I've done a lot of online window shopping while waiting for Little Miss to arrive.  Here are some recent cool finds:

Free downloads on DesignLoveFest.  Check them out and use them as desktop or iphone backgrounds!

I came across Petit Collage this morning and wanted to share.  She's been featured in Land of Nod and Dwell.  The artist, Lorena Siminovich, is located in San Francisco.  She strives to create children's goods that are high quality and made sustainably in the US.  Click on the images below to check her out!

So I saw this image below of a DIY earring display on Pinterest awhile ago and have wanted to try to make my own for a while.  My earring collection is poorly displayed in a pile in a flat jewelry box now and I end up wearing the same things over and over again just out of convenience.  

I convinced two of my friends here to make one with me, so we ventured out to Ikea for a cheap frame and the hardware store for the rest of the supplies.  

We bought window screen to mount within the frame, but the wood that the Ikea frames are made out of proved to be more difficult than I had expected.  It was so hard that it bent both tacks and screws, and ended up pretty much ruining the little bit of screen material I had.  

So plan B, I added hooks and now its a necklace holder.  I actually really like how it turned out, despite the fact that it doesn't hold as much as I had hoped.  

Neat article listing the many benefits of bananas.  The article is a quick & concise read, if you're interested.  I love bananas, so I like this especially.  Some of the facts I knew some I didn't.

Think banana bread counts?

Did you know JCrew had baby clothes?  There are some pretty adorable pieces.  Too bad they're sewn using golden thread...

I've been cooking & baking A LOT since I got home.  I cook quite a bit usually, but I usually do it for a couple days and then get burnt out for a couple days (then repeat).  I've been on a longer streak than normal though.  I thought it'd be a fun task to attempt to organize my mass amounts of Pintrest recipes into tried and not tried.

I wanted to share some of the ones I've tried this week.

I've never made meatball subs before.  I'm not sure I've even ever had one before this week.  I had ground beef though and I'm on a sandwich kick (which is difficult to satisfy without deli-meat!) AND I thought Jason might like this.  

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  The meatballs weren't too hard to make and the end result looked almost exactly like the image above!  I went easy on the spices because it seemed like a lot and I'm so glad I did.  I might decrease it by half next time even.

This is not a new find, but its definitely a "tried-and-true" in our house.  My husband actually found this recipe and we continue to use it both for grilled and baked salmon.  I don't cook the fish in our house, that's all Jason.  I wanted to share though because its a really simple recipe and a lot of the stuff we usually just have on hand already.

These were great to have on hand this week.  I had never baked with fresh cranberries, so it was a little new to me.  These are very scone-like scones - i.e. not overly sweet.  I skipped the icing, but did sprinkle a little sugar on the egg wash prior to baking.  The cranberries are tart and they're not overly sweet (and also not really that bad for you!), but they were perfect with a cup of tea in my opinion.  

I will say though, that I had to use a lot more milk than it called for, just FYI.  I would start by adding a 1/4 c. at a time until the dough comes together.  Mine was still fairly sticky so I just did blobs for scones vs. cute little triangles.

This is my contribution to the Super Bowl snacks tonight.  I had made puppy chow once in Home Ec in high school, but not since.  It was really easy and turned out good!  I did end up mixing in the chocolate with my hands which was pretty messy, but I found it much more effective than trying to do it with a spoon.

Oh I saved the best for last!

These are amazing!  My husband said it was in the top 5 things I've ever made.  That and the fact that he ate 3 of them is the highest praise I could get.  He doesn't get overly crazy about food in general.

The dough for this turned out awesome - just like it was supposed to and the fresh cranberries (leftover from the scones I made earlier in the week) mellowed out after baking and complimented perfectly with the orange flavors.  

I used storebought icing because I had run out of confectioners sugar, but I still mixed in the fresh orange juice.  Also, I had some red juice from the cranberries sitting in the bottom of the pan when I took them out in the morning.  This didn't seem to affect anything though, just FYI.  

These would be impressive to make for company and it wasn't terribly hard.  I'd really recommend this recipe.  My favorite of the week by far!

I'm loving the new homepage on Etsy where it prompts different collections.  This was my biggest complaint with the site that's otherwise wonderful - you couldn't browse.  Now I just need my friends all to all start browsing and favoriting things too, so like on Pinterest, I can have lots of different cool stuff to look at.  

Click on the images below to go to the Etsy page.

This mom turns her toddlers nap time into carpet art.  Its worth checking out!

I have wanted to compost for a long time, but doing it while living in an apartment has always seemed to difficult (and gross) for me to really pursue.  

I found the above compost bin and compostable liners on Vine.com recently, however, and so far its been great!  I've had the bin for a week now and have thrown everything from raw meat, vegetables, and coffee grounds into it and it doesn't smell.  When the bin starts to get full, you tie up the little liners just like you would a normal trash bag in a trash can and throw it away.  The liner will eventually compost and so will its contents - therefore not adding to a landfill.  

I just wanted to share in case anyone else was interested in composting.  Click the link above or the image to check it out.