Gold Painted String Lights

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Georgina

Gold Painted String Lights

So remember that time I told you I had become obsessed with gold spray paint? Well….. I wasn’t kidding.

It pretty much all started because of the wedding. Our colors were green and gold and there were some items (like these) that I liked but wanted to have them be gold.

Enter liquid gold.

Then things got pretty serious and I was spray painting anything I could get my hands on. Napkin rings, rocks, vases,string lights…you name it!

I think I just saw an idea like this on Pinterest and decided I wanted to have some of the lights gold for my wedding. My mom found these knock off “cafe” lights on clearance the day after Christmas and snatched them up for me. I only did three strings of them but they turned out great for the wedding and I am also planning and looking forward to using these around the holidays! I’m a traditional green and gold type of girl so these will look amaze-balls around the house for Christmas!All you need is:

Spray Paint (this is my favorite gold)
Painters tape (or any tape I guess)
String lights
an open area to spray paint and cardboard boxes or something like this to paint in/over.
This amazing tool (ok. you don’t NEED this but it will make it 100% easier and you get a really even coat)

Then you just:

Tape up the areas you DON’T want paint on . My bulbs unscrewed so I just took them all off and put a tiny piece of tape over the LED light and also taped the ends as shown below.

Make sure you’re in well ventilated area and following these rules.

Then just go to town! I did two full coats and then some touchups on some weird spots. It’s a little hard to not have fingerprints when you do the whole thing at once as you have to pick it up and move it and twist it and turn it. But the final 3rd spray down for just those spots will leave you with perfectly even paint.

So there you go! Beautiful makeover to make something cheap look fancy and sophisticated. Someone please remember to remind me to take a picture of these around my house at Christmas 🙂

Thank you so much for checking in! Hope you all have fabulous weekends.

xoxo

Mushroom Kale Masala {Vegan, Gluten & Dairy Free}

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Georgina

Mushroom Kale Masala

My beloved readers! It’s been 2+ whole months since I have posted anything! So sad. The reason for my absence, for those of you who don’t know, I got married! June 27th! And then went on a honeymoon and before the wedding was very stressed and busy with wedding details. We I did most of the wedding planning and SO many DIY projects that it left very little time (or brain power 🙂 ) to post here.

But I’m back! 🙂

The wedding was all we hoped for and more. It was perfect. To us. So perfect. We loved it all. Check out a few pictures on our *amazing* photographers site. It’s just a little sneak peak our current struggle is deciding which pictures to print out of the 700+ beautiful options.

And the honeymoon– ahhhhhhhh don’t get me started on how amazing that was. We spent 12 days in Italy (half our time in Tuscany and half our time on the Amalfi Coast) and we literally had to drag ourselves to the airport when it was time to leave. We fell in love and are already planning our next trip back. (More to come on this later 🙂 )

BUT the first thing I have to share with you is this KILLER/BOMB DIGGITY recipe. Prepare to drool. Like go get a napkin.

This vegan, gluten, and dairy free recipe is one of those few clean eating meals I feel spoiled eating. How can something so healthy taste so good!? I actually made this a while ago and now looking at the pictures again and seeing how easy it is, I need to make it again soon!! I hope that you guys enjoy this as much as we did.

So here it is:

*NOTES*

You could add more almond or coconut milk to make this creamier.

Thanks for checking out the blog! I’m so happy to be back and sharing with you!!

If you give this a try come back and tell me if you liked it! Hope you have a great weekend!!

xoxo

“Sharpie” Mugs

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Georgina

“Sharpie” Mugs

Hi all!

So I’m sure a lot of you have probably seen these “sharpie” mug craft ideas floating around the internet lately. Don’t be fooled, you cannot use regular old sharpies and have this work. This craft isn’t really as simple as just writing on a mug and voila! Lucky for you the first time I totally biffed it and failed BIG TIME at this but learned from my mistakes and perfected it the 2nd time around. 🙂

Key points to remember are:
– Oil based PAINT Sharpie Markers (or any oil based PAINT pen)
– Clean your surface with rubbing alcohol!
– Only one layer of paint
– HOT oven

Let’s get started and I’ll take you through step by step. If you know these steps it’s really an easy and fun craft!

Supplies:

Cheap ceramic mugs (the cheaper the better)
Oil-based Sharpie marker (NOT regular sharpies!)
Cotton balls and 1-2 Q-Tips
Rubbing alcohol
A pencil

Instructions:
Wash your mugs with soap and warm water. Dry completely. Then use a cotton pad or swab to clean your surface with rubbing alcohol. This will take any residual soap or other things off the surface and insure your paid will hold better. Let that dry too (takes like 2 seconds).

Use a pencil to sketch your design on each mug. There are some really cute ideas out there but you could make up your own, draw a picture, or whatever your heart desires. Once you are happy with your sketch, trace over it with your paint pen. It’s not an easy task drawing on a curved surface but that’s where the extra rubbing alcohol and Q-Tips come in! You’re going to mess up. Trust me. Probably like 5 times and if you’re a perfectionist like me, then probably like 50 times. Once you are happy with your design you have to let the paint dry.

I let my mugs air dry for a good 24 hours before I baked them and I think that is a crucial step, based on my first mishap. To bake, all you need to do is put your mugs on a cookie sheet and place in a COLD oven and turn the heat on to 425. You want the mugs to heat up with the oven to prevent cracking and allow it to seep into the glaze of the mugs. Once your oven is preheated, bake the mugs for 40 minutes. Once the 40 minutes is up, turn the oven off but leave the mugs in the oven with the door closed and allow them to cool completely. This will also help prevent cracking by avoiding fast temperature changes. After about 2 hours they were cool and I took them out.

As far as care for the mugs after they are complete, I’ve heard some people say they are fine in the dishwasher but I don’t risk it, I just wash them by hand and they still look as good as new! I’ve washed them probably about 20 times so far.

This is such a great simple and easy gift to make. The possibilities are literally endless. I want to make more but a girl can only use so many coffee mugs. But this is definitely on my list for Christmas time 🙂 Here are a few of my favorite ones I’ve seen and ones that I want to try and ones I just like!

*None of these pictures are my own

Yay! Hope yours turn out perfect and fun. Stop back and show me some of your designs. I’d love to see them.

xoxo

* Update. Since doing this craft the colored paint has chipped off a bit, but the black is still perfect. I just went over the colored part again and baked and so far so good. Let me know if you have any tips to keep this from happening 🙂

White Chocolate Fall Bark

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Georgina

White Chocolate Fall Bark

Hellllloooo!

I’ve had major writers block lately and little inspiration for new blog post ideas. Sometimes I am just IN. THE.ZONE. and I’ll write up like 5 blog posts in a day. My little dirty secret is that I’ll store them as drafts to be used later on. It’s hard work to write posts every week! Don’t get me wrong I love every minute of working on my blog and creating things to share with you all but I might not have made every recipe that you see in the week it was posted. Take for instance this post you’re reading right now and the recipe below, this was something that I made 2 YEARS AGO! Yes. Two+ years. Hence the crappy iPhone photo making a return. But this was just something that I had drafted a while ago and never got around to posting it. Most drafts I only hold onto before posting for a week or so, sometimes a month. This is definitely the longest standing item in the draft box of Eat Laugh Craft and it feel so good to finally share it 🙂 haha.

This is a really fun recipe too. Perfect to have kids help you make as it’s pretty much a free for all. It’s a perfect fall snack or treat that looks great to bring to a party. You could add or take out anything that you wanted (like if you cant have nuts at your kids school or something like that). Hope you enjoy and HAPPY FALL!!!!!

White Chocolate Fall Bark

Ingredients

1/2 pound white chocolate (chips,coating,big ole’ block of it etc…)
1 cup pretzels(I broke mine into pieces but you don’t have to)
1/2 cup candy corn
1/2 cup of walnuts broken into small pieces
1/3 cup dried cranberries

Directions

Line an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment, leaving an overhang on 2 of the sides.
Heat the chocolate in a double boiler (or in the microwave at 50% power for 1 minute increments until desired consistency) until melted and smooth.
Spread the chocolate in the prepared pan and sprinkle with the pretzels, candy corn, and dried cranberries.( I sort of carefully pressed all of the ingredients into the chocolate so they were ‘stuck’. Chill in fridge or freezer until firm, about 1 hour.
Remove the bark from the pan and break into pieces & EAT!

How cute and fun is this, right?! Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

Quick Pickled Jalapenos

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Georgina

Quick Pickled Jalapenos

Hello my favorite blog readers 🙂

So if you have been following my blog for any amount of time you know that I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE spicy food. Seriously sometimes I cause myself pain for the love of spicy food. This was one of those times. My mom has a ginormous garden and also some friends who also have ginormous gardens, long story short, I went home one time and she asked if I wanted some of their home grown organic jalapenos.

Um duh yes I do.

Fast forward she gives me a bag of about 100. Not lying. Fast forward more- I wanted to just dice some and throw in the freezer to use for recipes and various things throughout the year but I also wanted to try this at home pickling recipe. I love pickled jalapenos but sometimes they are so mushy and sort of gross and not that spicy.

Ok soooooooo not to sound pompous but I don’t really think that jalapenos are that spicy. Sometimes you get a spicy one but more often than not, they’re just sort of a warm heat in your mouth. Anyway, I never use gloves or anything when I cut them up normally because I just wash my hands when I’m done and go on my merry way. I’m sure you can tell where this story might be going- I’ll get to the point.

HOLY SHIT. The peppers my mom gave me were soooo effing hot. Mind you I didn’t even cut them all my hand. (I washed, cut the tops off and cut in half lengthwise and then diced with this bad boy) well after about 5 (of the 100) I’m like whoa- I am having a hard time breathing. I started coughing and my eyes burned. I licked one of the peppers and hot damn my mouth was on fire. Well I couldn’t just stop in the middle so I kept going.

I had to take approximately 10 breaks to cough/ gag/drool/die in the sink, literally my mouth and eyes had saliva and tears flowing out of them at a rate beyond my control. Then to top this all off, my hands started throbbing. Like on FIRE. Especially my finger tips and cuticle areas. Seriously, my anxiety brain had thoughts of paralysis running through my mind and they were getting swollen and hurt so bad I could barely bend my fingers. You think I’m being dramatic. I am not. Swear on my life.

Anyway- I’m crazy and apparently a masochist so I finished all the peppers, cleaned up, washed everything twice, washed my hands like 50958209348 times and put ice on my hands. Ok. How fun was that?!?

Ahhhhh, next day, I wake up and start getting ready for work, doing my makeup, get something in my eye, use my finger get said thing out of my eye, ruin all my makeup because my eye starts burning and watering like cray cray again………….. I mean jesus. I called my mom asking her what she was trying to do to me with these killer psycho jalapenos. She said they mayyy have cross pollinated with some hotter ones…… perf.

Anyway, after about 3 days my hands returned to normal and I was able to touch my face without breaking out in tears.

You’re probably thinking “this story is supposed to make me want to make these freaking peppers?!”….. um yes. Yes, it is. These babies are soooo freaking good. Crisp and spicy (as the story above eludes to 🙂 ) and not full of any chemicals that you’ll get in the store bought kinds. The story’s main point was to make you laugh and also caution you don’t by lethal grade jalapenos and if you do, wear a HAZMAT suit or at the very least gloves and possibly goggles too 🙂

You need to try these- but be careful!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup white vinegar

3 T white sugar

1 T kosher salt

1 clove garlic, crushed or chopped

1/2 tsp oregano

15-20 jalapeno peppers, sliced into rings

Directions:

1. Combine water, vinegar, sugar, kosher salt, garlic, and oregano in a saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil, stir in jalapeno peppers and remove from heat. Let cool for 10 minutes or longer.

2. Pack peppers into jars using gloves or tongs, cover with vinegar mixture, cover, and refrigerate until ready to eat!

I love these. And so fast and simple. This is 100%, without a doubt, one of those things that I will no longer buy store bought versions of. There is no comparison taste and texture wise. I’ll just be more cautious with prep next time!

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xoxo