Our Cozy Indoor Picnic

Today is my husband's birthday but yesterday I had a little picnic celebration for him. The original plan was to go to a park, but the weather was not cooperating. Instead of completely changing my plans (and feeling inspired from yesterday's post) I decided to set up our picnic in the living room in front of the fireplace. It was perfect!

(This was like our 15th attempt of getting a good family shot with Alfie. That little guy just will not sit still! Notice the pain/annoyance in our smiles)

That was my first time ever making chili and I think it turned out pretty good. I rarely cook but now that I'm married, I'm trying to be a good little housewife, haha. The mint chocolate chip cookies were amazing so I must share the recipe with you!

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon mint extract (this was next to all the spices at the store)
6 to 8 drops green food color
1 egg
1 cup creme de menthe baking chips  ( I found tollhouse chocolate chips already mixed with mint chips)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, stir cookie mix, butter, extract, food color and egg until soft dough forms. Stir in creme de menthe baking chips and chocolate chunks.

2. Using small cookie scoop or teaspoon, drop dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Cool 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Serve warm or cool completely. Store tightly covered at room temperature.

It's Gettin to be that Snuggly Time of Year

And there's nothing better to snuggle up to than a beautiful fireplace, a glass of wine and your significant other. These pictures leave me saying "bring on the cold!"



I saved the best for last..........


I really wish I could crawl inside this photo and snuggle with that doggie on the rug.



This one is absolutely gorgeous! It's so homey :)



Stay Warm!!

Living Room Makeover Challenge

The Goal: Create unique and comfortable living/dining spaces with a vintage feel. Less "college grad" and more "married couple" - these rooms need to reflect the couple's current time in their lives.

The Challenge: Limited budget and limited furniture/accessories to work with. Which means lots of new items will need to be purchased with very little money. Main pieces of furniture are in good shape and look nice but are very stylized (arts & crafts). Could be difficult getting them to blend with a more contemporary look that the couple are going for.

The Budget: As little as possible - Around $400-$500 (and that includes buying a new tv console that the couple wants! Not much to work with after that!)

The Time Crunch: 2 weeks to accomplish everything.


Ready.........


Set..........


Go!!!!



Before: Here are some shots of the living and dining room in question.

For the first week we are going to be focusing on the living room.



Then for week 2 we'll move into the dining room:

Can't wait to show you the finished results! (that is, if they look good, haha. This is still a work in progress so I'm not sure how its going to pan out!)

Twig Terrariums

Have all of you heard of Fab?? Well if not, go to fab.com and sign up. It's like Gilt Groupe but for the home instead of fashion. Each day they have different sales and specials on furniture, home accessories and decorations. Often the items are whimsical or playful - which brings me to one of today's sales; Twig Terrariums.

These little moss terrariums are so adorable! And they swear they're easy to take care of so you no worries for you plant killers out there. Prices run between about $40-$200 depending on size and complexity. Check these out!



You can see more on their website, www.twigterrariums.com. Love 'em!!

Watercolor Weekend

I was pumped to come home from work yesterday and find the latest Anthropologie catalog in my mailbox. I've fallen in love with this ottoman that looks as if it was painted with watercolors.

With a price tag of 1700 bones, it's safe to say I'll never own it.

Watercolor has always been my favorite media to work in. In highschool I won some awards for my watercolors and I'm a member of the Ohio Watercolor Society but I regret to say I really haven't done much painting since highschool. Well, this ottoman has me inspired and has my brain a-thinkin. What if I could "paint" my own fabric using various dyes?? Just imagine all the crazy concoctions I could come up with then!!! (yes, I had trouble sleeping last night ........oh, when my creativity gets rollin.....) I promise I'm not going to give up on this idea. May be awhile before I have anything to show for it but I will keep you posted fo sho.

With that being said I'll leave you with some paintings from my favorite watercolor artist, Paul Jenkins. His colors are so vibrant and beautiful and rich. His bleeding, feathery textures give me goosebumps.

Happy Weekend!!

British Goodness at TJ Maxx

I guess it may be weird to some of you that I went to TJ Maxx for the first time ever just last week. I know so many people who swear by this place so I had to check it out. Overall I don't think they have as good of bargains as Marshall's or Gabriel Brothers but they are definitely better organized.

Plus, I found this!!!! I just may be a convert.



I wouldn't say this was a "bargain" either but some things are worth a splurge! I'm going to put this in my guest room that I'm planning as we speak! More on that later.....

Alfie likes it too!

Bathroom Floor Update

Remember this bathroom floor? We have thankfully made a little progress despite my being sick since that last post!


Brian removed the vanity......

Which kinda made a mess. We had to clean up and scrape off the vinyl flooring from under the vanity.

Now that the floor is all clean we found a crack in the middle of it and also realized the tile was in too bad of shape to try to salvage. So many of the tiles were discolored and with the crack going down the middle there were several cracked and missing ones.

I fixed the crack the best I could with this stuff that went on like putty and dried really hard and then got sanded, and then I painted the floor with a thick coat of binding primer......

and then two coats of floor enamel in a dark grey that matches the tile surround. The toilet still needs to be taken off in order to finish the flooring underneath but we decided to save that "fun" project for another day.


The pennies will be going on next. But for now I think the painted floor looks nice and feels clean underfoot compared to the nasty half scraped vinyl and glue floor we lived with for the past two weeks. I'm not in a hurry to start the last step!