Thursday, February 13, 2014

DIY Glittery Heart Door Decor for Valentine's Day

Confession time: I really envy the people out there who have giant front porches to decorate for the holidays. Living in an apartment, the holiday decor options are pretty limited and I long for the day that I can have a wraparound porch to fill up with holiday lights, jack o'lanterns, and seasonal flowers.

However, you still have some options in an apartment and this year, I made a large gold glittery heart for our front door for Valentines Day.  It was so easy and could be done in an afternoon.


First, I started with some scrap cardboard, specifically a leftover package from Christmas presents.  I drew a heart on it with Sharpie (I didn't use a template, but you could if you're more on the perfectionist side).  I then cut it out with scissors.



I used the leftover box scraps as a spray paint area, as our weather has been really gross and snowy lately.  If you're spray painting inside, make sure you protect your work area in some way and obviously, ventilation is crucial.  I sprayed each side of the heart with primer.


Next, I sprayed each side with metallic gold spray paint.  You may have seen the graphic that floats around Pinterest of the best metallic gold spray paint, but if you haven't, it's Rustoleum.  Valspar, Glidden- NO.  Rustoleum Metallic Effects is the absolute best.  I only did one coat of the gold spray paint, as I knew I wanted to cover it with glitter, but if you want a metallic heart or a single color heart, it may be better to do more coats of paint.


Finally, I took a chance on Rustoleum's gold glitter spray paint... mostly because I was really excited to learn that that existed.  It's pretty great, although it's worth noting that it's very similar to glitter hairspray, if any of you ever used that cheer competitions in the late 1990s like I did, in that is flies all over.  You should put newspapers or a tarp down and be ready to have flecks of glitter on your hands, arms, etc.  I only sprayed the front side of the heart to present glitter from getting all over the door (although I'm sure some will be left), but I did three separate coats to really saturate the front of the heart with glitter.


After the last coat of paint dried, I punched a hole in the heart with a basic single hole punch, used some extra ribbon that I had lying around, and threaded that through the hole so that the heart could be hung up.  I hammered a small nail into the top on the interior side of the door.  I looped the ribbon over the nail hung the heart on the outside of the door.


It will only be up for a little bit, as Valentine's Day is tomorrow, but it has been a great brightener each time I've arrived home from work this week.




What are some of the things you do to decorate for holidays?

Monday, February 3, 2014

Instagramming in the Kitchen: Mini Frittatas

Hello!

To start off the week, I wanted to share one of the recipes that I use to make our daily breakfasts for the week.  You've probably seen these before, but mini frittatas made in a muffin tin are the easiest thing to make and they make your weekday mornings a breeze.  I'm someone who HAS to have something to eat and a cup of coffee as soon as I get up, but I don't always have time to cook something from scratch.  Every two weeks, I make a huge batch of these and store them in a resealable container in the fridge so I can just pull two out every morning, throw them in the microwave for one minute, and go.  You can tweak this recipe and add whatever extras you like to your frittatas, I just happen to be partial to ham, peppers, and cheese.


Mini Frittata
Makes approximately 28 mini frittatas
 
Ingredients
2 dozen eggs (we're CostCo people, so I pick up 2 dozen eggs every two weeks just for this purpose)
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
 3/4 cup diced peppers
1/2 cup diced ham
Nonstick cooking spray
1 Tbsp. of salt
1 tsp. of black pepper
1 tsp. of cayenne pepper (optional- I just love cayenne pepper for the kick and also for the metabolism boost)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Break the eggs in a large bowl and whisk them together.
Add the grated cheese, pepper, ham, salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.
Spray the muffin tin cups with the nonstick spray.
Using a ladle, pour the egg mixture into the muffin tin cups until they are 3/4 of the way full.  They will fluff up in the oven.
Bake for about fifteen minutes, or until the tops of the frittatas are golden brown and don't jiggle.

According to my Losin' It app, which I love, by the way, these mini frittatas (made with the ingredients listed) are 108 calories each.  I have two every morning and they keep me satisfied for about five hours.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

This Week at Boy Meets Girl Meets Home

Hello!

Today I'm beginning a new series on the blog today.  I love to see bits of other blogger's live through photos- the kinds of real moments that you aren't necessarily going to write a full post on.  Every week, I'll be featuring some photos from my week that show day to day life here.


I'm working on two new paintings- one for our gallery wall and one for my friend's home.  I began those this week by gessoing over some old canvases to prime them.


We had a great dinner on Tuesday.  I'm still adjusting the recipe a little bit and should be posting it in the Instagramming in the Kitchen series in a few weeks.  I'm trying to add more Paleo meals into our diet; this dinner of roast beef, carrots, and sweet potatoes is a great way to do that. 


This week, the Southeast got quite a bit more snow than normal.  We were hit with over eight inches of it in Norfolk, which shut down the city for two days.


We took loads of snowy walks with Wicket, who loved jumping in the big drifts.  Here's one of the holly bushes that borders our apartment building covered in snow.


While life was pretty much back to normal in Norfolk on Friday, Jon and I still had work cancelled that day, and we loved sleeping in with our sweet Wicket, who never says no to hitting the snooze.