Father's Day Gifts

Each year my brother and I struggle with what to get our dad...we search the typical lists online of ties, tools, and golf gear, but our dad is just not that type of man. Thus, I have created a list of gifts for those dads that don't fit the "typical" mold...

Gift 1: Espresso Cup Warmer

Our dad wakes up each morning...BOILS (yes in a pan) his espresso cup and then presses the little button on his machine for his nice HOT shot of espresso coffee. Hence the coffee cup warmer:

http://refer.ly/r/aa8K 

Gift 2: Grill Grid

Summer has arrived and our dad just loves to grill...why not give him some fancy accessories for his cooking enjoyment?

http://refer.ly/aa8R

Gift 3: Digital Camera

As the years go by our dad gets more and more nostalgic...he adores pictures of his kids (which last year we gave him large canvas prints from our weddings) and family. A new camera might just be the perfect choice!

http://refer.ly/aa8u

Gift 4: Canvas Collage

We were at a family friend's and they had two photo collages of each side of their family his and hers...the collage included grandparents' wedding pictures, siblings, aunts & uncles, etc. It was truly inspiring...Any collage of images new or old I'm sure will be adored.

http://www.imagecanvas.com/gallery-collage.html

Gift 5: Travel Bag

Our parents don't typically spoil themselves with a vacation, BUT I have moved farther away and so their travel will become more and more with visits to the east coast. Thus...a nice travel bag would be perfect!

http://refer.ly/aa8t



Cookie Dough Dip

Sooo...Pinterest has inspired me with all their variations of dips for both appetizers and desserts. I have tried many of the recipes, but there's one that just did NOT turn out the way I expected...the Cookie Dough Dip.

Thus I took the challenge of trying to change the recipe so it wasn't SO very sweet and so it was a little bit more creamy and less stiff....here is the perfect combination of ingredients for the Cookie Dough Dip.

Cookie Dough Dip Recipe:

8 oz Cream Cheese at room temperature
2 tbsp Butter at room temperature
1 cup Powdered Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla
1 tbsp Milk
1 cup Mini Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup Heath Toffee Bits

Directions:

Place the room temperature cream cheese and butter in a mixer and mix until well blended together. Add the Powdered Sugar, Vanilla, and Milk and continue to mix until powdered sugar has been incorporated into the cream cheese-butter mixture. Finally, add the chocolate chips and heath and mix slowly to incorporate the chips into the dip's base.

Refrigerate or serve immediately with graham crackers, graham sticks, or apples.

Fresh Vegetable Medley

As summer approaches more and more fresh vegetables are arriving in grocery stores and farmers markets. J and I absolutely love spending our Saturday mornings going to local farmers markets and picking some of the freshest vegetables at an incredibly inexpensive cost...thus we created our own fresh vegetable medley!

Fresh Vegetable Medley Recipe:

• 2 fresh zuchini cut into bite-size chunks
• 1/2 a red pepper diced
• 1/2 a green pepper diced
• 4 mushrooms (we chose Montery mushrooms but any type would work great) quartered
• 1/4 of a white onion diced
• 3 cloves garlic crushed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (we always use Extra Virgin Olive Oil, best flavor)

Spices:

• 1 tbsp Garlic Salt
• 3 tsp Black Pepper
• 2 tbsp Italian Seasoning
• 2 tsp Basil
• 1 tbsp Garlic Garlic Seasoning (or if not available Garlic Powder works great!)

The recipe is as simple as taking all of the ingredients listed above placing in a baking dish and allowing to cook in the oven at 375 for approximately 25-30 minutes (of course cook time will depend on your oven--we have electric appliances).

We served our fresh vegetable medley along side of Chicken Spedini (chicken stuffed with prosciutto, spinach, and cheese) and a whole grain rice medley. It was DELICIOUS!

Oh and if you'd like, we grated just a small amount of cheese on our vegetables just to try something different...BUT I honestly enjoyed the vegetables sans cheese!

Not Your Typical Hamper

As I said in an older post...I was recently married in July but fortunately my hubby and I have been living together for over a year and the transition from engaged to married was no big thing...BUT when we first moved-in together J quickly realized how OCD I am about not having clothes on the floor. I don't care if they're clean, dirty, maybe a little of both...having clothes on the floor DRIVES ME CRAZY!

Thus...we bought an "I plan on wearing that again" hamper to put out in our bedroom. Of course we have our dirty laundry hamper in the closet and hidden from view, but this hamper is out in our bedroom. Easily accessible... For this reason, we needed to find something that matched our bedroom decor and looked classy and unlike a typical hamper.

Bed Bath and Beyond provided us the perfect solution, a black leather hamper at an affordable cost and an added bonus the lining in the hamper is removable and washable!

This is Bed Bath and Beyond's new leather hamper they are currently selling for $80.

So now any time J wears a shirt for a quick trip to the store or shorts he was lounging in but doesn't consider needing washed he simply removes, opens lid, drops clothing and WAH-LA it is off the floor and hidden from view...PERFECT and SIMPLE solution for this unchangeable habit. ;)

Oh and we absolutely adore Bed Bath and Beyond for not only their convenient location to our home but also because we have an endless stack of 20% off coupons from their weekly ads. They take 'em even if expired, it's amazing!

Saving money and finding a fabulous solution for those pesty clothes = SUCCESS!

Search and Implement ~ Storage Cabinet

Now on to step 2 and 3 which requires much patience, research, and flexibility. The hunt for affordable modern designs is much more difficult than I originally thought.

We hunted for a storage cabinet at basically every furniture store in the city from Value City Furniture, Rothman, Ashley, etc. We visited each and every one looking for SOMETHING that would fit our space and style. Nothing worked that we actually thought about custom designing a piece and having it built...but let's be honest how affordable or reasonable is that? Thus we did the next best thing...we went to IKEA...

We were able to take different pieces of their BESTA line and create an original storage cabinet that was EXACTLY what we were looking for...cabinets to hide dishes, open shelves to display some of our prettier pieces, and the flexibility to seperate the pieces and reuse them in a different way once we move out of our loft apartment and into our home...it was a dream come true. Unfortunately, when we went to the warehouse to gather the pieces we had selected some of the doors were out of stock and it is a two hour trip to get to the store...thus it was either find other pieces that worked or just leave it for the time being until we found another reasonable solution...we were successful in finding grey-gloss doors which we liked just as much as the other doors we'd selected and we found plain glass doors for our center display cabinets which also turned out to look beautiful despite our hesitancy.

The beauty with the BESTA line is most of their pieces are interchangeable so if we get other furniture we can always change out the doors or shelving and swap it with the parts we'd originally selected!

As always celebrate your successes (big or small)...searching and implementing with our storage cabinet...success!