Recipe #3, Cake Ball Truffles!

This is our 3rd a final dessert of the week from Chelsea's shower this weekend! 

Let's recap.

We had the Cherry Limeade Cupcake! It was a lime cupcake with a cherry buttercream.

Then we had the Dulce de Leche Churro Sticks. It's pie crust filled with dulce de leche and they were rolled in the cinnamon sugar!

Our final recipe this week is the Cake Ball Truffles!

Cake Ball Truffles
1 box of yellow butter cake, plus the ingredients listed on the box
1 container of vanilla frosting
chocolate almond bark

This is the type of recipe that once you learn the process you can change up all the flavor combinations.

Just make your boxed cake mix according to the instructions. I always add an extra teaspoon of vanilla when I make a boxed cake mix. I baked mine in a 9 x 13 pan.

After it's baked, you want to let it completely cool.

Then once it's cool, you just want to destroy the cake. You can use the food processor or just use your hands to make it cake crumbs. 

Once you have crumbs, you can add your can of frosting. Mix it up until it's well combined.

Now you want to take a ball of cake mixture and roll it up into a ball. You will have to work it between your hands. Then line them up on a cookie sheet and pop in the fridge or freezer until it's set up.

Then you need to melt your almond bark. Once it's melted you just roll around the cake truffles in the chocolate. You can use sprinkles to decorate the truffles before the chocolate sets up. The chocolate will set up quickly since the cake balls were chilled.

I decorated these with a white pearl, but you could use sprinkles, melted chocolate, coconut, or nuts! Again, the flavor combinations are fun to play with.

I stored them in the fridge until ready to serve. This recipe would be great with red velvet cake mix, cream cheese frosting and white chocolate almond bark. How great would that be at Christmas?

Or for Thanksgiving do a pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting and white chocolate almond bark?

OR MAYBE a death by chocolate... chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, and chocolate almond bark!

The possibilities are endless and it's super easy to do with kids!

Until next time,

Kara

Dulce de Leche Churro Sticks

We are back with recipe #2 from Chelsea's bridal shower!

I am a sucker for anything remotely caramel flavored. When I saw Cookies & Cups post a recipe for these churro sticks I was pumped! I thought this is something a little different for the shower.

This recipe is pretty simple and the possibilities are endless! And honestly, who doesn't like anything rolled around in cinnamon and sugar?!? 

Dulce de Leche Churro Sticks

1 box of refrigerated pie crusts

1/2 can dulce de leche

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2-3 teaspoons cinnamon

1/3 sticks butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

I floured my counter and rolled out both pie crusts. 

Then I took about half my can of dulce de leche and spread out all over one pie crust. 

I covered the first pie crust with the second and used my pizza cutter to cut strips.

I then placed the strips on my baking sheets and used a fork to seal the edges of the sticks.

I baked them in the oven for 20 minutes until they were a light, golden brown. 

While they were baking I mixed my granulated sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl.

When the sticks came out of the oven, I had to use my pizza cutter to cut off a little dulce de leche that leaked out and burnt. Ooops.... No harm done! You just have to roll with it in the kitchen.

Next you brush each side of each stick with melted butter and roll it in the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Set on a baking rack to cool a little bit, but these are great eaten warm or at room temperature!

If you don't like dulce de leche, you could fill these with Nutella, caramel sauce and diced apples, peanut butter, whatever your heart desires! Or just bake the pie strips and roll them in cinnamon sugar!

Until next time,

Kara

Dessert Week! Starting out with Cherry Limeade Cupcakes

This past weekend, we celebrated my college roommate, Chelsea, getting married. I was on desserts for the shower and it turns out they were a hit. 

I'm so glad I didn't have to bring a single leftover home.There is nothing worse for a low carb diet then desserts, but I'm proud of myself. I didn't eat one thing! Well if you don't count me having to taste everything while I was baking (who serves something they haven't tried!?! Not this girl.)

This week I will go over the 3 recipes that I created for the shower!

So we will start the week out with a bang and a Cherry Limeade Cupcake.

In college we would hit up Sonic for happy hour. I would always go with the orange slush and Chelsea always got a cherry limeade. I decided to go with her favorite drink flavor profile for a cupcake!

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes

Lime Cupcakes
1 box white cake mix, plus ingredients indicated on the back of the box
3 limes
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cherry Buttercream
1 cup butter, softened 
4 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons maraschino cherry juice
1-3 teaspoons sugar free cherry jello
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Lime Simple Syrup
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water

This recipe is pretty simple. You need to preheat your oven to whatever temperature it indicates, mine was 350.

I zested 3 limes and set it to the side. Make sure you just zest the green skin, we don't want the bitter white part!

You will need to have a white cake mix that calls for water. My mix specifically required 1 1/4 cup of water. I only used 1 cup of water and did 1/4 cup lime juice. it was about 2 1/2 limes. Finish your batter the way your instructions indicated and add an extra teaspoon of vanilla and your lime zest.

Now you can make it into your cupcakes. Only fill your liners 1/2 full. This will allow you to get 24 cupcakes. I used an ice cream scoop to portion out my cupcakes!

Bake according to your box directions.

Next we make our simple syrup! To make a simple syrup you just need to add equal amounts of liquid and sugar to a sauce pot and bring to a boil. This will dissolve the sugar and reduce into a syrup. In our case we used lime juice and sugar!

Just set it to the side to cool.

While your cupcakes are baking you can work the butter cream. Cream your butter and powdered sugar together and add the teaspoon of vanilla. Then I added the 3 tablespoons of maraschino cherry juice. I tasted the mixture and decided it wasn't cherry enough. 

I then started adding a teaspoon at a time of sugar free cherry jello. This allowed me to get a more intensive cherry flavor and a nice pink color without any food coloring. You can determine how intense you want your flavor!

I allowed the cupcakes to cool on a baking rack. Once cool, I brushed the tops with our lime simple syrup. This gives an extra kick of lime flavor while keeping the cakes moist.

I allowed the buttercream to sit in the fridge while the cupcakes completely cooled. Pull your buttercream out a little before you want to use it and top your cupcakes. I used a star tip to fancy mine up a bit, but these would taste good with the buttercream just slapped right on!

I decorated the cupcakes with a wedge of lime and a maraschino cherry!

I'm so happy for Chelsea and her new hubby to be! November will be here before we know it! I'm glad I could be a part of leading up to her special day.

I hope you enjoy.

Until next time,

Kara

Guest Room Redo on a Budget

In our Monday catch up, I talked about living in our house for 4 years. My sister had been living with us for the past year, so when she moved out into her own apartment, I decided to decorate the guest room.

Let's just say the room before was pretty boring! It was a hodge-podge of hand me downs.

I decorated and updated the room for under $35. I think it looks awesome!

I used a leftover gallon of paint from when we remodeled our rental property. Check out that post here.

I didn't do a whole lot when it came to decorating, but I found a couple things at Goodwill, like the lamp, the black vase, and the little bird all for under $8.

I spray painted the lamp base and bird and I hand painted the lamp shade. It was in rough shape, but now you would never know! Don't mind the frame without a picture in it! I haven't decided if I will put a picture or saying in it yet.

I redid the dresser a couple years ago, so I choose to decorate the room around the bright red color. 

I made a couple pieces of artwork to tie in the red, white, black, and silver colors.

The best deal of all was when I found this black and white comforter on Walmart.com for $13 and change.... talk about a find! I got the red accent pillow for under $5 at Wal-Mart. 

Otherwise, all the accessories I pulled from around my house. I think it looks great and cost us next to nothing!

Hopefully our future guests will enjoy the room!

Until next time,

Kara

Date Night Jar

The Hubby and I have been together 8 years. The one thing we have consistently argued over for those 8 years is the question, "What do you want to do?"

I consider us to both be intelligent adults, but when that question comes out of the other persons mouth its like we become fools and have no thoughts.

Our common answer is "I don't know" or "I don't care". 

Well I found something to fix that problem. Our date night jar!

I saw the idea on Pinterest (where all ideas live of course) and decided it was an inexpensive, crafty solution to our problem.

All you need are Popsicle sticks, markers, a jar, and your list of activities you want to use.

Both the Hubby and I brainstormed ideas in the categories of free dates, cheap dates, more expensive dates, and plan ahead dates.

Here is our example list:

Making the list was the hardest part. There are a lot of online links for date ideas. Just cater your list to your tastes and preferences!

This doesn't really require a step by step process, because it is really just that easy!

I bought the plain Popsicle sticks to use, but you could buy the pre-colored ones, they were just quadruple the cost of the plain sticks! I am a cheap person, so I bought the $.75 sticks!

I chose to color the tip of each of the sticks. Since they were color coded you can pick based on the category you want. 

I made a little key for my jar, because heaven knows I'll forget what each stick color means!

It's super easy and will help when we just don't know what we want to do, but know we want to do something!

Until next time,

Kara

Final Pictures from the Rental Property!

The Hubby and I are determined to set ourselves up for the future. Times have changed and raises are hard to come by now. We want to plan for our future, which requires some effort and planning on our parts. We set a goal to have a rental as one of our future investments. Now we can check this off our list.

We are officially done with the rental property....well I say officially, but we still have a few things left to do, but our renter moves in tomorrow. The other changes can wait.

This has been a long journey. I feel like the house now reflects the potential we saw in it.

When you walk in the front door, you enter the living room. A reminder to what the house was before: smelly, dark, musty, and dirty. No we went for modern, fresh and clean.

Once you are in the living room, you will see the connecting dinning room. You still had the dirty carpet and dark paint.

Once you are in the dinning room, you can walk directly into the kitchen. The kitchen had old wall paper border on the walls. The walls were caked with dirt and grease. I feel like now we have a bright kitchen, that you would actually want to cook in.

The back entry was very small, but we painted the walls, pantry and also laid a new floor. 

This house has one bathroom. It is small but useful. The before pictures do not do it justice. It was disgusting. I also believe that the wall paper border was super glued on. Never will I ever put up a wall paper border!!!

This house had two bedrooms. They were both a good size. We just needed to clean them both up with new refinished floors and new paint.

The second bedroom is a little smaller, but it got the same treatment! 

One of the biggest changes was the flooring. We ripped up the carpet and chose to refinish the hardwood floors. It was a great decision. If we refinish hardwood floors again, I don't think I would go so dark, but I love the concept.

We are so happy with the results. I think we did a great job overall. It's hard to believe it is the same property. 

Hopefully you enjoy the results as well!

Until next time,

Kara

Homemade Halloween Decorations

I love this time of year. It is full of holidays, fall weather and family gatherings. I love to decorate our house to reflect the current holiday season.

I am gearing up for Halloween. Each year I try to catch stuff on clearance to use for the next season, so after I got out my Halloween stuff, I realized I still needed a few things. The Hubby and I headed out to the Dollar Tree and I set out to find a craft project.

I have always seen on HGTV or in magazines the bowls on the coffee tables with ornamental balls that match the room decor. Well if you have ever seen those at the store each ball can cost $7 and up. That is crazy, so I decided to make a Halloween version with googly eyes. Is googly a word? I'm not sure, but lets just roll with it.

This project is super easy and inexpensive. I used three packs of googly eyes, three golf balls and two wiffle balls. I got the craft eyes and wiffle balls at the Dollar tree for a total of $4. I stole the golf balls from the Hubby's pile of not very good balls.

Halloween Ornamental Ball Centerpiece

• 3 packs of craft eyes
• Wiffle Balls
• Golf Balls or any other size balls you want
• Hot glue gun

This project is super simple. Just take whatever size ball you are working with and cover a small area with hot glue. Then just randomly place the different size eyes all around. Keep working in small areas with the glue until they are completely covered.

Since I was using a wiffle ball which contains holes, I covered part of the holes, but once I was through I put orange tulle in the center of the wiffle balls for just a little extra color.

I loved the way they turned out! I think they are super fun.

Until next time,

Kara

Rental Property Remodel Update

We purchased the property right next door to our house back in the summer as an investment property. We have been in full renovation mode since.

The house was a beautiful stone home, built in 1950. The curb appeal was where the beauty stopped.   

This was a foreclosure home, so we knew before we even looked at the house that there would be some issues. However, the house was a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom home with a good layout. It also had a attached one car garage, a detached two car garage and a fenced in backyard. So to us it was a great investment and why not start with a house right next door to your own?!?

We saw the "for sale" sign posted on a Friday and made an offer on Monday. We got our offer accepted, so the renovations began!

The house was very dirty and smelly on the inside. The previous home owners obviously had gotten used to the smell. It was a mixture of smoke, pet odor, pet urine and musty/wet smell. Let me just tell you that the hubby couldn't stand to be in there without wanting to gag. Once we painted all the walls and ripped up the carpet the smell was mostly gone, but once we sanded the hardwood floors it really helped our smell issue!

The entire house got a fresh coat of paint.We painted all the walls and ceilings in the house. We were trying to go for a neutral color since the house was smaller. I wanted it to feel more open. 

The hubby didn't want to paint the ceilings, until this picture when he painted white paint on top of what should have been white. What a difference a little paint can make!

Since we plan for this property to be a rental property, we wanted to refinish the hardwood floors. In the long run it will be cheaper than constantly having to replace carpet. They turned out fantastic! They still need the polyurethane coats, but then we will really be in business.

We laid down laminate flooring in the kitchen. It's much easier than I thought it would be! My brother-in-law and I managed to tackle it without many issues.

I removed terrible wall paper borders down in the kitchen and bathroom. Let me tell you the inventor of wall paper should be shot. It is terrible to take off the wall, even with wall paper remover gel spray. Talk about making a mess!

We took care of the whole musty smell by adding two dehumidifiers down in the basement. Talk about a huge difference. I don't know why more people don't invest in them. It's under $200 to keep from having mold and mildew show up!

We still have a lot of little things to do. Add trim to the kitchen and bathroom, polish the kitchen cabinets, add the handles back to the kitchen cabinets, add appliances, paint all the air vents, put all the light switches back on, lay the bathroom and back entry floors, paint the window trim and baseboards. I feel like we knocked out a lot of our big projects, but we have a lot to go before our new renter lives there in October.

But I think we are well on our way to a great investment property!

Until next time,

Kara

Let's try this blog thing...

Hello, my name is Kara. I am an avid blog follower. I follow several cooking and DIY blogs. Blogs just seem so silly since you are reading tips and tricks written by a complete stranger and that they become so addicting.

After you read for awhile, you get to a point where you feel like you know the blogger and you are freinds. Then when they haven't posted in a week you are wondering what happened!? lol. I guess that is a sign of a good blog, a good writer and devoted readers!

So I decided that a blog might be a great way to document some of our adventures as a married couple. We are in our twenties, but we are wise beyond our years. My husband, Joe, and I do not think like most 20 somethings! We are trying to start our married life out on the right foot.

I may be biased, but I feel like we live a frugal lifestyle in an unbelieveable fashion, so I hope to use the blog as kind of a living album of adventures in our life!

Until next time!

Kara