13 in ’13: Paint & Sip Party!

Hey there!  I’m back with another update on our quest to complete 13 fun things in 2013.  Last weekend, my friends and I visited the Uncorked Artist for a BYO wine and painting class.  Wine and creativity and fun with my girlfriends?  Can I just say – what a GENIUS idea for a business!!

We had a blast.  Basically, you bring your own wine and snacks, and the school provides the paint supplies, canvas, smocks, and instruction to paint a themed painting.  The theme of our class was “Circle Tree.”  Although the instructor gave us general guidelines, everyone picked their own color palette for their painting, and we had license to get as creative as we wanted with the painting.

Here are a few pics from the night:

Our final masterpieces:

And one goofy pic for good measure 😉

I definitely encourage you to try out a painting class if you never have before.  For a type-A personality like me, it was challenging to just relax and get creative and paint with abandon.  But it was so fun!  This would be such a great idea for a unique date night, or a girls’ night out, or a bridal party activity.

How do you let your inner artist come out and play?  Do you consider yourself to be a creative or artistic person?

13 in ’13: Photography at Longwood Gardens

Hi guys!  It’s been a while since I last updated you on my quest to complete 13 things in 2013 along with my friends.  Since then, we not only finished our winemaking adventure (I have 7 beautiful bottles of Pinot Grigio to show for it!), but we also had a great time learning about macro photography at Longwood Gardens.

Longwood Gardens is located in Kennett Square, PA, and is known as one of the greatest gardens in the world.  They have different exhibitions throughout the year (including a beautiful holiday display that I’d love to see this year), and the weekend we visited was right in the middle of their “Orchid Extravaganza.”  Orchids are some of my favorite flowers, so I was so excited to go there with my friends!

My friend Joanne is an amazing photographer, and she not only was patient enough to teach us how to use our cameras, but she also brought along some really nice lenses for us to try.  I am definitely not a natural when it comes to photography, but I thought I would share a few of my favorite shots from the day:

It was such a fun day with the girls, and being surrounded by all of those gorgeous flowers made me forget about the dismal PA weather for a little while 🙂

Stay tuned for a post on our next adventure:  a wine + painting class!  (are you sensing a theme here with the wine??)

13 in ’13: Winemaking!

My friend Joanne had a brilliant idea for 2013: a group of us are going to do 13 new things together in 2013; fun things that maybe we’ve wanted to try for the first time or learn more about.  Examples of these “13 things” could be running a 5k, taking a self defense class, learning about macro photography, or learning how to cook something interesting.

So, for January, we decided to get together to make wine!  Specifically, Pinot Grigio, which happens to be my faaavorite white wine 🙂

Below are some pics from Saturday night – thanks, Sara and Joanne, I had a blast! (And we missed you, Julie!)

First, we read the directions 😉

Here’s the Pinot Grigio grape juice in a huge box!

Next, we added warm water to the bottom of the big bucket:

Then, added a packet of some mystery substance to the water:

Next came the juice!

More stirring…

And then we rinsed out the juice bag with more water, which was added to the bucket:

Final step was to sprinkle yeast over the top of the liquid:

…It may look a little creepy now, but in a short time we’ll each have oodles and oodles of delicious vino!

Can you tell I’m excited?!?

In about a week, we’ll check the alcohol level and if it’s ready, we’ll syphon the wine into another container called a “carboy.”  Then, I think there are a few more steps before it’s ready to be bottled.

What a fun evening with some great ladies!  I love the idea of setting a group goal to try new things and learn from each other this year.  If you were to pick 13 new things to try in 2013, what would some of those things be?  I think we could use some inspiration for extra goals to add to our list 🙂

oh and p.s. I forgot to mention I CHOPPED a ton of my hair off!!  what do you think?

5K and Post-Race Pizza Party

Happy weekend!  It’s been a great weekend around here.  On Saturday morning, we got up early and headed into Philly to run a 5K with friends.

My hubby sporting his “I got up too early” expression on the way to the race:

The race started at Eastern State Penitentiary, which is seriously one of the creepiest places I’ve ever seen (but so cool!).  This time of year they turn it into a huge haunted house…crazy!  Anyway, here we are in front of the penitentiary walls:

I am such a super slow runner, so I was pretty happy that I finished the race in under 30 minutes (I think…the race times haven’t been posted yet).  Here’s our crew celebrating with post-race hot coffees:

We invited everyone over later that night for a pizza party at our house…so fun!  Just like all our get-togethers, I spent some time setting up before our friends arrived.

All the fixins on a lazy Susan

Apps were set up on our bar

Halloween plates and napkins

Lots of refreshments at the ready

The best part, the toppings!

That isn’t the best pic, as everything’s still covered in plastic wrap, but here are the toppings we had ready, in case you ever want to throw a make-your-own pizza party at home:

• LOTS of shredded mozzarella
• Balls of buffalo mozzarella
• Crumbled bleu cheese
• Chicken pesto sausage, sliced
• Sliced red onion
• Sliced mushrooms
• Sliced red bell peppers
• Pesto
• Pizza sauce
• Fresh basil
• Chicken
• Sliced tomatoes
• Prosciutto
• Kalamata olives
• Pepperoni

We bought the dough at Trader Joe’s, and then ended up making another run to our local pizza restaurant to buy some more dough from them (which was much better than Trader Joe’s, IMO!).

Here are the combinations we came up with:

• Tomato, mozzarella and basil
• Sausage, mushroom, black olives, and cheese
• Buffalo chicken with crumbled bleu cheese
• Clam and mozzarella
• Spicy salami, cheese, and mushrooms

Yum, frickin’ yummm!  Pizza artistry in action:

Hubby tossing the dough

Yumm!

A variety of pies

Thumbs up from all of us!

Such a great night with friends!

Do you ever make pizzas at home?  What are your favorite pizza toppings?  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!