Yummy Thai Green Curry Chicken

I have a recent love for ethnic flavors.  Who knew that just shopping at my local Trader Joe's would change my thinking from take-out to make-it-my-self. 

 Mushrooms are optional but they taste amazing!!!! Next time I plan on adding peas and bell peppers.

Step #1: 

Place Mushrooms and or other veggies on the bottom of your Crock-Pot with the chicken on top. (I used 2 chicken breasts.  Sauce was enough for 2-3 chicken breasts)

Step #3:  Pour all the sauce over the chicken and add 1/2 cup of water per jar of sauce. (example if making 4-6 chicken breast it will require 2-3 jars and 1-1 1/2 cup of water depending on how many vegetables you add as well as how saucy you like it) *Remember mushrooms will absorbs liquid.*

Set your Crock-Pot on LOW for 5 hours, and walk away :)

Optional: Step #4: I was home cleaning so I decided to stir my creation.  Not necessary, but being the over-acheiver I am; of course I did. 

And 5 hours later....drum roll please....

You have Yummy Green Thai Curry Chicken.  

I placed mine over Jasmine instant rice (also from Trader Joe's) and Voila.  A Yummy Dinner with the spice that I enjoy...Hubby enjoyed it also!! 

DIY pregnancy test tweaking

Ever followed a tweaker board...You know what I'm talking about if you have been on baby boards.  Test tweaking is a place where TTC (trying to conceive ) mothers post their home pregnancy tests (HPT)  in order to see an early result by an image tweak. Tweakers use various photo programs to analyze your HPT to see if we can pull out a faint pink line for an early BFP!!  Learn how to tweak your own tests or to help out the fellow tweakers out there!!

To start upload your image to a photo editing site such as photobucket or picmonkey.  I prefere Picmonkey.

Original Picture uploaded to PICMONKEY

To Start go to the sharpen tool and adjust clarity then hit apply! 

The go to the exposure tool and adjust the highlight tool and play with the brightness, shadows and contrast. 

And viola... a nice pink line.  This will not work if you are not pregnant. 

Happy Tweaking!!

DIY burlap wreath

Ever wondered how to make a DIY burlap wreath?!

You will need:

- A wire wreath form

- Burlap ribbon (I used about 2 rolls of 6″ burlap ribbon from Hobby Lobby)

- Floral wire

-Embellishment of your choice (optional)

-Ribbon (optional)

(floral wire not pictured)

If using printed burlap, like I did, pull the ribbon from the bottom of the wreath form print side up.

To make this wreath, simply loop the burlap through the desired section of the wreath form.  

I used two rounds of loops in each wreath section form. 

Continue to loop the burlap around the wire form and secure it with floral wire ribbon when starting a new roll and completing it. 

Optional: I used a thick Jute ribbon to hang my wreath from.  You can also hang this wreath from the form itself. 

I adorned this wreath with a burlap poinsettia flower, but would be cure with a bow or other fancy embellishment :) 

Happy wreath making!!

You can also find this wreath on my etsy shop

Hope you have a Fabulous day, 

<3 Amanda Kay, Viva la Vella

How to add PIN IT hover button to images on blog

Hover Pinterest button simple as pie!!

Ever wondered how to add a Pinterest hover button to your Blogger images?! What’s a “hover button”? It’s a button that appears when you put your mouse pointer over an image. Go ahead and test it out on this image below. Clicking on the Pinterest button that appears in the top right corner will allow you to pin this image to your Pinterest boards.

Blogger

NOTE: This requires editing your Blogger template. Before proceeding with the instructions below, I recommend that you backup your blog first, or copy all of your html code and paste it on a separate program incase there is a mistake you have your original template. 

Don’t want to tackle these updates yourself?  

1. In your Blogger Dashboard click on Template and then Edit HTML.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the code and find this line:   </body>
3. Copy this code from BloggerSentral and paste it into your template code right above the</body> code.
4. Click the “Save Template” button.
5. Click the “Close” button.

Now view one of your blog posts and you should see a red Pin It button appear on top of your images when you put your mouse pointer over an image. You can call it quits now — or we can customize things a bit…

Use a Custom Pin It Image:

Download a Pinterest Icon to your computer or create your own. Then upload your image to an external website such as Photobucket (and skip to step #5 below) – or you can upload it right to your Blogger blog:

1. Create a new post.
2. Add your Pinterest icon to the post.
3. Once you see the image in your post, click the HTML button (top left corner). Now you will see the HTML code of the post. Look for the image code. It will start with <img and will include src= followed by a URL in quotes, similar to the yellow highlighted line shown in the image below. (Click the image to view a larger version of it.) Copy the URL that is in the quotes after src= (see the red underlined text in the image below); this is the URL of your image.
   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   Using a Custom Image for Your Pinterest Hover Image in Blogger
4. Do not publish this post. The sole purpose of this new post is to store your image on Blogger. I recommend saving the post as a draft just in case you forget the URL. However, you can delete this post if you want to, since the image will still stay on Blogger’s web server.
5. Now go back to your template’s HTML code (Template > Edit HTML) and find this code:
   var bs_pinButtonURL = "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUSTazM757nWmVu604SQVU6R9r4TyH9zX3f6dDOkIE3fx1QUTA2Cz7K9wCaOXdmGUU3gk1pQvUuLknT8aaR6LUUjpKi3-mLRTA_ayIpSMn292ofPCsOxXofqNckFK03kE830s6gXohXSOq/s1600/pinterestx1_72.png"; 
   and replace the URL in the quotes (in red above) with the URL of your image.
6. Click the “Save Template” button.
7. Click the “Close” button.

 Change the Position of the Pin It Button:

By default the Pin In button will appear in the center of your image. If you prefer that it appears in the corner of your images instead, you can easily do that. Simply find this line of code in your template’s HTML code (Template > Edit HTML):

var bs_pinButtonPos = "center";

and replace “center” with one of these positions:

• topleft
• topright
• bottomleft
• bottomright

If you want to offset the Pinterest Button from the corner of your image so there is a little space between the button and the corner of the image, you can add some CSS code to the <head> section of your template (Template > Edit HTML):

.pinit-wrapper {margin:-10px;}

(The negative value for the margin pushes the button inwards.) For example, see the yellow highlighted code in the image below:

Adding Space Around Your Pinterest Hover Image in the Corner

How to add a PIN IT button to your blog

If you scroll down to the bottom of any post here you’ll see a “Pin It” button that you can click on to pin the image of your choice onto Pinterest. Adding a “Pin It” button of your own is so ridiculously simple to do! Here’s a quick tutorial that will show you how to automatically add a “Pin It” button of your own down at the bottom of every post on your blog, for Blogger, Blogspot, and self-hosted WordPress blogs.

Choose an Image

First you’ll need to choose the image you want for your “Pin It” button. Here’s the one I use. Feel free to right-click and save it to use for your button, too.

You can also do a Google Image search for Pinterest Icon for more button options.

After selecting your image, upload it somewhere so it will have its own URL, like Flickr or Photobucket. 

The Code

Here’s the code you’ll use to place the “Pin It” button on your blog.

<a href="javascript:void((function(){var%20e=document.createElement('script');e.setAttribute('type','text/javascript');e.setAttribute('charset','UTF-8');e.setAttribute('src','http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinmarklet.js?r='+Math.random()*99999999);document.body.appendChild(e)})());"><img alt="Pin It!" style='border: none;' src="INSERT IMAGE URL HERE"/></a>

Paste this code onto your blog (I’ll show you where below), then replace the INSERT IMAGE URL HERE with the URL for your button.

Note: Be sure to place this exact code on your blog, or else it won’t work. 

Where to Paste (Blogger/Blogspot)

From your Blogspot Dashboard, click on the  Design tab, then Edit HTML. Click the Expand Widget Templates checkbox.

 Where to Paste (WordPress)

For a self-hosted WordPress blog, navigate to your WordPress Dashboard, look for the Appearance heading, then click on Editor. From there, select Single Post (single.php).

Use CTRL-F to search for php the_content. It might look something like this: 

<?php the_content(‘Read more &raquo;’); ?>. Paste the code below that. Save and view your blog!

Note: If you need extra spacing between your post and the “Pin It” button, just add 

<br /> above the “Pin It” button code. You can add as many as you want, above or below the code, for as much space as you need.

Troubleshooting

What if the image doesn’t appear? What if I only see a red X? What if it only shows text and not the image?

Double check and make sure the Image URL is correct. It will just show text if there is something wrong with the image or the image URL. For Photobucket, use the Direct Link as your URL.

To test: Copy and paste the Image URL into a new browser window and confirm that the image appears, and just the image — not a webpage with the image on it. If just the image appears, that is the correct Image URL.

Good luck and Happy Pinning!

How-To: Tutorial on a custom Blog Header

A tutorial on how to make a blog banner using Picasa instead of a complicated process like with Photoshop.

First you need to download Picasa. It’s free and it should be easy to figure out how to get your pictures from your files into Picasa.  I’ve tried almost everything, and I think it is the best (and most self-explanatory) FREE editing system out there…especially if you are using Blogger.

Once you download Picasa, it is easy to figure out how to "Import" (there's a button) your pictures from your files into Picasa.

Then, you select a photo and press the Collage button on the top of the window. (You can edit your pic first if you want....see the left hand side for tons of options.)

See that little grey circle on the photo? That allows you to make the photo bigger or smaller and also allows you to manipulate the angle…crooked or straight, and allows you to move it everywhere. If you look in the Settings box, you can also chose to add a white border, or a Polaroid border, or create a shadow on your photo.  I chose to go with "picture pile" and moved my photos around. There are many options. After this tutorial I will show a previous header of mine that I did and used "mosiac".

When I’m set I press Create Collage.

Then find the "Text" button and press that.  Play around and see what you like best…this is the “funnest” part…you can move the text where ever you want (even on top of the photos), make it whatever size you want (keep it on the page!), pick the opacity of the text, and determine the color you want it…it has the same grey circle that you manipulate around. 

There are two ways you can do this next step... the first :After you have your words down, click the Apply button and you will go back to the basic Edits. 

You also have the option to leaving a white blank space under your collage and adding text to the lower half of the image and into the white space.  This is created by cropping...You are going to Crop your Collage so it looks like a header, not a huge photo, so press Crop. I make it really even on all sides and bring the crop right up under the writing.

NOW, go to your BLOG via blogger and press the Layout tab. Press Edit on the header part (where your title is.)


Choose your Image (your collage) from your Files. Make sure you press the “Instead of title and description” button first, and make sure the Shrink To Fit button is NOT checked before you upload your picture.

DIY custom Christmas Cards, Birth Announcements, Cards etc.

Did you know that you can create beautiful custom pieces in the comfort of your own home...It is really simple and easy. Picasa is an image organizer and viewer for your digital photos owned by Google. Free to download, and awesome results.

I know there are so many options out there to create beautiful Christmas cards, but do you know you can create your own with Picasa?   The benefits are that you can use as many photos as you want, and say whatever you’d like.  The possibilities are endless...Christmas Cards, Birth announcements, birthday cards, greeting cards etc..  The drawback is that you can use as many photos as you want and the options are endless. So an neurotic person like myself, this took forever doing the font selection as well as the image itself. 

To start:

Select an image...

Then you have multiple options to edit the photo including color options...I love 1960's.

Image after edit with 1960's

Now the fun part... Add text with the wrench icon "text"

Selecting my text options took a while, but then again i am only slightly neurotic. :)

Final product...

And then I uploaded this image and had it printed as a flat image print from Costco, and bought some natural paper envelopes...and viola. 

Have fun, 

Amanda Kay