The Pinterest Test Lab: Flourless Chocolate Cake/Glitter Phone Chargers

Hey everybody!  Haven't posted in a while!   Okay, so, is anyone else as Pinterest-obsessed as I am??? I LOOOVVEE Pinterest and a while ago, I thought it would be a good idea to post about the results of things I tried from there.  You know - to save you time in case it turns out to be a fail.  :)  For this first post of this kind, I have two things that I tested out to tell you about.

The first is a recipe.  So, lately my Mom has been trying to get us to eat a lot healthier.  When Valentine's Day rolled around, I wanted to make a sweet treat but my Mom wanted it to be healthy.  We met in the middle and I made this Flourless Chocolate Cake.

 

I made a couple of modifications on the original recipe: I substituted the white sugar for raw sugar, and I substituted 1/3 of the bittersweet chocolate with milk chocolate.  Also, I skipped the glaze - the cake is already really rich by itself! - and instead topped it with homemade whipped cream and strawberries.

The result: A success!  No one even missed the flour.  It's super rich, as I said, and a really grown-up, sophisticated kind of dessert, even with the milk chocolate.  We didn't miss the glaze either.  I'll definitely be making this again/

The second thing me and Caraline tested at a recent sleepover.  It's these glitterified phone/iPod chargers.

 

There aren't really any links to a good tutorial, but this is what was under the pic:  What You'll Need: Mod podge - clear works and looks the best Glitter - Choose any size and color that you want. Be creative: mix and match! Clear acrylic sealer - This will ensure that your masterpiece can last as long as possible! Masking tape - Be sure to choose one that won't leave any sticky residue and tape over the metal plugs so you don't damage the charger.  We just painted on the Mod Podge, rolled it in glitter (the tape wasn't really working out so we didn't use it) and instead of acrylic sealer we used clear nail polish.

The result: Also a success!  The chargers looked absolutely fabulous.  After the nail polish dried, the glitter wasn't even coming off.  I've been using it for a week and I've had no issues with glitter getting in my iPod.  It was actually pretty easy, considering how great it came out looking!

Thanks for reading!  Maybe you're inspired to try one of these Pinterest ideas now!  If you've seen anything on Pinterest and you want to know how it turns out, comment below and maybe I'll have done it, or I will do it.  Have a great Lord's Day tomorrow!


 

Happy New Year!

Hello everyone! This is Caraline. Happy New Year! 

Now that the New Year has started, and everyone is thinking about their New Years Resolutions, remember the passage I shared in the last post (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) about their being a time for everything. We should pray that God would guide us into making wise decisions about everything we will do this year. 
Remember that we can do all things through him who strengthens us. Search through your life and your thoughts and worries, and make a list of things you need to work on, or change, or stop doing, or whatever the case may be. Pray that the Lord would show you these things. You don't have to label them as "resolutions," just think of them as prayer requests. Things that you want to work on throughout this year. Hopefully next year we will be able to check off those things on our list and start a new list. This is a great way to allow the Lord to mold us into who he wants us to be! (And who we should desire to be!)

I hope everyone has a great New Year! ♥

A Time for Everything

Hey there, Caraline again! I just wanted to share some scripture that I came across last night. I don't remember ever reading this before, and I loved it! It's probably my new favorite passage. Here it is: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silent, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time for war, and a time for peace."

Some food for thought! ♥

Bailey Portraits, and my favorite Christmas Stuff

Hey y'all! Caraline here. I wanted to share some pictures of Bailey that I took a few weeks ago at school. Yes, I took these at school. It was PJ day, (I refrained from wearing my PJs) and Bailey looked super cute (as always). I said "Bailey, if you had a cup of coffee I would take some pictures of you." Random. I just thought her PJ look needed a cup of coffee to top it off. ♥ So anyway, she ran and grabbed a cup of coffee from her mom (who said "hey! I was still drinking that!") and I took some pictures of her, which actually turned out really cute! Here are my three favorite pictures:

Wow... as Bailey said, it really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas! What are some of your favorite things about Christmas? Here are some of mine!

Christmas lights, Christmas trees, Christmas music, Christmas movies, Christmas parties, Christmas shopping, Christmas secrets, Christmas caroling, boots, scarves, sweaters, hot chocolate with too many marshmallows, staying up late, crocheting, snuggling by the fire, eating all things peppermint and gingerbread, good food, having fun with friends, making treats for neighbors, friends, and family, and sharing the TRUE meaning of Christmas with all who have ears to hear! 

Share what YOU love about Christmas with us!

I hope y'all have an awesome Christmas!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

The holiday season is getting underway for my family!  Yesterday Caraline and I had our last day of school for the semester (WOO HOO) and after some very stressful mid-terms had a fun party with the 7th and 8th grade classes.  As part of our last day we presented Shakespeare projects which we had been working on for a few weeks.  I'll let Caraline tell you about her project herself, but for mine, I memorized an excerpt from The Taming of the Shrew - if you've read it, it's Katherina's speech at the end - and my mom made me an AWESOME Renaissance-period dress.  It was definitely a labor of love, but it was so impressive.



Here's a pic of it - sorry it's so big.  The pic doesn't even do justice to all the little details in the vest and blouse!  I actually wore it around school the whole day, and most people didn't know why I was wearing it but it still got a lot of complements.

A couple weeks ago we got our Christmas tree and decorated and everything.  It's gearing up to be a fun holiday season.  This year I've been inspired to try to bless as many people as possible.  Yesterday after school, in Kroger I decided to treat myself to a vanilla bean Frappucino from Starbuck's - yum.  I didn't have enough cash on me so I asked the cashier girl to check if there was any money on my gift card.  I was pretty sure there was, but I just wanted to make sure.  She said she couldn't check it at that register, but she would give me the drink for free!  I felt so blessed as she asked me what size I wanted; "Small," I replied.  She actually gave me a large!  What a blessing.  She was so sweet and cheery to customers, even if they weren't buying anything at Starbucks and just walking by.  She was such an inspiration.  I've read a couple blog posts from people about how they're doing Random Acts of Kindness during Christmastime, little things like giving the garbage men breakfast (I'd definitely never thought about that before!), leaving a little gift in the mailbox for the mailman, or deciding to pay for the person behind you at the grocery store.  On my teenage girl's babysitting income, I'm sure there's lots of those things I can't afford to do on my own, but there are lots of things I could do anyway.  And not all blessings come in material form.  The best blessing you can give someone is showing them Jesus' joy. 

I hope to blog more about my adventure's this Christmas.  And I am still planning on continuing my 1,000 Things I'm Thankful For Challenge, I'm sure it will take a while to complete, but there are so many things I have to be thankful for I don't think it will be too hard.

Challenge: 1,000 Things I'm Thankful For

Since it's November, the month of Thanksgiving and being thankful in general, a lot of my Facebook friends have been daily posting things they are thankful for.  As I was scrolling down FB today I saw that one of my friends posted about a "1,000 Things I'm Thankful For" challenge.   I was immediately interested and decided I wanted to do it myself.  At first, I thought, "Wow!  A thousand things, that's a lot!"  But then I chided myself for thinking that, because I realized God has blessed me so abundantly, with things big and small, that I could list a million things and still not come close to describing the grace He has bestowed on me.  Technically, I am going to make this a tag, so if you are a blogger (or a Facebooker or anything else, really) I am urging you to do the challenge too!

I am going to post the things in increments of 100, so here goes.  (I probably won't finish within November)  1. My Mom
2. My Dad
3. My brother
4. My sister
6. My church
7. My house
8. Indoor plumbing (Oh, come on, like you're not thankful for that too?!?)
9. Blogs
10. Facebook
11. Email
12. Pinterest
13. My iPod
14. Coffee
15. On a similar note, Coffeemate
16. My piano
17. Also, piano lessons
18. Choir
19. Music 
20. My Bible
21. Highlighters and pens for my Bible.... those who have seen inside my Bible case know that I can't live without them :P
22. School
23. Lip gloss
24. Mascara
25. Eyeshadow
26. Okay, makeup in general
27. Nail polish
28. Hair
29. Christmas
30. Christmas songs
31. Christmas trees - real ones
32. Chocolate chips
33. Chocolate milk
34. Popcorn
35. Sour gummy worms
36. Sleepovers
37. Inside jokes
38. Nancy Drew books
39. Microsoft Word
40. Pandora
41. My bed
42. Friendship bracelets
43. Starbucks
44. The mall
45. Rainy days
46. Hot chocolate
47. Dry-erase markers (Where would the world be without them?)
48. It goes without speaking, but my redemption in Christ
49. Living in a free country
50. That I don't have to have braces
51. Parents with a good marriage
52. Babies!  Who doesn't love babies?!
53. Dresses
54. That feeling you get when they have the perfect clothing in your size
55. Peppermint
56. Lip balm - couldn't live without
57. Movies
58. Calendars
59. Notebooks
60. Toothpaste, of course
61. Pajamas
62. Fuzzy socks
63. Colorful socks, not to be confused with fuzzy socks
64. Converse
65. Glitter
66. Vera Bradley
67. Bath and Body Works
68. Rainbows
69. The beach
70. The fact that I live only an hour from the beach
71. Cotton Candy ice cream
72. The color pink
73. Earrings
74. Pretty sunsets
75. The atmosphere, because it keeps us from dying
76. Medicine - it also keeps us from dying
77. Flowers
78. Curly hair
79. Singing
80. Cool weather
81. Snow, even thought I never see it
82. When my hair is naturally wavy
83. Boots
84. The library
85. Headphones
86. Laughing till you cry
87. When you get a good grade on a test
88. Writing
89. Reading
90. Sewing
91. Waking up in the middle of the night, then realizing you still have hours to sleep
92. Staying up late
93. Cookie dough
94. Having the same friend for a long time
95. Cars
96. Air conditioning
97. Playing with little kids and making them laugh
98. Babysitting
99. The Snack Shack
100. Having all the ingredients to make something you're randomly craving

 

Book Review: An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott is most well-known for her book Little Women, and I didn't know she'd written one called An Old-Fashioned Girl till I saw it on my ninth-grade reading list.  I don't plan on reviewing ALL the books we read this year, but I thought this book was definitely relevant to this blog and is a good book for girls, so I thought I'd do a review on it.

So here's how it all goes down: Polly is a fourteen-year-old country girl who visits her friend Fanny in the city.  Fanny's family is rich and lives the luxurious city life, which is all very new for Polly.  Additionally, they seem to neglect the basic values she was brought up by.  Fanny has a terrible relationship with her parents and siblings, and she does things Polly just knows isn't right.  Even though she can't put her finger on it, she just knows it's wrong.  When Fanny takes her to do things like see a show or to meet her other rich, prissy friends, Polly feels very out of place.  Everyone thinks her to be "old-fashioned" and behind the times.  The rest of the book tells how Polly reforms Fanny and her family and brings them closer together, not to mention calling attention to things like trust, integrity, honor, and not growing up too fast.

The book ends when Polly is an adult.  It has a rather fairy-tale perfect ending - everything turns out well, everyone is happy and everyone gets married, etc.  I really enjoyed this book.  It's very entertaining to read, but it also has important lessons everyone needs to know.  As Christian girls, we are not called to be old-fashioned, but we are called to be different from the rest of the world.  We need to swim against the current, like Polly did.  I would suggest this book to any preteen/teen girl!

Recommended age: 9 and up