The Bright (& Glittery) Side: August 2016

Baby Elephant Sugar Cookies

8:00 AM

BRITTANY'S BABY SHOWER SUGAR COOKIES

I had a few requests for a cookie tutorial when I posted these little cuties on Snapchat and Instagram, so I thought I would share the recipe and inside scoop with you!

Baking is one of my favorite things to do so when my M-I-L asked if I would make cookies for my S-I-L's baby shower, I was happy to help! Plus... These cookies are Brit's (My S-I-L) favorite. She loves them so much, that she asked for them to be on each napkin at her wedding a few years ago. Such a huge compliment! (Peep those cutie little fall leaves here!-- Warning: the photo quality is something we should all try to disregard... the struggle guys, the struggle).

I snagged these cutie little elephant cutters here, and will link them below for you guys along with the gifties I got for my sweet nephew to be! The possibilities are endless with the shapes and colors for this recipe. Always a crowd pleaser!

Cut Out Sugar Cookies-

Ingredients:

1 cup (8 oz.) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg
2½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
Zest of half a lemon (or the zest of a whole lemon, if you love lemon)
2½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt

Instructions:

preheat oven to 350 degrees
Place a sheet of parchment on your sheet pan
In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and confectioners’ sugar on medium-high speed until smooth, 1-2 minutes.
Beat in the egg, vanilla extract, seeds scraped from the vanilla bean, and lemon zest until blended.
Mix in the flour and salt on low speed just until incorporated. Form the dough into a ball and wrap tightly with plastic wrap.
Refrigerate until chilled and firm, at least 1-2 hours.

(recipe adapted from Annies Eats)

Icing Ingredients:

3 Tbsp Wilton meringue powder
4 cups confectioners sugar
5 Tbsp warm water
Wilton gel food coloring
Toothpicks

Icing Instructions:

Combine all ingredients until smooth
Separate into glass containers and color with Wilton gel food coloring using a toothpick to portion out the color
For these, I outlined the elephant and immediately flooded each cookie
I then went back in after an hour or so (to give the icing time to harden) and piped on a little ear, a little eye, and a few water droplets at the end of it's trunk
I then used a very slightly damp finger and gently touched those pointy edges from the piping tip to smooth the icing down
let sit uncovered until totally cured

(Recipe adapted from Wilton)

Fixer Upper Wall Art Idea Hack

6:45 PM

ANOTHER WIN FOR JOANNA GAINES!

Back story:
We have a giant wall between our kitchen and great room that has stumped us since the beginning of "make this house our home" circa 2011.

Disregard the vertical blinds... ugh they are HORRIBLE and are on the list of things to replace, I swear!

So... Let's just get it out there, I absolutely adore Joanna Gaines' style... This is no new news to most of you.
While watching an episode of Fixer Upper a few months ago, I saw that she found a vintage map, had it cut into nine pieces, framed, and hung on a very large wall in one of their client's homes.
I was immediately sure that this very thing would be the perfect solution for our super duper giant blank wall!

1. Find nine matching frames of your liking.

2. Acquire a map of your happy place. (We picked GA because that is where we were married!)

3. Take the measurement of the top of the mat (if your frames are matted like these) or interior of the frame if they are not matted and multiply it by 3... This is the exterior horizontal measurement of your map.

4. Do the same with the vertical measurement.

NOTE: If you are using mats in your frames, add 1/2 inch on all sides for placement securing purposes!

5. If using a mat, mark with pencil on the BACK side of the mat your half inch in two places on all sides

6. Connect those marks with the ruler so you have a faint pencil outline 1/2 inch all the way around the opening.

7. Place your map face down on the back of the mat and center into the pencil lines. Secure with a couple small pieces of tape.

8. Flip it to make sure it is level and in the right place. Follow the entire map edge with the drafting tape.

NOTE: Be sure your hands are squeaky clean when handling mats... mats like to absorb any and all things that you don't want them to!

9. Clean your glass on both sides. (I like to use a microfiber cloth to both clean and handle the glass as the edges are much sharper than they look and hold grudges against all ten of your fingers. (P.S. Although I do love a good Disney Princess Band-Aid, blood is not a cute addition to your map wall.)

10. Girl you better let that glass dry before you put your masterpiece in there!

11. Repeat for all nine frames... don't worry, each one is quicker than the last.

11. We have an engineer in our house, so we went with the DIY stencil method for hanging purposes... My dad, who hangs portraits like every day, recommended it so we obliged...

You take two very large rolls of paper and tape them together on the ground.
Then you figure out how far apart you want each frame, multiply that by two, and add that to the sum of the horizontal exterior of the frames.
You do the same for the vertical side. You should be left with a big grid.
The frames we got from target came equipped with alligator teeth (which were not all created equal) so we heavily coated those suckers with chalk, lined the bottom corners up on the grid and pushed down onto the black paper. (Make sure you number the grid the map pieces, and the frames so you know which one went where and your wall doesn't turn into a jigsaw puzzle.)
Draw a little dot where you want your nail. (Spoiler alert: It has to be the same on alllll the alligator teeth).
Tape that grid on the wall with painters tape and nail your dots!
Voila! A perfectly level and evenly spaced cluster of frames!

12. Hang your frames.

13. Gently cut and pull off your grid paper.

14. And there it is folks... A Joanna Gaines inspired map wall!

Guys, we love it so much that I purposefully walk by it even when I am not going that direction in the house!!!

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