Craving Ravings// Manchurian Chicken Puffs!

Sometimes for a rich snack, there's more than a decadent chocolate brownie you can bake! For me, one of those crispy noon hours when daylight is sumptuously pouring in, I can picture a plate lined with these delicious, exquisite Manchurian Chicken Puffs, hot out of the oven and ready to be munched during blissful family time. Craving for one yet?

*This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are entirely my own.

The Decorista Chronicles//DIY CUBBY SHELF ORGANIZER {Design Your Own Series-3}

Good day class! As part of the thrifty+glam makeover editions we do in the Design Your Own Series..we present you part 3-DIY Glitter Cubby Shelf Organizer!

Like the caption reads, this is a stylish, dirt cheap and easy solution to gather round your essentials. Here are the basics:

Steps:

1.Spray the corkboard with adhesive spray and sprinkle on glitter to cover whole. Do two-three coats to make sure the glitter stays put for a long, long, long, long, long time.

2.Best to use empty colored duct tape rolls if you don't want more work put into this. I didn't have those on hand so I covered mine with adhesive velvet fabric, and painted one hot pink with acrylic paint for a bright pink POP!*

3.Hot glue the tape rolls onto the board.Set a few hours to dry.

4. Use heavy duty foam mounting tape (and loadza that) on a wall, shelf side or anywhere you'd prefer these to grab n' go in the morning and install your finished cubby shelf unit.

5.Chuck your go-to essentials in, use it, flaunt it, pin this and share this!

*Painting gives a shabby look and feel to your "cubbies"

EXTRAS: Use broken jewelry pieces like earrings, or studs from necklaces and hot glue them to push pins to display notes on the corkboard. You'll never know when you'll need an emergency loving pick-me-up. ^_^

Check out the rest of the Design Your Own Series Below

Design Your Own Workspace!

Design Your Own Stationery!

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GIVE YOURSELF A TREAT! Join Craft A Doodle Doo on Pinterest, Facebook and Subscribe to treat yourself to fabulous, do-able and cheap DIYs, savory eats, mouthwatering freebies and a tonnage of ideas!

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Hopin' you'll drop by again, xoxo

Nash

The Freebie Jubilee//Deco Papers-Marshmallow Moments Collection!

Hey there, gorgeous! In conjunction with my Design Your Own series which focuses on jazzing up your workspace/office/hobby rooms, I decided to pop up a new collection with soft and fun lady hues for all ye' damsels out there! Imagine how beautiful these papers would be on notebooks, storage boxes and jars! Would make such a flippin' cute workspace, don't ya think?

You can see how they are all coordinated for a truly dazzling workdesk palette. In addition, don't shy away from using these as desktop backgrounds too for a punch of feminine color! :)

Inspiration Nation//Design Your Own Stationery!

Are you one of those people who deliberate at the aisles of stores staring and dawdling at pretty stationery with your heartstrings tugging at you for the price? DIY to the rescue!Today I'm gonna show you how to rock two styles of notebooks and pads using faux watercolor effect and faux chalkboard effect! Here's cheers to a STUNNING, BRIGHT and BEAUTIFUL workspace!

This is the second feature of the Design Your Own Series! You can check out the first fab feature at the end of the post!

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This is sort of a lengthy tut, so please, please, please stay with me because I wanted to explain this to you guys as simply as possible n' not miss out on any details! The notebooks itself take very less time to put together (esp. the chalkboard one) and for those of you who don't know how to design with photoshop, you'll be overjoyed to see the instructions I put together for you!Keep in mind that we use photoshop only to enhance the designs, the rest if gorgeously handcrafted!

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Let's start shall we?

For the first go we shall kindle is the faux chalkboard notebook!

You'll need:

-Black cardstock

-Colorful Laptop Decals

-Scissors and pencil

-White Color/water color pencil and a paintbrush

-Washi tape (optional)

-Stapler

How-To:

1.Gather all your supplies! In the below picture you can see the kind of decals I'm using. I'd suggest you buy those which have more of a matte finish though! If you have those like me (shiny which reflect back a bit of light), follow the steps!

2.I had an A4 sized cardstock, so I folded it in half. Next randomly go over the front and back of the cardstock with the white water color pencil that will represent *chalk scratches*. After that, dip a brush in a little water and go over the cardstock. Let dry.

3.Next, smooth on your decal onto the cardstock trying to avoid air bubbles as much as possible.I had to go an extra steps since my decal wasn't exactly matte.

4.I had to run the back tip of my brush to really make sure that the decal adhered well and didn't look too obvious. You can see below how the decal was before!

For the inside, I took a stack of A4 sheets and folded them in half.Then I just inserted them into the cardstock cover and stapled the closed edge.

Finally, to conceal the staples, add washi tape but you can even use regular colored tape!

For the Rifle.Co Watercolor Inspired Notebook:

You need:

-Watercolor Pencil Set (I use a 24 one from Faber-Castell)

-Paintbrush and a lil water

-Plain White and colored Cardstock

-Plain writing paper sheets

How-to:

The next few steps show you how to enhance your original doodle and make a beauty of a notebook cover!

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Time to scan your doodled image using a printer onto your PC!

You can download this nifty lil manual to enhancing your doodle's colors and duplicating your design to have it cover the whole notebook that I've put together here!

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Once you've printed out your image, punch holes through your writing paper, the colored cardstock and the freshly printed out cardstock.( I printed out mine half of A4 sized on an A4 sized sheet since the sheets I'm using inside were cut to half too) and folded 

Loop a ribbon through the punched holes and you're good to go!

For a bit of extra charm use a fancy pattern puncher along the edge of your cover!

This third notebook was made with the same faux watercolor technique but using darker colors!

These notebooks make great gifts for your buddies and family as well!

They are a brilliant splash of color and pattern to pump up your desk or pretty up your shelves!

Don't forget to tune into the next feature of the Design Your Own series where I show you how to create some super-swanky office-supply storage at zero budget, yet again!

I hope you dah'lins love today's tut and are motivated enough to pin it and share it with others!

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Don't forget to follow Craft A Doodle Doo on Pinterest, Facebook and subscribe to make sure you get to gulp down the next fresh-out fabulous feature here!

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Thankyou for joining me today, ^_^

Lots of love and bright smiles,

Nash!

PS:Check out the first feature of your Design you Own Series here!

{You can also tune into my other DIYs here and ravishing freebies here!}

*Graphic's note :It's not important to use Photoshop as the editing software, other similar online editing ones work as well!

Cravings Ravings//Succulent Orange Chicken!

I know lunch is gonna turn out fantastic when while it's simmering hot and savory on the stove, my dad keeps pestering me when it's gonna get served (because the aroma is enticing torturing him, he says). Annyhooooo, today I present to you a fast-food favorite that takes a homemade run! Juicy, Amazing and tangy Orange Chicken!

This is so addictive that I kept running sneaking back and forth to the kitchen even after lunch and having equally sneaky bits and relishing them!

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Here's the ingredients lowdown and the method after that!

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When I was a kid, my parents used to get us take-out from our hometown Chinese restaurant, House of Hunan, and Orange Chicken was always in our to-go bag. I'm not sure if it was the sweet taste from the honey and orange or just the exotic name, but this...

• 1 cup orange juice
• 2 teaspoons ginger, grated
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 teaspoons garlic paste
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil
• 1 pound chicken breast, cubed, boneless, skinless
• 1 cup  peas, halved
• 1 red bell pepper
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon Chili powder  (optional)

How-to:

1. Mix the first 5 ingredients along with the chili powder (if you're using it for a teeny dash of spiciness) in a bowl.

1. 2. Season chicken with salt and pepper.Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat and cook the chicken cubes for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. 3. Add the vegetables and cook an additional 2 minutes then transfer the chicken vegetable mixture to a bowl.
3. 4. Add the sauce to the pan, bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes until reduced by half.
4. 5. Add the chicken and vegetables back into the sauce and cook an additional minute.
5. 6. Serve hot with hakka noodles or fried rice as a side!
6. 7. Pin and share you lovelies! :)
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Oh yeah,let's get up close and personal with this beauu-uuty (fakes Aussie accent in vain)

PS: I did two pairings, with white rice and egg fried rice!

1. I hope you savor this recipe as much as I do, and if you try it or are gonna try it, drop me a comment to let me know!
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3. Follow me on pinterest, facebook or subscribe for more unbelievably tasty recipes, darn go'geous freebies and thrifty-fab DIYs!
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5. Much love, loads of hugs and no apologies for the tantalizing snaps (hah!)
6. Nash!
7. CREDIT: Recipe adapted and modified from Weelicious.com
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The Decorista Chronicles//Design Your Own Workspace!

Here's today's doze of awesome! DIY Desk Organizers in the newest Design Your Own Series! After the decent popularity of the Wardrobe Stylist Series which features effortlessly lovely, cheap and easy DIY projects that add to your wardrobe glamour, I did a mental note to start up on another series with the same motto!

We have a file box, and a super-cute mini shelf at the bottom that houses my washi tape. You can chuck in notebooks, cute pads and a lot of other stuff; but here's why I went with washi tape!

 Remember my washi tape display stand here? If I didn't clean it regularly, the white plates would periodically collect dust because my cute little stand sat by the window and the Middle East is known for random sand storms!

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Here's what you need!

-White Paper sheets, scissors, craft glue and pencils

-Skewer sticks

-Pretty giftwrap/scrapbook paper

-Sturdy boxes in different sizes*

-Craft Knife

-Metal Ruler (for leveling, measuring and to aid in cutting)

*I used a tissue box at the bottom, however my original plan was to use VHS cassette boxes, ya' know, the transparent ones that used to hold our old-time cassetes? I wanted to layer two of them for all my washi tape, but I couldn't remember where I'd put them when we shifted homes,so I ended up using a tissue box and as you can see it got ever-so-slightly bent.

So I highly recommend you use those transparent/solid VHS tape boxes cuz' they look so much more classier and hold all the more well!

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Steps:

1.Begin by cutting out the flap from one of the longer sides of your box. Cover the ugly cardboard insides with white paper/any paper and glue down the flap to the base.

  2.Measure the height of your box from the side, take the half height and draw a line across, which divides the shorter side of the box in two

3.Insert four-five skewer sticks at equal length intervals and pierce them out through the other sides. You wanna make sure that they just about fit the length of the box and dab glue at the ends just for extra strength.

4.Try on your washi tape arrangement!

(If you are using cassette boxes, then skip step 3!)

And because I was in such hysterics at the time, I simply draped my scarf on top of the box! *sheepish*

4.If you've had any so-not-attractive edges while using the craft knife (like me)on your box, you'll want to make those straight now with the help of scissors.

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5.For the file box, take your sturdy larger box whose base should approximately match the width of the lower box's base (which now holds washi tape)

6.Cut down slant from the top at both the longitudinal sides

7.Wrap it up!

8.Hot glue the file box onto the base box.

9.Go around with a trim of washi tape for added drama!

And to give you guys a teaser, the next post in the series will feature "Design Your Own: Stationery!". Design Your Own aims to give you a fantastic office space without having to spend a dime! College students and dorm room'ers, this is your cue!

So, in the next thriller here at Craft A Doodle Doo, I show you how you can make your own journals and note books (like the one I handcrafted above) with a watercolor flair that looks store-bought!

Make sure you don't miss out on the next post!

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Join me on Pinterest and Facebook or become a subscriber to make sure you receive your next pill of epic craft action!

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You can check out the tut for the cute trinkets jars above here!

To see how to make your own washi tape, hop here!

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Pin this post now if you've found it handy and spread the word!

Oodles of love n' hugs;

Nash