Kitchen Complete!

Just in time for Easter, I finished the Kitchen hutch that I bought our little girl...I know so may say "you only painted it, why did it take you so long". To that I reply....try being a mom, wife and working then lets see how much you want to do when you have a free moment. Anyways, enough ranting and on with the show.

So here is what it looked like:

I bought it at a second hand store for $15.00! I also had to fight a few people for it too... So after some sanding and a coat of paint here is what it looks like now.

Part of her Easter gift was also the felt food that I hand made her. I have seen them all over the Internet and thought that I could make them as well. She loves them.

What do you think???

Potato Soup

Wow, it had been a while since our last posting. I went back to work, :(.... No more lazy days in front of the TV eating bon-bons (at least that was what my Hubby thought I did all day). I am still working on projects, just at a slower pace. But seeing as I have a break from work, I thought I would try to get as much projects down ( or started) as I could.

Thanks to a great friend, I found a great recipe for potato soup. I switched it up a bit from her directions but it turned out great!

Potato Soup
3-4 large potatoes ( peeled and cut into large chunks)
1 cup of beer ( dark or pale ale )
2 cups of milk
1/2 medium onion
5 strips of bacon ( I used turkey bacon)
1 cup of cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of flour
green onions to garnish

I started by boiling my potatoes in water until they were soft ( just like you would be making mashed potatoes). Drain potatoes and coarsely mash the potatoes, this is were you can leave the potatoes chunky or as small as you like. Add the beer and let the beer cook for a few minutes to let the alcohol cook out. Then add the milk and let simmer, stirring every few minutes.

In a separate pan, saute the bacon. Let cook and remove to drain off fat. In the same pan add onions and butter and saute until onions are soft. Add the flour to onions and cook on low heat until flour is light brown.

Add the flour mixture and half the bacon to the potatoes and stir. Keep mixing every few minutes until thick and then add 3/4 of a cup of the cheese. Let the cheese melt and then serve!

I topped my soup with some of the reserved bacon and cheese and added the green onions. If you want to add a kick, add a few shakes of hot sauce!

Enjoy

Stephanie

Baby Boy Gift

More babies on the way! I love babies and right now I know a few expecting mothers. And the best part is that they are having boys! Almost all the babies lately have been girls, and although I love my daughter, I really am bored with all the pink or girl material. I have been craving to do something in the cute boyish material that I keep seeing everywhere.

So for a baby shower later this month I decided to make a blanket, a diaper wipe case, and some burp clothes. I had on hand this cute robot material and hounds tooth in blue and green, perfect for a boy. I went to the fabric store to pick up some flannel for the backs of the burp clothes and they had the matching robot fleece! I couldn't help myself. I hope they like it as much as I do.

2 Valentine Project in 1 Day

So my Hubby is away for a few days for work and you know what that means....crafting without having to explain what you are doing or how much things cost! Love it! Well last night after the Bug went to bed I got the crafting itch and had to do something. I looked in our guest closet (aka my crafting center) and came up with an idea.

I am always looking for craft supplies on sale that I can pick up and I found a few wreaths at the thrift store for a buck each. I grabbed one of those, some Valentine material ( I bought on sale in the remnants pile at Joann's) and some extra tulle I had from the Bug's tutu last month and got to work!

Here is the finished project.

I got the sign from Ross years ago and it fit perfectly in the middle. I think I may make another for spring with some greens, tans and yellows.

My next project was really easy. All I needed was my trusty glue gun, some hearts that I picked up from the dollar store and ribbon. I made this tree for the Bird Baby Shower last spring.

The hearts were on sticks that I just removed then glued ribbon on to them to hang. Isn't the plate cute, Michale's for 2 bucks!

Remodel Done!...Well Almost

So yesterday was spent trying to finish our master bathroom remodel. It's only been 4 months to complete, and that's a good timeline with our crazy schedules. We would have had it finished about a month ago if a person ( how should be remain nameless....OK it was the hubby) didn't make a $60 cut mistake on the trim for the mirror. I really blame myself (and he also blames me) because I was not in the garage while he was cutting to make sure that he was cutting the correct angle on the trim.

Anyways, after the long awaited trim arrived yesterday (3 weeks is way to long for a piece of trim if you ask me!), we got to work. And some choice words and some yelling and the mirror, it finally came together. Its not a professional job, but its our first remodel on our home and I think we did a good job.

Here is the before shot of our master bath (I forgot to take the guest bath photo). Please excuse the mess.

Not sure if short people lived here before we bought the place but the sinks were entirely to short. As it turned out, the previous owners remodeled the bathroom to look like this! They took two stock vanities and added an extra kitchen cabinet as the middle to create counter space and storage. This kitchen cabinet is a typical corner unit with a lazy Susan inside. It is also 4 inches taller than the vanities. Now you know why this was my first request to remodel. I am also a matchy-matchy person, so if we remodeled the master, we had to remodel the guest to match!

Sorry for the photo being dark, but I wanted to show that we also had hideous light fixtures in both bathrooms. The stock dressing room bulbs, yuck! They looked something like this:

Again, YUCK! So of course I had to change those. Also, we decided at the last minute and I mean last minute. Hubby was doing demo and said "If you want to paint, you need to do it now before I put the cabinets in tomorrow. So off I run to Lowe's to find paint. I choose a color by Olympic paint color called Camel, the one on the Left. It turned out really nice.

Look at the Hubby working. It took forever to get the demo done and the new cabinets installed. Main issue was the previous owners had no clue how to do anything! We had planned on saving the old mirrors but they were too low for the cabinets, so they had to go to. That part was nice, a little stress reliever.

We still wanted two sinks in the master bath, so we had to go with and "L" shaped counter. Because of this we had to order custom cabinets, but they turned out great! We got the Thomasville line which are actually kitchen cabinets, but I still love them. Here is a photo of them in the store.

Love this color! It turned out to be almost a light Carmel color. We also ordered some window trim to frame out the new mirrors that we had mounted.We added granite counter tops and under mount sinks!

We ended up going with a brushed nickel finish on all the hardware and lights. We choose these light fixtures for both bathrooms.

And all the accessories for the bathrooms came from Martha Stewart's line at Home Depot, here is a shot of the towel bar.

So here is the finished product!

Our Guest Bath

I love the way they turned out! My Hubby did a great job. Can't wait to get started on the kitchen next.

Valentines Day Projects

I know its still January, but I love Valentines Day! My hubby hates it, maybe that's why I go out of my way to decorate the entire house. So there are a feel projects I still have in the workings, but I thought I would do a recap of what has been accomplished and what has inspired me so far!

Just finished this burlap wreath with some tulle to hang on the back door. Super easy and all from scraps I had laying around the house.

The Valentines Day felt garland ( tutorial found here).

And of course some projects and recipes that I would love to be starting....but may not get finished.

Cute X and O cupcakes with red hots from Martha Stewart

Painted wine bottles from Griffiths Rated

Cherry Marshmallow Crispy Treats...Yummy! From Inside Bru Crew Life

I love these blocks! From Bits Of Everything

Enjoy!

Hair Bow Frame Tutorial

So I finally found a frame that I liked for my daughters hair bow holder, not to mention I have had this on my to-do list for some time! I found the frame a few days ago ( it was shown here) and knew it was going to be great. I choose pink and some cute ribbon I picked up at a going out of business sale (wish I would have picked up a lot more too!). Total cost- about 3 dollars!

I painted 2 coats of pink onto the frame, I wanted a little bit of the dark wood color to show threw.

After the paint dried, flip the frame over and measure the size to determine how far apart your ribbons should be. Make sure to take the size of your bows into account. My daughter is still a baby so here bows are smaller. I measured about an inch between each ribbon. If your daughter is older ( and with bigger bows) maybe try 2 inches.

I hot glued the ribbons into place. Make sure you pull the ribbons tight, you don't want any slack.

I also had a bit of ribbon left over so I used it to hang the frame.

Enjoy!