There’s nothing like stepping out into the Summer sun and feeling the deep heat radiate on to your shoulders. I may be one of the only crazy ones, but I love feeling the wall of humid heat here in Houston hit me as I leave the house. Maybe it’s the stark contrast to the frozen air conditioned spaces that we confine ourselves to, or maybe it’s just that the heat relaxes me into a sense of vacation, but I love it just the same. Continue reading “Seersucker Off the Shoulder Summer Dress Sewing Tutorial”→
Seeing as I started my holiday weekend early by taking a day yesterday to spend with my best friend by the pool, I’ve completely let you down on a Fri-DIY! I hope you’ll forgive me since you’ll be busy lounging with family and friends outside anyways celebrating our beautiful country. My plan is to grill, hang by the pool with some great friends, and create some fabulous drinks to share with y’all… Sound ok? What are you all up to? Have a fantastic holiday, and God bless America!!
Each week I head to the grocery store on Sunday and stock up for the week. On my sugar reducing kick, I ran to the produce section and stocked up on boxes upon boxes of fresh strawberries, they were on sale! By Wednesday I had eaten approximately half of them, and they started to look a little droopy. I could have frozen them for berry beet smoothies, but I already had a whole bag in there (notice my problem with over-buying produce). Looked like I was going to have to eat the entire box of strawberries in one night. Continue reading “3 Ingredient Strawberry Mint Pops Recipe”→
I’m not sure if you know this about me or not, but I am truly obsessed with mid-century modern furniture. If it has tapered legs, warm toned wood, and a sleek shape I am sure to love it. Over time, Megan and I have worked on furnishing our apartment with new, solid pieces of furniture to replace anything we had acquired back in college, with the exception of the coffee table. Ridiculously enough, it was probably the piece of furniture in the worst shape. Staring at the wood composite slathered in black “stain” that was peeling and bubbling over most of the top, I was driven to figure out something to do about it.
Nicely enough, my parents were doing some Spring cleaning, and they offered to ship me a beautiful modern table my dad had made and designed years ago! I love the new look in our space, and it’s really awesome to have something that was made by my dad. He’s made many of the beautiful tables in my parent’s house, and it’s really a blessing to have gotten to inherit one already!
Before this generous gift was bestowed upon me, I had worked on figuring out a mid-century modern fix for our sad coffee table. I found this incredibly simple coffee table design by A Pair of Pears and would have jumped right into building if not for the gorgeous alternative coming into my life.
This coffee table is not only stylish and simple, it’s inexpensive to make too! What’s even better is that it’s almost fail-proof for a new furniture maker (like me and pretty much everyone else I know in their 20’s). With a piece of wood, four tapered legs, some hardware, and stain, you will be revamping your living room in no time!
Thanks again to A Pair of Pears for sharing this post and for the incredible idea!
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about sugar. Growing up as a dessert lover, anything with a real kick of sweetness was good by me. I would stir a heaping 4 spoonfuls of sugar in to my tea after school, sneak sugar cubes out of the box from fancy parties, and lick the cake batter right out of the bowl. One of these things still stands true.
Over time, I obviously have cut down on my sugar intake, but I realized recently that I was still really going overboard without even trying! With the help of the My Fitness Pal app, I started tracking my food intake just on the weekdays to try to help myself from grabbing that third cookie or mindlessly eating chips in front of the TV after work. It’s been incredibly helpful with that, as well as helping me see the power of exercise (so many more snacks allowed on workout days!). What I didn’t anticipate was the insight it would bring to my intake on things like protein, vitamins, and mostly, sugar.
You all know I love sweets, and I’m totally fine with committing myself to a sweet indulgence, but I was hitting my sugar intake for the day by lunch time without even having one dessert! AHHHH! How was this even possible? Little did I realize, I’d been eating unnecessary sugar in so many of my foods. Though some of it was natural sugar from fruits and dairy, I realized how much I could cut down with a few simple changes in my diet. Check out my tips below to see where you can save sweetness for dessert and not keep it hidden where you don’t enjoy it:
5 Easy Tips to Cut Unnecessary Sugar from Your Diet
1. Breakfast cereals are FULL of sugar! Go to your pantry and check out the labels. If you don’t strictly eat plain Cheerio’s, you’re going to find anywhere from 8-15 grams of sugar per serving. This includes “healthy” cereals like Special K (which I eat all the time), yikes! Also, if you throw in 2/3 cup of 1% milk you get another 9 grams of sugar. This was insane to me.
In order to increase protein intake and cut the sugar, I switched my breakfast to 2 soft boiled eggs and a half a cup of strawberries. I can make the hard boiled eggs the night before and eat them quickly in the morning. They have less than 1 gram of sugar a piece and 6 grams of protein! The strawberries have only 4 grams of sugar, even though they taste so sweet.
3/4 cup of Special K Vanilla Almond Cereal with 2/3 cup 1% Milk vs. 2 Large Eggs
2. Fruity yogurts are sneakily sweet. I love grabbing Greek yogurt cups at the start of the week because of its great protein, calcium, and good bacteria properties. What I don’t love is that it costs me 17 grams of sugar to eat them.
By switching to a plain Greek yogurt and adding your own fruit, you can cut up to 10 grams of sugar and still get all the same benefits. What I do now is buy a large container of Chobani plain Greek yogurt (I’ve found it to be the lowest in sugar) and portion it out into Tupperware. Then I add fresh cut berries to the top and throw them in the fridge. Letting the fruit sit over the week sweetens up the yogurt and tastes just like the store bought fruity cups.
Dannon Oiko’s Fruit on the Bottom Peach Non-Fat Greek Yogurt vs. Chobani Plain Non-Fat Greek Yogurt with Fresh Cut Strawberries
3. Some fruits are sweeter than others. Obviously fruit is still good for you, but you can pick some that are a little easier on the sweet tooth than others. Raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries are the least sweet fruits you can buy, while cherries, bananas, and mangoes will put you into a sugar coma. Just swapping fruit choices will help you out, sometimes by up to 10 grams of sugar a serving!
One Banana vs. 1/2 cup Strawberries
4. You can have your cake and save sugar too! Ok, cake is a bad example, but you can still feel indulgent while not picking the sweetest desserts. Having dark chocolate versus milk chocolate will cut the sugar in half. A mixed berry cobbler with reduced sugar will also come in lower than lemon squares… but honestly I’m OK with committing to a sweet dessert. It’s dessert after all!
5. Other places sugar is hiding include fruit juices, pasta sauces, and granola bars – all things we expect to be full of nutrients and health benefits are also full of sugar. Try to avoid these if possible.
Don’t feel the need to go overboard, but try a sugar saving trick here and there just to see how you feel. Reducing sugar intake can improve your skin, energy level, and overall health, so let’s work on it. Do you have any other good tricks to share?
Every birthday deserves cake. And if you’re like me, I think every birthday deserves flowers too. There’s something really luxurious about having a fresh bouquet on the dining table, livening up the whole room. Well, this Fri-DIY might not include a scent, but 52 Kitchen Adventures shows you how to make a cupcake bouquet that is perfect for a sweet birthday girl!
It’s such a simple idea, which makes it the best kind of DIY in my opinion. By using the Frosting Tips tutorial I put up last year to make the rose cupcakes, all you have to do is stick toothpicks into a foam mold and arrange your “flowers” into shape. If someone was to give me this as a birthday present, I think it would go down in the books as one of the cutest gifts ever received. It would also be personal because I love cupcakes and flowers… but really, who doesn’t? What a thoughtful gift for anyone!
If you have a birthday coming up, grab some supplies and get going!
Hi everyone! I’m working on getting myself up on Bloglovin so you can read me along with all of your other favorite DIY, baking, and bunny loving blogs. If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you’ll see a new “Follow” button that will allow you to follow me through Bloglovin.
Smoothies are so sneaky. I absolutely love that I can throw tons of fruits and vegetables into a blender and all you taste is sweet yumminess. It’s like taking a salad and ending up with ice cream. If that isn’t everything you’ve ever wanted, I don’t know what is! As we head into a week of rain and more possible flooding here in Houston, I am stocking my body up with good things like this Berry Beet Smoothie (knowing I will be stocking it with beans and canned tuna if the power subsides…). Continue reading “Berry Beet Smoothie Recipe”→
Sew Bake Decorate 