Father's Day Frozen Chocolate Pie

For those of you who know my dad, you know how awesome he is. My dad is always willing to go out of his way to help someone, so on Father’s Day we wanted him to feel really special! Last week, in honor of Father’s Day, we dedicated MIHM to my dad. One of his favorite desserts is chocolate mousse pie, so we found a new take on a classic pie. This frozen chocolate pie recipe combines pudding mix and chocolate ice cream for a cool treat!

Frozen Chocolate Pie

Ingredients

Crust:

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

3 tablespoons powdered sugar

¼ cup melted butter

Filling:

1 pint (2 cups) vanilla ice cream

1 ¼ cups milk

2 packages (4 serving size) instant chocolate pudding

whipped cream, chocolate curls

Directions:

Combine crust ingredients; press into pie plate and chill for 15 to 20 minutes, while making filling.

Combine ice cream and milk; beat until well blended, then add pudding mix. Beat just long enough to combine thoroughly. Pour filling into chilled crust. Refrigerate until firm. Before serving spread a layer of whipped cream over the top and garnish with chocolate curls.

 

Prepping the ingredients.

Pie crust ready for the fridge.

 

Ice cream and pudding mix.

Homemade whipped cream.

 

Combining all three layers.

Ready to serve!

 

The perfect slice.

My mom worked on the crust while I made the filling. After everything was set, we combined the crust, filling and whipped cream per the recipe. The only thing we changed was the garnish. Instead of using chocolate curls, we used hot fudge sauce. MMMM, such a good call on our part!! We also made our whipped cream from scratch which is giving cheese a run for its money as my favorite food.

The pie was delicious. It had the light consistency of a traditional chocolate mousse pie, but because we used ice cream, it had a cold, refreshing aspect to it. Perfect for a summer day! The pie was really decadent and we were all pretty full after one slice. My dad enjoyed the pie, the Girls Team had fun making it, and most importantly, we all spent Father’s Day together reminding my dad how cool he is!

Travel Tradition T-Shirts

Every summer my mom, brother and I meet my aunt and two cousins in a different city for a whirlwind weekend. What started back in San Francisco in 2008 has become one of our most anticipated annual family traditions. This year, we found ourselves in Portland, Oregon.

In honor of our sixth city, my mom and I decided to make t-shirts for the weekend using iron-on paper. We weren't expecting anyone to wear them or take them seriously, but we still wanted them to look as realistic as possible. 

Using stereotypical kids camp t-shirts as our inspiration, we picked the brightest color we could find at Michaels - neon yellow. We planned to iron on text to the t-shirts so we had to wash them first.

We bought iron-on paper at Michaels. After spending some time thinking of clever text, we printed the text out from Microsoft Word. The trick is to print using "mirror" format in Word so the text will print backwards...and then appears correctly once ironed on to the t-shirt.

We used a paper cutter to cut away the excess paper around the text. Between the six of us, we have three boys and three girls, so a few trips ago we nicknamed ourselves the "Girls Team" and the "Boys Team" - clever right?! :)

With team names on the front, and a list of cities on the back, we added our names to the sleeve of the t-shirt. Here's my brother's name being ironed on. We didn't get any action shots of the ironing process, because it was a very slow moving and hot process. In the future, we might not want to attempt any ironing projects on a 90 degree day. 

Ironing on the text is pretty easy. You just place the paper where you want it on the t-shirt, and slowly press onto the shirt with the iron for about one minute. Moving the iron in a circular motion to make sure it doesn't stick, you'll then slowly peel away the paper from the shirt leaving only the text.

Here's what it looks like once the paper is peeled away. We were really happy with how our shirts turned out; they looked like we had them made at a real print shop!

On the back, we listed all of the cities we've visited together over the last six years. For those Amazing Race fans out there, we used Phil's catchphrase from the finale episode where he tracks how many cities/miles the teams have traveled! And, we had to include "What else are we doing?!" our own catchphrase that has helped us decide what to see and do on these trips for many years. :)

Two countries. Six cities. And more than 5,800 miles of fun.

San Francisco 2008

Seattle 2009

Denver 2010

Chicago 2011

Vancouver 2012

Portland 2013

What else are we doing?!

We quoted Phil from the Amazing Race again when gifting our shirts to the family. Everyone had a great laugh over the shirts, and while nobody wore theirs as we trekked through the streets of Portland, it became a popular pajama shirt. :)

While this wasn't our most challenging MIHM project, it was a lot of fun to make silly gifts for our family. In Portland, we ate delicious food, tasted great beers, and lucked out with sunny weather. And when the trip was just about over, we took a few family photos in the hotel room all wearing our matching shirts...but we'll keep those for the family album, not the blog. ;-)

Wine Cork Strips

Over the past few months we've been collecting wine corks for an undecided Make It Happen Monday project. Between saving our own corks, generous friends and family passing their corks our way, and bringing home bags of them from wine tasting weekends, we finally have enough to use for a MIHM project. After spending some time on Pinterest sorting through project ideas, we chose to make vertical cork board strips.

For this project, we needed wine corks, yardsticks, and something to help us hang the sticks on the wall. 

Yardsticks - $3.99 each at Michaels.

Hanging strips - $3.50 at Target. 

Wine corks - free with many wine tasting trips! 

(Thanks to my aunt and friends for donating corks to MIHM!)

We started by sorting through all of the corks to make sure we weren't using any duplicates from the same winery. Once our corks were ready, we used hot glue to secure them onto the yardsticks. 

I was taking both yardsticks back with me to my apartment and even though hot glue dries pretty quickly, I waited a day before hanging them on my wall. Because the cork strips are so light, the Command strips were a great way to temporarily secure them to the wall.

We have the perfect little wall section next to our pantry where I chose to offset the yardsticks rather than hanging them symmetrically. 

The cork strips look great in our apartment, and unlike a lot of craft projects, are actually really useful. Lately our fridge has been covered in wedding invitations and save the dates. These cork strips are a cute way to display all of our friends' invites, while de-cluttering the front of our refrigerator. I also think this will be a great way to display Christmas cards during the holidays. 

I love this take on a traditional cork board! It looks great, and the project was inexpensive and simple to create. We still have two bags of corks, so expect another wine cork project from the Girls Team in the near future!