Sugar & Spice and everything nice

I've gotten several comments from friends and family about the candied pecans I made as gifts for Christmas, so I thought I would share. (That is I will share the recipe...you have to seriously suck up to me to get these hand delivered.) I bet I made at least 10 batches of these and never got tired of them over the holidays (a great thing for my taste buds...not so good for my hips!)

Courtesy of Smitten Kitchen...

1/3 cup dark-brown sugar
2/3 cup white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt (I might up this by a 1/2 tsp. next time for more of a sweet/salty balance)
Generous pinch of cayenne pepper (I swapped this with 1/4 teaspoon of hot smoked paprika)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pound walnut or pecan halves or whole peeled hazelnuts
1 egg white, room temperature
1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix sugars, salt, cayenne, and cinnamon, making sure there are no lumps; set aside. Beat egg white and water until frothy but not stiff. Add walnuts, and stir to coat evenly. Sprinkle nuts with sugar mixture, and toss until evenly coated. Spread sugared nuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet fitted with parchment paper. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from oven, and separate nuts as they cool. When completely cool, pour the nuts into a bowl, breaking up any that stick together.

Please forgive the out-of-focus picture. This is before I got a new camera for Christmas and I was still using my husbands camera that he got years and years and years ago.

May I also suggest that these would make GREAT Valentine's Day treats. :) Here are a few ideas for packaging these up in a lovey-dovey and absolutely adorable way:

via

Valentine's Goodie Bag 

via

DIY a Love Chart Pouch

via

Mini Valentine Gift Bags

Enjoy!!

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Remember when...

Hey hubby...Remember when we left for our honeymoon and before we arrived in FL our tire blew out and we spun around 4 times across 4 lanes of heavy traffic on the interstate and landed facing the right way on the shoulder? Or the time we packed all we had and moved to Wake Forest, NC with no jobs and only about $1,500 to our names? Or the time we went to Asheville and ate at the Early Girl Eatery downtown? Or the time we went on that cruise and won $140 in the casino? I do...and I hope that I never forget the travels that we have had together.

My travel maps are a total knockoff inspiration thanks to Young House Love. (I love those crazy kids!) All it takes are a few frames, printed maps, map pins, and a good memory to recall where you have been. I got my frames at Hobby Lobby- 50% of course. (If you buy anything at Hobby Lobby that's not 50% off you paid too much.) They are actually display frames so they already had a linen backing that I pinned my printed maps to. Easy peezy lemon sqweezy!

The top map is for our world travels (we stick pins in each country or region we visit) and the bottom one is of the US (we stick pins in destination places- not places we have traveled through, sorry- rest stops don't count!). I want us to visit every state and my goal is to try to visit a new state each year. Noel and I both love to travel and have both been all over the US and several places around the world but we decided to only indicate where we have been together. So hopefully in 50 years our maps will be full of pins!

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Ewww...Diaper Cake

Good morning! Thought I would update you on my latest little craft project. The first time I mentioned that I would be making a diaper cake to my husband his reaction was one of total disgust. I wish I had a camera to catch his face, "Why would anyone want to eat anything out of a diaper?! That's gross!" Tee hee. Love him.

I've made several diaper cakes in the past but here are pics of the two most recent ones:

This one was for a co-worker in North Carolina.

And this one posted below was for my best friend from high school- Janine. She looks gorgeous! Noel and I wish her, Josh and baby Keagan many blessings in the coming years...lots of changes but exhausting, smelly, wonderful and exciting ones!

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