Cheesy Chex Mix!

Hey there!  :)  This holiday season I've been working on perfecting my own 'home made' chex mix.  I put quotes around that because most mixes (including mine) don't require home making anything; you just mix pre-made things together in sauce and bake it.  It's still delicious, just not super home made-y (oh well right?!).  

Tonight I made the recipe below and it turned out so good that I wanted to share it with you!  Super easy to make!!  It's a little cheesy and I'm sure you could make it more so by adding even more cheese-flavored goodies to the mix.

Jen's Cheesy Chex Mix :-)

Wet ingredients:
-3 Tablespoons of butter or margarine (I use can't believe its not butter)
-1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
-3/4 teaspoon seasoned salt
-1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
-1/4 teaspoon onion powder

Dry ingredients:
-1 cup broken up* mini pretzels
-1 cup broken up* cheddar sun chips
-1 cup broken up* cheddar bagel chips
-1 cup of cheddar gold fish crackers
-1 and 1\2 cups of rice Chex
-1 and 1\2 cups of corn Chex
(*Broken up = pieces roughly the same size as the Chexes)

Directions:
Heat oven to 250°.  Melt the butter, sauce, and seasonings in the microwave (30 or so seconds).  Whisk the mixture together and set aside.

In a large bowl mix Chexes and half of the other prepared snack mixes together.  Stir in the sauce mixture and coat the Chex mixture.  When most of the mix is coated, add in the rest of the prepared snack mixes and stir to combine.  

Pour mix into an un-greased 13x9-inch pan and bake for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.  Spread your Chex mix on paper towels to cool for about 15 minutes and enjoy some deliciousness!  Store in airtight container.  

Happy New Year!

What to do with all those cute clippies!

If you love clippies as much as I do, you (like me) probably have an impressive collection ;)  My clippies used to be all over my sink, on counters, etc. until I Googled hair clip storage and learned about bow boards.  As you can see, bow boards are framed boards with ribbons on them that you can clip your clippies onto.  Genius right?!  

I love this idea, but decided on an easier, but similar project for today; which I call a Clip Strip!  

What I did was find a wider piece of ribbon that I liked, figured out how long I wanted it to be, and hot glued a Command Picture Hanging Strip to the back of the ribbon.  I opted for the strips instead of a thumbtack or hook because I want the clip strip to stay on the wall when I take clippies off.

The Command strips velcro to each other and create a strong seal: 

I hot glued the ribbon and strip together so that the bond would be strong between the fabric and the adhesive and not fall off my wall: 

Next steps: vertically adhere your Clip Strip to the wall with the Command strip and secure your clippies! :)

A+ Accessory Storage!

Empty oatmeal container=clever headband storage! 

Recently I've started wearing more headbands, and I've been trying to find a good way to store them all and keep them looking nice. I Googled headband storage and found this great idea from Makoodle.   

This project includes an empty oatmeal can, batting (or I used fleece), hot glue gun (yes I cringed too, but I found a good one that doesn't burn!), cute fabric, and ribbon.  

When I first saw Makoodle's 'how to' I have to admit that I was not super excited about a fabric craft because I haven't used fabric in a lot of crafts.  I wrote a list of what I needed and headed to my local Joann's Fabrics store.  I didn't know where to start so I told a very nice store associate what I wanted to do and what I needed.  She introduced me to the remnant section where I found a piece of fleece that worked as my batting:

Then I found my way over to the fabrics and picked up some fabric quarters I liked (cheaper than buying yards):

Then, I went in search of the most feared item on my list: the hot glue gun!  Chuckle as you may, I have memories (and scars!) of when I was younger and used the hot glue gun for projects-ouch!  Very happily I found a 'Cool Shot' which is advertised to be safe and cooler than other guns.  I have to tell you that it was a little more than a regular glue gun, but so worth it!  Even when I accidently touched the 'hot' glue, I did not get burned :)  Magic!  

Once I got home, I cleaned out my empty oatmeal can with a damp paper towel and got to batting!  I'm big on eye-balling my measurements rather than writing them down so that's what you see below:

Then I got to 'cool' gluing ;)  I did two layers of the fleece:

I kept room at the top so that the lid could still fit.  This way I had extra storage inside the container:

Then I glued the fabric onto the fleece:

Tada!:

Then I glued a ribbon around the top and seam of the container:

I attached a mock handle on the top of the lid for extra detail:

A place for everything and everything in its place :) :

P.S.: Check out all this room inside the container!:

Cocoa Crispy Treats (I'm almost positive that they are 100% gluten free!)

I'm going to an all day training tomorrow for work so I thought it'd be fun to bring a treat to share with my comrades ;).  One of my buds can't have gluten so I challenged myself to make a treat that she could have and we could all enjoy together.  


I researched online and finally decided on rice crispy treats!  The articles and comments that I read told me that butter and marshmallows are typically gluten free, (readers correct me if that's wrong please!), so that just left the crispies.  


I set out looking for crispies that were gluten free and finally found them at Whole Foods (Kroger and Target didn't have any).  I bought a box of Enviro Kidz Organic Koala Crisp cereal and set to work.

I melted 4.5 Tablespoons of butter in a deep pot, and then melted 6 cups of mini marshmallows (1 bag) in the pot.  I transfered the mixture to a large bowl that held 6 cups of Koala Crisp (1 box) and stirred until everything was combined.  I then transfered the sticky deliciousness to a greased pan.  

There were a few crispies left in the bowl so I did a taste test and found out that Koala Crisps are cocoa flavored (surprise!)  When I originally opened the bag I could tell that the crispies were darker than other kinds I've seen, but I thought that was just because they were gluten free (you can tell I'm very new to the gluten-free world!!!)


Since I was a kid I've always loved this treat, but let me tell you, cocoa is the way to go go!!!  The chocolately-salty-buttery-marshmallowy taste is sooo yummy!  Gluten free or not these are some of the best rice crispy treats I've ever had!  Try it out for yourself :) 

P.S. Are you looking for gluten free candy?  Here's a list of gluten free Valentines (and other) candy!