Craft: DIY Enamel Dots and Flowers

Based on message board posts and Pinterest, it seems like A LOT of crafters are making their own enamel dots out of Perler Beads. You remember those right? Use a peg board to create a design, add some heat, they melt, and ta-da, you have a cool plastic little toy!

A lot of the steps for making the enamel dots are the same as using the beads in the traditional way. There's tons of detailed tutorials already online, so I'll just give a quick summary (also shown in the following pictures). 

- Start with preheating your oven to 300 degrees (low and slow is best)

- Lay down a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet (I held mine down with a couple cheap knives)

- Line up a bunch of Perler Beads (yes, this does get a little tedious)

- Gently put the cookie sheet in to the oven

- Bake until the beads are nicely rounded and no middle dimple remains (times will vary...my oven takes 30 minutes)

- Leave on the sheet until cool

- And, they're ready to use....pretty easy, huh?

And when you get tired of dots, try making flowers! The following were made with six of one color surrounding a single other color. I think they turned out pretty good!

I mentioned earlier it is a little tedious to line up all the beads. However, when I look at the cost of a pack of enamel dots vs. a pack of Perler Beads, I'll happily take the time to set up the beads!

Happy melting!

Recipe - Quesadilla Waffle aka Pinterest....You're a Bad Enabler!

So who else spends A LOT of time finding all sorts of things on Pinterest??? I'm definitely guilty of that! Most of my pins seem to be recipes or crafts. I've been on a cooking kick recently so I've had several food posts to kick-off this blog.

I've pinned several ideas on using a waffle maker for non-waffle uses. On impulse one day at Wal-Mart I picked up a cheap waffle maker. I'm easily influenced I guess :-)

Before trying any ideas or recipes, I first skimmed through the owner's manual and promptly ignored the following warning:

I decided to try something simple first and thought a quesadilla would be a good start. I took two Carb Balance flour tortillas and spread a thin layer of Chipotle Mayo on both. Added about a serving of fiesta blend cheese to one and put that on the waffle maker. Added the second tortilla and closed the lid. After a few minutes I had a nice melty and crispy quesadilla. Plus, I had built-in lines on where to cut it into pieces. Success!

I served the cheese quesadilla with steamed veggies and Tex-Mex potatoes. The potatoes were another Pinterest find and the original recipe can be found here. I made a couple changes to the recipe. I used Mrs. Dash Taco Seasoning to cut down on the sodium content. I also used Light Ranch Dressing. Finally, I tossed about 4 green onions in prior to cooking and then sprinkled more at the end....I like green onions :-) This was an easy to prep, tasty recipe that I will make again.