Saturday, March 31, 2012

Kitchen Table Makeover Finished!!

So.....I've been practically giddy all week about FINALLY getting to redo the old nasty kitchen table.  I started my new job Monday and I know my coworker is probably sick to death of hearing about it. I've been planning it out in my head and thinking of all the possibilities of decorating it.

Last night after we got off work (and I got a massive haircut!!) I talked the hubs into going to WalMart so I could buy my supplies.

I forgot to take a picture of it all, but I had all my things lined up on our patio table just perfect. 5 cans of Krylon Gloss Spray Paint in the color BLACK. 1 roll of Yellow Frog Tape (on the fence, don't know if I liked it or not) 2 packs of 180 grit sandpaper, an old Sunday Paper,  and a spray bottle full of a cleaner. Pretty sure that's all I used.

Now before you judge on the nasty state of my porch/carport area, we are in the process of basically touching up little pieces of the house, and so everything gets moved onto the porch.... K? lol.

The chairs BEFORE, were my least favorite thing in the whole wide world.  They were the thing that turned me off from the table in the first place. Like my last Kitchen Makeover post said, I wasn't thrilled with set period when we bought it. When we started gathering up the things we needed we remembered it came with 6 chairs not 4. We decided this morning we would only paint 4 chairs, but after showing off our hair work to my Mother in Law we've decided to get some more paint and paint the other two chairs! 



So we started, of course, by sanding down the whole set, top to bottom. And then we had the daunting task of taping down and covering the seats with newspaper....this was the hardest part of the whole process.

The chairs AFTER! I LOVED them the moment I hit them with the black paint. They don't even look like the same chairs. I swear, they even sit differently!!


We took a break around lunch time -- yes I said WE, Aaron was so gracious as to help me. Originally he had said he didn't want to and if I needed a "project" that this was fine. But this morning he decided he wanted to help, and we had a WONDERFUL time doing it together. And this was how we left our porch. Lets just say for someone OCD like me, this in and of itself was a daunting task. Yes those are our cars in the background and if you look in the far left of the picture you can see the rug that we just rolled up and got out of our living room!


So we got cleaned up and by the time it was time for the UK/Louisville game - 5pm - the table was completely dried. So we carried it in and left it in the kitchen until after the game. We got home around 9 - we had been at my hubby's sister's house. And so I quickly found something to decorate the table with so I could show if off to my Mother in Law, who was so anxious to see it, we invited her over.


And this is the finished product!!


If I had to tell you how much we spent,,,,,I'd say less than $40 for everything. Overall not a bad deal for practically a BRAND NEW kitchen table....don'tcha think?

Saturday, March 24, 2012

UK vs. UI Game Night Snacks!

At my house, WE BLEED BLUE!!! We live in the Big Blue Nation. UK Basketball Season is what our world is all about. Whenever "UK Season" rolls around, you can pretty must bet your bottom dollar that Aaron and I (and the rest of the family) will be gathered together around a TV somewhere, eating finger foods, anything bigger is too much of a commitment, and screaming at the top of our lungs at any call made during a UK game.

Last night was a big night for UK. We played Indiana.....back in December these two teams matched up and UI won over us by 1 stinking little point....So naturally the Big Blue Nation came out last night with a little big of revenge on our minds. (We won!:) We decided to gather at my sister in law's house and take advantage of her large finished basement with the big screen TV. She called earlier in the week and asked if I would help her out with food, so I was happy to do so. Any reason to get in the kitchen is ok by me!! I brought 3 things. Shredded BBQ Chicken, my famous Taters, and UK Sugar Cookies!! For those on Facebook that have been asking for my recipes, here they are!!!

!) Shredded BBQ Chicken.

My BBQ chicken has been evolving ever since I first started cooking it. For this particular batch I used a 4 pack of boneless chicken breasts. A bottle of Sweet n Tangy BBQ Sauce (available at Save-a-Lot) and varying herbs and spices. I start by lining my pan with aluminum foil to make for easy clean up. Then I pour in enough sauce to cover the bottom of the pan. I add salt, pepper, season salt, basil, bay leaves, and oregano. Then I add my whole chicken breasts. I repeat the process above, sauce and spices. This time I added a handful of Bacon bits and a couple of handfuls of shredded colby jack cheese. I was playing around. To my wonderful surprise it turned out super yummy. I cooked it in the over at 400 degrees for an hour. This time I didn't cover it, but most of the time I do. After it was finished cooking I puled it out of the over and shredded it apart with a knife and a fork. Some hot sauce might make this even better. But overall, I was pleased with it. I heard no complaints from the hungry men in my life!!


2) My famous Taters.



They say necessity is the mother of invention. And in this cause, that was so right. Aaron and I had been married about a minute when I got such a craving for potato skins....so I made some. I thought they were tasty myself, but everyone else that had them says they're something special. My husbands Aunt took a bite of one last year at our Memorial Day get together and I thought she was going to have a heart attack by all the noises she was making. So....I'm going to share my secrets with all ya'll today.

First I start off by slicing about 4 or 5 potatoes into circles, so kind of like augroten potatoes.
Then I lay them out on a cookie sheet.
I sprinkle them with salt, pepper and season salt.
I put them in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes.
As soon as they're finished I open up the oven, and while they're still IN the oven I sprinkle them very liberally with cheese, bacon bits and chives. After the cheese is melty and gooey, I take them out and put them on my serving platter (which last night was a 1 dollar platter from the Dollar Store in KY BLUE!). I serve this with Sour Cream and/or Ranch.

These guys are never a let down, and I could probably eat my weight in them!!



3) And finally my UK Sugar cookies. I took lots of pictures of my attempt at this.

I decided I wanted to make sugar cookies and plant the UK logo on them. So I went in search of blue icing....which doesn't exist. And apparently neither did plain old blue food coloring. I ended up getting a $1 "Egg Coloring Kit." I wanted food coloring and this is what I got. Poo.

I took off making my dough. Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix. I was braced for time so I needed something easy.


Once I got my dough all mixed up (butter, water according to package), I needed to roll it out. And that's when I realized I did not own a rolling pin. Hmm....what to use.....AH! Paper Towel Roll!


Then it was off to make my icing. I had bought 1 can of Betty Crocker Vanilla Rich n Creamy icing. Looking back I needed two for thickening purposes. Anyway, I had to make my blue. So according to the package I dissolved the blue color tablet in 3 tablespoons of white vinegar. I poured the 3 tablespoons of blue vinegar (lol) into the icing and mixed it up. Wasn't as BLUE as I wanted, but it was ok.

Taking a que from some of my other Blogger Nuts, I loaded all my blue icing into a Ziploc bag, cut the tip off of a corner, and went to work. After making LOTS of mistakes, and redos they finally ended up like this.
The icing melted, and ran everywhere. The Vinegar loosened up the consistency of the icing (so next time I'll mix my color with 2 cans) and so by the time the game was over my cute blue UK cookies were blue messes. But still tasty!!



So hope ya'll enjoyed these tips!! I'm not a professional by any means, but I try. Haven't hear any complaints from my sweet Hubby yet!!



Happy Cooking!!!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Bargain TV Stand!

Before I start, please excuse these blurry, terrible, awful pictures.....and I call myself a professional photographer! BAH!

Ok, so for those that don't know, I recently landed the dream job at the dream location. I had to take an hour long road trip to get to the "interviewin' place," and on the way back I decided to stop in at my local Family Dollar (the best one in the whole wide world, no joke) just to see if they had anything new. Ya'll know how crazy I am about a good find at Fam Dol!!

So while I'm there I find a box about 6 hand lengths long (about 42 or 43 inches) labeled "ENTERTAINMENT CENTER." Lightbulb in my brain explodes.

If you look at the below photograph (yeah, the blurry one.) you will see that I had my 43 inch Sanyo television sitting on a chest. My "memory" chest. I HATED not being able to get into it and I'd always been after my hubby to build me a stand for the tv. (His Dad actually built our huge entertainment center, and he had customized it to fit a 52 inch tv we had previously. Long story short the big TV went up in smoke, almost literally, and so we went and bought the 42 incher.) But of course, like a man, lol, 2 years later, I still wasn't able to look at my memories.

I rushed home to measure my TV hole and discovered it was the PERFECT width. Height is a little to be desired, :(

So I bought it. I move out my coffee table, push back my furniture and spread the contents of the 43 inch long box out on my rug around me and went to town. Unfortunately I didn't have the right size screwdriver....so I improvised....with my hair cutting scissors haha. BUT it got done, so I'm not complaining.


This is what it looked like as soon as I was finished with it. I texted this picture to my hubby, I was so proud of myself.



And here is what it looks like with the TV on it!! As you can probably tell I took out the right side shelf to make room for our sub for our surround sound. I have our Wii Games and home movies on the bottom shelf on the left, and on the top shelf on the left I have the Wii and a basket full of remotes. I topped it off with the TV and one of our engagement pictures, hubby hates it sitting there, but I like it, and one of my favorite nicknacks, a star box that has "BELIEVE" written on the lid.


This "Entertainment Center" cost me $30 at Family Dollar. Entertainment Centers that are similar sell at furniture stores for more like $230.  So, if you look at it that way I saved $200 and it only took me about an hour to put together!!.....with hair cutting scissors!!!



HAPPY D-I-Y! 



(Yeees I was watching The Dr. Oz Show! haha)

Monday, March 19, 2012

Scrap Fabric Wreath

Hey Simple Lifers!!

For my first craft tutorial I'm going to show you how to turn these......


..


....into THIS!



Since I've been hanging at home 24/7 for the last few weeks, I've managed to seriously get some cleaning and rearranging and reorganizing done. I guess that's one OK thing about being jobless for a few weeks.  All the things I'd been putting on the back burner forever got finished....that included cleaning out, rearranging and reorganizing our spare bedroom/office/storage room/eventual baby's room and it's closet.

For those that are unaware, we live in a house that was built around the late 1950's early 1960's. It's a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom brick house....ooh next post idea!!....anyway it doesn't have much in the way of storage space, and the attic has an unfortunate mouse issue :( The spare bedroom had turned into the catch all room that had no real reason to it. So I finally got brave one afternoon, put on my organizing/cleaning britches (yes, I have a pair of britches just for cleaning and organizing) and went to work.

I came across 5 bags of my husband's old clothes from when he was a size 29 around the waist (he's gone up slightly.....to like a.....36...ain't marriage fun??) and still wore a small t-shirt. Why I was hoarding all these old clothes I don't know. Why they hadn't made it to Goodwill....it escapes me.

Shamefully I unpacked some boxes of my stuff that I had yet to unpack from when I moved....2 years ago.... and was left with 3 large cardboard boxes. So I emptied the bags of clothes and packed them into the boxes...at least they could be stacked until I made it back into the "big city" to a Goodwill.  As I was packing I was thinking "you know I should use all this fabric for something. It's not like he's ever going to want to wear them again!! But I kept packing. And then it hit me as I closed the top on the last box I could make a scrap fabric wreath. Now he hard part was finding the colors I wanted to use. I wanted green, yellow, pink and blue...I was thinking more pastels, but this is what I came up with....



The green and the white are some of MY old clothes that I ran into. (I promise, that's pink not red.)

Ok, so here's what you do, after you pick out the clothes you want, cut them up into strips a couple of inches long (no longer) and about an inch wide. I varied width on mine just to give it a bit of variety. Then I used scissors and plyers (the needle-nose were the only ones I had on hand, but they worked great) to turn my wire coat hanger into a circle. You could turn it into a square, triangle, Easter egg shape.....any shape you can get out of a wire hanger....

                                     



Then chose your "base color." I ended up having more green than anything, since it was a shirt and had more fabric. I even ended up with a bunch of leftovers for another project on a rainy day. And I tied them in in a simple knot....like this.


I hung my hanger up on my kitchen cabinet so I could tell more easily where to place my fabric.


Once I had my hanger stuffed with green fabric I added my yellow, then blue, then pink and then finally the white. I fluffed and rearranged and fluffed some more until finally I had this.......

                                      
I'm seriously happy with how it turned out, but I wish I had something along the lines of a small "R" to put in the center or something....when I visited the craft section at walmart the last time I was there they were out :( Anyway, this took me a few hours, cutting out all the strips and all, but I say it was very well worth it. When my husband came home that night he rang the doorbell (I keep the doors locked when he's not home, my dog is spunky but she's not much of a "guard dog,") and when I opened the door he was standing there staring at the wreath. "I liiiiike." He said. Hahaha.

Now I have a ton of green, pink, yellow, blue and white fabric strips left over....wonder what I can make next time!!!


HAPPY CRAFTING!

Friday, March 9, 2012

Better Homes & Gardens vs. Scentsy

If you're like me, you LOOOVE to have your home smelling like fresh baked goodness at all times. And if you're like me you don't have fresh baked goodness at all times, so we have to rely on candles, which can add up no matter where you buy them, or you have to rely on wall plug ins, which have been known to cause house fires, so I refuse to have them in my home, unless its a BBW Wall Flower, and even those gets really stout smelling. Or the smell good cone deals....or the sprays....the list goes on and on.

Anyway the point here is.....are you one of those people that stalks the Scentsy parties and website wanting to buy one of their uber cute warmers, but can't justify dropping $35+ on one? You all know this blog is all about saving some $$$ and folks I have done it with this!!

When I was still working (currently betwixt employment) I  met a girl that quickly became one of my dearest friends (HI if ur reading this!!!). For my birthday in November, she bought me this little gem I am about to rave to you all about!



The above photo shows a "Better Homes and Gardens Wax Warmer," which is essentially the EXACT SAME THING as one of those expensive Scentsy warmers but for a much more reasonable price.... $15.00 to be exact. The little packets of wax are $2.00 a pack and all these wonderful items are available at your local Wal-Mart. They come in all kinds of shapes, sizes and colors to fit our varying tastes. And the smells.....the range of smells are amazeballs. Wild Berry, Chocolate Mint, Spices, Cupcakes, Clean Linen....just wander down the isle at Wal-Mart and smell for yourself. There are way too many to name.

The warmers work like a Scentsy warmer, but for those that don't know, they are light bulb operated. (Bulb is included.) The bulb sits down in the middle of the warmer and heats the tray on top. You pop the wax square out of the tray and plop it down in the tray. The heat from the bulb melts the wax and spreads the yummy smell out into your home. When you shut the warmer off at the end of the day the wax will harden and will wait until the next time you turn the warmer on.

The smell lasts about 3 days of all day use....I turn mine on around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and off around 10:30 at night, most of the time, so its a bummer that it has a short lifespan, but over all this product is TERRIFIC!!! If you're wanting a wax warmer, but can't afford Scentsy, which was my problem, then this is the way to go! I'm going to head back to Wal-Mart and get one for my kitchen, bathroom and bedroom!!

Go to www.walmart.com and type in "Better Homes and Gardens Wax Warmer" or browse the "Candles and Candle Holders" section or stop by your nearest Wal-Mart (they're in the home goods section near the back of the store) to have an up close look at them!

Happy Shopping, Happy Saving!!
Missy