hello halloween

Not so long ago my years were split into 2 categories: School and Vacation. It was as easy as that, I went to school and while everyone else was checking their syllabus for test dates and project deadlines, I would open my brand new school issued planner and begin my countdown until summer vacation, writing numbers on each day of the week and setting earmarks on holidays like Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day and Easter.  

These days my calendar is far less interesting, the only thing separating this week from last and next week from 5 weeks from now are work trips and expense reports. Gone are the days of my planner and the summer vacation countdown. Unfortunately, unless we get a corporate day off for a holiday, I have no idea it exists. I have the receptionist's bowl of candy and Pinterest updates to thank for reminding me of the current holiday season. After all, I live in Florida, our seasons are as simple: Hot and Warm. So while the rest of the world welcomes fall and Halloween with tall boots and pumpkin spice lattes, I have styrofoam pumpkins and acrylic paint to help put me in the holiday spirit. 

My friend Ellie found this project in the most recent issue of Country Living, and being the die-hard magazine junkie that I am (it comes with the territory), I figured it was good enough for the pages of print, it was good enough for my doorstep .... and also the perfect way to add some Halloween spirit to the front of my crib without the mess of carving a pumpkin:

Pumpkin Painting 101

Need: Acrylic paint, pumpkins (real of fake), 

paint brush, and finishing spray

Who doesn't love a chevron striped pumpkin. 

I'm sure my mailman will appreciate it :)

These probably would have turned out much better 

with some painters tape, but I didn't have any so I 

decided to freehand everything.

Once your paint dries, spray on finishing spray 

and let set overnight. 

Follow me on Instagram for project sneak peeks: magmay1010

wedding season

Wedding season is in the air! 

I'm incredibly lucky to have so many awesome people in my life, but as I have come to find out in my adult life, awesome people all like to do things at the same time ... whether that's getting engaged, getting married, or having babies - it always happens at once. 

These are what I refer to as "seasons", and I'm here to tell you that we are officially in the midst of wedding season! Wedding season consists of: Bridal Showers, Dress Shopping (because you can't wear the same thing to the shower and the wedding), Bachelorette Parties, and of course, we can't forget about the actual wedding! Multiply that by 5 and that's exactly how many bridal showers, dresses (x2), bachelorette parties, and weddings I will be attending before 2013! 

Side Note: In 2013 I have 4 friends having babies, 1 in each month. That's right. 1 baby per month starting in January .... WOAH BABY!

Weddings, showers, babies, and parties aside, I'm incredibly blessed to have such amazing friends and the opportunity to be invited to celebrate the special "Seasons" of their life with them!

I kicked off the start of wedding season 2 weeks ago with my friend Mary's bridal shower. Mary and I sat across from each other at work and quickly realized that we were both overly sarcastic and shared the same sense of humor(thank God, or that already terrible office situation would have been a whole lot worse!). Mary is what affectionally refer to as an "Intentional" person, everything that Mary does, says, wears, goes, and even down to the way she decorates her office space and (new) home is extremely intentional and done with purpose (check out her blog, its 100% Mary). The concept of her "Intentionalism" continues to fascinate and inspire me, and her bridal shower was no exception. 

Simple (beautiful) flowers + simple foods + careful attention to detail = A very-Mary wedding shower

My "Intentional" recycled magazine wrapping paper 

.... just in case there was any doubt that I work for 

a magazine:)

Wedding presents

Shower guests

Her bridesmaids made these verrrry cute cake-pops as a take-away from the shower. They even hand-wrote out the recipe on vintage recipe cards for us to take home with us. 

Her bridesmaids found a recipe on Pinterest for (easy) individual apple pies (as I said yesterday, "easy" is a term Pinterest users use loosely). I'm pretty certain that Mary would have left her own party had we tried to wrap her in a toilet paper dress or made her wear a crown of any sort - which is why the baking activity they had planned was perfect for the occasion.

They bought all the ingredients and we all stood around the butcher-block island making our individual apple pies. Now I can't be certain if the recipe really was THAT simple or if it was made simpler due to the fact that it was being taught to me step-by-step by 2 third grade teachers, either way, it was stupidly easy to made. Which is why I'm including the step my step recipe below! And rest assured knowing that if a recipe is on this blog it's easy enough for a toddler to make. 

(for real) Easy Apple Pies:

Pre-heat oven to 350º

Cut off the top of the apple (just enough so you don't see the stem anymore)

Using a spoon, scoop out and save the insides of the apple, but be very careful not to rip the apple skin.

Throw away all the hard core pieces of your apple insides.

Add 1 tablespoon of melted butter, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and cinnamon to taste to your bowl of apple pieces.

Stir together.

Once you have everything mixed put the mixture in 

your hollow apple.

Cut 4-5 strips from a frozen piecrust for your lattice pieces.

Check your text messages.

Lay the lattice on top of your apple inter-twining the pieces just like you would on a traditional apple pie. At this point you are almost finished, if you like cinnamon feel free to add more to the top of your mini-pie. 

Make sure someone take a picture.

Bake for 20-25 mins.

Enjoy with friends :)

 Congratulations Mary!

my love / hate with pinterest

I have a love / hate relationship with Pinterest. 

On the one hand, I love Pinterest because it continues to expose me to a plethora of new blogs and websites that I would have never stumbled across on my own. But mostly I love it because the people geniuses that created Pinterest totally respect and understand my affinity for organization! 

I used to say that I only used Mac computers because I was too dumb to use a PC, when in all honesty, Mac computers / phone / tablets just work the same way that my brain works (I'm a product of the "Drag and Drop" generation). 

Pinterest is the social media equivalent to my Mac computer. It's trendy, it's creative, it's relevant, it's easy to use, and it's exclusive all at the same time. While I'm pretty sure that just about everyone and their mother can create a Pinterest account, I love the fact that Pinterest still makes you request an invite before you can "join" their exclusive club of creative geniuses. It's basically the same as having a Mac, while you don't exactly have to be invited to join their cult of trendiness, you still have to pay your dues by dropping a paycheck worth of cash on their equipment in exchange for access to their infamous Genius Bar, space on "The Cloud", and the mandatory Apple ID that makes spending your own money as easy as pressing button. 

On the other hand, I hate Pinterest because ever since I joined the world of "Pinning" I am continually reminded how creatively retarded I am. I have to think that even if I didn't have a full time job, got a masters degree in Martha Stewart, and spent all my pennies in the crafts aisle of Michaels, I STILL would have never thought to put pre-made pancake mix in an empty ketchup squeeze bottle for batter controlled pancakes. But some genius on Pinterest did - and they're probably the same people that thought to put a headlamp around a jug of water for ambient lighting in your camping tent. 

Most of the time the stuff I find myself "Pinning" is not  even creative genius, it's common sense. I was literally pissed the day I found out that I could grow scallions in a cup of water using the base of old scallops. I felt like this should have been something I learned in my 2nd grade science class. I immediately called my mom questioning the curriculum of my elementary school education. 

My only suggestion for Pinterest would be to sub-catagorize their craft / recipe / DIY sections into levels of difficulty. There is nothing more disappointing than pinning an "easy to make coffee table" only to find out that in order to make said coffee table I needed to have graduated from furniture engineering school and own a drill! But every now and then I come across a craft or a recipe that even this creative-retard can do ..... 

I'm re-naming them: 

The Egg Mag-Muffins

Pre-heat over to 350º

Ingredients: 

Eggs (avg 1 per muffin) 

Scallons (if you want)

Sausage Crumbles (if you want)

Grated Cheese (if cheese if your thing)

Bread (avg 2 circles per piece)

Milk

Use the lid of something in your spice cabinet to cut out circles in your bread. 

You will need one circle per muffin

Crack eggs (1 egg per muffin.

Add 1 teaspoon of milk per egg. 

Stir.

Put your bread circles at the bottom of your muffin tray

Assemble.

Pour in egg mixture on top of the bread circles, the egg should fill up half of the muffin cup.

Once your egg is in, add anything else you want. I chose to include cheese, sausage, and scallions.

Bake for 20-25 mins.

Enjoy.

With all that said, follow me on Pinterest: pinterest.com/maggie_strassel

party queen

A few weeks ago my bff Ellie graduated nursing school!!

In honor of this awesomeness I did what needed to be done and threw her a PARTY!

I'm just going to go ahead and throw it out there.... my parties pretty much rule.

Chocolate dipped jumbo marshmellows with rainbow sprinkles! 

Courtesy of Pinterest

Chocolate dipped strawberries.

Courtesy of my own creative genius.

The main table set up (in the daylight)

The main table setting at night

I love the drama that the height of the pillar candles add to overall effect.

No graduation party is complete without cupcakes!

White chocolate dipped pretzel rods.

Party guests and the new nurse

Bad picture but those are glass ornaments with tiny pink and clear beads in them that I hung from the curtain rod.... next time I'm going to make about 100 more of these, they were beautiful!

Another view of the main table

My mom's christmas tree (that I made her not put too many ornaments on so it wouldn't clash with the "pink" theme of the party).

I have the handwriting of a 4th grade boy. 

Kitchen table set up. Notice the marshmellows on kabob sticks :) I had them sticking out of a vase filled with lima beans. I know, I'm so creative :) 

Courtesy of Pinterest

A better view of the kabobed marshmellows

Kitchen island set up

Part of the buffet set up.

el mantel ... notice the spray painted wine bottles. 

Courtesy of Pinterest

PS: All the flowers were fake!

Now that I've completely blown your socks off with my impressive party design skills you will be SUPER happy to know that I'm available to plan your next party shin-dig. 

Page me ;) 

It's a handmade kinda Christmas.

If you happen to be on my Christmas list please ignore this post (or humor me and act surprised) since there is a VERY good chance you will be receiving something along the lines of ....

recipe 

Bacon Salt! The PERFECT addition to my favorite cocktail (the Bloody Mary) 

.... and obviously if we are true BFFs your favorite cocktail as well :)

how to

Or this ... because we all know I love me some chalkboard paint!

make it

Or if I'm feeling super crafty maybe these little Anthro knock-offs...

details

Or maybe these .... depending on the difficulty level. 

I'm sure hoping these babies are easy to make because as much as I would love to give every person on my list the Godly gift of Bacon Salt, I don't think the vegetarians in my life will be thanking me. Or maybe they will?

make them

If all else fails, this is it. Actually, thats a lie. These are happening regardless. Everyone needs coasters for their bacon salted bloody mary glasses on Sundays. duh.

how to

Truth be told, I've tried to make a few different versions of these and without fail there are either too much or not enough ingredients .... and lets be honest, the thing looses all of its "easy" appeal if it's missing 1/4 tsp of salt and 1/2 cup of flour because it wouldn't fit in the jar! Another thing, where the heck do you get glass milk jugs?!

details

I'm still trying to figure out if I were given one of these if I would be impressed or weirded out....

Do people think I stink? Or that I'm lazy? Or did they really just want to show off their Pinterest follow-through skills? rub it in.