OOppps Cooking...

Busy day today.

Cleaned the garage, set up my craft area in the garage still the weather is starting to get nice.

Handsome Man continued with his quest of turning the garage into his man cave. Stars wars EVERYWHERE. Just not in my little 7 foot area. ;-)

So I decided that I have frozen overripe bananas that I will take out and make some banana bread for snack over the week... or as Handsome Man likes to eat it for breakfast.

Mixing, mixing, Read the ingredients twice like I always do. Read the instructions.

Ok... good.

While Baking it, I thought to myself, 'this doesn't smell right.' Why is it not turning the beautiful brown that it always turns? Why is it not puffing up?

HHMMMMmmmmm

DING! timer (microwave) goes off.

Not brown, but some weird yellow brown and odd consistency. NOT GOOD LOOKING.

Read the ingredient list again.

REALLY Cherie ( yes, call myself Cherie )... REALLY... as many times as you have made banana bread it should be ingrain. Should be in the back of your mind, like the Rigatoni!

YOU FORGOT THE BROWN SUGAR~!!!!

well there goes that batch. sigh.

Spring!

Hello darlings,

I am sooo ready for Spring. The flowers blooming, the beautiful sun shining down on my white skin. 

Time for capris, skirts and tank tops! 

Here is NC, we have an odd spring. Daffodils start blooming, a note that spring is on the way.

Then there is the rainy, windy part that makes all of the pollen flow. This is what I am not looking forward to. When everything is lime green and I am on allergy medicine just to function.

Time to break out the grill, sit on the porch enjoy the warmer weather, kids playing in the streets and neighbors yards until the street lights come on or just going to the locate pond or lake and enjoying all the sounds and sites.

It is also time to start doing projects again!

What do you have planned for Spring?

What's For Dinner?

It has been such a HECTIC work week, Handsome man and I have not even sat down to prepare one. We are working on the fly this week.

Tonight it seems I saw thinly cut steaks in the fridge defrosting. Hmmmm... looks like someone is going to be doing some marinading as soon as they get home.
My marinade consists of olive oil, salt, seasoning salt, minced garlic, ground pepper cloves, and a pinch or so of red pepper flakes. Now don't ask measurements, because i just eye ball it now that I have been doing it forever.

Now... sides? Smashed potatoes with bacon and Parmesan and brocolli floret.
Of course there will be some sauteed mushroom and onions with it ;-)

Maybe, just maybe I will post a picture of it.

Hugs, Cherie

8 wonderful years!

hello my dears,

As Handsome Man and my anniversary draws closer, 8 years together,  I wonder what to do. We have already "exchanged" gifts. He got me this!

LOVE it! Time to get all that trim work completed.

Maybe finally doing something with those builder grade mirrors in the upstairs bathrooms.

or maybe it will sit in the box until spring/summer when I can do all that sawing outside ;-)

I got Handsome Man a lovely Drexel buffet with hutch that we found at our local Re-Store.

Isn't it B.E.A.utiful?

(just noticed the spot on the picture. sorry bad lighting and it was taken at night.)

I do wish we knew when it was made. We got it for a steal!

So what else is there for us to do? Dinner? movie? Thoughts?

hugs,

Cherie

Country, Romantic and Traditional

Has anyone been to Remodelaholic? It is like the show Rehab Addict on HGTV (no sponsor here)
Just makes you want to make things, paint things, tear up things and rebuild or recreate the things in your house.
Such inspiration on this site.


Read more: http://www.remodelaholic.com/2011/02/get-your-room-designed-my-design-guide.html#ixzz1Ecc2NoqF


1. Like My Design Guide on Facebook
2. Like Remodelaholic on Facebook
3. Stumble a posting.
4. Don't forget to become a follower!!


Now everyone find your style!




hugs,


Cherie

Road Side Find!

After moving into our new house, our first house, I decided that I would love to find an old dresser to go in my bathroom to house linens and all of my hair products as the bathroom does not have a linen closet.

Riding down the road one day in the country we happen upon a house that had been emptied and stuff laying in the front yard.

This piece was ROUGH! Veneer flaking off, just coming off as soon as you touched it. Water damage to the drawer bottoms.

After painstakingly removing all the paint and repair the veneer or remove the veneer in a bunch of places. The drawer fronts needed to be filled in and reglued, but the drawers are dovetailed so that is a plus!

I can seem to find an before picture anywhere. I know I took one, but no clue where it is.

Primed and painted Valspar's Blue Silk.

LURVE the color by itself, but this piece needed more.

Dry brushed DecoArt silver metallic over the entire dresser.

Don't you just love the mess that my drop cloth is. It is actually a shower curtain, and one great thing about it is that it doesn't stick to anything!

Here she is all B.E.A.utiful and blinged with some crystal drawer pulls.

And of course this thing doesn't fit in my bathroom!

Oh well, guess it is time to find something else to work on ;-)

Hugs,

Cherie

What's for Dinner?

Monday
Spaghetti with meatballs


Tuesday
Rice and Beans with turkey sausage


Wednesday
Buttered noodles with grilled chicken


Thursday
Tomato Soup and grilled chz sandwiches


Friday
Fish sticks and mac n Chz




Now those sound like some healthy dinners. ;-)




Hugs,


Cherie

Baby Shoes

Lately I have been seeing the cutest baby clothes and wondering where all this was when I was pregnant with my children. My SIL is pregnant with her first child... A little girl!! And the girl in me wants to spoil this child with handmade clothes and blankets to be swaddled in. Too bad my sewing skills aren't that great to make clothes, but there is a learning process.

I did make my first pair of booties that I gave to a co-worker's daughter. 

I found the easiest pattern that even I could work with.

The pattern called for shoe leather or some felted sherped something or other for the bottoms, but I thought this is a BABY let's make them warm and cute, so I used MINKEE inside. Ohhh the softness.

What do you think?

Let me know if you would like the pattern, I am sure I can find it somewhere in the mess that is currently my crafting area.

P.S. Did a bit of retail therapy tonight with the Family. Got some new tools and 2 new dresses! W00T!

Germs, Germs and More

Kids sick, I think I am coming down with something. Headache for 2 days. Don't think I am going to get anything done this week. 


House is a mess. Nothing getting done, except lots of laziness.




Hair cut tomorrow. FINALLY!


Hopefully I will be more productive this weekend. 

Corsage

Hello my sweets,


 A few days ago I found a great flower corsage tutorial on Holidash by NotMartha that I also added a alligator clip to it so that I could wear it in my hair.
Here is what you are going to need:

• one piece of felt (michael's, or a nice piece of wool felt)
• pair of scissors
• a pin
• alligator clip
• piece of cardboard
• pinking shears
• Fabric- tac

First, you go to Michael's with all intent of just getting the supplies for this project and then realize that you are missing other stuff for the MILLIONS of projects that are running through your head. Then realize that they are having a 40% off sale and realize you are DOOMED because you took your 17 year old with you who is trying to redo her bedroom. DOOMED.


Ok back to business.

Get all cutting done. You are going to cut three 1.5 inch strips, two 1.25 inch strips and one 1 inch strip of the felt piece that you have. Then cut out 2 circles, one about 3.25 diameter and one about 2 inches. I used two glasses as my measurements. You will also need to cut a 2 inch circle out of the thin cardboard.

Watch out for the cat's tail while you are cutting. If you donot have a cat, then no worries for you. ;-)

You will need to cut each strip in to square of the same size as the strips. So get comfy and start cutting.

Each of those squares will need to be cut into a leaf shape. One thing I did did learn while doing this is that you will need a smaller pair of scissors to cut the 1 inch squares into the leaf shapes. Put on some good music,  and get yourself a glass of your favorite beverage to cut your shapes. Makes the time go by faster.

Now you will need to put 2 dots of Fabric tac on each leaf bottom to make your leaf. Some of the tutorials say to use a heavy pot to hold them down. So that is what we tried. Didn't work to well for me. I had to put some beads in my pot to weight it down as you see above. Don't make fun. It worked for the big leaves.

While these are setting, you need to create your base. Place your cardboard circle on top of your larger felt circle. Clip around the sides of the felt so that you can glue it to the cardboard circle. I used hot glue for this part. Then you will need to hot glue your pin and clip to the smaller felt circle. I also added a small rectagle of felt to cover up the bases of the clip and pin. You can tack that done with Fabric-tac. Now hot glue that smaller circle to the felt/cardboard circle you just finished. You want to cover up the cardboard.

When the leaf shapes are set, you get to glue them to the circle base. Glue the 1.5 inch petals around the edge of the base, positioning them in about 1/4 inch into the circle. Start with the larger petals in one circle, then the medium petals and then the smaller petals. Once all that is complete you will need to get out your pinking shears to cut out a 1 inch circle to place in the center of the flower. Then this is where you are going to get glue all over your hands, as I did. Cut a thin strip with your pinking shears. I thnk mine was about 3 or 4 inches. Though I didn't measure it. Sorry. Now take that and roll it into a circle. I had to tac mine ever so often to get it to stay together. Place that in the center of your flower.

Now try it on the nearest person to you.

Linking Up!

I am linking up today over at Remodelaholic. Go check out everyone's creativity!




Cherie

GONE Baby Gone! Part 1

My current adventure is removing the carpet off of my stairs, which we started two weeks ago. 
Here is the before picture when we moved in.

June 2010

They looked nice those first few months in the house. Then 3 cats, 2 teenagers, 1 boy, all of us working in the  garage, playing in the yard. The carpet took a turn for the worse. Cleaning it was not working and vacuuming everyday week was not easy or fun. You broke into a sweat just carrying the vacuum and bending over to use the attachment. (Goodness, that sounds like an info-mercial)


Sooo, one day Handsome Man saw the wild look in my eye everytime I walked by the stairs and finally told me to go ahead and do it. (he knew it was killing me, just aching in my bones to see what was under there.)

All the pulling in the world that I was doing, wouldn't allow me to pull that carpet up. OOOHHHHH, Handsome Man! Help!


Do you see what I see? 


Look at those beautiful stairs. Bull nose pieces, though I am not sure what type of wood, looks like Pine.  All this was under that NASTY carpet.  I got to do the real work of pulling the MILLIONS of staples and tack boards (which didn't want to come out no matter how much you pulled and kicked and tried not to use any bad words that the 6 year old will tell you is bad and you shouldn't say that).

After that I needed a break. I was tired and sweaty and in serious need of something to drink rest.

It is gorgeous! now the fun work begins.

To be continued in Part 2...

Starting out!

Here it is, 2nd of February, 2011. After reading many, many blogs and being truly inspired. I have decided to take the leap into blogging.
A leap into believing that one can do this. That one can open up and show the world what they have to offer and see what the world brings back.
Running a house with both parents that work, 2 teenager girls and a rumbustious 6 year old little boy is a chore in itself. No, I do not have it all figured out nor do I want to. I think it makes life more fun to be on the roller coaster, though I do wish some days that it wasn't sooo bumpy or would simply slow down so that I could relish in the joys of raising my children.




Come back to visit me, Handsome Man, Lizard, Mack and Monkeyman for our ongoing adventures in life.

Cherie