Sweet Treats: Summer Berry Cool Whip Cake

I am taking a little summer vacation to see family and get crap done, so I leave you with a treat that I like to think is *healthy*, and takes but minutes to make. We have made this cake a few times this summer. The fun thing is, you can play with what fruits and berries (cherries, kiwi, banana, blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, mandarin oranges) you want to use and the frosting too. I used chocolate frosting this time, but last time I used pink lemonade frosting and it was amazing!! Plus, you can make it all pretty and festive!!

Mix together some of your cool whip and a frosting flavor of your choice.

  Slice your angel food cake in half and frost the middle. Top that with chopped strawberries.

 I added extra dollups of cool-whip to decorate the top. Then add your berries, sprinkles, chocolate shavings, fresh mint leaves, shredded coconut or whatever. The cake tastes best if you chill it for at least 30 minutes. And enjoy, for a light and fluffy, refreshing summer treat!

Homefront: A New Journey

We are going to be embarking on a whole new adventure! In a few months, we will be packing up and moving from Texas to Washington state. I am pretty sure this makes move # 7 since I have been blogging, but all those moves were within a few hours drive, so this is a big one. All of my collecting and most of my furniture will be going bye bye. Which is interesting, because we have been in this rental house for one year now, and my lovely plate and gallery wall items never came out of the moving boxes. We have only a few things on the walls, ever since our last landlord turned crazy-town on us, we kept this place pretty nail-hole free.

It will be exciting to have a totally clean start. I have been watching episodes of "Clean House" on Netflix to mentally prep me for letting go of stuff. For our last move, I had a huge garage sale (even though  was 9 months pregnant), than took a truckload of goods to Goodwill. Funny that out of all of that stuff we got rid of, I only miss one thing. My three lantern light that my husband mistakenly sold for a single dollar :(

Since my mom is also moving with us, and she also has to storage units full of furniture 6 hours away from us, so that is going to be the most stressful part. Somehow hauling some of her stuff here and trying to get rid of the rest. During times of stress, I just tell myself that in a few short months, all of this headache will be behind us, and we will be enjoying a brand new life, in a beautiful, new place. And even though we will miss some very dear friends here, they will always be a part of us.

DIY: Saving your Stuff with Embellishments

I am all about camouflaging imperfections in order to renew things to better serve their purpose. From curtains covered in doilies, to clothing, throws, lampshades or purses covered in lace ruffles or fabric rosettes, there are many options out there to save that coveted, ruined object. Have you thrown something out that you later regretted, something that could have been saved by a tiny embellishment? Do you go thrifting to find a shirt that is perfect, except for a small stain or rip? Well, there are plenty of great options to fix that! Fabric rosettes are easy to make and can simply be stitched or even glued on. Over 40 great flower tutorials here!

 

Doilys can be tea stained for a vintage aging effect. They are easy to handstitch, or can be ironed on using stitch witchery.

retro doily window covering by enchanted little pixie 

embellished throw using ribbons, ruffles and lace salvaged from old clothing tutorial by nester

lace ruffled shirt tutorial to hide a stain by me, littlelovables

flowered embellished dress to camouflage ink stains by in the fun lane