Valentine Mail Boxes

Turn plain and unfinished mailboxes from AC Moore into Valentine gifts for your children!

The mailbox above is my son's. It was stained with Minwax Provincial (available at Lowes) and left to dry for 24 hours. The following day,  I transferred the wording using a transparency method. Insert your transparency "paper" into your printer and print your design with the Mirroring Option so the words aren't backwards when applied to the wood. Put your transparency with ink down onto your wood and with a scrapper, apply pressure and rub all over the wording being careful to keep the paper in place to avoid smearing. Remove your transparency and wash it off for use at a later time.

NOTE: This transparency method is great and quick but be warned that if you are printing on an ink jet printer (as I am), the ink is water soluble.  This means that water based varnish cannot be used to seal your project as it will smear the ink everywhere.

After transferring the wording I applied a coat of Minwax paste finishing wax with a lent free rag and let it dry overnight. I love the rustic look of this mailbox. All is left to do, is fill it up with some chocolates and valentine notes.

This Mailbox is my daughter's. Her room is filled with white distressed pieces of furniture with pink accents so I thought her mailbox should look the same!

I painted her mailbox with acrylic snow white paint and the flag a pale pink color and let it dry for one hour. I used the transparency method for the wording on here too. Note the somewhat faded result. Painted surfaces won't let the ink penetrate the wood as well but this method worked out for this project since I wanted to give it a vintage look. After letting the ink dry, I just sanded the edges and the places where I wanted it to look worned and with a small brush I applied a little dab of Minwax provincial stain on the distressed areas to give it some color. To give your painted project a somewhat glazed look like I did,  just rub some generic baby oil over the stained areas making sure to wipe any excess oil. Once you have accomplished the look you want, apply Minwax paste finishing wax all over and you are done!

I love how these mailboxes turned out.

Home Made Cleaners

Cleaning our houses is something we do weekly. We spend a large amount of dollars on products filled with chemicals that aren't good for our environment and for our children to breath.
For many years, people have been making and using their own cleaning products and have been talking about how happy they are with them. So....Why not give it a try?

After hours of online research and different mixes later...I chose the followings:

When purchasing Dawn Dish Liquid, , make sure to get the original blue kind. I heard that the other kinds don't work! Not sure why.

 

This solution is like the "shout" you buy at the store. Make sure the water is warm or it will not dissolve the baking soda and clog your nozzle.

I am in love with this floor cleaner. It has been great for our laminate floors and smells really great. The essential oils used have different antibacterial and cleaning properties and hide the strong smell of vinegar.

I use this solution on my kitchen counter top, bathrooms sinks and everything that needs a good clean.

This cleaner is streak free and the laundry detergent drop was added to this recipe to hide the strong ammonia smell.

This recipe has been everywhere on pinterest. It is the best homemade grime cleaner ever! The vinegar smell is very overwhelming but I am not one to complain when seeing the before and after pictures!

Oh my oh my....I love this stuff. We have had so many red wine accidents on our rug, white slip covered chairs, sofa, tablecloth and this solution removed every stain there was. It works for blood as well and other stains. I have not tried it on clothes yet since I use my so called "shout" mixture but I will update this post when I do. Note: Hydrogen Peroxide is light sensitive so if you plan on making this solution in advance, make sure to store it in a dark colored bottle like the one I am showing on the picture.

Simple Chicken Wrap

Easy delicious quick lunch on the go

Ingredients:

Chicken in a can (drained)
Craisins (chopped)
Fresh Parmesan cheese (grated)
Mayonnaise
Almonds (sliced)
Romain lettuce (washed and dried)

Instruction:

In a large bowl, add chicken and shred it with your fingers or a fork. Add mayo, craisins, Parmesan cheese and almond slices. Mix well. (I do not measure my ingredients. Add as much mayo, Parmesan, craisins or almonds as you like)
Wash your lettuce leaves and dry them well. Add a few spoonfuls of chicken salad in the center, roll up the edges of your lettuce and eat like a burrito.

This chicken salad can of course be served on bread, toasted bagel chips etc... You can be creative and add whatever other ingredients you like.

Enjoy!

House Tour - Hallway

Welcome to our home!

Our New Hallway is almost ready. All that is left to do is PAINT the walls our favorite shade of blue/gray! After spending so much time cutting and nailing and painting wainscoting, I could no longer wait for the reveal so here is a little treat....

This long wall was so bare and plain, it really needed a makeover so after hours of staring at it from the dinning room table, I thought a little wainscoting would do! It feels right and I am very happy with the outcome.

A nice vintage bench purchased on eBay. The frame is made of metal and the top is made of wood.

A custom pillow made by me! If you would like one too, just contact me via email and we can talk Bu$ine$$!

A little french art (there are actually 3) purchased in Paris to make our American home feel a little French too.

Some sea stars because we are at the beach.

And voila! Once upon a time, there was a bare wall.....today, this wall is filled with many hooks for our friends and family to hang their coats on cold nights and beach bags on summer days!



I will post a tutorial on how to attach wainscoting later on, so stay tuned and come back and visit often.

Chicken and Mushrooms a la Greek

Last night's dinner was simple and delicious.
It literally took 30 minutes to put together from start to finish. That's how I roll!
If you are from Richmond, VA, or live in the Richmond area, you must have eaten at the Crazy Greek at least once. This is our daughter's favorite restaurant and ever since we moved to NC, she has been begging me to try and figure out how to make her favorite pork from their menu.
Well, I was out of pork but I had CHICKEN! I am no chef but I can cook...some. I did a little research and came up with the following recipe.

Ingredients:

 olive oil (sorry I don't measure)

4 boneless chicken breast halved

8 oz mushrooms, sliced

4 large garlic cloves, chopped

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1  cup canned low-salt chicken broth

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup dry white wine

Instructions:

Heat the olive oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Add chicken to skillet; sauté until brown, about 2 to 4 minutes per side. Using tongs, transfer chicken to a plate and set aside. Add mushrooms, garlic and oregano to the same skillet. Sauté the mushrooms until brown for about 10 minutes. Add the broth, the lemon juice and the wine and boil until sauce is slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Add the chicken to the sauce, reduce heat and simmer uncovered until chicken is cooked through, about 2 minutes per side. Season with salt and pepper if needed.

Let me know how yours turns out.

New Desk tops

My new house has a space next to the laundry room that I converted into a small office. I would have liked to have one large desk to accommodate my sewing machine and my computer but the corner wall is odd and made it impossible. Instead of one large desk, I must make 2 custom small ones.
One for sewing and one for computer work.
Both desk tops will be attached to the back wall but one of them will have 2 front legs and the other just a curtain to hide my printer and other supplies.

How to make desk number one:

Go to Lowe's, purchase an already made and unfinished table top measuring 36x24 and 2 table size legs measuring 29 or 30 inches.

To give your tabletop the aged look I have done on mine, mix 1 cup white vinegar with steel wool and let it sit for 48 hours. Use a foam brush to apply the mixture and wipe excess liquid with a rag. Let your newly stained tabletop dry overnight. You might need to do this a couple of time to reach the desired reclaimed wood look you want.

  

Paint your wooden legs the color of your choice, I chose to paint mine white and distress them a bit with sand paper.
Attach both legs to the front bottom of the tabletop.
Screw a piece of wood to the wall and then screw the table top to it. Voila!

How to make desk number two:

This tabletop is less wide than the first one but much longer. It measures 48x20.
I wanted to try a different finish but I still wanted the reclaimed wood look. So this time, I added some brewed coffee to my vinegar and steel wool mixture to see if it made any difference.

Guess what?......It did!  Can you see the difference?

To attach this desktop, I simply screwed 4 pieces of wood to all 3 walls. One on the right, one on the left and two on the back and screwed the tabletop to them. I used an inexpensive tension rod to hold the curtain I sewed and voila!

How to print on wood:

Materials:
1 - Grafix or other brand transparency sheet
1 - inkjet printer
minwax or other brand name furniture sealing wax

There are many ways you can print on wood. Some people use freezer paper. I have tried it and it works well but I did not like the fact that I had to cut the freezer paper to size and use adhesive to attach it to a card stock sheet (because it curls and won't fit on your printer's feeder properly). The worse part though, is that freezer paper is white and you cannot see your design once you flip the paper over. This makes it very hard to place your design exactly where you want it to be.

So I am going to share with you, my favorite way to print on wood!
I use Grafix transparency sheets. One side of the sheet is shiny and smooth, the other side has some type of coating that helps avoid smearing of the ink. I print on the shiny and smooth side that way the ink can be transferred onto the wood and I can just wash it out once I am done and reuse the same sheet over and over again.

Step one: Open your favorite image editor software, add your graphic and edit it to your liking. When you are finished editing, you can choose to reverse the image through your software or you may choose the mirror option on your printer's setting before printing. If your picture has letters or numbers and you do not reverse it at this point, your project will be ruined.

Step two: Flip your printed transparency sheet over so the ink faces down on your piece of wood. Hold it in place with one hand and rub a credit card over the design with the other hand. Keep rubbing and once in a while, lift one of corners up to see if the design has been transferred well. If the transfer looks good, you are done! if not...well you know what to do....just keep rubbing.

Step three: let the ink dry for a few minutes and rub a sealing wax all over the wood with a rag making sure to wipe any wax excess off.

I love my new desks. Now, I need to add some shelving above them to store all my crafts supplies.
Sorry the lighting wasn't great the day I took these pictures. I will update them once my office is completely finished.

Thank you for reading.

Decorative Ladder

Do you love old ladders?
I have been searching for one for years and could never find one in my price range so when I read Diana's Our vintage home love post on how she made her own, I thought I would give it a try.

For instructions on how to build it, please visit Diana's blog. She is so creative and her home is filled with vintage finds and handcrafted furniture pieces. She is a true inspiration.

Why did I need a ladder? just because they are pretty and very versatile. I could use it to hang bath towels or magazines but really, I needed a ladder to display my collection of scarves. I no longer need to rummage through my drawers in search of the right colored scarf since I can now see them all very well on my new old looking ladder. I am only showing 5 scarves above because I did not want to crowd the ladder for this picture but  I have many many more.

So what do you think?

After putting it together, I stained it with a minwax  dark walnut stain.

Once the stain was dry (24 hours later), I rubbed some leftover wax candle where I wanted to distress the ladder and painted it with white interior latex paint (2 coats).

As soon as the paint was dry (it only took about 2 hours), I used fine steel wool and rubbed it where the candle wax was. I did not really remember where it was, I just sanded everywhere and the paint came off where the wax had previously been rubbed. The steel wool also gave the paint an older look leaving some grayish tones. (remember to use gloves when working with steel wool)



I really like the wax and steel wool method for distressing furniture as it takes less effort in the sanding process and does not remove the stain applied before the paint. I also chose to not cover up  the screws I used to hold each dowel with wood putty because they made the ladder look even more vintage and it was less work for me.