Rainbow Jello

A couple of weeks ago, my step daughter celebrated her 10^th birthday. Although we kept pestering her for weeks about what she wanted for her birthday, she never had an answer with the exception of one thing: Rainbow Jello. She’s not a big cake fan, and even less so of frosting. What she really wanted was layers and layers of colored Jello.

I’ve always thought about doing this. I’ve seen others do it. It’s probably one of the simplest things I’ve ever made. But it takes FOREVER. I started preparing the layers on a Friday afternoon; one box at a time. I’d wait a couple hours, then add the next layer. I was able to get three of them done by Friday night.

Saturday morning, I was making Jello again while waiting for my crepes to cook. Crepes are her favorite breakfast item, along with turkey bacon.

Finally, by the afternoon, I’d finished all the layers. I added a layer of whipped topping (of course!) and we served up the first…um…”piece”. Rainbow Jello is pretty difficult to serve. You have to get all the flavors in there or what’s the point? But even though it came out a bit sloppy, it looked just as pretty in the bowl. And it was DELICIOUS. Whoever said they didn’t like Jello was lying. Or at least was thinking more about the fact that it’s made out of fat than the yummy taste it has when mixed with loads of sugar. Mmmmm.

So, when you have some free time or when you feel like making something really special – perhaps for that next potluck? – grab a few boxes of Jello and go to town!

Polka Dots!

I LOVE polka dots. You may have noticed this trend in some of my previous posts. I especially love them on clothing, as unflattering as they can sometimes be.



Awe.



When you mix one of my most favorite happy things with polka dots, what do you get?

Polka Dot Balloons, that's what.

How about something as adorbale as a rubber ducky? Look no further.

And pink, to boot!

Gee, what I wouldn't give for a cake covered in polka dots.

I'd even spoil my diet for a piece.

Getting your nails done, saving for a vacation or perhaps looking for something to keep your feet from getting athlete's foot at the community pool?

Man, I love polka dots!

Pink Madness

This weekend, my step daughter's and I recreated one of their bedrooms. We bought our house over a year ago and have slowly made improvements, but this one was way over due.

Before the changes, the room was a typical beige-neutral (aka really boring-blah). I would imagine that's because the owner's before us had it set up as a guest room. Having been a teenager myself once, I realize the importance of having your own space that represents your taste where you feel comfortable spending time. Although we had discussed this project many times, my middle step-daughter, Angel, and I decided it was to get it done.

 We started Saturday afternoon by picking out the paint colors:



Cotton Candy Pink

Budding Romance

While we were out, I was looking for these circle foam things. I didn't know what they were called, but I had seen them at Home Depot and Michael's. They look like this:

But alas, the fates were against us that day. When I asked the associates if they knew where I could find them, they all looked at me like I had three heads. Very discouraging. However, while at the craft store, we found a great back up plan: Styrofoam circles. More on what we did with these in a minute.

We originally decided to do a two-tone color scheme. We were going to do the light pink on top and dark pink on the bottom. Angel taped off the wall and we started painting. About half way through the top section, I thought it would be cool if we did a faux-wainscot look on the bottom half by painting contrasting pink stripes. At the time, this was a great idea and all the girls were very excited. However, once we started taping off the rows one by one, we thought maybe we were in over our heads. An hour and a half later, we were ready to go with the first color. In hindsight, we should have painted the whole room light pink first, then done the dark pink stripes over the top.

Peeling the tape away after the paint dried was like magic. Beautiful, lovely contrasting lines of pink covered the wall. I was so delighted! I think I was more excited than Angel.

To add the finishing touch to the paint, we added a one inch black border between the solid color on top and the stripes on the bottom. It was then we realized the room looked very much like a Victoria's Secret shopping bag. But that's ok. Those bags are so cute.

As I mentioned before, I wasn't able to find the foam circles I originally wanted to use for the wall. So, using the Styrofoam stand-in's, we picked out varying sizes as well as some 3" spheres. We cut the spheres in half so they'd stick on the wall, then covered them with the same fabric I used to make her quilt and pillows last Christmas. Her bed doesn't have a headboard, so we made a "headboard illusion" by placing the covered Styrofoam in random spots above her bed.

I also hung up some of the leftover paper lanterns in the corner from the bachelorette party I had hosted a few weeks before. Because the room had so much pink already, we chose a dark purple curtain for the windows accented by a white curtain with bright colored dots and circles. I bunched the white curtain with a hair tie and slid in a large blue Gerber daisy.

We added some stickers under the fabric circles to frame the pillows on the bed...

...And voila: Here is the final product: