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Vintage spring touches
Spring is having the hardest time getting here in our neck of the woods. It has been so snowy and cold where we live, sometimes I wonder if warm weather will ever get here. Having said that, I decided to add some spring touches using some of my vintage finds. I love shopping around my house, and rearranging items to give the home a fresh look. One way I like to do this is by using my typewriter as a display for some spring art. This is a picture I painted of Christ Church in Oxford. When we there there, there were so many beautiful flowers blooming and a lot…
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DIY Reupholstering…Our Ottoman
Years ago…I mean quite a few years ago, I happened upon what is now my absolute favorite thrift and antique store. This store is located in what we call old town. The ladies who run the store are so gifted and talented in what they do. I have relatives come from Salt Lake City (Three hours away from us) come shop in this small vintage shop. The first time I went in the doors of this little store, I came across this ottoman. There was something about it that I absolutely loved! I am weird in that I believe that things speak to us if they are to belong to…
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Easy Seeded Artisan whole grain Sourdough Bread Recipe with Dry Fruit
Are you looking for a new spin on your sour dough artisan bread? Something that you can start in the morning and have ready for dinner that night? This recipe might be just what you are looking for. It is simple, healthy, and tastes amazing. It is one of my husband’s favorites. He likes bread with substance, texture, and chew. This bread hits the spot. Start by mixing flour, warm water, sourdough starter, honey, and salt. Mix together to create a rough dough. When your dough has been stirred by hand and is shaggy in consistency, let it sit for 15 to 30 minutes. This helps the water hydrate the…
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Winter Porch
Here are a couple of quick and easy ideas for some inspiration to add to an outdoor winter porch. The porch is the first thing you see that welcomes you into a home. When Christmas comes down, everything looks a bit blah to me. I wanted my porch to be inviting and fun even though it is cold and snowy. This is why I turned to textures and colors for some inspiration. When I think of colors of winter I think of cream, blue, green and gray. I think of yarn sweaters, pine, and sledding outdoors. I took that inspiration to create my fun and simple winter porch. Th first…
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Traditional Christmas house tour
It’s almost Christmas. It is one of my most favorite times to decorate my home. This year I did a more traditional Christmas. I took my decor and grouped like items together. Doing this made me enjoy the collections I have collected over the years much more. I spread things out around my home to make it feel magical for my family. I love all the lights, garland, trees, and Santa’s. I hope that it helps my family feel excited for Christmas throughout this season! Enjoy the tour.
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A Traditional Christmas Tree
Christmas to me is a time for traditions. I feel very sentimental thinking about Christmas’s past. Having said that, I like to decorate my home with things I have gathered through the years. I change it up a bit each year placing different items in different spots or adding new garland. Our Christmas tree is an example of that. I know I have written about this before, but it has been such a great tradition in our family to collect ornaments each year, or each trip we’ve been on. I put the kid’s names and year on the bottom of the ones they pick out. It is fun to see…
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Cinnamon Salt Dough Ornaments
If you want a fun and easy craft, try some salt dough cinnamon ornaments. Years ago I made some cinnamon applesauce ornaments which I still use today. I was looking at Miss Mustard Seed’s blog and saw her tutorial for the cinnamon salt dough ornaments here. https://missmustardseed.com/molded-salt-dough-gingerbread-ornaments-christmas-crafts/ The ornaments were beautiful and very inspiring. I made a batch of her recipe and put my own spin on them. I did not have any cookie molds, but I had this patterned rolling pin. I rolled out the dough with a regular rolling pin first until the dough was about 1/2 inch thick. I then went over the dough with the patterned…
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Autumn Home Tour
Autumn….don’t you just love autumn. It is my favorite time of the year. I have never been a fan of winter, so it is a little bitter sweet to me. That being said, I can’t help myself when it comes to everything fall. I love the decor, the food, the activities…all of it! This year I had fun adding some autumn touches to our home. I kept things “simple” and just did a bit of cozying up in each room. I added touches of pumpkins, books, stems, and art work to my existing decor. I have a very collected decorating style. A lot of the things I have displayed have…
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Game room reveal
This summer we decided to take on a project to update the room we use above our garage which we refer to as the game room. When we bought this house, the previous owners were using it as a bedroom. It had a door on it which we removed and made it into more of a family playroom space. It worked well for many years, but the kids are older and we don’t need a playroom anymore. We decided to paint, use the living room furniture we had on the main level, buy some new furniture and re purpose some other furniture to make a new more grown up space.…
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Our new vegetable garden space
For years, we have had a trampoline for our kids to play on in our yard. It had a designated space next to the fire pit area where we had it anchored down. Our kids are now too old to be interested in a trampoline, so we gave it to the neighbors and started thinking about something new we could create with this space in our yard. I have always wanted to have an area for a vegetable garden. In years past, I have scattered some vegetable plants here and there among my flowers. It worked ok, but I had a vision for something a bit more. The area was…
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Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
If you are a lover of both strawberries and rhubarb, this recipe needs to be a must make on your list. When we moved into this house ten years ago, my darling next door neighbor came over and asked if I’d like to have some of her rhubarb from her garden. I had never tasted rhubarb before, and I didn’t know exactly what to do with it. She was so kind and gave me this strawberry rhubarb crisp recipe. Well, that was life changing! The filling is made up of strawberries, rhubarb, sugar, and a little flour. And the crisp…the crisp! It is my favorite go to crisp topping for…
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Getting design inspiration through travel
I recently returned from an amazing trip to the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and the UK. I spent a little over two weeks in Europe, and it was such a wonderful experience. Our daughter graduated from High School the spring of 2020 when everything shut down. We had planned on taking this trip June of 2020, but we were not able to make it until this year. We were ready for a trip, and I forgot how seeing different places gives me so much design inspiration. It was like I was on a creative high the whole trip. I came home with a ton of ideas, and feel creativly I love…
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Finished vintage theater room
This past fall and winter we have been working on refreshing our theater room. I have a few before pictures of the room. When we first bought our current home, the theater room was this crazy blue color and wow…it really had to change! We built columns, changed the paint color to gray and added some built ins. Painting the room was fun and I loved the color on the wall and how it made the white columns pop. I found the snack cabinet at a local vintage store. It is was an old craftsman built in cabinet that was in a 1920’s home. I stained it, and now have…
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Strawberry Shortcake Sourdough Muffins
If you like strawberry shortcake and muffins, these are the perfect combination of both. Every spring I get excited when the strawberries start showing up at the store and I can make strawberry muffins for my family. The sourdough makes the muffins so tender and delicious, and the crumb topping is amazing! It is a one bowl recipe that comes together quickly, so you can have muffins for your family in no time. These take between 20 to 25 minutes to bake depending on your oven. Bake until they are golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.
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A few new family room touches
A few months ago I was sitting and discussing our home with my husband when we both decided that we needed to update the game room upstairs. We needed different couches for that room, and I decided that if I was going to buy new couches I wanted them to be for the main floor, and the main floor couches could go upstairs. That decision has spurred on a whole long list of projects, and I love it! Putting the recipe cabinet along this wall made a lot more sense to me since it is right by the kitchen and I can quickly grab one of my cookbooks. I found…
