Pen pal-ing

When I was younger I had a few pen pals including cousins that lived out of state. Now a day I only have one pen pal and its a childhood friend I never get to see. It's fun to catch up via snail mail, I feel there's more intimacy in it. You take the time to sit and think about what you want to share instead of the usual quick text message or tweet. April is the official national letter month. Are you partaking? I started early in February, knowing that I wouldn't go all 30 days, but I've been trying to keep up. I have surprised lots of friends. And truth is I didn't start this letter writing for the letter month, I started it to remind lost friendships and acquanteces that they're still in my thoughts. You see, last October my nephew committed suicide, and it impacted me so grately that I couldn't live anger day without letting everyone in my life know how much they meant and mean to me! In rememberance of Jakob I decided to live a life as if each day might be my last. Instead of living in the past and wishing I had told Jakob something more profound or given him tighter hugs, I'll let those I still have the chance to, know that I still love them and appreciate the time we've spent as friends, in childhood, etc. 

I subscribed to abeautifulmess.com monthly Happy Mail, and it's just that! A package of happy mail to send out for any occasion. 

I'm currently not looking for new pen pals, but there are many ways you can find one. Also for cool ideas on how to decorate your own envelopes or make stamps check out the Mark Montano YouTube channel, he's got some cool videos to diy stationary. 

Tis the tassel garland season

So as awful as I am to blog, I had been working on a little project to post. It's the holiday season and I go to Michael's more often than I should around this time a year. 

You know how everyone and their moms send you cards in December? Even your car insurance company sends a little holiday "cheer" that you end up tossing. Well, those really cute cards that you DO end up keeping are sometimes displayed in little piles you've created along with junk mail. I have a solution on how to display them! I found this really cute tassel garland at michael's for around $4.99 plus they were 40% off last week so I didn't even need a coupon. Here's the tassel galand I picked

It's cute cause they're small tassels, and they won't steal too much attention from your cute Christmas cards coming in. As a Latina, I'm totally in love with using decorative tissue paper there's a world of different colors, and the possibilities are endless! Here, the possibility is a tassel garland pre cut from a little kit. Of course, there's no step by step instructions so I took the liberty of using my poorly lit room to post some for you all! 

Step one: you take out all the contents of the packet, mine came with a red and white string, a red, green, lime green and white pre cut tissue paper. Separate one sheet of the first color you're going to use.

Lay it out and start from one edge with the cut ends horizontal, and start rolling like so

Once you've rolled all the way to the end, start twisting the middle and out towards the slit ends 

Once you're done twisting place the string your hanging it off of in the middle over the twisted tassle

Then, twist over the string only leaving a small gap or no gap at the top of the string so that it grasps. 

After what seems like an eternity of rolling and twisting and placing on the string, your garland should finally be done! Of course it's winter so night falls early in the west coast and my room looks even gloomier than the usual. 

I used these adorable little mini clothes pins I also got at michael's (40% off), to hang the Christmas cards onto the garland😊 

Now, if you're too late to catch these cute kits at michael's, Pinterest has a bunch of pins to make DIY tassle garland. if you do not have a Pinterest account, you might want to leave it that way, or say goodbye to your life, only kidding! But it is pretty addictive. Thats the main reason I started a blog. Hehehehe! Hope you guys like this post and please don't forget to subscribe😉

Happy Holidays! 

Catching up!

Hi all! I basically started this blog and then fell off the face of the earth. Tee hee. 

First off I recently posted my latest creation on Instagram. I purchased a book titled microcrafts and couldn't resist making a micro mini anything so, I went for the pup! He's tiny and super cute! 

If you have sewing experience it'll be do-able, it's a little difficult because you have so little material to work with. But the results are worth it! If you follow me on Instagram I might just post more pics.

Here is the one from Instagram:

Since I have some catching up to do, I'm going to follow up on the Wen hair treatment, I only used it for about a month, that's as long as the treatment lasted me. I guess my hair produces enough oils, and with Wen it made it even oilier, I didn't know it was possible. But Wen feels like a conditioner and not so much a lather to clean your hair. So it was a no-go for me. Smells really good, and definately makes your hair look shinier, but mine was too shiny. 

As far as desserts, I've only made the infamous peanut butter blossoms by Hershey's. Good stuff. When I figure all this blog stuff out, I'll post a step by step recipe. 

Stay warm! 

Recipe gone right!

I follow myhealthydish on Instagram, a mother of twins that posts what she eats. Simple recipes yet amazing! I tried a recipe she made a you tube video about for sriracha chicken spring rolls, amazing!!! I could make those everyday! Watch her video at: http://youtu.be/vNBU03dFlww it's simple and really good, the chicken isn't actually that spicy, you would think it is because you add 2 tablespoons of sriracha, but when it's cooked the chicken has good flavor. 

Personally I think you can add as many veggies as you would like, we added romaine lettuce and shredded carrots, not bad. My has a website that helps you get ideas on how to eat right and even has a way for you to keep track of your calorie, sodium etc. intake, it's pretty cool. If you're a mom that has a mind set on starting the new year full force on eating right and exercising, not only for your own health but to establish healthy eating in your home, follow myhealthydish. There are tons of inspiring stories everywhere, and people beyond belief that will be supportive to your healthy changes, I don't know about you but it's hard to get the hubby on the eating healthy boat let alone my little one. 

It's going to be hard, but there will be days I can cheat and indulge in one of my many baking goods :-) 

Baking...aaaahhhhh!

I LOVE, LOVE , LOVE looking up sweet treats on Pinterest and looking for the most simple recipe, by simple I mean ingredients I already have and don't have to go to the grocery store in search for some random ingredient my local grocer wouldn't have. I recently tried that peanut butter cookie cup recipe, and to tell you the truth I already know how to make peanut butter cookie dough, but I followed the recipe and it came out super crumbly, I give myself a lot of credit for baking, but I'm no baker! I had no idea what to add to the dough to make it soft, in the way that if I tried to roll it in a ball it wouldn't crumble to pieces. I added peanut butter, and more butter but no luck, still crumbly! Either way they were still edible!
I don't keep things like vanilla beans in my pantry or lemon extract! Although lemon extract sounds more common to have. I don't. I also made personal cheesecakes, bad idea. My husband doesn't have a sweet tooth like I do, not fair! They were incredible and really easy to make, they would make a great valentines day treat, I went in search for the short mason jars and finally found them at Target, $5.99 for four, I needed 6 so I bought 8. I could use the extra for storage or if I make a double batch for some occasion. If I haven't mentioned this before, I have an instragram, look for me under manualindades! I'm posting pictures of my crafts and treats like these I wrote about today. When I get a chance to, I will take more pictures to post as I make things like this but the pin on Pinterest is called Individual Strawberry Cream Pie. Or here is the link so that you can give these tasty pies a try! I call them cheesecakes.
 http://damndelicious.net/2013/02/13/individual-strawberry-cream-pie-and-a-giveaway/

Hair Treatments, what's the best way?

 One of my latest things is trying to have the amazing hair I had before I became a mom. After hours of browsing on Pinterest I found out there's a vitamin to keep your hair growing. And not too long ago I was reading an article about how women wear the same hairstyle everyday and pull their hair back tight with a thin elastic, ending up in loss of hair from traction that damaged your thin hairs. I couldn't believe what I was reading! Only because I am one of those women that doesn't have the time (like I used to) to style my hair differently everyday. I mean it takes me like an hour to curl my hair, and even though straightening my hair only takes like 15-20 minutes, I don't do it often because of all the hair that falls out when I do it!
 

 As I was in the mall with my family a while back, I ran into a French inspired store named L'Occitaine I bought a rather small yet very effective hand lotion, during my quick visit, I was given a generous amount of samples! Yay samples! They were a shampoo, conditioner, hair oil and a body lotion. I tried it out a soon as I could, I fell in love with the body lotion, my skin was so soft those two days the sample lasted and don't let me forget to tell you about the hair treatments, can I say AMAZING?! My hair smelled of what a field in France must smell like in the summer. I was in love. I bought the regular size shampoo and conditioner but sadly threw out the hair oil before I caught the exact name, although every time I've been in a store their sales staff is super friendly and really helpful. Either way the products are pretty amazing, I mean I'm not growing new hair or thicker, but my hair is soft and smells good. I was expressing to my dearest Mama about my latest discoveries and she was telling me, it simply has to do with what you eat. Made me feel like a fool for a second, but only because its true! I took biotin (the vitamin I mentioned I saw on Pinterest) but I was growing hair everywhere! Not long thick strands of hair, but peach fuzz where I didn't know I had it.

I have to admit my most recent purchase is Wen, it comes out on infomercials when you're up too early on a Saturday or can't sleep during the week nights. So I ordered it. So far, my hair is really soft! The only thing that I can't get used to is that it's only a conditioner, and other treatments like leave in conditioner and anti frizz spray. Personally I don't feel like I have cleaned my hair unless its been lathered in shampoo, this Wen stuff excluded the whole shampooing process. So far the results are really soft hair, as if I have just gotten it cut, which I'm due for any day now. If you're reading and have amazing hair, give me some of your tips and suggestions to beautiful, full hair. 

Hello blogging world! Or blog reader rather...?

Hi All!
 First of all, I'm NOT a writer, although I give it a shot here and there so try not to be judgy on my comma, period or apostrophe placements and my made up words that will often have the red squiggly lines underneath them while I'm writing but I will purposely ignore. It will be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 More about myself? Of course! I'm a blogger virgin, so I'm new to all of this, I thought I would start writing to kick off the new year and my adventures! And by adventures I mean the latest things I have tried out like, a class of some crafting sort OR a new recipe. And by new year I mean almost mid February. I love all things DIY and that is the main reason I sit here (at work) beginning a blog, I know there are THOUSANDS of bloggers who are much more interesting than I am and already have a book out or some kind of line of merchandise out, I do not (yet). I am Latina, and I sit there like a lot of other moms watching MyFroggyStuff on YouTube trying to make a doll bedroom out of the dolls box she came in, because she made it look like you can make that in the eight minutes the video lasted. I can't possibly be the only mom out there that tries to give all those crafts a shot, am I? I will start as reviewer, a positive one, and when I am not positive It'll only be because what ever it is I tried didn't work in my favor. I'll write about all things Pinterest, and I have to admit I have introduced quite a few people to Pinterest since I was introduced.
  I hope to have you as a permanent reader, because I would do the same. Either way, I'll figure this whole blog thing out and I'll soon be the blogging star! Or not. Who knows. Thanks for reading in advance!!