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Carpet Cleaning Magic

Everyone loves a good party!  Minus the host when it comes time to clean everything up the next day...or in my case over the next month!  My birthday was back at the end of June and my friends and I decided to throw a huge party!  It was uh-mazing!  We had a killer sound and light system (thanks Matt), spiked gummy bears, glow in the dark and black light body paints, and one heck of a party juice!  At one point we were jump roping with glow stick "ropes", at another we were going crazy to Cotton Eyed Joe, and before the night was over we had been to the pool and back!  All of my new neighbors came out and celebrated with us and I found out that my floor at Maddy Manor is where it's at!  The next day was followed by our traditional post drinking cracker barrel breakfast and then I was off to finish cleaning up my home.  I have to give my guests props because no one knocked over any cups or spilled their drinks...however, they weren't so good about wiping off their cups after filling it with juice and I found little red droplets all over my living room.  I tried traditional carpet cleaner, oxy-clean, vinegar, baking soda, a steam cleaner, a shampooer...nothing got the stains out.  I had all but given up hope of ever having a clean floor again when I found this post Freckle Face Girl.  It only took the spot test for me to fall completely in love with this method of getting stubborn spots out of carpet!

What You Need:
-Ammonia
-Water
-Spray Bottle
-Iron w/ Steam Setting
-White Towels (white bar towels work great and they are cheap)

What You Do:
-Mix 1 part ammonia with 1 part water in the spray bottle
-Turn on iron and let it heat until it begins to steam

Saturate the stain in the ammonia solution

Cover the area with a white towel and iron for 20 seconds

The stain absorbs into the towel and when you lift it....

The stain is gone...the steam makes it look bleached here

Be careful not to breath in the steam when you are doing this and make sure no one walks over the area for a few minutes as the carpet gets extremely hot!

Strawberry Sherbert

Yesterday after work and the gym I had to make a quick run to the grocery store and talk about temptation.  The worst part about starting a diet and exercise routine is the constant craving for any and everything bad for you!  Being hot and sweaty still from the gym, the frozen desert aisle was hell on earth!  I saw strawberry ice cream and that was it...you know you are in a bad aisle when you start fantasizing about ice cream and chocolate sauce!  So instead of giving in to the fattening but oh so delicious treat, I decided to try making my own frozen strawberry soft serve like the banana we did the other night.  So I grabbed a bag of frozen, sliced strawberries and got the heck out of there before I gave into my cravings!

I started with just strawberries but they didn't get smooth like the banana so I added a little bit of whole milk and some leftover frozen bananas.  It creamed up nicely but the berries were a little too tart for my taste so I added some Cool Whip and that did the trick.  It's not as sweet as the banana soft serve but I liked it, the hubby liked it, and it shut the nagging voice in my head that was tempting me to go to Bruster's up for the night!  Enjoy!

Strawberry Sherbert

Ingredients:

-2 Cups of Frozen Strawberries (sliced)

-1/2 Frozen Banana (sliced)

-1/4 Cup Cool Whip (thawed)

-1/4 Cup of Whole Milk (if needed)

Recipe:

-Blend strawberries and bananas together until mixture begins to cream

-Add in cool whip and blend until desired consistency is reached.  Add milk if necessary.

The recipe makes more than enough for 2 with each serving being only 121 calories, 3 grams of fat, and 9 grams of sugar!  We will definitely be making this again!j

Tabletop Fire Pot

The Shenandoah Valley is a gorgeous place to live.  The only thing I'm still not really used to is the idea of hot hot summer days and chilly summer nights!  One of my closest friends is about to move to the other side of the state for a great new job and we threw him a going away cookout to send him off in style!  My friends and I love to sit around outside and talk for hours while we are slowly eaten to death by mosquitoes but the weather forecast was indicating one heck of a chilly night.  So mother necessity rang and we decided to try out making our own tabletop fire pit!  Ok...it was more of a fire pot!  Ashleigh and I had both seen multiple ideas for this online and as we couldn't find any galvanized buckets, we went for the terracotta pot.  Now, I should note that after dishing out major bucks for this killer steak dinner we were on a major budget.  Plus by the time we got around to setting the fire pot up, we were a little rushed and presentation was not a concern!

It was incredibly simple to put together and worked like a charm...for what we needed it for anyway!  All you need is:

-Terracotta Pot
-Aluminum Foil
-Self-Lighting Charcoal
-Lighter
-Stuff for S'mores (optional...but highly encouraged!)

-Line the inside of the pot with aluminum foil
-Make a ball of foil to place in the bottom of the pot--adjust the size according to how much charcoal you plan to use
-Fill the pot with charcoal and light

-Sit around and enjoy the warmth!  Wait for the coals to go down and roast up some marshmallows for S'mores!

Banana Soft Serve

Bikini season is in full gear once more and I am still far from being in one!  As a weight loss enthusiast, I am always looking for new recipes, especially for sweet treats, that won't break a diet into a million pieces with just one bite!  I have been hearing a lot about this all natural, homemade banana soft serve lately and last night I decided to give it a go.  It was AMAZING!  Even though it lacked the consistency of soft serve, the taste was to-die-for!  It is such a simple recipe and I have to share it:

Ingredients:
-two bananas

Recipe:
1.  Peel and slice your bananas
2.  Freeze them in a Tupperware container--at least overnight*
3.  Give them a good long whip in a food processor or blender
4.  Enjoy!

*I was impatient and only let mine freeze for about 4 hours so the consistency was way off...I didn't realize how long it takes bananas to freeze!

*UPDATE--after letting the bananas freeze overnight and all day the next day, my consistency was perfect!  Even the banana ice cream hating hubby loved it!

I have heard of people adding a touch of peanut butter, coco powder, strawberries, etc. to theirs or topping it with homemade chocolate sauce or jam to kick it up a notch.  Personally, I thought the flavor was incredible.  Two bananas makes a lot so I divided it into 2 servings that weighed in at about 110 calories a piece!  It was like getting a real treat without the guilt!

Sorry I've Been Tardy

To everyone that has emailed or commented on the blog asking for tips and instructions, I apologize for my tardy responses.  We moved about a month ago and to be quite honest, my house looks like a hurricane hit it followed by a tornado and in some rooms an avalanche!  It is my plan to spend Friday night and Saturday cleaning, unpacking, and organizing everything!  I can't even find half of my crafting stuff in the mess to be able to do anything!  Hopefully I will be able to get everything squared away and spend Sunday doing some of the tutorials I have promised!  Thank you so much for viewing and sticking with me here!  I can't wait to be back in action.  I have so many projects to show you and a list a mile long of things I want to do for the new apartment!

-Kris