Sew In Love's First Year [Part One]

- I did my very first post here on Sew In love

- I was so excited for the first signs of spring

- I shared my super sweet care package from my parents

- Here are some songs that were stuck in my head

- I pulled my first all-nighter

- My favorite Eiffel Tower shirt made an appearance

- Happy Easter!

- I had my first pen pal

- I made my own work out tank from an old t-shirt

- My cousin got married

- I shared my obsession with pastel flowers

- I went to a baseball game for Earth day

- I attempted to start a 30 day journal challenge

- I shared my recent favorite outfits

- Summer was passing smoothly for me

- I ran a half-marathon

- I made some yummy fruit dip

- I found some adorable rain boots

- I made chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting

- Take a peek inside my bag

- Get to know me from A-Z

- I made my first skirt

- I reached my goal weight

- I shared my wishlist

- I made some delicious cookie dough balls

- I got my first job

- I made melted crayon art

- I worked all summer

- I found awesome reasons for being alive

- A fun shopping trip put me in a good mood

- My knitting playlist

- I shared my goals for summer

- Some summer tunes

- I had a slight obsession with lip balm

- What's in my knitting bag

- I absolutely adore 80s movies

- I shared my favorites from Modcloth

- I visited Knitting Temptations yarn shop

- I sent my first post card

- I shared a fun weekend

- I shared what's in my fox purse

- I showed you my jewelry organization

- I knitted a coffee cuff

- I crocheted my first afghan

- I crocheted a fun lip balm case

- I made some fun July plans

- I crocheted an octopus

- I was part of a sweet summer secret swap with other bloggers

- Happy Fourth of July

- I sewed a pocket onto a sweatshirt

- I had a super fun Die Hard marathon

- I made a cookie sheet magnet board

- I made some bottle cap magnets

- I made a knitted button bag

- I shared my sunglasses collection

- I did some summer cleaning

- I created some handmade postcards

- I was part of the Christmas in July blogger swap

- My family and I headed to the beach for vacation

To Do List: #26

#26: Get a Passport

A couple of days ago a little package had come from the Department of State and I squealed, jumping up and down as I opened it, just knowing my passport was waiting inside. I go to London in May, so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to get my passport by then. I was so surprised by how fast it came! One of my friends had given me a passport cover about four years ago when my sister went to London because she thought I was going too (I had a softball tournament over spring break, so my sister went without me)...yeah, that was a bit of an awkward moment telling her I wasn't going on that trip. But now I have a use for it!

I can't stop touching my new passport now! I'm not a huge fan of the picture because it's all orange and the girl who took it zoomed wayyyyy too far in so it's basically my head and nothing else, but it's still a passport. And I have my journal my sister got me for Christmas to use on the trip as well. Now, all I have to do is fast forward five and a half months and I'm all set :)

Friday's Favorites

Oh my goodness, time just flies whenever I'm home...and when it's Christmas! I had a fantastic Christmas Day with my family and got so many goodies from Santa. And now we have TONS of left over cookies after baking for two days straight. And it snowed yesterday! Overall, it has been a pretty great week :)

1) Mmmm this fact of life is so true! Anything can be fixed with some cookies :)

2) This pink and white kitchen is so adorable! I would love to have this in my home one day. 

3) OH MY GOSH. How delicious does this kit kat lasagna look?

4) I love this Lion King mug so much! It would be so fun to have when I'm feeling down :)

5) These mint-toed heels are just too adorable. I love the colors!

6) This Wonderland Tea is so cute! I would love to see what characters they matched with which flavors. 

7) I LOVE this turquoise sweater. It just looks so comfy and I can just imagine cuddling up with a good book while wearing it. 

8) This assortment of rings is beyond awesome. I'm obsessed with owls, so adding  that owl ring to my collection would be awesome :)

9) Speaking of owls...this owl watch is so cute. And it's pink! Where can I get one?

10) How could would it be to actually see this book exchange? I think I would die if I came across this one day.

Instagram Christmas

I had such a fantastic Christmas with my family! There's absolutely nothing that can compare to the feeling of waking up on Christmas morning and seeing all of the presents under the tree. Here's a little peek into my fantastic day! 

1. Our Christmas tree! We color coordinate all of our wrapping paper so everyone is a different color. That way, handing out the presents is a piece of cake! 

2. All of our stockings are hung by the chimney with care :) Normally, we open up our stockings first and the move on to the rest of the gifts. 

3. My brother gave me all 8 Harry Potter movies! I've wanted them for a while, but never wanted to spend all of that money on the set. He got them when they were on super sale at Walmart, so the whole set cost under $20! I also got Pride & Prejudice and an Audrey Hepburn movie pack, which includes Roman Holiday, Breakfast At Tiffany's, and Sabrina. I can't wait to watch these movies!

4. My sister is amazing and got me a Squirrel Mug from Modcloth (one that I had posted about on my Modcloth Wishlist) and a journal for when I go on my trip to London this summer! I can't wait to use my mug and write in my journal this summer. 

5. Santa brought me two totally cool books: Literary Knits and Les Petits Macarons. The first one includes 32 knitting patterns inspired by literary classics. It is such a cute book and I can't wait to try out some of the patterns. The second one is a maracon cookbook that includes a ton of fun macaron recipes. I have wanted to make some macarons for so long and now I finally have a cookbook to do so! 

6. Santa also brought me a 50s retro hot chocolate maker, an Iron Man spatula, and Snow White Cookie Cutters! My kitchen is definitely going to be a lot brighter thanks to Santa :)

7. More and more baking for me! We have a million cookies to eat and there's even more I want to make. So much baking, so little time!

8. At my cousins' give exchange, I went home with this awesome mixing bowl, red rubber spatula, and two scone mixes! I was so excited when I opened the box and found these goodies. I've never made scones before, so I guess we'll see how they turn out! 

Nicholas Sparks and Pumpkin Spice Tea

These past two weeks have just flown by and it's already Christmas Eve! I can't believe that tomorrow is Christmas day and it's finally time for everyone to open the presents I made them. I'm so excited to see everyone's reactions and I hope they all love what I got them! Since I finished my Christmas shopping weeks ago, here's what I'll be up to this Christmas Eve...

1. Watching The Lucky One My bestest friend ever won a SIGNED copy of The Lucky One from Target and decided to give it to me because I love both Zac Efron and Nicholas Sparks. This morning, my Dad asked me about the movie and I was absolutely shocked when he said he wanted to watch it! So this may be on the agenda tonight after our Christmas Eve dinner. 

2. Making New Year's Resolutions I am huge on making lists, so making a new year's resolution list for 2013 definitely has me super excited! I've got a few ideas of what I want to add to this list floating around in my head, I just need to put it all down on paper. 

3. Knitting a beret My roommate and I aren't exchanging presents until after break or else we would have had to do it two weeks before Christmas. That means that I get all break to work on her present! And part of it is a knitted beret that I can hopefully start today. 

4. Drinking Pumpkin Spice tea I won a giveaway from a book blog a while back and it finally came in the mail. Along with the book came a delicious pack of Pumpkin Spice tea that I am currently enjoying right now. Pumpkin is one of my absolute favorite flavors and I had no idea they had a tea that flavor! I'm definitely keeping an eye out for an entire box of this yumminess next time I'm at the grocery store. 

5. Reading, and then reading some more I'm only FOUR books away from reaching my goal of 130 books, so I've been working hard the past week to make my goal a success. Right now I'm reading a memior about someone who travels through Europe, so I really want to keep reading and not stop until I'm done!

And that's all that I'm going to be up to this Christmas Eve! It started raining a little bit today, so the snow that fell on Friday has started to melt :( But it's still Christmas with or without snow! All I have to do is look at my sparkling tree with the boxes of presents right underneath and I get the warm, fuzzy feeling only Christmastime can bring :)

Five Baker Facts About Me

It's no secret that I absolutely love baking. And in the past week, I have been baking non stop for Christmas with the family and other relatives. With all of the baking I've been doing, I've realized a lot of little quirks about myself as a baker that I hadn't really noticed before. Here are five fun facts you may not have known about me and my baking habits. 

1) I have to lick the bowl. No matter what I make (though it is usually something with chocolate), I have to scrape every last remnant of the batter from the sides of the bowl and eat it all up. Sometimes, I'll even sacrifice a baked cookie or two in order to eat more cookie dough myself :)

2) I am a VERY messy baker. I almost always spill something on myself, so I've found the key to staying semi-clean is by wearing an apron (like the Cookin' Claus one above). And it seems no matter how hard I try, flour ends up getting everywhere. 

3) I am a very controlling baker. I've found that I actually prefer to bake alone because people just get in my way and when they ask to do something, they either take so long that I'm waiting on them or are bothering me when I'm working on another part of the recipe. Needless to say, a lot of the baking I've been doing has been a solo act. 

4) Pinterest is my best friend. I can spend hours on Pinterest and triple my baking board. I have over 700 pins on there and that doesn't even include the 229 pins on my cupcake board or the 93 pins on my healthy desserts board. I get a ton of ideas for baking from Pinterest and I honestly don't know what I'd do without it! 

5) I bake whenever and wherever. Whenever I'm in the mood to bake, I'll bake. A Friday morning when my best friend comes over after being separated for two months? Why yes I'd love to bake some chocolate cookies! A Saturday afternoon in my dorm basement? Why yes I'd love to bake some owl cupcakes! When I'm in the mood to bake, nothing can stop me from finding an oven, a cookie tray, and the ingredients to making some delicious baked goods. 

Kitchen Krazy: Peanut Butter Blossoms

My sister and I spent the entire morning yesterday baking Christmas cookies, and we're not even close to being done with all of the baking for the season. But one of the cookies we did manage to make that we make every year are peanut butter blossoms. Mmmm just talking about them makes me hungry! We always use the recipe from Hershey's Kitchen and they are so easy to make!

All I had to do was mix up the batter (which uses peanut butter, my favorite ingredient ever), roll it into balls, dip the balls in sugar, and then pop them in the oven! As soon as they're done baking, I but a little Hershey Kiss in each cookie and ta da! The cookies were done and absolutely delicious. 

These cookies are the perfect combination of peanut butter, chocolate, and sugar. And they're incredibly easy to make! I'm so excited to share these with the family tomorrow when I go to Marrietta for Christmas with my mom's side of the family. It's going to be a fantastic time filled with presents, yummy food, and lots and lots of cookies :)

Friday's Favorites

Christmas is FOUR DAYS AWAY! I'm so excited that I can barely contain myself. Haha, I don't know how many times I can say how amazing this time of year is, but it's so amazing! The presents, Christmas tree, stockings hung by the fire place, and snow! That's right, it's finally snowing in Ohio today! Just another thing to make me even more happy during this time of year :)

1) These superhero ornaments are just too awesome. I would love to add them to my already overflowing Christmas tree! 

2) Mmmm these peanut butter cookies with heart chocolates look so delicious. I'm going to have to try these out soon. 

3) This animal hood is just too cute for words. Is it bad if I want to make one for myself?

4) No one will ever be as awesome as Hermione Granger. 

5) These pastel Christmas cookies are so cute! How do they make them look so perfect? 

6) This adorable kitty is one of the cutest things I've ever seen. It has me wishing for snow even more now!

7) Awwww this little piece of wisdom is so adorable :)

8) A cupcake ATM would be SO COOL. I'd probably end up going there every single day, haha. 

9) Speaking of cupcakes, these red velvet cupcakes look absolutely delicious. 

10) These big pillows look like so much fun! I would love to have that Instagram pillow! 

5 Things Making Me Happy

Life is pretty good right now and I thought I'd share with you guys the five things that have got me loving life during this holiday...

1) I got a 4.0 this semester! I could not be more ecstatic that I made it through both my Shakespeare and Romanticism literature classes with an A. And then all of my other classes ended up going well too, so I could not have asked for a better sophomore fall semester.

2) I've been baking like a mad woman! Yesterday, I had pumpkin pancakes, while earlier this week I made salty chocolate chip cookies, oreo truffles, and deep dark chocolate truffles. I have even more baking planned for the weekend! I can't wait!

3) Christmas is FIVE DAYS AWAY! We have tons of presents under the tree and I'm having Christmas with my mom's side of the family on Sunday, so this upcoming week is going to be filled with plenty of holiday cheer. And it's supposed to snow tomorrow, so if I can have at least a semi-white Christmas, I'll be one happy girl.

4) I have been getting a ton of reading done, some of which have been really good books. I've missed being able to read at least 3 books a week, so flying through some great books has left me in a really good mood lately.

5) I've started work at the zoo gift shop again, which in itself is really not all that fun, but I'm making more money to save for my trip to London this summer! Whenever I'm ready to just poop out at work, I think of London and how I'm going to be in the best city ever for 6 whole weeks and I need that money to make the most out of it. So thoughts of London have been definitely dancing in my head!

And that's all that has been running through my mind lately. I'd say life has been pretty fantastic. Hope all of you have been having a great holiday season and are getting ready for Christmastime!

Kitchen Krazy: 3 Ingredient Oreo Truffles

There's nothing I love more than chocolate, so when I saw the recipe for these 3 Ingredient Oreo Truffles from How Does She... I could not stop myself from drooling over the pictures. When I saw that they only took THREE ingredients and about five minutes of your time, I knew I had to make them! So I went to the grocery store, got the ingredients, and made some truffles!

These were probably the easiest dessert I've ever made. All I had to do was crush the oreos, mix it in with the cream cheese, roll the mixture into balls, melt the chocolate, and dip the balls into the chocolate. And then, after half an hour in the fridge, they were ready to be gobbled up! Silly me didn't realize the recipe called for two bars of baker's chocolate to dip the balls in, so I ran out about 3/4 of the way through. Nifty old me, though, just pulled some chocolate chips and poured them into the bowl, melted those, and dipped the rest of the balls in that. It worked out perfectly! 

Mmmmm these truffles are just absolutely delicious. I have to try so hard not to eat them all in one sitting. I found a recipe for a mint oreo truffle that look even more delicious than these (if that's possible...), so I think I definitely want to try those out next. My family hasn't been home yet to try them, but I've already had two so I can definitely tell you that they're delicious. Hopefully the rest of my family feels the same! 

Kitchen Krazy: Deep Dark Chocolate Cookies

Being home for four weeks means one thing: I have a kitchen! Woo hoo! So of course, the first thing I do when I'm here is bake some delicious cookies! I found the perfect recipe for these deep dark chocolate cookies from Divine Baking and I knew I had to make them as soon as I saw them. The recipe uses no flour or butter, which I thought was so cool. I've never made a cookie without those ingredients, so I thought I'd give it a try! 

Mmmm the best part was definitely using the bittersweet chocolate for the cookie mix. You melt a cup of the chocolate chips for the mix, then at the end before you roll the balls, you mix in 1/2 a cup of solid chips. Mmm so much chocolate! I was so worried because when I was done with the cookie mix, it was still very sticky and not really all that solid, so when I tried rolling it into balls it got ALL over my hands. Thankfully, though, I waited about five minutes and the chocolate hardened a bit and the mixture got a lot easier to work with. So I scooped up spoonfuls, rolled them into balls, dipped them into powdered sugar, and put them on the cookie sheets. 

Then I popped these babies into the oven and about 10 minutes later they were perfect! They're the perfect mixture of sugar and chocolate and I can't get enough of them. And you know the best part? My family loves them too! I love it when I can make a baked good that wins over my family, so I'd definitely call these a success. 

Quirky Gifts Under $10

I am all about bargain shopping, so if I can find the perfect gift for my friends and not have to spend a ton of money, I'm one happy camper! After searching the internet, I've found six fun, quirky gifts that I could definitely see buying for my friends. 

1. Spotted owl mini warmer from Walmart $10

2. Ceramic measuring cups from Target $7.50

3. Black Aztec Gloves from Target $8.79

4. EOS holiday lip balm kit from Target $7.99

5. Oven mitt and pot holder form Target $5.50

6. Three mini London notebooks from Amazon $8.69

I know a majority of the items are from Target, but they're just so darn cute! Target always manages to turn ordinary things like oven mitts and measuring cups into an adorable must-have. I love the pattern of the oven mitt and I can't get over how adorable the owl candle warmer is. And all of these things are under $10! Now that's what I'm talking about. One of my friends actually got my sister the London notebooks for our birthday and I was so in love with them my sister gave me one of them. Isn't she the sweetest? 

If I bought these things for my friends though, I would be so tempted keep them all for myself! Or I could just buy myself another one because they're so cheep. Gosh, I just love Target so much! Have you guys found fun things to buy your friends or family? I'd love to hear your shopping secrets! I'll have to keep them in mind for the last of my Christmas shopping this year. Hopefully your Christmas shopping is going well! There's no better feeling than finding that perfect gift for all of the special people in your life. 

Friday's Favorites

It's Friday! And it's officially winter break for me! That means I have the next month to simply relax and get into the holiday spirit. I can't believe there are only 11 more days until Christmas. The time seems to be flying by, but I am so excited for Christmas day to come! The presents are all already under the tree (my family likes to get the shopping done early haha) and our house is decked out in holiday decorations. It's simply the best time of the year! Here's some things I found this week that have been making it even better!

1) Tehe, I love this sticker for the kitchen. It's definitely so true, at least when I'm cooking! 

2) Once I learn how to do embroidery, I'm definitely making this R2D2 design. It's just too cute for words. 

3) These Christmas cookies look so perfect! I love the different patterns on all of the presents. 

4) This book phone wallet is the sweetest thing I've ever seen. I'd love to be able to put my phone and money in here and stick it in my purse. It looks so cute! 

5) I absolutely love this Harry Potter sweater. I have to find where I can get myself one of these. 

6) This lips phone is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I would love to have this in my apartment next year!

7) Mmmmm pink lemonade cupcakes? I definitely have to find a recipe to make these!

8) Even more holiday nails! I have to try some of these patterns out!

9) Look at these oreo chocolate chip brownies! They look so delicious with all of that chocolate!

10) One of my favorite parts of Christmas would definitely have to be the Christmas lights. The best part, though, isn't when they're on the houses but all over your bedroom. Sitting under all of those lights just feels magical.