Pembroke Lane

Homemade Cream Chese Wontons

2012-03-01T08:30:00.000-05:00

We are trying to eat more plant based at our house. I know cream cheese is not at all plant based but we had not yet made wontons so we wanted to try a fairly simple recipe first. The verdict? We LOVE them!

Step 1: Buy your ingredients:

1 8 oz. package cream cheese
1 small package of green onions (green parts chopped)
1 package wonton wrappers
1 small bowl of water
2 cups of oil (we used 1/2 veg and 1/2 olive)
1 small pot to fry

Step 1: combine cream cheese and green onions.

Step 2: lay out wontons and fill each with 1/2 tablespoon of cream cheese mixture.

Step 3: Fold wontons into halves. We experimented with the envelope shape but I didn't like how they fried so we stuck with just folding them in half.

Step 4: Fry in the heated oil for about 30 seconds on each side and drain on a paper towel.

Step 5: EAT!

Dr. Seuss Thing 1 and Thing 2 Pinterest Project

2012-02-28T20:34:00.000-05:00

My friend I teach with found a great craft for her autism room for Dr. Seuss day this year on Pinterest. She did these adorable thing 1 and thing 2 hand print crafts with her students yesterday and I just had to do this with my girls at home. I would have liked to have done this with my 2nd graders but I can't imagine hand painting 24 students' hands 4 times each! That would create chaos in my classroom. We are doing other crafts less labor intensive.

Here is the original pin from Pinterest.

Source: littlekinderwarriors.blogspot.com via Alicia on Pinterest

We began with collecting our supplies. They include:
1 container peach colored paint
1 container red paint
1 container blue paint
1 black sharpie
4 pieces of construction paper
3 small paper plates
3 paint brushes
2 willing little girls

We began by painting one of the girls' hands with the peach color in the center and the blue all around. Repeat with other hand on other piece of paper. Repeat with other girl :o)

Once both blue hands are stamped and dry, repeat with the red except skip the middle finger or your things 1 and 2 will have 3 legs. If you skip the middle finger when painting you get two arms and two legs with your red prints. Flip the paper over to stamp the red hands.

Once they are completely dry, draw on the faces and names on the peach colored sections and have each child sign them. I dated them with today's date and hung them on their bedroom doors. Once we have finished all of our Dr. Seuss celebrations we will take them down and put them into our scrapbook.

Happy Dr. Seuss Week and Read Across America Day!

Pinterest Challenge: Ice Cube Lunch Trays

2012-02-20T21:15:00.000-05:00

My children were off of school today but alas, as the teacher I was not. While my mother in law got to stay with my two adorable girls I was working. To celebrate a day where both girls can stay home together I decided to complete a Pinterest Challenge I had been dying to try. I found this great picture of a toddler lunch idea.

Source: wileyvalentine.com via Melissa on Pinterest

So I make my own for both of my girls. Now, our tray was a little bigger but both girls just loved it. Here is my interpretation of what I called a Rainbow Lunch Tray.

From left to right is as follows: 1/2 slice of American cheese, mix of chocolate and white chips, 3 sections of purple seedless grapes, 1/2 filled container of ranch dressing, two containers of brocolli, 1 container with 6 mini carrots, 1 container with cheese cracker birdies (Target brand), 2 containers full of animal crackers (about 6-8 animal crackers total), two sections of blue jello roll up (another Pinterest find) and two sections of strawberries (about 2 large strawberries).

My oldest who doesn't usually like raw veggies devoured her plate while my youngest didn't eat all of her veggies but everything else was gone. I think this may be a snow day/ day off from school/ fun Saturday tradition around here. Long live a $2.00 ice cube tray!

Spraypainting Curtain Rods and DIY Tablecloth into Curtains

2012-02-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

I looked and looked all over the blogisphere for something to do with my 3 HUGE windows in our living, dining and kitchen. I did find a lovely tablecloth at Target that I was going to split in half for each curtain. I didn't want them too full and I didn't want to close them as we just pull our blinds down each night instead.

I was able to purchase 3 tableclothes at $19.99 each and split them down the middle. I then sewed a very basic seem down the side I cut and hung them with clips purchased from Wal-Mart.I purchased 4 bags at $7 each so those were quite costly.
I was able to get 3 curtain rods for $7 each at The Christmas Tree Store and sprayed them with ORB (oil rubbed bronze) spray paint which was $6 at Lowes.

The total project cost was:
Curtains: $60.00
Clips: $28.00
Curtain Rods: $21.00
Spray Paint: $6.00

Total: $115.00 for three HUGE windows that run the length of my house.

Pink and Yellow Ikea Klippan Dyed Couch Slipcovers + a Tutorial

2012-01-31T20:04:00.001-05:00

We have two Ikea couches and absolutely LOVE our Klippans. We have the 4 seater Klippan sofa and absolutely adore it. We also love it and that the natural covers are pretty cheap at times to purchase. You can see the pink cover we dyed lying on the chair behind the 4 seater couch.

We also have the Klippan loveseat 2 seater. We originally purchased one and dyed it pink for my daughter's birthday. This is truer to the color than the picture above of our pink cover. This was using 2 bottles of Fuchsia on the 2 seat loveseat cover.

We also wanted to dye a cover dark gray but didn't/couldn't find any black in liquid form at the time and used the powdered gray. It totally didn't work out well. You can see in the picture from this post HERE from last time we talked about dying that it looked too blue.

Well, we bleached that one with a gallon of bleach and lots of rinse water in the bath tub.

We rinsed and rinsed the cover and even did a quick wash in the washing machine to make sure there was no residue of bleach left to mess with our new color.
Then we put two bottles of golden yellow and 1/2 a bottle of sunshine orange into the water.

We then put our freshly washed cover into the water and let it soak. We constantly came back and moved the fabric around to ensure it was all covered with dye.

This picture doesn't do it true justice but we LOVE it with our new curtains and curtain rods.

So now we have a dark gray couch and a yellow loveseat and we just LOVE them both!

Bible Cake for Pastor's Birthday

2012-01-26T20:10:00.001-05:00

My grandfather's 84th birthday was yesterday. We had a fabulous church service last night in honor of him and took a 50 question quiz on how well you know your pastor. I only missed 9 which isn't bad since he is also my grandfather.

I made this cake last year for his 83rd birthday and found the pictures today when I began making our 2011 year in pictures book. I also realized that I never shared this awesome cake on the blog. And so... today's post was born.

I began by making a large yellow cake in two rectangular pans. I cut the edges so they would form more of a page look and slid them together on my cake stand.

I made some great homemade chocolate icing and put a layer of coconut beneath it. My grandfather loves German sweet chocolate cake so I pulled a little coconut influence from that.

I covered the entire thing in white fondant and began painting. I took gel food coloring in ivory and gold and brushed the entire surface. I then created edges to resemble a book and painted a darker tone.

Do you just love how I steal my child's plastic plate as a palette? Me too!

I added a good Bible verse my grandfather likes and some leaf and ribbon detailing. I also purchased a plain white gumpaste cross from the local cake supply store and painted it up. Somehow I got so wrapped up that I totally forgot to take pictures of the process.

I covered the entire cake in gold luster dust to give it a little extra sheen. This picture was taken in my fridge after I finished the cake.

Happy Birthday Grandpa! May you have many many more!

Autumn/ Fall Themed Child's Birthday Party

2012-01-23T08:30:00.000-05:00

I am tremendously late in posting my youngest child's birthday. Her birthday is October 12th and we had our party the 16th. 3 months late isn't bad right? Thanks, I feel better now.

This was my attempt at taking pictures for her invitation. It didn't work out well and I used an adorable picture of pumpkins instead. She has the worst "fake" smile but she's still cute anyway. At least I think so.

I bought hay bales from our local nursery and used three on my porch and three to tear apart for the hayride.

I made orange/vanilla cupcakes with orange infused butter cream frosting. I got the cupcake wrappers from Michael's. I totally forgot to take a picture of the food table but at least I got the cupcake table. Honestly, isn't it only the desserts that matter anyway? :o) I thought so too!

I purchased a vinyl birthday banner to use year after year for both girls. Here is Eryn's. It is quite large at over 3 feet long.

The handmade blocks were done by my mother. She made the bottom block double sided with my other daughter's name on it so we can just turn them around. She hasn't set up an official shop anywhere yet but if you want to send me an email I can get prices and info. I do know that they are wood and she hand paints, sands and decorates each block.

She made these cute blocks for her birthday to sit on her shelf. Eryn just loves princesses and requested these blocks.

The hayride was the trailer pulled by my father in law. My husband and brother rode along as chaperones. The hayride went just around our development which is a private area so all parties involved were totally safe as only one major road goes out into the town and all the rest are just quiet little streets with no exit to the main road.

The kids loved it, especially Eryn.

Her older sister liked the ride as well.

After she opened presents and cards she dressed up in a Disney princess dress just because so she could eat her cupcake.

She had some difficulties using the gloves to eat her cupcake but she eventually just took them off.

All in all her party was a success. She put back on her party dress in the end and took a few pictures with her baby doll on the front porch.

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie with Boca Soy Crumbles

2012-01-21T21:22:00.004-05:00

My family and I watched a great documentary called "Vegucated" and I honestly wanted to cry. A few times I did in fact cry and so did my 2nd grade daughter who insisted on watching with me. I had long known that animals were killed for food, what person doesn't? But what I didn't know was just how cruelly animals were kept and treated.

I began my journey into "vegetarianism" by listening to my own body. I have horrible energy swings, headaches, feel tired and groggy, get tummy troubles, etc. I seem to have issues with lots of foods. What food was it? Who knows? I know that I couldn't sleep at night all night because I couldn't breathe. Was it my allergies? Maybe. I do have two dogs and two cats but getting rid of them was not an option. I love my animals but I also love to breathe. I had read that dairy causes more mucus production so I thought maybe getting rid of dairy would help my breathing issues at night. Can I give up milk and yogurt? Sure! Can I give up cheese? Maybe not. Cheese is a staple in my home and is used multiple times a week for a majority of meals.

My husband and youngest daughter are total meat eaters. My youngest LOVES her chicken nuggets and will eat meat over anything else. My husband looked at me when I said I wanted us to give up meat and flat out said "no". I am slowly convincing him by switching out our meat for soy substitutes for 2-3 meals a week. We still have some beef and pork in the freezer to use up and it would be horrible to throw it away especially since the animal's life has already been forfeit but I have purchased Boca and Morningstar Farms products and soy milk to get us started. Believe it or not, the youngest meat eater LOVES her 25% less sugar Westsoy Plus Plain soy milk! She asked for it twice today and she NEVER asks to drink milk. Yeah!

This recipe I found at Peta's website in their pdf version of the "getting started" Vegetarian information packet.

I mixed together:

1 can of peas
1 can of carrots
1 packet of gravy (made to serve)
1 bag of Boca Soy Crumbles

and spread into a sprayed glass dish

Wash, peel, and boil for 20 minutes 4-6 medium potatoes.

Mash with 1/2 cup of soy or regular milk
2 Tb of margarine or real butter
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 tsp Garlic Salt

Spread on top of mixture and bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes until potatoes are slightly brown.

*This recipe differs slightly from the PETA recipe as I doubled the amount of veggies and added two potatoes.

Of course mine does not look nearly as pretty as PETA's version as I believe I pulverized my potatoes but my family still ate it and my husband even went back for seconds! I also had a little gravy sneak out on the side (bad gravy).

Birthday Present preview

2012-01-16T19:24:00.001-05:00

Sorry about the raw picture but I am posting this from my phone. We are dinner at my mother's house this evening and she asked me to check out my birthday presents in case I didn't like them. My birthday isn't until February 4th but she wanted to make sure she didn't have to do any exchanges. One of the the things she found for me I just had to take a picture of and daydream about where to put it. You see, she found an amazing white elephant at Marshall's. The store clerk told her it was the only one they had gotten in and they had and had just put it out. Yeah me! Look for our favorite new pachyderm when my birthday rolls around. I'm sure he will be featured lots in the future.

Labeled Glass Pantry Jars & a Vinyl Transfer Tutorial

2012-01-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

I love all things labeled and pretty. If I had more time to a day I'd have everything labeled in my entire life but alas my OCD must go untapped since there are only 24 hours in a day and I need to sleep some time, or so my husband says.

I originally had these Tupperware organizers but wanted a more sleek, updated look where I could clearly see when I needed more ingredients instead of the little peak a boo window.

I found these great glass jars at Target. The largest ones (they hold a gallon) are a little under $6, the medium size around $5 and the small ones are under $5. I purchased a bunch of each a little at a time each week. Yeah, I totally go to Target every week! I LURVE Target just a little! Oh and I got those blue cups for our camping trips for around $2 on clearance! Score!

I washed the jars and let them dry thoroughly. Can't have all those cute ingredients gunking up the bottom can we?

I purchased really cute custom labels from Say It on the Wall, since I have yet to get my Silhouette Cameo. Anyone listening and wish to purchase one for me, my birthday is in 2 1/2 weeks! :o) You will also need your favorite music like my Glee station on Pandora Radio.

It is really easy to put vinyl on anything. First, rub with all your might, or a Petco gift card so that the vinyl sticks to the transfer paper. Then slowly at an angle peel the vinyl off the backing.

Situate the vinyl and transfer paper combo to the glass jar.

Press with fingers on top of the vinyl. Then slowly, very slowly peel the transfer paper off, pressing the vinyl down if/when needed.

I pressed down on the vinyl again after the transfer paper was off just to make sure it stayed down and was secure.

Then just fill with your favorite ingredients and place somewhere really cute.

The orange scoops are freebies I've gotten from Tupperware parties. They don't measure but they are great for filling a measuring cup or just dumping things in. I ~~never~~ always measure my rice, don't you?

Hope this little tutorial helps and happy vinyling. :o) That's a word right? Ha Ha.

Organizing the Pantry (again)

2012-01-13T07:32:00.000-05:00

It seems like just yesterday I was posting about organizing the pantry. HERE is the old post about just such a thing. Actually it was a little over a year ago. I have organized it since but nothing too crazy.

This time I pulled out all the ~~stops~~ shelves. The house was originally designed to have the laundry area where the pantry is. Strange enough, with an open floor plan that means in my dining room. The lovely people who first built my house (not me) changed the idea and had the laundry area moved into the 4th bedroom and the bedroom redesigned into a laundry/huge extra random closet. The old laundry area then became the pantry.

This isn't horrible except the shelves are so far apart you can't seem to utilize the space well. Honestly, it totally stinks!

Three huge shelves just doesn't cut it. Look at all that extra room between shelves! Time for a change!

Step 1: Clutter your ~~entire house~~ kitchen with all the things from your pantry while you demo. Do it during something fun like on a Wednesday night after church and two days before something major (like report cards due at school). :o)

Step 2: Grab your hammer! This is the really fun part, DEMO! Take out all your pent up aggression issues out on the shelves.

Step 3: Stand back and realize you didn't think about patching holes or painting and don't really have time for it. Ooppssyyy!

Step 4: Tell yourself you will paint behind there later but right now this has to be put back before your family strings you up.

Step 5: Begin shelf reassignment. We had some old shelves we had purchased from Lowes to use in that extra closet that we also ripped out (more on that later) and had placed these shelves and the track system in the garage. They were quickly re-purposed.

Step 6: Cut down the 2nd shelf so that you can have one seamless shelf the entire pantry wide.

Step 7: Quickly put everything back and call it a day.

It still isn't 100% perfect because I just can't find a solution for bagged items that are large. What do you do when you snag a great coupon deal and get 6 bags of Chex Mix or Chips?

I was able to put many small items into these great containers I bought at Wal-Mart. They were about $12-$14 each but I saved so much room by unboxing items I purchased from Amazon and placing them into the drawers. Each drawer then got a label from my label maker so my ~~husband~~ kids knew where everything was. I was even able to make room for my extra candles (they are in the left container, bottom two drawers), my plastic silverware and extra napkins (bottom drawer on the right organizer) and all those annoying drink packages and tea bags.

With the extra shelves and the items more compact, I was able to bring my cookbooks into the pantry where they freed up an entire 12 inch cabinet in my kitchen to put dish towels and extra ziploc baggies.

I will be posting more on these cute glass jars tomorrow! So what do you think of the pantry now? Is it horrible that I didn't patch and paint first?

The Kitchen Island Make Over Part 1

2012-01-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

The kitchen Island has long been an eye sore right along with my ~~totally hideous racing stripe~~ beautiful kitchen floor. We have thrown around some ideas and pinned pictures on Pinterest of great things one can do as a kitchen island.

I scoured Craigslist for an awesome dresser and just haven't found it. I also took a look at my remodeling budget and with a total lack of funds, sighed loudly and went to Lowes for paint. I picked up the paint that was the last color on the paint sample for my kitchen. Our cabinets were done with Rustoleum's Cabinet transformations color matched to Valspar's Comet Dust.

Valspar 5006-1A Comet Dust at MyPerfectColor

The walls and back splash in the entire area are Valspar's Notre Dame.

Valspar 5006-1B Notre Dame at MyPerfectColor

I wanted the island to be darker than both and still coordinate so I went with the last color which is Valspar's Granite Dust.

Valspar 5006-1C Granite Dust at MyPerfectColor

The Granite Dust color is slightly darker in real life. Since we aren't keeping this island forever, I purchased Olympic 15 year semi-gloss interior paint and had the Valspar color matched to it. Honestly, it was just price. The Olympic was only $18 and the Valspar $33. If it was a forever piece it would have been the Valspar hands down.

This means I can finally get rid of the evidence that I sprayed my cabinets on the kitchen island! It is a war wound I'd like gone.

Step 1 is to remove the hardware, doors, and drawers.

Step 2 is to degloss. I'm using the same deglosser left over from the cabinet transformation.

Step 3 is scheduled for next Friday night! Whoo hoo! What adventure!

Holiday Craziness and Adorable Holiday Milk Bottles

2012-01-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

So in the event of saving ~~tears~~ time, I will explain what happened in the kitchen. I will just direct you to the post HERE about the dishwasher. Lucky for us, I was able to fix it quickly and it is now working very well and beautiful to boot!

Pardon the fingerprints. The 4 year old likes to help "load" the dishwasher now.

We have a Christmas gathering for my husband's side of the family each year at Christmas Eve. For the last five years it has been at our house. We got off at 12 on Friday from work and hurried like crazy busy bees to finish everything. Saturday we had two other places to go before our party that night so we were totally ~~wiped~~ excited by the time ours came.

In the middle of it all, I also decided to make all of our Christmas gifts for adults. I made cake balls, coconut/dark chocolate cookies, peppermint bark, peanut butter cups, and peppermint patties. Here is what my peppermint bark looked like but I didn't think ~~like a blogger~~ a head because I didn't take pictures of anything else.

We also didn't put up a large tree this year because well, we didn't have one! Our fake one died last year and we never found one after Christmas shopping. I found this adorable 4 foot one and we were going to put it on the porch until we realized we didn't have one this year and it became our tree inside. We ~~gagged~~ refused when we saw that Michael's wanted $229 for a 6 1/2 foot fake one.

I showed them though. I bought it at 80% off after Christmas for next year. It has colored lights which seems so retro to me but the girls thought it was awesome. We left it up for a few days just so we could saw we had a tree up.

I made some adorable milk bottles from Starbucks frappuccino glass bottles using some great printables from HERE . It is from Shindig Parties on Etsy! I love Etsy!

Step 1: Drink Frappuccino :o)

Step 2: Wash out bottle

Step 3: Soak bottle in soapy water for about 20 minutes to loosen up the labels.

Step 4: Peel off the labels (there are 2) and use Goof Off or Goo Be Gone on any residue that remains.

Step 5: Wash again in hot, soapy water or your dishwasher.

Step 6: Cut out adorable labels from Etsy and tape around bottle

Step 7: Put coordinating straw in and enjoy!

They were also good Christmas morning with apple juice while Daddy made pancakes!

Valentine's Day Mantle

2012-01-02T19:51:00.001-05:00

I took all the Christmas decorations down (left up some snow ones), and decided I needed to LOVE my mantle. Out came all the holiday floral and reindeer and in went some pinks, hearts, a candlestick and more hearts!

The two glass jars are from Michael's last year and all the other hearts: Michael's as well. The hearts are pretty easy to imitate. Just take a heart cut out of cardboard or wood (also found at your local hobby store) and cover in glue and drizzle with sequins or beads. It won't be as 3-D looking as these but it will do in a pinch. You can also find Christmas ornaments and rip things off of them to create hearts. Trust me. It's wrong but it works.

I have some snowflakes that were christmas ornaments tucked in here and there. The candle stick was purchased at Marshall's a few years ago. A little ribbon and some off-white Partylite candles and shazzam! It is now Valetine's ified. :o)

The "Wish" was a Kohl's after Christmas sale about 2 years ago. I use this for my Christmas/Winter mantle and it stays up for Valentine's day. It sometimes comes back out for the girls' birthday parties depending on the themes.

Linking up to:
Stories of A to Z
herecomesthesun
www.homestoriesatoz.com

Our Christmas Card

2011-12-15T22:32:00.001-05:00

Pretty Pattern Christmas Card

Visit Shutterfly.com for classic photo Christmas cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

We just love this picture I took of the girls at my friend's wedding reception back in August. The girls haven't changed any at all and it is SO hard to get them both to look great in one picture that we decided to just turn this one black and white, crop a little closer, and slap a Merry Christmas to it. After all, my husband and I both believe they are our greatest accomplishments period so we take every opportunity to show them off.

When DIY Goes Horribly Wrong!

2011-12-13T07:18:00.000-05:00

Let me begin by explaining the saga that is my life. I over analyze EVERYTHING! It is a fault that I am working on daily. However, because of this issue it takes me forever to make decisions regarding important purchases. For example, we were given a dishwasher about 2 1/2 years ago by one of my mother's neighbors when she purchased all stainless appliances. There was nothing wrong with the dishwasher it was just younger than our own hideous one that came with our house when we purchased it. Our house is 16 years old so the original dishwasher was 13 1/2 when it was replaced.

The dishwasher from our friend lasted the 2 1/2 years before it finally gave up working. During that time, we had repairmen out once to fix a worn out part but that this point it had broken pieces and rarely washed a load of dishes where they all came out clean.

You can see part of the dishwasher here. This was taken in October before our youngest daughter's birthday party.

We had been debating whether to replace our stove (which is acting funny and not in a ha ha sort of way) or the dishwasher when the dishwasher made the decision for us. We shopped around a lot. By WE I mean I scoured reviews from Lowes, Home Depot, Amazon, Best Buy, HH Gregg, etc. All the dishwashers with the hidden controls had horrible reviews where the control panel motors had all been replaced 2-3 times and people warned potential buyers away like a proverbial lions' den.

After looking at all the sites over and over again, I decided to check out the Black Friday sales which may or may not have something I want. I found a Maytag dishwasher from Lowes with great reviews and an even greater price point. The only thing it had that I didn't want was controls you could see. Oh well, it was still stainless, it had an all stainless tub and I could actually fit pots into it? I was sold! I purchased it online with a few coupon codes on Thanksgiving Day and VOILA! for a reasonable price it was going to be delivered to my home on Black Friday!

The delivery men were amazing and came exactly when they said they would. I unboxed my beautiful new appliance and set off installing it. Problem number one. I had never heard of a strain relief for electrical wires and thought it isn't necessary according to the directions so I just won't use it. Then the new dishwasher did not come with wire connectors but I just used the ones from the old dishwasher. They worked so we were great! After about an hour and a half I had a beautiful dishwasher in my kitchen!

Then, we ran it. It worked very well the first time Friday night. Saturday we were a flurry of working on organizing the garage and finishing up the laminate floors in the girls' rooms (more on that later). On one of the trips back in to the house from the garage we smelled a noxious odor that made you want to throw up/cry/scream all at once! I thought it could possibly we the battery we were charging for the drill as our drill is old and trying to die. We immediately unplugged it and also turned off the dishwasher just in case. We spent an hour trying to figure out what was making the smell. We decided to turn off the breaker for the plugs in the kitchen and the dishwasher just in case. We took the kids out of the house and to the store for 2 hours just to make sure the smell was gone. When we came home I smelled the odor coming from the little vent in the dishwasher (see photo top left). I was immediately horrified and decided not to mess with it before I hurt myself or the dishwasher. I have been working on Christmas candy, laundry, lesson plans, wrapping presents and just life for the last 2 weeks and have ignored the lovely dishwasher. In the meantime, our kitchen has become a cesspool or disgusting dishes as since I am making the Christmas Candy my husband is in charge of dishes. He is slacking BIG time!

Pardon the horrible lighting, this is an early morning picture. My floor is still also nasty as we haven't decided whether we are doing tile or hardwood, so there is still a nasty stripe of sub-floor in front of our beautiful cabinets. Of course we also have Christmas candy ~~carnage~~ presents everywhere!

Finally, last night I decided to tackle the problem head on. I pulled the dishwasher out and left all connections in place (remember the breaker is off at this point). Everything looked fine until I pulled out my connections. Don't ask how but one (only one of two) wire connectors decided to melt. This had nothing to do with the strain relief but apparently with the wire connectors. So, it is off to Lowes to buy both a strain relief (just in case) and a new set of wire connectors. UGGGHHH! At least it wasn't worse and I can salvage the wires and fix it. I am not sure exactly what happened but it will be fixed so I can reclaim my kitchen and my beautiful new dishwasher.

On a side note, both girls' floors are finished and so is a new shelf and all decorated for our Christmas Eve party.

Working on Christmas

2011-12-04T14:19:00.001-05:00

I'm in the process of finishing up some great things around the house but I stopped to decorate a little for Christmas. Of course, as a teacher, this is my favorite time of year as winter brings snow and can possibly brig unexpected days off with my family. Here is a new shelf we hung in the kitchen last night. I just love looking at this while making my cookies!

Our Pearlized Stenciled Backsplash

2011-11-21T19:22:00.001-05:00

This is the beginning of the stenciled back splash we put into the kitchen. We cut out the cardboard piece and traced around each one. Then I hand painted around each place I had traced. I then repeated and repeated and repeated ~~until I cramped up~~ some more. This was finished under the cabinets all around the kitchen.

I started by the fridge and moved some things around as I finished. I finally decided until we can afford an electrician to install an above the stove microwave ours must live next to the fridge to get out of my way! I love having a microwave but detest that it takes up my counter space!

As you can see I messed up around the phone jack we do not use. I will fix it eventually. I messed up majorly in a different spot and just took some of the base paint and painted over it and then painted the metallic back over it.

This was done with Martha Stewart Opalescent paint from Michael's. I used the white color but it looks silver/gray against the gray wall. We really like it but I need a pop of color somewhere. Can't decide if I need a new Kitchen-aid mixer in a neon color or just artwork. Hmmmm.....

My mixer has been acting funny lately.

Our Kitchen Transformation! (Not yet 100% done)

2011-10-04T10:35:00.001-04:00

I have been waiting to blog about our kitchen transformation for a few months now. I have given details about the granite counters but that was as far as I had gone. Well, I am ready to share more! We are not 100% finished as the stencil on the back splash is not really started but that will be worked on this week and next to finish up.

We started with this: (no the racing stripe floor was there when we moved in)

I know it is scary. Plus we were making rice crispy treats. Can you tell?

One more scary picture just for effect.

The first step in THE GREAT KITCHEN RENOVATION OF 2011-2012 was to work on leveling those cabinets and readying them for the counter.

Here is the 1st step completed with new sink, faucet and counters.

The 2nd step was to work on those blonde cabinets! We purchased Rustoleum's Cabinet Refinishing Kit but we didn't love the colors so I had it custom color matched at my favorite Lowe's. We chose Comet Dust the lighter of the color swatch.
Valspar 5006-1A Comet Dust at MyPerfectColor

I love it! It isn't quite a gray but it isn't white either. It took 3 weeks to do our whole kitchen! We have a huge kitchen. I have 18 top cabinets alone! We purchased the large kitchen kit.

First you must take down all doors and use plastic gloves to degloss every surface. You can see here the the cabinet face is not shiny at all. That is a good thing!

Next is the actual base coat layer. I used a brush on the cabinet base to avoid getting paint everywhere. Notice the 2 liter of Coke. Must have my caffeine fix while working!

I used a sprayer on the doors as we were not using the stain after the paint. It is recommended to use a brush so the stain gets into the nooks and crannies. I wanted none of those so we sprayed. It did take FOREVA as we have to wait an hour after deglossing 1 side before you degloss the other and the only place I had to work was in the kitchen on our island.

My brother purchased a sprayer to use on his ceilings and realized it was too small to do the job. It was perfect for my cabinets! Thank you very much! The paint was used with 50% water added to the sprayer.

After spraying, I sanded the edges to give them some character. Then we waited 24 hours before sealing them with the poly coat from the kit. This also went in the sprayer with 10% water added.

After waiting at least 24 hours for the poly to dry I added the hardware back (we used the same cabinet pulls (the drawers are still blank... haven't decided what to use on those)

Then we rehung!

We painted the walls in the entire, kitchen, dining room and living room area the same gray since it is all one open space. We used the 2nd gray on the color sample. It is called Valspar's Notre Dame

Valspar 5006-1B Notre Dame at MyPerfectColor

Our picture makes it look more dark gray than in real life. Our huge window's face the west so we get the sun setting not rising. Boo!

The stenciling still needs to be done on the backsplash as does the island. We are going to paint the island the darkest color from the same paint swatch. It is called Valspar's Granite Dust. It looks darker in real life compared to the swatch below.

Valspar 5006-1C Granite Dust at MyPerfectColor

The floor is still racing stripe green and will be until next summer when we can afford to put down hardwood in the whole area.

We now have picture boxes in the entire area with white below the picture rail and the Notre Dame color above with white accents.

Next up, making curtains, finishing the back splash and then painting the island.

DIY To Be Continued Project List

2011-09-25T09:57:00.000-04:00

There are many things I wanted to accomplish this summer before school started back. I did not accomplish all of them but some of them are finished and many of them are only 1/2 finished. I was inspired by Allison@House of Hepworths with her DIY unfinished project list to create my own.

Projects to Finish BEFORE Christmas

#1: Finish Painting Kitchen/ Trim:

I began painting the kitchen back in June when we redid our kitchen cabinets. (You haven't seen that yet). With such a large open floor plan it is very difficult to find a place to stop one paint color and begin another. With that in mind I made the crazy decision to paint the living room, dining room and entry way the same gray as the kitchen walls. I also decided to put up chair rail like in the living room and paint the bottom half and trim white.

I got it all finished except two spots on the wall, the kitchen window trim and all the doors (there are 4 regular doors and 1 set of bifold to paint). The yellow color in the bottom of the picture is the color the entire house was painted before we purchased it. Painting the white/gray combo covered the last remaining yellow anywhere. I'm not a huge fan of yellow but when you aren't sure if it is yellow, tan or just yuck, that's a problem.

This is the spot next to the garage door in the little bump out section with the trash can closet door as well.

This is the spot by the kitchen window. The left side is the refridgerator door, so it isn't majorly noticeable. Just to crazy people like me and those who help in the kitchen during parties.

#2: Kitchen Backsplash Stencil:

I found this great stencil where someone had created it and used it in their office makeoever. This FREE printable stencil is from Jones Design Company. She calls is 'painted wallpaper'. I printed out the stencil and traced it onto cardboard to be more sturdy. I then began tracing it onto the backsplash (wall under the cabinets). I only got around 1/3 of it traced on. I need to purchase some white opalescent paint so I can hand paint it on. I'd like to have this project finished before Eryn's 4th birthday party on October 16th.

#3: Hang 2 Shelves & Decorate Them:

I have 3 identical shelves that we originally purchased from Lowes in 2004 for Emma's nursery at our old house. We have since moved, had a 2nd child, redecorated Emma's room twice (getting ready for a third already) and decided to use these shelves in the living room.

#4: Hang Mirror Above 1st Shelf:

In the picture above there is a missing mirror. It is a quatrefoil design. I cannot find it on their website so it may be a store only type of item or it could be discontinued. It was $19.99 at the store.

#5: Hang 3 Pictures:

I have 3 picture frames I purchased at one of the local outlet stores on a great sale of $11 each back in December. As you can tell, it is almost a year later. They sat in our bedroom linen closet until I took them out this week and started playing around with where to put them. Haven't decided still 100% where all 3 will go but I do know where 1 is going for sure. I plan to hang them this week or next (before the birthday party)

#6: Put pictures in Existing Pictures:

I have the 3 frames I already mentioned plus a few more around the house that still do not have pictures in them. I need to upload the pictures to Picnik and then get them printed.

I'm sure I have more projects to tackle that I have been ignoring and didn't think of for this post. If I think or find more, I'll keep you updated. In the meantime, how is your DIY list? Is it huge? I know I'm not the only one with such a list.

It's Been a While and a FALL Plate Craft

2011-09-05T21:00:00.001-04:00

While I haven't posted much on the blog since July... alright, not at all. You caught me! I have been doing things around our house. In fact, we have totally refinished our kitchen cabinets. More on that later.

For now, I wanted to share a fall plate craft idea I ~~stole~~ borrowed from Michael's Craft Stores. I was there this weekend, with coupon in hand for their Labor Day sale and snagged this great orange fall plate for only $0.99! Yup! The other supplies I used were:

a letter "G" for our last name: $2.29
orange glitter glue $0.99
Basic Grey paper (had at home)
scrapbook adhesive (had on hand at home)

So... for a total cost of $4.27+ tax I had a custom fall plate for my fall mantle.

Here are the steps.

Step 1: buy materials :o)

Step 2: trace and cut paper to fit inside plate and adhere with your favorite adhesive.

Step 3: using the glitter glue, cover the letter in glitter glue and smear around with finger for semi-even coverage.

Step 4: using glitter glue, make dots as a border around paper about every 1/4 inch.

Step 5: when dry, adhere letter to center of plate ( I used dots so my letter would be even more 3 dimensional)

Step 6: put on plate hanger or stand and enjoy!

The Simple Pleasures of a Child

2011-07-22T10:49:00.002-04:00

Who would have thought with all the gadgets and toys a child could want that something as simple as a band-aid would make a child happy. Using coupons, we are able to get cute character band-aids very reasonably priced and sometimes free. This makes our two little girls extremely happy!

We were helping my mother move and Eryn (the little one) fell walking on the sidewalk and skinned her knee. No it wasn't life threatening and didn't even cause her to cry. When we got home she told me she had a boo boo and needed a band-aid to fix it. I told her I'd get her a Barbie band-aid and life was grand. She then danced around the house singing that she had a Barbie band-aid and look at her.

Isn't the life of a 3 year old grand? I LOVE that character Band-aids are something that can cause my children joy.

Adventures in Dying... An Ikea Klippan Loveseat VS. ME

2011-07-07T08:01:00.000-04:00

We purchased an IKEA Klippan loveseat with no cover on Craigslist last month. I did not or was not able to see the legs in the original Craigslist post so I was more than a little shocked to see hideous wooden legs put on the sleek, modern sofa. As you can imagine, they were removed.

Ikea is over an hour and 1/2 away from us so it took us two weeks to head to my favorite store (in competition with Target). I unknowingly, thought I could purchase Klippan metal legs at the store and an extra cover. My idea was to buy an off-white cover (for $19) and dye it gray. I had seen a dye job to die for at IKEA Hackers and knew I could do it.

I was unable to find metal legs at IKEA for the sofa but we did purchase these bookcase legs that are super similar in size, form and color so we thought... for $10 sure... we'll try it.

I realized after pulling the wooden legs off that the original owners put them on because one place where the metal legs screw in was crooked. They took a new screw and screwed in the wooden legs just to the outside of the original leg position.

We unscrewed the extra screws and I fixed the crooked spot by inserting a screwdriver inside it and pulling in the right direction. DUH! Super easy!

The couch was also a very old version. The date on the bottom said 1999. We had to cut off a white gauzy cover to put the slip cover on but no worries.. It turned out fine! The kitten even got into the DIY spirit.

The wooden legs made the couch too high and therefore oddly uncomfortable. It wasn't until we put these legs on and the couch sat lower that we realized that was the problem the whole time.

Next came the dye job. I found on the RIT website where you can dye items in your washer. We purchased 2 Royal Blue and 1 Sunshine Orange liquid dyes to mix together to get a blue/gray. We pre-washed the off-white cover and then mixed our colors together.

You can actually pick out over 500 colors at the Color Formula Guide .

We picked out #193 and followed the directions.

The directions state to only leave it in the dye for 30 minutes max and use super hot water. You are also to add 1 cup of salt into the tub. I stopped the washer at 30 minutes and then rinsed a second time.

After round 1 it came out WAY too blue!

I'm not sure the orange did anything at all. I re-read the directions for machine washing and the only thing I can think of that went wrong is that we have an HE front loader so it uses less water.

We purchased a black RIT dye and poured the entire bottle in the load and tried to darken it thinking any gray/black would be better than denim blue.

It didn't do anything. When I have time I will use two bottles of black and hope it darkens it. For now, we have a denim blue couch. We go back to IKEA on Saturday to purchase the Klippan 4 seater in black and a few extra off-white covers for me to dye. With my daughter's birthday party on Sunday I will be purchasing a pink cover for the 2 seater.

New living room/ kitchen makeover pictures to follow. Next time I try to color match and dye a cover I will use 1/2 of the recipe and use a large Rubbermaid container and boiling water instead of our washer. It was a super easy method but lack of extra water darkened the color drastically.

Let there be light.... without rust

2011-07-05T09:58:00.000-04:00

We have had the same outdoor lights since we moved in over 5 years ago.They are also original to the house which was built in 1994 of 1995 (we're not sure). That means the lights are way too old to still look good. Plus I just didn't like the design and the fact that over 50% of the houses in our development still had them as well.

I picked out a great light two pack at Lowe's for only $31. We purchased 2 packs and got to work.

Problem #1: the hanging bracket pushed the light too far out that it was not flush.

Problem #2: because we have brick the electrical boxes were hung sideways which gave us no room to adjust the adjustable screws to bring the light closer to the brick.

Solution: After fighting with one of the lights by the front door for an hour I called my brother. He can jerry-rig almost anything. So... he used part of the bracket from the old light and put a screw in one way and the two mounting screws in the other way. We used nuts to hold the screw in the right place and rigid so the light had something to hold on to.

Final Product: After an hour or more we had two of the four lights up. We purchased more nuts and screws at Lowes to fully secure the remaining two lights (which are still not up because I am rapidly and frantically trying to finish the kitchen)

4th of July Jello Dessert

2011-06-28T22:17:00.000-04:00

Jello recently had an advertisement where you could get a flag Jello mold for only $3 and they would send it to you before Memorial Day. My step-dad's birthday is also right around memorial day as is our anniversary. We had Lou's birthday celebration on Memorial Day Monday and I made the Jello flag mold dessert. The recipe was found on the mold but if you didn't get a chance to get the mold here is the recipe. You can use this in any silicone mold or put this in a regular glass dish and use any colors of Jello you desire.

You will need:
1 qt (4 cups) boiling water, divided
2 pkg (3 oz. each) Jell-O Berry Blue Flavor Gelatin
2 pkg (3 oz. each) Jell-O Gelatin, any flavor red
3 cup cold water, divided
1 pkg (3 oz.) Jell-O Lemon Flavor Gelatin
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed

To make it:

Add 1 1/2 cups boiling water to blue gelatin mix in medium bowl; stir 2 min. until completely dissolved. Repeat in separate bowl with red gelatin. Stir 1 1/2 cups cold water into gelatin in each bowl.

Spray 10 cup flag mold (or 9x11 silicon dish) with cooking spray; place on baking sheet. Pour red gelatin into mold. Refrigerate 45 min. until set but not firm. Meanwhile, refrigerate blue gelatin 45 min. After 20 min., dissolve lemon gelatin in boiling water in separate bowl. Refrigerate 25 min. or until slightly thickened.

Whisk cool whip into lemon gelatin; spread over red gelatin layer in mold. Refrigerate 10 min. or until set but not firm. Cover with blue gelatin. Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm. Unmold. Use fresh fruit and additional cool whip to decorate mold to resemble a flag.

*Here is where I went wrong. I used the canned whip cream to decorate the top and since it is all natural it melted shortly after I took my pictures. What you see is pretty now but 5 minutes later at my mom's house and it ran all over the plate I had decorated it on. I used the canned cream because I thought it would be easier and quicker to pipe the stripes. Next time I will use Cool Whip and put it in a bag and pipe it on or spread it on with a knife. Sometimes it doesn't pay to take short cuts.

This dessert is really good and was gone in a blink!