Ode to the Greatest Meal of the Day

We've all heard the saying... "breakfast is the most important meal of the day."  It is also my absolute favorite meal- yum.  A day without a good breakfast is not a good day at all.  (And a good breakfast without coffee is sad... which reminds me I need to turn on the Keurig!)

So, as I am sitting in our new apartment sipping my low calorie orange juice and eating my home made breakfast sandwich I am writing this entry about some amazing looking ideas to spice up breakfast and make it even more exciting.  (Ok, so I definitely ate all my breakfast already... next to an insufficient breakfast the worst thing is a COLD good breakfast... so I'm actually sitting next to my empty plate writing this entry.)

Those of you who know me personally know that I am not the world's greatest cook.  It's not that I cook bad things.... I actually don't cook much at all!  My now husband LOVES to cook and I love eating what he cooks so it usually works out well for me.  :)

Husband's fatal flaw is that he is, in his own words, "not a breakfast guy."  *sigh*  He will go to a diner and order a sandwich for brunch.  (My belief is that if a place serves breakfast food 24/7, you get breakfast food.) :)

Husband's redeeming quality is the fact that although he does not eat eggs/breakfast food... he still will make it for me in limited amounts.  It was through him that I made my first incredible breakfast discovery.... chives in eggs.  YUM.  Have you ever tried it?  Brings your eggs (or egg whites) to a whole new level.

After this discovery I went searching on the internet for other ideas to elevate my breakfast experience... I've found a lot of great ideas from various blogs and my new favorite cookbook, "America's Test Kitchen" (also introduced to me by my hubby).

The first amazing breakfast idea is from a blog called Eat Yourself Skinny.  The girl who writes it has some great recipes and also puts a healthy spin on many of them.  You can find the specific link to the recipe here.  How adorable are these??  (I'm also a sucker for well presented food.)  I especially love this idea because you can expand to other meals of the day... how about a snack of egg or chicken salad in a tomato?  YUMMY.

This next recipe is far from healthy, however, I love the concept of a make ahead breakfast.  One of the suggestions out there for those of us with ridiculously busy schedules is to take a Sunday and cook a bunch of food that can be stored and reheated through the week in order to save cooking time on the week days.  Many people do this for dinner but can you imagine starting your day off with a piece of this incredibly tasty baked french toast casserole recipe from America's Test Kitchen?

(I can... mmmm)  It's also perfect if you are having a large amount of people over for the weekend.  I couldn't find the exact test kitchen recipe online but the picture above and this recipe are from a blog called "CUL-I-NAR-I-CA-TION."  Let me know if you make this recipe sometime.... or perhaps invite me over for a bite. :)

Speaking of To-Go breakfast... I also love looking for variations on the breakfast bar.  Don't get me wrong, I will eat a peanut butter crunch cliff bar and a banana for breakfast if need be, but there is something about taking a little piece of homemade goodness with me to start my day that makes me just a little happier inside.  For this, I go to the blog of one of my sorority sisters, Anne, who is currently finishing up her schooling to become a registered dietician.  Her website, fannetastic food is so much fun to read... even those of you who don't know her can probably get a sense of what a positive and energetic personality she has!  This Almond Butter Banana Bar recipe is one I have been dying to try for quite some time... and hopefully by next weekend things will have officially settled down and I'll have the chance to do just that!

(The best part about Anne's blog is that she loves photography as well... 

so her food pictures are even more tasty looking!)

Well I suppose that wrap things up for me for now... I'd love to know what everyone's favorite breakfast meals are (during the week or weekend!)... thanks for allowing me to share my most treasured meal of the day!!  Have a great rest of your weekend everyone!

Love always,

Michelle

Life As A Mrs.

Sooooo much has happened since my last entry... I am now officially married, have honeymooned, have started a new job, moved into a townhome and I couldn't be happier!

The wedding was incredible, the hubs and I had an amazing time... and the honeymoon was some MUCH needed rest.  Photos to follow on another day... hopefully some of the teasers from my official wedding photographer will come out in the next week. :)  For now, we have a large amount of photos that our guests posted to our shutterfly account (thank you so much!) which I've already looked at 1 million times.

Since it is late, I'll leave with a couple of photos... as I said many more to come.

My father and I before the ceremony...

Our beautiful sunset dinner on the beach.... part of our honeymoon package!

And of course, a pic of the new Mr. & Mrs.

Yay! :)  

Have a great rest of your week everyone!

Love always,

Shell

Sunday Pic

Continuing on with the wedding theme...

Hope everyone had an amazing weekend!!

Wedding Gift Madness!!

Woah it's been a long time!  Well what can you do... hopefully ONE day I will get to this blog thing on a regular basis when I'm not setting up stuff for my actual career! :)

Anyway, per my convo with my dear friend Stephanie this evening (who reminded me it's been awhile since I posted) I have decided to dedicate this post to wedding-related gifts as I have 7 weddings this year including my own and I will most DEFINITELY be crafting some gifts!  By the way Steph, since I know you'll be reading this.... if you ever see something you like let me know... I'll make something for you and Dave for your next anniversary if you want! :)

Ok.... first up is an idea I got from browsing good old etsy ... if a site could sponsor my wedding it would be this one!!  I love finding ideas off of there... I save all my favorites to use for either my or someone else's wedding.  Anyway, I found these adorable wedding gifts that were for a couple who came from a different state.  The state was cut out and there were dotted lines connecting the two states with the couple's names where the lines met.  ADORABLE!  With that find were a couple of similar examples, this time with the state outlined and a heart over where the couple got married.  Wahoo!  How exciting!  I love giving a piece of art that couples can display for forever if they want to... it's nice to give a gift that lasts.

My first attempt was with my friend Meghan's wedding.... I loved the way everything came out!  I used my handy Silhouette to help cut out Meghan and her fiance's names and wedding date so that the paper behind came through.  Pretty nifty.  I'm so happy it came out exactly like I planned. (Excuse the iphone photo quality... I keep forgetting that I can do HDR photos!)

Excited with the success of my first attempt, I then proceeded to make a similar gift for my friend Lisa.  I changed the font and played around with a patterned background just for fun.  Her colors were black and white which made the gift even better.  I love how good the script looks!

I consider myself very lucky that a ton of my friends are getting married in Pennsylvania this year!

Moving on from wedding art.... I have also been very much into ceramic paint.  Last year for our third year residency class's graduation I painted everyone a mug with their little cartoon character at their grown up doctor desk.  It took a little bit of time but I liked how they came out.... and was instantly excited by the possibility of what one could paint on a mug!  Here are their portraits:

(Sorry I tried rotating the picture but it decided not to work.... grrrr.)

So based on this fun and with my leftover mugs I decided that my friends Tamara and Tony were in need of some adorable mugs to celebrate their upcoming nuptials (a mere 5 days before ours!).  I came up with these:

How great would these be as photo props for the day of??  The only down side to the ceramic paint is that you have to put the mugs in the oven if you don't have a kiln (no, believe it or not I don't own one or have access to one) and our oven was a little dirty so some light brown stains got on the mugs.  I told Tamara who decided that they were eventually going to have coffee stains anyway so who cares... but I may be running to Color Me Mine to make things a little more official.  The mugs there are a little nicer quality too... something I always look for when I'm giving stuff as a gift to my friends!  (You never want to me the girl that gives the awful looking gifts.... well at least I don't!)

I have a couple more items to share but I figure I will call it quits for tonight.  Has anyone received anything hand made for a wedding or other special occasion that they absolutely LOVED?  ( or hated for that matter!)  I'd love for people to share!

Until later, take care everyone!

Love always,
Shell

Painting Inspiration

As promised... some of my favorite photos for future artwork! Enjoy!

Awesome view of the Eiffel Tower... I actually used this photo for one of my credit card backgrounds!

Definitely would be time consuming but the colors in this photo are so great.

This photo from Kripalu in New York would make a great painting to a retreat room in the house....

you can almost hear the water lapping up against the dock.

A scene from my Cancun trip... this would actually make a wonderful pastel project.

Sunsets look incredible with the softness of chalk pastels.

Yes, another beautiful scene in Paris... sigh.

(Melissa if you're reading this I'm ready to go back!)

A beautiful view from a hill in Prague... also would look great if done with pastels.

Hope you are inspired!

Love,

Michelle

Take More Photos

Welcome to my first post! I have had this empty blog for awhile... trying to think of the perfect first entry but then I realized if I kept waiting I'd never have anything written.

I entitled this post "Take More Photos" based on my 2012 new year's resolution. I used to take tons of photos-- of friends/family and beautiful scenes but I stopped a couple of years ago. How sad! I have almost no documentation of what I have been doing! What that's Ferris Bueller quote? "Life moves pretty fast... if you don't stop and look around for a minute you might miss it." So true!

I use a lot of my scenic photos for painting inspiration. It has been awhile since I have painted something but I have folder on my computer of photos just waiting to be turned into artwork. My last painting was actually for a close friend of mine from med school. In our last year of school we took a two week trip to various European countries. We had a blast, and of COURSE got some amazing photos.

Here is a pic of Melissa and I.... not actually in Europe but we didn't have a ton of photos together because we were traveling alone for the most part.

Anyway, the pic that I based her painting off of was one from Paris. I went to Paris when I was much younger, like 9th grade or so, and Melissa had never been. We were so excited to go! And naturally I had no trouble finding a photo to paint.

This is a simple Metro sign but with the lighting at night I knew it would make a great black and white photo/painting. I love those black and white photographs were one part of the photo is in color... like a red rose on a piano or a bride's bouquet in a wedding photo. Photoshop creates some endless possibilities. I wanted to see if I could replicate this in Melissa's gift.

Below is the final product:

(Don't mind the paper towel in the background... I will try and get Melissa to send me another pic in the frame.) I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out... turning a color pic into a black and white painting wasn't the easiest!

Another painting that I did using a couple photos (this time not mine) was one of Citzen's Bank Park for my fiance's birthday a couple of years ago. He loved the gift but has been bugging me ever since for a Wachovia Bank Stadium painting! :) Here is CBP.... right before warmup since there are clearly no players on the field. My favorite part is the Philadelphia skyline.

There is a little bit of a glare but hopefully you get the idea!

I have some more photos that are in my "inspiration" folder... I think I'll share them in a separate post because this one is getting a bit long! Hope you enjoyed them and this post! :)

Love,

Michelle