Do you know the muffin man?

I don’t. But I do have a friend that makes great muffins!  And she brought some to work this week.  And instead of using the store-bought muffin liners or no liners at all…she used parchment paper.  And they turned out so cute!  Check these out:

So next time you’re makin’ some muffins, try out this idea.  Thanks, Leslie!

Bunco!

Remember that picture from last week?

It was all stuff for a Bunco party which I hosted tonight!  (Don’t know what Bunco is?  Check out the Wikipedia page.) I found these napkins at Pier One and used these colors as my color pallet.

I found these cute little books at Michael’s and put them on each table for scorekeeping (rather than the standard piece of white paper):

I also made four drinks to color coordinate with the pallet:

I made a turquoise margarita (margaritas with blue curacao instead of triple sec), limeade, blackberry pomegranate soda, and cranberry sparklers (cranberry juice and champagne).  I loved having funky drinks rather than the standard beer and wine!

The star of the evening was the “Sugar Bar” i set up.

Here’s a shot before the gals came:

And I forgot to take a pic from above so you could see all the fun colors, so here’s a pic after it had been picked over a bit :|

I loved how turned out!  So there you have it-Bunco night with This American Wife!

Oh, and last but not least, here’s a pic in the busy moment right before everyone showed up (taken by the hubby). I love to share these shots in addition to the final product!

No more empty beds!

My friends…I am happy to tell you that my beds are no longer empty!  Remember how they looked just a few short days ago? If you have short term memory loss, like I sometimes do, here’s a refresher:

And now…they look something like this!

I was originally planning on putting something a little larger in here, but I ended up getting a great deal on these little guys.  It was too good  a deal to pass up (Read: FREE!!!). I decided that in a few weeks regardless of what kind of plants I put in here, I’ll probably just kill them, so I might as well save myself a few dollars.  Now I won’t feel so guilty when I have to buy new plants in June!

Really though, I’m going to try my best to keep these puppies alive for as long as possible.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

Twenty Dollar Tuesday

My Twenty Dollar Tuesday tip today (nice alliteration, right?)…  Take that twenty dollars and go buy some flowers! Nothing makes a room warmer than having a bouquet of fresh flowers on the table.  Especially when they’re there for no reason! Here’s a few of my favorites:

So go spend that $20 on some fabulous flowers this week!  They’re a great addition to any room!