here is what it looks like as it starts melting. Some of the bug particles will float to the top as it melts. I got a few paper towels and a plastic spoon and scooped out the big particles as it was metling. The good wax will come to the top and the bug particles will pool down to the bottom, which is also the top of the water, if that makes sense.


Here it looks like getting melted. I used the spoon to poke at the wax and water to see what was left of the big block being melted and scooped out big bug particles while poking it.


Here is the beeswax almost completely melted. Be careful as to not overheat the wax and make it bubble. It can spit and burn you, so if you see it bubble, reduce the temperature a little bit.


Once it was completely melted, and I used a plastic spoon to check this, I turned the stove off and removed it from the heat. I let the block cool about 4-5 hours so that the wax can solidify and then used my Krinkle Cutter to cut out chunks of the wax. It was cooled off, but still soft enough for me to cut the wax blocks out. It looked like this as I was cutting the wax up still in the pot.


So here is what the chunks look like. You can see all the bug bits and sediment fell to the bottom of the wax block.


Here is all the bug sediment cut off of the wax blocks. I plan to keep the yucky bag of wax around to use as fire starter for our fire pits. That way no wax goes to waste.



Here is the second big step to cleaning up the wax. I did this cleaning process over a two day period.
For the second process I used a double boiler. I melted down each block of wax and got out my sifter and plastic Rubbermaid Take Alongs to pour the clean wax in and to store in smaller useable blocks.


Here I am with my daughter pouring the wax in the containers. She was helping me out so I can take a picture of how the wax looks. You can see some of the particles in the sifter.


Here is some of the containers with the cleaned up wax in them. I actually had a lot of fun cleaning up the raw beeswax. Now my beeswax will be easy to pop out of the containers when I am ready to make up more Lotion Bars. I can't wait to use this stuff! I am still cleaning up the pot though. I have been dumping the water and bits of left wax out in the yard/dirt. When the pot is still warm, get some paper towels and wipe the wax out. You can throw those paper towels in your composter (if you have one). :) I hope you enjoyed this little turorial. For the record, I was convinced that there was no way I could clean up that wax. While this was time consuming, I really enjoyed the process of cleaning up Pure Beeswax. Who knew that cleaning beeswax could be so rewarding and fun? Surely not I! Oh and for the record, the honey I got from them is amazing!



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Tutorial for making an Origami Covered Tin

I have been inspired by all sorts of craftiness through Pinterest these days. I have lots of tins laying around the house that I can't seem to part with and decided that since I have a love of Mod Podge and Origami that I could use those items to decorate them. Well, here is my first attempt at it and how it turned out. It was fun to do this project and I am a tin fanatic so this is a great way of making them beautiful!

What you will need:
Tin you want to cover
Origami Paper in the same print (I think I used about 3 sheets total)
Exacto Knife
I used my sewing/craft cutting board to safely cut the paper with the Exacto Knife
Mod Podge
Paper Plate and Foam brush
Small Ruler


I measured my pieces out and began cutting out about 3 pieces of them to go around the side walls. I used a small ruler to work best with the small Origami pieces. The Cutting board ruler was too big.



After getting lots of pieces cut, I began to Mod Podge the area that I would lay the Origami paper down on. I recommend keeping a wet washcloth with you at the table to wipe off the excess Mod Podge off of your fingers. You will use your fingers often to lay down the Origami paper on the tin. You will also Mod Podge the outer layer as well as the inner as you lay your paper down. This is very important.


To get the rounded edges of the lid of the tin to lay down, I would use the Exacto Knife to and split the corners down the middle on the rounded edges, and would lay them down with the Mod Podge on top of each other. It layered really nice, no bulk to the rounded edges. Not sure yet what I am going to do with this one (right now season packets from Ramen noodles are in it), but I am thinking that I might just give it to my daughter. She could put it to good use in her locker at Middle School. I have a bunch of round Christmas tins that are in sad shape, and I would love to give new life to them and Mod Podge the heck out of them all! I think I have about 4 or 5 tins. This might be my new addiction. I know some tins will come in handy at my Craft and Sewing Center that will get set back up this weekend. :) I am excited to get my sewing section back in the house. It has been sadly sitting in the garage since Christmas. I love doing this kind of stuff and it will help me feel very organized in my life and that is so important to me these days. Here is the final product. Let me know what you think and I will do my best to answer any questions.


FYI, you will want to leave a little bit of space at the top of the bottom piece tin to put the lid back on. I had originally papered it to almost the top of the tin, and ended up cutting it off with the Exacto Knife because it was too thick at the top tot get the lid on. The top of the bottom tin went messy when attempting to get the lid on and bunched up so it had to go. The lid refused to go over the top with the paper. I hope that makes sense! I am new to blogging my projects so if I do not make something clear enough then let me know, and I will do my best to clear it up for you.


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My attempt at curling my hair with a Sock Bun

I have amazing hair, that really doesn't like to hold curls. Even with lots of product, it falls flat after a few hours so most of the time I dread doing anything but flat ironing my hair out. Everyone on-line and on Pinterest has been raving about the Sock Bun way of curling your hair so I decided to give it a shot. Last night I washed my hair, squeezed all the excess water out of it and put it up in a ponytail. I then grabbed one of my son's old Babylegs that unravelled and rolled it to the sock bun, put it in my hair, rolled it up and slept with it like that all night. I also left it in most of the day today while I was cleaning. So, here is the results. I like it, but I think next time I need to put the bun higher on top of my head because there is an obvious seperation of where the curl starts on my head! I also have layered hair so that is a bit of a problem for hair like mine.

Here it is in the bun.


The front taken out of the bun. My husband loved how fluffy my hair was. He thought it looked super sexy! These are not the best pics of me, but eh, this is to show folks the result with layered hair that doesn't like to curl.


I definitely love the way the back turned out though.


Tomorrow I will be back with my Origami covered tin and how I covered it. I kept a Christmas tin that some awesome Chocolate Truffles came in. I loved the tin and thought I could do something neat with it so I covered it with Mod Podge and Origami. I will be putting in Spice Packets in the tin for storing in my pantry. I turned out pretty cute. :)


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My attempt at Making Beignets from Cafe Du Monde Mix

I can't remember where I purchased the Cafe Du Monde Beignet Mix, but I think I got it at my local Cost Plus World Market. You can order it on-line at the above link. One of these days I will try to make them from scratch, but decided that until I can get my heiny to Cafe Du Monde in Louisiana, then making their boxed Beignets will just have to do.
Ingredients:


An Electric Skillet is recommended to cook your Beignets. I layered about 1-2 inches of oil and turned up the heat to 370 degrees. It is recommended to use Cottonseed Oil, but I just used Canola.


Follow Instructions on the box.
2 Cups of mix and 7oz of water then mix up with a wooden spoon and in a mixing bowl. I got out my baking stone and lots of flour to roll out my dough. Beware that without flour, your mix will be a sticky mess. Use lots of flour. I rolled the dough out with a rolling pin.


Rolled, then used a roller pin to roll the dough out to 1 1/2 inches thick and cut up into sections.


I got out a plate and picked up each cut Beignet and shook off any excess flour. I placed them on the plate to get them easily into the oil.


Into the oil they went. I used a tong to flip each Beignet. Here is what they look like in the fryer.



I think total cook time was about 15 minutes. To be honest, I was so busy hoping that I didn't screw these up to notice the time. For that I am so sorry. Next time I will make sure that the oil is hot enough, but they still fluffed up pretty good. I used one of those wire cooling cookie sheets to powder sugar them.





Here is all of them sugared.




Close up of the Beignets. I can't wait to have one with some coffee tomorrow morning! My kids really enjoyed these. :)


One of these days I will try a scratch recipe for Beignets.


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Monkey Butt Soap Bits Giveaway for February!

My store is having a giveaway for a Mini Bag of Sweet Orange Essential Soap Bits. Details on my website! Good luck.




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Closet Organization

I wanted to start the new year out right, so one of the big things that I have been working on has been organizing my side of the closet. My friend inspired me to get storage containers so I bought all of these in the Home Decor section at Kohl's. I even used Kohl's coupons to get them discounted. That is how I like buying stuff, with discounts. Between my husband and I, we have a decent sized closet and too much clothing and various other stuff so it was time to get an organization plan in action. Here is what I did for my top shelving units.

The next thing on my closet organization list is to make Clothing Dividers and organize my shirts/skirts/shoes and dresses with the dividers.


Another angle.


Close up of the tags I ordered off of Etsy. I remembered that I had lots of Clothing Pins in my laundry room so I ordered the tags and labeled the storage units and the contents in it.




We still have lots of closet organization, but it feels good to at least have started on my side of the closet and to have it mostly finished. I hope that the hubby and I can tackle his side of the closet, very soon.

I ordered these super cute Tags from this store called Conversationals.

Next on the closet organization is to get clothing dividers, decorate them and then organize every single piece of clothing in my closet by divider.


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