Anything Else Fridays {Spice Container Labels}

Our Friday this week falls on Wednesday. Or atleast, a boating adventure tomorrow gets me feeling like it's the weekend already! This week, I wanted to spice up our .. spice rack. Zing!

We've been in the market for a spice rack since we moved into our everything-is-bigger-except-the-kitchen apartment to free up some much needed cupboard space. A nice wood one was our first choice, and we scored one off Craigslist for $10!

Included were the dull generic bottles, identical, making it ridiculously hard to tell the 32 spices apart and adding 10 minutes to dinner prep time.

 

I shopped around for some new spice container labels and only found blank labels that you write on yourself. AH. Not going to ruin my new beautiful spice rack with my squigglies! I decided to make them myself. Another excuse to break out the tiny graphic designer in me. 

I like to do test prints on lined paper so I know exactly where on the paper the graphics will print. Put it in the correct way a normal lined paper would lay and see which side/corner your design comes out on. It's foolproof!

The initial plan was to use Avery labels with their printing template. Sounds easy, right? Should've been. But, the Martha Stewart version I got sadly printed out really runny - not even a step up above my squigglies. So, for the (hopefully) temporary time, I've just cut these out from printer paper and glued them on the blank labels.

Not ideal, but I invite you to imagine what they look like from really far away :) Even with that hiccup though, I feel like they add lots more personality to the kitchen. I love them! 

Let me know in the comments if you'd like the sheets I designed and in what format (Photoshop/Word/PDF). I'm going to try these with the normal, non-Martha Stewart Avery 1.5" labels soon to see if they work. Enjoy!

Anything Else Fridays {Curtains and Cookies}

Projects in Progress: 3

Pillow for Baby Girl's Rocker

Front will have this design using all the fun patterns in the quilt: Inspired from cluckclucksew.com

Curtains for Baby Girl's Room

 

Get this stubborn sticker off of the rug. Ideas, please! Help!

Projects Completed: 1

Unpacked the suitcases ;)

Projects to Start: 2

Pillows for our 'new' couch and rocker

Figure out how to arrange our gallery wall

Oh yes - and breathe.

One plus from just getting off vacation is that I have serious energy to cook! I guess not cooking for two weeks makes me feel like spending extra time in the kitchen is a must. *Take note if we invite you to dinner - come over after a long break!* I wanted to use up the last of our frozen tilapia, but I have been pretty disappointed in tilapia recipes. They are either overly fishy or overly butter-ized. But this! This was delicious. The recipe was in a family cookbook, but I had an inkling she got it from allrecipes.com. Walaa! :

Jalapeno Garlic Tilapia Pasta

We halved the cayenne pepper and it was a good amount of heat (granted, we are big fans of spicy!) I flaked the fish in the pasta instead of plating the whole fillet. I think this helped lessen the fishiness. Also I used half and half instead of heavy cream, and I bet the real cream would have made it even more delicious! Both the husband and I could not get enough of it!

And I topped the meal off with some gooey goodness - chocolate chip cookies. A homemade dinner and homemade dessert!? This may push my husband to want to go on even more vacations. I'll oblige I guess :)

Super gooey - without a crunch - Chocolate Chip cookies

Matt wasn't thrilled about these because he likes a good crispiness to his chocolate chip cookie. You know when you almost throw a batch out because you obviously didn't put enough flour in the cookies and they turn out like flat disks? Matt's choice of cookie. If you do like a perfectly gooey cookie, this recipe is for you!

Enjoy the weekend!