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Check this out women it will chance your life. I used Gillette all my life and I now hate it. I love this schick razor.The moisturizing serum on the razor blade does what it is suppose to be there for. I love how I didnt have any irritation on my legs or my underarms. I though that irritation from a razor was something that came with the territory. I am forever changed by the moisture serum that is on this razor.

Creamy Crock-pot Hot Choco.

OK everyone I know I have not been very diligent with my posts. But here is one that is so simple you cant mess it up, Crock-pot Hot chocolate. Found it on another great site called Mrs Happy Homemaker. I will add her link to the bottom of this post so you can check her out. I did this two different ways. For the step by step process the photos will be of the milk chocolate mixture.(except for the bag of chips they are the size bag you need but its a picture of the white chocolate chips bag I did this so you would have a reference of how big the bag is.) 

I did this with White chocolate and a separate batch with milk chocolate.  I even tried it with peppermint extract.


Severs roughly 6-10 people (depending on the size mug you use.)


For the initial ingredients you will need:

(note this pic was taken after I had added all the ingredients in. Don't worry this jug of milk was partially used prior to making this.)

• 1.5 cups heavy cream(same as heavy whipping cream)
• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (14oz)
• 2 cups milk chocolate chips(or one 12 oz bag)
• 6 cups of milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the white chocolate mixture:

• substitute the 2 cups of milk chocolate chips for white chocolate chips

• 1/4 tsp of peppermint extract (this is optional. you can add more peppermint if you want but only do about 1/4th of a tsp more because it is strong) You don't want the peppermint to be over powering the whole thing. Unless you really like that peppermint taste then add as much as you like!

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     This is where it gets even simpler.  Make sure the crock-pot is on low. this is so you don't burn the chocolate that you will be adding in. Just add everything in at once, and whisk together! Let cook for 2 hours while string occasionally to prevent chocolate from sticking to the bottom. (yes get the whisk to the bottom of the pot and slowly whisk up any chocolate. It will settle to the bottom every time)

 

 Starting out what it looks like.Trust me its all in there.

 When it looks like this stir. Again be sure to whisk the bottom of the pot to get the chocolate up.

 Should look like this after whisking

After the 2 hrs all you have to do is turn it on warm so that it does not boil the whole time, stir, and serve! Add marshmallows or whipped cream toppings on top if you want. Its that simple. You can even leave it on warm all day and it still taste great!

I don't know if you can tell the color difference in the pics but this one is the finished product. Its a darker brown.

Things to consider:
 

Notice when you have not been string for a while and it sits it will look like the whole thing has separated.  Don't worry just stir it, and your good to go. 

If you refrigerate it:
When you go to heat it up you might notice that it got thicker. All you have to do is add a little more milk and its thins it back out to the texture you want. 


If you accidentally simmer the batch or boil it and the mixture seems way to thick for your liking. No worries, again just add more milk.Mind you this is suppose to be creamy but not thick.


I don't know about freezing it. I know you can freeze jugs of milk so this should freeze just fine. But again I don't know. 


* If you don't want to wait 2 hour for this to cook you could probably turn it up on high and watch it the whole time to make sure the chocolate does not burn, but I would recommend string it the whole time if you do this. * It is very easy to burn chocolate. That and there is a good chance you could reduce it to the point that its to thick. Again this is fixable with adding more milk. 

Here is the link to the original site that I got it from. THANKS MRS HAPPY HOMEMAKER!!
http://www.mrshappyhomemaker.com/2010/12/creamy-hot-cocoa-in-crockpot.html

HARRY POTTER BUTTERBEER!!!!

Since this is going to be a short post I thought that I would post more than one this week.

 I defiantly think I will be doing this recipe this Halloween, and or a Harry Potter movie marathon.  Tried it out just for you guys!!!

Very simple recipe. Me and the hubby liked it pretty well. If you every had the alcoholic shot called buttery nipple this kind of tastes like that.  If I ever make this again it's going to probably be a once a year thing. 

 (pardon my messy stove I just got done cooking before this)

Here is what you will need:

A 2 litter of Cream soda ( You can generally find this in a regular grocery store)

2 teaspoons Rum extract (imitation rum extract works too)

2 tablespoons Butter extract (or imitation butter flavor)

Pour both extracts into the Cream soda bottle. To make it easier use a small funnel, I didn't.  Recap the bottle and gently rotate the bottle to mix. I basically  Gently flipped the bottle upside down over and over again. 

EYAYA ITS THAT SIMPLE!!

The original site also gave ingredients for a cream topping I didn't try this but here it is if you want to try

 1 7oz container of marshmallow crème

1 cup whipping cream

1 teaspoon rum extract

Combine all ingredients together in a mixer until smooth and creamy

And of course I have to give credit where credit is due!!!!  Not to mention they have some cool stuff on their site. CHECK IT OUT!!!

http://designdazzle.blogspot.com/2011/07/summer-camp-harry-potter-activities.html

Carving Pumpkins With Cookie Cutters.

     Since Halloween is coming up in a few weeks I thought that I would make my first craft subject be about carving pumpkins. I found this on pinterest.com which lead me to a site called Fresh Home Ideas. This site showed a step by step approach on using cookie cutters to carve pumpkins with.

 The original site used:

1 Rubber mallet

a cookie cutter of your choice

Needle -nose Pliers

pumpkin carving kit

What I used:

a regular hammer (Since I don't have a rubber mallet lying around)

I used some cheap cookie cutters that I bought at Wal-Mart ( used a maple leaf)

wire cutters (because I could not find my needle-nose pliers)

 small kitchen knife

So that I could cut out the top I used:

 a dry erase marker

a normal steak knife

And of course for those that don't know to scoop out the guts:

A large spoon and a bowl for the pumpkin guts

 For the Beginner Pumpkin Carvers 

(If your not a beginner skip down to the Here's the cookie cutter part)

For any pumpkin carving that I do I always have something under the pumpkin in case I make a mess. In the pic I cut up a brown paper bag from the grocery store. You can use trash bags news paper or whatever you want. First step is to cut off the top and to scoop out the seeds. That way if I need to have a better grip on the pumpkin I can grab it at the top. This is also so you can have the light shine through from the light you are going to put inside the pumpkin. If you want a lid to the pumpkin that wont fall in as the pumpkin ages the longer it sits out insert the knife at an angle so that it creates a a kind of shelf for the lid to sit on. I was not able to actually accomplish this for this walk through but I promise it works I've done it before.  I like to create a key on the lid. Its where there is a square piece of the pumpkin is cut out along with the lid so I know where the back of the pumpkin is. This way I don't have to stand there and twist the lid on till it fits. 

 Use Dry erase marker to make a circle with the "key" on the back of the pumpkin. Follow the outline to cut off the lid. A sharpie works great here to if you don't want your lines to wipe off.

Scoop out the insides after taking off the lid that you just cut off. If you want to bake the seeds put them in the bowl. If you don't then just put them in the trash.

Here's The Cookie Cutter!!!

   Take the hammer/ rubber mallet and tap the cookie cutter into the pumpkin. Be careful I ended up bending my cutter making it hard to keep its shape when I was done.

I tapped the cutter on all sides in a circle till the cutter was all the way in except for enough to have an edge to pull it out with the pliers(wire cutters) 

Instead of removing the cookie cutter right away( like they did in the original site) I left it in and used the small kitchen knife to cut out the pumpkin that is on the inside of the cutter. This way I was able to make sure that I kept the shape of the cut out all the way through to the other side. 

*This is probably where I should have gave in and bought a carving kit. I didn't buy one in the beginning because I was hoping to make this an alternative to having to buy a pumpkin carving kit every year. While it worked, it would have probably been easier if I had just given in and gotten the kit.*

     After making sure that you carved out the excess pumpkin for the shape you can take the cutter out with the pliers(wire cutters) here.  Repeat this step as many times as you want. If the cutter gets too bent out of shape you can always re bend it by inserting it into the first hole that you created on the pumpkin. Then just bend it into the shape of the hole and its back to its shape.

Of course you will have to clean out the insides again from all of the carving that you did.

In then end just take a candle( or a dome light like I did) and insert it into the pumpkin and put the lid on. Yay! your done! This took me about 2 hours to do all of this. Of course I was stopping taking notes, taking pics, and having to reshape the cookie cutter that I had. 

Here is the original Site that I got the instructions from!

http://www.freshhomeideas.com/entertaining---parties/halloween/halloween-decorations/carve-pumpkins-with-cookie-cutters

In the Begining...

Hey everyone,
I figured I would start out telling you a little about who I am, and what this blog is all about. My name is Becky. When it comes to me I'm a military wife who spends a lot of her days sitting on different blog websites, craft websites, and such pretending to be creative. www.pinterest.com is one of my favorite sites to sit on all day looking at crafts, and cooking recipes. I am currently an expecting mother to be, and with the current job market dont really have anything to do all day.
Recently I decided to start trying some of the things I found on different sites (mostly pinterest.com) when it came to food and crafts. I started to think HMM I wonder how many people actually try some of the stuff on this site, or do they just look at it thinking it looks cool but don't know or if they can do it.
How I came up with the title is my mom always called me her little bluebird, because no matter what was going on in my life I always seemed happy. So this is A Bluebird's Crafts and Cooking.
Well LUCK YOU this bored all day person is going to start picking something once a week or more to try out. I have so far found some stuff that have turned out great, somethings that are not worth doing again, and somethings that I ended up editing to my families liking. Well my picky husband's liking.  I will be adding the first few things soon.

I will let you know how the project turned out for me and tell you step by step what I did. Especially if I substituted something in the original ingredients place. I will also try and make sure that I post the link to the original site so that you can see how they accomplished the same thing. (With possible different results) That and I need to give credit where credit is due. This blog is for the purpose to show everyone that anyone can do something. All you have to do is try.
Im not one of those people that are great at everything I do. I will be sharing my mistakes as well as my successes.
NOTE: The results that are shared on this page are from my trial and errors. They may be different for you. If you know how to correct my mistake and I have not figured it out PLEASE SHARE!! :) Everyone wants to know how to do things.

LETS GO HAVE FUN, BE CREATIVE, AND LEARN SOMETHING DIFFERENT!!!