wall art

this weekend i spent a lot of time
with my sister [soon to be first-time-mama!]
and my mom.

my sister is due THIS WEDNESDAY!!!!!
and i am SO so excited.  (=

all throughout her pregnancy she has been prepping the sweet baby's room with yellows and grays,
a little navy, and of course white!

one thing she has been searching for are quotes on canvas.
not being able to find exactly what she wants, she came my way....
or maybe i threw myself into it,
but either way i was thrilled to take on the project!  (=

so friday night i took on the first two.
here is the process:

first, of course, choose your quotes.

second, decide what color you want the WORDS to appear on your canvas.

i left it white for the first one,
and i wanted the letters to be gray and yellow for the other.

no painting involved with the white letters, i just left it blank.

but with the grey and yellow i painted stripes across the canvas and let it dry thoroughly before moving on.

then, i grabbed a bunch of adhesive/stick-on letters

cut them out and placed them where i wanted them to stay

stuck them into place

painted over the canvases--and the letters--in the colors of choice.

[this will be the background color of your wall art]

waited for paint to dry

[this step was REALLY difficult b/c you want to see the results SO badly!]

voila!  (=

the next day my sister had 4 more canvases she was eager to finish, and so we had so much fun coming up with these:

what do you think?

browned butter [yum.]

this morning [at around 9:30 even, that's just how we roll this summer.]
i set out to make raspberry muffins.

i found a recipe that called for brown butter,
and then found a few more.
did my usual picking and choosing/mixing and matching of ingredients,
and substituted what i thought would suffice.

what i came up with was this:

brown 5T butter in saucepan

{more fun if your saucepan was a sweet find at a garage sale last month!}

sift together:

1c all purpose flour

3/4c whole wheat flour

1 1/2t baking powder

1/4t baking soda

1/8t salt

{in a separate bowl}

whisk:

1/2c sugar

2T brown sugar

2/3c buttermilk--or use 2% and add about a teaspoon of lemon juice, let sit about 5min.

1/3c sour cream--or plain whole fat yogurt

whisk in:

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1/2t vanilla

fold 1c raspberries into dry ingredients 

add wet ingredients to dry ingredients

{do not over-mix}

fill muffin tins about 3/4 of the way full

bake at 400 degrees for about 20-25min.

{or watch, like me, and wait until the tops are just golden}

delicious.

delectable.

every last bite.  (=

i'm doing this.

{source:  the joy dare} Just three gifts a day. The whole earth is full of His glory. “All these years it’s been utterly pointless to try to wrench out the spikes of discontent. Because that habit of discontentment, it can only be driven out by hammering in iron that is even sharper — The sleek pin of gratitude.” …. ~ {One Thousand Gifts} If I never cease working on the the habit of good food, good exercise, good time management — why ever lessen the habit of our grateful thanks to a good God? It’s like you can hear it in the woods — Like you can hear it across the fields and in the hand of every heart desperately seeking change — – all these pens held like hammers to ring in a new month! And all this joy. hold me to it. :