A recipe so that you don't forget me

I've been busy trying to get the the house together this week and haven't had much time to post.  I'm still in the  middle of several unfinished projects, so I promise I'm working on fun things to show later.  We finally went to our old town, rented a HUGE truck and emptied out our storage building on Saturday.  Now my house is a maze of boxes stacked almost to the ceiling.

About 2 months ago I discovered Smucker's Strawberry and Blueberry syrups and became temporarily obsessed with french toast.  I love the vanilla cream filling restaurants like IHOP and Bob Evan's use in their desserts disguised as breakfast, so I did some googling and adapted a recipe to use what I had on hand.  Here's what I came up with.

 
Vanilla Cream Filling

8oz Cream Cheese
1/2 cup of powdered sugar (may be adjusted to taste)
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Let the cream cheese soften then mix all ingredients well with an electric mixer or whisk.  This can be kept in the refrigerator for a few days if you have leftovers, but it probably won't last long because you will want to eat it right out of the mixing bowl.  It is wonderful on french toast, pancakes, or crepes.

I made french toast (I always add milk, vanilla extract and cinnamon to my egg mixture) topped with fresh strawberries that were cut the night before and put in the fridge with a little sugar so they'd have time to make a little syrup of their own, powdered sugar, and Smucker's strawberry syrup.  The cream filling is in between the layers.

This may or may not have been responsible for at least 5 lbs of weight gain in the few weeks after I learned to make it.  Take caution and try your best to use in moderation.

I'm sure I'll take time this week to break from cleaning and unpacking to do something crafty or take photos of something fun.  I actually have my kitchen curtain project all planned and as soon as I find my iron and figure out what I did with my seaming tape, I can get that project done and posted.

Revamped Chest and Nightstand

A few years ago we were given a secondhand (possibly third or forth hand) chest of drawers and night stand to use for Babe Jr.  Once upon a time they had been cherry, but had been painted because they were dinged up or just because the family member using them previously thought white was more appropriate for her daughter's room than the original finish.  She had painted the tops hot pink and the handles and knobs were brass and porcelain with flowers painted on.  We kept the pink tops and swapped the hardware for some nice pink depression glass hardware ordered from ebay.  The look was perfect for a little girl's room and we loved it.

When the move into a new house began to approach, Babe Jr and I discussed room decor and she decided she was getting too old for all the pink and wanted to make a change.  The pieces had become even more banged up through the move and being kept in a storage unit over a period of time, and were going to need some attention anyway.  I started looking for new hardware and found the perfect set for a tween/teen girl, again on ebay, that I shared here about 2 months ago.

I had removed the glass handles and recycled them when I painted a mismatched set my mother in law had to use for my little niece's bedroom.  The new hardware wasn't exactly the same size as the old stuff, so I had to fill the holes.  This is where I learned the difference between filler and putty, then had to scrape out everything I'd filled with putty and did it over again with filler.  Here the furniture is at that stage.

I made an effort to repair some other damage done through the move as well.

After letting it harden a few days, I sanded everything down and applied more filler where needed.  Filler shrinks as it dries so this is almost always necessary.  I removed as much of the pink as possible to make painting easier as well.  Here it is all sanded down after the second application.

Its best to do this much sanding outside.  I was covered in pink and white dust at this point.  I would also recommend wearing a mask.

It had previously been painted using a roller, I wanted to have as clean a finish as possible so I sanded and sanded so none of the roller marks would show through.  Now its nice and smooth.

I purchased some quality brushes and a semigloss paint/primer combo so that it would have a durable finish.  The ideal thing to do for a professional really smooth finish would be to use spray paint, but with the amount of patching done that just wouldn't have been a thick enough coat to cover all the damage.  I tried to find a conditioner for latex paint that I've read about to extend dry time and cut down brush marks, but once again due to my rural area and limited shopping choices, no one carried it.  Oil based paint would give the same effect without conditioner, but it is so much messier and smelly, so I kept to my choice of latex.

I used a small artist paint brush to get in the grooves along the corners and skirting on the bottom. After a few careful coats of fresh paint, and the new blingy hardware installed, the big reveal!

I couldn't be more pleased.  They look brand new and are going to be awesome with the decor Babe Jr has chosen once we get her room organized and all put together.

She's going to have the chicest room in town.  Of course I'll post about that once its all together as well.

Thanks for looking!

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Type A: Anything Goes Party

Lessons learned the hard way

Today has been one of those Murphy's Law kind of days.  I finally gave up on completing any projects and decided to blog about it.  Hopefully someone will gain helpful knowledge from my fails.

#1 - Wood Putty is not the same as Wood Filler.

I reached this epiphany a few weeks ago but was holding onto that tidbit of info to post until the appropriate time.  Wood putty comes in all different shades.  The furniture I needed it for was painted white, so I thought it would be great to fill the holes and easily cover with paint if necessary.  I spent a fair amount of time stuffing said holes full of putty.  At that time we were not yet moved in the house, so I came back a week later to sand the spots down I had patched and see if they needed reapplication or could be painted.  It was all still soft like play-doh.  At this point I took a moment to read the directions which state at the very end:  Will not harden to a sand-able surface.  I can't quite think of a purpose for which I would want to fill holes in wood and not desire it to harden, but I'm sure there is one or they wouldn't sell this stuff in dozens of colors.  I scraped all the putty out with a screwdriver (the holes were all the way through drawer fronts where old hardware had been) and headed back to the store.

#2 - If hardware does not come with a template for drilling holes, make one.

I was only off by about 1/4", but its pretty obvious.  Now I have to fill another hole.  A template is not that hard to make.  I even had graph paper available.   After this foul up, making a template was as easy as cutting a piece of graph paper the same height as the drawer front.  Then I centered the handle on the page by counting the lines and poked holes through the paper into the screw holes in the handle with a pencil.  I laid the paper template on the drawer front and only had to measure to make sure the edges were even from both ends so that it was centered vertically and horizontally.  I marked where to drill through the holes I poked in the paper.  The template took about 3 minutes to make, but it saved me an hour in correcting screw up time.

#3 - This is a multi-part lesson. 

A.  When you are moving, if you disassemble anything, label all the parts and if possible, put any screws bolts etc in a ziplock bag and tape it to the item they were removed from.  If you don't do this, you will lose them and you will have to contact the manufacturer to purchase more or get specifications so you can find them in your hardware store.

B.  If you have reassembled an item with working parts, or the item has been sitting unused for a long period of time, ensure it is working properly before you expect to use it.  If not your kitchen might look like this for an indefinite period of time.

We learned both of these with our refrigerator.  Mr. Backwoods had to remove the doors to get it though the door to the house.  He was in a hurry that day to get somewhere else after delivering the appliances, so the doors were left laying in the living room floor and who knows where the screws went.  Over  a month and a search for hardware later, he put the doors back on.  I still had some heavy duty cleaning to do on the shelves of the doors where they had mildewed while in storage, so we didn't yet plug it in.   I cleaned it all up and left it open overnight.  The next day I bought milk and a few other necessities.  I packed them in and plugged in the fridge only to realize a few hours later that even though it was running, it wasn't getting cold.  I didn't have a cooler nor do we live anywhere near a store that sells ice, so at 2am I cooked up 2 lbs of smoked sausage.  Here are some of the casualties of the faulty fridge the next day.

Two people can only eat so much smoked sausage before bedtime.  I'm really glad I am not opposed to drinking black coffee.  Mr Backwoods risked it by using the creamer that had been out all night.  He seemed ok when he left for work, hopefully that decision didn't turn into another lesson learned the hard way later in the day.

Another Fun Wreath

The spring wreath I made in March has already faded from the sun and was looking a bit sad.  We don't have a covered porch yet and the house faces east, so the paper roses were in pretty bad shape.  Fabric rosettes are on everything right now, I've seen throw pillows, headbands, jewelry, clothing, quilts, you name it.  So I decided to stick some to my wreath.

They're pretty simple to make and you can use scrap fabric.  I wanted an variety of bright colors, so I used  some old T-shirts of Babe Jr's that were stained or too small.

This was a really good project for her to help with.  She's old enough to wield a glue gun now, and was very helpful in cutting the shirts into strips and efficiently rolling them into little bundles.

Here's how we made each rosette.  You start with a circle of fabric almost the size of the rosette you want.  Felt works well because its thick and you are less likely to burn yourself when you are gluing to it.  First you just bunch up the end of a fabric strip and glue it to the middle.  Then you start to twist the fabric around - sort of like making a bun with your hair, and glue it to the felt as you go.

You just keep twisting, turning, and gluing.  Once you reach the edge of the felt, glue to the side of the last row of twisted fabric so that your felt won't show.

You can trim the fabric strip once you've gone all the way around enough to cover the edge of the felt, or you can keep gluing the fabric twist to itself until you get close to the end of your strip if you want a bigger rosette or just don't want to waste a bit of extra fabric.  Then you just fold the last bit of fabric under and glue it to the bottom.

These are extremely forgiving.  How tight you twist and bunch determines the look of the rosette.  A loose messier rosette looks more like a flower, while a really tightly twisted rosette resembles more of a lolly pop.

Stitching and seams along your strip of fabric add interest as well.  The smallest yellow and white ones I made from the spaghetti straps cut from a tank top.  The messiest looser ones were actually the ones I liked best. 

To assemble the wreath once my rosettes were made, I just wrapped the same wreath I took the paper rosettes off of with several strips of light teal fabric.  I only had to glue the tip to start out then the end to secure it in place.  Then I arranged and stacked my rosettes and glued them once I was satisfied with the positioning.  Some felt leaves would have looked really cute added in, but I didn't have any green felt, and even after checking, my Walmart only sells a really dark green that I didn't care for.

I wanted a little something more, so I decided to add a little "paper" welcome banner.

This was pretty simple, too.  I used a strip of the striped fabric that had been surged along the edge.  To stabilize the flags so they wouldn't curl up, I glued triangles of felt to the back of the strip just under the surging, placed where flags would hang if the surging were string.  After gluing the triangles down, I cut out the triangle shaped pieces of striped fabric between each of the ones glued to felt and then trimmed off all the extra so the surging would make long enough strings to attach to the wreath.  Voila!  A mini flag banner.  I used a black gel pen to write the letters on each flag and a dot of glue to "tie" it to the wreath.

I still haven't found my clear wreath hook, or bothered to purchase a new one, so I used a cord salvaged from more old ill fitting clothes to tie it to my door knocker.  Hopefully it will hold up to the sun a little longer than the the paper covered version, but if not it was a zero dollar investment using all recycled materials, so no big loss.  Plus I still have a whole bag of cut up T-shirts, so I can make another.

These were so fun, and easy that I'm going to find some more projects to work them into.  I've already made a cute hair clip to coordinate perfectly with one of Babe Jr's new outfits.

Linked to:

Type A: Anything Goes Party

May Flowers Challenge

Prom was just this past weekend at our local high school. We have a tradition that seems to be a little different than other areas. Instead of corsages, girls carry bouquets made to match their dresses. They can get pretty elaborate. This is my sister and a few of her friends showing off their unique arrangements.

Go here to see more awesome entries in the photo contest.

 

iheartfaces.com

Fascinator Follow Up

She's gorgeous.  That's all that needs to be said.  I posted about making her hair accessory here.

The Cinderella shot.

Thanks for looking.

Slowly coming together

Since we finally have electricity, I've been spending more time at the house trying to unpack a few things and get organized.  As I've mentioned before, I still have an entire storage unit filled with belongings in another state, so this only scratches the surface of looking like "our" home.  But at least it is looking less like an abandoned dumping ground.

Babe Jr asked for some decor items for her birthday.  We started with her bathroom.

I still need to get a rug and hang the pictures.  I have another bin to add to the shelving unit, but it is currently holding some things on the dresser at my father-in-law's house where we're staying until we get the water running.  There's a really cute stained glass night light you can't see here and I want to find an antique glass or vase to hold her toothbrush.

Her bedroom is totally void of real furniture.  I'm halfway through the process of refinishing her chest and nightstand.  I hope to have that done by next week, I'm forcing myself to finish it before we put in any clothes or it might never get finished.

She really wants the bunk bed from this post, but I'm concerned about how long before she'll be sick of climbing up there (she's already 11), or that it will get too hot.  I'm thinking of building a version of this daybed from Ana White, then placing it on one side of the window and building in a shelving unit to that wall with a small desk on the other side of the window.  I think that look will have more longevity, but I still need to win her over.  She had similar shelving in our previous house and really wants to go in a completely different direction.  I think the daybed/shelving unit will have much more longevity and utilize the small space the most efficiently.

These valances are hanging throughout the house, they came with purchase.

I posted here trying to decide on a replacement.  While unpacking some things the next day I found about half a yard of fabric leftover from another project.  I couldn't take another minute of the existing valance, so I took some straight pins and folded and pinned the remnant until it resembled a folding shade. 

It would look great if I'd had an iron and some seaming tape on hand, but this works for now.  When I get the "real" kitchen curtain fabric in, I'll probably use that method and make something similar to this with coordinating ribbon or a border fabric.  You'll have to wait and see.  Though, I do think my little dollar store vase and hanging candle holder I swiped from Babe Jr's stuff look cute with it.  That's the Terrible Terriers treat jar, too.  He will recognize it when he sees it, I'm sure.

The living room is currently a holding place for furniture mid process of being redone.  And the doors to my refrigerator.  We have somehow misplaced the screws that hold them on, but that's another irritating story.  The master bedroom looks like a big messy closet with a bed.  Its going to need the most decor help and will be near the bottom of the list, but its probably the room I'm most excited about.  Once I get  a new/old light fixture painted and procure some rugs and/or art for the master bath, I'll have pics of that ASAP.  The 3rd bedroom is going to be storage for a while unfortunately.  Once we have some outdoor storage buildings, I'm hoping it will be my own special craft room/studio that will occasionally house guests on a futon.  We're getting closer people!

Rescued from the burn pile

I finished spiffing up one of my saves from the day my friend was cleaning out his old storage building, which I mentioned here.  It was a really dirty old crate filled full of old crummy picture frames and junk left from the previous owners of their house.  It may or may not have been infested with bugs before I emptied it.  Being that it was "just an old crate" he was going to toss it in the burn pile.  We live waaaayyyy out in the country, so its ok to do that here as long as there's not a burn ban to prevent forest fires when the weather is dry.  It's really sturdy, had some cool old metal casters on it and an attached lid with a hinge, so I figured if I couldn't get it clean I could use it to store garden tools or something if nothing else.

After I briefly picked through its contest, the guys tossed all the rejects and then it set in the yard for a day because my car was already full.  The next day I came back and it remained in the yard, looking lonely and forgotten.  I went about trying to fit it in my back seat when some of the screws fell out that held the hinges.  Oh well, that's a simple fix and I don't give up that easy.

I hauled it to the house where I used the vacuum cleaner to get the dust and cob webs out, then switched to the brush attachment to get some of the dust left clinging to the wood.  It actually made a pretty amazing difference just getting the dust off.  A few days later I hauled it back outside and started the real work.  As you know, I have a bad case of premature project enthusiasm, so I forgot to take a true "before" shot.  But here it is after the first round of sanding to most of it.  I remembered to take a photo just before I sanded the lid, so you can see the difference once a layer of grime was removed.

We still don't have grass.  Don't judge me.  I have to pick all the big rocks out of the yard first and that will be a long, hard, not fun process.

I had just intended to get rid of the splintery places to make it a little safer to use without risk of impalement.  But, once I got started I was so pleased with the patina that was coming out, I kept going.  The printing from shipping, or whatever reason they print on wooden crates, was not visible at all until I started removing layers of gunk.  On one side it actually had the city and state where we live, and on the bottom the name of a local coal company that's been out of business for years.  I blurred those out in these pics - I'd rather the entire internet not know exactly where I live.  I keep it on the DL like that.  The printing proves its age and explains why it's held up so long.  It had to be sturdy in order to hold up for any use in the mines.

Here's a close up of one of the casters on the bottom.  They're still completely functional and in good condition.  I may seal them with some poly eventually just to be sure rust doesn't rub off onto anything.

I filled the holes where the screws had fallen out with a bit of wood filler and let it harden.

I sanded over the entire thing a few times, first with 100 grit, then 150, and finally 180.  I wasn't looking for a pristine finish, so I probably didn't need to switch up the grit progressively like I did, but I had bought a multi-pack of sand paper, so I didn't have a ton of one kind to use.

Once I had it all sanded down and all the pointy edges removed, I wiped all the dust off with a slightly damp cloth and took it in the house.  It was almost 90 degrees that day and I had the messiest part over at this point.

It already looks pretty good here.  But Amanda at Geek Details shared a little tip with me that I wanted to try out.  Three parts canola/veggie oil to one part white vinegar makes an awesome wood restorer.  Plus, its cheap and made from stuff I had on hand.  I just love her.  You should check her blog out, she's very daring with the projects she takes on in her home.  They do the majority of the work themselves and she has a fun and quirky decorating style that she refers to as Steam Punk.  You can learn about all things steam punk on her blog as well.

Back to my project.  Here it is looking lovely and cared for after I applied the restorer with a clean dry rag.

I'm sure if inanimate objects had feelings if would be so very grateful that I rescued it.  I picked up a few new wood screws at the hardware store in a dark finish so they wouldn't stand out.   The light is reflecting off of them in this shot much more than the original worn hardware, but they are actually a pretty close match.

A demonstration of the once again functioning lid.

Look at all that glorious storage potential.

A closer look at some of the printing that doesn't totally identify my secret location.

I'm very pleased with it.  I've seen similar crates with casters, in smaller sizes and without lids, for $100.00+ in catalogs.  They're very trendy right now.  This one is big enough to use as a coffee table and the really unique thing about it is that it holds a little history of our tiny home town.  I don't know if the casters are original, or if someone picked up a discarded shipping crate and added them.  I'm sure eventually someone will let me know.  After all, there are a lot of coal industry workers, retired and current, in my group of family and friends.  Hopefully one of them will enlighten me.

There are a few places where the planks have split, so I think I may wood glue them to secure it a little better.  Its constructed entirely with nails.  I'm afraid if I start removing them it could possibly fall apart.  I'm also thinking of covering a few of the nails that stick out on the inside with a bit of silicone or something so no one gets hurt.  They are all bent flush against the wood, but safety first.  I could line it with something, but currently I have filled it with photo albums and boxes of prints and frames that had no place other than a cardboard box in a closet.  Nothing in it has a big danger of being snagged.  I've now cleared out valuable closet space and have an awesome FREE coffee table.

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Type A: Anything Goes Party

Choosing kitchen curtains...

I have one little window in the kitchen and the brown valance on it now is hideous and depressing. I want to make a little curtain or roman shade in a bright, fun, kitschy print. These are all Robert Kaufmann fabrics, I like the mod prints.

Coffee Cups in Aqua

Pears in Aqua

Mixers in Spring

Which do you like best?  I'm rather fond of the mixers but think I would prefer a colorful background. Thoughts?  Comments?  Concerns?

Fascinating!

Right off the bat I'm going to apologize for not taking step by step pics of another project. I get a little overly enthused when I'm starting a new project and tend to get ahead of myself. And for that, I apologize.

Now, on with the post. My little sister's senior prom is this Saturday. She has a gorgeous black mermaid style gown, it has a sheer overlay with silver beading and a few subtle delicate feathers sewn onto the skirt. She wanted a feather fascinator to wear in her hair. They are all the rage these days and with the vintage look of the gown and the feather details, it is just the accessory called for. However, the one she tried on in the dress shop was........wait for it.......$120.00! No, I did not misplace the decimal there. Over a hundred dollars for a handful of feathers and a rhinestone.

She waited a bit too late to try and find one for a better value on ebay or etsy, so I offered to make one. There are tutorials all over, several on this page.  I ran to the craft store to pick up some feathers and a piece of felt, and since I thought bagged rhinestones simply hot glued on looked sort of cheap, especially for a once in a lifetime event, we met at the mall to find another piece of jewelry to hack and add to it. We scored a chunky rhinestone ring and a smaller hair accessory with silver flowers at Claire's that I thought I could go all Frankenstein on.

Here's how it came out:

This is how I made it.

First I assembled all of my supplies:

Black felt
Black feathers
Artificial flowers (taken from existing hair clip)
Alligator clip (taken from same existing hair clip)
Rhinestone accent (I used a ring, a broach or an earring would work as well)
Glue gun
Glue sticks
Scissors
First aid burn cream (trust me)

I carefully dissected the flower hair clip from Claire's.  I peeled the old glue off the clip and cut the ugly plastic stamens from the center of the flowers.

Next I cut a circle of felt.  I traced a cup using a yellow colored pencil, but you could easily free hand it.  Then I glued the alligator clip to the felt.  I cut a small oval of felt and glued that over the top portion of the alligator clip, sandwiching it between the 2 peices of fabric to make a more secure attachment.

Here is a picture of the back so you can see what I mean.

Once I had the clip glued on I just started arranging feathers and gluing them to the other side.  This was the trickiest thing to do without getting burned because feathers don't offer much of a protective barrier between hot glue and your tender flesh.

When I was satisfied with my circle of feathers, I glued one of the flowers into the center.  When I glued the second flower, I made sure to turn it a bit so that the petals wouldn't line up and you could see both layers.

At this point I pulled apart some feathers and made a huge mess in the living room.  It looked like we had slaughtered a flock of crows.  But I managed to get a few pieces with only the fluffy bits attached and glued them over the center of the flowers.

Then I started pulling them apart with the exact opposite intention.  I stripped down 6 to nothing but a small smooth bit on the end and the middle stick shaft part. The correct term for this is the rachis, but who's ever heard of that or would know what I was talking about.  Not me that's for sure, I looked it up.  I tried to find feathers with a curve or bend to them for this part because I wanted them to curl up and away from the flower.  I played around with how to place them, and once I trimmed them down I rolled some glue around the end and just stuck them in under the flower petals.

I thought this would be the last step.  I bent the actual ring part away from the big rhinestone setting and back and forth until it broke off.  It was really inexpensive costume jewelry with an adjustable band, so this was not difficult at all.  Then I globbed on a generous amount of glue and stuck it in the middle.

I reviewed my work and the thing just looked enormous.  I decided to trim some of the feathers, but it was obvious I had cut some of them because the edges no longer looked soft, so I had to glue in some small feathers between the flower petals on top of the trimmed ones to disguise them.

The very last step was to lift up the feathers from the felt backing and add in a little glue where I could between layers to make it a bit sturdier.  The last thing I wanted was for the weight of the rhinestone and flowers to pull apart from the feathers halfway through my sister's night.  And here's one more shot of it that really shows off the bling in the middle.

And the cost:

Feathers - $1.50
Silver Flower Hair Clip - 5.50
Costume Ring - 8.50
Black Felt - 0.47
2 glue sticks - 0.19

For a total of:  $16.16, that's a savings of $103.84.  Totally worth a few glue burns, even if you don't have an awesome little sister going to her last prom.

This post linked to:
Type A: Anything Goes Party #18
DIY by Design: Swing into Spring

Thrifty Score!

Some of our friends were demolishing an old storage building/root cellar over the weekend in order to make way for a new garage.  They purchased their home in serious fixer upper state and the previous owners seemed to be collectors of many things, especially old things.  Many of these things were left in the house after the sale.  Our friends don't have the space to hold furniture or other items that they aren't using or don't absolutely need, so their spring cleaning became an awesome thrifty opportunity for me!  If I hadn't been there at the right time, quite a few old gems would have been tossed into the trash heap.  The biggest score of the day was this:

Mr. Backwoods still doesn't quite see its potential and it took a lot bit of begging convincing on my part to get him to agree to bringing it home.  But we have been needing an armoire and all it needs is a little TLC.  This thing has to be 100 years old and its solid.  Its only missing a knob, but it was wood while all the other hardware is metal, so I probably would have replaced them anyway.

I'm going to try and get the rust off the hardware with a grinder and metal brush attachment.  I hope that works because finding similar latches could be a wild goose chase.  After a light sanding and a fresh coat of stain and sealer it should be good to go.  I think it will look awesome and fit the sort of eclectic contemporary look I'm planning.  And, since I still haven't refinished Babe Jr's bedroom furniture, I finally broke down and bought a palm sander.  Yay!  What backwoods girl worth her salt doesn't love a new power tool?