Le stylo en rose (Rose pen, for people who don’t speak bad French)

Au revoir ma biches. Je m’appelle Sara et I’m going to show you how to make duct tape rose pens.

And trust me, they are a lot classier than they sound.

One of my dad’s roommate is a craft goddess so she taught me how to make these awesome little things and I thought I’d share it with y’all.

 

What you will need:

• Duct tape, any color (Target and Home Depot have some cool ones)
• Green duct tape (If you want to make leaves and wrap the pen to look like a stem)
• Cutting board
• Exacto Knife (Scissors will work)
• A  pen with a cap (Push-up pens won’t work)

Step 1: Cut a hole in the box. (Kudos if you got that reference)

But seriously.

Step 1: Roll out some duct tape, preferably on a cutting board if you’re using an exacto knife like me. I’m using candy cane tape

Step 2: Using an exacto knife, or scissors, cut out perfect squares of duct tape. If you mark your cutting board like this on, makes life sooo easy.

Step 3: Fold the square as such. It’s ok if one of the sticky sides is bigger than the other at first, because then you’re going to fold it again. When folding for the second time, try to fold it so the biggest sticky side is sticking out. Your finished petal should look like the third picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 4: Make a shit ton of petals. You can stick them like this on a cutting board so when you start your rose, they are easy to get.

Step 5: Wrap your pen! For this rose I’m doing a spiral design, but if you look at my other ones, you can do each petal across from eachother and it’ll look cool. Or mix it up! You want to wrap the tape about halfway up the pen cap, and wrap it tightly! Oh and wrap the top of the pen if you don’t want it to show in the middle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 6: Leaf time! Now cut the green duct tape into a square and fold it just like the petal. Instead of just sticking it on, pinch it a little bit so it actually looks like a leaf. then wrap around it with a small strip of tape. I think 2 look cool. And if you decide to wrap the actual pen, it looks like a stem. Well… a very ghetto stem but you get the point.

All done!

Peace out girl scout.

-Sara

WE’VE GOT AN INSTAGRAM!

Follow us! The name is apartmentprojects

You’ll see more of our lives in our apartment starting mid-June! (15th perhaps?)

Cheers, dolls! -Britt

What To Do With Holiday Chocolate

(If you can manage having any leftovers!)

Yesterday I went over to my friend’s house and her little sisters STILL had some of their Easter candy! (And it’s June.) So, we decided to do something with aaallll that extra chocolate. Here are some simple, easy, and cheap ideas for what to do with all that extra holiday chocolate that will guarantee you’ll eat it. (This could be good or bad.):

NOTE: To melt our room temperature chocolate bunnies we put them in the microwave for 30 second intervals, mixing in between.

 

 

Frozen Bunnies and Bananas:

We cut our bananas (yes, I had to sing Hollaback Girl to spell it) in half, inserted popsicle sticks, let them freeze for a few hours, then covered them in the chocolate and put them in the fridge to let the chocolate harden. These were great on the 93° day!

Chocolate Shapes:

We melted the chocolate and simply put them in silicone ice cube molds and back in the fridge to harden. Here we chose the fish ones, perfect for summer! The kids loved these ones!

Treat Topping:

Remember those peanut butter cups I posted? (Scroll down to remember.) Well we made another version of those at my friend’s house and spooned the chocolate bunnies on top of them!

I hope I’ve given you some ideas!

Cheers, dolls! -Britt

Sara’s Recent Craft-Like Endeavors

Do you wanna be where the people are?

Do you wanna see, wanna see them dancing?

Well I DO.

Hence this painting.

Super easy. Just found an old framed painting in the garage, painted dat shit, and added my Ariel You could even print out a picture if you’re not an artistic genius like moi. You can find me on Facebook, MoMA.

Now for my other little re-cycle project. I bought this baby coat hanger (Babies have coats?) at Goodwill for $6 and bought the replacement knobs for like $2. I added some paint, flowers, and a few rhinestones and BAM! Super cute Key holder for our future pied-a-terre. I painted our first initial on each knob

 I saw this saying on some random picture on a funny picture website. Needless to say, I fell in love and made the executive decision that it had to be prettily painted onto a wood sign for my future home. I just bought a wood sign of a penguin for $1 at Goodwill, re-painted it, and attached the wire.

This next one took far less effort. I found this picture on google and HAD TO HAVE IT FOR THE KITCHEN. So I bought a $1 frame at Goodwill and printed it out on nice paper.

YOLO.

-Sara

Chocolate Coconut Cu’cakes

‘Sup y’all, It’s Sara. And today, I’m serving up coconut cu’cake realness.

That’s right, cu’cake. Not “cupcake”. What’s the difference, you ask? Click here. So if you want a “cupcake” recipe then… I don’t know, google it.   ANYWAYS, Here’s what you’ll need, little things I like to call “ingredients”.

For cu’cakes:

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 7 tablespoons room temperature unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup white granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 cup coconut milk (Don’t try to milk a coconut, they sell this shit in cans)
• 1 teaspoon (imitation)coconut extract

For frosting:

• 1/2 cup softened unsalted butter (1 stick, for people who almost googled how many cups are in a stick of butter)
• 2 cups confectioners sugar (powdered, for people who almost used regular sugar)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons (imitation)coconut extract
• Few drops of almond extract
• 3 tablespoons coconut milk

For cu’cake dip:

• 1 dark chocolate bar
• 1 tablespoon coconut milk
• 1/2 cup of shredded coconut

Alright, now that you’ve got all your shit together, let’s bake some cu’cakes.

First, heat oven to 350° F. Then, IN A BOWL THAT IS NOT YOUR MIXER BOWL IF YOU ARE USING ONE, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Sorry for shouting, but I’ve made the mistake of putting the dry ingredients in the wrong bowl too many times. So you’re welcome.

Now in your mixer bowl, or just another bowl, add the sugar and butter. Your butter should be smiling like this. You can’t start out cu’cakes with unhappy butter.

Tired of looking at it’s smug little face? Me too. Now beat the shit out of it.

Then add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Finally, add the rest by alternating the flour mixture and coconut milk. Then add the extract and presto! Cu’cake batter!

Fill 12 cu’cake paper thingies evenly.

Then bake the little suckers for 20 minutes.

Now unless you need to take a quick Ru Paul or Kardashians break, I suggest starting the frosting and dip while the cu’cakes are in the oven.

When they’re done, remove them and turn your oven down to 300° F for the shredded coconut. Spread the coconut around on a baking sheet and pop it in for 10 minutes.

Alright, frosting time. First beat the butter until it’s creamy. Then add in 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time. Or, you can yolo and add in all 3 at once like me.

You can see how that turned out.

Then add the coconut milk, extract, and salt. Beat for about 3 minutes.

To get this consistency, feel free to add more sugar and/or coconut milk.

Don’t forget the shredded coconut!

Should look something like this. Now for the chocolate sauce. You can use a fancy pants double boiler to melt your chocolate, or you can be lazy like me and microwave it in 30 second increments with the coconut milk until it’s all melty and delicious.

After your cu’cakes cool, the fun begins.

Dip the cu’cakes in the chocolate, then the coconut, and when they cool again add A MOUNTAIN OF FROSTING. You can also add a little shredded coconut garnish.

Feel free to make a ghetto frosting bag.

And since I had a shit ton of extra frosting….

P.S. If you’re a fat ass like me, don’t hesitate dipping a spoon in the remaining chocolate and coconut. YUM.

YOLO.

-Sara

Chocolate Peanut Butter Loaded Cups

This recipe is no bake and doesn’t take very long. The best part is that they are similar to Reese’s but there’s more peanut butter than chocolate, that’s why they’re called loaded!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup packedbrown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups peanut butter
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Curtsy of 
http://allrecipes.com/
 for the inspiration.

Directions

1. Melt butter or margarine over low heat. Add sugars, peanut butter and vanilla. Mix well.

2. Press into a 9 x 13 inch pan or into a muffin tin. I used the muffin tin with aluminum foil lining so I wouldn’t have to cut them and the foil comes off easily.

3. Melt chocolate chips and spread over the top. Cool.

FINISHED PRODUCT!

Great for summer when you don’t want to use the oven!

Enjoy!

Cheers, dolls! -Britt

The girls…

Living together as college students in a small apartment in SF with very little income can be seen as a challenge. What Jamie, Malea, Sara, and I (Brittney) have decided is to make the majority of our home decorations and food. With this, I decided to make a blog where we can share it all.  Here we will post everything we make, which you’ll also find on 
http://pinterest.com/
.

Here is a little bit about us in my point of view:

Jamie

 

Jamie is one of the funniest, most genuine people I know. She doesn’t pretend to be something she’s not and she loves Cinderella and True Blood. She also has a thing for hot vampires. She grew up in Hollister, Ca and decided to go to SF State with her best friend, Sara, straight out of high school. Jamie values family and is very close to her mom and younger sister. She has a love for theatre and loves the world of musicals.

 

 

 

Malea

 

Malea is unique in every way you can think. Some would categorize her as a “hipster”, but she would argue otherwise. As my first friend at SF State, Malea came from a very different world than me. She grew up in the LA area (specifically Altadena, Ca). She looooves cats even though she is allergic to them and adores her wennie dog, Frieda. She loves no doubt and sings as loud as she can and dances around whenever she gets the chance.

 

 

Sara

 

Sara is also a very funny person. You can watch some of her videos here >> 
http://www.youtube.com/user/misssarafire?feature=results_main
 My favorite is Sorority Girl Michelle Vlog Parody. Anyway, she also loves Disney and is from Hollister, Ca. Hot vampires are also included in her interests as well as The Hunger Games trilogy, of course. She loves to paint, make clay projects, and re-create anything off Pinterest.

 

 

Brittney

Brittney, well that’s me. I’m from a very small town, Gridley, Ca. I wakeboard, camp, and swim when I can. I love to do anything where I can wear flip flops. I love the city! I want to learn to bake better so I can be just like Petta Mellark because I am obsessed with The Hunger Games.

So, that’s just a little background, now please enjoy our site

Oh and P.S., you can find Sara, Jamie, and me on 
https://www.urbansitter.com/
 if you ever need a baby sitter!

Cheers, dolls! -Britt