DIY | Garden Markers

For our herb garden we created these simple garden markers. They work perfectly in our small herb garden marking off everything we have growing!  Haidyn loves all of the different colors of the markers and I love that I know exactly what everything is. You’d be surprised how easily you forget what herb is what when it’s all together in one big tub. 

MATERIALS

• Popsicle sticks
• Sharpie Markers ( we used one plain black and one metallic gold) 

DIY| Herb Garden

I wanted to create something that I could sustain at home with Haidyn and use in our home so that I didn’t have to continually buy these herbs at the store. I love the way it turned out.  It was easy to put together and Haidyn loved helping me (well she loved playing in the dirt). Now we can use our herbs anytime we want .  Personally, I’m obsessed with my mint waters! No more buying herbs at the store!

MATERIALS

• All the herbs of your choosing (we used rosemary, basil, parsley, oregano, mint)
• Soil
• Plant markers ( our DIY here)
• Tub for herbs (ours is from IKEA, here) 

 

Catchin ' Some Zzz's w/ Zzzquil

I wish I wasn’t pre-wired to constantly stress even over the little things daily. I’m trying my best to “go with the flow”, but I know better than to kid myself; I’m a control freak at heart.  At least I’m being honest with myself right? The peak of my stress came with our new home in regards to the packing and paperwork and etc. The stress is so bad that it’s taking over my sleep! On average I’m only getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night- so it’s even worse than just bad.  In my desperate need to break the cycle of running on no sleep and an entire pot of coffee during the day Influenster saved the day by sending me a trial size of ZZZquil liquid capsules to test out.

The label states that it will take at least 20 minutes to be in full effective and to ensure that you will be able to sleep for 7-8 hours once you’ve taken it.  I bought about ZZZquil before for my husband but I’ve never taken it.  I’m anti- liquid medicine of any kind unless I have to so right off the bat I was a big fan. It took me about 5 minutes to fall asleep and I slept for NINE hours- NINE glorious hours of my life.

I haven’t slept that well since before Haidyn. It was hard to shake off the “tired” feeling, but I believe I felt that way because of how tired I really was. I finally got some rest all thanks to ZZZquil. I wouldn’t be able to take it during the week in case I do get groggy from it, but I would love to make it a weekend ritual. You can’t beat sleeping in on the weekends!

  I received this product complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes, all opinions are my own.  Thank you for supporting the brands that make this blog possible.

Samoa Cupcakes

Does it get better when you transform your favorite Girl’s Scout Cookie into cupcake form? I mean can you really go wrong with anything in cupcake form? I don’t think so! My cousin requested Samoa cupcakes for her graduation party and I delivered these bad boys. They’re everything you want in a cupcake; sweet, salty and savory all in one bite. My frosting fell all because I was impatient with getting them done, but they still tasted delicious. Haidyn loved helping out making these while I enjoyed devouring 'em. 

INGREDIENTS

For the Cupcakes:

•  1 box of Devil’s food cake and all ingredients needed to make cake
•   1 ¼  box of Keebler Coconut Dream Cookies

  

For the Salted Caramel Frosting:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter 
•  1/2 cup caramel sauce 
•  1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
•   4 cups powdered sugar
•  1 tsp salt

For the topping:

• 1 cup) sweetened coconut flakes, toasted
• Chocolate sauce
• Caramel sauce

DIRECTIONS

For the Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line muffin tins with paper liners. In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients needed for the boxed cupcake mix.
2. Beat all ingredients together until smooth. * You may add coconut to the batter if you’d like more coconut. *
3. Place 1 coconut dream cookie at the bottom of each cupcake liner.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Spoon batter into cupcake liners and bake for 15-18 minutes or until toothpick comes out with only a few crumbs or clean.
   

For the Toasted Coconut Topping:

1. Place shredded coconut onto a lightly greased pan under the broiler. Watch carefully as coconut becomes toasted approximately 5-10 minutes.

For the Caramel Frosting:

1. Allow butter to set out at room temperature about 15 minutes.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter until smooth.

3. Add cream cheese and continue to beat until fully smooth and well incorporated.

4. While slowly mixing, pour in caramel sauce (should not be warm).

5. Add vanilla to the mixture and continue slowly mixing .

6. Add in powdered sugar (one cup at a time) allowing the sugar to blend a bit before adding each    additional cup.

7. Scrap down the sides of the bowl and then blend the frosting an additional 30 seconds. * The frosting should be fluffy mine was not since I didn’t let the butter sit out as I should have L .

Frost cupcakes for assembling:

1. Frost cupcakes with salted butter cream
2.  Drizzle caramel sauce and chocolate sauce over the cupcakes.
3. Sprinkle toasted coconut to finish off. * If you’d like you may take the other cookies and place them on top of every cupcake for decoration as well.