Archives for December 2010

This chair was the  first reupholstery job I’ve ever tried! The most difficult part was removing old staples…Ughh. But I think she turned out lovely.

This is what she looked like before I painted and reupholstered her using drop cloths.

I loved this little table that only needed a couple of coats of paint and a little sanding.

This is what she looked like before all the paint.

This was one of my favourites projects. I got this table with 6 chairs for $50.00 on kijiji.

This is what she looks like now and sits proudly in my little breakfast nook.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my little corner of the world and I look forward to sharing much more with you all in 2011!

Hello everyone!
I bought this chair a couple of months ago and it took me that long to remove the staples from it!
Here it is! I still want to do a little “roughing up” to it but I hate sanding and have put it off for now.
I’ve added some of my Christmas wrapping to spruce it up.

Here is the before. I got it from the GW.

It was my first reupholstering job!  I had no directions but just took pics of each layer removed and how she was put together. I gave her a quick coat of primer and then painted her in Benjamin Moore’s Cloud white. I covered her with drop cloth from the HD better known as “Poor man’s linen”.

Hello everyone! I decided to start some Christmas baking today and thought I would make a cheesecake. I usually use my aunt’s recipe but it was lost when she moved recently. I thought I would get a recipe from one of the many sites online.

I got out my trusty old Kitchenaid mixer that I love!

I started with a graham cracker crust.

Then I mixed all 4 packages of cream cheese with sugar.

This is where it all went wrong!
I’ve seen on  cooking shows when using eggs that they are broken in a bowl first and then poured into a mixture, however…I was in a hurry and felt like an iron chef and decided to crack them over the mixer. That’s  how one egg shell fell in the batter and was mixed up with all the wonderful cheese and sugar!
I quickly stopped the mixer and…held back the tears…all that wonderful  cream cheese, ten dollars worth!
After I regained my compsure, I proceeded to wade through the  batter and tried to pick out all the eggshells. I’m still hoping I got them all out.

Then I poured the batter into the crust.

Set upon a baking pan ( this is my old crusty trusty one)
Placed in a preheated oven for 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees

 I removed it from  the oven and let it cool and then  refrigerated overnight.
I won’t bother you with the recipe because I used a combination of two!
Suffice it to say, it was pretty close to the recipe that comes on the package of Philadelphia cream cheese.

It looks great but I hope I got all those eggshells out!

I now have 100 Followers!

I know it’s just a number but it shows that you all cared about and liked what you saw enough to take time out  to hit the follow button.  It means a lot to me and I’m very greatful to you all!

I managed to finish my Christmas decorating today and ended up in the dining room. I have a mantel in here and didn’t digress too much from my theme in the family room. I continued using greens, pinecones and some sparkle which came from lights and candles.

At one end of the dining room I have the mantel and my montauk. The montauk is a beast of a chair or as some may know it… a chair and a half! It is all down filled and is so comfy!

I added some pointsettias in white!

I continued using birch as well and I made one of my little logs into a candle holder in the same way I did with my driftwood candle holder. The tutorial for that is here.http://www.kimpowerstyle.com/driftwood-candle-holder-tutoria/

I added this lovely planter with greens, birch logs, pinecones and battery operated lights.

I have my harvest table in the middle of the room. I just draped it in a red toile PB table runner and placed some candles on it with a bit of greenery.

At the other end of the room, I have two armoires that I use for storage as my kitchen is really small and lacks a lot of space. You can see where I finally put my coffee filter wreath! I love draping greenery everywhere.

These are my paper whites in all their glory!

My tree is in the family room. It’s all in whites, creams and some pale gold. I don’t know if you can see but I used a burlap bow as a tree topper. I usually don’t put one on.

I went for a walk yesterday in the park and manged to find all kinds of birch bark on the ground. It was everywhere! (No trees were harmed in the making of this candle craft)lol.

 

I simply wrapped the birch bark around the candles and attached with push pins.

Here is the tree all lit up.

I wanted to show you the tree unlit as it looks so pretty with the green and white. I love it both ways!

These little buckets flanked my fireplace in the family room which I photographed in my mantel post.

I draped both windows in a cedar mixed garland.

I hope you all enjoyed some more Christmas decorating!

I’ll be partying with these ladies this week…

When we first started our tradition, I would design my own house, bake it and we would put it together with the myriad of candies we would buy from the bulk store.
Once I went back to school and then to work I discovered these wonderful little kits with everything included!  So easy!

We’ve managed to keep the tradition alive (unlike our annual tree cutting which ended last Christmas which I won’t go into now because I  may start sobbing.)
So…even though my daughters are in their twenties they managed to make one of these…

Isn’t it lovely? Complete with accompanying laughter, candy- eating -with -me- yelling- at -them- not- to and cat -playing -with -tiny- ball- candy!

I think they did a wonderful job! (much better than my girlfriend’s and my attempt a couple weeks ago with two kits of our own!)

Thanks for joining me today and yes even when they’re older you still display their artwork like it’s the greatest creation ever!

Hello everyone!
We’ve seen them all over blogland lately…those wonderful coffee filter wreaths. They’ve come in different colours, some coffee stained, some tea stained, some au naturel and I love them all!
I just had to make my own. I don’t know if I did something wrong but this little gal took me
over 3 hours to make!
I used a green foam base, don’t know how many filters I used as I didn’t count! And a glue gun. It’s the first time I’ve used in a glue gun in years! And I have the burns to prove it!

I’ve been wondering where I should put it. It was a toss up between the breakfast nook and over the dining room mantel.

Here she is

She is so pretty that she looks good just resting on the table…

or on the wainscotting…

I took pics with the lights on and off.

The weather has been rainy and  it was very dark, not the best for taking pics, but my little point and shoot did ok. (Hoping for something a little better under the Christmas Tree this year! Fingers crossed)

I flanked the fireplace with these two little buckets. I had a vintage galvanized bucket but couldn’t find another one so I bought this little guy on the left at the dollar store. I was going to cover them both in burlap but used the burlap for the bottom of my tree.

It is a winter wonderland mess but I really like it.

This wreath was the only item I bought new for the mantel. It was $16.00, I had everything else. I just loved the sparkle, which doesn’t show well in the pics.

I bought these little battery operated lights that fit so nicely into my buckets. It looks really magical at night when they are lit up.