Bacon Glory

Happy Thursday everyone!

I have a shorter blog today but I REALLY wanted to share this!

The past week has just flown by with work, picking out flooring and other house stuff, and getting the flu.  I’ll be the first to tell you that getting sick that bad…sucks.  There is no better word.  Well….I can think of a few but none are appropriate, whoops!  Oh boy.

So before my 4 day snot-fest and feeling like a semi ran me over, I was perusing Pinterest and saw the most awful for you, delicious looking piece of chicken ever.  So of course I wanted to make it.  The pin didn’t have a link to a recipe but from the picture, you could pretty much figure it out.  

 

Introducing:

CREAM CHEESE BACON

WRAPPED CHICKEN

 

Please take a moment to reread that: CREAM CHEESE BACON WRAPPED CHICKEN

Yes I did die of happiness and the house smelled of bacon heaven. BACON.  Need I say more?  For the sake of the blog I’ll struggle on.  Just look at its glory.

This recipe was fairly easy to recreate.  All you need are chicken breasts, bacon, cream cheese, and shredded cheese if you want to melt a little on top.

I had two large chicken breasts that I thawed and cut in half to make four pieces.  Then I found 2 packages of bacon in the freezer and thawed those beautiful packages out (which I don’t know how those ended up in my freezer because we don’t normally buy bacon, they were probably supposed to be used for fishing bait).  Also, I pulled out a block of cream cheese to warm to room temperature for easier manipulation.  So here is my interpretation to make 4 Cream Cheese Bacon Wrapped Chicken.

Ingredients:

2 Large Chicken Breasts
2 packages of Bacon
1 box of Cream Cheese
Shredded Cheddar Cheese (optional)

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees and line a pan with foil.

Slice each chicken breast in half, set aside.  Lay out slices of bacon to wrap the chicken in (see picture) in a cross pattern.  Now, slice 1 or 2 pieces of cream cheese and place in the middle of the bacon cross.  I used 2 slices because I love cream cheese.  Next you choose a piece of chicken and set it on top of your cream cheese.  Once you have everything laid out how you want it, start wrapping the bacon around the chicken one side at a time.    After wrapping your chicken, place it on your pan with the “closed” side down…meaning the side with all the loose bacon ends.  Now that everything is on your pan, place it in the oven for 25 minutes.  Once the 25 minutes is up, flip the chicken so the other side of the bacon can cook for another 25 minutes.  In total, the chicken will be in the oven for 50 minutes.  Take the chicken out of the oven to sit for a few minutes and if you want to sprinkle with shredded cheese, now is the time to do it.  You’re done!

Side note:

For the bacon wrapping, I used 4 slices vertical and 4 slices horizontal on my larger chicken breast cuts and on the smaller ones I used 3 slices vertical and 3 slices horizontal. 



The bacon "cross" (the picture had to be special and not turn)




Pre-Oven tastiness "closed side down"

 

The finished product!

Mother's Day

Sunday was Mother’s Day.

I know Mother’s Day has passed but here are free printables for you!  Things got entirely too crazy for me to post this on time last week, but you can still bookmark it for next year haha (and the tags are great for any gift).

 

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommas out there!  This year I didn’t want to send my mom the cliché and almost mandatory flowers that happens in our family every year.  I am the only girl, so my dad and brother tend to ask me what I’m doing for mom and they follow up with a card for her.  Good job guys.

SO, in lieu of flowers this year, and wanting to save money, I decided to make my mother’s day gifts.  Also, since I was going to have extra ingredients left over I decided to make some for S.O.’s mom and let the girl’s come over and make a batch for their mom as well.  The girls weren’t completely sold on the idea at first (they were also getting over being sick) but once they realized “hey Steff isn’t completely stupid and this looks fun”, it was a great time!

The afternoon activities included making an All Purpose Spice Rub, Whipped Body Cream, and a Sugar Scrub.  Yes, we taste tested the spice mix and the scrub….some more than others.  (I’m mentally glaring at you Lillie.  Yes you.) I also bought all the ingredients except two items at Dollar Tree.

Funny side story about Dollar Tree!  Standing barefoot, I push 6ft tall.  I love dresses and wearing heels; around 3in…..4in. is a little pushing it.  BUT it was a 4in. heel day, and I rocked those heels and my dress all the way to Dollar Tree.  So - I have my basket filled to the brim and my massive purse in tow about to go check out and I spot on the bottom rack the cutest container.  I juggle my items and bend down to pick the container up and I notice that THERE ARE MORE but they are in the very, very back.  Have I mentioned I also have no shame?  I dropped my purse and basket and dug to the very back of that low shelf.  I popped out of that shelf with my prizes and this older gentleman was just staring at me shaking his head. “You know…in my day, young ladies in dresses and heels didn’t crawl around on store floors”.  I didn’t care.  I had my jars and I WAS NOT crawling on the floor.  That’s gross.

Anyhoo…

These crafts took me under an hour to do all three items, even with everyone helping.

Here are the supplies for each gift:

     Sugar Scrub: 2.5 cups of granulated sugar and ¼ cup of coconut oil (essential oil optional)

     Whipped Lotion: 4.5oz petroleum jelly lotion with coco butter in it and 10oz vitamin E lotion(essential oil optional)

     All Purpose Spice Rub: 1/3 cup coarse salt, ¼ cup brown sugar, ¼ cup paprika, 2 Tbl black pepper, 2 Tbl oregano, 2 Tbl thyme, 1 Tbl cayenne pepper

     Containers for each gift

I found everything at Dollar Tree except coconut oil and thyme, which I found at Walmart.

Putting the gifts together is very easy!

Sugar Scrub

Sugar Scrub Mid Mix

First pour your sugar in a good size mixing bowl.  Then, you need to melt down the coconut oil.  Just pop some in the microwave in 20 second intervals until it’s melted.  After it is melted, pour it into the sugar and mix.  The girls wanted it to have a little color so we added a few drops of food coloring and a little vanilla extract for scent.  Once it is all good and mixed, plop it into its container and seal.  Done!

All Purpose Spice Rub

Throw it all in a bowl.  Give it a good mix and TADA!  Pour it into your container.  I strive for simplicity.

Whipped Lotion

Ok…so I’m not going to lie about this one.  I was kinda skeptical.  Measure out the different lotions and mix them in a mixing bowl with a hand mixture on high for about 2 minutes.  I had the girls count it out for me to work on reinforcing time skills.  Plus I let them yell it, which apparently is always entertaining to do when you are 7 and 9 years old.  Maybe I used the wrong lotion for the petroleum jelly (because they were out so I just used a coco butter lotion) but it did not “whip up” like I thought it would…BUT the final product was lighter feeling and didn’t look like a big blob in the bowl.  And I’ll admit it…the lotion works really well for me and it made a ton if you make all of the lotion you bought.  WHOOT!

Final Product Minus One of Each (we made 3 sets)

 

Once you have everything made, you can put them in the jars of your choice and decorate it with a label and any other fanciness you would like.  I didn’t have much time to get creative with labels, so I just went simple. 

 

So there it is ladies and gentlemen!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day and shout out to all of the pet Momma’s out there.  I’m a dog mom too!  Here is an ending picture of my baby Lilly being exhausted on Mother’s day.  It is hard work running up and down the stairs in the new house we are currently remodeling.  Till next time!

 

 

Easter Recap and Birthday Cupcakes!

Hey guys!  I hope everyone had a great Easter. 

I was a little bummed that I couldn’t go home for Easter but I got to spend the weekend with my adoptive family (I adopted them whether they know it or not :D ).  We attempted to dye eggs and ended up dying our hands instead because we can’t follow instructions.  Have you ever tried dying eggs using shaving cream?  In theory it sounds like a terrific idea….with kids ages 4 and under.  …and if you are wearing gloves.  The shaving cream dye just does not dye the eggs successfully; it just makes them a blotchy pastel color, if you’re lucky.  Here is a glimpse of the “before” shaving cream disaster with older kids.

It wasn’t pretty, but we did have fun!  Maybe that is all that should matter.  I wish I would have gotten an "after" shot though.  We also did traditional egg dying and some of the colors turned out beautiful when the girls were patient enough. 

One thing that also happened this month that I want to give a shout out to is Significant Other’s birthday and our friend Wiggy’s birthday.  Wiggy’s wife – Lois – and I got together and decided to throw a “surprise” party.  I use quotes around surprise because both S.O. and Wiggy hate surprises, so we told them we are planning a party and they BETTER act surprised when people show up.  It is amazing what acting skills one can obtain when bribed with cupcakes, fishing equipment, Crown, and guacamole.  ….Those were the best “surprised” faces I’ve ever seen.  Just sayin’.  (raises eyebrow)

For the “Surprise” party, I was excited to be able to make the sweets for the day.  I am branching out into the baking world and I LOVE it.  Preparing meals is ok, but baking lets you be creative and, let’s face it, dessert makes people happy. 

So here I am thinking of all the possibilities for cakes vs. cupcakes vs. other stuff and I start running all my ideas past Samantha, who shows me these cute cupcake toppers Stephanie had just made with the Baylor logos on them.  I jumped on those and asked if Samantha could make more but with Corvettes!  S.O. loves Baylor and graduated from there with a nursing degree and Wiggy fixes up Corvettes and currently has a gorgeous red one.  Let’s just say our stairwell is a Baylor shrine in our apartment. LOOK AT HOW CUTE THESE ARE.

And she still refuses to cash my check, but isn’t the wrapping she sent it in the bees knees (and the picture just REFUSED to flip and look normal -_-)?  I heart twine.  Those cupcake toppers were the inspiration for my themed cupcakes.  For each cupcake (Baylor/Corvette) I did green velvet cupcakes and red velvet cupcakes respectively, with buttercream icing.  All homemade...kinda...ish...ok so it uses a box mix, I just wanted to challenge myself with a new creation and pray I didn’t blow it.  Here are the recipes that I used to make the cupcakes and icing.  In the icing though, I thought the consistency was way too thick for me, so I thinned it out a little at a time with buttermilk (I didn't have regular milk) until I was happy with it.  I also added more food coloring than what was called for due to some of the reviews I read, and I’m glad I did.

RECIPES FOR CUPCAKES AND ICING

 

Cupcake Ingredients

1 package (2-layer size) German chocolate cake mix with pudding
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 bottle McCormick® Green or Red Food Color (I used two for a more true green/red color)
3 eggs
2 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract

Cupcake Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat cake mix, sour cream, water, cocoa powder, oil, food color, eggs and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed just until moistened, scraping sides of bowl frequently. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes.
2. Pour batter into 24 paper-lined muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full.
3. Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of cupcake comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely on wire rack.

Once the cupcakes are cool then you can frost them.  I used Buttercream Icing!

Icing Ingredients
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk

Icing Directions
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, shortening, and vanilla. Blend in the sugar, one cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the milk, and continue mixing until light and fluffy. Keep icing covered until ready to decorate.

 

Tada!

The finished product!  I was so proud of myself I did a dance (and for S.O.’s information, it was NOT a seizure. Take your nursing humor somewhere else then on my happy dance!).

 

So that is it for now!  If you are interested in customized cupcake toppers like the ones that I used, please shoot us an e-mail and we will contact you as soon as possible.  I will post these recipes and a picture to go with them in the RECIPES section of the blog in case you ever want to locate the yumminess ever again or just ogle my goodies (THE CUPCAKES). 

 

Yes, I just did that. 

 

…I won’t judge you too much though ;) SEE YA!

Easter Is A Comin'

Easter is almost here!!! 

I have seen so many cute cute CUTE ideas all over Pinterest and I’m currently jealous and heartbroken that I cannot do all of them. 

1- I just do not have enough hours in the day

2- the cash flow is currently going toward the new home. 

So in case your cash flow isn’t going toward your fabulous crafting habit, ahem, hobby…here is a completely free printable for you! 

To get our fabulous printables that are FREE, just click on the Gallery link at the top of the page and bask in the delightful pictures that Samantha created!!!

Here are small examples of the printables:

Glow Egg Hunt
One awesome idea that I came across while reading one of my favorite blogs of all time, is called the “You’ve Been Egged” Glow Egg Hunt.  I wish my parents would have known about this when I was younger because I would have been all over this.  To do this Glow Hunt, you need to go to the dollar store and buy plastic eggs and skinny glow sticks to your hearts content.  Then once it gets dark, snap your glow sticks and fold them into each egg.  

Folding them like a pretzel looks like the best way to shove them in there (you could even fit a piece of candy if you are feeling super generous about hyping up your children’s sugar levels).  Now that you have your adorable glowing eggs, run outside and sprinkle them on the ground and hide the in trees and bushes and let the children loose!  …..or you could always go “egg” a friend’s house :D

The blog I found this idea (and picture) from is called HappyMoneySaver. 
Here is her link: http://happymoneysaver.com/easter-glow-hunt/

Tag you’re it!

My mom called me the other day trying to pick my brain about activities she could do with her kids in her class at church for Easter before their Easter Egg Hunt.  Frankly, I could not think of a SINGLE THING that I could relate” Jesus + worn out kids” to.  Out appears the IPad and I gleefully pull up Google and type in Easter activities.  Plenty of Easter Bunny….no Jesus.  So I try Jesus activities.  There is a super cute Jonah and the Whale game but that’s another story.  Nothing Easter.  OH, COME ON GOOGLE!!!!!

…yes I was pouting at this point.

Anywho.  The S.O. (significant other) walked by and was like Steffany…google Jesus Easter Activities.  The heavens opened and I heard the Hallelujah chorus all around me.  THERE IT WAS.  “Empty Tomb Relay Tag”.  I shed a happy, happy tear.    

Here is how the game works:
Set up two “tomb” areas opposite sides from each other.  Either divide the kids into teams or have them pick teams out of a hat (gotta keep it fair) and have them lay down in their area.  Now, pick a child on each team to be the “Spirit of God” who can raise people back to life.  This child then needs to stand on the opposite end of their teams “tomb”.  When you yell GO, the kids will run to their tomb and touches a teammate to bring them back to life and then they will both race down to the starting line.  Now, the child who was just brought back to life, runs back to the tomb to bring someone else back to life and the whole process is repeated until the last child crosses the line.  Once all kids are across, the team has to yell “Empty Tomb!” to win.  Repeat the game until the kids are worn out :D

This cool game was found here:
http://people.opposingviews.com/christian-easter-games-kids-1785.html

 Have a happy and blessed Easter everyone!

Welcome!

Hello everyone! Welcome to ArrowHeartDesign’s Blog!

My name is Steffany and I acquired the magnificent job of managing this website and keeping it up to date with tons of wonderful stuff that I hope everyone will enjoy. I promise to keep my exclamation points to a minimum but I get excited pretty easily and I love talking about items and decorations and recipes. YEA!
 
A little about ArrowHeartDesign…

ArrowHeartDesign was founded on Etsy by our fearless leader Samantha (who I will introduce soon, hang in there with me!). There is a nifty little link over on the side if you want to visit it…and I know you want to but read me first then go. Ok? Samantha has created customizable invitations, cute printables you can frame, and just recently created charming cupcake toppers that I used for a surprise birthday party I hosted! I squealed with excited when I got them and will absolutely post pictures later…but, I digress. Samantha then had the brilliant idea to branch out and found 3 gullible, ahem, 3 AMAZING girls to add to her team. Together, we all hope to expand ArrowHeartDesign and truly create something spectacular!

 

And now for the introductions! I had everyone write a short intro of themselves for me so that I can share with everyone. I always love knowing a little about the people who are behind the “Name”. So to make me happy and hopefully those out in the endless plains of the internet, I am pleased to introduce……

SAMANTHA

Samantha - Hey Hey Hey! I'm Samantha, by day I work doing data entry, and by night I make multiple attempts at trying to be SuperMom. I have three kids ages 6, 5 and 4. We're just entering the wonderful world of sports, so that keeps us extra busy. I enjoy cooking, reading and gardening when time permits. I am also a full time college student, meaning I don't sleep much! My favorite color is grey & my perfect day would be going on an adventure with the kids exploring in the woods! I also love creating, crafting and party planning!

STEPHANIE

Stephanie - Hello, I'm Stephanie. I currently work in a bakery decorating cakes. I love cooking and baking. I like doing cakes but I'd rather be doing photography. I love spending time with my husband, Josh. Our favorite show is The Walking Dead. I'm addicted to zombies! If that's even possible...? Mmm... That's all for now!

REVA

Reva - Hola! I’m Reva. Boy-Mom extraordinaire! I stay busy with a husband, kiddos, little league, and regular ole life. When I can, I sneak in design work on cards/invitations/announcements/etc, crafting, and scrapbooking… though not as much as I'd like. My ideal day would be spent with a glass of wine in hand & my laptop, on the beach, peacefully watching my family play! Calgon. Take. Me. Away!

And yours truly!

STEFFANY

Steffany – Hey I’m Steffany. I currently live with my significant other and Lilly, our four legged beast, who truly is a spoiled princess…and yes she does have a costume crown. Don’t judge me. I work for a City Municipality doing payroll and other fun things but when I get off I love to go to the dog park, destroy (cough) create things, sew, dream, dance, bake, and clean. Yes I said clean. IF I could have my way for 48 hours though, I would hire a maid, masseuse, and someone to bring me Roscato wine and flaming lime Cheetos while I’m getting a pedicure. I don’t ask for much do I?

 

 

Now that the fun introductions are over, you should DEFINITELY check out the Etsy shop and of course bookmark this fantastic blog for future idea madness. Also, if you truly love me…cough…ArrowHeartDesign’s blog you should stay tuned because I’m working on getting a newsletter put together so that you will automatically know when I post new information. How about that!

 

Toodles for now!