Chocolate & Caramel Apple Donuts

By Vicky Nardone

So the story of these donuts starts with me changing my pajamas and ends with deliciousness!  My dad was in town visiting last weekend as a surprise for my aunt and uncle for their 40th anniversary.  We had a big surprise party with them and it was awesome!  They were very surprised.

Anyway, my dad loves donuts and he is always commenting when he sees posts or pictures of the desserts that I make that I need to send him some in the mail.  So I decided while he was here on a weekend where we didn't have a million things going on that I would make him some donuts.

More Animal Cards

By Vicky Nardone

About a month or so ago I posted this giraffe birthday card that I made for my friend Bryan's birthday.  I got into the animal theme so I made two more animal birthday cards for my friends' Chris and Katie's birthdays.

Mod Podge Bench Makeover

By Vicky Nardone

I've had this project in mind for a while, but I finally got the chance to actually do it a couple of weekends ago.  My grandma passed away last April, and while we were cleaning out her garage, I came across this old wooden bench that had seen better days.  When I was younger, this bench used to sit on the front porch of the home that I grew up in.  When my mom bought a condo and ended up selling the house, she must have been planning to sell or throw out the bench and my grandmother rescued it and it sat in her garage for the pas 8 years.  She was a little bit of a pack rat and didn't like to see things get thrown out.  Anyway, with all the furniture make over and redo projects I've been seeing on my favorite blogs, I figured that I could do something to bring new life into this bench.  I'd been wanting to try my hand at some furniture decoration and this bench was totally free, so why not?

Caprese Sandwich

By Vicky Nardone

Today is my birthday!!!! I'm officially 29 years old.  Work has been really busy and stressful lately so I decided to take the day off.  It's been really relaxing and I actually have time for a middle of the week blog post.  Tonight I'm going to this great steak and seafood place near our house called Black and Blue with my mom and Matt for my birthday.  Then on Thursday, Matt is taking me to this other neat place called The Cove with four of my closest friends for dinner and neon mini golf.

Giraffe Birthday Card

By Vicky Nardone

Our friend Bryan had a birthday last month.  He had a party with a bunch of friends at one of our loal bars and I decided I needed to make him a card.  A giraffe card to be exact.  I had been eying this cute little guy on my Create A Critter cricut cartridge and I decided this would be the perfect time to use it.

Nectarine and Mango Infused Water

By Vicky Nardone

So I know water is one of the healthiest things you can drink but I've just never been a huge fan of just plain water.  That doesn't mean that I don't drink it plain but I say if you can dress it up a little than why not?

Wedding Shower Scrapbook Page #3

By Vicky Nardone

This is the third and final page of my three page bridal shower scrapbook layout.  I drew my inspiration for this page from the invitation.  My aunts threw me my bridal shower and my Aunt Carole picked out these invitations, which I just love.  So pretty and colorful.

Wedding Shower Scrapbook Page - Finally Done!

By Vicky Nardone

A while ago, I had posted my wedding shower scrapbook pages here and here.  I was never very happy with the second page which looked like this, because I didn't think it matched the first page very well and I also didn't think the colors worked well within it.

Baby Polar Bears at the Buffalo Zoo

By Vicky Nardone

This past Saturday my mom and I went to visit the Buffalo zoo with a group of friends from our local theater group.  One of the guys in the group is a docen at the zoo which means he gives tours and answers questions and things of that nature so he gave us a guided tour around the zoo.

Tomato Avocado Mozzarella Salad

By Vicky Nardone

I hope everyone had a good fourth of July!  Matt and I went to the beach with some friends and did a barbeque after it finally stopped raining.  Then at night we went to our favorite spot on the river with some other friends and watched fireworks after getting ice cream of course!

Before we headed out to the beach I made us a light lunch of some tomato mozzarella avocado salad and some homemade fresh squeezed lemonade.   It's too bad that avocado isn't blue because this would have made a great patriotic salad.  It kind of looks more like a Christmas salad with the colors that it is.

Decadent Chocolate Mousse

By Vicky Nardone

If you want a sweet, creamy heaven-on-earth type of dessert this is your winner.  I always associate this recipe with New Year's Eve because my mom used to make it for dessert on that night a lot when I was young.

The 48 Hour Film Festival 2013

By Vicky Nardone

Two weekends ago my house was yet again, for the fourth time, turned into a movie set.  Beyond that, from Friday night to Sunday night it was just a scene of overall craziness.  You see, for the second year in a row my husband organized a team for the 48 hour film project.  What is the 48 hour film project you ask?  Good question.

First Year Anniversary

By Vicky Nardone

One year ago today, right around this time, I was getting ready to go to the Lodge on Echo Lake and get married to my best friend.  It's been a wonderful first year together.  Matt's success in his business has grown, I've gotten a promotion at work and we got our wonderful second puppy Piper.

To celebrate our anniversary, we went to this restaurant called Acqua on the Buffalo waterfront.  Neither of us had ever been before but one of our new friends, Chris, works as a server there and we had a $25 gift certificate so we decided to try it.  It was sooooo good!  I had a to-die-for Filet Mignon with a blue cheese topping.  It was served with these green beans that had a slight hint of maple to them.  Matt had a seafood feast - he started with little neck clams and for his main course he had a shrimp and scallop dish.  Chris gave us free apple pie for dessert that was delicious!  Matt and I were both so full we were uncomfortable when we left.  We had stopped for ice cream on our way home from the afternoon event we were at about an hour and a half before dinner.  It had seemed like a good idea at the time!

Stuffed Peppers

By Vicky Nardone

It's been almost a week since I actually made these stuffed peppers!  I actually intended to post this last Sunday before life got in the way.  In fact, I had just pulled these out of the oven when we made the decision that Piper needed to go to the emergency vet to have her eyes looked at.  I snapped a quick picture while my mom was in the bathroom before we rushed out the door.  We actually ended up throwing these in the refrigerator with some tin foil on them straight out of the oven - they made good leftovers at 11 o'clock at night when we finally got back from the vet.

Piper

By Vicky Nardone

So it's been about a week since I posted anything and there's actually a reason behind that.  A week ago today, our dog Piper got an eye infection.  I noticed in the morning when I woke up that day that she had one of her eyes closed.  It seemed to be a little bit painful for her as well when I touched her eye lid to try and get a look at her eye.  I had Matt take a look and we figured we'd wait and see if it got any better throughout the day.  It didn't - it actually started looking worse so Matt called and made a doctor's appointment for her the next morning.

Rehearsal Dinner Scrapbook Page

By Vicky Nardone

I can't believe our one year anniversary is only 9 days away!!!  Planning the wedding was so much a part of my life last year at this time.  The wedding was so wonderful that after it was over, talking about it with Matt and our friends and just reliving the memories of the day kept me from feeling sad that everything was over, but now I kind of want to plan another one.  Lol, I don't think my parents (who were very generous with paying for the wedding) are that eager to do it again though!

Bachelor/Bachelorette Party Scrapbooking

By Vicky Nardone

Ever since my mom and I attended the scrapbooking convention a couple weeks ago I have been inspired to start working on our wedding scrapbook again.  Our one year anniversary is coming up in two weeks!  I really hadn't liked the second page I did for the bridal shower - I didn't feel like it went well with the first page I designed for it which is I think what put me off scrapbooking for a while.

Memorial Day Weekend Pittsburgh Trip

By Vicky Nardone

Matt and I decided we needed an overnight getaway for Memorial Day weekend.  Originally we were going to go visit our friend Mel in Detroit but then she got scheduled to work all weekend.  It worked out for the better though because my passport that would have allowed us to make it to Detroit in 3.5 hours by cutting through Canada instead of the 7 hours it takes to go around the Great Lakes didn't arrive till the day we got back from Detroit.

We decided to take a trip to Pittsburgh from Friday to Saturday.  We did something new and booked our hotel through Hotwire.  If you've never used Hotwire before, it's a little scary.  You pick the general location (i.e. downtown Pittsburgh in our case) and the number of stars you want and it tells you the price and gives you a general idea of amenities but you don't find out what hotel you're staying at until after you actually book.  By doing it this way, you get a super cheap price.  We got a room at the four star Omni William Penn hotel for $118 tax included.

Scrapbooking Convention

By Vicky Nardone

Last weekend I got to attend my first every scrapbooking convention at the Buffalo Convention Center.  I didn't go to any of the classes offered this time around but my mom was nice enough to volunteer to go to the vendor faire with me and I bought a ton of stuff (probably way more than I should have).  Yes, I know, it barely fits on the table.  But they had some really unique stuff that I had never seen before at my normal craft stores and a lot of it was at really good prices.

Minty Fudge Cups

By Vicky Nardone

The above recipe was another one of the desserts I made when I was catering for the latest film Matt's been working on a couple weeks ago.  One of the actresses in the film told me she liked these even better than the peanut butter chocolate cupcakes I had made the night before.  Now that's my type of girl!  I have to tell you that what really made these was the chocolate icing that goes on top of them.  The recipe for the fudge cups says to just use some store bought icing for the tops but I knew that I could do better.  Plus I've never really been a fan of the store bought icing since I started making my own.  I found a delicious icing recipe in one of my other cookbooks that just made this recipe pop.

Liebster Award Nomination

By Vicky Nardone

Hi all,

I'm really honored to announce that Michelle from On A Wing and A Prayer nominated my blog for the Leibster Award! I really appreciate the nomination Michelle!

When not having adventures with her husband on his motorcycle, Michelle writes about crafts, recipes and natural healthcare on her blog.  Definitely make sure to check it out and become a follower.  I just love the name of her blog, don't you?

Our Geeky Sci-Fi Sunflower Wedding Part 3

By Vicky Nardone

What do you get when you combine two geeky people in love who are all about a good time with their family and friends? Our epic geeky, sci-fi, sunflower wedding.  See what I did there?  I added the word epic.  This post is focusing on the reception.  If you missed the pre-wedding events you can click here and if you missed the ceremony, you can click here.

Reese's Chocolate Cupcakes

Can I make a confession?  I hate peanut butter and chocolate together.  It's one of those combinations that triggers a migraine for me.  Is anyone still reading or did I lose you all?  I know I'm probably the only person in the world that doesn't like these two things together but if you're still reading good because I'm going to share the peanut butter chocolate cupcakes I made as part of my kraft services gig over the weekend.

These were very well received by the entire cast and crew of the latest movie that Matt's been working on.  They are Matt's new favorite cupcake that I make.  He liked them even though I made them full size and with wrappers.  He's a little picky about how he likes his cupcakes - he likes to be able to just pick them up and pop them in his mouth with one bite.  Anyway, I can't personally vouch for the taste of these cupcakes but given that there were none left, I think they were a hit.  I was told the frosting was especially delicious.  Here's how you make them.  The below makes three dozen.  Modify the portions as appropriate.

Cupcake Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2.5 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups milk
• 1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Either line your cupcake pans or grease them with spray or butter.

Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a medium size bowl and set aside.

Use a hand or stand mixer to whip the sugar, milk, vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla until the ingredients are blended.

Add approximately half the dry ingredients in the wet ingredients and mix until combined.  Do the same for the second half of the dry ingredients.

Fill the cupcake liners about half full.  Bake for about 15-18 minutes until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out cleanly.

Icing

• 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 3 cups creamy peanut butter
• 4 cups of confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoons heavy cream

1. Beat the butter and peanut butter with a hand mixer or with a standing mixer until light and smooth. 
2. Add the confectioners sugar and beat until incorporated on low speed.  Mixture will be somewhat thick.
3. Add the vanilla and heavy cream and mix on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.
4. Pipe onto cupcakes.  You can add some reeses pieces or reeses cups on top for decoration for a special touch.

Happy Mother's Day 2013

By Vicky Nardone

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!  I am not a mother to any human children yet, but I do have two little dogs and a kitty to call my own.  My dog Piper left me a pile of poop in the corner today - not sure if that can really be called a Mother's Day present?

Anyway, for Mother's Day my husband and I did lunch with my mom.  She wanted to have lobster at our place and she insisted on bringing them over herself.  I made sides to go with them - garlicky green beans and golden potatoes.  For dessert we had mint chocolate fudge cups which I will be sharing the recipe for with you later this week.

Our Geeky Sci-Fi Sunflower Wedding Part 2

By Vicky Nardone

If you missed part one of this three part series about the planning and events leading up to our wedding you can read it here and the reception post is here.  In today's post I am going to discuss our ceremony.

Canoe Redo

By Vicky Nardone

The canoe makeover I am going to be discussing today we actually did last summer but since I didn't have my blog last summer, you get to read about it now.  It's getting to be that time of year where it's nice to take a ride on the river on a warm day.  Matt has always loved boats.  His friend Mel's dad owned a boat and he used to spend a lot of time on it.  He actually was thinking of buying it a couple of year's ago when Mel's dad was thinking of selling it, but it was a little more than he could afford at the time.  However, this canoe was not.  Mel found it at the side of the road - someone was throwing it out.  I get home one night and there's a giant canoe sticking out of the back of his truck.  It was in pretty rough shape when he got it and I had a serious doubts that it would ever float again.

Our Geeky Sci-fi Sunflower Wedding - Part 1

By Vicky Nardone

I've been reading about a lot of other people's weddings on their blogs recently so I decided I wanted to share the details from our wedding day with you.  I didn't start this blog until about 6 months after we got married, but there's no reason I can't go back, right?  I'm breaking this topic up over three posts - the engagement (events and prep leading up to the wedding), the ceremony and the reception.  I am definitely one of those girls who had been dreaming of their wedding day since she was a little girl and being a crafty person I knew I wanted to have a lot of diy items at my wedding.  When I was planning, I spent a lot of time at off beat bride which I highly recommend if you are planning on having a unique non-traditional wedding.  It is such a wonderful site full of inspiration.  That's where the title of this post came from - the weddings on there always have three word descriptors.

Mod Podge Photo Tray

By Victoria Nardone

My last post was about the card that I had made for my friend Tricia's wedding shower.  Today I wanted to share with you the gift I made to go with it.

Tricia's dad's side of the family is very Irish and proud of their Irish heritage so I wanted to try and incorporate that into the gift I made for her.  I knew I wanted to do some mod podge because I've been obsessed with it since I found it.  Check out my mod podge wedding photo plaque and my mod podge photo box if you haven't seen them.  I also have been hearing a lot about washi tape lately so I wanted to try and work that in especially since the shamrock scrapbook paper I found wasn't big enough to cover the whole tray.

My mom and I went shopping for the main gift we planned on getting Tricia last weekend and I mentioned to her that I wanted to try and make Tricia something a little more personalized as well so after Bed, Bath and Beyond we hit Michaels to see what we could find.  We found these wooden trays that we thought might be a cute accessory for their home.

Wedding Shower Card

By Victoria Nardone

My best friend from grammar school, Tricia is getting married this summer and today was her wedding shower.  I am about to head out for her bachelorette party in about twenty minutes but I thought I'd get a quick post in to show you the card I made to go with her present which I will be sharing sometime in the next couple days.

Tricia and I were both only children and I think half of our childhoods were spent over at each others houses.  We ended up going to different high schools and developing different groups of friends but we've still kept in touch and try to get together for dinner whenever we can fit it in.  I'm so excited for her and her fiancee, Dan and can't wait for their wedding this summer.  They're getting married on June 28th, 12 days after Matt and my one year anniversary.

Bananas Foster French Toast

By Vicky Nardone



Matt and I are all about Sunday morning breakfast.  On a normal day I have cereal for breakfast and he has oatmeal and of course we each have to have our morning cup of coffee.  On Sunday mornings though, we usually try to do something a little special.  One of our go-to Sunday breakfasts is bananas foster french toast.  It has bananas on it so it's gotta be healthy right?

Resources

By Vicky Nardone

Hi all!  Today I found out about two great events/resources for crafters that I wanted to share with you in case any of you wanted to take advantage of them.

The first one is a Google+ series for DIYers hosted by The NY Melrose Family, Oh My! Creative and The Smart Schoolhouse.  It's at 9:00 P.M. EST and you can RSVP by going here.  According to Jenny from The NY Melrose Family, "We will be discussing the "The Basics of Setting Up Your G+ Profile" with tips and tricks on how to maximize your profile as a DIYer.  We will also touch on the optimum way to approach G+ as it relates to our visual field."  I'll be there!

How Not to Make Pajama Pants

By Vicky Nardone

So after a couple successful purse sewing attempts I decided I was ready to more on to clothing.  Pajama pants are one of my favorite clothing items in the whole world so I thought they would make the perfect first item to start with.  How hard could it be, right?  Well, I think the above pajama pants speak for themselves.  I want to blame the pattern but I think a lot of it is just me and my inexperience at sewing.  Let me share the issues I ran into with you in case they might help someone else who's new at sewing to avoid making them in the future.

Made From Scratch Sloppy Joe Ravioli

By Vicky Nardone

Matt and I have been thinking of getting attachments for our kitchen aid that would let us cut our own ravioli for a while now and this past weekend we decided to take the plunge.  We have so many great ideas for ravioli recipes so be sure to stay tuned to see them all!  We ended up buying this kit that gave us a pasta sheet cutter, linguini cutter and spaghetti cutter.  Don't worry if you don't have a kitchen aid though - there are plenty of manual pasta rollers that you can get for between $25 and $70 depending on how fancy you want to go.

The pasta sheet cutter is the one we used to make ravioli.  It's the one all the way to the right.

Our friend +Bryan Patrick Stoyle gave us the best sloppy joe recipe ever and we thought it would make the perfect filling for our first round of ravioli.  To make this recipe, I doubled the sauce proportions so that it was a little more liquidy and I could also use it as a topping for the ravioli. Matt is a vegetarian so we made a vegetarian filling with soy crumbles and a regular version with ground beef.  And it was Dr. Who Sunday so +Bryan Patrick Stoyle came over for dinner and got to try the recipe inspired by his sloppy joes.  I highly recommend trying the sloppy joe recipe by itself too - just halve everything except the meat.

Crazy Weekend

By Vicky Nardone

This has been a crazy awesome weekend!  I hardly every stay up this late but for this weekend I ended up going to bed at 3am on both Friday and Saturday night. 

On Friday night I made my first ever wearable sewing pattern by myself.  I made a pair of pajama pants.  Look for my post coming soon on "How not to make pajama pants."  Lol, it was definitely a learning experiment.  They are wearable but I think my second attempt is going to be much better. What a party right- staying up till 3am on a Friday night sewing a pair of pajama pants?

On Saturday morning, I found a great thank you note in my e-mail box from Deb, the winner of the fleece-lined knitted hat I gave away.  I hope she doesn't mind if I share it.

Summer Purse

By Vicky Nardone

 

Only one more day until the weekend.  I can't wait, especially since I have a 12:30 am work call tonight.

Last weekend's project was another purse.  I used the same pattern:

Instead of making the smaller B View purse this time I made the A View purse.  See my first attempt at a purse here.  I made several adjustments to this pattern the second time around which I think made for a much better purse.  As you can see from the picture above, I used a simplicity 2830 pattern.  I saw this at JoAnns for like $2.00 and after not having sewn anything for the past 20 years, I decided it was time to get back into it.  I should probably do a little more research on my patterns in the future though because every single review on this pattern I found online said it was terrible and confusing.

Matt and Vicky's Sushi Tutorial

By Vicky Nardone

One of Matt and my favorite types of restaurants to go to is Sushi Places. When we find something we really like, we always try to reproduce it ourselves.  Now that we've got the general idea we are always experimenting to try and reproduce our favorites that we've found in restaurants.  Today I'm going to share all of our tips and tricks for making our favorite types of sushi.  Before we start, I'm going to warn you that we generally tend to go for the more mild types of sushi, but if you enjoy some of the more adventurous choices this will be a good beginners reference for how to make sushi and you can change the fillings.

A Very Doggy Thank You

By Vicky Nardone

You may have seen my post last week about the wonderful Easter Gifts we got last week.  Our puppies got some wonderful gifties (as did we!) from my parents-in-law and I wanted to send them a thank you card.  I decided to make it doggie themed. 

I had a set of animal print papers and I found one that looked like dalmatian spots and decided that one would be perfect!  I found a dalmatian cutout on my favorite "Create A Critter" cartridge and I also found a great paw print ribbon from my stash.  I did some accents on the collar and the letters with a silver gel pen and added a little rhinestone accent to the collar as well.

Purple Fleece-Lined Knitted Hat Giveaway Winner

By Vicky Nardone

Happy Saturday everyone!  I just wanted to announce that the winner of the purple fleece-lined knitted hat is Deb from Mountain Musings!  Deb I will be e-mailing you to find out what address you want the hat mailed to.

Our (not so great) Easter

By Vicky Nardone

So as Easter's go, this one was not so great.  It started being not so great last night around 2am when Matt got the flu.  He had the chills and spent a good majority of the night shaking.  Needless to say neither of us had a very good night's sleep and my Easter started out with a trip to the grocery store to buy a combo pack of dayquil and nyquil for him.

Easter Gifties

By Vicky Nardone

Matt and I are so lucky - we got two wonderful Easter gifts in the mail from our parents today!!  I should include that our puppies are lucky dogs too because the gift from Matt's parents had a lot of stuff for them.

Orange Chocolate Easter Muddy Buddies

By Vicky Nardone

I have always associated orange chocolate with Easter but tonight my husband Matt told me that's apparently just me.  My mom used to buy the orange chocolate miniatures from Niagara Candy (not sure if that's just a Buffalo thing) when I was growing up.  Anyway, in honor of Easter I'm making a twist on an old favorite of mine that my babysitter when I was growing up used to make me.  I got the inspiration to make these from +Alyssa Adams with her Andes Mints Muddy Buddies which I definitely plan to try making next time I make muddy buddies.  These are orange chocolate muddy buddies with rainbow sprinkles.  Although actually a lot of the rainbow sprinkles melted so they didn't show up as well as I would have liked.

Fleece-lined Knitted Hat Giveaway and Pattern

By Vicky Nardone

I can't wait for Spring to come!!  Here in Buffalo we've still got snow on the ground.  For that reason I've decided to do my first giveaway with a hat I just knitted with one of my favorite knitting patterns.  I actually got this pattern for free at Michaels in the yarn aisle.  I'm also going to share the pattern (from Loops & Threads) with you.  I've lined this hat with fleece as well for some added warmth in the cold weather.  It's super soft, cozy and warm.

New Purse Made with New Sewing Machine

By Vicky Nardone

So I decided to try something new.  I've been really impressed with the sewn projects that I've been seeing on other people's blogs and I really wanted to learn how to make a purse similar to the one that I got at a craft fair over the summer.

I was so excited when I found a pattern that I loved for only $3 at Joanns.  I started off using this old 1950s sewing machine that I inherited from my grandma.  That worked for about half an evening and then then the machine which probably hasn't been used in 10 years started giving me trouble.  I decided after looking a new sewing machines and seeing how many more attachments and features they had over my current one that it was worth the invesment.

Piper's Knitted Sweater

By Vicky Nardone

As you may have ready in previous posts, we recently adopted a dog from the Buffalo Animal Shelter and named her Piper.  She's been recovering from spay surgery and a cold so we've been putting her in sweaters to make sure she stays warm enough.  She's also super think because she was neglected by her previous owners and left outside a lot.

Irish Soda Bread

By Vicky Nardone

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!  Today I'm going to be sharing one of my favorite St. Patrick's day recipes with you - Irish soda bread.  My earliest memory of this bread goes back to second grade.  We were reading about bread as part of our reading unit and everyone had to have their parents help them bake a bread that we could bring in and share with the rest of the class.  My mom suggested we bake Irish soda bread and it was a hit!  People were coming back for seconds and there were no leftovers.  My mom is coming over to have St. Patrick's day dinner tonight and this was my contribution to the meal.