Catching Up.

WOW!!! It has been a long time since I blogged. Holidays! It all seems to come at you all at once. I have finally caught up with the decorating, shopping and the wrapping of the gifts. Now, I want to catch up on the laundry, etc around the house. It seems like there is one thing after another around here and work has gotten to be crazy. I wanted to post something since I haven't posted in so long so I will tell you about my 5th anniversary present.

The 5th anniversary present is wood and we try to stick to the traditional gifts. I guess it makes it a little easier. Our anniversary was back in August and things have been too hectic to get myself together to tell you about our gifts.

My gift to my husband was this :


This is Piet Mondrian's Red Tree. I bought a print on canvas and it is very nice. However, since it is not framed or stretched yet, it is not on the wall as of yet. Any opinions if a canvas has to be stretched? I don't think that it does but my husband thinks so. It is his gift and I should see if I can get that done so we could both enjoy it.


My gift from my husband was this:


This is a wood shelf that he made for me to display my pottery. It is so cool because it comes apart in sections. When we were exchanging gifts, we were up at a cabin in the western part of Virginia. He only had a coat of stain on the shelves at that time but no polyurethane. I recently asked him if he could hang the shelf for me and he reminded me that he needed to finish the shelf. I felt really bad because we were super duper busy at the time getting the house clean for guests. However, he put those things aside for a while so he could finish it up and get it on the wall. It is located in the large hallway upstairs. It really turned out great! I had such a hard time picking out what I wanted to display. Also, I had troubles because the really good looking pottery is being given as gifts this year....

Fun and Affordable Artwork for Our Home

Artwork for your home can be from a variety of sources and it doesn't have to be expensive. (such as this) We had tons of posters, pictures, prints, etc from the college and apartment renting days. However, we didn't really have much for a "formal" living room.

When we purchased this house, we were not rich and we still are not rich. Therefore, we kind of decided to go with the flow. We had more patience to find the right thing to fit our budget rather than just going out and spending a lot of money. Also, in the end, I think we had more fun finding these pieces. Certainly, the stories are better!

This first is a print of Roy Lichtenstein's Ball of Twine. We paid $12 for the print on ebay. The ornate frame came from this yard sale. It was damaged and falling apart and needed some work. We paid $5 for the frame and Jeff spent maybe 20 minutes getting put back together. It cracks us up to look at this Lichtenstein print (who is known as this American Pop Art Artist) in this really frilly frame.



This framed print came from Kohl's. Yes, they have art too. This print is an x-ray of a flower (by Steven Meyer) and I fell in love with it. It was normally $80 and I spent $40 on it due to a Kohl's 50% off sale of framed prints. By the way, I am still trying to figure out what flower this is. I cannot find an example in any of Meyer's work as of yet.



This painting from an unknown artist named Clark came from an antique store here in town. We paid $125 for the huge painting. It might be too large for this actual space (see it barely fits in between the crown molding and the mantle) but trying it out in other spaces did not do it justice. It is a focal point of the room. It colors look as if it is from the 70's but it fits well with our color scheme. I love the huge pop of flowers. It is what I think of this living room- you turn the corner and pop! you are hit with our version of a mid-century modern room. Like the Lichtenstein, this painting makes me smile. Also, see the black and green glass hedgehog beside the painting? $4 at a yard sale. Still smiling...



More to come....

The Scrap Toolbelt

My nephew loves tools because it is being like daddy or Papa or even Handy Manny. HAHA He is three years old. So, for Christmas, I thought why not get some of those plastic tools and make him a tool belt?

I almost went to the fabric store with coupons in hand to buy some denim and some green corduroy but I stopped myself. I waited and stewed over it because I really wanted to get this project out of the way. Finally, we were able to get to some yard sales and the first one I found a LONG green corduroy skirt and a pair of jeans for 50 cents each.

I cut a long rectangle from the denim jeans and put a green corduroy border around the belt and also attached the top for the waist strap. Then, I cut out the jean pockets and glued them in place with fabric glue. I cut out a denim belt loop and glued that in place for a hammer and also included another pocket from the skirt and glued that in place.

One of these days, I will take step by step pics! This is a simple cheap project and it turned out so cute! er, I mean, manly! In addition, the skirt was so long that I had a lot of fabric left over for a skirt for myself!

What to do with leftovers continued....

I am getting hungry just thinking of this post. BEWARE- you might too!

Rotisserie Chicken.

Do I have your attention? I thought so.

It is a working girl's dream come true. What can you do with an already cooked chicken? Better yet, what can you not do with an already cooked chicken?

Soup, fajitas, Fettuccine Alfredo, salad, pasta salad!!

Plus, if you use some of the chicken and then have some leftover, bag it up and put it in the freezer for another day. There are just some days that I need a mindless meal for dinner or I will just stare in the cupboards and wonder what can I do with wheat thins and rice?

A Long Time Coming...

This past weekend, we spent it exploring Washington DC with family. We had a great time walking to the monuments, seeing a concert, and going to museums. It is definitely up there on my list for best vacations. Funny, huh? 2 hours away from us and stayed with family but we didn't drive a car for 3 days and we had great fun learning the metro and bus maps on the new android phone that my husband got....






Going home to Richmond, we decided to stop at IKEA. I was tired but I said alright because how can we go to DC but not stop at IKEA? It is like a my family's tradition!!

Well, I am glad that we stopped because we hammered out what we want the den to look like. We have been in our house for 2 years and haven't done a thing to it. It is in the basement and it has been a catch all for the mismatched furniture of apartments past. This is what the room looked like before we purchased the house:


Funky huh? No, that is not our furniture. Yeah, the green carpet is still there.... I won't give away any ideas away except this to brighten up the room. This makes me so happy because this long room with short curtains reminds me of a trailer...

This room redesign will probably take some time since the holidays are coming up and we have to find the "right" furniture out there for our vision. I am really excited to have these decisions discussed and made. We have such a good time discussing our style and what we have done so far. This room has taken us a long time to figure out but I knew that it would come to us!

Just when you thought that I couldn't get any cheaper....

I looked at this lint remover brush for a week on my bathroom sink. The fabric had come off making it unusable. What are they like $5-6 in the stores? Well, after a week of forgetting to find one, I thought to myself "You can fix that. Don't waste your money!"

So, for 5 minutes of my time (mostly to heat up the glue gun), some hot glue, and my hemmer was all that was needed. I applied the hot glue along the edges and I used my hemmer to stuff the fabric back down in the brush. I was proud to keep something from going into the trash and it works like new. That is all that matters, right? Plus, I saved $5. It may not be a diamond but it adds up over time.

Good thing too because it can get kind of hairy having 3 cats in the house!

DIY Wall Art

If you want some art for your house and you have an idea, why not try painting it yourself? If you are no artist, do you have a friend that paints?

I told my husband that I wanted a huge Chrysanthemum for our bedroom. I looked at prices of prints that were 20 x 24 and couldn't believe my eyes. Over $150 for a print and I wasn't in love with the picture which means that I would be wasting my money.

We looked at pictures of chrysanthemums online to get an idea of what we were looking for. Then, like most projects, something else came up and I completely forgot this idea until Jeff gave me this for our 4th anniversary present:




I do have on hand an amazing, talented, artistic husband but I encourage you to go out there and try painting something for your walls.

By the way, looking at this can you guess that he made and stretched the canvas himself with stuff we had lying around the basement? That ultra-resourceful husband of mine!

It is so beautiful and so priceless to me!

What to do with Leftovers...

I used to despise leftovers!! I hated that the reheated stuff was just the same thing the night before with the exception if it was spaghetti. I could eat that 24/7. Leftovers can be so boring!!

So, moving into this house has made me more thrifty, as if I could get anymore thrifty-er... I love leftovers now! Why?? Because usually I try to figure out a way to recreate them into something else that is "new to me". For instance, using leftover taco meat and spanish rice to make stuffed peppers (found here).

I have recently was thinking of writing a book for this very concept but found out some have already beat me to the punch. Anyways, just making it a game keeps things interesting. Such as last night, I re-used brown rice and put it into a pan of red beans, rice, and polish sausage. I also have some potato soup in the fridge. What could I do with that? It could be a base for chicken/turkey pot pie, a dip, or put into another soup...

A Floor is Like An Onion

A floor is like an onion because it is made up of layers. The floor beams, the sub floor, the real floor, etc. etc. When we moved into our house, we always knew that the kitchen floor had a few extra layers because you have to step up slightly when walking into the room.

Recently, Jeff decided to pull up the top layer of linoleum. Underneath that? Plywood... Underneath that? Linoleum. It is this wonderful pattern that I absolutely love!

Side note- when we bought this house we decided we wanted to keep it in the same time frame that it was built. It was built in 1962... However if you have seen previous posts we tend to lean towards the 1950's.

I wanted this cool vintage pattern of linoleum. The previous linoleum was dark and terrible! They covered up that cool pattern for this:
Cool 50's vintage Linoleum (Left) under the current blah linoleum (Right)



So the condition of the cool vintage pattern linoleum is not good. The pic I showed is pretty good but a lot of it has waxy buildup in the pattern creases and also it has holes from staples and some large cuts from getting the plywood removed from the floor... I had an idea of fixing the linoleum floor. So, I got to researching and found that Amazon sold a linoleum repair kit for $6 and thought it was worth a shot.

Turns out it is a lot harder than it sounds to repair linoleum.
Here is what I did:
First, cut out any discoloration, burnt, etc spots from linoleum.
Then, you put on this adhesive/floor leveler goo, let dry and add your tinted linoleum goo.
Let that dry. Put a piece of provided pattern paper over the semi-dried goo and heat up provided curing tool with the iron.
Place the curing tool on top of the paper and move in a circular pattern to harden the goo into your linoleum repair. If you remove the paper and the goo comes off, you start over and heat it longer.
I wish I had pics to show you!

Eventually, after the 5th try, I put the iron on top of a towel and "ironed on" the repair. The repair finally cured into a harden piece with the linoleum but unfortunately, it looks weird because my tinting skills were not up to par.

It would take me years to repair this floor but I can say that it was worth trying to save the floor for the $6 invested. However, I am looking for a new floor. Sigh. Maybe I should pull up this floor to see what it underneath that! Just kidding...

And the Green Goes On

In our living room, we have this terracotta tile as the hearth. It would not be so bad but it is terracotta pieces of tile. Why? On? Earth?

We knew that we wanted to change the tile to something more modern. We shopped and shopped for tile and both really kept coming back to this green glass tile at Home Depot: It is Daltile's Mint Jubilee. So pretty. So clean.



So what was holding us back?
1. Well, we didn't know how glass tile would hold up in front of the fireplace. Currently we don't use the upstairs fireplace because we don't want it smokey smelling but we are wanting to install gas logs... After much thought, the glass tile is super thick (5/16 inch thick) and it was worth a try.
2. It was also expensive for us. I qualified this purchase by asking my husband to purchase it and install it for me for Christmas. I know, I know, I am a silly, silly girl. We also had a very limited supply and had to shop more than one home depot to get all of the needed tiles to do this project. In the end, I think the tile was $90. Not bad.
3. There was already so much green in the living room- from the walls, carpet, chair and they were not the same color green. Our solution to be discussed later.




Some afterthoughts to this installation is that we were very happy that the concrete underneath the terracotta tile was present so the tile had a stable base. There was a lot of prep work and sanding that my husband did to get that all smoothed out before starting! Surprisingly, there is a small crack in one of the glass tiles. From expansion? I don't know. I would think that the concrete that is underneath that would keep that from happening. Maybe, it was already there before installing but I doubt it.

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!