Leona Lane

day in the life

A few of you who follow me on instagram may remember a day a few weeks ago when I was a little crazy about posting. I got the idea from Ali Edwards, who does this "Day in the Life" project on the last day of every month. She photographs the simple, every day things for an entire day. I thought this would be fun to do on Instagram. I have always been a huge fan of documenting daily life, and it's pretty easy when you have an IPhone to take with you everywhere.

This weekend I finally turned my photos into a little insert for my Project Life. I used a baseball card page protector, and printed my photos in wallet size at Costco.

I kept this process pretty simple! I cut out my photos and layed them on a stack of some of my favorite pattern papers, which helped determine the color scheme. I used this pattern paper from American Crafts, as well as this pattern paper from Pebbles. Other products are scraps from old Studio Calico kits.

When I first took these photos and posted them to instagram, I added a caption which included the time of day. This made it really easy to add some labels to each photo.

I placed the completed insert into my Project Life album...the weekly layout is not exactly finished yet, though. :)

I plan on documenting another day in my life, this Friday, May 31st. I will be using #dayinthelife and keeping track of the time of day, just as I did last month. I've also convinced Renae to play along as well, so you should see both of us snapping away all day on Instagram! This is not a project I will continue every single month, but especially now as we are in the "pre-baby" phase of our lives, I'd like to keep track of life as it is now. (It will likely change quite a bit in mid-September!!)

PS: We will be posting a winner to our first give-away this afternoon! Thank you so much for all your feedback so far. We really want to know what our readers like and want to see! If you haven't left a comment yet, you still a have a few hours to do so. Find that post here. :)

 

Gluten Free Chicken Divan

Happy Memorial Day!

So, another gluten free experiment in the books! This one turned out amazing! I must say.. I've had pretty good luck so far with this gluten free stuff. This chicken divan recipe reminds me of growing up. My dad's specialty was casseroles, he'd make like 3 or 4 and freeze all but one so he didn't have to cook as often. Chicken divan was one of his specialties. We bought a bunch of brocolli at Costco, and for me to eat that much broccoli up before going bad takes some creativity. I found this recipe and gave it my own twist:

Ingredients:

- 1 lb cooked chicken, shredded

- 1-2 cups cooked brown rice

- 1 lb fresh broccoli, chopped

- 2 T butter

- 2 T brown rice flour

- 1/2 t salt

- 1/4 t pepper

- 1/2 t dried mustard

- 1 1/2 c milk

- 1 T dijon mustard

- squeeze of lemon juice

- 2 c shredded cheddar cheese

- 1/2 c gluten free bread crumbs

- slivered almonds 

Instructions:

The recipe had a great way to cook chicken and shred it fast: place it in a large skillet, add 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Simmer covered for 12-14 minutes or until chicken isn't pink. Drain and shred.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Add the flour, salt, pepper, dry mustard and stir 2-3 minutes until foamy. Slowly add the milk, cook until thickened. Stir in the dijon until mixed, then add the shredded cheese and stir well. 

In a casserole dish lay the rice in first, then add the chicken and broccoli. Pour the sauce over the top. Squeeze lemon juice over dish. Spread the bread crumbs and slivered almonds over the top. I added some extra cheese to the top as well. :) 

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Enjoy!!

No.18 The Little Things

One of the little things I've been enjoying this week is seeing the sun peak through the clouds, and the rare bits of blue sky. Love the sunbeams sneaking through the clouds, sunbursts and being able to see shadows. Shadows = Sunshine.  

That being said, I feel the little things are often the icing on the cake, and the bigger ones are what I am most grateful for. After all the devastation in Oklahoma recently, I'm so grateful for the roof over my head, for my health and the health of my loved ones. Grateful for the abilty to put food on the table and being able to take care of our basic needs. 

And in light of Memorial Day coming up tomorrow, I also feel so incredibly grateful for the brave men and women that paid the ultimate price for the freedoms we enjoy every day.

Photo Friday: Color Block

Sarah came up with this topic for today and I will admit that I had to look this up on Pinterest to give me ideas. Maybe I am just a little bit fashion/style challenged...:). I searched "Decor Color Block" and came up with THIS. Such an inspiring collection of brightly colored photos! This reminded me that when when Matt & I moved into our condo so many years ago, one of our favorite things was the brightly colored walls! We have a yellow bathroom, green bathroom, blue bedroom and red dining room. And now, as of last week, we have a wall in our baby room that is Aqua! So I thought today I would share a little sneak peek of baby girl's room.

Here is Renae's photo:

I've been organizing my desk area recently. There are no drawers so these photo boxes are coming in really handy to organize some of my less pretty supplies. I really love the way the mismatched lids look, its fun - sort of a subtle color blocking effect! I made the labels by cutting up one of the Seafoam Project Life cards. - Renae

Here is Sarah's photo:

My photo is of a GORGEOUS purple and white vase of carnations that's sitting in my kitchen. I absolutely love these colors together. Which is good, because they're our wedding colors! I also love the burlap and twine combination on the vase! That's like burlap color block, right? - Sarah

Thanks for letting us share our photos today. Hopefully you all have a fabulous Memorial Day weekend! If you haven't already, make sure you enter our giveway from yesterday.

6th Month Anniversary & A Giveaway

I almost can't believe its been half a year since we started Leona Lane! I still vividly remember sitting in Jenn's living room sketching up a blog layout and designing the logo. At that point it still seemed a bit like a pipe dream. It's been awesome seeing our dream come to life! It's been a very busy six months, time has been flying by. Today we thought we would do a flashback post and share some of our favorite posts since we started Leona Lane. Thanks for coming along for the ride! 

(Click on the pictures for links to the original posts.) 

      

Left: DIY glitter candles ~ Right: Jenn's announces they are expecting 

      

Left: Jenn sews a cute Baby Blanket ~ Right: Sarah crochets a blanket & gets a new puppy

      

Left: Earl Grey Cake Pops ~ Right: Coffee Themed Engagement Shoot

      

Left: Dreaming of Paris ~ Right: Renae's Ironic House Tour

      

Left: Local Spot-Taste & See Tea ~ Right: Mini-Book for Photo booth Pictures

      

Left: Hearts Photo Friday & Pecan Pie Recipe ~ Right: Renae has fun in Portland

We also decided it would be fun to do our first giveaway today to celebrate our 6th month anniversary!! We are giving away a set of Rifle Paper Co's Botanical Notebook Collection and 3 fun washi tapes to one lucky reader! These notebooks are the best, and there's three of them! We are also in love with washi tape, so we had to throw some of those in too!

Here's what you need to do to enter: Leave us a comment telling us what you like about Leona Lane or what you hope to see more of in the future. You can also enter a second time by following us on Bloglovin' (there is a button on the Right Sidebar) and leave a 2nd comment saying that you did so. We will announce the winner on Tuesday morning.