Chocolate & Peanut Butter Chip Pretzel Cookies

It is Summertime and I officially don't have to get up early, drive to work and come home so tired I don't even want to make dinner, YAY! What does that mean? It means, it's time to do all the things that I have no time or energy for during the school year like crafting and baking! I had made my neighbors some cookies as a "Welcome to the neighborhood" treat, and when I told them I'm going to be baking a lot this summer they seemed very happy about that. Ha.

My first recipe of the summer is a sweet treat. 

 Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chip Pretzel Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. of salt
• 1/4 tsp. of baking soda
• 1/2 cup of butter at room temperature
• 1/2 cup of tightly packed light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup of granulated sugar
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup peanut butter chips
• 1/2 cup broken up pretzel pieces
• Pretzel Salt or Sea Salt or Kosher salt 

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, stir the  flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
   
2. In the bowl of your stand mixer (or if you don't have one in a large bowl and a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes). 
   
   
   
3. Beat your egg
4. On low speed, slowly add the beaten egg and vanilla extract and combine.                                *Tip: make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl.            
   
                                                        
5. Add the flour mixture and beat just until there are no more streaks of flour.      
6. Add the chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and pretzels.      
   
7. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.
8. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
9.  Scoop out  tablespoonfuls of the dough and sprinkle with pretzel salt.                                        *Tip: These cookies don't spread out that much so shape them how you'd like them to look when they come out of the oven. 
   
10.  Leave about 2 inches between each ball and bake for 10 minutes.                                                   Like crunchier cookies, leave them in for a minute or two longer. 
11.  If you prefer crispier cookies increase the baking time by 1-2 minutes.
    

This makes about 2 dozen cookies. 

Enjoy

                     

I am not sure where this recipe came from as I just have it in a binder from a word document that was typed out. I know there are quite a few recipes out there like this one though. 

Baby Shower Gift- Owl

We just had a baby shower at work for a co-worker who is having a boy. I made a sweet little stuffed owl and she sent me a photo of where she put it in the baby's room so I thought I'd share it.


The owl is yellow and white chevron with a huge white with black polka-dots heart on it's tummy and a small one on it's lower back.

The owl was really easy to make and took around 15 minutes or so.

Cheap, Easy and OH SO CUTE, gift for a Teacher/co-worker

Well I have one more day of school and then I am on Summer Vacation! WAHOO! I have several co-workers that I work with closely and I wanted to give them a little something, a token of my appreciation, if you will. I found these cute FREE printables of lemon slices that say "Start your summer with a squeeze" from Poofy Cheeks and they inspired me to come up with the gift you are about to see.

What you are going to need:

Glasses: Dollar Store
Lemons: Big bag for a few bucks at my local grocery store
Paper Straws: Had them on hand but you can get them for a few dollars for a pack of 20.
Yellow Flowers: Dollar Store 3 for $1.
Yellow Napkins: $1.50 from my local grocery store.


All you do is arrange 2-3 lemons in your glass
Adjust your straw in the glass where you want it
Twist the flowers (with the wire on the back) to the straw
Print, cut out and write on the back of the cute lemon card from Poofy Cheeks
Slide the print out into your glass however you see fit and BAM, you are done.

It's cute, thoughtful and very inexpensive to create!


With the napkin at the bottom to fill the space


Without the napkin at the bottom


A cluster of cuteness.


close up!

I'm going to sneak them into my co-workers boxes in the teacher's workroom tomorrow morning. I hope they like them.


Thank you so much to Poofy Cheeks for so generously providing the FREE printable and inspiring my creation! I just know these are going to be a big hit!

Thank You Gifts

Cheap and easy thank you gifts for my Team at work are in the works.

Here's a sneak peak!

More to come soon.

DIY Desk Pad

Well Pinterest has come through yet again. I found a great little cheap project, decorating a desk pad, to give my desk a little extra cuteness.

It's super simple and easy to make! Here's what you need:

Spray Adhesive
IKEA or any other clear Desk Pad (it's about $6)
Any wrapping paper you'd like to do.


What ya do:

1. Precut an over sized piece of wrapping paper (so it will hang over the desk pad.
2. Spray the adhesive on side of the clear desk pad that will rest on your desk.
3. Carefully lay the wrapping paper onto the desk pad. *I lined up one side of my wrapping paper to the bottom of the desk pad.
4. Smooth out the wrapping paper.
5. Cut off the the excess wrapping paper and BAM, you are done!

*Be careful where you spray, I did it outside on the porch, then hosed the patio where the glue got on the concrete.

Here's the finished product:

Themed Gift Giving

My little cousin had a dance performance this weekend and the theme was 'There's No Place Like Home'. So I wanted to get her and her cousins (who were also dancing) a little something to show them how wonderful I thought they were.

This is what I came up with:



I filled a clear bag with this REALLY PRETTY fabric that was red with hints of gold sparkles that I bought with my 50% off coupon to Jo Anns's to represent the ruby slippers, I filled it with the Hershey Treasures which are wrapped in gold foil, to represent the Yellow Brick Road. Also in there I put a bottle of gold glitter nail polish, and a sweet keychain, that has a which hat, monkey, and shoe charm and then a bottle cap charm with an image of the ruby slippers on it.

The girls loved them and I am so happy!

Before the show!

The program, and on the back were the group photos and names of each performer.

Teacher Appreciation Dinner

I just got home for the Teacher Appreciation Dinner the PTA at my school hosted for us. It was the kick off to the festivities that will happy next week they said. So excited! It's always nice to feel appreciated! I am so blessed to work with the people I do, and the kiddos as well.

Here's my outfit of the night (blogging from my phone so I don't know if this will work, but we'll give it a try):
Shoes: American Eagle
Top: Anthropologie
Shell: Maya Star (local shop).

The theme of the dinner was Hawaii.
Here is the food, drinks, and goodie bag: