Brickyard Buffalo Sale

I just wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know about the awesome sale going on at Brickyard Buffalo! They have the cutest handmade and limited edition items and today I'm lucky enough to be a vendor on the site!



My polka dot and cat pillow covers are on sale for 30% off ($34 down to $24!) Go check it out soon because the sale only runs for 4 days!




I'm sorry I don't have a fun project for you guys today, yesterday was cleaning day at my house so I was doing boring things like washing sheets and scrubbing bathtubs.  And I know that sounds like it would be such a fascinating blog post, but I didn't take any pictures. ;)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Toasted Almond Pesto

Happy Wednesday friends!  And hello hello to my new followers, thank you for stopping by my blog, I'm grateful you're here!

First things first, GIVEAWAY!  The artistic geniuses over at Twig Creative are doing a giveaway for your choice of two pillow covers from my shop, Nonpareil Home! Head over to their blog for information on how to enter - http://twigcreativeblog.blogspot.com

On to what I was up to today--I have a great recipe for you all, Toasted Almond Pesto! Laziness is the mother of invention (wait, is that not the saying?) and that is definitely the case with this delicious pesto. Firstly, I hadn't really been attending to my poor little pesto plant and it was looking horribly raggedy.  (Learn how to harvest your basil properly over at The Skinny Gourmet.) So I decided to put it out of it's misery and harvest the whole thing all at once.  Secondly, I was way too lazy to go buy pine nuts (the nut classically used in making pesto), but I did have a whole bag of silvered almonds right in my pantry. Yep, laziness.  

But seriously, this is a super super easy and insanely delicious recipe, it came together in less than 5 minutes.  The almonds did give it more of a "nutty" flavor, which I personally really liked.  You can also add parmesan cheese to the mix to give it extra oomph.  

Paper Flower Wreath

I am obsessed with this project! I love love flowers and my poor little bare door needed a colorful wreath for the summer.  Can you believe how real and beautiful these paper flowers look? And, bonus, they are easy easy easy to make.  Like I kind of felt like a little kid making them, they were so fun.

This project is all about color! One of my favorite sites is design-seeds.com and it's a great resource for color palettes when you're making anything.  This was the color palette inspiration I used for my wreath. There are millions of gorgeous combinations to help you get inspired in making your wreath.

DIY Plate Wall

Okay so confession: the walls in my house are bare.  I've lived in my house for over a year now and I have maybe like 2 pictures on the wall.  It is pretty embarrassing, especially considering that I have a shop based in home decor items.  One thing I did put up when I moved in, though, is this awesome cute plate wall in my kitchen.  I wanted something that would work well for the large wall space that I had in my kitchen but would also be subtle and modern.  One thrift shop trip later and voila! A fun plate wall that brightens up my kitchen.

This is the perfect project for the kitchen, or really anywhere else in the house.  It is so versatile because you can get any color combination of plates and arrange them in any crazy arrangement you want to!  I am sharing this tutorial because I learn a lot of DIY things the hard way, and for this project I tried like three different methods to hang these plates and get them straight (and I have the patched up holes in my wall to prove it!) So here is my method, I hope it works for you too!

Lemon Bars with Almond Shortbread

Hello hello! Welcome to my new blog, I am so happy you're here!  I love making things, sewing, baking treats, inventing new ways to DIY things, and making crafts so I thought this would be a perfect outlet to document some of my adventures and share my triumphs and mistakes.  

Today I have a recipe for you guys.  I really want to title this post "THE BEST LEMON BARS IN EXISTENCE" with 5 million exclamation points but I decided to be classy and mature.  These really are THE BEST, though.  Every time I make them people ask for the recipe--I think it has something to do with the fact that these lemon bars are light and tart, and not eggy at all (you know that flavor I'm talking about... ick.) Also, if you are allergic to nuts or don't like nuts, these are still delicious without the almonds, just leave them out.

Make these today, and then eat half the pan for breakfast, lunch, and dinner like I did. Yum!