Weekend Creations

Let’s start with the food! I absolutely love baking, it’s so much fun for me. Looking online and in cookbooks for inspiration and recipes is equally as enjoyable though. I could spend hours on Pinterest looking at new recipes and old recipes being re-vamped and 300 versions of “The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie.” Seriously, it has happened before.

The original plan for baking and subsequent list of items to make was born from a desire to save money after moving into the apartment. Baking instead of buying is a huge saver.

I figure that to BUY all the items that I made would cast me about $105.00

The date bars that I made cost around $3.50 for a single bar and I made 20 = $70.00
2 loaves of bread cost about $4.00 each and I made 2 = $8.00
The muffins we usually buy cost around $6.00 for 6 muffins, I have a big batch of 21 = $21.00
To buy a loaf of banana bread at a café you can expect to pay at least $6.00, I made one = $6.00

Now, to bake all these took me about 2 hours out of my weekend and I was multi-tasking with other projects throughout that time. And like I said, I really enjoy the process so that was just fine with me.
Here’s what I used for all the recipes:

10.5 cups of flour, 2 cups of milk, 3 eggs, 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of butter, 1.5 cups of oats, 1 cup each of cashews and cranberries and 2 cups of dates. Plus the small amounts of salt, baking soda, etc..

To purchase all the items listed above in large packages (12 eggs, 4L milk, etc.) probably cost in the neighbourhood of $55.00 and I already had all of them in the kitchen. So even if I used every drop of milk in the jug, every last cashew and all the flour, along with everything else, it would still cost me half of what it would to but all the items pre-made and I would have significantly more. I’m going to go ahead and say that it likely only cost me a maximum of $25.00 to make everything. That is a win in my books!

And for the best part, here are all the recipes I used!

- Bread --> https://www.pinterest.com/pin/518688082064545859/

- Banana Bread --> https://www.pinterest.com/pin/Adr_HTIK1aqz7xGds9dtZ_06qwyIYmj9XBonFRqHIsengZ4W-cHjjIA/

- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins --> https://www.pinterest.com/pin/518688082064520445/

- Cranberry Cashew Date bars --> http://outofthenesttravel.blogspot.ca/2014/03/liar-bars.html (This is my previously posted recipe, it's slightly different flavors!)

With all the treats cooling on the counter I moved on to the next project of the day, painting.

I’ve been wanting some paintings to put on the walls of the apartment ever since we moved in, but I didn’t put any real effort into finding any and then one day it hit me. I like to paint and so does Ryan, so why not do it ourselves?! Just like the baking it is certainly less expensive to make art than it is to buy. It also guarantees that we get exactly what we want in the colors and size we desire. And I get to let my creativity run wild.

What I really want is a very large, colorful, abstract painting to put on the wall in the living room. Something that would bring light and excitement to the space. Pinterest helped feed this desire with its never ending supply of inspiration.

Here are a few pieces that I really love and feel inspired by:

- https://www.pinterest.com/pin/191543790378012790/

- https://www.pinterest.com/pin/313985405249247956/

- https://www.pinterest.com/pin/20195898304861364/

Having picked my colors and a small canvas to experiment on I got right to it. Ryan made a good point about not buying a huge canvas before I had decided what to put on it.