Spring gardening

I was a little later starting on my garden this year than I had hoped, but it actually has worked out well! We have a very small raised bed garden that we made a few years ago. I've tried growing a number of different things, and tomatoes have worked the best every year. Which is perfect because both of our children would eat tomatoes all day long if we let them!



We have some nice rows of spinach seedlings appearing now. I really wanted to get these in the ground earlier because they do not do well in the heat. We'll see if the weather continues to be mild!



I also had a few friendly volunteer plants this year. These tomato plants look great! There are several others that have come up on their own all over my raised bed. Today we planted our tomato seedlings from inside, so we should have a garden bed full of tomato plants this year!



This lettuce came up on its own this year and last year. A great surprise! I went out and snipped several lettuce leaves at lunch the other day



and used them for this beautiful salad! Home grown lettuce topped with peppers, mushrooms, avocado, cheese, and cold (formerly roasted) chicken. Delicious!


Are you growing anything this year?

Foyer Makeover, Part 3

Today's the day...the great reveal! 

We've been working on a foyer facelift to turn our white and cluttered entryway into a functional and beautiful space. We started with this BH&G mudroom photo for our model.

After the prepping our space by removing the furniture and baseboard, we taped and painted. What a difference just the paint made! Then we moved some of the existing furniture around and applied a window film to our sidelight by the front door.

Finally, the new entryway: 

We love it! It is exactly what I hoped for -- beautiful, functional, and affordable. We are not home improvement specialists by any stretch of the imagination, so it certainly took much longer than if we really knew what we were doing. But it is such a great feeling of accomplishment to have done the whole thing ourselves.

Let me take you on a little tour...

The bench was my first big wish for this area. I used to herd my kids over to the stairs to get their shoes on every time we left the house. Inevitably someone would drop a shoe along the way, pick up two that didn't match, or forget that we were going to put shoes on and run off somewhere else. An entryway bench makes the shoes struggles so much faster and easier. Plus, I love the beadboard above the bench!

Both this sailing frame and mirror were in the foyer previously, though on opposite walls from each other. They go together so beautifully and bring the whole wall together. I also picked the fabric for the bench to coordinate with the black and gold in these frames.

This is probably my favorite part of the whole thing! We hung this Ikea coat rack down low so that the kids can hang up their own coats and hats. Its so much nicer than trying to keep them on a hanger in the coat closet, and they can help get ready now too. I think its fantastic!

Here are a few more shots, just because!

I'll go through some more detailed step by step instructions, but I wanted to get these pictures posted first! We still have to attach the baseboard, caulk the gaps, and give everything a little bit of white paint, but thankfully most of those things are not noticeable until you get very close.

I'd love to hear what you think!

Foyer Makeover, Part 2

Yesterday I started detailing our DIY foyer makeover. We wanted to turn our boring, white (and scuffed!), and mostly storage-less entryway into something functional and beautiful. Our inspiration was this Better Homes & Gardens mudroom.

Once we got the foyer painted it was hard to believe we let it go 3 1/2 years! The paint gives the house such a warm and inviting feel, and since the tan is the same as our downstairs it blends the foyer in to the rest of the house perfectly.

After the paint was finished, we moved furniture around to make room for our new shelves. First we switched the entryway table to the opposite wall. 

The wooden box under the table is an old Proctor & Gamble box from my husband's family. On the wall by the garage door is a plate rack that I got at Goodwill. Our project notebook makes its home there right now, along with the week's grocery and drug store circulars.

And finally, we got rid of the curtain with the frustrating magnetic curtain rods and replaced it with Gila sidelight window film.

We found this brand at Lowe's, but I'm sure there are other options that do the same thing too. This was fairly easy to use; I measured the size of our sidelight window, cut to fit, then used a homemade solution (in the Gila instructions) to apply the film to the window.

I used an exacto knife to trim the sides, which proved to be the most difficult part. As you can see, the sides are a little ragged. I probably should have gone a little slower as I cut along the edges.

From the outside the Gila film does a great job making the window opaque. 

And from the inside, the film creates a nice ripple effect on the sidelight that lets in plenty of light and allows us to see outside as well.

The combination of the new sidelight film and the paint really brightens up the foyer! And since we are building ourselves a storage space, we no longer need to pile shoes under the entryway table and dump the mail on top of it. Success!

Next time we'll move on to the main part of our project...

Foyer Makeover, Part 1

We've had a large (at least for us!) home project in the works for quite some time now. It was early March when we started, and then we took turns getting sick, made multiple trips to the hardware store, and learned first hand that the right tools make all the difference.

Several months ago I saw a great photo inspiration on Pinterest for what looked like a doable foyer project for our house. It was a Better Homes & Gardens mudroom project that supposedly was $324 for all the materials. While there were not step by step instructions, Martin and I felt like we had enough details that we could pull it off. Neither of us is a carpenter or home improvement expert, but we ready to give it a shot.

Our foyer area had not had much done to it since we moved into our house 3 1/2 years ago. The walls were still white (at least mostly white...there were quite a few scuffs), the furniture was minimal and not really functional, and even though the mirror and picture matched, they didn't do much for the space. Plus, the small coat closet was not a practical place for keeping shoes; we have to keep the floor of it open so that we can pass through the back of the closet into our storage area. So shoes usually ended up a jumbled mess all over the floor.

Here are a few pictures of the space. Mirror above the entryway table. The table usually became the catch-all for things brought into the house. Keys, etc go in the basket. Underneath we stashed our shoes, but they didn't lay well on the rails and often ended up in a pile.

These pictures were taken right before we moved the furniture, so everything is fairly contained :-)

The other issue with this entryway table is that to center it on the wall, we couldn't fully open the door of the coat closet, which was very inconvenient, especially with all the in and out of Christmas decorations to that storage area.

Our first step after removing the furniture was to paint those scuffed, white walls! See the side light next to our front door? It is covered with a lightweight privacy curtain that really needed to go. The curtain rods were magnetic, which sounded like a great idea until you throw small children in the mix!

Getting things taped and ready for paint.

While I started the taping, Martin removed the baseboard.

It was really simple to do...we used a multi-use crowbar and a small piece of wood to protect the wall.

Everything came off nicely, and then it was time to paint!

Here is my favorite way to paint...roller in one hand, large mug of coffee in the other! We went with the same tan that is on the walls in the rest of our downstairs.

Stay tuned for the next installment...

Dishwasher detergent experiment, Part 2

Last year I compared gel dishwasher detergent to a 20 count of action packs. Both retail for the same price, but the gel gave me 45 washes instead of 20 for the little packs.

The next experiment was to compare powdered dishwasher detergent to the gel. We recently finished up a box so the results are in!

The powdered dishwasher detergent gave us 58 washes, 13 more than the gel. I'd call the gel and the powder pretty close! But the crazy thing is that the 13 washes between the gel and the powder is over half as many as you would get from one 20 count of little packs.

So what is the best value?

This time around I even bought a store brand dishwasher detergent instead of the name brand Cascade, and our dishes came out clean every time.

The specifics:
::We have a builder's grade dishwasher, nothing special
::We rinse dishes if they are going to be sitting in the dishwasher
::We only fill up the detergent dispenser that closes
::We didn't measure how much detergent, so the numbers could be slightly different

Read more of my thoughts on being an active consumer and why I started this experiment.

DIY Bow Rack

I had a lot of fun with this little project last week! I had an odd shaped cheap frame that I could not figure out how to use, so it had been sitting for a while. I took a large piece of scrapbook paper, and that ended up being too small also. So I added two strips of black construction paper to each side.

Then I took three different pieces of ribbon and tucked them in front of the glass but inside of the actual frame. I fastened them to the back of the picture frame as a precaution, but they are pretty snug wedged between the glass and the frame.

Here's a close up: over the glass and under the frame...

Then add on the hair bows! 

Before and After! I love being able to put to good use something that was just taking up space before. And this is an adorable wall hanging in my daughter's room now. Best of both worlds!

Pop Top Cans 2.0 - through the mail!

Remember the pop top can treats I made last year? Recently I started thinking about sending them through the mail. What a fun way to get a surprise! 

The best cans have fruit in them, because they are easy to get clean inside (not something that sticks like beans!). Remember...open your can from the bottom leaving the pop top intact! Carefully cut the label from the can and use it as a template. I used scrapbook paper, but you could keep things really simple and just use construction paper.

Next you need to assemble your goodies! Since Easter is right around the corner, we decided to send some Easter treats to a friend. We put stickers and candy in some eggs and found a few other fun things from our Tot School bin to add as well.

We also added pretty paper to both ends of the can...trace around the end, then trim to fit!

I added instructions,

and we made an address label out of more scrapbook paper.

Who do you know that would love to get one of these in the mail?

Since we put light things inside it only weighed about 5 oz, which put shipping just over $2. And the post office workers didn't even look at me funny when I stuck my can treat on the scale. Easter was the perfect time to send one of these, but I know I'll be doing more for things like birthdays in the future!

Thanks to Our Best Bites for the original inspiration!

Linking up with these parties:

Take a look Tuesday

Handmade Tuesday

Tuesday Time Out

Show and Tell

Show me what ya got

Tuesday Glam

Easy Roast Chicken

We love rotisserie chickens, especially from Costco. So juicy and moist, and a whole chicken can transform into several meals. Over the last year I finally got up my nerve to roast a chicken on my own. And I am totally hooked!

Each time I do it they taste better and better and are easier and simpler. I think I actually prefer my own roasted chicken to one from Costco now!

There are tons of options for roasting a chicken, but here is my super easy recipe.

Preheat oven to 400. Rinse chicken, removing any giblets from the cavity. Pat the chicken dry and do a quick check to remove any feathers that are still attached. Place the chicken in a baking dish. I'd love to have a Le Creuset dutch oven, but since I don't I just use a large Pyrex dish.

In a small dish, soften 1 Tbsp. butter (about 15 sec in the microwave). Using a silicone pastry brush (or just a spoon), mix in your seasonings. This time I used about a teasp. of dry parsley and a teasp. of Italian seasonings, along with some sea salt. Brush (or rub) the butter and herbs all over the chicken. You could peel up the skin and rub under also, but I've had great results shortcutting it on that lately! I also stuffed some onion in the chicken cavity, and added some to the baking dish.

Bake for 30-40 minutes. Check how brown the chicken is getting, baste with butter and juices in the pan. Bake for 15 minutes. Check and baste again. Usually at this point I cover the chicken with some foil. Bake for 15 minutes, check, then bake for 15 more minutes. The chicken should be completely done at this point (1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours total bake time). Let it sit for 5-10 minutes before you cut and serve to allow the juices to set nicely. Enjoy!

There are tons of variations...basically do whatever your family likes! Add different seasonings to the butter, add lemon juice. Bake with potatoes and carrots, or even oranges for a twist. The possibilities are endless, and I love that there's very little hands on time!

Are you a rotisserie chicken family? It's a great feeling to walk by the chickens in the store and know that one of them can come out of my oven now!

Paint Chip Labels

We were at Home Depot recently getting supplies for a project, and I grabbed a few large and brightly colored paint chips to bring home. I didn't have a great plan for them, but I was figuring they would become another tot school activity like this fine motor skill color matching one.

On a whim, I stuck one inside the clear pocket of our toy storage bins. Aside from being too tall, it fit perfectly!

I cut each one in half and wrote with a Sharpie to label the bins. Adorable, fast, and free!

This is a major improvement on the white papers I had as labels previously. They had been removed and crumpled several times, and at least half were missing. I also have several extras leftover in case a few of these show some wear. But since they are thick paint chips, I think they stand a much better chance at surviving!

Have you used paint chips for anything fun lately? I have visions of these adorable bins and clothespins holding paint chips that match the room! Probably not for the play area, but it would look great in a spot above the reach of little hands.