Tis The Season

I use to love to put Christmas music on, bake cookie press cookies, and decorate the house. Now a days, not so fun. I feel like all I am doing is trying to patrol the kids and make sure they don't pull the heavy brick stocking holders on their head, or cut their hands on glass ornaments. While Cam hangs lights the entire day! But I do love the cozy results.

As you can see I actually put up the craft fail stockings.

I used some of my leftover frame finds to do this little something something over my cabinets.

I also found a use for some of my book covers! I strung up the red and green ones and added some of those great rub on decals from my Micheal's dollar section find.

Lick the Plate

I made the gravy without calling in someone to remake it this year!!!!!....Thanksgiving Mission Accomplished!!!!

Notes for Next year: boot the butter on the turkey, and foil sooner,the bird was a little crispy crispy this year. Always add sauteed mushrooms to the green bean casserole.mmmmmmmmm. Always make that day after, cheesey fatty meal with the turkey that one was a winner!

Tack the burlap

This great little find should be a message center...no??!!

I took that extra little something something off the side, and that weird plastic from the windows (IT TOOK FOREVER!!!!)

Painted it brownish black!

I got this cork stuff at walmart in the section where the office stuff is. I glued it to a piece of particle board, then wrapped it with a sections of a burlap sack I got from a coffee house.

Stretched it around and staple gunned it in the back

On the other side I got 4 different kinds of yarn and twine and stapled it back and forth, back and forth, while my little Kennedy sat on my lap. Now it's a great cork board on one side and the other is great for pictures, or Christmas cards! For picture taking time, I hung another little fun project I made on it!

I found these AMAZ rub on images at Micheal's in the dollar section!!!! I rubbed it on the book page and BAM, oval frame, and all done!
Here's it's actual resting place...in my kitchen.

Message Center FOR SALE: $75

Window to a painting

(FORGOT TO PUT MY DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING MEAL UP!)

Ingredients

• 2 (8 ounce) cans Pillsbury Refrigerated Crescent Dinner Rolls
• 1 (10 3/4 ounce) cans cream of chicken soup, undiluted
• 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese (or any cheese of choice) or 3/4 cup swiss cheese ( or any cheese of choice)
• 1/2 cup 18% table cream ( or use whipping cream)

FILLING

• 4 ounces cream cheese ( very soft)
• 4 tablespoons butter ( very soft but not melted)
• 1/2-1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
• 1/3 cup onions, finely chopped ( can use green onions)
• 2 cups chopped cooked turkey)
• 1/2-3/4 cup finely grated cheddar cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt ( or use 1/2 teaspoon white salt or to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper ( or to taste)
• 2 -4 tablespoons mayonnaise or 2 -4 tablespoons whipping cream
• 1 -2 cup grated cheddar cheese ( for topping)

Directions

1. Set oven to 350°F.
2. Butter a casserole dish (any size to hold crescent rolls).

WINDOW TO PAINTING


Door, Window whatever this thing was, all I could see is one frame with LOTS of character! I grabbed the skill saw and cut that middle thing right out.

I painted it, with a darker brown/black, some blue, and lots of a darker burnt orange. Sanded it, and put a clear coat on it.

I went to the home depot and got large pieces of particle board for all of my trashy endeavors. I thought I could handle putting my three HUGE pieces of wood in the car by my self, while my little Drewy laughed at me. I even turned down the help of a sweet gentleman walking by. I got this!.....NOT SO MUCH. I sure did become that damsel in distress. Whilst I got attacked by my rogue particle boards, two sweet home depot workers literally ran full speed at me to help. My wood in the car, a sketchy knot holding it in, my poor 5 year old boy in my 1 year old's car seat...but we got home without loosing it. My dad cut it all up for me and I went home to do what I do....Craft!

I modge podges old book pages to the board...of course I did!

Let it dry

I sketched out the image that I wanted on it, and began to paint it. If you don't feel comfortable with free-handing a piece of art, what works perfect on something like this are those vinyl wall stickers, you can get great ones for so cheap in any color on etsy.
(That's the look that i was going for)

this puppy is big too.... 5 feet by 3 feet- ish:)
FOR SALE: $100

New Junk Alert!

OH YEAH BABY!
I tricked my dad into making another run with me, to the spot where we got all the great free stuff I've been fixing up....I thought maybe I would find a couple more things. I sure did fill his entire truck again!!!

Below I got these huge boards I want to make into a dinning room table; I just need to find a great base with lots of character like the top is going to have!

I've got all this good stuff mapped out to!!! I'm going to make some paintings, bathroom features, chalkboards, and even some bow racks!
(i just made that term up)

Boy Boards

This one is on hold!
This little project I planned start to finish for one for my favorite people.....Caitlin! The one and only that helped me get all this old rotten goodness. BUT ONLY if she moves to California....because this puppy weighs a good 70 plus pounds, and I'm not shipping it anywhere!!! And in honor of Cait (who pointed out, that I am saying Amaz! in every post) there will be, not one Amaz in this post:)(besides that one)

I started with this great square of boards!

Then I put some blue and gray paint on it in order to make a great neutral blue that will go in most boys rooms.

I had some vintage book pages set aside for a special project, and I thought they worked perfect for this one! So I made little paper frames for them and modge podged (Holla!!) them on the board with thumb tacks for a little fun detail.

Then after letting it dry completely, I added some hooks I found at my favorite spot (Goods Goods), but I still felt like it was lacking. I added the red string for a little more color, and found some antique bolts that somehow got handed down to me from my grandpa and put them on the corners....And here you go Cait, A boy post and it's all yours....now get your butt back to cali cali!

Pallet of Vino

I got this great pallet from my sis in law Ashley in Santa Clarita. I tried to convince her to use it in her house, but I think she thought I was a crazy.... Just like my hubby did when I told him to load it up we were taking this beauty home with us. The wood's color and the shape of the entire thing just screamed shelves of wine to me:)
I found a great graphic from
http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

greatest source for all things clip-art.
I cut it out and modge podged it to the middle. Sanded it after it dried and painted the graphic with just a tiny bit of diluted paint to make it blend and look older. Then I called the honey in, to cut slats of woods, to make it functioning as shelves. He is perfect for a job like this cause where I estimate, he measures, and make things just right:)

Viola!!! Pallet of Vino

Even my little, white trash Kenner's was in on the decorating action!!!

Thanksgiving Festivas

I'm Prepping to make a thanksgiving feast and here are my tried and trues!!!!

I love cooking! I'm not an amazing cook I just like to find amazing recipes!!!

When I'm making dinner for lots of guests, some of the best fun I have is cooking it together in the kitchen! I love to make it easy, prepare as much as I can in advance, and never commit to a time we're actually eating at....I simply give a window of time and say when the bird is ready for us!

THE BIRDY

Always brine the turkey!!!!!!!

Turkey Brine:

• 32 cups warm water (2 gallons)
• 1 cup kosher salt (must use kosher salt ONLY)
• 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar (well-packed)
• 2 tablespoons black peppercorns (can use 1 tablespoon coarse ground black peppers)
• 3 -4 tablespoons fresh coarsely chopped garlic (or slice the cloves into thirds)
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (optional)
• 2 sprigs of thyme
  
• 1 whole turkey (up to 20 pounds)

How to cook the goodness (I use Alton Brown's method):

3-4 days before roasting: Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F.

Early on the day or the night before you'd like to eat:

Combine the brine. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining. I normally put it in a bucket that would generally serve sodas or something of the sort.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Remove the bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard the brine.

Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan and pat dry with paper towels.

I generally put an onion, thyme, sage, carrot and celery in the turkey's cavity. Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil, and softened butter.

Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving. I generally let the birdy rest, while I mash the tatters, make the crescent rolls, and get everything thing else hot and ready to devour. Then I call in the hubby to do the carving! Make sure to cut the entire breast off and slice pieces horizontally. THEN YUMMY YUM YUM!!!

MASHERS

Red potatoes cubed

(you don't need to peel reds or Yukons .... If you use a russet make sure and peel)

3-5 cloves of garlic

Put all of the potato cubes and garlic into cold water on the stove top. Turn on and cook until a fork can easily pierce the potatoes. Drain and put into your serving dish. If you have to wait a bit to serve them, cover them tightly to keep heat in. Then right before serving, mash with a hand masher add, milk, salt, pepper, butter, cream cheese, and even a little Parmesan to taste, soooooo good so easy! The garlic squishes in and is delicioso yum yum yum!

Dressing

This year I'm trying a mix of recipes so I'll let you know how it goes....

I'm going to do a half homemade cornbread and half regular bread cubes, with a saute of onions and celery in bacon fat. I'm going add butter, sage, thyme, and poultry seasoning. Add chicken broth till it's the right consistency and bake that goodness!

Spinach Feta Pie (My Mother In Law's recipe)

Pioneer Woman's Pie Cruse (The best!!)

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/12/p-p-p-pie_crust_and_its_p-p-p-perfect/

4 eggs

10 oz. chopped frozen spinach

2 tbs butter

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup fresh parsley flakes

1/4 tsp basil

8 oz cream cheese cubed

1/2 cup feta, crumbled

Bake Crust at 450 for 5 minutes and set aside. Sautee onions in butter till translucent and set aside. Beat eggs and add rest of the ingredients and stir; pour into the pie shell and bake for 50 minutes at 350.

Roasted Green Beans and Mushrooms with olive oil and garlic

This year I'm going to try Pioneer Woman's gravy recipe

Pilsbury Cresent Rolls ....cause let's be honest they're amaz!

Strawberry Freezer Jam

http://www.food.com/recipe/strawberry-freezer-jam-238839

Apple Cobbler ( My Mom's)

For a pie dish:

6-8 apples peeled and sliced

Mix apples with:
1 Cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbs Flour

Topping:

1 Cup flour
½ Cup sugar

½ cup butter (1 cube)

Mix the 3 topping ingredients together with your hands until it all

Sticks together and crumble over top of apple mixture

400 degrees for 45-50 minutes.

For a 9 X 13 pan I usually use about 10 apples and a little more than the 1 cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon.

Then I double the topping mixture. Serve with ice cream and let me tell you what....I don't even like apple crisp but this one is soooo all topping and soooo all good!

Birdy Chalk

This one is pretty straight forward, it was pretty stinking cute to start with...don't you think?!

Crafty Soundtrack: David Crowder (a little throw back), Jimmy Eat World (there newest album- Amaz!), The Afters, Oh and new favorite song alert: While We Were Dreaming: Outside Love - Pink Mountains


This great little door, or whatever it was, was pretty beat up though. What I had to do, to get this baby looking cuter and functional is this:
Sand it down and repaint. I went with this great turquoise color I had left over from my girl's beds, and painted the little window with chalkboard paint. After it dried I sanded it again and had to get the side piece of scrap off. That gave me lots of trouble, because the screws had been painted so many times, I couldn't get the screwdriver in there. So I left it up to the hubby to find a solution, and of course he did:) Then I hand-painted the little birdies on the wire. Got that great little clip functioning again, and this puppy is ready to go! It would be perfect for a kitchen, craft room, or little girl's room, it's really functional which I love!!!

$SOLD

Stop judging my chicken scratch handwriting!!!

Craft Fail!!!!

My Sis- in-law saw this great picture on a blog (isn't that how it always starts?)and sent it to me! We were soooo excited to make these great Christmas stockings! We both went to coffee houses collecting burlap sacks for our project, and even set a date for our craft night! (Last Night) So much fun right.....

WRONG! It was the worst craft ever! First of all, the blog that showed this great picture, sure did have no instructions, so we winged it! We drew out our stockings on the sacks, cut them out and started to hand stitch them
(we didn't think the sewing machine could handle the burlap)
The burlap just shreds and gets EVERYWHERE! The stitching takes FOREVER, and if you don't do it, like, a foot from the edge it pulls right out the side because of the woven nature of the material. So after my first was all sewn together, I thought to myself,
"Yes! Good Job Natalie:)" Then I put my hand in it to fluff it a little inside and the thing basically imploded in my hand. By this time we've probably been working on the things for at least an hour. And the burlap has worked it's way into all of my clothing, and somehow under my clothing, I felt like little bugs were crawling all over me. I had to fix this thing that I put so much time into, so in the nature of being a jimmy rigger, I sure did pull out my trusty steed to fix this thing:
Glue Gun:)
After filling it with paper towels (don't judge) I sure did glue gun it till it was absolutely non-functioning, and barely passable as aesthetically pleasing. Then I proceeded to do a second???? Why, i don't know, Maybe cause my living room was already completely covered in burlap. This one turned out even worse!
Kelley's first turned out great! Her second was more of a creepy gym sock than anything else. Then we joked that this is probably what it was like for the lady who blogged the craft too; she just positioned it just so and took great pictures.....so in that spirit, I give you my Craft Fail:)(pictured below)

Boards to Art

Most of the time when I do a painting, I simply stop by home depot to get a piece of wood and have them cut it. This way I can paint a huge statement piece without the huge chunk of money out of my husband's (let's be honest) wallet for the cost of canvas! But what's better than that is something like this pretty, dirty, character filled boards, that were absolutely FREE! I brushed them off and threw some acrylic white paint (walmart) over the top.

After painting it I had no idea what to paint on it, I just new I wanted it white. My sis in law came over and told me to paint the frame, I had painted in another painting of mine, on it.

Sidebar:
the story of the inspiration
The picture below is of this great old gold frame that I have and absolutely love....but has been the source of much contention!!!!! I grabbed it at my favorite thrift store, for $5! It was a mirror at the time. I wanted it on my door to the garage, but with 3 little ones we couldn't get it to stay up! So after many attempts on mine and my husband's part to make it stay up, we couldn't figure this thing out. Cam had given up and wanted me to throw the thing away. It has now broke over 4 times, and been glued back together over 4 times, and lost the mirror that goes in it! This last time, It refused to glue back together, so after trying 4 different types of glue...that's right, I'm that determined, I drilled 2 holes in it and set off to put this thing in the door for good!!! I drilled my first long screw into it, and it was perfect! I knew once my other screw went in, this thing would never move again, it would stay with this house forever! I put my next super long screw in and slam dunk this thing was not moving!!! I step back to look at my handy work and it is completely crooked!!!! To top it off I open the door and one of the screws is literally sticking out 2 inches on the other side of the door. So after taking that screw out I get a shorter screw and bam I completely strip it! So my frame is straight, not going any wear, but sure does have a screw sticking out an inch on the front! So the lesson is...just don't look to close?



After finishing the white and letting it dry, I put my girls down for a nap, and got started on this oval frame like feature that you can barely see in this picture. I can't eyeball any shape or wording efficiently; so I went on the hunt for something in my house that was oval, and large enough that I could trace. I sure did use the lid of my crock pot...sure did! Don't worry, it' wasn't in use:) There is no pot roast juices on the picture. Well...that I'm aware of.

After letting that dry I needed to add some black outlining to the frame so that it could be seen better. Then I added a pretty little girl silhouette, via modge podge. Let me just stop and say a little shout out to the modge podge people, cause that stuff rocks! HOLLA!!!!!!!
I added some upholstery tacks to the corners and a great little key to the bottom, sanded it and sprayed it with a clear top coat....and I can't wait to see it on someones wall!

$50