Guess I Should Leave More Often

Last week I had to go out of town for a business trip and came home to some great improvements!

The first was an idea that I saw on Pinterest which replaced the plastic silverware tray with wood separators built into the drawer.  We purchased all of the wood before I left, and while I was in Jacksonville Chris sent me these pictures.

It's a little hard to get the big spoons out, but it's doable.  We rarely use them anyways, lol. Chris also did it for the drawer in the butler's pantry for our wedding silverware that will be used for special occasions.

The other improvement was creating a linen closest! I may have mentioned before that our house does not have a linen closet in it.  We actually didn't notice this until our 2nd or 3rd tour of the house.  Thankfully, the main guest room closet had a little bit of extra space in it which Chris utilized to install a track system and some shelves.  

You can make out the bump out in the closet from this picture of the game room corner.  That area where you see the electric outlet is the added space in the closet.  It's hard to get shots inside of the closet since it's small and there are no lights, but here's one from before I left of Chris measuring out the tracks.

Chris installed the tracks, cut and painted the wood for the shelves and I was able to come home and load it up with our extra towels and sheets.

I don't know if I can tell him enough, but I am so grateful for my handy husband!!

Pinterest Challenge: Patchwork Pillow

It's that time again!!  Pinterest Challenge time with Young House Love, Bower Power, Our Fifth House and The Ugly Duckling House!

I've had such a fun time in the past sharing my canvas states, paint chip art, and chalkboard menu.  This time around I decided to work on a project using the sewing machine Chris gifted me for my birthday.  Combining my recent attempts at pillowcases and quilting,  I landed on a patchwork pillowcase.

I clicked through About.com's sewing pattern section until I found one I liked. Using left over material from the other pillow cases I've sewn, I got to work.

This pattern uses half square triangle units, which I learned in my quilting class were quick to make.  After cutting 5x5 squares, I pinned 2 different material squares together (right side of fabric facing each other) and drew a line down the middle.

Using that line as a guide point, I sewed a straight stitch down each side (1/4 inch out) and then cut the square in half (right down the line).  

Once the units were separated and pressed, I used a 4x4 square ruler to cut off the access leaving me with 12 half square triangle units to go with my 4 corner white blocks.

Sew all of those pieces together and you're left with the front piece of the pillow case. 

I used the same steps to turn it into an envelope pillowcase that you can find here.  The center is a little off, but other than that I'm really lovin' this pillow!

I think it will look great with the rest of our bright pillows once we get our new dark gray sectional!

Have you taken on any fun projects lately?

Parmesan Potato Bites

It's been awhile but I've made it back into the kitchen with another recipe found via Pinterest.  This recipe came from the blog how sweet it is and I couldn't wait to try it out, I mean what's not to like about a recipe with cheese and panko crumbs??

The original recipe made about 70 bites, and since I wasn't making them for a party I went ahead and cut all of the ingredients in half.

Ingredients
-1 pound of Potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
-1 tablespoon of Milk
-1.5 tablespoon of Unsalted Butter
-1/8 teaspoon of Salt
-Dash of Pepper
-1 cup Parmesan Cheese, grated (the original called for 1 cup and I left it because I love Parmesan)
-1 Egg, lightly beaten
-2 cups of Panko Crumbs

After hitting up the store of a potato peeler (I could have sworn I would have found one in the kitchen) I peeled and cut the potatoes into chucks.  Into a large pot of boiling water for 20 minutes until tender.  Drain and then return the potatoes to the pot, mashing them together with the milk, butter, salt, and pepper  (I skipped the onions in the original recipe).  Finish up with stirring in your Parmesan cheese.

Place this mixture in the fridge for 20 mins to cool down.

Remove the mixture from the fridge and roll into little balls before dipping them into the beaten egg bowl.  Roll in Panko crumbs, place on the baking sheet and spritz each bite with a little olive oil.

Bake 12-15 minutes at 400 degrees, or until crispy.

Mine didn't turn out as golden brown as the ones pictured in the original pin, but they tasted delicious! We had several left overs, and I'm happy to report that reheating those in the oven were tasty the second time around as well.  Have you tried any good recipes lately?

Pinterest Challenge: Chalkboard Menu

I've been wanting to make something with chalkboard paint for some time now and thanks to Young House Love and Bower Power, I finally got that last little push to tackle another pinterest project.

I've found several inspiration pictures out there utilizing chalkboard paint and decided on a menu for the kitchen in hopes of getting back into meal planning.

From Heather at WhipperBerry

After a trip to Michael's, I was ready to go with my project supplies: frame, paint, roller and chalk.  The letters were left over from my map project (that I also used for some gallery wall art).

I kicked it off with a little spray paint action on the black frame to turn it white and then tested out the two shades of chalkboard paint that I picked up.

Chris and I love blue, so I was really hoping I would like the blue paint but it was a little too light against the white frame.  Black it is!  I rolled on the first coat and let it dry for an hour before adding on another layer.

I'm not sure if it was the roller or the early morning outdoor conditions, but I opted to add the next couple of layers with a sponge brush instead.

After layer 2 or 3

While I waited for those coats to dry (I ended up doing 4 coats on the glass), I started on the letters.

The original plan was to paint the wood letters white and then attach them to the actual chalkboard painted glass, but after some thought I decided to change it. Gotta love a mid project switch!  I wanted as much area as possible to write on the chalkboard and the letters would be taking up some prime real estate.  I played around with putting the letters on the actual frame instead and loved it.  Of course, the white letters on a white frame were a little hard to read so I added two coats of blue paint from the craft bag (can't wait to have my supplies organized!).  A little tacky glue later and the letters were good to go.

The bottle says to allow the chalkboard paint to cure for at least 24 hours before conditioning it, so it was time to play the waiting game. I really wanted to finish the project before we headed out of town, but I decided it was better to be safe than sorry so the paint sat there for 3 days while we partied it up in Houston for our friends' son's first birthday.

Sunday afternoon was time to condition the paint, but I probably could have done a few more passes before writing on it.

And one shot in the kitchen.

All in all I really like how it turned out and can't wait to hang it in our kitchen!

Have you completed any pinterest projects lately? 

Oh The Places We Have Been

I'm going to go ahead and start this off by saying this was the DIY project from hell!  I can't tell you how many times I wanted to just give up and call it a day.

But let's back up to the beginning, all the way back to December.  I've had this USA map pinned from A Step in the Journey for quite some time and finally decided to use my holiday gift cards to pick up the materials from Michael's.  Chris was a nice enough to pick up the frog tape on one of his stops to home depot.

I searched all over Michael's for a US map to cut up, but had no luck.  So these supplies just sat in the corner, probably collecting dust, until just recently.  With no success in the stores, I ended up ordering a map on Amazon.  Knowing that the map was on it's way I went ahead and painted the canvas background.  I tapped off a border and then mixed the blue and white until I was satisfied with the shade.

I attempted to be all artist like and use brush strokes that would emulate the oceans around the US, not so sure I achieved that.  Next up was the map.  I unrolled it and... it was too big.  I really should have paid more attention to the dimensions.

I wanted the map to be large enough to fit my canvas, hoping that the excess on the sides and top would equal out.  My best bet was to just trim off some of the states on the edges (sorry California, Oregon, Washington and Maine!), so I got to work cutting out each of the 50 states.  The first round of cutting wasn't too bad, it was the tracing of the states to scrapbook paper and cutting it again that really started to get me flustered.  There are no pictures of this process because no one really wants to see me going crazy!  I was so frustrated that the states weren't lining up that I was tempted just to throw the whole thing out.  With some encouragement from Chris that it was going to be ok, I soldiered on to using Mod Podge to attach the states to the canvas and then used another layer over the whole thing to seal it.  Side note - I've never used Mod Podge before and I was really worried that all of the white streaks wouldn't dry clear.  Thankfully it did and I'm now a big fan of this stuff!

As you can see it didn't fit within the border that I had painted, so for anyone interested in trying this I would suggest buying the map and sizing it before painting your canvas.  I'm pretty sure that's one of those "duh Lauren" type of suggestions.

I added little stars to pinpoint the different cities that we have traveled to, but noticed that it's a little hard to see them when you stand back.  Up close (depending on the scrapbook paper) you can tell, but further back, not so much.

I was a little sad in the number of stars on the map.  I could have sworn that we have been to more locations, but then I remembered that most of our destinations were on cruises in the Caribbean, Mexico for our honeymoon and the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.  We need to check out more of the US!  Stepping back, I looked at it as a whole and felt like it was missing something.

The original inspiration used wooden letters to spell out "oh the places we'll go" a take on the famous Dr. Seuss book (which I received as a graduation present back in the day, anyone else get that for graduation?).  So back to Michael's to pick up a couple of bags of letters.

A couple coats of white paint and we were in business!

I would have loved for the states to come out a little bit better and the stars to stand out more (I may go back and paint the tops), but overall I'm just happy that I finished this project.  I can't wait to add more destinations in the future!

Have you ever had a project that you wanted to give up and walk away from?

Bacon Ranch Crockpot Chicken

My first crack at using a crockpot, and there is no going back!  I don't know why I haven't used one before.  Chris brought one home before we got married and it sat in our pantry until we packed it up and put it in storage after the move.  My dad loved using one while he was working out in Atlanta, and brought it back to Texas where it sits up here in the gameroom with us.  After staring at it for a couple of months I thought it was finally time to test it out with a recipe from Kelly's Healthified Kitchen. I tweaked the recipe and doubled up to have enough for four and a decent amount of left overs.

Ingredients:

- Bacon, cooked and shredded

- Garlic Powder

- 2 packages of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing

- 2 10.75oz cans of Cream of Chicken soup

- 16 oz of Sour Cream (not pictured because I forgot it was in the fridge when I took this shot)

- 1 bag of Tyson frozen Chicken Tenderloins

- 2 packages of pasta

I cheated a little and used Oscar Mayer's fully cooked thick cut bacon which saved me some extra time cooking.  I substituted the recommended minced garlic for a couple of pinches of garlic powder.  Combine the bacon, garlic powder, ranch dressing, cream of chicken and sour cream together in a bowl.   Place the frozen chicken into the crockpot and top it with the mixture.  Cook on high for 3.5 hours.

Right after I placed it in the crockpot

As you get closer to the completion time of the chicken, cook your pasta per the instructions on the package.  Lift the lid on the crockpot and shred your chicken using two forks.  When the pasta is ready, dip up the bacon ranch chicken and top it off with a little Parmesan cheese (if you are like us and love cheese).

We all LOVED this meal!  I know I will definitely be up for some more crockpot meals in the future.  They usually include veggies, so I get to see if Chris will be up to try something new.

Do you have any favorite crockpot meals?