Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies

 Ever get tired of eating the same old chocolate chip cookie. I do, but I love how quick and easy they are to make.  One of my favorite holiday combinations is orange and chocolate.  So I thought, why not add it to a chocolate chip cookie.  I took a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, and added just a few extra ingredients to turn it into this!  I hope you enjoy!

Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/2 C. All-Purpose Flour
1/2 t. Baking Soda
1/2 t. Salt
1 tsp. Cardamon
1 C. Unsalted Butter, softened.
1 C. Dark Brown Sugar
1/2 C. White Sugar
1 T. Vanilla
2 Eggs
1 T. Orange Zest
1/2 of a fresh orange, juice.
2 C. Milk or Dark Chocolate Chips

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Add all the dry ingredients together, flour, baking soda, salt, and cardamon together.  In a separate bowl, mix the butter and brown and white sugar together.  Next, add in the eggs one at a time, mixing until the mixture because light and fluffy. Add vanilla and orange juice and zest and mix.  Your batter may separate a bit, dont worry too much because it will turn out fine in the end.  Next add in the dry ingredients a little at a time. Last, add 2 cups of chocolate chips. Bake for 10-12 min.  The cookies shouldn't brown up, if they do they have cooked too long. You want them a little soft, let them sit on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes, then on a cooling rack until cooled.

Halloween Painted Pumpkins& Vintage Picture

 Carving pumpkins can be a fun tradition, but they never last very long.  So I thought something fun to do would be to paint pumpkins and making them have a stone look to them.

 Start with a plastic pumpkin, this one is actually really cute so its the only one I had that wasn't painted. But the painted ones were just plain orange ones.

 First step, spray paint a grey primer on the pumpkin and let it dry.

Paint with the Orange Martha Stewart Terra Cotta paint, and blot it on the pumpkin with a sponge brush.

Once dry, paint on in various places Martha Stewart Living textured Metallic.  Finish off with Martha Stewart Living Mettalic paint in white.

The finished product!

 I placed them next to a old fence post by the fireplace, and made it look like a pumpkin patch!  I love how they turned out!!!

 For the vintage painted picture start with an old picture frame.

 Spray paint the picture the base black.

 Take out some pages out of an old dictionary and glue them to the board.

 When it is done, it should look something like this.

 Decide what image you want painted on, I choose a pumpkin, and paint the image on top of the pages.

 Next, I took some basketball ornaments and painted them orange, and then added a face to them.

 Once dry, I tied them up to the top of the picture with some fun Halloween ribbon.

 Then added some on the sides.

 

Halloween Books and Wreath

Have you seen those cute stacks of Halloween books in stores, and think, that would be fun to buy but its just not in my budget.  Well how about revamping your "vamp" books. 

 I took my Twilight books, and decided to use them for decoration on my table.

 I used a page from an old dictionary, cut it to cover the sides and glued it on. If you dont want to damage your book, you can always just tape it on.

 Then I painted little pumpkins down the sides of the book, put them together, and tied them up with a bow.  Totally simple craft, but brightens up the room and makes it look totally cute! If you dont want to ruin the sides, why not take off the paper covers of the hard cover books, tie it together with ribbon, and   place them on your coffee table.

 Sometimes we find a good deal on a wreath that doesn't exactly fit into a decor, so the key is to make them fit!  I found these wreaths at Sam's Club, and decided to make them fit into my whole vintage theme a little better.  The tinsel fits with the vintage vibe that I was going for, and my little splash of candy corn works in my theme.  

 To start cut out a few pages out of an old book, I used an old dictionary.

Pinch the page down in the middle to gather it together to make a paper flower.

 Like so...

Use a hot glue gun to attach them to the wreath. Place a glob of hot glue on the bottom of the flower.

 Place it deep in the wreath.

 This is what it looks like when its done.

 Glue two pieces of ribbon in the middle of the paper flower coming out.

 This is what it will look like when its done.

Hang it up with a long piece of ribbon and tie on the top of a nail.  Then ENJOY!!!

My House for Halloween

This is just a fun blog post that I did of how I decorated my town house for Halloween.  Its pretty simplified, considering I havn't had much time as of late.  But I love it!  I went with the whole Vintage look in the living room, and then in the Kitchen I used some of my fun witch stuff.  Please pardon the raw images.  In order to get a post out this weekend, I had to do it before work today and tomorrow.  Next week I will be posting five or so post, so stay tuned!

 Festooning on the Witch lights adds a 1950's touch, along with a fun spray on the edge.

 This is my Kitchen table, I did it simply with a plaid tablecloth, and a glittery black tree to bring height into the room.

 The Kitchen cupboard, the black and orange bowl in the back is my candy dish, though I now wished I had moved it to the shelf below!

 This is my living room, I used a lot of black and cream decorations with a hint of orange.  The Halloween books will come as a tutorial next week!

 The living room from one angle, my color scheme is black, cream, silver blue, and a touch of purple.  Ill post pics in January of the actual town home.

 Halloween books that we made, easy to do. Posting tutorial next week!

 I was given this pillow as a gift from my dear friend Andrea, whos blog is: It's The Life.  The tutorial on how to make this, and a couple other pillows is on there, so check it out!

  This is book print from an old dictionary, with a cute Vintage image painted on top of it, and placed in a vintage frame that was painted black.  We found these at a local antique store! Favorite find of the year!

 This wreath you can find at Sam's club, I picked it up because of the Candy Corns and the tinsel fit my theme perfectly.  We embellished it a little more to make it work with my room, I will post a tutorial on that next week as well!

 As you can see, when you first walk in thats what you see, so I had Candy Corn mixed in with all the vintage items, to give it a fun pop of color!

These are some adorable cupcake pot holders and kitchen towel that my friend Andrea's Mom made.  There are links on her blog to purchase them if you would like.  They have them in every Holiday, and lots of fun color schemes as well.  So check them out!