My niece's birthday

Today is my neice's 9th birthday. It is a special day that I hold close to my heart. The sweet girl came into this world in Norfolk, VA when I was in my 2nd year of graduate school. My brother and sister-in-law were nearby in Norfolk while I was in Richmond. I remember it like it was yesterday. It seems like it was yesterday.

In honor of her day, I am featuring a present that I have been working on for her- a sweater bag. The sweater came from a sweater that was in the goodwill pile in the attic. The orange corduroy lining came from the thrift shop and the orange and white print came from Joann's. I used my new rotary cutter and a coloring page that I print from the internet to get the horse pattern. The horse was then zigzagged onto the sweater. The long strap is meant to be hung past the waist so the bag can be used for books, clothes, etc. I also made a change purse or makeup bag to go along with the sweater bag. eeeek! Makeup! Time flies.

Things I would have done differently now that I have the experience:
-Put some interfacing behind the sweater to make it more stiffer
-put a zipper inside the purse
-check the pattern that I cut out well before zigzagging (I noticed a few cuts in the fabric AFTER attaching to the purse)


She has been taking horseback riding lessons so I hope that she likes it. If you see her, don't tell her about it cause it is going to be a Christmas present. I didn't get it done in time to send to her on her birthday!

Make Some Noise!

Got our shovel doorknocker hung because we are always digging for good buys!

Building some confidence

For the past year, I have been trying my hand at indian cooking. I haven't been very successful. Recently, our cousins have come back from being stationed in Amman, Jordan. He showed me some of his favorite recipes that he has learned including mint chutney, naan bread, and chicken curry. They were all delicious. Getting in the kitchen with him inspired me to give indian cooking another try. I found this great recipe on Pioneer woman's recipe website- tasty kitchen.
http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/main-courses/pork-vindaloo/


It was a success! I cut back on the red pepper flakes to 1/4 tsp because 1 T. sounded crazy hot. I think I will make it a little hotter next time but still probably not 1 Tablespoon. Trying this recipe gave me the confidence to try more. So, chana masala-- I will try you again someday soon!!

I have found that once you have the spices all prepared and stored, indian cooking is a good, quick meal. Also, if you are wondering where the resourceful part came in... I used leftover basmanti rice. It was still very delicious. Jeff is very meticulous when it comes to rice. It is either too sticky or soggy, etc. etc. He commented on how good the rice was... Great use of leftover rice!!

A Little Goes A Long Way

In addition to the awesome couch and chair, we purchased 6 dining room chairs in Farmville, VA for $125. The upholstery was not very pretty.
My husband and I went to JoAnn's and shopped for new fabric. We purchased some Liz Claiborne fabric in the home decor section. I know what you are thinking? Liz Claiborne fabric? Isn't that a little too expensive to be resourceful? Yeah, me too. The fabric was $25 dollars a yard and the bolts were long so we were able to get away with just one yard. Even though we spent a lot on a little bit of fabric, it was totally worth it since it goes well with the living room. I have found that when the husband and I agree totally on something, get it or we will be sorry that we didn't just buy it... It is also well worth the resources to not have to drive all over town looking for it after you missed out on it the first time!

Call Me Crazy

I just love the ReStore. Never heard of it? It is this great place where building materials can be recycled to people that want them and all the proceeds go to Habitat for Humanity. You will be hearing a lot about the ReStore. A lot of things we could not do to the house without the help of the ReStore. Find out more about the ReStore here: http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

So, Jeff and I were shopping recently at the ReStore and found a roll of turf green colored carpet. The carpet was old and obviously was pulled out of someone's house cause it was a little dusty/dirty. However, the carpet was in good shape and there was a lot of it. I asked the price and found out that it was $25.

Our idea was to make a rug. Rugs are expensive!! We had an idea of taking a piece of carpet and putting a border on it to make the rug.

When we left the ReStore, Jeff kept saying, I can't believe that we spent $25 on a used piece of carpet. I couldn't either but it was too good to pass up, I thought with a smile as we shoved it in the undersized car.

There was so much of it that we had a large area rug for the green/brown living room and a long runner for the hallway. It took me a month to find the right fabric- a brown corduroy. It probably took me another 6 months to sew up the seams and to attach it with a glue gun.

I love how it turned out though!!

I am dye-ing to change that!

Blah! When we moved into this house, I hated those mauve drapes. However, you are poor when you are a young couple, buying a house and everything falls apart during the closing leaving you to "charge" the moving truck and pizza to feed your movers!

I was ready to make new drapes and with my mother coming to visit, it could not have been a better time. I had most of the fabric and the rest was on order. The fabric store called me to tell me that the fabric had arrived after 4 long weeks. My parents had arrived as well, so we headed on down to pick it up. Much to my dismay, the fabric was not the same shade of chocolate brown and had a big flaw in it.

We were leaving with my returned monies and my mother said, "we could try dyeing the drapes that you have." I have never dyed anything other than t-shirts and I had no idea what it would do or look like. I also thought about the problem of different shades sitting on the same window panel. But, I thought, I hate those drapes so, why not? It is not like I care too much if they are destroyed from our experiment plus, we had extras from the dining room that we already removed.

So, we bought all of the Rit "dark brown" dye liquid that we could find in the city of Richmond and lots of salt and got to work boiling water and stirring drapes around in a large rubbermaid tub with a broom stick. It was a work-out. After washing, setting them out to dry, ironing and re-hemming (the hem came out), we hung them up and I could not have asked for a better color. My vision of this room is finally happening! The dark brown chocolate drapes are shiny and look oddly like leather in the right light. The drapes were dyed 2 at a time in case they came out different shades, but they didn't or at least I can't tell. I love them so much now and I am so happy that my mother suggested this! I couldn't have made prettier ones!

An Obscene Amount of Dough

Jeff and I frequently look around our living room and think, we did alright with next to nothing in our pockets. One of our most favorite pieces of furniture is this sofa and love seat set. We paid $100 for both in Farmville, Virginia.
When we first purchased it, I was set on reupholstering the set. The mustard color was ugly. However, much to my chagrin, when we placed the set in the living room, it was perfect as it was. In addition, the upholstery was in such great shape!
I have said that I wouldn't part with this sofa and chair for 15 big ones. Where are you gonna find one like it? Plus, if you did, would it be authentic or a newly made modern piece? I don't think that the cats would like us to sell it either...

My Favorite Chair

When Jeff and I celebrated our anniversary, we wanted to get an upholstered chair from EQ3 that had the "hersey kiss fabric". They didn't call it that, we did... Jeff saved his money so he could buy it for me. It was going to cost more than most cars that he purchased. When we went down to EQ3, they had discontinued the fabric and nothing else spoke to us in the store. Bummer. It was a nice thought though...

Well, I can't remember exactly when I saw this chair but it wasn't much long after that. It was on the curb down my VCU. It was covered in orange burlap. It was ugly but it had potential. I loved the lines of the chair. I drove home and told Jeff about it. He looked at me like I was crazy. He thought that once we start picking up stuff of the side of the road, then there was no stopping the hoarding... We lived in a cramped row house in the fan of 1000 sq ft or so. It already had all the furniture it needed but I wanted this chair! I convinced him to get in the car and go look at it.

He saw the chair and loved it too but still had reservations of taking it. It started to rain. He said that we better get it before it gets rained on... We loaded it up quickly and sped off before the people changed their minds.

We looked and looked for fabric. We kept coming back to this fabric which we called "the green-T fabric" because it had a bunch of T's in the print. It was a Kauffman print and we could only find 3-4 yards of it. We search and searched and finally I found 10 yards of it on ebay for $100. I jumped on it. We didn't know what we were doing so the chair (in pieces) and fabric sat around for about a year. The first Christmas at our new house, my parents came to visit. They are big into upholstery so they helped us reupholster it. It turned out great. The fabric isn't the best upholstery fabric but it worked out well.



As you can see, this is also someone else's favorite chair. ...and no, we haven't gone dumpster diving since, I think.

Starting Again

So, I haven't posted in about a year. I figured that I would try this again. I would like to start things off by giving a recipe for a yummy dinner to revamp some stuff sitting around in the fridge or freezer. Mexican Stuffed Peppers. I thought about this recipe today when someone else was posting about making stuffed peppers with meatloaf... It is a great way to get rid of some leftovers!
First:
1. Cut the tops of the green peppers and scoop out the seeds and the membranes. Place in a baking dish with peppers standing up.
2. In a bowl, mix the leftover taco meat and spanish rice.
3. Scoop the meat/rice mixture into the peppers.
4. Bake at 350 F for 45 mins and check to see if peppers are tender.
5. Add some enchilada sauce to the top of the peppers and then top with shredded cheddar cheese. Bake another 10 minutes.

You can use any color of peppers or toppings!

I have to give credit to Jeff because he came up with this looking at the leftovers in the fridge!