Sunday Brunch with Beermosas

Posted in Food by peppermintsandhoneybees

So I can’t take credit for this lovely meal because Ben made it, but since I haven’t posted any recipes lately or drink recipes um…well ever, I thought I’d take a picture. Last Saturday was Valentines Day so Ben took me out to brunch at a beautiful little spot in in Chicago called Trencherman where we had beermosas and amazing food. I had the lemon pancakes, yum! Ben wanted to see if he could recreate the beermosas and he did, using 1/4 a grapefruit juiced mixed with 1 tablespoon of honey combined with an IPA beer. We used Anti-Hero by Revolution Brewing, but you can use whatever you prefer. Just mix the honey grapefruit juice mixture in with the beer and that’s it. I usually don’t like IPA’s and I am not a fan of grapefruit but for some reason these things mixed together taste amazing to me! Just give it a try if you are reluctant, I was at first too but I found my new favorite way to drink beer!

The sandwiches are also by Ben, he’s such a good cook! 🙂 He made cheese omelets and put them on wheat toast with tomatoes and kale. It was a perfect brunch for a chilly morning. Now we’re off to go to a Blackhawks game. We’ve never been to one and Ben got tickets at work so I think we’re off to a fun day!

27Dec2014

Holiday Gifts

Posted in craft, diy, Holiday by peppermintsandhoneybees

Hello, I hope you had a Merry Christmas and are resting up with family and friends! I know Christmas is over, but I couldn’t post any of the stuff I made as gifts until I gave them out, but you could still make them for yourself or birthdays, or just wait till next year. So here we have wood burned bamboo spoons, hand stamped cork coasters, and yes, those are the marble clay dishes from A Beautiful Mess!

20Dec2014

Bleaching and Dyeing Bottle Brush Trees

Posted in diy, Holiday by peppermintsandhoneybees

I’ve been seeing lots of bottle brush trees all over Pinterest this Christmas season and love all of the different colors. I love the vintage-looking scenes that can be set up with bottle brush trees and I’ve always preferred to decorate with pastels and bright colors instead of the usual red and green themes. I had some bottle brush trees left over from the snow globes I made last year and also bough a bag of small bleached trees from Michaels.

I bleached the trees I had that were green with the intention of dyeing them after I was done but was pleasantly surprised when the trees I had from last year turned light pink before bleaching completely and the one green tree I had bought this year turned a light mint bluish-green. Since this was the colors I wanted to dye them I left them this color and then fully bleached a few.

I used my hurricane glass vase to bleach because I wanted something that was tall and narrow to stick the trees is, normally I wouldn’t use my good glass but ya know, use what you have! I used 1/3 bleach to 2/3 water in the glass and used tongs to dip them in. It really didn’t take long for them to start bleaching and I swished them around in the bleach water to help with the tongs, just wear rubber gloves and be careful. After I bleached the trees I soaked them in soapy water to get the bleach off.

Most of the tutorials I read said to use Rit dye to dye, or food coloring or cool-aid would also probably work, but I used this spray on dye by SEI Tumble Dye that I already had. I love this because it is already made and you can just spray it on, it’s perfect for small dye jobs and comes it tons of colors. You can find it at craft stores or online at www.shopsei.com.

I also touched up the happy accident trees a bit with the spray dye and mixed a bit with water in a spray bottle to get different shades. On the biggest tree I sprayed a couple different colors for an airbrushed ombre effect. That was another reason I used the spray, for the ombre effect, but if you’re going for one solid color, I’d recommend the dip dye method.

I love how they turned out, and I also sprayed a bottle brush wreath I found at Joanne Fabric! Show me yours on Instagram with the hashtag #peppermintsandhoneybees.

Happy Holidays!

13Dec2014

DIY Snow Globes

Posted in diy, Holiday by peppermintsandhoneybees

Hello, I’ve been busy trying to get all of my Christmas shopping done and make the presents that I am hand-making. This was actually something I made last Christmas as presents for everyone and silly me I didn’t take any pictures of all of them before I gifted them, probably because I didn’t have a blog yet, but I do have one left. I kept this little guy for myself to put out.

I had looked at quite a few different blogs to see how they made theirs and after reading about how the ones containing water and glycerin had made the green of the bottle brush trees bleed after a year, I decided to go without liquid. I was worried it wouldn’t look as cool but I was pretty happy with how they turned out, as I was going for more of a terrarium scene than actual snow globe I guess. Plus I didn’t have to buy glycerine!

I used:

Old glass jars with lids
Bottle brush trees
Tiny winter animals, cars, people, houses, ect.
fake snow (mine is from Michaels where the miniature Christmas village houses and stuff is)
glass beads to glue on tree for ornaments (optional)
I used bakers string for the jar, you could also use ribbon or nothing at all
Spray-paint (again optional) I spray-painted all of my jar lids silver because they were from food jars
Glue, I used my trusty E-6000 but hot glue would also work

I glued the tree and animal to the inside of the lid and put the desired amount of snow in the jar. I then screwed the lid on after everything was dry and voila, It’s that easy! I’d love to see what yours look like so put them on Instagram and hashtag them #peppermintsandhoneybees.

18Nov2014

Egg Drop Soup

Posted in Food by peppermintsandhoneybees

I may have found my new favorite recipe for the fall/winter. It’s been unseasonable cold here for November and last night soup was the perfect thing for dinner. I have been wanting to try to make my own egg drop soup since it’s one of my favorites but usually made with chicken broth. I didn’t think it would be this easy and fast, or good though!

Bring 3 cups of vegetable stock with a couple pinches of salt to a boil on the stove
chop up carrots, shitake mushrooms and green onions and add to soup
combine 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of water in a small bowl and add to soup.
half scramble 1 egg in a bowl and add it a little at a time to the boiling soup

Once you add the egg your soup is done and ready to eat, it’s that easy! I added a little liquid aminos to mine for taste also. Soy sauce also works. Enjoy!