Yummy & Easy Pumpkin Muffins

How much easier can a two ingredient recipe be?!

My 3-year-old son absolutely LOVES these and asks for seconds. Even my husband asks me to make them.  And -- get this -- this is a Weight Watchers friendly recipe.  Can you believe that one muffin is 3 points?

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix together:

• spice cake mix
• 15 oz. can of pumpkin puree

I find that the results are nicer if you sift the cake mix, otherwise you probably will want to spend a little time mixing out the small lumps of cake mix.

OR, use your mixer to work out the lumps.  I tried this new beater blade attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer and it's pretty cool (thank you Santa).  It did a great job getting rid of the cake batter lumps and the muffin comes out really smooth.

Anyhow, the resulting mix will be thick, but that's okay!

Spoon equal amounts into cupcake pan (use cupcake liners for best results).  Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar when cooled.  Makes 12 cupcakes.

If you try this recipe, I'd love to hear about it!

I'm participating in DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land -- so fun!

My curtain challenge.

Curtains for my living room (or is it a family room?) have been a huge challenge for me.  I don't really have a specific color scheme nailed down which is certainly part of the problem.  I've also been searching for an area rug that I like, but haven't found one.  Yes, I know I'm probably doing everything in the wrong order, but that's just how I seem to do things sometimes.

So my family room is huge -- it runs the whole side of my house and has 4 very tall windows.  Therefore buying curtains you don't like (or do like!) is not cheap.  Sadly I don't have the Nester's knack for tasteful mistreatment of windows, but I greatly admire it.  And honestly, I would still have the similar challenge of finding that much fabric to even attempt her lessons on mistreatment.

To date, I have tried 3 different curtains.  First, a very vivid red duck cloth type from JC Penny.  I chose it because my husband really wants to have color in the room.  We differ on what that might mean, but we both agreed that the red was too much for the room.  Next we tried a neutral/beige, stripped curtain, again from JC Penny.  I made the mistake of not noticing the width was larger so the curtain looked ridiculous as there was too much fabric -- though the color wasn't bad.  Then I admit I gave up and decided to put up some very cheap curtains from Target for my third try.  Who knew that the rod pockets wouldn't be large enough?!  Groan.

The holidays then arrived and I abandoned all efforts to put up curtains.  Bleah.

After Christmas, JC Penny had another sale to lure me back in again.  My husband and I liked the style of the first curtains we tried, but not the color so I went back and stared at the color selection for a while.  I finally settled on a toffee color and nervously awaited for them to be ordered in.

Results?  I am pleasantly pleased with them!

And now I am off to find an area rug that will work in the room.  It has to allow for red, green, and toffee.  It should also allow light yellow and blue to be in the room.  What do you think?  I'm nuts, right?  Hah!!  But what's life without a little challenge?

Seriously, if you have any tips or suggestions, I'll take them.  I will also amend this post with a few pictures of the room when I get them taken.

Candy Cane Reindeer

I cannot take credit for coming up with this craft on my own.  There was one of these little guys in my mailbox at work and I thought it would be fun to make these for my son's daycare friends.  Originally I thought he would be able to do them with me, but then I realized after I had made the first one that the dexterity required is more than his little three-year-old hands can handle.  No matter -- here's the results of my efforts.  Too cute!!

Incidentally, I love Photoshop Elements.  My flash had over-exposed the candy canes, so I used the little selection tool (and a whole lot of clicks!) and adjusted the lighting on the red & white parts.  And then finally I rotated it just a little bit.  The result is a much nicer picture!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

My Garland Wreath

A shout out now to both Chaos Among Us and to her inspiration, We Are That Family, for this garland wreath idea.  I followed Jen's (Chaos Among Us) directions, but found that I needed to use two 20 yard strands of garland.  Maybe it (and I) are wound more tightly!  :-)  Not a bad end result nonetheless!  Thanks to both for the fun and easy project.

And in case you were wondering....  the stripes belong to wrapping paper I put on the back of a door that leads out to a enclosed room that is really only useful when I weather is nice.  The rest of the year it sometimes acts as a storage room or a "hide the presents" room.

A Pretty Christmas Bow

Some might wonder at my enthusiasm for my last post about how to tie a bow.  Perhaps everyone else is good at it, but I only knew how to tie the most simplest of bows - the old fashioned 'tie your shoe" kind of bow.  So here are the results of this lesson:

My Christmas Sled

I'm so happy!

How To Video for Bows

Love the Container Store!  Found a great video for making your own bows (there are several variations in this video).  I can't just read and follow a set of directions -- I need to see how it's done.  So easy!  I particularly love the poinsettia bow.  Happy Wrapping!!

Christmas Cards in a Frame

Here's a way to add some holiday decorations to your home for not a lot of money.  Take some favorite cards and put them in to a frame.  I'm sure it's been done before and this is nothing new, but maybe it'll re-spark the memory and you'll want to do it.

Ta da!  Posted for DIY day at A Soft Place to Land.