Simply Prim

A Cute Idea and Some Great Finds!

2012-01-25T19:30:00.001-05:00

I thought I would share with you a cute idea for a snowman. I came across him as I was going through my tote of winter decor. I don't put him out anymore because he doesn't quite fit in with the style of decor that I like. I bought him several years ago when my sister and I used to do craft shows.

Isn't he cute? He's made out of a pot/pan lid and the handle is used for his nose! I thought it was a pretty clever idea! If you don't have any lids that you can spare, you can find all sorts of them at dollar/thrift stores. He also looks cute tucked in a wreath!

I also want to share a few pictures of some goodies that I found at a couple of my favorite antique malls in Berlin and Walnut Creek (aka Amish country) yesterday. I can't believe the fantastic prices that I bought them for! I was so excited!!

I found this fabulous box at Walnut Creek Antique Mall (behind Rebecca's Bistro) for only $32.00!!! I saw two, similar in size, at a local antique shop....one was selling for $170.00 and the other one for $250.00! So I'm thinking I got a great bargain! (Don't tell me if I didn't! LOL)

I found these at Berlin Village Antique Mall. The 2 gallon jug had a price of $45.00 and the small crock was $24.00. When I went to check out, the girl said that they were 30% off!! So I got the jug for $31.50 and the crock for $16.80!! Woo Hoo!!!!

I have no idea where I'm going to put these things, but I'm sure I'll find a place somewhere and will share pics when I do!! lol

My hubby and I have been working on a couple of projects that I will share with you later. One is done (just trying to get a decent photo) and the other will, hopefully, get started soon! The second project is going to be made out of walnut and we had to go to a lumber mill and have the wood planed and cut to the widths and lengths that we need. After about a week and a half wait, we finally got to pick it up on Monday....just in time for my hubby to have to go to work to pour some concrete for a couple of his contractors! So when he gets those wrapped up, we'll be able to start on it!

I'll be back soon with a simple Valentines project and a recipe for an awesome pie that is so simple to make!

Until Next Time. . . . Kris

Merry Christmas!!

2011-12-22T13:42:00.001-05:00

My goodness!! I didn't realize that I haven't blogged in so long!! We've had one heck of a busy year! Hubby had been working a lot and it seemed as though we had something going on almost every weekend....weddings, birthdays, funerals, picnics, etc.! On top of that, we've had to adjust to the kids' work schedules and Kory embarking on a new phase in her life where we've had to get accustomed to a whole new staff and facility, attend meetings to set goals for her Life Plan, and go through the process of interviewing providers. Hopefully, things will calm down and get back to normal soon!

I have a few pictures of my Christmas decor to share with you. Last year, after Christmas, I had envisioned making some changes in my decor for this year, but when it came time to decorate, those ideas didn't quite pan out like I had hoped and I really haven't had time or the creative "mojo" to come up with anything different. I did manage to simplify my decor like I was hoping to do, so that's a plus! lol I hope you enjoy!

Here are a few shots of my Kitchen:

This is my Dining Room

Living Room

Main Bathroom

Entry Way

Family Room

Oops! After I posted this picture, I realized that I forgot to remove the towel on the chair seat ( my kitties like to sleep on it) and the fabric on the back, which is what I'm going to reupholster the chair in at a later time!

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!!

Until Next time....Kris

Another Great Giveaway!!

2011-04-26T14:30:00.001-04:00

Hi, everyone!! Would you like a chance to win this beautiful primitive sampler designed and hand-stitched by Jennifer Taylor Gass of Taylors*Farmhouse*Attic? If you do, click on the picture to take you to A Primitive Place's blog and become a follower, plus learn additional ways to be entered into the drawing which will take place Saturday, April 30th. GOOD LUCK!!!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

My Rug Hooking Project is DONE!!!

2011-04-13T22:15:00.001-04:00

Hello, everyone!!

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for the wonderful comments made about my 5 arm table lamp. Many of you have asked whether or not I would be doing a tutorial on it, but I'm sorry to say that I won't be. This is a one of a kind lamp made by Carriage House Lighting and Tinware and I haven't seen any reproductions or variations of it anywhere, so I'm not sure if there would be any legal issues with copyright laws or not and I don't want to take a chance. I made this for my own personal use with no intentions of selling them. However, I AM working on another lamp that I have seen many replicas of, so I will be doing a tutorial on that sometime in the future. I CAN give you a list of the supplies I used and if you look at the picture I posted last time, you can probably figure out how to make it, especially if you saw my tutorial in the Spring issue of A Primtive Place magazine on how to make a tin candle lamp. I used the same method for the arms as I did for the candle lamp.

MATERIALS NEEDED:

large tin funnel - found at antique/second-hand shops

electrical conduit pipe - Home Depot/$6.97 for 8 ft.

10 ft. lamp wire - Home Depot/$0.64 a ft.
3 1/2" candle pans - I made my own, but can be found at craft supply stores or FactoryDirectCraft.com
steel threaded nipples and hex nuts - Home Depot's lamp repair section
candelabra light sockets and sleeves -

http://factorydirectcraft.com/catalog/products/1302_2533_1974-5690-%20candelabra_adjustable_base_socket.html

http://factorydirectcraft.com/catalog/products/1302_2533_1974-5715-4_dripping_candle_socket_cover.html

So, there you have it! All of the supplies you need to make your own! It really isn't as hard to make as it seems. If any of you do make one, please share a picture because I would love to see it!

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Well, I finally finished my rug hooking project! Woo Hoo!! I finished it last Wednesday, but I just haven't had a chance to make a post until now. I have been busy working on other projects and enjoying the warmer weather, so I will share my other projects with you later since this post is longer than I thought it would be!

This isn't my first rug hooking project.....just the first one completed. About 3 or 4 years ago, I started making a pillow with a pumpkin on it. I had purchased a booklet from Hobby Lobby on how to hook rugs and it recommended using burlap for the background fabric, which I used. What a mess!! Every time I worked on it, I got covered with little fuzzies!! Since my project was small, I just used a small quilting hoop. It was a little tough trying to hold on to the hoop and hook at the same time, so between that and dealing with the fuzzy mess, I decided to set it aside with hopes of finishing it some day.

Then about a month or two ago, when I decided I was going to try hooking again and I started this picture. I was originally going to hang this on the wall beside my fireplace, but after working on it for a couple of weeks, I decided it wasn't quite what I wanted.

I wanted something that looked a little simpler, so I came up this design.

BUT......after I finished it, I decided I liked it hanging here instead! So, now, I need to figure out what I want to do for my LR wall. But, that will have to wait until after I finish 2 other hooking projects.

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A FEW HELPFUL HINTS:

First of all, I strongly recommend buying a rug hooking frame if you are going to work on larger projects. I had started out with one that I had made. I had bought a lap scroll frame for cross stitching a few years ago, but didn't like using it and it was too late to return I took off the scroll frame and made a plain rectangular one using 1 x 2's and attached that to the stand base using the hardware that came with it. I bought a metal carpet tack strip and cut it into pieces and screwed them on to the outside edges of the frame. It worked great holding my fabric nice and taut.....then I decided to start a new project..... and when I went to take off the unfinished one, I had one heck of a time getting it off without causing too much damage. When I started the new project, I removed the carpet strips and held my fabric in place with thumb tacks. This worked good, as well, but just make sure those babies are in all the way.....if not, you'll be sitting there working and all of a sudden - PING!! - one will pop out and going flying across the room and then you are spending precious time looking for a darn tack before someone steps on it instead of rug hooking! It wasn't too long after using that method that I decided to break down and buy a frame. They do sell the hooking strips that I could have bought and attached to my frame, but this frame also rotates 360° and I hooked long enough to realize that that made a BIG difference!! I had my homemade frame turning every which way and that, trying to get a comfortable position in which to hook and having it rotate freely, really does make a big difference. Another BIG plus was the strips of hooking tape that hold your project in place! OH MY....what a difference!! It is SO much easier to position and reposition your fabric whenever you want to, instead of working one area at a time before removing all of the thumbtacks. repositioning your fabric, and then pushing the thumbtacks back in! (My thumbs are a lot happier now! LOL)

Here's the link to the ebay store from where I bought my frame from. http://shop.ebay.com/beecreekltd/m.html. Keep a watch on these items. Every now and then, she offers these frames up for bid at great prices or you can purchase them at outright at a higher price. I was the only one to bid on the octagonal frame with the lap and floor stand for $149.00. Otherwise, the combo sold for $199.00. You can also google "rug hookng frames" and find a list of sites that sell them.

This next thing (and one many of you have been waiting to hear about) is VERY useful in cutting your wool. A few years ago, when I started the pumpkin pillow project, I cut the wool strips by hand using a rotary wheel. And let me tell you, it was a pain in the *behind*! I think that is probably why I stopped working on that project...I needed to cut more strips! lol So when I decided to try rug hooking again, the only obstacle I had was cutting the wool. After pricing wool cutting machines online, I decided that they were way much more than I wanted to spend. Especially, for something that I wasn't sure how much I would even use. While I was in Joann Fabrics, I happened to notice a Rotary Cutting Machine on a shelf behind the cutting counter. On the box it said "Perfect for Scrapbooking, Quilting, Rug Hooking and More" PLUS it was on sale for $49.50 (reg. $89.99)! DOUBLE PLUS....I had a gift card!! Woo Hoo!! So I thought "what the heck" I can always return it if it didn't work out. When I got it home, I tried cutting a piece of paper with it and....nothing!....not even indentations where it ran through the rotary cutter! And forget about cutting wool!! I was SO disappointed! I thought, for sure, that I had found a solution to my wool cutting dilemma!.....Then I read the instruction pamphlet. (always a good idea! lol) All I had to do was adjust the tension wheel underneath (although I thought it was already pretty tight) and PRESTO, it worked like a charm!! It has a foot pedal, whereas, all of the other wool cutters that I've seen have crank handles. And I'm thinking that after all of the wool that I cut for the unfinished project and then for the finished one, my little arm would have been extremely tired if I had to do all of that cranking!! lol It can cut as small as 3/8" (which is the size recommended for hooking) up to 2 1/2". I absolutely love it! I've never tried an actual wool cutting machine, but for me, this thing works wonderfully!

If you click on the picture, it will take you to
Amazon.com where you can purchase the book

I also recommend this book. I was able to borrow it from my local library and found it to be very helpful. Besides learning how to do the basics, like choosing your wool and how to wash and cut it, it shows how to dye your wool (which I have done and it is pretty easy!), how to finish your rug with either rug binding tape or whip-stitching , plus patterns and directions to make some cute designs. The entire background of my rug is hooked with different light colored wool that I had dyed with coffee. The book explains how to do that process. Although, it says to use 2 T. (I think) of instant coffee, I used a heaping 1/2 cup! lol That made me brave enough to dye some of the wool that I am using in my next project. It's a pretty simple process and I think it turned out great!

When your rug is all finished and ready to be hung, a great product to use are the Command Picture Hanging Strips. If you're like me, I tend to rearrange things constantly and don't want to put too many holes in my walls from nails. These work great! Peel the paper off the adhesive strip and attach as many strips on the back of your rug as you would like (I used 4). Tack them in place by adding a basting stitch on each side of the strips. Place another strip on top of the one placed on the rug. (They fit like velcro.) Peel off the adhesive strips and position your rug where ever you want on the wall. They are very durable. I have a hooked rug from Ragon House hanging in my bedroom that I run the vacuum over and it holds up beautifully. If you decide to move your rug, all you need to replace are the strips that attach to the wall.

And one last thing. A great source for wool is your second-hand stores, like Goodwill. You can find lots of suit jackets, women's blazers and skirts made from 100% wool at great prices. It's a little time-consuming cutting them apart, but it's so much more economical than buying wool from a specialty shop. I have purchased little pieces called one-eighth quarters for $7.99 each. You get so much more wool from a jacket for less than that!

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Well.....Goodnight, friends! I'll be back with pictures of a couple of the projects that I have finished!

Until Next Time . . . . Kris

Look What I Made!!!!

2011-04-04T19:10:00.001-04:00

I just wanted to pop on here and share with you one of the many projects I've been working on. I'm really excited with how this turned out! I have always loved this lamp that is made by Carriage House Lighting and Tinware, based in Troy, Ohio. (They don't have it featured on their website) They sell it for $400.00, which is way more than what I wanted to spend! lol So, as usual, this little mind got to working on how I can make my own! It was a little labor intensive and took a few days to make because I had to assemble and glue things in stages. But do you know what the exciting part is?!! It only cost me about $45.00 in material!! (Make that $49.00.....the light bulbs cost me $4.00! lol) Woo Hoo!!! I think it turned out pretty darn good, if you ask me!!

So......do you want to see it?

Here it is half way done:

And here it is all done!

Like I said, I'm really excited with how this turned out! I have another light in the works and will share it with you when I get it done. I have some other projects that I've been working on. Some are done, but go with other projects that aren't done yet, so I'm waiting until everything is complete before I post pictures.

I've started rug hooking and will, hopefully, finish up a project in a couple of days. I'll share that with you along with a very helpful tool that I purchased that is wonderful to cut wool with!

Until Next Time. . . . Kris

Check Out Our New Blog!

2011-03-12T18:00:00.001-05:00

Come check out A Primitive Place's new blog!

Click on the picture below to become a follower!!

A Hint of Spring

2011-02-20T20:48:00.001-05:00

Hi, friends!! Can you believe the warm weather that we had a few days ago? The warmer temps melted off all of the snow!! Yayyyyy!! This is what I have longed to see for a looooong time.

NO SNOW!!!

Yep! It's all melted!! I am SO glad that the snow is all gone. And do you know what I discovered after the snow melted?

My daffodils and hyacinths are starting to pop up!! Woo Hoo!!

I know, I know....I'm not going to get myself too excited since tonight we're suppose to be under a Winter Weather Advisory with a mix of snow, sleet and rain! UGH!! Plus, the other day, my local weatherman pointed out that the average snowfall in the month of March is 11", so I know we're not done with snow! But, come on Spring!! I know your just around the corner!!

After I heard that news, I decided to take a little trip to Amish country with the hopes of getting cheered up by seeing some spring displays and I sure wasn't disappointed! The shops were brimming with spring goodies!! I went with a list of things in particular that I was looking for, but ended up coming home with a few spring things that I couldn't resist instead!!

Here are some pics of what I brought home:

A few faux potted plants and a bunch of greenery.

I bought a couple bunches of ivy and yellow flowers. I just tucked them in this basket, for now, for photo purposes.

I picked up some hand-dyed wool fat quarters and a couple yards of blue calico fabric. I also bought Family Heirloom Weaver's new Angstadt pattern table square, which I absolutely LOVE!!

I also hit a couple of antique stores where I found a pair of pewter salt and pepper shakers and this plastic horse. You're probably wondering what I'm going to do with the horse! Well.....I have a project in mind. I'm not sure how it'll turn out, but I'll let you know if it does! lol

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For Valentines, we celebrated on both Sunday and Monday. On Sunday, with the whole family, we grilled lamb chops along with roasted red potatoes and onions as well as roasted butternut squash. For dessert I made a double layer chocolate cake that is a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa. Yummmm!! On Monday, Brittney had to work, so I made Chicken with Mascarpone Marsala Sauce, which she doesn't care for. It's a recipe from Giada de Laurentis/Everyday Italian.

Chicken with Mustard Mascarpone Marsala Sauce

1 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, each breast cut crosswise into 3 pieces

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 T. olive oil

5 T. butter, divided

3/4 c. chopped onion

1 lb. cremini mushrooms, sliced

2 T. minced garlic

1 c. dry Marsala wine (I use sweet Marsala wine)

1 c. (8 oz.) mascarpone cheese

2 T. Dijon mustard

2 T. chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

12 oz. dried fettuccine

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a heavy, large skillet over high heat. Add the chicken and cook just until brown, about 4 minutes per side. Transfer the chicken to a plate and cool slightly.

While the chicken cools, melt 2 T. of butter to the same skillet over medium-high heat, then add the onion and suate until tender, about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and garlic and saute until the mushrooms are tender and the juices evaporate, about 12 minutes. Add the wine and simmer until it reduced by half, about 4 minutes. Stir in the mascarpone and mustard. Cut the chicken breasts crosswise into 1/3" thick slices. Return the chicken and any accumulated juices to the skillet. Simmer, uncovered, over medium-low heat until the chicken is just cooked through and the sauce thickens slightly, about 2 minutes. Stir in the chopped parsley. Season the sauce, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the fettuccine and cook until al dente, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Drain. toss the fettuccine with 3 T. butter and season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Swirl the fettuccine onto serving plates. Spoon the chicken mixture over top.

Beatty's Chocolate Cake

Butter, for greasing the pans

1 3/4 c. all-pupose flour, plus more for pans

2 c. sugar

3/4 c. good cocoa powder

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. kosher salt

1 c. buttermilk, shaken

1/2 c. vegetable oil

2 extra large eggs, at room temperature

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 c. freshly brewed hot coffee

Chocolate Buttercream, recipe follows

Preheat the oven to 350°. Butter 2 (8 inch) round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla. With mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With the mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely. Frost when cooled.

Chocolate Buttercream

6 oz. good semisweet chocolate

1/2 lb ( 2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 extra large egg yolk, room temperature

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 c. sifted confectioner's sugar

1 T. instant coffee powder

Chop the chocolate and place it in a heat-proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until just melted and set aside until cooled to room temperature.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed until light yellow and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg yolk and vanilla and continue beating for 3 minutes. Turn the mixer on low, gradually add the confectioner's sugar, then beat at medium speed, scraping down the bowl as necessary, until smooth and creamy. Dissolve the coffee powder in 2 teaspoons of the hottest tap water. On low speed, add the chocolate and coffee to the butter mixture and mix until blended. Don't whip! Spread immediately on the cooled cake.

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Until Next Time. . . . .Kris

Do You Have Your Funnels Ready?!!

2011-02-13T20:30:00.001-05:00

Remember in one of my previous posts I had posted pictures of some funnels that I had purchased from a couple of antique shops in Amish country and I said that I had a project in mind for them?

Well......this is what I made with them!

What do you think? I'm pretty excited with how they turned out!

If you would like to learn how to make one for yourself, you can find a tutorial in the Spring issue of A Primitive Place magazine. If you don't already have a subscription, you can click HERE and order yours today!!

Until Next Time. . . . .Kris

A Little Bit of Christmas

2010-12-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

Hi, Everyone! I just wanted to share a few pictures of my Christmas decor. I have a few areas that I still need to tweak and will share pics of those later.

I had a wonderful surprise in the mail the other day! My sweet friend, Janet (winterwillowprimitives), made this beautiful pinkeep. Isn’t it gorgeous? Thank you so much, Janet! I’ll treasure it always!

These are couple of trees in my Dining Room.

My kitties have been having a field day with the grapevine on the tree. The bottom is almost bare!

Thanks for looking!!

Until Next Time. . . . .Kris

Prim Turkey Project and Broccoli Casserole

2010-11-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday, friends!! It’s that time of year again where things are a little busy around here. Besides working on a few projects, I’m also hoping to get my bedroom painted and the carpets shampooed before Thanksgiving weekend when the Christmas decorations start going up. My goal is to have the bigger projects done by the first of December so that, hopefully, I can relax and enjoy the days leading up to Christmas! We’ll see!! LOL It seems to be the same old cycle. . . . when one project gets completed, another one pops up! I

Here’s a simple little project that I made the other day.

If you’d like to make one for yourself, simply click on the pattern pieces to enlarge the pictures and print out.

Materials needed:

osnaburg fabric

polyester fiberfill

brown craft paint

1/4” dowel rod ( 2 - 7” pieces)

4” 1 x 4 pine board

feathers ( about 11 or12)

peppercorns

red wool/homespun

sandpaper

Cut out the pattern and trace onto a doubled layer of osnaburg fabric. Sew along the marked lines, leaving an opening at the bottom. Cut out the turkey, leaving 1/4” around the edges. Clip curves. Turn right-side out and stuff firmly with fiberfill. Sew opening closed. Paint the entire turkey with brown craft paint and let dry. Sand the entire turkey to give it an aged look. You can grunge yours at this point, if you’d like, but I didn’t grunge mine.

Stain or paint the dowel rod pieces to use as legs.

Using scissors, poke holes underneath the turkey’s body (approx. where marked on pattern). Add craft or hot glue onto one end of each dowel rod and insert into the holes.

Center the legs on the base piece. Mark and then drill where you want the holes. Sand the base piece thoroughly and then stain or paint; let dry.Add glue to the ends of the dowel rod and insert into the wood base.

Poke holes in the back end; add glue to the end of each feather and insert into openings. I did these one at a time, gaging where to place each feather. I used 7 feathers.

Cut the tip of 4 feathers to approximately 3” in length. Peel some of the feathers off the bottom to expose some of the quill. Approximate where you’d like to place the side feathers and poke holes. Add glue to the ends of the feathers and insert into openings.

Cut out a wattle from red wool or homespun fabric and glue to the end of the beak. Finally, glue on peppercorns for eyes.

This week’s recipe that I want to share with you is one of our favorites that I make every year for Thanksgiving and is very easy to make.

Broccoli Casserole

Mix together:

1 (10 oz.) pkg. frozen, chopped broccoli, thawed

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 (8 oz.) can creamed corn

1 T. grated onion

1/4 tsp. salt

Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350°.

Melt 3 T. butter and add 1 c. herb stuffing mix. Set aside 1/3 cup. Combine broccoli mixture with remaining stuffing. Bake for 20 minutes. Crumble reserved 1/3 c. stuffing and 1/2 c. French-fried onion rings (crushed) on top. Bake for 15 minutes.

As always, if you’d like to participate or see other recipes in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Homemade Holidays Recipe Swap, click on the picture below.

Well, that’s all for this week. Thank you so much for stopping by!! Hopefully, next time, I’ll have a few pictures of my Christmas decor!

Until Next time. . . . Kris

We Started Decorating for Christmas

2010-11-12T18:45:00.001-05:00

Well. . . . . .sort of! lol

Last year I spent a lot of time decorating the main living area and didn’t really get around to decorating down stairs. I was trying to simplify my Christmas decor and boxed up the stuff that I wanted to get rid of. One day, my hubby took it upon himself to decorate the Family room using the things in the box. (So much for trying to get rid of stuff! lol) He joked that, from then on, he was going to take over the Christmas tree down stairs and start decorating it with Cleveland Browns and Cavaliers ornaments.

I’ve been picking up ornaments ever since. It’s been tough trying to find Cavaliers things…..there isn’t much available.

Instead of decorating one tree, I suggested doing two. The reason being….I don’t think brown, orange, wine, gold and blue would look good together, plus, we have more Browns items than Cavs! lol

My hubby was all excited with all of the things I found and since both sports seasons are upon us, we put the trees up already! Besides, they’re more “sports” trees rather than Christmas trees!! lol It’s kind of hard to tell in this picture, but the taller tree has orange lights with Browns ornaments and the smaller one has red and yellow lights with Cavs things on it. We’re still on the lookout for more ornaments along with something for tree toppers. They’re lit up faithfully every night, whether a games on or not!

A while back, we got together with Chuck’s sister and her family to go apple picking and then went back to his niece’s house for dinner and to watch the Browns football game. She made a lot of great food, but one dish that I absolutely loved was her Rosemary Butternut Squash Pasta!! It was SO good!! Hers looked a lot prettier than mine….I don’t think I was gentle enough stirring in my butternut squash. It kind of got “mushed”! lol But it still tasted wonderful!!

Rosemary Butternut Squash Pasta

1 lb. penne pasta

3/4 pkg. cream cheese

1/2 c. grated fresh parmesan cheese

1 large butternut squash

1 large yellow onion, diced

3/4 c. roasted walnuts

1 T. fresh basil, chopped

2 T. fresh rosemary, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425°.

Cut butternut squash into 1” cubes and mix with diced onion. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast for 40-45 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook pasta and drain; reserving 1/2 c. of pasta water. Combine pasta, cream cheese and parmesan cheese in large bowl; add a little pasta water until a creamy sauce forms to cover pasta. Gently mix in squash mixture, walnuts, basil and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

As always, if you’d like to participate or see other recipes in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Homemade Holiday Recipe Swap, please click on the picture below.

Well, that’s all for this week. Thank you for taking the time to stop by! I really appreciate all of you!! :o)

Until Next Time . . . .Kris

Christmas Sweets and a Couple New Purchases

2010-11-06T16:55:00.000-04:00

Okay…..I’m going to try to participate in Colleen’s (andbabymakesfive) recipe swap again. I haven’t been very faithful in posting on my blog lately, so I’m hoping that this will keep me inspired to make a weekly post!! Sorry, but I tend to get caught up with life and don’t always remember to take photos, let alone, take the time to post about the things that keep me busy! And I HAVE been busy doing A LOT of tweaking. But I’m not quite done, so I’m not posting any pictures until I am! lol

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I love to go antique shopping and part of the fun is finding the right piece at a great price. I’ve had my eye on this little dresser at an antique store near by me for quite some time. I’ve been looking for something to replace a table that is in my entryway. I was kind of hesitant paying the price that was marked on it, not sure if it was what I really wanted I panicked one day when I went in and found it was gone!! The woman working in the store said that the dealer had taken it to an antique show, so I figured it was gone for good. I was so happy to see it the next time I went in. The price was not marked on it any more, so I wasn’t sure if it had changed or not. After waiting a couple weeks of trying to get a price from the dealer, I was really surprised to find out that the price was only HALF of what he was asking for before! SOLD!! The waiting was worth it! The only thing, though, was that when I got it home, I didn’t care for it in my entryway at all, but in my Living Room instead!

So here’s my new little dresser!

I love the handles on it!

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Here are a couple of sweet treat recipes that have been favorites of ours from past Christmases. I used to make the Peanut Brittle along with hard tack candy and caramels every year for the holidays, but have cut down on the amount of goodies that I make because I tend to make way too much! lol I’ll share the recipes for the hard tack candy and caramels at a later date.

Peanut Brittle

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. water

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 c. water

1 c. light corn syrup

3 T. butter

1 lb. unroasted peanuts

Butter 2 cookie sheets; keep warm.

Mix baking soda, 1 tsp. water and vanilla; set aside. Mix sugar, 1 c. water and corn syrup in saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, to 240° on a candy thermometer.

Stir in margarine & peanuts. Cook, stirring constantly, to 300°. Immediately remove from heat and stir in baking soda mixture.

Pour half of the mixture onto each cookie sheet and quickly spread about 1/4” thick. Cool; break into pieces.

Kahlua Fudge

1 1/3 c. sugar

7 oz. marshmallow creme

2/3c. evaporated milk

1/4 c. butter

1/4 c. Kahlua

1/4 tsp. salt

2 c. semisweet chocolate pieces

1 c. milk chocolate pieces

2/3 c. chopped nut

1 tsp. vanilla

Line 8” square baking pan with foil.

In 2 qt. saucepan, combine sugar, marshmallow creme, milk, butter, Kahlua and salt. Bring to a rapid boil, stirring constantly for 5 minutes. Remove from heat; add all chocolate. Stir until melted. Add nuts and vanilla. Turn into prepared pan. Refrigerate until firm. Cut into squares.

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If you’d like to participate or see other recipes in Colleen’s Homemade Holiday Recipe Swap, click on the picture below.

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This morning, Chuck and I had the fun opportunity of going to the Simple Goods Show in Mt. Vernon. It was about an hour and a half drive and the temperature went from 35° down to 24° by the time we got there! We had to wait about 1/2 hour until the doors opened and let me tell you, it was freezing!! There were a few unfortunate souls that had booths set up outside, so while Chuck stood in line, I went and checked them out. I also ran into the hotel right next door to use the restroom (and to get warm!) and ran into Karen (my colonial home) and her husband, who were staying at the hotel.

I also ran into Lisa (prims from above)who was there with her hubby, son and mom, as well as Stacey (farm wife prims). We didn’t get to talk very long due to the fact that the place was VERY crowded and I kind of felt like I was in people’s way. It would have been extremely difficult trying to get any pictures because you could hardly even get into some of the booths! It was still a wonderful show, but I seriously hope that they move it to a larger place. There wasn’t much space between the booths and, at times, you couldn’t move anywhere if someone stopped to look at something in front of you. . . .you had to wait until they were done looking. And you know how we women like to check out our prims! lol We were all done in about 1 1/2 hours and by the time we left, it had cleared out quite a bit (along with a lot of prim goodies!) These were the only purchases I made, due to the fact that I couldn’t get into some of the booths and by the time I could, things were picked over.

The lamp is from Carriage House Lighting. I saw this at Country Gatherings the last time I was in Berlin (amish country) and really liked it, but wasn’t sure were I would put it. I’m glad I waited, because it was $20 less than what CG wanted for it. The santa came from Arnett’s Country Store. I’ve always tried to win one of their infamous santas when they would hold online sales, but was never quick enough to email my response. . . .then I found out that CG carries them pretty much all of the time! lol I have never bought one due to the fact that I’ve usually spent my money on other prim goodies that CG offered. I forgot that Arnetts were going to be at the show and by the time I got over to their booth, most of the santas were already gone. I was lucky to get this one and then I had to wait in a LONG line to pay for him! It was a very popular booth! The candle came from Old Mother Hubbards. That was Chuck’s purchase. The man LOVES candles and is always picking up different ones and smelling them. This one smells wonderful!! Kind of a caramel/hazelnut scent. It’s been burning since we’ve been home! lol

Well, that’s all for me this week!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

Changes in my Dining Room

2010-10-12T12:54:00.001-04:00

I know….I know….the last time I posted I promised that I would be back soon with a couple of big purchases that Chuck and I made in Amish country. I honestly don’t know what my problem has been with posting on my blog. I don’t feel like I have much time to myself anymore. I was just kind of adjusting to the in and out schedules of Brittney working and Justin’s college classes when Justin finally found a job after being unemployed all summer. It’s a full time job with excellent pay and after 60 days he’ll receive full benefits. The only drawback is he works nights from 10:00 pm until 6:30 am. So trying to adjust to a new sleep pattern and taking college classes full-time has been a little rough on him. And let me tell you, he’s been a wee bit crabby!! lol I’m trying to adjust, myself, by making sure I get things done, like vacuuming, or anything else that might make noise, done before he lays down to sleep. I find myself afraid to do too much for fear of waking him up!!Ohhh……I miss the days when they were in school and I had the whole day to myself! Oh well, I guess that’s life and we’ll adjust eventually!

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As I mentioned before, Chuck and I found a couple of pieces of furniture at one of the antique malls in Amish country that we absolutely loved. We refrained from buying them right away because we knew we were going to Lancaster, Pa and we wanted to make sure that we weren’t going to find something we liked better.

So do you want to see what we bought?!!!

My new Pie Safe!!

It’s in perfect shape and has punched tin panels on the sides. The wood is a gorgeous walnut. The only thing not original on it is the latch on the doors and that has been on for quite some time because the wood is worn down from the latch rubbing it.

This is the other piece of furniture we bought:

My new farmhouse table!!

Isn’t it gorgeous? The wood has so much character!! You can see the square nails that were used in making it. The wood was a little dull when we first brought it home, but after I applied linseed oil, the beauty of the wood came to life! I love it!!

Here’s another angle:

And you know what happens after you get something new, don’t you? lol Lots of tweaking!! The whole Dining Room got a makeover!!

I repainted my hutch. It was navy blue and now it’s Savannah Red from Olde Century paints. I’m hoping to replace the knobs, but I’m just not sure with what, yet.

This is the “before”:

And this is the “after”:

Besides tweaking the shelves, I also found a couple of chairs at a local antique store to place on each side and bought some matching tin candle sconces.

See that adorable little pillow with the pumpkin sitting on my chair? My very sweet friend, Linda, made that for me for my birthday along with a very cute towel that I’ll share with you later when I post some pictures of my Fall displays.

Another sweet friend, Pam, made the round cheese basket, also for my birthday.

This is the display on top of the pie safe.

I moved my dough bowl rack from the wall by the hutch to above my chair. It’s a lot more visible here than where I had it. My son didn’t even know that there WAS a dough bowl rack!!

I was so excited because everything seemed to be falling into place with the makeover. All I had left to do was make new curtains and the fabric I ordered from Family Heirloom Weavers came right on cue! I had ordered 6 yards and as I was cutting the fabric into 1 yard lengths, I found out that the last yard was only 26” long!! Oh, no…..!!!! Well, they corrected the error, but I had to wait 3 weeks because they were out of the color I needed and they had to weave a new batch. I just finished them a couple of days ago. I love how they turned out! I also made some for my Living Room.

The pictures aren’t too great. The lighting was either too bright or too dark! The pattern is Sea Star & Jewels in chocolate brown/linen.

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On the first weekend in October, Chuck and I took another little getaway to our Amish country in Holmes county. Even though it’s only an hour away from us, we spent the night in a new hotel that’s been only open for a few months. It’s called the Berlin Grande Hotel and it was absolutely gorgeous!! I’ve been watching this thing being built every time I’ve been to Berlin and loved all of the stone work on the outside. I couldn’t wait to see the inside. I was kind of surprised to see that the decor had a modern/contemporary style. All of the pictures that I’ve seen of other lodge places have shown a country style decor with quilts on the beds, so this was definitely not the norm, but it was very nice!

These first few pictures are from their website:

This was the 2nd floor lounge

These next pictures are of our room, which was fabulous!!

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We stopped at a few antique shops in Millersburg and found this unusual thing.

Any guesses as to what it is?

It’s a tub with a water heater!! Isn’t that cool?!! It dates back to the 1800’s! You add fuel oil into the little cylinder on the right and the burner is on the bottom ( you definitely need to be careful of splashing!) that heats the water which is stored in the larger tank. Once the water is heated, just turn on the spigot in the front. And when you’re all done with your bath, just fold it up and roll it out of the way! The man that owns the antique shop said that this style of tub is very rare. The only other one that he is aware of is at the Biltmore Estates in North Carolina. So if anyone wants a very rare, unique tub, it’s only $3,000! lol

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Out of the few purchases that I made, these were my greatest finds!!

Are you wondering what the heck I’m going to do with all of these funnels? Well…….you’ll have to wait until the Spring issue of A Primitive Place magazine comes out!! If you don’t already have a subscription, click HERE and order yours now!! I am SO excited!!! I can’t wait to show you the tutorial using funnels! So, in the meantime, be on the lookout for some at your local antique shops. I found these in only 2 stores! They tended to be in areas where there were tools.

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Well, that’s all I have for now! I’ll leave you with this one last picture. I thought he was adorable! He was sitting outside of Rebecca’s Bistro & Tea Room in Walnut Creek. They used dried hydrangeas for his hair! How cute!

Until Next Time. . . . .Kris

A Most Memorable Weekend!!

2010-09-27T14:33:00.001-04:00

What an amazing weekend I had!!

A couple of months ago, Bonnie, Linda and Audrey attended Walker Homestead’s “Simple Treasures From the Past” Antiques & Primitives show in June and were asked to be the judges for the Best Booth contest in the upcoming show in September. When I found out that Kristine was flying in from North Dakota to join in the fun, I was VERY envious!! I wanted to go SO bad!!

So when my hubby suggested that we take a little weekend trip, I was SO excited!!! I couldn’t believe it!! I was going to finally get to meet these girls who I’ve become friends with through A Primitive Place forum! How cool is that?!!!

When Saturday morning came, I was extremely nervous! I couldn’t believe this was going to become a reality! Chuck dropped me off at the Walker Homestead on his way to go golfing and as I was making my way through, looking for APP’s tent, I saw Bonnie and Kristine cross over from the tent to a vendor’s booth. My heart dropped to my stomach! This was it….they’re HERE!! As I approached the tent, I was greeted with so much enthusiasm and warm hugs, that I felt an instant connection with these women, like we’ve all been long lost best friends! We seemed to feel at ease with each other so much that anyone who didn’t know the situation, would have had a hard time believing that this was the first time we’ve met!

I had the best time EVER!! I was so sad to see it come to an end! I didn’t want to leave!! I surely hope that we can get together again in the future!!

Here are all of us together!

Ashley (Photographer & cover layout), Audrey (Marketing Assistant), Me (Prim Project Coordinator), Kristine (Owner, Editor & Publisher), Linda (Photographer & Contributing Writer), Kris Casucci (Walker Homestead), Bonnie (Owner, Photographer, Director of Publications & Marketing), Doreen Piechota (Walker Homestead), and Margo (Photographer for the cover photos)

Here are a few pictures of the some of the booths.

Lots of Eye Candy!!!

I think Kristine saw something that she really liked!!

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I really didn’t think we would have time to do anything else while we were in Sturbridge, but we were lucky enough to make it there by 3:00 on Friday afternoon and had the chance to visit the Old Sturbridge Village. It’s a wonderful place where you can experience early New England life from 1790-1840. They have historians in costume that carry out the daily activities of an early 19th-century community.

Mind you, for anyone that would like to visit the village, I recommend you give yourself more time to spend there than 2 hours like we did. We didn’t get to experience all that they had to offer, but, fortunately for us, we have a place here in Ohio close by called Hale Farm & Village that is very similar. You can watch blacksmiths, glass blowers, candle makers, basket weavers, brick makers and textile weavers as they apply their craft and share with you how these items were used in the earlier times.

This is the Friends’ Meeting House

These next two are of the Freeman Farmhouse:

(Look at those stone walls!!)

This one is just a random shot

You could take a ride on the stagecoach:

After our ride, the driver was very gracious to climb down and hold the horses so that Kory could pet them. While talking with him, after he learned where we came from, he informed us that he bought both of the horses in Holmes county, here in Ohio (aka Amish country!) How cool is that?!!

These next 3 shots are of the pond and lake that are on the premises. What a gorgeous view!!!

This photo is of the Carding Mill. I love this stone wall, too!

Here is the Parsonage’s House

The Firearms & Textiles Exhibit

The Glass House & Cottage

I love all of the stone walls that are all throughout Massachusetts!

These next two photos are of the Herb Garden. I would LOVE to have a garden like this!!

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On the way there and back, we enjoyed looking at the gorgeous scenery! The trees were starting to changes colors and it was a glorious sight! I took a few pictures. Not all of them turned out….after all, it was kind of hard in a moving vehicle! lol

This was a beautiful sight to see at 7:00 am! It was in New York, a few miles from the Pennsylvania border.

This last shot is in Pennsylvania. I thought it was gorgeous!

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Well, that’s all for now. I know you’ve been waiting to see the 2 big purchases that I mentioned in my last post and I promise you, I’ll post them in a couple of days.

Until Next Time. . . . Kris

Unveiling Of APP’s Holiday Issue

2010-09-16T09:39:00.001-04:00

We will be unveiling the cover and a

few sneak peeks of our

Holiday/Winter issue of

A Primitive Place Magazine

TONIGHT

at 7 pm CST/8 pm EST

along with a

special announcement!!

Check it out by visiting

A Primitive Place Forum

Our Little Getaway to Lancaster, PA

2010-08-30T20:56:00.000-04:00

Chuck and I had the chance to get away for a couple of days and decided to go to Lancaster, PA. (I can’t believe it’s been two weeks already!) I love visiting Amish country (Holmes county) here in Ohio and I’ve heard so much about Lancaster from friends on A Primitive Place, that I decided I wanted to check out the “other” Amish country! lol

We headed out at 3:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning and made it to Bird In Hand about 9-9:30. Just in time for the shops to start opening!

Our first stop was at Bird In Hand Antique Market. OMG!! I’ve never seen so much stuff in my life!!! The place was packed full!! You could spend a couple of days in that place and still probably wouldn’t see everything! Chuck and I were totally amazed! The woman working there gave me permission to take pictures. I only took one of the main floor because people were kind of looking at me like I was strange…..like a tourist!! lol

These next pictures are of the basement. This is only about half of the basement! You pretty much had to dig through stuff. Things were piled on top of each other….there was no way they could have kept any inventory on what was there. Besides the shelves and floor being piled high, there were all kinds of stuff hanging up. Things were everywhere!!!

We didn’t spend too much time in there because we had more places to visit.

This is what I bought:

Our next stop was at the Kitchen Kettle Village in Intercourse. A lot of the shops sell similar things that I can find in Holmes county, so we kind of buzzed through them because I wanted to visit as many antique shops as I could.

Here a some pictures of the Village. We stayed at the Inn, which is above the Quilt shop, and I took these pics on Wednesday morning before the shops were even open.

This next picture is of the Kling House Restaurant, which was right next to the Inn. We enjoyed a free complimentary breakfast there Wednesday morning.

These next pictures are of our room at the Inn. There are only five rooms above the Quilt Shop. It was very nice….and quiet….there was only one other couple besides us!! If anyone’s interested, we had room #905.

Unfortunately, we spent a lot of time driving to antique shops only to find out that some of them were closed!! In Ohio, if a store closes during a weekday, Monday is usually the day they close. Evidently in Lancaster, Tuesday is the day to be closed. There were a couple of antique stores I would have loved to have visited!! Maybe on another visit!

On of them was White Horse Antiques in White Horse. We did stop back there Wednesday morning on our way home, going a little out of our way to do so and I am so glad we did!! It was wonderful!! (I wasn’t allowed to take pics) For any of you that are seriously into antiques, you definitely need to visit this shop! The furniture pieces they had were gorgeous!! They were in excellent shape and very decently priced! I found a couple of pieces I would have loved to have bought but had no way to get them home! They had a very nice selection of things…everything was clean and well organized.

This basket is the only thing I purchased there.

We then headed north to Morgantown and stopped at The Blue Snickel. Very nice shop with lots of prim goodies.

I purchased this pillow there. I loved the color….it’s kind of a teal green.

Then heading west towards home, we stopped in Stevens and visited 272 Antiques.

This is what I bought there:

( I have project in mind for the funnel!)

We then went down the road and stopped at Cocalico Creek. I loved that store! Lots of prim goodies there, too! They had bundles of assorted Family Heirloom Weaver fabrics for $14 or $15 that I couldn’t resist! They’re nice size pieces, too!

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Chuck didn’t come home empty handed, either!! lol These are his two big purchases!!!

A back scratcher and “Kickin” Pickle Chips!!! LOL You know…..because you can’t find back scratchers anywhere but in Amish country!! (A little sticker says “Made in China”!!!) LOL

I go to Amish country for prims and antiques and he goes for food! Every time he goes with me to Holmes county, he has to buy Amish-made Guggisburg Swiss cheese and Troyer’s Trail Bologna!! I keep telling him that I can pick up those exact same things at our local grocery store for the exact same price per pound!! I guess it just tastes better when you buy it in Amish country!! lol

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On Saturday, before we went to Lancaster, Chuck, Kory and I went to “our” Amish country. We had originally planned to meet up with Lisa (Prims From Above) and her husband and mom, but they had a change of plans and couldn’t make it. These are a few goodies I found there.

We also found two BIG items that we both absolutely loved!! We didn’t buy them then and there, because we knew we were going to Lancaster and we wanted to make sure we didn’t find anything in Lancaster that we might like better! We didn’t!

SO…….on the Friday after we got home from Lancaster, Chuck surprised me by coming home early from work and decided that we were going to Berlin to buy the items!! WOO HOO!!!

And, let’s just say, the reason it took me so long to post about our trip is because I have been doing some MAJOR tweaking and rearranging!!!

I hope to share pics with you soon!!

Until Next time. . . . .Kris

Bathroom Makeover

2010-08-16T16:08:00.000-04:00

Hi, friends!! I just wanted to pop on here and share a few pics of the makeover I did to my main bathroom.

I’ve always loved the wallpaper that I had before, but I’ve had it for many, many years and every time I’d wipe down the walls, I would catch a seam and rip the paper a little. I knew I’d have to remove it some day, but it gave the bathroom so much color and I was afraid that if I just painted the walls, it would look too plain. I had no idea what color scheme I even wanted to go with.

I had found a shower curtain (made by Family Heirloom Weavers) and a curtain valance that I absolutely loved! Every time I went to Amish country, I would debate whether I should buy them or not. Both were in shades of brown/taupe. I bought a couple of crocks at an antique mall and when I got them home, I played around with a display on the bathroom vanity. I started to visualize the shower curtain and the valance and before I knew it, I figured out exactly what I wanted to do with the bathroom. It took me a few weeks to gather the things that I wanted to put in there (the sconces took 3 weeks to come in) but I waited until I had everything before I started the makeover. I am SO happy with the way it turned out!!

Here are a couple pictures of my bathroom BEFORE:

And here are some AFTER:

I’ll try to get a better pic of this and post it later!

The paint color I used is called “Dry Dock” by Sherwin Williams. I bought the curtains and valance at Country Gatherings in Berlin (Amish country). The valance is from the Home Collection by Raghu and the shower curtain is by Family Heirloom Weavers. The vanity cabinet and faucet are from Home Depot and the vanity top is from Lowes. The sconces are from Katie’s Light House that I ordered through Primitive Keepings and I ordered the chandelier online from Eagle-Emporium.

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Well, that’s all for now. My hubby and I are heading to Lancaster, PA for a couple of days to check out the “other” Amish country! I’ll be back in a few days with, hopefully, lots of pictures!!

Until Next time. . . . .Kris

Don’t Faint!!!!

2010-07-27T16:03:00.000-04:00

I know, I know. . . .it’s been, like, forever since I’ve last made a post! Did you think I gave up blogging? lol Of course I haven’t!! I’ve just been very busy. We went from major renovation mode to getting ready for my son’s graduation party mode. On top of that, it seems like every weekend we’ve had graduation or birthday parties to attend. The last two weekends were the first time we haven’t had to go anywhere and it was great!! We actually got to spend some great family time around the pool together, cooking out and just relaxing!

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I finally got around to taking some photos of my kitchen. (I didn’t forget! lol) It’s kind of hard getting pictures. . .either there isn’t enough light or there’s too much! Plus, my kids are all on different schedules, so I constantly have someone in the kitchen making breakfast, lunch or snacks at all different times. And they don’t always tidy up after themselves!! lol

I haven’t really done anything different with my kitchen other than making the new cupboards, making new concrete countertops, installing a new light over the sink and getting a new microwave and refrigerator. I think since we did more renovations than what we had originally planned, I kind of got burned out in the “creativity department”. Trying to hurry and get everything somewhat put back together in time for the graduation party threw me for a loop, also. We also installed a new roof on the house and did tons of yard work during this time, too. I even had the fun of passing a kidney stone about two weeks before the party! Not fun!! Did you ever hear the comparison of the pain from passing a kidney stone to giving birth? Let me tell you, passing a kidney stone hurt much worse than having a baby!! At least for me it did!!

I’m still in search of new curtains. Nothing seems to “jump out” at me, but when I finally find the right ones, I’ll be sure to post pics. I also would like to “tweak” my countertops. I have no idea what I want to do yet, but, hopefully, I’ll get that figured out soon!

So this is my kitchen as it is now. . . .I also kept putting off taking pictures because I was hoping the creativity bug would bite me and I would have more exciting changes to show you. But, I don’t so. . . .here it is.

This is a close up of my countertops. I love the color variation in it. I wish they were a little darker in color, but other than that, I love them!!

I’ll post more photos of my countertop decor when I get them tweaked.

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I also want to show you pictures of another project I worked on before the graduation party.

Do you remember this little sitting area in my newly renovated Family Room? Do you see that ugly chair with the sheet over it?

Well, one day I was in Joann Fabrics and came across some Home Decor fabric that was in the clearance section that I really liked. On top of the clearance price, the fabric was on sale for an additional 50% off!! I bought 5 1/2 yards of fabric for around $17.00!! I was originally going to make a slip cover for that chair, but decided to try my luck at making my own wingback chair.

I started out making a frame:

Then I added 4” high-density foam on the seat and back. Then wrapped the whole thing with batting and stapled in place.

Then I attached the fabric using a staple gun and hot glue.

What do you think? I’m thinking much better than the other chair!! (Since this photo was taken, I have painted the register and “tweaked” the table top display.)

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With things finally calming down a bit, I was able to make a trip to Amish country and to a couple of local antique shops. Here’s a few of the goodies I found. I don’t exactly know where I’m going to put this stuff, but they were fabulous buys! The oval dough bowl was only $30 and the picnic basket was $8!

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Well, that’s all for now! I can’t promise to be back on a weekly basis, but I’ll try to post when I can! Hopefully, when the kids are back to school/college at the end of August and they’re not in and out all day, I’ll get some piece of mind and can blog more consistently!!

Until Next Time. . . . .Kris

Unveiling of APP’s Magazine Cover And A Giveaway

2010-04-24T10:06:00.000-04:00

Good morning, everyone!! I just wanted to pop on here and show you the cover of the premier issue of

A Primitive Place Magazine

photo by Margo Gracia/layout by Ashley Lucente

Isn’t it gorgeous?!!!

To order your subscription

~*~ Click Here ~*~

In honor of this occasion,

we are having a special giveaway on the

APP Blog for our wonderful friends!!

The giveaway includes this lovely

Keeping Room stitchery,

Crow’s Crown grungy candles in it’s own pouch

an a homespun birdie.

All were graciously donated by

Country Culture of Brookline, NH

To enter, click ~here~ to get to

A Primitive Place’s Blog for all the details!!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

Sausage Casserole and A Sock Dryer Pattern

2010-04-02T07:30:00.000-04:00

Happy Friday, friends!!

My daughter, Kory, who has Down Syndrome, is in an Independent Living Skills program at school. The kids learn how to plan a lunch menu for the week. They each get a turn picking what they want for lunch one day and then make a list of the items they need. They then go shopping for the ingredients and learn money skills in the process. Each of them is assigned a task to complete each day in preparing the food and setting the table. After lunch, they wash, dry and put away the dishes and wipe the tables and chairs.

To show their families the skills that they’ve been learning, they invited us for a Spring “Break”fast. It was held last Friday to celebrate spring and the start of their Spring Break. They had prepared all week for the festivities by planning the meal, shopping for the food and other items they needed, making and sending invitations, wrapping the silverware and tying them with ribbons, making paper flowers for a centerpiece, typing up the menu, preparing the food and setting the table.

They were the perfect hosts and hostesses! They took turns greeting the guests and taking their coats, introducing everyone and offering them something to drink. We were each handed a menu that they made cut out with crinkled scissors and embossed with stamps and stickers. We enjoyed homemade blueberry muffins, homemade cinnamon streusel coffeecake, fruit kabobs and sausage casserole. It was such a great time!!

I’d like to share the recipe for the Sausage Casserole. It was very delicious and looks easy to make.

Sausage Casserole

8 slices white bread, crust off & cubed

1 lb. sausage

3/4 lb. cheddar cheese, grated

4 eggs, beaten

2 1/4 c. milk

1 can cream of mushroom soup

Brown sausage and drain well. Place bread in bottom of a 9x13 baking pan sprayed with a nonstick cooking spray. Place sausage and cheese over bread cubes. Mix eggs and milk together and pour over bread cub mixture. Spread soup over top. Refrigerate overnight. Take out of refrigerator 1 hour before baking. Bake at 350° for 40 minutes or until browned.

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If you’d like to participate or see who else is participating in Colleen’s (Andbabymakesfive) Kitchen Weekly Recipe Swap click here:

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I’ve been working on a few things to decorate my Family Room/Laundry area and thought I'd share a pattern for a sock dryer with you.

I cut the sock dryer out of 1/4” birch plywood and used 2 different sizes of drill bits – 2 1/8” and 1 3/4”.

I googled images of antique sock dryers and was fortunate to find an antique dealer selling one for $48. He gave the dimensions and the thickness of the dryer (his was 3/16”), so I used them as a reference in drawing my pattern. You should be able to right-click and save each pattern piece and then print them out. Tape them together at the lines and then trace the pattern onto your piece of plywood.

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Have a very Happy Easter!!

Until Next Time . . . . Kris

A Few Pictures

2010-03-31T09:12:00.002-04:00

Happy Wednesday, friends!!

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting much lately, but we have been working nonstop trying to get things done before Chuck has to go back to work, which is next week, so the crunch time is on!!

I have never done so much painting, staining and varnishing in my life!! lol I’ve painted the Kitchen, Family Room, stairway, a section of the Rec Room, stairway ceiling, two entry doors, Kitchen cupboards, plus other little odds and ends! I’ve stained and varnished over 40 pieces of trim, the inside pieces to all of the cupboards, plus 4 sets of louvered bi-fold doors!! And to top it off, all of the pieces that got stained, other than the cupboard pieces, had 3 colors applied to them – a few years ago, when we installed new windows, I had to use the 3 colors to match the color tone of the wood floors and the other existing trim. What I thought would take one day, took 3!!!

Well . . . . we’re finally about done with our Family Room!! All we have left to do is the base board trim, which we’ll do after the Kitchen is finished, and LOTS of decorating!! I have many projects planned to make plus a lot of other things that need makeovers, so I’ll have plenty of pictures to post in the future.

We are so thrilled with how this turned out!! It has made such a big difference!! To see some pictures of our Family Room before the renovations, click HERE.

This is a little peak at what my utility room looked like before we removed and built new walls, drywalled, painted, wallpapered, and installed a drop-ceiling:

Can you say “ugly painted concrete blocks”? I have lived with these ugly walls since the day we moved in 22 years ago!! I even had to deal with painted concrete floors!! Ewwww!! It was the perfect “mud” room for dealing with 2 dogs after they came in from inclement weather and a husband that comes home from work looking like he either got caught in a dust storm or was playing in the mud! lol I was too embarrassed to ever show pictures of my utility room, especially after seeing so many wonderfully decorated ones posted in blogland! And that is why I’m only showing you a small glimpse of the “before”! lol

This is the view from the Family Room looking into the new section.

( I forgot to “fluff” the recliner before I took this pic! )

Eventually, I’ll replace this chair below with a Wing chair, but for right now, I’m going to buy a slipcover to put over it. We have a 13 year old Dalmatian that, for some reason, has started drooling in the last year or two and it’s nice to be able to just take them off and wash them. Plus the plaids “kind of” clash! lol

Below shows our “creativity” with the stairs. We didn’t have enough carpet left from what my mom and dad gave us to completely cover the steps and Chuck had already ripped out the old stuff. The fronts of the steps were pretty beat-up, so Chuck cut strips of 1/4” birch plywood and I stained and varnished them and then attached them with PL400.

This is our new laundry area. I have a couple of projects that I’m working on to hang on the pegboard and I need to repaint the bench. There’s a little door that’ll be installed in the opening in the stairwell – it’s all ready to be installed whenever Chuck gets to it.

I have a shelf that I want to make for above the benches and the tree will probably get moved elsewhere. I’m not happy with the display on top of the dresser – I don’t know what I want there yet. The lamp ( I need to paint the base piece!) and the picture are staying ( I think. lol)

This area below is where we’ll come in and take off our coats and shoes. Also where Sam (our dog) will stay at night and when we go away.

On the opposite side of the door is our freezer and bi-fold doors that lead into our furnace, hot water tank and storage area.

And now for a couple of pictures of my kitchen!!! I’m having one heckuva time trying to get decent pictures!! They either come out too dark or there’s too much lighting and everything’s a bright haze and I haven’t had the time to play around with the lighting to get good ones. These are the best I have right now – just a few to give you a glimpse of what we have done so far.

This is my new tin-punched light that’s hanging over my sink. I’m searching for either new curtains or fabric to make new ones – I’m having a tough time finding something that I like.

This is a shot of the cupboards to the left of the sink area. Chuck made a boo-boo in the doors for the cupboard on the left, so he had to make new ones. They’re done, they just haven’t put put on yet. I like the look of having my spongeware exposed and wished I would have had a larger cupboard in the center for my spongeware and have 2 smaller cupboards on either side with doors. Oh well . . . . hindsight’s 50/50!

The color is called “Cottage Hill” by Ralph Lauren. It’s kind of a unique color – depending on the lighting it has an olive green tone, a brown tone and even a charcoal gray tone. Unfortunately, Home Depot has discontinued carrying that brand and I bought one of the final gallons of paint that they had left on the shelf. I was kind of panicking because I’ve already used 1/2 of the can just painting the upper cupboards and still have the bottom ones to paint yet. On the last of our many, many trips to Home Depot, I spotted a couple cans of the Ralph Lauren paint sitting on the shelf. As luck would have it, one of the cans was the base tint I needed for the color I’m using, so I bought another gallon to be safe!

This is our new over-the-range microwave that we’ve installed. Oh my gosh, it is so much quieter than our other one!! You almost don’t even hear it running!! Eventually all of our appliances will be replaced with stainless steel. (When we hit the lottery!! – Boy, those things are expensive!!)

Chuck has been working diligently on the base cabinets this week. Like I mentioned before, he starts back to work regularly next week, so the crunch time is on to get them done. They won’t get installed right away, though, because the existing concrete countertops need to be broken out and removed and then new ones will be formed and poured, and Chuck won’t be able to do all of that until we have a free weekend and if the weather cooperates. I’ll post pictures of the process when that happens.

It’s amazing how your body changes as you get older!! In our younger days, we could stay up as late as we wanted and just keep working away on projects to get them done.

Now. . . . this is how we feel at the end of the day!! lol Pooped out!!! With all of the renovations we’ve been doing, plus our regular daily chores of cleaning, laundry, cooking, shopping, etc. - we are worn out!!! lol

Ahhhh. . . .To live the life of a cat! This is Lucy. Isn’t she a cutie?

Well, friends, I must get back to work!! I will be back on Friday with a wonderful recipe that my daughter, Kory, and her class made for all of the parents for a Spring “Break”fast, plus a simple, easy-to-do project.

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

Did you hear the BIG NEWS?????

2010-03-26T20:05:00.001-04:00

ANNOUNCING

A PRIMITIVE PLACE MAGAZINE

Coming August 2010!!

A Primitive Place website has been growing by leaps and bounds since October 2008 and now we have the biggest news yet! Starting this fall, APP will have it’s very own prim magazine with never seen before home tours, decorating ideas, garden tours, recipes, crafts, and so much more! To find out all about it including what’s inside the first issue, how to subscribe and how to advertise, click HERE!

Isn’t this exciting? Make sure you click on the link and sign up for a subscription so that you don’t miss out on the first issue!!

I’ll be back Sunday evening with more pictures of my Family Room and Kitchen!

Until Next Time . . . .Kris

WHEW!!! I’ve Been a Very Busy Girl!!

2010-03-18T11:20:00.000-04:00

Well . . . . where do I start?! In my last post I mentioned that we’d begun making our kitchen cupboards. Well, that project snowballed into a much larger renovation!! Things have been moving so fast and we have been working so hard to get things done before Chuck has to go back to work that I haven’t had time to make any posts, much less, even be on the computer!!

It all started after we removed a brick wall in the kitchen. After tearing down all of the brick and drywall, my hubby decided to remove all of the drywall in the stairway leading downstairs. There was an ugly swirl patterned stucco on it and we had talked about one day redrywalling the whole thing. His thinking on the matter was, since we already have a mess, what’s a little more? So, all of that drywall came down, too.

About a month before we started all of this, as we were sitting downstairs in our dark, dreary family room, we talked about one day possibly removing the walls from the lower half of the stairs and opening up the family room and the utility room. Between the light from the door at the top of the stairs and the window in the utility room, we thought it would brighten up the family room a lot.

So. . . . . since we already had a big mess. . . . .guess what we did? lol

(I guess I didn’t take a picture of the “before”. This is after the stairway has been drywalled)

Besides removing the lower part of the walls, we also removed the wall at the bottom of the stairs on the right that leads into the utility room.

With the removal of the walls, some of the electrical wires and light switches had to be moved. So. . . .since Chuck had to do that, he decided to run wiring over into the family room to places we had planned on putting recess lighting (some day in the future – along with a new drop-ceiling). All of that wiring would be going to the light switch panel that he was installing, so that portion of the project would be done - all he would have to do was connect the wiring to the recessed lighting when we decided to install them.

After he removed a few of the old ceiling tiles to run the wiring, he got annoyed with all of the cable wires and phone lines that were dangling down in his way. So. . . . he decided to take down all of the old tile and untangle and then coil up and tack all of the wires in place.

“You know, instead of putting all of that old ceiling tile back up, why don’t we just go ahead and tear down all of the old framework and put up a new ceiling with the recessed lighting?!” . . . . Okay, honey!! . . . .

So many things were going on at one time and we have been so busy that I forgot to take pictures of the progress as it was happening.

Here is what we have done so far . . .

We framed out and drywalled an area for our washer, dryer and laundry tub. We removed the old cabinets above our washer and dryer and built shelves. I painted the entire interior white. We had a big double-door armoire standing where the red bench sits that held all of my power tools, sand paper, nails, bug sprays, cleaning supplies, etc. It was a total disaster area!! I went through everything and got it all organized and then put it on the new shelves.

This view is from standing on the stairs. As I mentioned before, we removed the wall/doorway at the bottom of the stairs the led into the utility room. We extended the back wall – starting from about where the dresser ends – which still gives us a little area to come in and take off our shoes and hang up our coats.

I was lucky to have almost a whole roll of wallpaper left from when we had refinished our family room a few years ago! I had just enough to finish the extended wall, plus the wall in the new section that can be seen from the family room. I wasn’t fortunate enough to have any of the border left, so I had to remove all of the existing border and then I repainted all of the walls. The color that I used before is no longer made, so I chose “Mesa Tan” from Sherwin Williams.

My Mom and Dad are installing hardwood floors in their Great room and since their carpet was still like new, Chuck brought it home with him after he helped my Dad and brother remove it. We had enough to do all of the family room plus the little area in the new section. We ran a little short to cover all of the stairs, so we had to get creative. We had enough to cover the stair treads, but not the fronts, so we cut 1/4” thick boards and will nail those to the fronts (pictured above). It’ll work for now and then in a year or two, we’ll have new carpet installed. The cap pieces to the stairs and the front pieces aren’t nailed on yet – they need to be stained first.

This is the little area as you come in the back door. We replaced our solid steel door with this 9-lite door. What a big difference!!

Today, since the weather is suppose to be nice, I’m staining the bi-fold doors for the laundry area, the chair rail moulding, the window and door frame moulding, and all of the pieces for the stairs. Then tomorrow, while Chuck is nailing all of the trim pieces on, I’m going to paint the back door and then install vinyl tile in the coat area and the laundry area.

The only thing we’ll have left to do downstairs is the base board trim, but that’s going to wait until after my kitchen gets finished, which somehow got put on the back burner!!

Speaking of my kitchen. . . . . we have the wall cabinets installed, along with a new stainless steel over-the-range microwave, under-cabinet lights and my new punched tinware light that hangs over my sink. We still have to put the trim moulding on top, but that should be done by this weekend. The pictures I took and were going to post didn’t turn out. . . some were blurry and the others were so dark, you couldn’t even see my cupboards!! I didn’t have time to take new ones and I wanted to get this post in since it’s been so long since my last one.

I sure can’t wait until everything’s done!!! We have been living in total chaos for the last few weeks. Most of my kitchen stuff was sitting in my dining room and even though I tried to leave out things that we used every day, I still found myself digging through boxes looking for things. We had very simple meals like sloppy joes and french fries and spaghetti and meatballs. . . .things that were quick and easy!! lol

My downstairs was all torn up and my rec room was a disaster area!! All of the materials we used got stored in there! And the drywall dust!!!!. . . . As much as we tried to cover things up, it still seemed to find every nook and cranny in my house! lol I have been doing a lot of cleaning!! . . . . I think I have finally conquered it! (I hope!!)

On Monday, Chuck and I are taking a well deserved day off and heading to Amish country. We’re starting with breakfast at Rebecca’s Bistro and then stopping at my favorite antique mall along with a few of my favorite prim shops. I have a loooong list of things I’m in search of to decorate my family room and kitchen!

I’ll be back sometime next week with more pictures of my family room completed and with some new decor!! Also, better pictures of my kitchen!!

Until Next Time . . . . Kris

Spring Goodies and Raspberry Cookie Bars

2010-02-19T08:30:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday, friends! I don’t know about some of you, but I’m tired of all of this snow that we’ve been getting!! A couple of weeks ago, our local weatherman pointed out that, as of that day, we had only 34” inches of snow fall compared to last year’s total of 70”. Well . . . I think we more than made up for the deficit! I don’t know what the exact total is, but I’m sure we went well over the mark with all of this snow we’ve been getting. The only good thing about this kind of weather is that my hubby is home a lot. He has his own concrete business and so this is a slow time in the year for him, which is also the time of year when most of our inside projects get done.

For a long time, we’ve wanted to replace our kitchen cupboards. I have a very small galley kitchen with minimal storage space so we figured we could gain more space by replacing the standard 30” high wall cupboards with 42” to-the-ceiling cupboards. We went to Home Depot and Lowes and got prices ranging between $5,000-$6,000!! What?!!! Cupboards are that much for my tiny little kitchen?!!! We were kind of figuring $2,000-$3,000 and I wasn’t even really happy with any of the styles that they had. I wanted inset doors without any overlay, but all of the styles had an overlay. We then went to a local independent cabinet company. Chuck figured that they would have better prices since there wasn’t any “middle man” to go through. By then I had already decided that I wanted to paint the cupboards a charcoal grayish color – picking out one of the colors from my slate floor tile (which isn’t as brightly colored as shown in the pic- it’s much more subdued). They had a couple of styles like what I was looking for, so we got prices for unfinished and finished cupboards. Okay are you ready for this?!! Unfinished were a little over $7,000 and finished were over $8,000!! Whoa!!! A little too much for me! So we decided to make them ourselves. And let me tell you, it’s been a very long, time consuming process!!

After Chuck cut and sanded all of the pieces for the base of the wall cabinets, I had the fun of staining each of the inside pieces and then applied 2 coats of polyurethane with sanding in between coats before he assembled them. I figured it would be a lot easier doing them that way than trying to get in the corners after they were put together. My Rec room was wall-to-wall with cupboard pieces!

I chose a color by Ralph Lauren called “Cottage Hill” (which Home Depot has since discontinued). It’s kind of hard to describe. . .depending on the lighting sometimes it looks gray, sometimes an olive green, and sometimes a brownish color. I haven’t had a chance to take a picture of it yet, but I’ll try to post one later. I don’t know if you’ll be able to get the true color or not.

I had made many sample boards before I finally came up with a finish that I liked. I’ve decided to just lightly sand around the edges. I don’t want them “too prim”, just simple. . . no stain, no heavy sanding, just simple. So far, I’ve given everything two coats of paint and today I’m going to apply a sealer which will reduce the amount of scratching to the paint when I lightly sand the edges. The final step will be to apply plain paste wax and then they should be ready to install.

Unfortunately, that won’t happen until after we remove all of the brick on the one side of the kitchen and replace the drywall, which Chuck is starting on that today. I love the look of the brick, but the color doesn’t match my color scheme. Eventually, we’ll install new brick. But, for now, it’s just going to be primed and painted. The kitchen will get painted the same color as the Living room and Dining room that I had painted right before Thanksgiving.

It’ll be a long, slow process to finish the kitchen. Our countertops are concrete, which are also going to be replaced. They’ll still be concrete, which I absolutely love, but our base cabinets are about 3” longer than the wall cabinets near the refrigerator. We’ll eventually replace all of the appliances with stainless steel and want to get a side-by-side refrigerator. The one we have now is only 23 cubic feet due to the base cabinets being too long. We need to have the sides finished in stainless steel since that is what you see most of when you look into the kitchen. Our options for a fridge in that size with those requirements are much slimmer than those for a 25 cubic foot one, so we’re reconfiguring the cabinets from the dishwasher down to the refrigerator to accommodate for a larger fridge.

As you can tell from the pictures, the lighting is horrible, so we’re installing under-the-cabinet lighting. Yayyy!! We’re also replacing the recessed light over the sink with this new tin-punched one that was just delivered Wednesday. It’s kind of funny…I found this light online from a place called “Rustic Log Lighting”. It was only $87.00 with shipping included. The company is based in Montana and when I called to place the order, the gentleman said that the light would be shipped from a company in Pennsylvania. When it came, the return address was “Irvin’s Country Tinware”. I was so excited! I love Irvin’s, but some of their things are a little pricey. I’m thinking, “Great! I could have just ordered from them in the first place and saved a couple of bucks”. But, I looked up the light in their catalog and they were asking $79.99 and an additional $13.99 for shipping and handling. That totals $93.98. I only paid $87.00, so I saved $6.98!! Can’t beat that!!

This kitchen remodel is snowballing into another project. The cabinets that we are taking out are going to be installed down stairs in the kitchenette area of our Rec room. After Chuck is done removing the brick and replacing the drywall in the kitchen today, he’s going to tear out the downstairs cupboards and the drywall there, which also needs to be replaced. He figures if he’s mudding walls, he may as well do them both at the same time. Needless to say, I’m going to have a huge mess in my home for the next couple of days!!

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In between waiting for stain and varnish to dry, I was able to get a couple of spring craft projects done this past week. I actually had sewn these bunnies last year, but never did anything more with them. I just stuffed and tea-dyed them and stitched their eyes and noses.

I made this guy by adapting a pattern that I had bought from Pattermart for a snowman that I absolutely love! I just made a new head pattern and added ears. Click here if you’d like to purchase the snowman pattern. I also made the carrot and stuffed it with Sweet Annie.

I’m also working on a horse from a pattern by T.F.C. Folkart. All I have left to do is apply the flax for his mane and tail, which just came in the mail yesterday, but I haven’t had a chance to finish it yet.

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A couple of weeks ago, Chuck and I stopped in at Goodwill. . . I don’t know why - I never find anything great like a lot of you do. . .but every once in a while, I figure “what the heck” and stop in. Chuck found this dresser and wants me to “work my magic” on it. lol He wants to replace the one in our room that he uses for his clothes with this larger one. (I claimed all of the stepback cupboard for myself!) I haven’t started on it yet. . .it’s still sitting in my Rec room waiting to be made over. Someday . . . .

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In participating in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Kitchen Weekly Recipe swap, I wanted to share this awesome recipe for Raspberry Cookie Bars. I found this recipe on the back of the box of the graham cracker crumbs when I made the disappointing Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake. At least one good thing came from that fiasco! lol I made these for my family for Valentines and were a huge hit! They are so easy to make!!

Magic Raspberry Cookie Bars

2 c. graham cracker crumbs

1/4 c. sugar

1/2 c. margarine or butter, melted

1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk

1 1/4 c. seedless red raspberry preserves

1 1/3 c. flaked coconut

1 c. chopped walnuts or pecans

In a small bowl, combine crumbs and sugar. Add margarine or butter. Toss until combined. Press into bottom of 13x9 inch baking pan.

Evenly drizzle sweetened condense milk over crumbs. Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Spoon preserves over top.

Sprinkle with coconut and nuts. Bake a 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes or until light brown.

Cool completely. Cut into bars. Store, loosely covered, at room temperature.

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If you would like to participate or see who else is participating in Colleen’s Kitchen Weekly Recipe Swap click on the picture below to take you to her blog.

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I meant to share this picture with you in my last post but somehow it got left out. I took this a day before we got hammered with mountains of snow! Spring IS around the corner!! These are some of my daffodils popping up! Yayyy!!!

Until Next Time . . . .Kris

Peanut Butter Cookies And More

2010-02-05T11:44:00.002-05:00

Tuesday was my daughter, Brittney’s, 24th birthday and we took her out for dinner to the restaurant of her choice. She chose to go to a place called Steak On A Stone. We had never been there before but a couple of people have told us how wonderful it was. Their specialty is having you cook your own meat on a stone that’s heated to 750°. You can choose steak, chicken, shrimp, scallops, duck, lamb chops, pork tenderloin and lobster tail and when the waiter brings it out to you, it’s already browned on one side and he does a demonstration on how you cook your food. He flips the meat over to brown the other side and then tells you to slice off and cook each individual piece to your preference of wellness. It was pretty neat!! Chuck and Justin got steak, Brittney got Shrimp and Kory and I opted to have a meal already cooked – she got a cheeseburger and I got Lake Perch. Sorry, but one of the reasons why I like dining out is because I don’t have to cook! lol I didn’t want to have to work at making my meal!!

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Instead of cake, Brittney found a recipe in the “Taste of Home/Healthy Living” magazine for Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake. It looked delicious and the recipe was revamped to reduce calories and grams of fat by using fat-free and reduced-fat cream cheese. Now you’re talking!!! A decadent dessert without the guilt!! It smelled like heaven while it was baking and looked even more scrumptious after it was completely done!

Now let me ask you this.. . . doesn’t this look sinful?

We eagerly awaited until it was time to sing “Happy Birthday” and cut into that yummy confection! With the anticipation of tasting the gooey peanut butter and the rich chocolaty goodness, we took a bite and we all pretty much had the same look on our faces – disappointment!! It had NO flavor!!! I couldn’t believe it! What a bummer!!

If you’d like to try it anyways, just click on the picture to take you to the web page with the recipe.

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I’m hoping to continue to participate in Colleen’s Kitchen Weekly Recipe Swap, although I can’t promise that I will be consistently posting each week, but I’ll post when I can. I think it is a fun way to share recipes and I’ve gotten quite a few good ones already! Thank you, Colleen!!

So this week, I would like to share with you a fabulous cookie recipe. Growing up, there was a woman in our small town that was a phenomenal baker and she posted several of her favorite recipes in our church cookbook. This is a basic peanut butter cookie recipe which is outstanding by itself, but I like to add chocolate and peanut butter chips. ( A girl can’t get enough chocolate!!) They have become a favorite in our household and especially with my kids’ friends! Whenever they have a get-together, my cookies are a definite request!

Peanut Butter Cookies w/Chocolate and

Peanut Butter Chips

1c. brown sugar

1 c. sugar

1 c. margarine

1 c. peanut butter

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

3 c. flour

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking soda

1 12 oz. bag chocolate chip

5 oz. (half of bag) Reese’s peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350°.

Cream margarine and peanut butter together. Blend in sugar and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, salt and baking soda. Add chocolate and peanut butter chips.

Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes or until nicely browned.

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If you would like to participate or see who else is participating in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Kitchen Weekly Recipe Swap, click on the photo below and it will take you to her blog.

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Thank you for all the concern and “get well” wishes for my hubby. He went this past Monday and had his catheter removed. And let me tell you, what a world of difference that has made in his attitude!! I don’t want you to think he was crabby or anything, because he wasn’t! If anything, I was the one that was probably crabby! lol He got a clean bill of health and has no more weight restrictions but shouldn’t try to lift anything extremely heavy for a couple more weeks. He can go back to his usual activities and has been knocking himself out doing things around the house! The man has become a little busy body! lol

I think I mentioned before in an earlier post that we wanted to make new kitchen cupboards, but with the holidays and then his surgery, we just didn’t have time to make them. Well. . . . .since he’s feeling so energetic (lol), I just “kind of” mentioned something about them and he jumped right on the bandwagon with me and we’ve begun making them!! Yayy!! It’s going to get done in stages. We’re starting with the wall cabinets, for now, which will make the biggest difference. I have a “galley” kitchen and so my cupboard space is limited. Instead of the standard 30” high cupboards, like we already have now, we’re going to make them to go all the way up to the ceiling, which will give me a lot more cupboard space!! We have concrete countertops (surprise, surprise, since that’s what Chuck’s business is) which I absolutely love!! We’ll have to make new ones due to the fact that there’ll be a slight adjustment in the width of the base cabinets (I’ll explain that later) but it’s a little too cold out to mixing up concrete outside., so those will have to wait until warmer weather. I’ll post pics of the progress.

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Well, this post has become a little lengthy!! (Sorry, I have much to make up for!) And I need to bake some more cookies. Justin is having friends over, again, Saturday night after their Sweethearts Dance at the high school. We’re suppose to get a major snow storm tonight into tomorrow morning with a lot of snow accumulation. So I don’t now how big of a turn out he’ll have. The southern part of the state is expecting 6-8 inches while the farther north you go, the snow accumulation will be less. The amount of snow we’re suppose to get keeps changing - it’ll be anywhere from 2-6 inches. So I guess we’ll just have wait and see what we get by morning!

Until Next Time. . . . Kris

Hello!! Remember Me?!!

2010-01-31T23:01:00.000-05:00

Hello, Friends!! I can’t believe how long it’s been since my last post!! Almost a month!! I promise I won’t let that much time pass between posts again!

Chuck’s surgery went pretty well. It was definitely rough the first week and a half. He was very sore. We weren’t expecting him to be as incapacitated as he was. The urologist insisted that the inside of his cheek would hurt more than his “bottom”, but that certainly was not the case! He was not allowed to sit for 2 weeks – he had to recline. I had to help lift him off the couch or bed so that he didn’t put pressure on his bottom trying to get up. Even though he’s allowed to sit now, he’s still a little tender and has to sit gingerly. He ended up having a regular Foley catheter instead of through his abdomen and will finally get that removed tomorrow! I think once that’s out, he’ll feel a whole lot better.

Besides dealing with my hubby that first week, I had a family birthday brunch for Kory and Justin to prepare for at the end of the week. I definitely missed having Chuck’s help! We usually make most of the food the morning of the brunch, with the exception of the muffins and the coffeecake. But since I had to do it all by myself, I made 4 kinds of muffins and 2 pans of coffeecake a couple of days before and threw them in the freezer. On Saturday, after I took Kory to bowling and then picked up bagels and cream cheese from Panera’s, I made sausage, bacon, hash browns, regular pancakes, blueberry pancakes, French Toast Bake, chicken & broccoli quiche, plain scrambled eggs and scrambled eggs with green pepper, onions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese. I also baked 2 batches of brownies for our “create-your-own-sundae” bar and chopped some Snickers bars and crushed some Oreo cookies for toppings. I didn’t get to bed until 11:30 and then got up at 5:00 on Sunday morning to do some last-minute cleaning and other preparations along with putting everything in the oven to warm. I wasn’t sure how all of it would taste being made the day before, but it turned out pretty good.

We had 18 family members arrive at 11:00 and didn’t think they would stay too long because of Chuck not being up to par, but they stayed way longer than they normally do!! They stayed until a little after 5:00! Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed having their company and normally wouldn’t have minded them being there that late, but I was exhausted!!! On top of that, since the kids didn’t have school on Monday, Justin was having 6 or 7 friends over later that night. They love my peanut butter cookies with chocolate and peanut butter chips and I promised Justin that I would make some for them. Well, I was still baking cookies when the kids started showing up. And the number of kids went from 6-7 to 28!!!! Chuck ended up going to bed around 8:30 - he was worn out and in a lot of pain. I wanted to go to bed so bad, but I felt I should stay up until the kids left, which, surprisingly, was 11:30. I thought it would be much later than that and so glad that it wasn’t!! Come Monday, I stayed in my jammies all day and didn’t do a darn thing!! It still took me a couple of days after that to get back to “normal”, if there is such a thing! lol

I then went through a period of “winter blues”. I think it was a combination of being cooped up at home trying to keep Chuck company since he couldn’t do much (and to keep him from doing things he wasn’t suppose to) and the fact that we didn’t have very many days of sunshine. Our local weatherman stated a couple of days ago that since November 1st we’ve only had 17 days with sunshine! ( I think were up to about 19 now). We even had a week of fog lasting all day – the temperatures were rising into the 40’s with snow still on the ground creating the fog. Talk about gloomy!! I was in such a frumpy mood. I had no desire to be creative and didn’t even get on the computer for several days. And what’s even more amazing. . . . . Chuck gave me a gift certificate to one of my favorite prim shops, Primitive Keepings, and I had NO desire to go use it!! What’s wrong with me?!!! lol

Luckily, things are looking a little brighter. Chuck’s feeling much better and almost back to his old self, with the exception of not being able to lift anything over 20 lbs until the end of February. He’s gotten out a couple of times with me, but feels self-conscious of his catheter bag. As I said earlier, he’ll get that removed tomorrow and then he’ll feel much better. This has been hard for him – he’s not used to being cooped up and not able to do anything. He’s going stir crazy! The only bright side is, is in the last 3 weeks, he was able to read the four books that he got for Christmas. One of them is Stephen King’s new book, Under the Dome, which has 1,072 pages. Now that’s being laid up!!

I’ve been trying to “think spring” and have a few projects brewing in my head, so that’s helped lift the winter blues a bit.

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I know I’m way behind and that a lot of you have probably put your snowmen decor away, but I wanted to share this snowman with you. I bought him several years ago at a craft show and thought it was a very clever idea! He’s made out of an old cooking pot lid! The woman that made him said she bought the lids at Goodwill – each one had a different shaped nose due to the handle style. Isn’t that clever?

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Do any of you notice the resemblance of my blogger background to this picture?

Yep, it’s my wallpaper! I had a piece left and scanned it on my computer. I’ll share more on exactly how I did it at a later date!

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I’m excited to announce that I’m the new Prim Project Coordinator for A Primitive Place!! Each month I will do a craft tutorial exclusively for APP. I won’t be posting it on my blog, you’ll only be able to see it by visiting A Primitive Place. Click on the picture below to check out this amazing forum!

My first tutorial is how to make an Artificial Prim Tree.

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Until Next Time. . . . Kris

Just Checking In!!

2010-01-07T07:22:00.000-05:00

Hello, friends!! I’m just checking in to let you know that everything is fine and that I’m not giving up blogging!! Thanks to all of you who were concerned and have emailed me to make sure I’m alright!

I spent the last couple of weeks being extremely lazy and enjoyed spending time with my family. My kids are older and at the “moving out” age, so I want to spend as much family time as I can.

This month is going to be a busy one for me, so I still may not be blogging much. Kory’s birthday is today (she turns 21) and Justin turns 18 on the 21st. On the 17th, we’re having about 18-20 family members over for a birthday brunch. Chuck usually does a lot of the cooking – scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon and sausage – but this year he may not be up to par to help me much!!

On Tuesday, the 12th, my hubby is scheduled to have surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. He has scar tissue built up in his urethra and has had problems urinating for the past several years. He has had times when urinating has slowed down to a trickle and a couple of times, has come to a complete stop. The poor man has had to go to his urologist about every 3 months to get “reamed” open for too many years. They finally convinced him that surgery is his only option. After they remove a 4-5 cm section of his urethra, they’ll take skin from the inside of his cheek to make a new replacement. He’ll have to have a catheter inserted through his lower abdomen and have that for about 3 weeks until everything is healed.

My Mom and Dad made their rounds right after Christmas visiting me and my 4 siblings to tell us that my Dad has prostate cancer. He’s 75 and considered too old to have surgery, which he would have refused anyways, because he and my mom have the belief that “once they cut you open, the cancer will spread”. He’ll have radiation treatments 5 days a week for 8 weeks. He has an appointment next week with an oncologist to find out when he’ll have to start the radiation. They’re both still very active and independent – also stubborn enough to refuse any help offered! My dad ordered hardwood flooring to replace the carpet in their Great Room a couple of days after he found out he had cancer and insists on installing it himself! It may be a good project to keep his mind busy, but he also has a tendency of doing more than he can handle and won’t admit when he needs help.

My busy month ends with my daughter, Brittney, turning 24 on Feb 2nd. Hopefully, after that, I should get back to blogging on a normal basis! Please be patient with me!! I miss all of you and look forward to being in touch with you soon!!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

Merry Christmas!!!

2009-12-23T20:08:00.000-05:00

I’d like to wish all of my friends

A VERY

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Breakfast Recipes & Family Room Pics

2009-12-18T10:17:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday, friends!! Are you all ready for Christmas?! I’m happy to say that everything is falling into place at my house!! I still have cookies to bake, which I’ll do on Monday. I don’t like to make them too far in advance, otherwise, they’ll be gone before Christmas!! Other than that, I’m ready!!

Today is the last day of school for Kory and Justin and so it’ll be nice to have the next week to be able to relax by a fire and spend some quality family time together watching movies and playing games. We even have snow in the forecast!! We’re suppose to get up to 2” tonight and on Christmas Eve there’s a 60% chance of some major accumulation!! Perfect to snuggle up in front of a warm fire on Christmas Day, especially since we don’t have to go anywhere!!

We have a few activities this weekend to attend to. Kory has bowling in the morning and then Saturday evening, we have a 50th birthday party for my brother-in-law to go to. On Sunday afternoon, my Mom and Dad are having our family get-together. So that’ll be fun!

Here are a couple of recipes that we like to make and enjoy Christmas morning after all of the presents have been opened. I hope you enjoy them, too!

Cream Cheese Coffeecake

Batter:

1/2 c. butter, softened

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 1/4 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/3 c. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 c. milk

Topping:

1/3 c. flour

1/3 c. brown sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

2 T. butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar together. Add remaining ingredients. Pour into greased 9x13 pan.

Mix topping ingredients together; mixture will be crumbly. Sprinkle onto batter.

Bake 35-40 minutes. Let cool.

Breakfast Pizza

1 lb. Italian sausage

2 c. bisquick

1/2 c. water

1 c. frozen hash brown potato cubes

1 c. shredded cheddar cheese

3 eggs

2 T. milk

1/2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Brown sausage; drain. Mix bisquick and water; press onto bottom and up sides of an ungreased 9x13 pan. Spoon sausage over crust. Sprinkle with potatoes and cheese. Beat eggs, milk, salt and pepper and pour over top.

Bake 20-25 minutes.

As always, if you’d like to see who else is participating in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Homemade Holiday Recipe Swap click here:

I wanted to share with you a picture of a cupboard my hubby and I made for my sister to give her granddaughter for Christmas. This thing is huge! She has a couple of American Girl dolls and my sister wanted us to make something for her to store the dolls in, along with all of the doll clothes and accessories. My sister is going stencil something on the front of the doors and make liners for the baskets to give it a little color! (You can’t see it, but there’s another rod at the very top on the right side to hang clothes on.)

Okay, before you see these next pictures, I want to explain a few things. First off, I’m sorry they’re dark. My family room is in the basement and doesn’t have any windows so the lighting is very poor. I’m enabling it so that if you click on each picture, you should be able to see a larger view. (But don’t look too closely! lol)

The couch and chair definitely clash with the plaid wallpaper (check out the pillows on the couch). When we got new furniture for the living room a couple of years ago, some of the old pieces came down here. We put a slipcover on the couch, but I never got around to getting one for the chair, so a sheet got thrown over it, which helps a lot when Sam, our Dalmatian, rubs up against the front and leaves dog hair all over it! Even tough it’s not very pretty, it’s easy to take off and throw in the wash.

Eventually, we’ll get new furniture and new carpet and redo the ceiling tile by raising it up a couple of inches and installing smaller 2’x2’ squares. We’ll also put in recessed lighting to brighten things up a bit.

As far as the decor, I really haven’t put to much effort into decorating down here. Everything is pretty much odds and ends from upstairs that I don’t know what to do with.

My hubby did the Christmas decorations. While I was busy doing the upstairs, he took the things that I decided not to use and placed them down here. I usually have the garland, the stockings (that’s where Santa leaves the treats for the pets) and the tree, but not much else.

This is Sam. I gave up trying to get him to move, he was way too comfy!!

It’s not a very good picture, but, the TV stand was made using 3 ready-made cupboards from Home Depot. We attached them together, put sides and a top piece on, and then painted. The middle door holds our satellite receiver, Wii and Xbox 360 consoles, and the VCR/DVD player. The other cupboards hold DVDs and video games.

On the top of the cupboard is my collection of Byer’s Choice “A Christmas Carol” figurines. I usually have them upstairs, but since I’ve rearranged things, they didn’t work in the place I usually put them.

This heads into the Rec room, which I had posted pictures of earlier.

The door you see in this picture leads into the utility room. One day, when I get really, really brave, I’ll post show you pictures of it. This is were Sam stays at night and while we’re away. And also where Chuck comes in after work covered in concrete dust and muddy boots with stones stuck on. On the extreme right, behind the pole, are the stairs leading up to a side door and then into the kitchen.

I mentioned in my last post that I was working on another Santa. I love the ones that Druann makes and sells on her PictureTrail – Cinnamon Creek Cabin and the ones that Stacee makes and sells on her Picture Trail – Arnett’s Country Store. I haven’t been fortunate to be able to purchase one of theirs, yet (I keep trying!!), so I decided to try to make one of my own! It’s definitely not as nice as theirs, but it turned out okay. I didn’t have any patterns to use, so I had to create my own. I just kind of “winged it” as I went along. I have a lot of tweaking to do! I need to revise the pattern for the pants, because these make him look bowl-legged!! lol I’m not sure how I’m going to finish him off, yet, but I’m not going to worry about it until after Christmas. I actually don’t even know where I’m going to put him!! lol He was kind of fun to make! I’ll probably try to make more and experiment with other techniques, again, after the holidays!!

I hope to be back and do one more post before Christmas – I have a few more things that I’ve made and want to share them with you. . . but, in case I don’t, I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and I hope that the time you get to spend with loved ones is a very memorable one and that Christmas turns out to be everything you’ve dreamed it to be!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

A Few More Christmas Decorations

2009-12-16T13:31:00.000-05:00

Happy Wednesday, everyone! I hope everyone is well! I feel like I’ve missed so much!! I forced myself to stay off of the computer for a few days so that I could get some stuff done before the holidays and be able to have the week before Christmas to just relax and spend time with my family. You don’t know how hard it was to keep from popping in to read everyone’s blogs or visit a couple of social forums that I belong to. But, my efforts paid off – I’ve gotten a lot of things done. My house is all clean and decorated for the holidays, Christmas cards have been mailed, a few appetizers for Christmas eve are made and in the freezer, presents are all wrapped and everything I need for our Christmas eve get-together and for our Christmas day breakfast and dinner are all bought. I’m all set – so bring on Christmas!! lol

I have so much to share with you! This post is a little lengthy and definitely laden with pictures!! First of all, last Monday my hubby and I made a quick trip to Amish country. One of the little shops had a flyer laying on the checkout counter announcing a Christmas Open House at Ragon House that would be open to the public. It was being held for 3 weekends, with this past weekend being the final one. Most of you may be familiar with the many Belsnickle santas that they carry. You can check out their website by clicking here.They’re located in Bolivar, which is about an hour away from me. My hubby and I went Saturday morning and OH. . . MY. . . .GOODNESS!!!!!! When I walked in the door, I literally went giddy!! It was prim heaven!! They had so much stuff and it was all marked down 50% off PLUS another 35% was taken off at the register!! I could have gone crazy and bought a lot more than what I did, but I contained myself and was a good girl!!

A girl at the checkout said that this was the first time the have done a Christmas open house. They usually hold one in May. Let me just say that I’m definitely saving my pennies for that one!!!

Here are my goodies:

These ornaments were marked down to $2.00 and $3.00 PLUS the additional 35% off!

This lantern is about 15-16” tall and was marked down to $8.75. I don’t really care for the color, but at that price, I’ll paint it!

I bought the santa on the left at the store in Amish country that had the Open House flyer for $18.95. The larger santa, which stands about 16” tall, came from Ragon House. It was marked down to $17.50, but I got him for $11.38!!! Can you believe it?!!

And now for the final item! My hubby was excited about this one, too! Are you ready?!!

This fabulous guy was marked down to $48.00 and I got him for $31.20!!!! The picture doesn’t do him justice! I absolutely love him!!

When I decorate for a holiday, it usually entails making a few things.

Here’s some pictures of a couple of santas that I made.

I found the pattern for this guy at Patternmart.com. It’s a free epattern so if you’re interested, click here to take you to the web page to download the pattern. He’s about 37” long. I think his clothes are too big on him, especially the pants, so I’ll probably remake some new ones later. They don’t look that big on the model santa, but mine are huge!! lol

This one is my favorite, although, it’s not a very good picture of him! His pattern was in the Create & Decorate magazine from a couple of years ago.

I have another santa that’s in the works. . . I hope he turns out the way I’m envisioning him. I’ll share him with you later.

Here are a few more pictures of my Christmas decor.

Did you notice my stockings are different than the ones posted in earlier pics? I was tired of the cross stitch stockings that I made about 20 years ago. Last year, I made these and hung them, but this year I felt kind of guilty and put the cross stitch ones back out. After a couple of days, though, I decided to hang these back up instead. The cross stitched ones, I think, looked busy.

I like to use mixed nuts (in the shells) to toss into my fruit centerpiece to use as a filler in the nooks and crannies. I usually only find them this time of year in the produce section at my local grocery store by the bulk.

Save the Brazilian nuts and paint them to look like watermelons to use as bowl fillers in the summer.

This door is to a food pantry. This is where I hang my Christmas cards. I used to put them in a basket, but they seem to get looked at more hanging here. Our advent wreath also hangs on this door. I started this years ago when my kids were small. I bought 24 little ornaments and keep them in a little basket, which sits on a table to the left of the door. My kids take turns hanging an ornament on the wreath every day until Christmas. And even though they’re 18, 21 and 24 years old, they still like to hang the ornaments!

Do you see this guy?

My opinion is that this ornament shouldn’t be hung until December 24th and every year, some one tries to pull a fast one by hanging it before that day. Last year it went unnoticed for a couple of days. Every once in a while I count the ornaments to make sure the correct number is up there. One day Brittney and Justin were standing nearby, giggling, which made me suspicious, so I took a closer look and discovered that my son had hung the Dec. 24th ornament under the bow so it couldn’t be seen! He said it had been there for a couple of days and I never knew it!! The little stinker!! This year, Justin is excited because it works out that he will get the honors of hanging that ornament on the 24th. Sometimes, you just never grow up!! lol

The other day, I received a nice surprise in the mail from Colleen (And Baby Makes Five). She sent me some of her homemade Mini Cinnis and Cinnamon Gingerbread boys, plus a homemade “Joy” sign and a “Sugar Cookie” Yankee Candle votive. Thank you so much, Colleen!! You are such a sweetie!! I was so involved with the hustle and bustle of the holidays and this was a wonderful little reminder of what Christmas is all about. You are such a warm and caring friend! Thank you, again!

Thank you for taking the time to stop by – I really appreciate it!

Please check back on Friday for a couple of recipes that my family likes to make for breakfast on Christmas morning. Plus, possibly some pictures of my family room decorated for the holidays.

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

A Soldier’s Silent Night and Fresh Pine Christmas Arrangements

2009-12-08T20:43:00.002-05:00

I wanted to share with you a “song” that I had heard on the radio last year. This one ranks right up there with “The Christmas Shoes”! It makes me cry every time I hear it! The first time I heard it, I was on my way to the grocery store and let’s just say that it’s kind of hard to drive when your eyes are blurred with tears! I had to sit in the parking lot for a while to get composure of myself before I could head into the store!! It’s very touching!

The poem, “A Soldier’s Silent Night” was written by Lance Corporal James M. Schmidt in 1986. It was recorded by Father Ted Berndt, a priest at Bread of Life Charismatic Episcopal Church in Dousman, Wisconsin and who was also a Marine and a WWII Purple Heart recipient. His stint as a radio host in the 40’s attributed to his succession in recording the poem in one take.

To listen to the recording, turn off the music on the bottom and then click here and then click on “A Soldier’s Silent Night” highlighted in blue.

I love the smell of fresh pine at Christmas. And since I can’t get that scent from an artificial tree, I like to make fresh arrangements.

They’re pretty easy to make. Years ago, when I was involved in our school’s PTO, we had one of our monthly meetings at a local nursery and were taught to make an arrangement. Every year since, I’ve made a few. I buy bunches of cedar, silver fir, variegated orgonia/boxwood and pine roping from my local greenhouse/nursery and use a few sprigs off of my Norway spruce from my backyard. You can use whatever greens you like or have on hand.

Here’s how you can make your own:

Materials:

Container for arrangement

Wet/Fresh floral foam – do not use dry foam that’s used for artificial flowers

pruning shears

assorted fresh pines – cedar, white pine, silver fir, boxwood, spruce

embellishments – candles, berries, glass ornaments

I made my arrangement in an old box. Since I need to keep my foam wet, I put the foam in an aluminum loaf pan. If you’re using a waterproof container, you can omit the use of the pan.

Place the foam in the pan and thoroughly soak your foam by running it under the faucet until it is saturated.

I start with using the cedar first. Cut little sprigs off and stick into the wet foam - going all around your container. Try to push them in sideways, not straight up, at this point.

The next layer, I used Silver fir. Placing it randomly.

Next, I used some white pine. Just take apart some pine roping and cut a few sprigs and also place randomly.

Then I added some variegated boxwood/orgonia.

I’m adding a candle to this arrangement. I never like to have an open flame around fresh greens, so I place my candle in a mason jar.

At this point, add your glass container and keep layering until you reach the desired effect.. If you choose not to have a candle, just keep layering the greens until your container is filled in. Go back and fill in nooks and crannies wherever needed. Sprigs of White pine and boxwood are great fillers

Embellish by tucking in sprigs of berries, glass ornaments, etc.

I usually have enough greens to make a couple of arrangements, plus have some for tucking in here and there.

Here, I stuck some greens in a couple of crocks. I placed some wet foam in plastic cups and set in the crocks.

Depending how dry your home is, water every 3-4 days. Mine have lasted well into January. I change out the red berries with white ones and have little snowman heads on picks that I tuck in to replace the candy canes.

These are so fun to make!! For the first couple of years after I learned how to make these, I had fresh arrangements EVERYWHERE!! I went a little crazy!! Now I’ve toned it down to just a couple. lol

Now don’t hesitate to try this on your own!! You can do it!! If you make an arrangement, please email me a picture of it. I would love to see all of the different creations!!

I’m just about done with my Christmas decorating. Now that I have my arrangements made, the final pieces are falling into place. I’ll share more pics with you in a couple of days.

So Until Next Time . . . .Kris

A Few Living Room Christmas Decorations and Holiday Appetizers

2009-12-04T10:14:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday, my fellow friends!

For many years since Brittney was born, we had Chuck’s side of the family over on Christmas Eve. And every year, I made the same appetizers. I usually don’t like to make the same things all of the time. . .I like to change things up a little . . .but everyone loved these and didn’t want me to make anything new. And even though we don’t get together with his side of the family anymore, these appetizers are still a Christmas Eve tradition. We now have my sister, Val, and her daughter and son-in-law and their 2 boys over. A few more of my siblings may be joining us on Christmas Eve this year, as well. We used to go to my Mom and Dad’s on Christmas day, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, the family is getting larger and have their own family celebrations to try to fit in, so starting this year, my parents are going to start having the family over on the Sunday before Christmas. And since everyone’s celebration schedules will be rearranged, I’m inviting anyone to my home who would like to spend Christmas Eve with us.

Even though I completely understand the situation my Mom and Dad are in, I feel a little depressed that we are stopping a long time tradition of spending Christmas day together with family. So, now, like all of the other holidays that we don’t have family to spend with, we’ll try to create some new traditions of our own.

I hope you enjoy these appetizers as much as we do!! If you’d like to print these out, just highlight the recipes that you want, and then click “selection” on your printer function. Only the highlighted sections will print.

Cheese Crescent Rolls

1 pkg. crescent rolls

4 oz. each: sliced Swiss, muenster, colby & harvarte cheese

1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened

1 egg

Mix cream cheese and egg together.

Form crescents rolls into a square with 1/2 of rolls. pinch seams together. Save other 1/2 for top.

On bottom crust, layer sliced cheeses with cream cheese mixture spread between each layer; ending with cream cheese mixture on top.

Stretch top layer square over cheese mixture. Fold under bottom crust.

Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake 30-40 minutes at 350 degrees until golden brown. Let sit for 10 minutes before cutting.

Bacon/Sausage Wraps

1/4 c. butter, melted

1 1/2 – 2 c. chicken stuffing mix

Mix together and set aside.

1 lb. Italian sausage

1 egg

1 lb. bacon

Mix Italian sausage and egg together and add to stuffing mixture. Salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate 1 hour.

Cut bacon strips in half. (I usually cut into thirds and make smaller balls to make more) Roll sausage into balls and wrap with bacon strip. Secure with toothpick.

Bake 35-40 minutes at 375 degrees.

Crab Pizza

4 small boboli pizza crusts

1 c. miracle whip

2 tsp. lemon juice

1/2 tsp. salt

1 lb. sea legs

1 c. shredded Swiss cheese

2 T. green onions, chopped

Mix together and spread on top of pizza crusts.

Bake 10-15 minutes at 400 degrees until cheese melts.

Hanky Panky

1 lb. ground beef

1 lb. ground Italian sausage

1 lb. velveeta cheese

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 tsp. pepper

2 loaves cocktail pumpernickel bread

Brown beef and sausage together; drain. Add Worcestershire sauce. garlic powder and pepper. Chop cheese into cubes and add, stirring until melted.

Spread mixture on cocktail bread, covering well. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

Stuffed Mushrooms

1 lb. mushrooms

2 T. butter

1.4 c. Italian seasoned bread crumbs

1 c. shredded cheddar cheese

3-4 T. bacon bits

2 T. minced onion

Remove stems from mushrooms and set caps aside; chop stems. Cook onions and chopped stems in butter until tender; add bread crumbs.

Remove from heat; stir in bacon bits and cheese. Mound filling in caps. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

As always, if you’d like to see who else is participating in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Homemade Holiday Recipe Swap, click here:

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we shampooed our carpets. And since we had all of the furniture out of the living room, I decided to take advantage of the situation and repainted the walls. Since my house has kind of an open concept, I painted the dining room walls, too, which also leads into the kitchen, but will get painted later, after we build the new kitchen cupboards. I also painted the ceiling. I painted the walls with “Resort Tan” by Sherwin Williams. Again, the picture isn’t the best due to the lighting. You can see my cut off point right before heading into the kitchen. I’m so happy with the way it turned out; all of my decor seems to blend in so much better!

I’m still plugging along with my Christmas decorations!! Hopefully, I’ll have them done by this weekend. I have most of my Living Room done….I’m still trying to figure out my fireplace and I still have the centerpiece of fresh pines to make for my coffee table. I’m waiting for my local greenhouse to get more variegated orgonia in stock, then I’ll show you how to make a live arrangement.

Here are a few pictures. It’s been kind of gloomy and rainy for the last couple of days, so the lighting isn’t the best. It’s suppose to be sunny today, so hopefully, I’ll get some better pictures and share them with you later.

I’ll be back with more Christmas decor pictures and a tutorial on making live arrangements with fresh greens.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!! And Thank You so much for taking the time to stop by!! I love hearing from you, so please leave a comment!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

Heart Ornaments And Outside Xmas Decorations

2009-12-02T19:27:00.000-05:00

Wow!! It seems like forever since my last post!! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was great! It was very relaxing and we spent a lot of family time together over the long weekend. During the day we put up our outside decorations and then after dinner, we put up the Christmas tree. Later in the evening, we went to the movies and saw “Blind Side”. What a great movie!! If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it! The previews looked pretty good, but I actually wanted to see “The Christmas Carol” instead. I got outvoted and I’m glad I did! It was really good! . . . . I still want to see the Christmas Carol!!

I’m slowly getting the inside of my house decorated for Christmas. I don’t know why it’s taking me so long, maybe I relaxed “too much” over the weekend, but I’m just having a hard time getting things done. I’m trying to simplify my decor and, so far, I’ve got 2 large rubbermaid tubs filled with things I’m getting rid of. On the other hand, I’ve also made a few things! lol

Here are pictures of our outside decorations:

Here’s my new Christmas tree! I bought this last year from Hobby Lobby after the holidays. It was originally $400-something but was on clearance for 75% off. After much searching in the back for one in a box, they finally “found” one. The box was open and the branches looked like the one I wanted. I was figuring the cost to be about $75.00, but it rang up for $50-something and I’m thinking “sweet”..I must have figured wrong! When we got home, I told my hubby that we ought to take it out and make sure it’s the right one. Well….it wasn’t! So we took it right back. The only one they had like the one I wanted was the one on display, so we took that one. They just did an even exchange and didn’t charge us the extra cost, so I got an even better deal than the 75% off!

I love this tree!! The branches are staggered enough so that I can hang ornaments on the inside just like the real Christmas trees we used to get. We had bought our other tree at Litehouse Pools about 3 years ago and I was never really happy with it because I thought it was too perfectly shaped. The ornaments seem to lay on the outer edges and after the kids had put on all of their ornaments, there wasn’t much room left for many of mine. With this tree, I was able to put on all of my ornaments plus need to buy more to fill in some gaps!

I made this tree skirt many years ago when “hearts” were in! lol I started a new one last year, but I’m still working on quilting it. Hopefully, I’ll have it done before Christmas!! (probably not!) lol

Do you like my newest tree ornament??!! I sure can’t wait until he grows out of this stage. . .he LOVES the dangling ornaments!

Some of you have asked how I made my heart ornaments, so I’m going to do a tutorial on them.

They’re actually pretty simple. Draw a heart pattern on a piece of cardstock or cardboard and cut out. With your fabric right sides together, trace your pattern onto the fabric. Sew on the marked lines. Depending on how you want to finish up your heart, either leave an opening for turning right side out or sew the heart completely shut and cut a slash in the back of the heart.

Cut out the heart and clip the curves. Turn your heart right side out and lightly stuff with polyester fiberfill. Sew the opening close. With 3 strands of embroidery floss, do a blanket stitch around the edges. To learn how to do a blanket stitch, click on the link below.

http://www.futuregirl.com/craft_blog/2007/09/tutorial-hand-sew-felt.aspx

Make a loop with the embroidery floss to hang the ornament. Tea dye, if you wish, and finish with sewing a button in the center of the heart.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog!! Please stop back here on Friday to see what yummy recipes I’ll have to share for Colleen’s Homemade Holiday Recipe Swap!

PLUS . . . . .I’ll have some pictures of my Christmas decor to share along with pics of my newly painted Living Room and Dining Room walls!!

Until Next Time . . . .Kris

Homespun Holiday Recipes and Snowman Ornament

2009-11-20T09:26:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday, my blogging friends! What a busy week I’ve had and will have an even busier weekend! Tomorrow Kory has bowling in the morning and after that, I’m meeting two of my sisters and three nieces for a late lunch/early dinner and then we’re all heading to the Christmas Connection at the Cleveland IX Center. There are suppose to be 100’s of crafters there! I can’t wait!!

On Sunday, we’re shampooing our carpets so they’re nice and clean for the holidays. Plus, we’re going to pull out all of the Christmas decorations and go through them to make sure everything’s in working condition (especially the outside decor) and repair anything that needs fixed so it’s all ready to be put out on Thanksgiving day.

I have gone through a few boxes of my inside decorations and decided that I’m going to simplify my decor this year. I’m going to rid of a lot of my stuff. At first, I was going to let my sisters and nieces pick what they wanted, but my daughter said that her friend might be interested in whatever’s left over because she’s newly married and they don’t have many Christmas decorations. Brittney has been friends with this girl since middle school – they were even roommates all through college and I decided “to heck” with my siblings – they’re older and more established than Rachael – I’ll let Rachael have first dibs. I kind of chuckled last year when she was telling us how they didn’t have much to decorate their tree with so she was baking gingerbread boys and stringing popcorn and cranberries to hang on the tree along with white lights and tying on some red bows. I’m thinking, “sounds like the perfect tree to me!!”

There was a radio personality that used to be on a Cleveland radio station that used to talk about wonderful recipes on air and then you could go on the station’s website and print them out. One day, she was talking about these Oreo Truffles. She kept talking about how delicious they were, but the best thing about them was that they were so easy to make. Well, just hearing the word “Oreo” caught my attention!! I had to try them! These are VERY easy to make and absolutely delicious!! I hope you give them a try.

Oreo Truffles

1 (12 oz.) pkg. premium white chocolate chips

1 (1 lb. 2 oz.) pkg. regular Oreo cookies

1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, cut into chunks

In a double boiler, over hot, not boiling water, melt the white chocolate chips.

Meanwhile, place Oreos and cream cheese in a food processor with a steel blade and process until it’s a thick paste, scraping sides a couple of times.

Roll into 1” balls and dip into melted chocolate. Let dry on waxed paper-lined cookie sheet and keep refrigerated. Makes about 50.

**If you want the melted chocolate a little thinner for easier dipping, stir in a little vegetable oil until it’s the right consistency. Also, for a festive look, sprinkle truffles with colored sugar or other small decorations right after you dip them. They can also be placed in small foil or paper bon-bon cups.

This next recipe comes from Food Network’s Barefoot Contessa. Once you try these marshmallows, you’ll never want to go back to the store bought ones again! These are SO good!! They’re also the perfect treat to top off your hot cocoa with! The only drawback is…you need a stand mixer. Also, pure vanilla extract gives it a much better flavor than imitation vanilla flavoring.

Homemade Marshmallows

3 pkgs. unflavored gelatin

1 1/2 c. white sugar

1/2 c. cold water

1 c. light corn syrup

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 c. water

1 T. pure vanilla extract

confectioner’s sugar, for dusting

Combine the gelatin and 1/2 c. cold water in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and allow to sit while you make the the syrup.

Combine the sugar, corn syrup, salt and 1/2 c. water in a small pan and cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves.

Raise the heat to high and cook until the syrup reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer.

Remove from heat.

With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour the sugar syrup into the dissolved gelatin.

Put the mixer on high speed and whip until the mixture is very thick, about 15 minutes.

Add the vanilla and mix thoroughly.

With a sieve, generously dust a 9”x12” non-metal baking dish with confectioner’s sugar.

Pour the marshmallow mix into the pan, smooth the top and dust with more confectioner’s sugar.

Allow to stand uncovered overnight until it dries out.

Turn the marshmallows onto a board and cut them into squares.

Dust the cut sides with confectioner’s sugar.

* These are also delicious dipped in melted chocolate.

** A couple of years ago, I made these for my mom for Christmas. She loves coconut, so instead of using confectioner’s sugar, I used toasted coconut to dust the marshmallows with. They turned out fantastic!!

As always, if you’d like to see who else is participating in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Homemade Holiday recipe Swap click here:

As promised the other day, here’s a tutorial for making these snowman ornaments.

Supplies needed:

Styrofoam balls, whatever size you’d like

Paper Mache – white

Sculpey/Fimo modeling clay – terracotta

paper clips

toothpicks

whole peppercorns or allspice

large ziploc baggy

bowl of water

covered work surface

foil-lined cookie sheet sprayed with Pam

paper towels

First, make the nose by shaping a piece of the molding clay. Take a butter knife and make marks on the sides to look like a carrot. Break the toothpick in half and push one half into the nose. Bake according to the directions on the molding clay’s package.

To make the hanger, push a paper clip into the styrofoam ball.

Put the desired amount of paper mache into a large ziploc baggy. Following the directions on the packaging, add enough warm water to the mache until it’s the consistency of thick brownie batter.

(I was out of large ziploc baggies, so I used an old tupperware bowl.)

This next step is kind of messy. Make sure you have paper towels handy and a bowl of water.

Work small amounts of paper mache onto styrofoam ball. Periodically, dip your fingers into the water to keep the mache from sticking to your hands. When the ball is completely covered, wet your fingers and smooth out all of the lumps. Take the nose and push into the ball. Push whole peppercorns into the mache for the mouth and, depending on the size of the styrofoam ball, use peppercorns or allspice for the eyes. The finished snowman above has peppercorns for eyes - the one below has allspice (they’re a little larger).

Place on a foil-lined cookie sheet sprayed with Pam and bake in a 200 degree oven. For the first couple of hours, turn the snowman periodically to prevent it from sticking to the foil. Smooth out any flat ridges. Drying time varies – about 4 - 6 hours.

When snowman is dry, brush him with coffee to stain him. Place him back in the oven to dry – maybe 15 – 20 minutes. Repeat process until you reach the desired darkness.

If you want to make a shelf sitter, omit the paperclip and while the paper mache is still wet, push down slightly on the ball to flatten the bottom so he’ll sit flat. While drying, keep turning but don’t smooth out the ridge on the bottom.

The snowman pictured above on the foil pan is going to be a shelf sitter. He’s not completely done yet, so I’ll post a picture of him later.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I have so much more to share with you, but I’ll leave it for other posts!

Until Next Time. . . Kris

A Few Homemade Christmas Decorations

2009-11-18T11:05:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to share with you a few Christmas decorations that I have been working on. I haven’t started decorating yet (not until Thanksgiving night), I just threw some lights and garland on a tree so I could take pictures!!

Do you remember these?

Well, these are what I did with them. I wanted them to look more like an old St. Nicholas with hoods instead of caps, but I just couldn’t get them to look right. So these are what I ended up with. I think they turned out okay. I have 10 completely done and have 10 more just about done. Now I just need to figure out where I’m going to put them! LOL I think I might tuck them in the garland on my mantel.

For those of you that thought I sculpted the faces, thank you for your confidence in my crafting abilities, but I used a mold!! LOL I’m not sure about other craft stores, but for you fellow Ohioans, Pat Catans carries them in the Sculptey/Fimo clay section. I inserted small brown glass beads for the eyes and used cotton roving that I bought several years ago from somewhere I don’t remember for the beard.

I also cross stitched 12 of these little ditty bags. I loved the ones that Kath (The Olde Weeping Cedar) made and posted on her blog and decided I wanted to make some similar. I may swap out the sweet annie with some cedar when I buy my fresh greens, but I don’t know. They look better in person – the sweet annie shows up better than in the picture.

I made these a couple of years ago. I just wanted to show them to you now in case anyone liked them, they would have plenty of time to make them. But looking at them now pictured like that, I may change the buttons to smaller ones. LOL

I also made these a few years ago, too. They are made out of paper mache with whole pepper corns for the face and fimo clay for the nose. I’ll post a tutorial on Friday on how to make these.

So check back here on Friday to learn how to make these, plus I’ll recipes for Homemade Marshmallows and Oreo Truffles!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

Styrofoam Oranges

2009-11-16T19:50:00.001-05:00

I’ve had a few people wanting to know where I got my styrofoam oranges at. The ones I had pictured in my tutorial post were purchased last year at a craft store chain in Ohio called Pat Catans. I went to 2 different stores on Friday to buy some more, but they didn’t have any. I found a bag of 6 oranges at Michaels craft store for $9.99, but they seemed very hard. I wasn’t sure if they were made out of stryofoam or a hard plastic, so I didn’t buy them. I later went to Joann Fabrics where they had individual ones for $1.99. They looked and felt hard like the ones at Michaels, but I bought a couple anyways to see if they’d work. A screwdriver poked into them very easily!! So if you’re looking for oranges, check out Joanns! Those 40% coupons will come in handy, too!!

Homemade Holiday Recipe and Bathroom Pics

2009-11-13T08:06:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday, my prim friends!! It’s going to be another gorgeous day here in Ohio. Sunny and in the 60’s. Can’t complain about that!!

And now get ready to hear a collective “groan” in blogland when I tell you . . . . . .I’m about done with my Christmas shopping!! :o) Did you hear it? lol

I’m all done with my daughter Kory, I have one more thing to get my son – but it doesn’t get released until Nov. 20th, I have a couple more things to get for my hubby (I need to find a place to hide them, first!) and I have the few items my daughter, Brittney, had on her list. She really didn’t have many ideas this year other than a new ipod and a few books. She’ll probably get gift cards for the remainder of the amount we spend, but I’ll hold off getting those in case she comes up with something else. I also picked up a few stocking stuffers along with a few bags of holiday candy (3 musketeers, twix, peppermint patties, etc.) We started a tradition several years ago that after Santa ate his milk and cookies, he left a basket full of candy. You know. . . .because there wasn’t enough goodies already in the house!! lol

I love getting my shopping done early!!! Now I can relax and enjoy decorating and baking for the holidays.

A few of you have left comments or emails in regards to my Dining Room furniture. My hubby and I made all of the furniture pieces with the exception of the dining room chairs and the bottom portion of the stereo cupboard, which is a dresser I bought at a garage sale and then made the top piece for it. The desk was made many years ago and was our 2nd attempt at making furniture! It went through a few transformations before ending up the way it is now. The cupboard above it was actually a “now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t” cover for an in-the-wall air conditioning unit that has now been removed due to having central air installed. We’ve added a shelf and now use it for storing various things. The wing chair was sitting out for the garbage just down the road from me and I sent my hubby in the dark to go pick it up!! It was in great shape, but the upholstery was filthy and had a couple of tears in it. It was my first attempt at reupholstering a piece of furniture!! I really didn’t know what I was doing. . . .I just “winged” it! lol It’s been about two years and I still haven’t finished the cushion or put the face pieces on the front of the arms. I keep putting off making the piping and learning how to make box pleats, so for now, I just have some fabric tucked around the seat! For those that have commented on the fabric – I bought it at Joann Fabrics in the Home Decor fabric section. And, finally, the hutch is made in three pieces and is actually navy blue, not black. I hope I answered all of the questions!!

This stuffing recipe is fabulous. My family loves it! It’s a perfect addition to a Thanksgiving dinner.

Cornbread, Sausage, Apple & Pecan Stuffing

12 T. butter (1 1/2 sticks)

2 c. finely-chopped yellow onions

3 tart apples, cored and chunked, but not peeled

1 lb. bulk breakfast sausage, with sage (Bob Evans)

3 c. coarsely crumbled cornbread

3 c. coarsely crumbled whole-wheat or multi-grain bread

3 c. coarsely crumbled French or Italian bread

2 tsp. dried thyme

1 tsp. dried sage

salt and pepper, to taste

1/2 c. chopped Italian parsley

1 1/2 c. shelled pecan halves (do not chop)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Melt half the butter in a large skillet.

Remove onion and butter from pan and put in a very large bowl to be mixed later.

In same skillet, melt rest of butter, add apple, and cook quickly over high heat until lightly browned, but not mushy.

Remove apples and butter from pan and put in the bowl with the onions.

With the pan back on the burner, add sausage, crumbling as you cook it over medium heat, and cook until lightly browned.

When done, remove with a slotted spoon and add it to the mixing bowl.

Reserve drippings for basting later.

Add remaining ingredients to the mixing bowl and combine gently.

If you’re going to stuff a turkey, cool completely in the refrigerator first.

To cook it as a separate dressing, spoon the mixture into a large casserole (13x9 or slightly larger), cover with aluminum foil and bake 30-45 minutes at 325 degrees, basting occasionally with cooking juices from the turkey or with reserved sausage fat, if needed.

Uncover the pan for the last 10 minutes of cooking to brown.

To see who else is participating in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Homemade Holiday Recipe Swap, click here:

Here are a few pictures of my main bathroom. I’m going to change out my light fixtures on both sides of the mirror once I choose between three styles of sconces that I like, which has been a dilemma for the last couple of months! lol I’d also like to get a new cabinet and sink top some time, especially since the sink doesn’t line up with the mirror!! I’ve lived with it for 21 years like that, what’s a few more, right?

Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate each and every one of you and I love hearing your comments . I hope you all have a great weekend!!

Until Next Time . . . . Kris

Clove-Studded Oranges and Dining Room Pics

2009-11-11T20:01:00.000-05:00

Happy Wednesday, my prim friends!! Is everybody getting ready for the holidays? We’ve been taking advantage of having warm temperatures and started putting up our outside Christmas lights. We didn’t get very far, though, because when my hubby plugged in the icicle lights that go on the roof to check them, more than half of them were burned out.

Many years ago, when icicle lights just came on the market and were only available in white strands, we made our own. I also didn’t like the store-bought ones because they were too flimsy-looking. It was never a problem replacing bulbs, here and there, each year. But this year, out of 11 strands, only 2 completely worked. So, instead of taking the time to go through each strand, we decided to just make new ones. I went out and bought several boxes of lights and hubby wired one strand together and hung them on the roof. Adding it to a previous strand, you can see a big difference between the two. The lights are closer together on the new strands and when wired together, they don’t look like icicles, just a bunch of lights clustered together. So. . . .those came down and he’s back to going through every strand and checking each and every light bulb!! (Thanks, honey!! I still love you more!) He only has a couple more to work on and should have them up by this weekend.

About 5 or 6 years ago, my parents quit having the family over for Thanksgiving dinner. There just got to be too many of us (32 – give or take a couple). My three older siblings ( I’m the youngest of 5) have their own kids and grandkids to celebrate Thanksgiving with and Chuck’s side of the family grew apart after his mom passed away about 10 years ago. Since we had nowhere to go, we started a tradition of putting up our Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving day. In the morning, while the turkey is roasting in the oven, we go out and put the final decorations up outside. After dinner and everything’s cleaned up, we put the Christmas tree up and the kids decorate it. This worked out great when my oldest daughter was in college and was home for Thanksgiving weekend to be able to participate with the decorating. Ever since my kids were little, I bought them an ornament each year from a craft show with their name and the year on it. They each have their own box of ornaments that they put on the tree and when they move out and have their own tree to decorate, they can take their box of ornaments with them. We officially “light up” the Christmas lights on Thanksgiving night. I put the rest of my decorations out over the weekend. Although my hubby claims I decorate all the way up to Christmas! lol

In the past, I’ve made centerpieces with fresh pine greens and fresh fruit. Since you need to keep the greens moist, sometimes my fruit doesn’t last until Christmas. This year I’m attempting to use artificial fruit and thought I’d share with you how I studded mine with cloves. Don’t mind the display – I just threw this together to take the pic! Plus I have more to make.

To make clove-studded oranges, you need:

fake, Styrofoam oranges

whole cloves

Folk Art Antiquing Medium (I use Apple Butter Brown #819) If you can’t find it, dilute brown paint with water

Phillips screwdriver or fat screw or nail

First, lightly rub antiquing medium over your orange to age it a little. Let dry.

Take your screwdriver

and poke wholes in your orange. You can be creative and make shapes, like stars, and various patterns in it. This step makes it a lot easier to insert the cloves!!

Finally, push a clove into the hole. If one breaks off in the orange, take your screwdriver and push it farther in and push a new clove in.

I’ve also been working on these:

Don’t they look like a bunch of grumpy, old men? lol They’re going to be Santa faces. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do with them, yet. I have ideas, but I’m not sure how they’ll turn out! I’ll share pictures with you when I get them finished.

I’ve also finished this cross stitch picture. It’s a Pineberry Lane pattern. Now I just need to find a frame with a 7” x 7” opening to put it in.

Finally, as promised, I have pictures of my Dining Room. The lighting still isn’t the best – there was either too much sunlight or not enough. When I can get better pictures, I’ll post more.

I tweaked the middle section of my hutch and still need to work on the side shelves, but I probably won’t do anything with them until after Christmas.

Please come visit me on Friday to check out a delicious recipe for Cornbread, Sausage, Apple & Pecan Stuffing. Plus. . . .I’ll have a couple of pictures from my main bathroom.

Until Next time . . . . Kris

Dining Room Projects and Sweet Potato Casserole

2009-11-06T11:09:00.001-05:00

Happy Friday, everyone!! This week has been a busy one. The kids didn’t have school Monday or Tuesday due to Teacher conferences and on Wednesday, my hubby and I went with my son for a college visit to Akron University.

On Monday, I went with 2 of my sisters (I have 3) and a niece to Amish country. Every year we plan a trip before the holidays to go and spend the day shopping and out for lunch. I would love to share pictures of our day with you, but my sisters didn’t want me to post pictures of them and most of the stores don’t allow cameras, so I only have pictures of the goodies I bought.

I also bought this 4 1/2 ft. German Twig tree.

It was a very long day! I left my house at 7:30 in the morning to pick up my sister, Val, and her daughter, Becky, and then headed over to my sister, Lori’s, house. She was suppose to drive from there, but she forgot to renew her license plates, so I ended up driving to Amish country. After lots of shopping and lunch at Rebecca’s Bistro, I didn’t get home until 7:00 in the evening! I was so tired!!

In between all of my running, I’ve been doing some tweaking in my Dining Room which usually means repainting and making things. I had planned on posting pics of my Dining Room, but there was too much sunlight this morning (not that I’m complaining about the sunshine!) to get any good pictures, so I’ll have to wait until this afternoon to see if I can get better ones and then share them with you later.

I’m trying to achieve a simpler look and decided to change things up a little in my hutch. I’ll give you a sneak peak at a couple of things that I’ve made.

This cross stitch pin keep ( a Stacy Nash Primitives pattern) and also the stacked fabric pin keeps.

I also painted a couple of stack boxes.

That’s all I’m going to show you for now!! I’ll share pics of my entire Dining Room with you later when the lighting is better and I can get better shots!! I just HATE being a tease! He He!

Colleen has started a new recipe swap on Fridays called “Homemade Holidays Recipe Swap”. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I wanted to share with you a wonderful recipe that gives a different twist to sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potato Casserole

3 c. sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed or 1 (28 oz.) can yams, mashed

2 eggs, beaten

1 c. sugar

1/2 c. milk

1/4 c. margarine, melted

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

TOPPING:

1 c. brown sugar

1/3 c. flour

2 T. margarine, melted

1 c. nuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a 9x9 pan.

Combine ingredients and pour into prepared pan.

Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle mixture evenly over sweet potatoes.

Bake for 35 minutes.

If you’d like more information about participating or would like to see who else has recipes to share in Colleen’s Homemade Holidays Recipe Swap, click here:

Until Next Time . . . .Kris

French Toast Bake

2009-10-30T11:38:00.000-04:00

Happy Friday, everyone!! Sorry, no pictures to post in this one! :o(

Boy, where to start! I have been so busy lately, which I’m sure many of you can relate! I’ve been working on some craft projects, which I’ll share in later post, but mostly, I’ve been working on mundane things like washing windows and removing the screens, putting away patio furniture (which snowballed into cleaning and rearranging the garage to accommodate stuff), cleaning out flowerbeds and planters, putting away summer clothes and getting out the winter ones (which led into cleaning and organizing the closets) and all of the other wonderful things that need to get done before winter arrives. And when you add those on top of the already every day things like cleaning, cooking, laundry and shopping, it makes for a very busy day!

I apologize for slacking off in leaving comments on your blogs or returning emails or even communicating on other social forums. I’ve been on periodically to check in to see what’s going on, but have been horrible about making my presence known! I do try to keep up!! I even went to the extent of buying a laptop from my sister Val’s place of employment. (They buy numerous laptops to use in setting up programs and networks for businesses and colleges, and when they’re done with them, they sell them for half of the price you’d pay for a new one!) It has been so convenient to be able to pop online throughout the day in between doing tasks. The other night dinner was a matter of “let this simmer for 15 minutes and then add that and let simmer for another 10 minutes” type of meal and it was great because, instead of running downstairs to my family room to use my desktop, I had my laptop sitting on the kitchen counter and while things were simmering, I popped online and read a couple of blogs! The only draw back is – I don’t like the keyboard!! It has such a different feel to it than a regular desktop keyboard and I’m having a hard time getting adjusted to it. So that’s partially to blame for me not leaving comments also.

On to my “Back-to-School Fall Recipe”! I completely forgot about posting one last week, so I sincerely apologize for that!! Again, it was that “being too busy” thing! lol I make this recipe ALOT!! Every year we do a brunch for 2 of my kids’ birthdays, which are both in January, and this is much requested dish! It’s very easy to make and quite delicious!

French Toast Bake

1 loaf day-old French bread

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 c. chopped walnuts

1/2 c. chopped pecans

1/3 c. raisins (optional)

6 eggs

2 c. milk

1 c. maple syrup – divided

1/3 c. light brown sugar

1/3 c. melted butter

Spray 9x13 pan with nonstick cooking spray. Cut French bread into 1” pieces. Place bread in baking dish until it mounds up high. Add cinnamon, walnuts, pecans, and raisins.

Beat together the eggs, milk and 3/4 c. syrup. Pour over bread mixture. Sprinkle top with brown sugar, melted butter and 1/4 c. syrup.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve with hot maple syrup.

As always, if you’d like to see who else is participating in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) recipe pool, click here:

This will be the last week for the Back-to-School recipe pool. Colleen is starting a new recipe swap next Friday called “Homemade Holiday Recipe Swap”. I’m really looking for to it!! Thanks, Colleen, for a fun way to share our recipes!!

I hope everyone enjoys the Halloween weekend!!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

Now You See It, Now You Don’t!

2009-10-21T22:25:00.000-04:00

What fabulous weather we’ve been having lately!! I’ve been taking advantage of it and getting my flower beds cleaned out and washing windows and taking the screens out for winter. I’ve also been able to get a few more projects finished up.

First, I finished the Stacy Nash Primitives sampler that I started last week.

Then I made a lamp for my end table in my Living Room. I was so proud that I did this all by myself! The only help my hubby gave me was to drill the holes in the lantern. I had a style in mind, but couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for. The only thing I found close to what I wanted had criss-cross grids across the glass panes and was a flat black!

So I bought this lantern. . .

I cheated and bought a wood square with routered edges from my local craft store. I cut a piece of pvc pipe to fit over the threaded stem and then painted them both with Charcoal Grey from Americana and then stained them both with Deep Ebony from Olympia Stain. What a perfect match!! I bought lamp parts from Home Depot.

I removed the metal ring from the top and hubby drilled a larger hole to fit the threaded stem through.

He also drilled a hole in the bottom corner.

I attached the bottom part of the socket and then ran a piece of wire up through the threaded stem and attached the wires to the terminals.

I ran the wire down and out the hole in the bottom. I cut the wire that came with the lamp in half and then twisted all three wires together.

I epoxy glued the wire to the inside of the lantern and clamped in place with hair clips until dry.

I epoxy glued the lantern to the wood base and

TA DA!!! I have the style lantern I was looking for!!

Okay, finally, the project that I’m excited about!! I have been wanting to hide the stereo in my Dining Room for quite some time now! I’ve had ideas in my head, but trying to actually come up with a design that’ll work has been a major headache!! My original plan was to make an apothecary-looking chest, but every time I wanted to use my stereo, I would have had to take the cover off. I didn’t want to have to deal with finding a place to put it while the stereo was in use, plus the fear of it getting banged up. So I put a door in the middle for easy access to the power button, plus use of the CD player.

Now you see it . . . .

Now you don’t! . . . .

I need to find something to put on top to hide the wires. I just didn’t have time!

Well, that’s all I have for now!! I hope everyone’s been enjoying some nice weather, too! Unfortunately, these warm temps aren’t here for long; it’s suppose to drop back down into the 50’s over the weekend, with rain on Friday.

So Until next Time. . .Kris

Health Update and Taco Casserole

2009-10-16T07:55:00.000-04:00

Happy Friday everyone!!

Here’s an update on my “health issues”. The good news is that I don’t have asthmas, my blood pressure is normal, my thyroid is normal and my cholesterol level is 172! It’s been decided that I must have been suffering from panic attacks (anxiety, stress – whatever you want to call it) so I was given a prescription for Xanax to be taken when needed, which luckily I haven’t had to take any yet!!!

I have no idea what kind of stress I could have been under to cause the scary symptoms I was experiencing. My life has been the same as it’s always been – busy!! I’ve always joked that I work best under pressure, but I guess as I’m getting older, my body has decided it doesn’t like working under those conditions! lol So with “happy pills” in hand, I’ll have to learn to approach life in a less stressful way. (Yah, right!)

As each possible health risk was tested and marked off the “probable causes” list, I found my tension was easing and my symptoms were disappearing, so now I’m back to my usual self! Yippee!!

Sometimes planning dinner can get a little hectic while trying to accommodate everyone’s busy schedules, so it’s nice to find recipes that are easy to make and that everyone likes. I found this recipe in one of those cook booklets you see in the checkout line. It’s from Pillsbury and titled “Crescents, Biscuits & More”. It’s becoming a family favorite.

Golden Layers Biscuit Taco Casserole

1 jar (16 oz.) taco sauce

1 can (12 oz.) Pillsbury Golden Layers refrigerated buttermilk or original flaky biscuits

1 c. shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

1 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

1 can (2 1/4 oz.) sliced, ripe olives, drained

1 lb. lean ground beef

1/4 c. chopped red bell pepper

1/4 c. chopped green bell pepper

1 can (4 oz.) mushroom pieces and stem, drained (optional)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly spray 13x9 pan with cooking spray. Spread taco sauce evenly in bottom of baking dish.

Separate dough into 10 biscuits. Cut each into quarters. Place biscuit pieces in taco sauce. Sprinkle 1/2 c. cheddar cheese, 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese and the olives over top; stir gently to mix.

Bake 15 to 18 minutes or until bubbly. Meanwhile, in medium skillet, combine beef, bell pepper and mushrooms; cook over medium-high heat until beef is thoroughly cooked, stirring frequently. Drain.

Remove baking dish from oven. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 c. cheddar cheese and 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese over mixture. Top evenly with ground beef mixture.

Return to oven; bake an additional 5 to 7 minutes.

May be topped with shredded lettuce, chopped tomato, sour cream and/or chopped avocado.

As always, if you’d like to see who else has recipes to share, check out Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) blog by clicking on the picture below.

Enjoy Your Weekend!!

Until next Time. . . . Kris