Fall? Already?

It can't seriously be September already...it's still 90 degrees daily here!

Well, with this supposed season change coming, I figured it was time to say goodbye to my summer wreath. *sigh*

My depression over this was quickly squashed when I remembered that I get to make a new one.

My wreaths this year have all consisted of tediously wrapping the form in yarn for what seems like hours. This time, I wanted something different.

Happily, when I was picking up my form at Walmart, I saw a cute fall-colored print and decided it was just the ticket. Half a yard, coupled with two 97 cent bags of glittery faux leaves, and it was on.

I cut the yarn into roughly 1 inch strips (no, I didn't measure. no need for where they're going).

Using the trusty glue gun, I glued one end to the wreath and began to wrap, gluing at the end of each strip.

Rinse and repeat until the wreath is covered:

Then I began layering on the leaves, alternating between the three colors.

The finish product:

Like the gold R? Made it from a shoe box. As much as I like painting wooden or cardboard letters, I've found that driving 25 minutes into the city to get to a craft store and paying roughly $3 a letter isn't much fun. I also love that I can freehand the letter however I want, and can make it 3D with little effort. If you have spare cardboard, I recommend giving your hands a chance to make beautiful lettering. This letter actually wasn't even painted; I just colored with it gold Sharpie and sprayed clearcoat on top.

 

Happy fall, I guess?



Marble Painting

It's almost 1am, so I'm not going to write a long winded post. Kristen and I did some marble painting today, and I decided to do a quick tutorial for those who may not be familar.

Take a piece of printer paper and tape it to an empty box lid. A printer paper box works great, but you could use a shoe box if you wanted. The key is that the box lid has a wide lip. Double sided tape works if you have it, but if not just roll a few pieces of regular Scotch tape and do it the old-fashioned way.

Pick (or let your little one pick) 3-4 different colors of acrylic or finger paint. Kristen chose these:

Drop 1 or 2 marbles in each color, as shown above. Use a plastic spoon to pick up the marbles and drop them in the box lid.

Tilt, shake, and move the box lid to let the marbles roll across the paper. It's best to use one color at a time so you don't have 8 marbles in the box at once.

After your colors have been used and your child is satisfied with their art, put it aside to dry. Once dry, remove from the box lid and frame as you see fit. For a tutorial on how to frame this masterpiece using a cereal box, click here.

Enjoy and admire!

CA: Cookieholics Anonymous

I'm changing my eating lifestyle. I'm not on a diet because diets, quite frankly, do not work. Long term results require long term change. That means finding 20 minutes a day to be active, every day. It means making conscious efforts to avoid foods that leave you feeling hungry in a few hours. It means saying no to temptation.

But then there are cookies.

I love chocolate chip cookies. So much that I purposely never keep the ingredients or pre-made cookies in my house, because I will make them and eat them. The only thing I may like more is ice cream, which I have refrained from eating and instead partake in frozen yogurt or sherbert if the situation arises. But how in the world do I get that delectable cookie taste without kicking myself later?

Today, I solved that problem.

I found a recipe for cookie dough bites here. Now, these look amazing, no doubt, but by my calculations, each little bite is 145 calories!

Breakdown per batch:
800 calories in butter (assuming light butter, 1600 calories if using regular butter)
805 in chocolate chips (assuming Ghiradelli semi-sweets)
800 in flour
1080 calories in sugar

Total: 3,485 per batch, divided by 24 bites is 145 per bite.

I'm absolutely NOT bashing this recipe. If I were a younger and thinner woman, I'd be making and devouring this stuff. Actually, 6 months ago I would have been too. But in the interest of my thighs, I had to find something that fit my needs.

I have recently started using no-cal sweetener (Truvia, Splenda, etc) for my sweetening needs. Because of this little change, I can now enjoy guilt free sweet tea, cheesecake (well, that's never guilt free), and other things that appeal to my tongue. Since sugar is the major contributor to calories in this recipe, I decide to nix it.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure this recipe has a totally different flavor with brown sugar, but I love mine all the same.

Here we go:

1 cup no-cal sweetener of your choice (I used Splenda)
1 3/4 cups AP flour
6 oz Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips (about half a bag; you can use less if you like)
1 cup light butter, softened (I used Blue Bonnet light butter because I like it's soft texture)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix your butter and sugar until blended. Add your vanilla, then gradually add the flour to the mix. If you are using a standing mixer, you will notice that the dough is separated and crumbly. It's ok; it'll come together in a second. Mix until all flour is combined, then knead your dough by hand and add your chips.

At this point, it is perfectly acceptable to pinch off a bit and taste test your dough. After all, if you don't like the taste, you'll want to fix it or pitch it before you make all those little bites.

Using a teaspoon, scoop your dough into little balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. I wrapped mine in foil to prevent sticking; you can also use wax or parchment paper.

This recipe should yield 4 dozen of these tasty little babies! Refrigerate for 1 hour for maximum scrumptiousness (is that a word?)

Best part: These yummy morsels are a mere 48 calories a pop. This means you can eat 4, go on a 20 minute run, and it'll be like you never ate them. :)

What are your no-guilt guilty pleasures? Do you make these in more delicious ways? Share them in the comments!

EDIT: The guy was watching me move the cookie dough bites from the sheet to a tupperware today and said "I wonder what would happen if we tried to bake them". I assumed that with the amount of butter and lack of egg, it would produce a runny, untasty mess. Curiousity got the better of us, and we put half a dozen in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Oh. My. Goodness. They didn't melt or expand, but kept their perfect little ball shape, while being soft and warm on the inside. They literally melted in our mouths.

A half baked idea

Let me start by saying that I love reed diffusers. I love the way they stylishly freshen my home with their sweet aromas. With that being said, I do not love that after a short period of time, it seems like the reeds are not diffusing the oil sufficiently enough to freshen the room. I also do not love spending money on replacement reeds, as I do not love spending money on replacing anything. Today, as I was adding more oil to the base, I decided that I had a choice: buy more reed diffusers, or find a way to make the old ones work. I chose the latter.

First, I gave the reeds a good rinse with warm water, holding the reeds length-wise with the faucet. After the rinse, they got a 10 minute soak in a sink of hot water and a few drops of Dawn soap (if you don't want to occupy the sink, I would just recommend a large bowl. The sink works best for containing spills and allowing the Dawn to foam.)

After a short shake dry, I placed the reeds on a baking sheet and set the oven to 250. When I checked on the reeds after 10 minutes, they were dry and the ends were porous. Now my reeds are working wonderfully. If you want a quick burst of freshness, I definitely recommend placing them back in the oil straight from the oven. The heat makes the oil diffuse even faster.

Happy smelling!

Finally Finished!

This will be the shortest post ever. I just have to share that I finally finished my window panel project. I still need to get pictures to put in three of the windows (the guy suggested I put one photo of each of us individually, which is a great idea, except almost no pictures of me exist).

So this was day one, when I brought it home for $10 at my favorite antique store:

This is around the halfway point, when I first decided that I wanted the bottom of the panel to be a whiteboard:

And this is today, after adding hooks to the bottom for hanging dish towels, keys, dry erase markers, whatever.

Sadly, with the big move happening in about 3 weeks, we decided that hanging it would be counter-productive, as we would be taking it down and patching the holes in a few short weeks. Sigh.

At least it gives me three weeks to find decent pictures for those three empty panes... :)

Half-finished everything

Oh. My. Goodness.

It's approaching the end of May. Everything is in hyperdrive. Here are a few key points.

-We bought our first house. Well, mostly. We are under contract and will close in mid-June. Packing and prepping ensues.
- My job has given me an official closing date of June 30th. After that, I have no idea what I will be doing.
-The guy finished the spring semester and moved into summer semester. His courses are only 6 weeks each, which means he is spending most of his free time hunched in front of the computer.

The one benefit of all of these things piling up like this is that I'm finding that I have extra time and room on the weekends to work on my half-finished projects.

First off, the window panel. I posted a picture of it in my last post, and said I'd have it done by the end of the week. This, of course, didn't happen. A big factor was the fact that I had an impossible time finding something to put in the big open section on the bottom. This week, I finally found something...

I have made a lot more progress since this picture from Thursday, but it's not quite finished yet, mostly due to the fact that the piece of whiteboard is just slightly too long. It WILL be done tomorrow, and I refuse to post a picture of it until it is.

Secondly, the subway sign. This is a new project that I started about two weeks ago and is still unfinished.

I had an old piece of particle board from the back of an old tv stand. I put 1/2 yard of remnant fabric underneath and trimmed around the edges.

I pulled the edges around the board tightly and attached using a hot glue gun.

I've started the words that I want on the front, but I don't know what to do to finish. Thoughts?

Thirdly, there's the numerous canvases that are sitting in my closet and on my floor in the spare bedroom. I'm not sure if I need to hang them, gift them, cover them and start again, or just pitch 'em. I am running out of room for them, but hate the idea of just throwing them out. Any idea of how I can use these in a more effective way?

Any input is appreciated. I will most definitely be putting up pictures of my finished window panel tomorrow.

Happy tax season!

Not...

Anyway, the ides of April bring on a number of things that aren't related to forking over money. Warm weather, longer days, spring projects... the list goes on.

With spring cleaning in mind, I declared that my lamp shades are a hideous shade of cream that shows dust, cat hair, and any other flaw you can imagine. The before:

A few layers of Mod Podge, a 75 cent yard of scrap fabric and an X-Acto knife later:

With Easter passing, my lovely egg wreath is no longer relevant.

I couldn't bring myself to take the eggs and yarn off of the form to make a new one, so I just bought another form and wrapped it in some tan yarn I already had. A few shells and some items from the 97 cent aisle at Walmart, and you have this:

I'm in love with it. It makes me want to put up an umbrella and sit in a cushy chair with a margarita. (I hand painted the little margarita glasses, btw.) Side note, only 384 days until this is actually my last initial. Every day is more exciting than the one before.

Speaking of cushy chair, my soon to be in-laws have a great little teak bistro set in their backyard. My MiL asked me to look at the table and see if I could come up with a way to maybe remove the wood and replace it with a concrete slab, and mosaic the top. I looked at the table and chairs and much to my surprise, the wood was still mostly salvageable. I took the table top off of the legs, took the wood out of the frame, and sanded the pieces down to clean and smooth them. After staining the pieces a pretty redwood, they look like new. I'm mad at myself for not taking a before picture, but once the pieces are back on the hardware, there will be plenty of afters...

Last thing. I made a journey to our local antique shop this week and found this gem for $10. I cannot wait to finish it. The top panels still have the glass intact, but the bottom is sans glass. To me, it screams cork board. I'll post the after hopefully by this weekend.

I must've lost my rear end from working it off this weekend... :)

Lordy, lordy, looks who's 4...well, that's it.

Well, the day has come and gone. My smart, beautiful, hilarious little girl turned 4 last week. It was difficult to determine who was more excited about it, her or me. She loves being 4 like all of her friends and learning to ride her big girl bike. I love that with every passing day, she learns more and becomes this fabulously independent lady. She writes all of her letters, is learning to sound out words, and can kick all of our butts at Go Fish. *sigh*

So anyway, I know everyone is wondering what kind of cake she had. Well, for our family birthday party this year, I decided to skip making an actual cake. In previous years, we've always wound up with an abundance of extra cake that none of us want to eat after day two. This year, I tried the newly popular Mason Jar Cupcakes. There are a plethora of tutorials, and in citing just one, I'm doing a disservice to the 20 others that are out there, so I'm not citing anything. It's not plagarism; no one has a copyright over a cupcake recipe.

I went to Publix and got a 12 pack of jars for about $8.

(The lids were drying at the time of the picture. You'll see what I mean in a minute.)

All it took was 1 box of white cake mix, about 2 tbsp of cornstarch, and a box of food coloring.

I mixed the cake mix according to the box instructions, then mixed in the cornstarch to thicken the mixture for layering. You can opt not to do this if you want funky tie-dye looking layers, but my OCD wouldn't allow this.

Separate the mixture into sandwich bags; the number varies based on the number of colors you're using. I used four. Add about 4-5 drops of food coloring into each bag, let out the excess air and seal. Use the countertop to knead, blending the coloring into the mix.

Move the batter away from one corner and cut it to allow for piping. Be aware of your size; a larger cut will cause the batter to pipe out quickly.

Layer each of your colors into your mason jars (note: these do not need to be greased prior to using). The easiest method I found was to use up each color at once, meaning I put blue in all of my jars, then green, then yellow, then red.

Fill a 9x13" pan with about 1/2" of water and place your jars in the pan. Typically you would bake according to the box directions, but because my oven runs so hot and I was paranoid about burning them, I baked mine at 350 for 30 minutes. They came out perfectly moist and fluffy.

For icing, I decided to keep with my sandwich bag theme and fill a bag with icing and pipe it into the cupcakes. Kristen helped put the sprinkles on top. :)

Here's my finished version, complete with the decorated tops I made. You can find my tutorial on that here.

It's March already?!

Not only is it March...it's spring break in our lovely city, which means Ashley doesn't work for the next 10 days! WOOOOOOO!!!

The next four days will be occupied with our annual trip to St. Louis, two of which will be dedicated to driving (just under 11 hours each way...bleah). After that, I have complete freedom to do as I wish during the day. The downside to this is finding things to do. Here are a few things that I've accomplished so far in March:

-Thin Mint Cheesecake. I didn't take a single picture, but the recipe was so simple that you can make your own and don't need a stinkin' picture.

16oz softened cream cheese (I used fat free)
2 eggs
1.5 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 sleeve Thin Mint cookies (roughly)

Whip the cream cheese with mixer until smooth. Add sugar, egg and vanilla until well blended. Crush about 3/4 of the thin mints and gently fold them into the mix. Pour mixture into prepared pie crust*. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until firm. Chill in fridge for four hours. Top with remaining cookies. Devour.

*I say prepared pie crust because I bought a chocolate pie crust for this cheesecake. I considered doing a homemade crust from the thin mints, but I feared the chocolate covering from the cookies would make it to crumbly to use. An Oreo crust, store bought or hand made, may be a good option too. If anyone tries the Thin Mint crust, let me know how it goes!

-More wall art. I have so much of it now that a big portion of it is sitting against the wall of my spare bedroom while I find a place for it. This one was my version of the tutorial found here, with slightly different colors and smaller circles, because I love the look of the branches with what Kristen calls "baby flowers".



-Loaded baked potato salad. Again, no picture, but oh my god it's amazing.

2.5 lbs red skinned potatoes

1/2 cup chopped green onion

1 package bacon, cooked and crumbled

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup Greek yogurt

salt and pepper to taste

Boil potatoes until tender but firm. Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour. Cube potatoes and combine with yogurt. While potatoes are chilling, you can cook the bacon. I cooked mine on a wire rack on top of a cookie sheet at 325 for 25 minutes. The grease drips onto the cookie sheet and makes for perfectly crisp bacon. Add bacon, salt, pepper and cheese. You can top individual servings with onion, or leave it off for your pickier diners. I added it into the mix with the other ingredients, and the onion haters just picked them out without complaint. I served mine with crock pot BBQ chicken and baked beans. Best summer meal ever.

If anyone has ideas for new things I can do with my new found free time, feel free to comment!

Cereal box picture frames!

Last week Kristen and I spent our Thursday girl's night in marble painting. For those who aren't familiar, the term is pretty self-explanatory. You take marbles and drop them in different colors of paint, and place a sheet of paper inside a decently sized box top. I used a printer paper box lid, and recommend taping the back of the paper to the box to prevent it from sliding. Place the marbles in the box lid with a spoon and let your child shift the box to move the marbles across the paper. The result is a beautiful abstract piece any kid will be proud to see in his/her room.

Of course, I couldn't just let this masterpiece be push-pinned up on her wall... :)

As luck would have it, Kristen finished off the last of a box of cereal this morning. Noticing it in the recycle box after work, I realized that it was about the same size as her picture. Then it hit me: picture frame.

Some of you may be fortunate enough to have the bigger sized cereal boxes and don't have the same size issue that I did, but if you don't, you're about to see my efforts.

The box I had was long enough, but about 2 inches short in width. In order to make this work as a frame, I had to cut the box into sections. Luckily, the sides of the box were the perfect length to use as the base and top of the frame. I used the front panel of the box to cut two more sections for the sides of the frame. To keep the pieces together, I wrapped the corners in clear packing tape:

On a side note, I do not recommend this particular cereal. I will try the generic versions of cereals, and many of them are the same in taste and much cheaper, but this one is no substitute for brand name Honey Bunches of Oats.

I considered wrapping the frame in fabric, but I lacked the bright and happy colors that my daughter loves. I pulled out my arsenal of scrapbook paper and had Kristen pick her favorite pattern. For this part, I highly recommend an X-acto knife. I was so caught up in the project that I neglected to get a picture, but the process is fairly simple. Lay the paper over the frame (box pattern side up) and flip them over together. Use the X-acto knife to cut the paper to fit the frame. Use your packing tape to attach the paper to the frame. Place your child's picture on the back of the frame and attach it with (you guessed it) more packing tape. (You can opt for Scotch tape or something less permanent if you want to reuse the frame for their other creations).

And voila! Lovely abstract artwork with a neat personalized frame. This one is hanging above her dresser, which I have a feeling will soon become a miniature art gallery.



Dinner is overrated.

So first, I must share this, because it's lovely:

It is always nice to have your kid want to dress like you.

My rational for this blog title is that due to my love of sleeping in, I often do not pack a lunch before work and almost always forget to make one the night before. Because of this, I usually wind up not eating lunch until roughly 2pm. This effectively kills my dinner appetite until close to bedtime. Today was no exception. I didn't have lunch until almost 3, and with the guy being in night class until 8pm, my motivation to cook a whole dinner was non-existent. I did, however, have the ingredients for one of my favorite things in the world: spinach artichoke dip.

Now, to be fair, my definition of "have the ingredients" means that I have about 3/4 of them, and I plan on winging the rest. I am not a mayo fan and do not intend to start now. Most standard spinach dip recipes call for mayo and sour cream in some amount. I do not buy either, because I use Greek yogurt in everything that calls for sour cream. I guess I could've stopped that sentence short and just said I use Greek yogurt in everything, and it would still be accurate.

Tonight's experiment was to see if Greek yogurt can really change the world as much as I think it can. Here's a breakdown of my ingredients:

8 oz fat free cream cheese

8oz frozen chopped spinach

1 can (8.5 oz) Vigo artichoke hearts, chopped

8 oz Oikos Greek yogurt

Garlic powder

Paprika

Salt and Pepper

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (you can opt for more, but I was trying to be conservative)

I micro'd the cream cheese for about 60 seconds to soften. I put the spinach in a baking dish (still frozen) with the hearts, and mixed in the yogurt, cream cheese and spices.

After topping with the cheese, I threw it in a 350 degree oven to bake for 20 minutes and broiled for 3 minutes ( I meant to only broil for 2...oops)

I don't do pretty; I do pretty tasty. :)

You can opt to top individual servings with diced tomato and onion as I did:

I only had green onion, but I bet red onion would be even better...

I have dipped pretty much everything I can find in this stuff (to include my finger). It's great with tortilla chips, rye chips, pita chips, celery, bell peppers, ANYTHING. If I had the pasta, I absolutely would have breaded and fried some bowtie pasta to eat with this (trust me, best thing I ever learned from working in a restaurant).

Happy snacking!

Quickies!

Before anyone gets too excited, this is a completely craft-related blog. Sorry!

I went with the title because everything I did here took about 10 minutes (mine took longer because I did several).

There's a similar tutorial available here. It's a cute idea for a wedding shower or reception, but the thing that bothered me is that these beautiful displays will not hold up in an average household. Without a lid, any number of things can get into the water and gross up the display (think cat hair, dust, random bacteria that love to grow in water). The other immediate thought was about curious little hands playing in the water or pulling out the flowers. To solve my dilemma, I decided to use one of my favorite things in the world: glass jars. I've already confessed to being a bit of a pack rat and keeping all of my old spaghetti sauce/fruit/pickle jars (because you never know), but for this project I wanted to use actual mason jars. The tutorial said to use distilled water (which I have no idea why, since open air would kill the purity of the water); I used filtered water from my refrigerator door. I traced the interior lids on some scrapbook paper, cut out the circles and glued them to the lids using mod podge on each side of the paper.

Now my entryway finally has a unique splash of color!

While I was making these, my desk was covered in silk flowers and jars; it got really cluttered really fast. I moved the flowers and dropped them in an empty Pringles can (I had another purpose for it, I swear), and realized that they fit absolutely perfectly. I grabbed my favorite sheet of scrapbook paper and wrapped it around the can, gluing it on with mod podge. Took me about two minutes, total. I LOVE IT.

What quickie crafts do you love? Feel free to post in the comments; I love new ideas!

More Wall Art (and other stuff too, I promise!)

My original intention of this blog was to post each time I did a new project. Unfortunately, the projects have sort of taken away from my blog time. Anyway, I'm playing catch up tonight. Sorry!

First things first. Here's this:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a foaming soap dispenser. I made it out of a SALSA JAR! No joke. The soap itself is 1/4 cup of Dawn with 2 cups of water. The top is what actually makes the liquid foam; I just happened to have an empty bottle of Noxzema foaming face wash on hand, and I stole the top. To connect the foaming top to the jar lid, I used a screwdriver and hammer to poke a hole in the middle, and used needle nose pliers to peel the metal back on the inside of the lid. This should be done gingerly, to make sure your hole doesn't become too big for the top. You can use hot glue to keep the top in place if needed. So easy, and fun to make your own soap, because you can add essential oil to make any scent you want!

Next up: Tinted Mason Jars. As you probably guessed, I am not a connoisseur of antique jars, but I am not above saving my old food jars. Any jar can be made chic and gorgeous with this tutorial. I tinted a sauerkraut and a spaghetti sauce jar this week. One is currently holding a love note from the guy and a flower picked by my daughter. The other has not yet been given a purpose, but it looks pretty so I don't care.

Last one: More wall art. The guy and I were browsing some furniture stores, and each one had its own collection of colorful, semi-abstract art. With each piece, I couldn't help but notice how basic they were. I may be the only one who does this, but when I go to Target, I almost always wind up looking at the art. When I do, I undoubtedly say to my poor acomplice "I could so do that". On my last journey, I saw this piece for $20:

I'm not a professional artist by any means, but I am comfortable with paintbrush in hand (especially if no one is watching).

Anyway, I took one of my many painted-over canvases (aka paintings I did or half-did and then painted over in black or white because I didn't like them) and got to work. Because I am not known for my ability to draw straight lines, I used my L square with my brush to get the white square as even as possible. The branches and flowers were freehanded, and I added blue flowers to give it some more pop. The point of this blog is to say that I find it a complete waste of money to buy art that you can easily do yourself. A canvas ranges in price depending on size, but a standard canvas comes in a 3 pack at many stores for under $10. The feeling you get from seeing something beautiful that you made hanging in your house is unmatched.

So, without further ado, here is my version:

six ingredients+no baking=happy ashley

Ok, so I must start this with something that will make everyone go "awww" while trying not to laugh:

That is my child, attempting to cover her look of shame with her pretty blonde hair, which contains a wad of gum that had gotten stuck. She has had gum before, but this time, for some reason, she had difficulty keeping it in her mouth. Luckily, it was easily removed by taking two vegetable oil dabbed cotton balls and rubbing them together on either side of the gum, starting above the wad and working down to the tips of her hair. No hair cut needed, just a quick bath to wash out the oil.

On a related ooey-gooey note, Thursday nights are different in our house now, as Corey is taking a night class and is gone from 5-almost 9pm. While I miss having him and his antics at the dinner table, the opportunity to have girl's night is always appreciated. Tonight's adventure consisted of cheesy chicken and rice casserole (which I will post in a separate blog), Nick Jr., and a shared craving for something sweet. My initial thought was to bake cookies (classic mother/daughter activity), but we had no eggs and only half a stick of butter. This left me with the option of finding something else to do, or taking a 3 year old to Walmart in the rain. Needless to say, my desire to stay dry and cranky child-free won.

I Googled a few recipes for no bake desserts, and the only thing for which I had all of the ingredients were no-bake chocolate peanut butter squares. Due to the limited amount of butter, and in the interest of not making the bars too sweet, I had to cut the recipe down severely. Fortunately for me, the portion that it yielded was perfect for an 8x8 pan.

I started with 1/8 cup of light brown sugar and 1 cup confectioner's sugar, and added 1/4 cup of butter (Kristen was my little helper on this one):

After blending it together slightly, I added just over a cup of creamy peanut butter (I actually like the Walmart version for this recipe because it's not as greasy and is not oversweetened).

I love my standing mixer, because it works while I take pictures of it working.

After the ingredients were blended, I plopped the peanut buttery blob into a very lightly greased 8x8 and had Kristen pat it down (the texture on this is awesome; no sticky fingers, just slightly greasy from handling the blob). 

Now onto melting the chocolate chips. I used Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips because I love the taste. I would like to take this time to say that I am not the proud owner of a double boiler. I've gotten used to melting my chocolate this way over the years, and have no desire to fill up my cabinets with more pots. Anyway, I melted the chips that I had (about half a bag) and spread them over the peanut butter. After washing out my pot, I realized that these sweet treats deserved better than one lousy spread of chocolate. I took a half-bag of Ghiradelli white chocolate chips and melted them down (as best as I could; they do not melt as easily as the milk chocolate).

I then made an attempt at creating a marbled effect on the milk chocolate:

It is not the prettiest thing in the world, but I've learned that the best tasting things sometimes aren't the most aesthetically appealing.

Refrigerate for one hour. I didn't cut them all into squares to prevent the peanut butter from drying out. I instead just cut to serve, plopped on the floor with my offspring, and worked on a Tinkerbell puzzle, for the third time today. :)