Pinterest (Rules of Engagement) Poster

Hey everyone, thought that I’d make a little post about one of my favorite topics “Pinterest” if you can’t tell already! I am always over there pinning to my hearts content and felt compelled to get my Photoshop Elements out and make a Pinterest (Rules of Engagement) Poster. You’ll see it below. First of all, I wanted to add that I have been pinning for over a year I believe it’s’ been. In that time I’ve gotten to know the ins and outs of Pinterest. Second, unfortunately there are some pet peeves I have, but also alot of positive things I enjoy about Pinterest. Rather than tell you about it I’ll show you, then (of course) I’ll “Pin It” then you can too. Please leave a comment, follow me on twitter and I’m now on Google +, click on the sidebar and join me over there!

Thanks for visiting,

~Christina

Quote of the Day:

Everybody is creative, and everybody is talented. I just don’t think everybody is disciplined.

— Al Hirschfeld

Cheesy Chicken Dip with Mini Croissants

A couple of weekends ago I thought Hmm, what should I make for everyone as a grazing snack, one we can pick at all day. So I looked at what I had in the fridge and whipped this up. I call it Cheesy Chicken Dip with Mini Croissants. It was so yummy, you have to try it!!

Here are the ingredients with measurements:

• Garlic Salt 1 tsp.
• Onion Powder 1 tsp.
• Ground Black Pepper 1 tsp.
• Sea Salt 1 tsp.
• Margarine 1 tbsp.
• Parmesan Cheese 1/4 cup

• Croissant Rolls X2 (any size doesn’t matter)
  
• 2 slices American Cheese (for creaminess)
• Fiesta Blend Cheese 8 oz. (whole pack)
  
  • Grilled Chicken Breast Strips (cut up into bite sized pieces)
• Milk 1/4 cup
• Whipped Cream Cheese 3 tbsp.
• Sour Cream 2 tbsp.
  

   Directions for Mini Croissants:

• Preheat Oven to prepackaged directions
• After rolling out dough cut Croissants into mini triangles about an inch in diameter with pizza cutter, so easy that way!!
• Spread out onto cookie sheet and put into preheated oven. Bake for ONLY a couple of minutes they bake very fast. Mine took about 3-4 minutes so watch the stove the whole time or they will burn. Shown below is what they look like when they come out, puffed and crispy on the bottom. You don’t even have to use a spatula, you just tap the cookie sheet against the top of stove and they pop off.
  

     Now for the Cheese Dip Directions:

• Start adding butter, milk, whipped cream cheese and sour cream, stir with whisk until no lumps left, then dump Fiesta Cheese bag, American Cheese, and Parmesan cheese into pot and bring up to medium high heat, stir until all incorporated.

• Next add chicken chunks, stir again.
• Lastly add in the salt, pepper, garlic salt, and onion powder
• Cook until all the way melted and hot
• This is how it looks after it’s all cooked

   Ok this is so yummy, can I tell you.

 

The finished product, I left it in the mini crock pot I use for dips and man it was amazing. High in calories but the diet starts tomorrow, lol. Well I hope that you try this recipe. It’s so great for a Football party, cold day, Holiday, or just because! Have fun and hey, let me know if you tried it, would love to know what you think, so comment below!! PS: One tip I’d like to add is make more croissant rolls because they go so quickly so I would double the amount to 4 roll tubes.

Enjoy! ~Christina

Quote of the Day:
If we find a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mini Makeup Looks~Drama, The Movies, & Katy Perry Inspired

Since I am a Cosmetologist (a frugal one) I always have my eye on the lookout for new Hair and Makeup Products at great prices. Typically I bargain shop at Rite-Aid, CVS, and Walmart and their prices seem to be comparable to each other. With that being said, I will be doing more Mini Makeup Looks for my posts and including the prices of the products I buy AND start showcasing them here on Creative Tizzy.

 Now onto the fun stuff, here are the looks I have put together, they are budget friendly, fun, and are ideas in addition to your everyday makeup routine. I’ve included a couple of pics with closeups of some of the pretties.

Drama Pink

Movie Date Night Candy Coated/ Katy Perry Inspired

I had alot of fun with this post, can’t wait to do more,

Enjoy ~Christina

A Mini Makeup Shopping Trip

There’s nothing better than a little retail therapy. That’s exactly what I needed this past week. I love finding cute makeup at frugal prices. Here are a couple of product looks I put together for fall.

The Browns

The Greens/ Neutrals

The Purples

This was alot of fun to put together. The Cosmetologist Girly Girl in me is always on the lookout for fun looks. What do you look for in makeup at the store? Do you go for budget and cute. Do you have a hard time putting looks together? Leave a comment…Christina

Have Fun, Stress Less When Vacationing with the Kids ~Post 3, 9 Final Tips

If you would like to follow along, there are two posts to this series. Have Fun Stress Less when vacationing with the kids Post 1, and Have Fun Stress Less when vacationing with the kids Post 2.

 Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Pier August 2012 Vacation

1. When at your hotel keep clothes in suitcases. Why?? because it lessens what you have to do when you go to leave.
2. Use various Apps to get to know your area. Urban Spoon, Foodspotting, Yelp all are great for getting to know restaurants and what is good where you’ll be vacationing. Shopkick for deals, Raining Hot coupons and your local pharmacies for Apps to getting great deals when far from home.
3. Use coupons or online discount codes/ such as retailmenot.com and ebates.com for hotel/driving/shopping etc.
4. Grab a postcard for the family back home and send your greetings to them. Or do as we do, bring back some Salt Water Taffy. When we go to the shore we usually get Dolles on the boardwalk.
5. Collect Souvenirs of the trip. Examples could be ticket stubs, wrist bands, photos, seashells, sharks teeth, sand, postcards.
6. Make a project from those Souvenirs. Get a recycled jar and fill it with the items you collected and you’ll have a great memory to commemorate your spectacular fun filled vacation.
7. Before you book hotel find out what is available at the hotel for kids to do, Lazy River, Pool, Hot Tub, Games etc.
8. When you are finally vacationing, buy things as needed when your there. In case you forgot some things, don’t fret. It’s not like your going to a remote Island or anything, or are you?? Well then tweet those pics…
9. Before you leave the house make sure you clean it. Make all beds, take care of trash, run the dishwasher for the last time and empty fridge of things that will go bad. Use Glade Plugins to make your rooms stay fresh. When we came back home. I walked in my home and everything was done. Smelled fresh and not stale or dank. It was nice to know that I just needed to do the laundry and put the rest of the stuff away. But because I was so efficient from the start that took me an hour to do. Life’s Good!!

All in all realize that with a little preparation ahead of time, you can save yourself mounds of time and trouble from getting overwhelmed, to actually having fun and enjoying your vacation. Now school is back in full swing, so it’s “Back to Life, Back to Reality”, the song is playing in my head right now. Back to a brand new schedule for the year. Leave a some Comment Love, Yeah!! ~Christina

After the Birth, Baby Gifts~ Memory Keepsake Photo

You go into the hospital for labor and delivery and you come out with the most precious of gifts a baby girl, then she starts to grow up. That little baby is now 9 years old and time surely does fly. I want to thank myself for taking the time out to take photos of what she received when she was born. Now, she and I have a memory, of the sweet things people got for her then. Soon after we came home, since everything is in bags, boxes and such, I cleared off the kitchen table and sat everything on it. Then a couple of days later, when I had the time between feedings and diaper changes, I arranged them into a display and took several photos up close. Here is one of the photos I took. Including flowers, clothes, cards, stuffed animals, baby blankets etc. I think this is a great idea to remember those baby days for Mother and Child. Start planning now for when you go to deliver (if your expecting) and you’ll be so pleased to look back on such a wonderful time. I know I am. ~Christina

Pinterest Pins~How to See All of your Pins or Boards at One Time

How Neat is this. I use this Zoom thing all of the time and I think that its my best kept secret, except for “Pinterest” itself. Since I use Photoshop Elements 9 all of the time, I am constantly using the Ctrl key plus + or – keys to Zoom in or out, makes life so much easier. So I decided, for all of you Pinners out there who would love to skip the scroll to top button, that I’d make a little Tutorial on: How to see all of your Pins or Boards at one time. So let’s get started:

 

I know that if you have too many pins that they will be microscopic, but if your like me with just over a thousand pins you’ll still be able to tell what your pins look like. Well there you have it. Remember you can use Ctrl plus + or _ on your window even if you are on another website like google, go ahead and try it out. Have fun and make sure that you link up to my Creative Tizzy Pinterest Boards Page as I would love to follow you and have you follow back. XOXO Christina

Bottomfeeder Snack Mix…Easy How To

Your probably wondering what Bottomfeeder Snack Mix is. Well it’s a term I’m using to describe the combined bottom of the bag snacks, I currently have in my pantry. I really get tired of the many wandering leftover snacks, so I decided to do something about it. Here is the before….

Here is the After, it was an Ahhh Moment. I dumped every snack that was dwindled down to the bottom into a Gallon sized baggie. Now it not only looks fresh, but its something my kids like. So now instead of throwing out the bottom of the bag scraps, they now have purpose, to be EATEN. Hope I’ve inspired you to clean out your pantry and repurpose your wandering leftovers. ~Christina

Day 30 CHALLENGE My final day for my month long posting Challenge is over! I DID IT!!! Here's what I learned...

To begin with I wanted to just thank all of you for following along as I went through my daily post challenges. The challenge was to just post everyday for 1 month and see what happens. I didn't plan this, I just posted it one day and that was it, I had to do it. I kept myself accountable everyday. I did take off for vacation though, and because of that I started right back up as if I never stopped. I only missed one day due to the chaos of my household.

 Here are the things that I learned along the way.   I honestly didn't know where this would take me, but since I started this is what happened.

1. Sometimes the road veers off a little bit, but you get it straightened out eventually.
2. When you set a goal, you keep at it till you get there.
3. When you put your mind to it, you can accomplish the things you want and Great things come from that.
4. I went from only 5 followers (thanks so much for hanging in there, by the way) to 43 followers. That is what really impressed me.
5. Being diligent pays off, because I have my readers that come and visit me everyday, you know who you are. ; )
6. I can't back down from a CHALLENGE no matter what.
7. I surprised myself with what I could accomplish and when I look back over the month, I have a ton of posts that I can lookover for inspiration later on.
8. I learned to find my Blog Voice, am still tweeking it, but I am loosening up a bit with my writing, letting the personality out more and more.
9. I have a Facebook Fan Page and I am on Twitter. This is just for my blog too. You can click to the right and there is a like box. My Twitter name is @creativetizzy
10. People who visit me seem to love my recipes and my tips.
11. I took my blog design to a whole new level with pics I had from posting, to make my banner. I love it.
12. I am learning how to manage my time, when it comes to preparing and scheduling my posts.
13. The ideas, I just let them come. Somedays I was prepared far in advance. Some came to me just hours before. I let the creative process happen organically, if you will. Although I put pressure on myself to post I laid off the pressure to be creative and let it just flow out. And it did, each and every time.
14. What I love the most is that so many people from all over the world have visited me and I am blown away by how far they are.
15. I have learned all kinds of skills to get my blog out there. Blog marketing, posting on anothers blog, my signature, by following others blogs & blogfrog.com my favorite, and tweeting and facebooking.
16. I have become a better cook.
17. I have become a better photographer.
18. I have become a better version of myself, because of this self expression.
19. I treated this almost like a part time job, but something I got to do, not something I had to do. Attitude is everything.

In conclusion, I am loving this. It keeps me sane and my mind alert and in constant thought about what I am going to do next. Since I am always coming up with ideas anyways this is the best outlet for that. I hope that if you followed along and you also did the posting challenges that you 1. Had fun, and 2. Accomplished some of your own goals 3. And learned somethings about me and you along the way. Till the next post, I bid you happy blogging. ~Christina

Day 4 CHALLENGE Your Own Dream Journal

Being a severely creative person, I have many ideas/goals/dreams/aspirations floating around in my head, which can become mental clutter. But when I write them down I feel as if a weight is off my mind. So I need not only a creative outlet, but a place to put the many blurbs I think of. If I could I would put them all into a blog, but some things are just for me. I tend to have such random ideas and they may come in the form of a dream I've had or an inspiration from looking at something or someone and on and on. I am a mom first and foremost and sometimes that leaves me little time for me to just space out and gather my thoughts so my dream journal helps me. Usually late at night, right before bed I'll jot down whatever is going on in my mind. I bought my journal at Walmart for around $10 they have pretty ones also at Borders and at Barnes and Noble (two of my favorite stores, I love books).

I wanted to write down positive thoughts about myself, what I like, Positive Affirmations, believing in myself, what I want to do with my life and what the core of me really is. Sort of an exploration to figure out "me". I have found that through the process of dream journaling what defines me is "creativity", and everyday I practice it, whether in thought or in daily things I do around my home, with my family and around my community. Forget about the box, I am an out of the window thinker. And whoever said that quote Jack of all trades master of none was not creative in the least. I believe if you want to do many different things than there is a way, no limits. My blog is an extention of that. I want to encourage all of you, to spend some money on a journal, spend some quiet time in thought, and spend some writing time figuring out what defines you. It may just be that you will learn a few things about yourself in the process and get excited about what lies ahead in something fun that is just yours. Write down anything that
comes to mind, hey even doodle on the pages or draw pictures of your ideas, quotes are also fun
and so on. It can be so freeing to read what you've written. i dare ya!! Have Fun.