Rick~Rack & Recipes

One of my goals for this year is to make birthday presents as much as possible.  This is something that I have been making steps towards since last year (as you've noticed in my previous post).  So far this year, my niece, Claire, has turned 3!   Her birthday was on January 15th.  I was inspired by this pin for her gift idea, yet I wanted to add my own 'touch' to it.  Though my gift did not reach her in time, I stuck with it and made her gift.

Here's what I did...

I painted a base coat of white acrylic onto an 8x10 canvas.

I then taped a piece of pink tissue paper to a regular sheet of printer paper and printed a copy of the picture I wanted to use of me & Claire.  After that I mod-podged the tissue paper picture onto the canvas.  This part was rather difficult since the tissue paper is so delicate.  I actually had to do this step over because the piece ripped.  I found that using a foam brush is very helpful when applying the mod-podge.

The next part is where my special 'touch' comes in.  I wanted to make the piece more fun by adding modeling paste around the edges of the picture to add texture, and then using the opposite end of a paintbrush to make little hearts around the picture.

I let the modeling paste dry for about a day, and then I used watercolor paints to add some color.  This really helped the texture and hearts to 'pop'!  Of course, I used pink... I was told that was the little princess' favorite color :)

Next, I had some fun defining the hearts with charcoal and sharpie scribbles.  This also added to the texture piece.  To continue with the heart theme, I added a stamped message at the bottom corner of the piece.  I found these stamps a few years ago at Hobby Lobby; I absolutely love them and use them on almost everything I make ;)

My final step was to finish the edge of the piece.  I decided to paint the edge black with a simple acrylic paint.  Once that dried, I used my hot glue gun to add the pink rick-rack.   She received it last week (I know, I know... a little late), but it seemed to be worth it!  My sister texted me a picture of Claire with her gift and told me that she said, "Mom I need some tape so that I can hang this in my room."  So precious!  With her sister, Adrienne's, birthday coming up in March and her brother, Shelden's, in April I had better get started on their gifts for this year! 

Another one of my goals is to try new recipes and post about ones that we've enjoyed.  I wanted to start this journey off by first adding some of our favs.  We really like fish, and I've found a quick and easy recipe that I have used and it seems to get good results (aka... the Hubster approves!).  This recipe is for Flounder, but we have also used a similar version on Tilapia.  Here are some pictures of this delicious dish!  The first is of the fish before they were baked.  The second shows the finished product along with a fresh spinach salad.

I sometimes like to make my own salad dressings as well.  For this salad, I made a lemon pepper salad dressing since there was lemon pepper seasoning on the fish.  It went really well with the main dish!

Here's a picture of my fun little dressing mixer from pampered chef!  Love this thing!

The next dish is another favorite, enchilada casserole! The only thing that I did different in this recipe is that I used refried black beans rather than refried pinto beans, but we have had it both ways and we like both- sometimes it comes down to what I have in my cupboard!  Chopped green onions and tomatoes on top add a little extra goodness that is so delicious :)  We also liked placing our pieces on some fresh spinach.  Jazz it up however you like!  If you try this out, let me know what you think!

ENJOY!!!