Kitchen Pantry Overhaul

We successfully tackled the garage back in May (Garage Overhaul), and now it's time for our kitchen pantry.  I knew right off the bat we'd be taking out the old shelving and replacing it - that was the easy part.  Then I started to think about actual storage containers and different ways to make it easy to find things and to know when items need to be replenished.  I found these jars  at Ikea and use them for baking items like flour and sugar.  These OXO Pop Containers will be used for non-baking items.  I think we will stick with only two different types of containers for now.  I needed to label baking jar contents, so I decided to use Chalkboard Contact Paper.  I used the Mat Stack 4 die from Papertrey Ink and ran them through my Cuttlebug.  I looked at different Cricut cartridges for a pretty label, but the one from Papertrey is my favorite, and honestly it was just easier to use my Cuttlebug!  I love the way they turned out.   Next it's on to the work of the actual closet!

Our builder installed very basic wire shelving everywhere in our house - all the bedroom closets, linen closets, laundry room and in our pantry.  I don't like this shelving because items fall through the wires and just looks plain.  When we first started redoing all the bedroom closets we found a great custom closet company online,  Easy Closets.  Their name suits them!!!!  The first closet we did was our master bedroom closet which measures 7 feet by 13 feet.  We designed it to include drawers, shelves, and double hanging.  We maximized the space and it has really worked out well for us.  We also installed a double hanging with shelves in one of the spare bedrooms.  So when it came time to do our oddly shaped kitchen pantry, we knew we'd go right back to Easy Closets!  First, let me tell you we ordered on a Sunday and the shipment was at our door on Tuesday.  That's something to be prepared for.  The pantry closet came in 7 boxes and shipping is free.  Have I mentioned how much I love free shipping?

Summer Cocktail Party

I thought I'd share some details and a few recipes from the cocktail party we hosted for our friends a few days ago.  The actual gathering was on July 5th but I still stayed with the patriotic theme.

We served assorted sandwich wraps, California rolls and sushi, tomato pie, artichoke and spinach dip, macaroni salad, vegetables and dip, shrimp cocktail, and mini soft pretzels.  For dessert we offered brownie bites and mini pies served in half pint Ball jars.

The mini pies were a huge hit, some people even took them home.  The recipes below can make about 12 pies each.  I found a few recipes online for the mini pies and sort of combined them all together.  For the crust I used  Pillsbury prepared crust versus making my own.

Cherry Pies in a Jar
filling:
14 oz. can tart cherries, with juice
1/2 cup sugar
2 T. cornstarch
1/8 t. almond extract
2-3 drops red food coloring

1. Place cherries (and juice) into a small saucepan. Stir in the sugar and cornstarch. 
2. Bring to boil over medium high heat, continuously stirring. (The sauce will be thickened after about 8 minutes.) Turn off heat and add almond extract and food coloring. Stir well. 
3. Place hot filling into a medium size bowl and let cool.

Blueberry Pies in a Jar
filling:
3 cups blueberries
zest of 1 lemon 
2 T. lemon juice 
1/4 cup sugar
big pinch salt 
1 T. ground instant tapioca (I used Kraft instant) 

1. In a medium saucepan, heat 1-1/2 cups blueberries, zest and juice over medium-high heat. Stir frequently, and allow the sauce to reduce a bit, until it coats the back of a spoon. Cook for about 10 minutes. 
2. Remove from heat and combine in a medium bowl with the fresh berries, sugar, salt, and tapioca. 
3. Set aside while you prepare the jars.

Assembly for both recipes:

Cut a circle out of the dough for the bottom of the jar.  I used the inside of the jar top ring as a guide.  Cut strips of dough as tall as the jar and work from the bottom of the jar up and wrap the dough inside the jar.  Fill each jar about 1/4 of the way with filling.  Use the tops of the jar rings as a cutter for the top of the pie.  Cut a few slices in the top of the dough disc to allow steam to escape.  Crimp the top dough to the side of the jar.  Sprinkle with sugar.   Place jars on a cookie sheet.  Bake at 400 F for 20 minutes.  Turn oven down to 350 F and turn cookie sheet.  Bake for another 10 minutes (until crust is lightly browned)

A few tips:  I found that buttering the jars helped the dough not stick to the sides when eating.  Working with the dough at its coldest makes a flakier crust.  I worked in batches of 6 jars, any more would have taken too much time and let the dough get warm.  I also cut a few mini stars from the remaining dough with a cookie cutter and placed them on top of each jar prior to baking.

Here is a good picture of the pre-party controlled chaos!  I learned a little party organizing trick from one of my favorite aunts who is a pro at throwing huge, well planned parties.  She is just amazing to watch and I try to learn from her each time!  We start with a menu and then create post-it notes for each menu item.   Then we place the notes onto each serving piece to help us (and you know that person who always asks "what can I do to help?") right before the party when running the final checklist through our heads.  This makes certain we have all the menu items covered and that there is a serving dish for each item!  I do it for every holiday and event we host!

Another good recipe I found was Rachael Ray's White Sangria.  We basically multiplied the recipe by 8!  It was well received by our white wine drinkers.  We transformed the dining room into the beverage area, and had all of the food placed in the kitchen.   This virtually assured that people would make it into the dining room!

Searching through Pinterest (by the way, find me here on Pinterest) I found the idea to serve 'Drunken Gummy Bears".  Who knew!  I found red, white and blue gummy bears on Amazon.  I divided the bears into different containers and covered them with vodka for 5 days.  Each day I gave them a check to see if they were covered completely.  The day of the party I used a slotted spoon and put one gummy into an individual plastic shot glass.  Believe it or not, these were a huge hit.  Personally I did not try one....not a shot type of person, but they sure were cute and they had people talking about how large they became by soaking!

Fourth of July Wine Charms

We are getting ready to host a cocktail party for our friends who moved to Chicago last summer.  They are passing through our area for a few days over the Fourth of July holiday.  I've mentioned these friends before - these two are our 'travel buddies'.  The four of us go to Disney World at least once a year together (one year we went three times!) and about every other year we plan a non-Disney adventure.  We've hit New York, Dublin, Rome, Venice, Florence and Hawaii together.  My DH and I have traveled places with other couples and sometimes it works and other times not so much.  It's great when you find travel companions and it just clicks.  Since our friends moved most of our mutual friends haven't seen them since they left, so it's time for a get together for sure!

I'll be sticking to a red, white and blue theme for the gathering.  I pretty much use these colors the entire summer when entertaining.  I keep my "Fourth of July" decorations up from Memorial Day (at the end of May) until Labor Day (beginning of September).

Now on to the wine charms.......
I used the same techniques I used in my St Patrick's Day Wine Charm.
I again used shrink film and a trusty Cricut cartridge.  I found my images on the Stand and Salute cartridge.
I cut the dog tag images at 3.25 inches and the Liberty Bells at 3 inches.  Then I colored them with a marker, punch a hole in the top and baked them in my oven.  After they came out of the oven I coated them with glossy accents to make them, wellllll...... glossy.  The dog tags gave me two shapes: the actual tag and the cut out from the center.  I used those extras as accents on other charms.

The last time I did wine charms I posted a picture of the tea cart in our foyer, so I thought I'd do the same again.

The apothecary jar on the left contains a few altered ornament balls which I coated the inside with glitter; the middle jar contains some red, white and blue wire garland; and the right some coconut creme Hershey Kisses.

I'll post about other items for the party after it's over (I can't make everything weeks in advance).

Fourth of July Themed Candle Holders

Nice weather and spending evenings out on our deck are finally here!  Two years ago we had a large deck built onto the back of our house.  Since the weather has warmed up and the days are getting longer, we enjoy spending a hour or two after dinner out back on our new area, listening to music and just spending time together after work.  

One thing we do not enjoy are the bugs!  I found the Conceal candles from Yankee Candle work well.  These candles do not have a typical citronella smell to them, are DEET free and at the end of last year they were on sale for buy one get one free - so I stocked up!

I have found that whenever I use tea light candles outside in a regular tea light holder, they tend to blow out from even a light breeze.  I decided to see if I can create a fun little holder using rice and pint size Ball jars.  

I purchased a 10 pound bag of rice (way more than I'll ever need), a case of Ball pint jars, red and blue food coloring, and used the Conceal candles already in my stash.  I worked in batches of two cups of rice each time.  That filled about 4 jars (two cups of blue, two cups of red and a little less than one and one half cups of plain white).  It took a lot of food coloring to get the colors the way I liked them - about 40-50 drops for each.  After I mixed the colors I filled each jar about a third of the way with each color.  I did a mixture of color arrangements, some started with the red rice, some started with the blue.  

I do have a few dozen boxes of the Conceal votive size candles.  I decided to use them as well for this project.  I placed the votive in a clear glass votive cup first and filled the pint jar with as much rice as was needed for the height of the votive to match the height of the jar.  I don't think using the votive is very practical, since it will be difficult to replace the candle without mixing all the rice.  I think for this project the tea light size candle is the way to go for easy changing of the candle.  We plan to use these for the rest of the summer season.  I've already made about ten of these and have given a few away!  

Here is a little view of where my DH and I spend our evenings together outside.  

Garage Overhaul (non-crafty)

The past month has been very busy for my DH and I.  We made our springtime journey to Disney World to celebrate Cinco De Mayo.  Ole!  We had a blast.  The weather was HOT, just the way we love it.  Our travel buddies decided to meet us there at the last minute, so that made this trip extra nice.

When we came home we decided to do a little DIY project on our garage.  I don't think we expected this project to be as big as it turned out (or for my muscles to hurt days after as they did), but I think our end result is pretty spectacular, if I do say so myself.

Our garage is a standard two car garage with a small storage area off to the side.  It's about 495 square feet total.  I know the square footage because I've measured, remeasured and checked it again when we ordered the tiles for the floor.  I didn't want to come up short and didn't want to waste money ordering way too much.  We placed the order for the interlocking PVC tile back in March when the company was offering free shipping.  The two little words I just love to hear is "free shipping", especially when it comes to ordering 30+ boxes of tile.  Little did we realize until the freight company called to set up the delivery time that we would be responsible for unloading the 915 pound shipment from the truck!!  After going back and forth with the delivery company to set up a date when my DH would actually be in town and I could take off from work to do said unloading, our tile arrived.  It actually arrived the same day our painters came out to paint the garage.  If there is one thing we have learned in the past is that we dislike painting very much.  It doesn't matter the room size or if the room is completely empty we just don't like it!  Hence, we are not very good at it.  We've been very lucky to find a painting team who are great at what they do, nice to deal with, clean, and pretty reasonably priced.  Sold!  We (they) painted the walls with Benjamin Moore Silver Dollar.  They were done in no time! 

The following week we were off to Disney World....so our new tiles sat.  After we returned, we got right to it.  First we emptied and vacuumed the garage.  Next we found the garage center by measuring and snapping a chalk line.  We started the tile in the center of the garage.  (Prior to ordering, I did a drawing on Visio to plan out our design.  This also helped with ordering the correct amount of tile)  We used a rubber mallet to tap the tiles into place.  The 'field' section went pretty fast.  Our design is a checkerboard pattern with a border of black tile all around the room, and the border area took much more time.  Each tile needed to be measured and cut so all areas would be equal.  We didn't want to have a full tile on one side and half a tile on the other.  If the design was just all one color, the project would have gone a lot faster, but I am very happy with what we decided on.

For a storage system, we decided to go with  Gladiator Garage Works.  This will be a work in progress for a few months.  We decided that we need to live with it for a little bit before going out and purchasing everything at once.  This system is good for growing in stages because once you hang the tracks, you can easily move and add things as you need to.  When we purchased the first set of cabinets, Lowes was having a sale - buy a tall Gearbox get a wall cabinet for free!  We may wait to see if that sale comes back around!

The windows are also a work in progress; I'm not sure what to do with the treatments.  Prior to the make over, I had black window panels hanging.  My DH didn't like them because they blew around whenever the doors were open.  I'd still like to stick with black for the color.  Currently we have those black Redi Shade paper shades for privacy.

Jewelry For My KitchenAid

I came across this great DIY Blog "The House Of Smiths" about a month ago and discovered they sell all kinds of die cut vinyl at their online store.  Yes, I have a Cricut and could probably do this myself, but it was only $12 with the design already there and sized out perfectly for my mixer.  Lazy?  Maybe, but it just seemed too easy!

It was super simple to apply--I cleaned off my mixer so there wasn't any dirt or dust.  Then I figured out where the design would fit best on the mixer.  I placed a small piece of masking tape along the bottom of the image and the mixer to create a hinge point and keep the design in place prior to applying.  I flipped the side of the image that wasn't taped over and peeled away the backing paper.  The masking tape definitely helped keep the image in the same spot.  I placed the vinyl (with the transfer tape still on) on the mixer and used a credit card to rub over the image.  I peeled the transfer paper off and the vinyl was left on the mixer.  I smoothed everything out with my hands and voila!  Since the mixer is not that big of an area, it went very quickly.  CUTE!  I love the way the silver metallic looks with the gloss cinnamon mixer! 


I've done vinyl transfers in two other places of our home, including our foyer above the door and in our laundry room above the door which leads to the garage.  Never thought of adding to my mixer and I just love it!

Hippity, hoppity, Easter's on its way!

We have started our Easter Dinner planning!  We are hosting about 10 people this year.  We still are not 100% sure of our menu, but we are getting there.  I feel like I serve the same old side dishes each time we host.  Although everyone seems just fine with the same 'ol, same 'ol, I wanted to see if I could come up with a few new additions.  I found a Sweet Potato Souffle by Paula Dean.  Boy am I glad we did a test run before our dinner!!!  After reading the comments from people who have tried the recipe, I cut the amount of sugar I used in half.  Boy, was it ever SWEET, even with the reduced sugar.  My DH and I agreed that it was almost considered a dessert versus a side dish.  Back to the drawing board!  We'll figure it out.  I just want to change it up, but at the same time want it to be yummy!!!

I started making the Easter "Baskets" and place cards for the table.  The place cards were made with everything PTI.  I used New Leaf card stock for the base of the place cards and Rustic Cream for the name plates.  I used the stamp set Scrambled Eggs for the images.  I changed the "baskets" up a little this year.  Instead of the Easter 'basket' tins I did last year, I decided to use clear six inch paint cans.  I ran to Michael's every night this week with my 40% off coupon in hand and purchased one at a time.  It was worth it!  I cut the animals from the Create A Critter cartridge, the circles for the tops from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, and the initials for the tops from the Art Philosophy cartridge.  I love the way the top of the cans all together really do look like paint colors!!!  Since I had more room in the paint cans than the tea tins, I put some pez dispensers in there too to add height.  FUN!  I've decided to do something special for our Moms - I purchased two Longaberger Peeps Baskets and filled them with candy.  I think they will love them.  My mom is a Peep lover for sure, so I know she'll get a kick of it!