LUMOS!

I am pulling out my nerd card today.  Sometimes I cant help it, being a nerd makes me happy and lets be honest its just more fun to be a nerd!  Im totally geeking out about the Avengers movie...but I am of course going to wait until its been out a little longer so I dont have to sit in a packed theater.  But Im sure the title LUMOS makes you think of something other than Marvel, and good!  Because today is a Harry Potter post!

I have seen posts all over etsy of lightswtich plates for Harry Potter but I didnt love any of them enough to buy them.  You know what that means...I better make my own!  That also meant using Mod Podge.  Truth be told I have never used it before and was very nervous about it.  I looked online for some good tutorials but didnt really find anything that matched what I was doing so I just read the back of the bottle and went with it.

First things first you have to create your art!  Of course you could draw on the light plate itself, but I cant draw so I googled some clipart.  I wanted day and night and for them to merge seamlessly so that took some time for me to find the perfect images, but I eventually found it and it looks awesome!!

Above is the art I made.  I forgot to take a picture of the first step because I was so excited to get this going.  First step is to print out the art, cut it out and then mod podge it to the front of the plate.  To do this cover the back of the art with mod podge using a foam sponge and line it up with the edges and press down.  Make sure you roll over the edges to make a seamless look.  For me I put a little tiny bit of mod podge around the edges and pressed down, going one side at a time to make sure it stuck.  A note here, make sure you use a thin layer that way it doesnt ooze out the sides.

Once you get the art down, cut out the holes for the switches.  For this leave one side attached so you can have a seamless look here too.

This is the back of the plate and you can see I pulled the art back through the hole, applied more mod podge and adhered it to the back of the plate.  For the holes for the screws, I didnt pull that back through all I did here was make a hole (which you can barely see) so that I can push the screw into the plate and make it looks great!

Let that dry for about 5 minutes and then apply a thin coat of mod podge over the top of the art.  Something I learned the hard was to be careful of the ink spreading.  I think if you let the plate dry for about 5 minutes this should help, but what i ended up doing to make the color stop bleeding was to do the top 1/2 first then go to the bottom 1/2 that way the colors stayed in their respective areas.  You can kinda see the blue from where I tried to get the blue off the sponge to have a fresh start.  On the plate itself you can see the white lines of the mod podge.  You will be able to see the lines when it dries so remember that.

Let this sit for 15 minutes and repeat 2 more times to make it good and solid.  Remember that you are going to be touching this a lot with oily hands so you can a good layer to protect your art.

After the last coat let that dry overnight and then screw it into place.  Looks pretty good right?!  Although I have to admit I am a lover of glitter and am pretty confident I am going to add a layer of glitter to this to make it pop even more.  Thats what I learned about mod podge is you can layer stuff and thats awesome!  Now I can just go back and add it without having to make a new one!!

Check out my nerdness in all its glory.  I made that poster for the wands I got at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter...its Hermione and Dumbeldore.  Dont judge :)  So what do you think?  Have a great spot you could put a cool decorative light switch?

Project Housewife Out!

Im Linking Up!  Come check me out at Romance on a Dime, A Bowl Full of Lemons, DIY By Design, My Girlish Whims, Newlyweds on a Budget, Tip Junkie, Ginger Snap Crafts, Southern Lovely, Lil Pink Pocket, Michelle's Tasty Creations, House of Hepworths, Beyond the Picket Fence,

Just Another Manic Monday

Happy Monday everyone!  Its raining here and hopefully bringing some cold weather with it, but I wont get my hopes up.  I know its Monday and not Friday but I am dying to share 2 recipes with you.  The first recipe comes from bakingdom.com and I LOVE this blog...mainly because she has some awesome Harry Potter-esk recipes which Im going to link to today.  This is the amazing BUTTERBEER!!  Thats right BUTTERBEER!!!!!  I have been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter twice and always drink way too much of the butterbeer because I know I cant have it any other time.  They make 2 kinds for those of you who dont already know, a slushee version and a soda version.  Some people prefer the slushee version because it isnt as sweet but I dont really like it, it just doesnt taste right to me.

I love butterbeer :)  Anyway, on to the recope.  Here is the link to the recipe for Butterbeer.  Its super easy and oh so delicious.  I made this over the weekend and found that I actually only needed to whip the topping for 1 minute before it was nice a fluffy.  Also when I was at Kroger they were out of regular A&W cream soda so I had to get diet...NOT THE SAME...it tasted very watery and not rich and delicious like I remembered so I had my husband stop and get some IBC cream soda (you know the delicious kind in the glass bottles) and man oh man it made a BIG difference.  So yes folks, sometimes it is better to get the name brand and not diet...just sayin'

So this picture you can see my amazing butterbeer with the whipped topping a little too whipped and my next recipe I want to share with you comes from Bake at 350 , another great blog that I love at follow daily for great sweet recipes.  This one is for the cookies, the BUTTERBEER COOKIES!!!  I made these for the neighbors for Christmas and they were by far the favorite, my husband loves them and I cant stop eating them.  I think the best part of these cookies is that the cookie itself isnt sweet, so when you put the glaze on the top it isnt so sweet you can only eat one (well i guess maybe that the bad part because I eat way too many!)  Ok on to the Butterbeer cookies .  I love this recipe because they are super easy to make and you dont have to chill them.  I hate when you have to chill the dough, I want the cookies NOW...ok so I am a little impatient but its so rare that I actually make homemade cookies that I dont like to wait.

See the pretty butterscotch glaze, its so tasty!  I ate these babies while watching Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban, good movie good eats good night!  So what are you waiting for go make these bad boys!!  PS---I tried to find some Harry Potter cookie cutters and found none that were worthy.  If you know where I can get some awesome Harry Potter cookie cutter, let me a comment so I can go buy some!

Not even a crumb left it was THAT good.  So go check out Bakingdom and Bake at 350 , leave them some love and let them know Project Housewife sent you.  These ladies are seriously talented and you will love what they have on their blog. 

Project Housewife Out!

Foodie Friday!

HAPPY FRIDAY!  Im especially happy about this Friday because tomorrow we leave for Walt Disney World and the Christmas madness that only Disney can do!  So next week my posts will be about the fabulous expolits of our time in Disney.  We are going to be visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter also so prepare for the amazingness of that too.  In case you didnt know, I am obsessed with Harry Potter and Disney...I wish the Wizarding World of Harry Potter would have been bigger but Universal (which I loath) wasnt as smart as Disney and doesnt have acers of land that they can expand on.  Oh well, thats why Walt Disney World will always be the best!  Ok enough of that tangent, on to bigger and better things...FOOD!!!  Today I am going to share with you a Weight Watchers recipe that I happen to love.  Actually I love all the recipes that I have made from Weight Watchers, but this one is amazing.  This recipe calls for pork, but I dont love pork so we use chicken, but thats easy enough to figure out so here is the recipe.

Sweet and Sour Pork

(A Weight Watchers Recipe)

Points: 7               Servings: 6          Prep Time: 20min             Cook Time: 45min         Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• cooking spray (1 spray)
• 1 1/2 lbs lean pork tenderloins, cut into thin strips
• 15 ounces canned unsweetened pineapple chunks
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
• 2 medium green peppers, sliced
• 1 small onion, sliced
• 3 cups cooked brown rice, kept warm

Instructions

Heat a nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat.

Add pork and cook until golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes; remove from skillet and set aside. Drain any remaining fat from skillet.

Drain pineapple chunks, reserving juice; set aside.

Combine water, vinegar, sugar, cornstarch, salt, soy sauce and reserved pineapple juice in a small bowl; add to skillet and cook until sauce is slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Add pork; cook covered over low heat until meat is tender, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.

Add peppers, onion and pineapple chunks; cook 5 minutes. Serve over rice. Yields about 1 cup of pork and 1/2 cup of rice per serving.

Nutrition

Calories 343.4,Calories from Fat 44,13%,Total Fat 4.9 g,7%,Saturated Fat 1.5 g,7%,Cholesterol 73.7 mg,24%,Sodium 348.4 mg,14%,Total Carbohydrate 47.7 g,15%,Dietary Fiber 3.7 g,15%

Sugars 18.1 g72%, Protein 26.7 g 53%

I love this recipe and you can have so much fun with this.  When Im feeling lazy, I get the frozen 3 bell pepper mix from kroger and use that rather than the fresh stuff, or you can get the asian stir-fry blend and use that...with veggies you have so many options!  Like I said earlier I also sub chicken for pork, but you could also do beef if you wanted to, the basic principles of the recipe stay the same, the only big change is the nutrition/points value.

Have fun making this, and if you have some awesomely great variation share, I would love to hear what you did!

Project Housewife Out!