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Friday, January 29, 2010

Super Easy Valentine's Day Treat

I thought of this idea when I was planning activities do do with my soon to be 4 year old nephew, who I will see soon. I was hoping to see him before Valentine's day, but since it will be later I'm taking this treat to a girl's night tomorrow night. It is a simple valentine's day twist on a super easy treat, rice krispy treats.

Here's the recipe:
3 tablespoons of butter
1 bag of large marshmallows
4 cups of rice krispies

Melt the butter on low heat, then add the marshmallows. Completely melt the marshmallows. Add red food coloring as they are almost melted. Take off of the heat. Add the rice crispies, coat with the marshmallows. Spread them into a Pam covered cookie pan.

I bought all of the ingredients at Walmart.



It's a good thing she can't reach that high.



The melted butter and marshmallows heating up.



Add the coloring to create your desired color and blend well.



Mix!



After the mixture is spread onto the greased pan, cut out heart shapes with cookie cutters. I bought a grouping of four different sized hearts from Walmart for around $3.00.









I made one 'regular' batch, without food coloring and sprinkled them with red and white sprinkles.



This is what happens when I turn around.



Shhhhhhh....don't tell anyone. :)



He thought it looked appealing. The piece of lettuce he thought he scored ended up on the floor on the other side of the kitchen.



Good thing I love them. :)

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Shopping Goodwill Online

I was surfing around today and found this advertisement for Goodwill's online store. It works like Ebay. You can bid on items at various Goodwill stores around the country. I'm loving the idea of shopping Goodwill from home!



My goal this year is to get some artwork on our walls that isn't mass produced. Here are a few that I found on Goodwill's online auction.

Raymond King Canvas, sold for $130



Antique Framed Original Blotch Oil Painting
, at the time of this post listed at $63



Original Seascape signed Gordon, currently at $5.



Signed oil Lighthouse on Rocky Point, $5 at the time of this post.



My personal favorite and apparently a lot of other people's favorite too...Antique Saita Signed Original Oil Painting, currently at $459. (wow)



Vintage Landscape w/Barn by L.Severs, currently at $25



P. Rambert Signed Paris Oil Work, currently at $26.99

Monday, January 25, 2010

Good Day

For the past couple of months I've been fighting the voice in my head telling me that I'm in my thirties with bad knees so maybe that's why I'm not in the kind of shape that I want to be in. It's my excuse that needs to go away! Slowly but surely, I've been walking 2-3 miles a few times a week. I always allow myself to get off the treadmill if I'm not just not feeling it that day. I don't ever want to resent working out! But today was a good day, I never got tired. I walked 5 miles! I had to make myself get off only because going any farther might seem neurotic. Woo hoo! All of the practice is paying off.



P.S. I walk in men's shoes and LOVE THEM. They have double the amount of shock absorption and padding, which has helped my knees 100%. I also had foot surgery in my twenties, so the extra width is comforting to me. My favorites are New Balance 993's. And no, I don't wear them out of the house, except to walk the dogs!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes




1. Restoration Hardware Latte Paint
2. Old Navy Watercolor Bag
3. Tamron 17-50 Lens
4. Canon Rebel xsi
5. Stila Cheek Color
6. Stila Lip Glaze
7. Stila Foundation, SPF 30
8. Amazing Grace Scented Lotion from Philosophy
9. Millstone Hazelnut Coffee
10. Endust Free, Especially for Those with Allergies and Asthma
11. The Entire Something's Gotta Give House
12. Purity, Face Cleanser
13. Something's Gotta Give, the Movie

Friday, January 22, 2010

Freshening Up

The weather has been warm here lately. It has been almost 60 degrees over the past couple of days. I have to remind myself every winter that there are a lot of false springs in the south. It will be freezing cold next week again. Still, it's nice to feel like freshening up around the house. I took yesterday to do just that.

I updated our Welcome sign that hangs on our fence.







During our trip to the thrift store last weekend, we picked up a heavy gold lamp for $7. I really liked the texture on the base and felt it could look nice painted. It was in good working order so we figured we'd give it a try.

This paint is my favorite brand, by the way. It is thick and comes out strong. I really could have just used one coat, had I not missed a section around the base.



Here's a picture of the original lamp and with one coat of paint.



And here it is sitting in it's new spot on my counter. I found the lamp shade yesterday at Tarjay on clearance for $14! It is a linen like texture and exactly what I set out to find.



I painted an old bird cage, but I'm still not sure how to decorate with it. So maybe I'll talk about it later in another post if it lasts.



Then I painted an old picture frame that I was hoarding in our garage with chalkboard paint and some fresh gray paint. This is the paint that I picked up from Home Depot.



Here's what it looked like before.




I simply took apart the frame, sprayed the chalkboard paint directly onto the glass and sprayed the wood frame separately. It will work perfect in our kitchen for lists and notes!



This paint color is my absolute favorite that I bought yesterday. It is called greek stone. We had an old thrift store table that was just sitting in our garage. I had already primed it, but we just didn't have much to do with it after that. I painted the old table this color and now it's one of my favorites.



I color corrected this picture of the table, which kinda makes it look like there is blue in the paint. There really isn't any so the bottom picture below is without any color correction.



Isn't it a cool color? I love it! I think this table may end up in our family room, which is way better than stuffed in a back room somewhere (where I thought it would end up.) I turned upside down and painted another coat after this picture was taken to finish of the side bald spots and the bottom.



To paint these items, I set them all out in the yard at once. It wasn't particularly windy so it was a great day for this project. I painted the first coat with the respective different colors, came back and painted the second or third coats. It couldn't have been easier and took about 30 minutes of my time (not including the waiting time in between coats). So easy!

Finally, today was also perfect to clean up our front door accessories. We just had our house painted so I used the shutter paint, Sherwin Williams Weathershield Black on them.








Thursday, January 21, 2010

Hello New Chest

Jay and I bought this chest for $20 at a thrift store last weekend. We knew that we could fix it up and use it as an end table in one of our bedrooms. The wood is pretty beat up, which is what we kinda liked about it. It would really be perfect for the beach house that we hope to have someday.

Here's the process of what we used to put some life into the chest. This is the chest/end table as we bought it.



Notice the nose? She's a little helper! :) Jay was cleaning it out and taking off the nobs in this picture.



Jay was literally walking out the door as I pulled out the sander. As soon as he saw it, I knew that he would be sticking around for a while. We bought the Ryobi hand sander at Home Depot. We, meaning he, sanded the outside of the piece. I loved that he was eager to help. I don't care to sand anyway.



We then painted it with Valspar Ultra Premium semi-gloss white primer and paint from Lowe's.

Here's the chest with one coat of primer and one coat of paint.



Smurphalicious...Isn't he cute? He loved sniffing around outside.



But then he took off with one of my paint brushes. (Thankfully, it was clean.)



And here's the finished product...

The knobs came from Anthropologie. THESE are similar, but we paid $6 and ours have a gold screw, nut and washer. They came from the store. I also decided to paint the inside of the drawers. I think because it seems cleaner to me, although they really would have been okay as they were.





The total cost of the chest was approximately $51:
  • $20 cost of the chest
  • $19 for the knobs
  • $12 for the paint
Not too bad for a wood chest!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The View

This has been my view lately. For the past three days I've been stuck in bed with the stomach flu. Fever, you name it, I got all of it.



I'm looking forward to feeling better soon.

The recipe for the Spicy Chicken Dip below was made for our girls night out. Even in my condition, I found myself thinking "That chicken dip was amazing, I don't know who made it but I really want to taste it again." It was seriously that good. It was a creamy, chicken-y, cheesy, onion-y dip that was served with tortilla scoops. Luckily a friend was able to get me in touch with the person who brought the dip, and she was sweet enough to send the recipe right over!

This Chicken Dip is perfect for get-togethers. As soon as I'm "up and at it" I'll be making a test batch for myself. I mean for Jay and myself! :)




*This recipe came from Add Another Place Setting, a Junior League Cookbook.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

GNO

Girls night at Sips and Strokes. :)

Friday, January 15, 2010

90999

90999 is the code to text if you would like to donate to the American Red Cross Relief Effort for Haitians. $10 will be charged to your bill at the end of the month, according to the Centsational Girl. Please check out her blog for some inspirational photos of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

On a completely different topic, click the following link to check out the way she updates old furniture and thrift store finds. It's amazing how much decorating one can do on a low budget with a little creativity. I'm inspired to hit the old 'antique' store up the street!






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I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.

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