Pesto Pizza

image from makeandtakes.com

This is my new favorite homemade pizza combination. We made it for our pizza and a movie night this week and it was so yummy. It is such a simple meal and with it's thin crispy crust and small amounts of cheese, it is far healthier than your normal pie.

I use a simple thin pizza crust recipe (found below). A thin layer of pesto sauce stands in for pizza sauce. I use jarred store bought pesto, for the sake of simplicity (I've yet to make my own pesto). Then a light sprinkle of mozzarella followed by thin slices of tomatoes. Finish it off with a bit of parmesan cheese. Bake according to crust directions (or until the cheese is melted and bubbly).

This pizza taste best right from the oven, but the cold left overs aren't bad (I'm eating some as I type this). Really, I don't know how we ever ate so many frozen pizzas in the past when there are homemade recipes that are so quick and simple.

Thin Pizza Crust
(I'm not sure where exactly this recipe came from, but I didn't come up with it myself)

1 package Active Dry Yeast
1/2 Cup Warm Water
1 tsp. Sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 TBSP Olive Oil
1 1/4- 1/2 Cups Flour

Pre-heat oven at 400 degrees. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast into warm water and stir. Stir in sugar, salt, and oil. Begin adding flour by 1/2 cup fulls. Begin kneading by hand when necessary. When flour is all added, knead dough on a lightly floured surface for approx. 5 minutes. Roll on to a 16" pizza pan and add toppings. Bake for 15-2o minutes.

20 Minute Cardigan Refashion

Take one ordinary cardigan.

Add a beaded cut from an ill fitting t-shirt. Pin, sew, and...

Bada bing, Bada boom! An embellished cardigan that cost me nothing. Not a Penny! And in less than 20 minutes! Uh huh, that's right.

DIY Wedding Programs

This is the current state of my desk; a drying space for my wedding programs. I have been marking little tasks off my Wedding To Do List, slowly but surely. The dress hasn't been started, but I think we'll get to that this week. But in the mean time, I created these simple, yet lovely programs.


There is no way I was going to pay the cost of printing elsewhere and I liked the idea of creating something that was unique. I found a sample program online that I liked and pretty much copied the format and used similar fonts and styles. Our ceremony is going to be short and sweet, so I didn't need to include that in the program. I wanted to keep it at one page length.

The paper is 4.5" X 6.5" scrapbook paper that I bought for $5 (for pack of 60) at Jo Ann's. The tree stamp was $10 (from Jo Ann's), but I used it on my invitations as well (also DIY) and I'm sure I'll use it again and again. Making it well worth the money.


The front of the paper (I printed on the back) looks like this, all shiny and pretty. It only took me about one evening (while watching T.V.) to get the formatting right and then the length Wren's nap time to print them out and stamp each one. I love how they turned out and the whole thing cost my less than $20!! One task crossed off. The list gets shorter!

A Big Girl Bed on the Cheap

My wild little one and half year old recently broke her ancient crib, so instead of buying another one to use for probably less than a year, we decided to pull the big girl bed out of the attic. The bed itself was given to us by a relative, so that was absolutely free! The bed set was a yard sale find. It is in great condition and it only cost me $5.00 for the whole thing! That is sheets, pillowcase, sham, comforter, and bed skirt. Five bucks, seriously!


I like to have some kind of pillow between the kids and the wall because our stone walls get so cold in the winter. I had this long pillow that was originally meant for the hammock, but that didn't work. So, I grabbed some fabric from my stash and sewed up a little pillow case for it.


Wren is so proud of her big girl bed. We pulled Maya's old guard rail down from attic and put it on the bed to keep her from rolling. It seems to be working pretty well so far, although I do keep the upstairs baby gate closed while she sleeps, just in case she is to quitely wake up and creep out of bed unnoticed.Total cost of this brand new (to Wren) big girl bed, $5!