Decorative hook rack

I don't pretend for a minute that this is expert floral painting, but I like the way this turned out. I wanted to make a decorative hook rack to display a couple of infant christening dresses. This project cost me all of $1.76 for the two hooks - everything else, including all the paint, was on-hand. (It's not mounted to the wall yet - it's just leaning on my cabinet knobs to have its picture taken! LOL)

I started with a 1x3 and cut it to 18 inches in length, then sanded the surface and edges just a little. I was going to make it distressed white, but I didn't have enough white paint left. So, instead I sprayed the whole piece on all sides with a soft green.

I then used my acrylic paints to do the floral bits - I do NOT have the "composition gene" when it comes to this, so I just plopped them down wherever they seemed to be needed.

When the decorative paint was dry, I brushed the whole front with a layer of clear-drying matte Mod Podge (didn't have any spray sealer on hand), then screwed in the two hooks.

There are a few flaws/imperfections in the construction and materials as well as the paint job, but, I'm not complaining. Overall I really like it!

Now to get it mounted to the wall... I probably should have thought about that BEFORE screwing in the hooks! LOL *sigh* Just another day in paradise!

More soon!

Update 2013: I am linking this post to Nancy's "Oldies but Goodies" link party at her lovely blog, Do Small Things With Love. 

God's gift

We've got two fruit trees in our front yard, one apple and one pear (and a second apple tree in the sideyard); this year, we are having a bumper crop, though the pears are not yet ripe. This morning I saw two young deer enjoying what had fallen to the ground. (This is a tad remarkable considering that we live in the city.) I had been thinking about trying to make some apple butter, so I decided I'd better get out there and pick some fruit before it was too late.

As I spent time under the trees, it occurred to me that they really are quite a gift, and as I collected a tub full of apples I thought about the many benefits of the trees and their fruit. In the Spring, they bloom profusely and are quite simply stunning. I wish I had thought to snap a photo at that time! They also provide a home - this nest had robins in it earlier in the year.

Under their canopy, they offer shade and opportunities to quietly observe. They're also quite the gathering place, for sunning or feeding.

As the fruit matures, some of it falls to the ground before it's ripe. The deer aren't the only ones who enjoy it - it quickly begins to ferment and the bees and wasps cannot resist it. Since part of the pear tree hangs over the driveway, we have to quite literally shovel the smashed (run over) fruit back into the yard so we can get in and out of our cars without disturbing our stinger-bearing friends.

Finally it's time for we humans to enjoy the bounty. I'd been leery of using the fruit since we hadn't sprayed it with anything all year - most of the apples have dark spots covering them. I quickly learned, however, that this is a surface fungus. I washed and rubbed a few of them clean, and took a bite - they are wonderfully tart and a little sweet. I'm not certain, but I think they are Honeycrisp.

And speaking of 'crisp,' that's just what I made tonight, from apples picked fresh from the yard. Funny how the day led me to some really good apple crisp (recipe below) - and plenty of apples left over to make butter!

Easy Apple Crisp:

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup rolled or quick oats
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 cups of apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease 8 inch square baking pan. In a large bowl, combine brown sugar, oats, flour and butter.. Mix until crumbly. Place half of the crumb mixture in the pan and spread evenly around the bottom. Spread the apples evenly over the crumb mixture. Sprinkle apples with sugar and cinnamon, then top with remaining crumb mixture. Bake in the pre-heated oven about 45 minutes or til golden brown.

More soon!

Speedset: my covert table-setting operation

Let me start out by stating that my husband doesn't care what kind of dishes we have. If it were left up to him, since we have three people in our family we would have three dinner plates, three forks, three spoons, etc. (Nevermind that he has 14 sets of sockets and wrenches out in his garage - when it comes to dishes, he doesn't get it.)

So for me to spend any time fussing with setting the table would surely be considered by him to be... well, he might not come out and call it a "waste of time," but that's only because he's learned a thing or two in 19 years of marriage. I can guarantee you, he wouldn't even begin to understand my desire to participate in Tablescape Thursday over at Susan's wonderful blog, "Between Naps on the Porch." (Although, perhaps if there were a "Metric Wrench Wednesday" he would spend some time arranging his box-ends attractively on a fender or something...)

But, I out-foxed him again... I waited til the day of his doctors' appointment, and I spent my "alone time" not reading, not napping, not soaking in a bubble bath, but setting the table. Ha - take that, Mr. Three-Forks!

Anyway, because I only had about an hour to clear the table of its day-to-day crap, set it nicely, and then tear it all down again and re-set it to its original disheveled state, I'm calling my first-ever Tablescape Thursday submission "Speedset." It doesn't really have a theme (except perhaps for the soft rose and sage "botanical" colors), and it doesn't have a lot of accessories. (I WISH I could create something as beautiful as the bee-and-sunflower theme table at Stone Gable - I'm afraid hubby would have to go on a week-long vacation for me to have time to create something as lovingly detailed as that!) But it did give me the chance to see how a few of my mish-mash pieces would look together if I did decide to get fancy. (And by "get fancy" I mean "use a tablecloth.")

I'm so delighted to take you on a tour around the table!

Each place setting includes a dinner plate, pasta bowl, dessert plate and bread plate. More on those in a moment. First, though, I'm loathe to admit that I am woefully lacking in the cloth napkin department (horrors!). I thought about using paper, but then remembered these monogrammed vintage pieces I'd received from my great-aunt Hazel many years ago. I don't think they are napkins... they might be tea towels, or even very sturdy hankies. I have no idea whose initials are on them... oh, and I only have two: Peach...

...and blue.

So, since there are three of us, I used one of "Auntie Hazel's" own monogrammed hankies for the third place setting. Not really up to the task of an actual napkin, but okay as a stand-in for the photo shoot.

Here's a close-up of the peach napkin and its monogram, along with my Goodwill-find napkin rings (painted ivory by yours truly).

Remove the napkin and we have a pretty white pasta bowl - another Goodwill find, this one unmarked but with a very pretty scrolled edge.

Below that, a truly fab Ebay score: Homer Laughlin Glenwood dinner plates, which I had to have after seeing Susan's "100th Tablescape Thursday" post a few weeks ago. (Lord forgive my covetousness - these are even more beautiful in person!)

To your left are the bread and dessert plates. The bread plates complement the Glenwood, are another Goodwill find, but alas are unmarked.

The dessert plates are simple and lovely: bright white, with a gold rim. I found them at Pier 1 about 15 years ago.

To your right sits the drinkware. Each place has an Early American Pattern Glass (EAPG) goblet from my paternal grandmother Helen's collection, and a vintage tumbler from my maternal grandmother Verdie. My photo of the tumbler didn't show the pattern very well, so I photographed it against a less busy background.

Flatware is a set of high-quality stainless I received from Auntie Hazel - these are Oneida Community Stainless in the "Chandelier" pattern. I love them and use them daily. (Also photographed against a plain background to show the pattern.)

Serving pieces include two soft green plates from Goodwill, marked "Crown Devon, Fielding's, Florentine Green, Staffordshire England."

And a Haeger pottery bowl, again from Grandma Helen.

For a centerpiece, I used my frosted pink Diamond Point vase (Indiana Glass - Ebay) filled with muted-tone silk florals from Goodwill, flanked by my Goodwill purple glass candlesticks that have been added to the Lavender Shelf.

Here's a more-visible shot of the candlesticks...

... and another look at the finished "speedset" table!

I hope to do more tablescaping soon, and I hope I won't have to be covert about it in the future - I've started using placemats at dinner time, and so far no one seems to notice mind. I should be able to sneak in some fine china and my lace tablecloth real soon!

Cheers!



PS - It should go without saying that I'm linking this post to Tablescape Thursday. Be sure to visit there for literally hundreds of beautiful table-setting ideas!

My blogging space

Make no mistake, I've been known to blog from the recliner, but by far I'm most productive in the tiny third bedroom of our home which I commandeered as my office/dressing room the day we moved in. This summer I did a makeover on the contemporary glass top desk I'd been using, and have done some furniture re-arranging in here as well. So far, it's working out great!

First, here's the corner of the room with the desk in it. By moving the desk here, I was able to make room for the barrister bookcase in the other corner.*

And here's the other corner... that's the wireless printer on the washstand, and the barrister bookcase in the corner.

And finally, a few of the treasures on my desktop that inspire me and are useful, including my fave floral folders from Dollar Tree :)

*The barrister bookcase is worth noting because I was needing a place to stash some dishes... I've been wanting to buy more, hubby thinks I don't need them and have no place to put them even if I bought them. So I said, we have this bookcase coming over from the storage unit - if I can make room for it in the office, that's where I'll store any new dishes. If I can't make room, I'll sell it and skip the dishes. In a weak moment, he said that sounded like a good idea. So I made SURE to make room for it :) (Ah, victory!)

More soon!

How to make Sablé (butter cookies)

Awhile back I was enjoying a tin of plain old "butter cookies" and wondered if they were easy to make. I did a little searching, and quickly came up with a recipe for sablé.

Sablé is a very basic recipe that can be amended in innumerable ways, but at its core it's essentially a butter cookie with a very crumbly, "sandy" texture. (The word "sandy" in cookies refers to the degree to which they crumble in your mouth - if you do sablé right, when you press one against the roof of your mouth, it practically dissolves in fine-crumbed perfection.)

The recipe I have is based on proportion rather than measurement. For simplicity's sake, I've decided that "one part" equals a half-cup. So, "two parts butter" is one cup of butter, "one part sugar" is a half-cup of sugar, and "four parts flour" is two cups of flour. This makes it easy to halve the recipe for a smaller batch: half-cup butter, quarter-cup sugar, 1 cup flour. For salt, a pinch is still a pinch. (And I always seem to forget the salt!)

Having made this recipe several times, I've been wanting to try some variations. Certainly you could mix in some cinnamon or nuts, but "dipped in chocolate" always seemed like a good idea too. And something lemony. So today I made a small test-batch, divided it into thirds, and then experimented with the lemon and chocolate variations.

For the lemon cookies, I added a couple teaspoons of lemon zest to one third of the dough and then made up a small batch of lemon cream-cheese frosting (recipe here - I quartered this recipe and still had some left over). Once my cookies were baked and cooled, I simply frosted them and let the frosting firm up a little.

For the chocolate version, I made up some "sort-of ganache" (recipe here - I quartered this recipe as well, but again only because I was making a test-batch). I spread some like frosting, and also tried drizzling it over some of the cookies. It does firm up, making a glossy chocolate coating.

Both of these - and also the plain sablé - are superbly wonderful. They would be lovely accompaniments with lemonade, coffee or tea.

Here are the plain sablé cookies, along with a couple peanut butter cookies just for my hubby:

Next we have the lemon-frosted - I also put lemon zest in the cookie dough. These were my favorites!

And finally, the "sort-of ganache"-covered Sablé - the ones that I merely frosted with the ganache were very good; the coated ones were a bit over-powered by the ganache. Probably chocolate "almond bark" would work as well for a milk-chocolate coating.

Sablé (Butter Cookies)

2 parts butter
1 part sugar
4 parts flour
Pinch salt

Combine butter, sugar, and pinch of salt in large bowl; add flour a little at a time, blending completely. When well-blended, form dough into a log about 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F. Remove chilled dough and cut into slices about 1/8 inch thick. Arrange on cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes, watching carefully for signs of over-browning. Remove to cooling rack.
More soon!



Use what you have: Beach Vignette

I noticed that Cindy over at My Romantic Home is giving away her beautiful hand-made seashell wreath (which of course I entered to win - you should too!) and I got to thinking about some shells I have had ever since I was a kid... yes, I've carted them around with me, rescued them from my parents' house and TWO floods, for about 40 years.

I wondered how I could use them and as I wandered around the house, looking for a container that would be fittingly beachy, I found this gathering dust:

This was my prize in the white elephant gift exchange at work last Christmas. I actually really like the shape and the candle, though I've never been too crazy about the potpourri. Perfect!

I had to ask my husband where the shells were - I knew only that we'd probably brought them to the new house after the most recent flood (2008), but he seemed to know exactly where they were and produced them immediately.

After a thorough cleaning of all the shells, the container, the scrolly rack (I could paint it white!) and the candle, I loaded it up and produced this:

Which looks great sitting on our glass coffee table, next to our postcard of the Caribbean and the large conch shell we got in St. Thomas many years ago:

I think it makes a very happy little beach scene!

More soon!

Use what you have: stationery box

My little home office/dressing room has presented some very good opportunities to begin displaying some of the treasures I have saved from my grandmother's and parents' estates, as well as a few things I've kept of my own over the years.

So these days, when I find that I'm in need of a particular type of container, I try to think first about whether I have something vintage that might work. (If I don't, then I'm simply forced to pay another visit to my favorite round of thrift stores - ah well!)

This week I was looking for a way to keep my new dollar-store notecards corraled on my desktop, along with a pen and stamps, to make using the notecards less of a hassle.

A little digging through my treasure trove of family items turned up Grandma's vintage cedar jewelery box, which works perfectly for this purpose - it's just the right size to hold all my supplies, and of course it smells wonderful!

A few of the extras in the top photo include: a picture of hubby, and the pencil cup he recently made for me on his lathe - he is teaching himself wood-turning, and is creating some really lovely-looking pieces. And, the 3D teacup wall pocket hanging above - it's filled with one of Great-Grandma's hand-crocheted doilies.

More soon!