Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows

Looking for a cute, quick and kid friendly snack? Here's a sweet one K and I whipped up yesterday. It took all of 5 minutes, looked adorable, and best of all, he did it all himself.

Following the 'cake pop' craze, we opted for marshmallows instead. And we didn't have lollipop sticks, but cocktail straws worked great. Anyways, here's what you need :)

Ingredients:

Large Marshmallows (we used Jet-Puffs)
Chocolate chips
Heavy Cream
Sprinkles

Basically, you make a chocolate ganache (you can find an easy tutorial here, but essentially you just heat the cream, pour it over the chocolate until it melts and then stir it up, easy peasy)

You put a cocktail straw through each of the marshmallows, dip them in the chocolate ganache, and then dip them in the sprinkles.

We used a blob of playdough at the bottom of a cup to stand them up.

And voila! Couldn't be easier!

The kids gobbled them up over the afternoon (pretty sure mom and dad dipped in too).

Enjoy!

DIY: Rocking Chair Makeover

We have this beautiful old rocking chair. My mother used to rock my brother and me in it when we were babies, and I've rocked all three kidlets in it. Its got nice lines, but it was in need of some love. It was oak, with gold painted accents including some lovely fruit on the head rest. (ok...maybe not so much lovely as, well....tacky. Sorry mom)

Then there are the cushions. One on the back, one on the seat. If you've ever seen the Dateline investigations where they shine lights on fabric to see all the germs and creepy crawlies, these are probably on par. I read once that 10% of the weight of a two year old pillow was comprised of dust mites and their droppings (*gag*), so this pillow is roughly 30 years old...and so probably 150% dead mites. You can actually see the wear lines from the bars at the back of the chair. They are paper thin, and fairly revolting.

So... feeling very empowered by some recent diy reading, I decided to roll up my sleeves and take a stab at making over this chair.

I sanded it down lightly and then did two coats of matte black spray paint. I then lightly sanded some of the edges to mirror the finish on the crib, and finally added some spray lacquer.

The only thing I'm not loving is the fine layer of dust that blew over some of it when it was drying. Thought I was quite clever by opening the garage doors a bit to allow for ventilation. Oh well, I suppose if I get ambitious I can start all over. But, I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

After the chair itself was done I picked up some gorgeous Amy Butler fabric and will be attempting to sew some cushions! Crazy I know, maybe I'll try and bribe James' Baba to help when she visits ;)

I didn't take before shots, but here are a couple of afters. The fabric is just tucked around the existing (revolting) cushions, but it gives an idea of what it will be.  Anyways, here's how it turned out:

Yay! One project off the list. I'm already starting on K's desk, so hopefully that will be done in the next week or so. Cheers!

K's New Room

Ah. Four months since we moved and we are finally trying to settle in. As we do most summers, I've cancelled our tv, so we've been spending more time doing things. But in the evenings, once the kids are in bed, I've been on the computer more than usual.

I was shown this awesome website, http://pinterest.com/. Its basically a social bookmarking site (like Digg), but its much more visual. When you come across some you like, you 'pin it' to one of your boards. It will "pin" a picture from that site and it links back tot he original post. I LOVE IT. Its given me some inspiration to get crackin on some crafty diy's for the kids room and the rest of the house.

When we moved in, we were able to pick two colors of paint. Most of the house is being, but one of the promises we had to make to K to get him excited about (yet another) move, is to have a blue bedroom. So both the boys rooms were painted in a fairly dark, muted blue. They love it, but its pretty blue. Things are required on the wall to tone it down. So where to start?

I started here:

I love love love this vintage inspired boys room. Its clearly got an aviation theme, but I've got a train buff, so here we go. First project to tackle is that fantastic map wreath on the wall. I found a tutorial, stole borrowed a 1994 road atlas from my parents, broke out the hot glue gun and ink pads and got cracking.

Here's what I ended up with:

We put the shelf that I painted for K's nursery underneath, and put it all in the entry to his room. Next on the list is redoing some of his furniture. Here is a sneak a peak of my inspiration.