2013 - Week 8

Hi all. How was your week? I would have to say that mine went pretty well, but was super busy. I managed to keep up with my dream journal, daily memory journal, and Bible reading, and for exercise, I did 30 minutes of Wii Fit and 30 minutes of fitsugar.com workouts (this was one of them: Full Body Workout). I liked the 10 minute workout videos . . . for some reason that makes it seem like it's not so long. I would start a video, and would you look at that, it's almost over :) I did a ten minute arm workout though and I think I went a little crazy with my three pound weights . . . my right elbow is sore now . . . oops.

For new things, I tried something that I found on Pinterest, a gelatin face mask It was touted as a full-face "pore strip". Unfortunately, it didn't really clear my pores or get rid of larger hairs but did get rid of some smaller ones and made my skin a little smoother. I took some pictures, but then I decided that no one needed to see my face that close up, so I'm not putting them on here. I wouldn't recommend the face mask . . . it smelled (but not as bad as some commenters claimed) and really hurt on sensitive places where I might have left it on too long. Oh well, it was worth a try.

On a more fun note, the coolest new thing I did this week was to make my own edible arrangements :) So much fun, and so tasty too. When it comes to giving gifts to people, I tend to go for the cake / dessert route, but when the recipients are watching their sugar intake, I'm pretty much at a loss of what to do. I decided fruit was healthier than cake, and give these a try. I perused a few web sites:
http://www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com and http://www.ediblearrangements.com
before deciding what I wanted to do. Luckily, all of the fruit I wanted just happened to be on sale this week . . . awesome :) I already had the skewers, so all I had to buy extra was the vase and the florist's foam, and I was all set.

My initial set up

Taking some tips from the website, I surrounded the foam with the kale to make it pretty (I was going to halve the head of lettuce to make it rounder on the top, but didn't end up using it).

The base

 I wanted to make pineapple flowers, blueberry skewers, cantaloupe wavelets, and of course, chocolate dipped strawberries. Unfortunately, I've never tempered chocolate, so that was a new experience too. I don't know if I did it exactly right, but I followed these two sites: http://www.instructables.com and http://sweets.seriouseats.com and it seemed to work fine. It looked like it was supposed to on the strawberries too, which was a plus. I picked the prettiest ones and then washed and blotted them dry on paper towels before dipping them in the chocolate.

My mid-bouquet mess. You can see my chocolate covered strawberry drying stand in the back (the blue glasses with the foam resting on them . . . I just stuck the skewers through the foam and let the chocolate dry for about 15 minutes)

The beautiful finished product

I got all of the materials needed to make this (minus the skewers and the small amount of chocolate I used) for $15.50, it might not be 100% as perfect as the Edible Arrangements, but considering it's less than half the price (a comparable one from Edible Arrangements was about $60), I think it's worth it :)

 PLUS, not only did I get the arrangement, I had lots of fruit left over, so I made this cute smaller arrangement for a friend, just because she's awesome:

 Then I still had more left, and my husband LOVES fruit, so I made him the "fruit lovers" edition where the vase was filled with layers of fruit (the pieces that weren't perfect enough to go on the skewers).

 Needless to say, he was very pleased with his fruit sticks :) I told him not to eat it all in one sitting . . . he ate in it two.

 Not too bad for ~$15 and a couple hours of my time . . . it was tons of fun and I think the recipients all enjoyed them. I said a big prayer of thanks that all the fruit I bought was perfectly ripe . . . it could have turned out poorly if that wasn't the case, but I think they all turned out just wonderfully :)

Until next week . . . :)