Crystal Blue

Yesterday was my birthday! It was a great day and everyone did a great job making me feel loved and special. I was treated to lunch, I received gift cards to some of my favorite places, money to go shopping, my sis made me a Paula Dean strawberry cake, my husband and daddy took care of dinner, I was showered with sweet hugs and kisses from my sweet boys, my phone was blowing up with sweet messages on facebook all day....and I got this!

 source

I saw it while shopping with Cade a week or two ago and mentioned that it would make a great birthday gift. He was a sweet boy and made sure his Daddy knew about it.

Do you know how old my other blender was? I have been married for 15 years and my husband had it before we got married. It was starting to sound very worn out and may or may not have been mangled pretty bad do to operator error. Let's just say that I am glad this one doesn't really come apart. It should make it's life span much longer.

I have always been a smoothie and protein shake drinker, so I am looking forward to putting this thing to use. I am also excited that it is pretty enough to leave out on the counter.

Thank you to everyone that made my day super special!

Open Shelving in the Kitchen

I have tossed around the idea of removing an existing cabinet door in our kitchen to create some open shelving for as long as we have lived in this house, but I didn't think we had a good spot for it. I always pictured it on the peninsula side of the kitchen where I have always kept my cookbooks and other various items, but the three cabinets are all open to each other. It is basically one long cabinet with three doors so there is no actual division between the cabinets. I knew that I couldn't afford to lose the closed storage for the whole cabinet, so I just kind of let it go.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. My sis and I have been going through some of my Mother's things. She had tons of cookbooks and we each ended up keeping a pretty sizable stack of them. Since they belonged to my Mom and are pretty, I knew that I really wanted them to be more visible in my kitchen. I also knew that if I could see them, I would be more likely to actually use them.

I started looking at the rest of my kitchen trying to figure out which cabinet would be "the one". I finally realized that the one on the end was the perfect choice based on what was inside and the configuration of the shelves. Our shelves are fixed and this is the only one that has just two shelves leaving enough room for some of the taller cookbooks.

Once the cabinet door was removed I knew that I wanted to add some color to the back of the cabinet. My initial thought was paint, but the more I thought about it, the less appealing paint seemed. I happened to have a roll of teal and white wrapping paper on hand that I picked up in the dollar bins at Michael's many months ago and knew that it would be the perfect choice. 1. I didn't have to whip out the paint and paint brush. 2. It only took about 15 min. from start to finish and the project was done. 3. The wrapping paper could easily be removed if I changed my mind. SCORE!

Once the door was removed, the paper was simply taped to the back and it was time to fill the two shelves.
I kept the cookbooks that I am most likely to reference the most on the bottom shelf and the ones that I will use less often on the top shelf. I also added 2 of my favorite white bowls and a glass vase that I filled with my Mom's silver and copper cookie cutters. I did eventually go back and fill the holes where the hinges were and then touched up the paint. I waited a few weeks to do so to be sure that I was happy with the new set up.

I am really enjoying the addition of some color to the kitchen and it is nice to have the cookbooks out on display.

Have any of you been removing cabinet doors to create some open shelving? Do you have any type of open shelving in your kitchen? How do you like it?


Linking up to these Blog Parties Tatertots and Jello - A Bowl Full of Lemons - The Bliss Diaries - Positely Splendid - Delightful Order - It's Overflowing - The Shabby Nest 
-House of Hepworths 

Clothespin Memo Board

 Way back before Christmas I went to a Mom's Night In craft night, and made a Christmas Advent Calendar. Well, I painted a few clothespins that night; I didn't get anywhere near done. To make the Advent Calendar I took the chalkboard that hangs in my kitchen out of the frame and inserted a piece of foam core board. Once all of my clothespins were painted, I simply attached them to the board with hot glue. And just for the record, if I were to go back and do this again, I would just use craft tape to decorate the clothespins. Much easier and less time consuming. I then used a tag punch, scrapbook paper, and number stickers to make tags for each day. The plan was to write an activity on the back of each tag, but that was a huge Mom fail on my part. I never did. Oops!

Christmas Advent Calendar (iphone pic)

The inspiration for the Advent Calendar was found here.

Fast forward to January. I had planned to put the chalkboard back in the frame in my kitchen and put the Advent Calendar away until next year, but I decided that the Advent Calendar would actually make a really great memo board. I really liked the lightness of the board in the kitchen better than the black chalkboard, and I thought that this might actually be more useful. I am always looking for a place to put scripture verses and appointment cards. Somewhere other than the fridge. I like my fridge to stay nice and clean (minus a few magnets the boys play with and our family calendar).

I am now really glad that I decided NOT to add red the the clothespins to make them more Christmas-y.

 Here you can see the details on the clothespins. I tried not to make any two exactly the same.

It's nice to have a place for important reminders and a few photos.

And that, is the story of my Christmas Advent Calendar turned Clothespin Memo Board.

Linking up to these Blog Parties

A Bowl Full of Lemons - The Bliss Diaries - Positely Splendid - Delightful Order - It's Overflowing - The Shabby Nest

New Kitchen Curtains

I know it's Wednesday and you should be getting a 2 Bills 2 Blow post, but apparently I'm a slacker and didn't get anyone lined up. I need to work on that. (if you are interested in guest posting, feel free to shoot me an email)

I have new kitchen curtains!

When we moved into our house 1 year ago, there were copper blinds in the kitchen. They could not stay, but I didn't know exactly what I wanted. Did I want curtains or did I want blinds? Since I didn't really know what I wanted, and knew I didn't want nasty copper blinds, I found some table cloths on clearance at Target that would be good placeholders until I was ready to commit to something. Table cloths + curtain rods and rings = easy curtains.

I actually modified some other curtains somewhere between the original table cloth curtains and the new ones that I am showing today, but didn't like them so I never showed them to you.

Anyway, I briefly mentioned that I came across a yard sale that was being held by a decorator. Guess what she was selling? TONS of fabric still on the bolt. I went to the sale pretty late, but as soon as I drove up I spotted this brown and white herringbone fabric by RALPH LAUREN and knew that I had to have it. I then looked at the sticker and it was marked $2 for what was left on the bolt. SERIOUSLY! It was perfect. I took it home and measured and there was roughly 3 yards. Plenty to cover the 2 windows in my kitchen, and I liked it better than anything I else I had come across. Oh, and it was TWO DOLLARS!

So, that is the story of my $2 Ralph Lauren kitchen curtains.

project chalkboard

image via Krylon

This is my chalkboard paint of choice. (It's the only one I have tried)

I can't find a pic of the wall in my kitchen that is next to the fridge, but just picture a wall that had random large screws and wires hanging out of it. My solution, cover the mess with a chalkboard. Two days after we moved in I placed a smaller chalkboard on this wall, but had been on the look out for one that was longer/larger to fill out the space better.

before

This piece of art was leftover from a friend's garage sale, so I asked if I could have it. I was pretty sure that the size would be just right.

I took off the backing and removed the artwork and glass so that I could paint directly onto the front of the glass following the directions on the can of paint. I went back and forth trying to decide if I should paint the frame, but couldn't decide. I kind of like the gold, so for now it stays gold. I can always go back and paint it later if I choose to.

after

And now we have a chalkboard that fits the space.  Cade  memorizes a new Bible verse every week, so this has been a great place to right it out so that we can all see it.

Have you painted any chalkboards lately? Do you like the gold frame or would you have painted it a different color?

*I haven not been compensated in anyway from Krylon for this post. All opinions are my own.

The Kitchen - Before and After

 

The kitchen is D.O.N.E.!

Well, mostly. There is one counter on the other side of the breakfast area that needs to be finished and a few things on the over side of the kitchen, but they will happen soon. I couldn't wait to show you what we have been up to, so you get the afters from just one side of the kitchen.

I haven't shown you any pics of our kitchen since we moved in, so lets start with the before pics.

Here is a pic from 2 days after we moved in. Just ignore the moving clutter and check out the rust colored counters, metal rust colored blinds, and old dingy floral wallpaper. Make sure that you also take notice of the ceiling fan and old radio that is mounted under on of the upper cabinets. At this point the new tile floors had already been installed.

This picture was taken 2 weeks after we moved in. All of the dishes had found a home and a new dishwasher had been installed.

Here is the kitchen today. It looks so different. My husband's hard work paid off.

I plan to do a post with a lot more detail about the specifics, but I will tell you that because we did all of the work our self the remodel was done for just under $1000.

If you have any specific questions please ask them in the comments and I will try to include the answers in the next kitchen post.

This post is linked up to these parties:
Tatertots and Jello - Weekend Wrap Up Party
Thrifty Decor Chick - Before and After Party
Decor Chick -Anything Goes Linky Party

 

 

over the kitchen sink

I can't say that I have ever been a fan of fluorescent lights. This is 1 of 2 in my kitchen.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to replace it with, but my husband called to tell me that he noticed some pendant lights on clearance at Lowes for $6 each. I told him to bring them home. 

(I have plans for the shade of the other light)

Much better. 

It's nice to have an electrician for a husband.

 This little guy has nothing to do with the kitchen light.

He's just cute.

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