Strawberry Banana Muffins Recipe

I woke up on Sunday thinking... today is a good day to bake something! I had a few very ripe banana's sitting in the fruit bowl and decided to make some yummy muffins with them. Daniel loved these, so much so that he ate 6 of them over the course of the day! You can also make these healthier by using whole wheat flour instead and adding some flax seed but I didn't have any whole wheat flour on hand so I used what I had.

What you will need to make these Strawberry Banana Muffins:

2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
2 mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup finely chopped fresh strawberries

Step 1
Heat oven to 375°F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper baking cups. In medium bowl, combine sugar, oil and eggs; blend well. Stir in bananas and vanilla.

Step 2
Add flour, baking soda and salt to sugar mixture; stir just until combined. Stir in strawberries. Spoon batter evenly into paper-lined muffin cups. Optional: Add a sliced strawberry on the top for decoration

Step 3
Bake at 375°F. for 17 to 21 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Immediately remove from muffin cups.

Step 4
Enjoy!

Hope you enjoy these as much as we did!

Rachel xo

Ikea Maskros Light – DIY / Hack

This weekend I got into a little crafting/DIY-ing/Ikea hacking with the 'Maskros' light shown below.

One day while browsing Ikea, I noticed this very different ceiling light called the ‘Maskros’. I thought hmm, this could look kind of interesting somewhere in the house. I showed Daniel the light and he immediately thought.. NO! he didn’t like it very much. After finding a few pins on pinterest with this light used in different rooms, I liked it even more! I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of the price… $99.00 for an Ikea light that was plastic and paper kind of turned me off. I started looking locally on kijiji for someone selling one and I was in luck! I found someone selling one close by for $10.00! TEN DOLLARS! Seriously! I was like, I need to have this.. NOW! So I went and checked it out, everything seemed to be okay when I took a first glance at it. I was pretty excited though for getting such a good deal that I guess I didn’t notice it was missing 4 of the petals and the metal part that would attach to the ceiling. Whoops!

So let's get into it!

The petals seemed like the needed a little T.L.C they were pretty bent out of shape so I took each and every petal off, stacked them in small piles and placed them under heavy books for a day or two. It did the job, they looked great afterwards! (I wish I would of remembered to take a before picture)

I thought how can I jazz this light up a bit, it seemed a bit plain with a white base, white petals and white button looking clips. I wasn’t a huge fan of these and next to the white petal they were more of an off white. Our living room décor is all gray, white/cream and silver so I thought why not add some ‘bling’ to this light! I measured the size of the button looking clip and went to Michaels on a hunt to find some rhinestones. Sure enough they had the perfect size. 20mm flat back rhinestones! Yippie, I was excited to start the ‘DIY’ part of this light. There are 160 petals on this light and the biggest package of these rhinestones I could find came in a pack of 20 at $4.99. So I picked up 8 packs and used a few 40% off coupons to keep the cost down. Originally I thought I would keep the missing petals off at the top of the light but then I thought it wouldn’t look very nice seeing missing parts when you look up. Daniel helped me trace out the existing petal on a piece of paper and then very carefully cut it out. We did this for the 4 that were missing. Since the button looking clip was missing as well I just used a hot glue gun and glued them directly onto the light and then glued the rhinestone onto the petal. Ta-da! You would never know that they were missing!

Next I took the button looking clip and the rhinestone and glued them together… 156 times.. I know, I’m crazy! Surprisingly, it only took about an hour to do all of this.

Now since I was missing that metal piece that goes underneath the white plastic cover that connects to the ceiling, I needed to find some way to install this bad boy. We recently changed another light in the house and had it collecting dust in the basement so I asked Daniel if we could use the base of that light for the new one and he somehow figured out how to jig it! (thank goodness I have such a handy man!) After he installed the light, I started to connect all of the petals with the new rhinestone clips just like you would with the original way.

Here is the finished product, I am so happy with it! The rhinestones don’t stand out too much but they defiantly look better than the off white button looking things. So here you have it, I spent $10.00 on the light and about $30.00 on the rhinestones. Which is a bit pricey, I know but since I saved on the light I thought why not! In the end, Daniel really liked it. He even admitted that I had ‘a vision’ and it worked! (I love when I’m right)

I love the way this light looks at night, it gives off such a pretty ambiance!

If you would like to jazz up your Ikea Maskros the same way you will need the following;

1. Ikea light (if you don't already have one)

2. Hot glue gun

3. Glue sticks

4. 160 x 20mm flat back rhinstones (not exactly the ones I used but similar)

Rachel xo