Guest/Sewing Room Makeover

Hello there. I'm back. Did you miss me? I said in the last post that I'd show you where my awesome china cabinet now resides. It's not in the kitchen or dining room. It's in our guest/sewing room. What?!? Who says a piece of furniture has to be used for its intended purpose? It doesn't store china, but it is used for storage. I'll show you that in a bit.

First off, let's see what the room used to look like.

Um, yuck! When we first moved in, this was our son's room, and for a short period, it was my husband's office space. (The white rectangle on the wall is a fold up desk he used when he worked on other people's computers). Then it just kind of became a holding zone for things we didn't know what to do with as I re-organized other spaces in the house.

You can't see it very well in the above photo, but we never painted the inside of the closet. This is what most of the walls in the house looked like when we bought this place. GROSS!!! I have no idea what caused this, and no amount of scrubbing made it go away, but I was determined to get it painted this time.

We still don't know what that pipe sticking out of the wall is for.

This is my inspiration piece. I hoped to make this room both a guest room and sewing room. We made this cute piece at a Stampin' Up meeting, and I just loved it. It kind of has a sewing theme to it, and I love the colors.

All the walls (including the closet) got two coats of a soft yellow paint. Much better! This closet was going to be used for storing sewing material and miscellaneous craft supplies so the original closet rod and shelf wasn't going to work. I went back and forth trying to figure out how to put shelves in here, then, while we are at the store, we happened upon these metal ones and they were half off! With my husband's ingenuity, we made them fit. Woo hoo! You really don't want to see what it looks like right now. Let's just say those shelves are quite full.

This is the wall opposite the closet. The little houses on the wall house my thimble collection. Thought this was the perfect place for them. The houses were all bought at different yard sales and were all different colors so I just spray painted them a deep brown so they would play together a little nicer.

Apparently this bed is the perfect napping spot.

Look what I found at a yard sale the same time I was working on the china cabinet. Isn't it perfect? It's an old, chippy metal table with two leaves that pull out. The wood trim under the table was a very poorly done white paint job. My first intention was to sand it slightly to smooth it out a bit and just repaint it, but it wasn't working, so I used some paint stripper to remove all the paint and then stained the wood the same as the china cabinet.

Here it is with one of the leaves pulled out. The perfect spot to do some sewing.

And, here she is, as promised. My lovely china cabinet that is now a wrapping station and storage cabinet. Isn't she beautiful? The upper cabinets are holding some of my Bible study and various crafting books. My serger is the white ghost looking thing on the shelf. Some day I will make a proper cover for it, now that I know where all my sewing stuff is. ;o)

The bottom drawers are the perfect place for wrapping supplies. This drawer already had dividers in it for silverware, which works perfect for organizing ribbon and bows.

This drawer holds LOTS of tissue papers. It's so much easier to find just the right color now that I don't have to drag a box out of the closet (from under other boxes) to find them.

 And the bottom two drawers have LOTS of gift bags. All shapes, sizes and holidays.

One of the two side doors holds empty gift boxes, and the other holds sewing supplies. Speaking of sewing supplies, this little tea cabinet we got when we lived in Japan holds all my threads and other sewing tools. It's finally found a home. :o)

And, finally, here's where my inspiration piece ended up. Right now the table is up as a temporary holding spot for some of my flowers. The basket underneath holds a blanket I've been working on for about 5 years now. Sigh. I really should try and finish that up sometime.

Well, there you have it. A little tour of my summer time project. I have to say I am loving it. Before Christmas I spent many hours in here sewing some gifts for my daughter. I am hoping to get back in here soon to work on some other projects I have been asked to do. Sigh. So many crafts...so little time.

China Cabinet Makeover

Hello there! How are you this fine, chilly day? I just put some Nutella Hot Chocolate in the crock pot and can't wait to try it out later. Sounds warm and yummy. :o) 

This past summer I worked on a project that I'd been wanting to do for years. I was given this china cabinet from a dear friend when we were stationed in Japan. It was her grandmother's, but it just didn't fit in her home so she blessed me with it. Here you can see it when we first moved in to this house. Our formal dining room is open to the living room and doesn't have any walls for this to sit against so I tried using it in the breakfast nook. It didn't fit. :o( A few years ago we remodeled the kitchen and added cabinets to this corner so the china hutch went downstairs to act as a dresser for Michelle for a bit. That didn't work very well, so it eventually went in to storage. 

 I always knew I wanted to paint it someday. I wanted it to have an antique, distressed feel, not an old worn out one. This poor cabinet has been through a lot of moves, several families, a lot of kids, and it was showing a LOT of wear and tear.

 See what I mean? There's a difference between looking distressed and looking old.

Once our son moved out, I decided to turn his room into a guest room and wanted to use this cabinet in there for storage.

I started by removing the hardware. The strips of wood here were holding the glass in the upper doors. I used a flat head screwdriver to gently pry them out. Once the first one was out, the others came out pretty easily. I left the nails in the wood to re-attach them with later.

 Then the sanding began. Lots and lots of sanding. I knew I was going for a distressed look, so I didn't sand down to completely smooth wood, but I did want to get most of the smooth finish off so the paint would stick. You see those "louvered" doors? Whoever designed them did not plan on this piece ever being refinished...ever. (I really do not like this person.)

 Thankfully, I was able to use a palm sander for most of the surfaces. I planned on staining the top of this piece, so I did sand it down as far as I could and as smooth as I could starting with a rough grit and working to a super fine grit.

After sanding, I applied a very light, coat of blue paint. This was actually a mix of several different blues we had from various other projects around the house. I applied it in a very haphazard way, not worrying about complete coverage. This layer was just going to show through here and there so I didn't need to be super neat with it. I did, however, make sure there were not blobs or drips, especially at corners and in those louvers. 

The next layer of paint was a bit darker, though you can't tell by this photo. This one I tried to do a better job of covering and getting things smooth. 

This photo shows the color a little better.

Once all the parts were painted, I got out some sand paper and started sanding it down to expose the different layers underneath, getting down to bare wood in some places. I did NOT use the palm sander. I wanted to do it by hand so I could better control how much sanded off and where. I focused on taking off more around edges where it would naturally wear more.

Top drawer sanded, bottom drawer not.

Then I used disposable sponge brushes to brush on some minwax stain and cotton rags to wipe it off. I wiped on a large area, but not too large. After doing an area like this, I made sure to use the rag and wipe the overlapping areas really well to blend in the stain and not have any lines.

Side note, if you have really long hair like I do, make sure it is pinned up so you don't end up with a new color. Oh, and stock up on disposable gloves too. You'll need them. 

The painted areas only received one coat of stain, but I think I used 3 coats on the top. 

Here you can see the different layers of paint and how the stain helped darken both the paint colors and the exposed wood. 

Although the stain I used was a stain and sealer, I did use a wipe on sealer on top of this anyway, just to give it some more protection. The final step was to figure out what hardware went where and put everything back together.

 Oops, forgot to paint the trim that holds the glass inside the door. Oh well. Not going to worry about it now. I simply lined the nails up with the holes that were already there and tapped them into place.

Here it is all done and waiting for my handsome hubby to come home and help me move it into the house. 

 First I had to put it in the yard to get a good shot in the sunshine. Love.

I will show you it in its new home, but that will have to wait till later as I need to get started on dinner. We're having Creamy Pesto and Chicken Pasta. So yummy!!

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

Gingerbread House Tutorial

Hello there again! How are you? We are doing fine here. A bit chilly--no, scratch that--we're down right cold! On the upside, my handsome hubby got an extra day off of work today because of the cold. :o) Great day for snuggling and hot cocoa.

I know it's a little late for Christmas, but, honestly, it's never too early to start planning for next year. In fact, I'm hosting a Homespun Christmas 12 Month Challenge over on my craft blog to help make things a bit easier next year. There's always so many fun activities going on around Christmas, that I am hoping to get as much of the prep work and crafts done ahead of time to leave me more room for family fun. Feel free to check it out and join in the challenge.

One of things we do every year is make a gingerbread house. Actually, I bake and assemble 20+ houses. I don't decorate them all though. The kids at church get to decorate them after their Christmas play practice. It's always a lot of fun, and I've learned some tricks to make it easier over the years. Making gingerbread is a bit messy, but Michelle volunteered to keep her hands clean and take photos for me of the process.  How about I share them with you? Consider it an early Christmas gift from us to you. You're welcome. :o)

First off, I start by making up the gingerbread dough. I've tried several recipes over the last couple of years and I think I've settled on one I like the best. I had some criteria I was looking for as I searched for recipes. First off, it couldn't call for a lot of expensive ingredients. My original recipe called for 6 eggs. That's a LOT of eggs when you have to make 5 or 6 batches of dough. I also didn't want to use butter or a lot of molasses. I wanted the houses to taste good, but honestly, the houses are usually so stale by the time the kids eat them (if they do), I doubt they would taste that great even if I had used the most expensive ingredients available. I also did not want a recipe that had to be refrigerated before rolling it out. I never know exactly how many batches I need to make and don't want to have too much, or have to wait for another batch to chill.

I didn't get pictures of all the steps, but I figure you know how to mix up cookie dough, which is pretty much what this is.

Start by preheating your oven to 350 and placing a non-skid mat (shelf liner) under your cookie sheet to keep it from sliding around while you roll out the dough. You need a sheet that only has one raised side. If you don't have one like this, try turning your regular cookie sheet upside down. It makes it easier to roll the dough directly on the sheet.

Once you've made up your dough (recipe is below), place about a third of it on your well sprayed cookie sheet. Flatten it out a bit with your hands and sprinkle a generous amount of flour to keep it from sticking. You can see that it looks pretty crumbly on the edges. As long as it comes together as you roll and pat it, it's fine.

Roll the dough out to about 1/8 inch thick, covering as much of the cookie sheet as you can.

I use a piece of PVC pipe as a rolling pin to flatten out the dough near the raised edge.

Using a pattern, or these totally awesome cutters from Wilton, cut out your pieces.

Butt the pieces right up next to each other.

Once you've cut as many as will fit on the sheet, remove any extra dough and put it back in your bowl to be re-rolled later.

Bake them for 10-12 minutes. As soon as they come out of the oven, re-cut them with your patterns or pieces. You will have to work pretty quickly, one because the dough hardens up as it cools, and 2 because your hands will get pretty hot working on the hot dough.

Here you can see where the dough has expanded a bit so re-cutting helps to keep your pieces the size they need to be to assemble correctly.

Optional-hire one of your young'uns to help with some of the clean-up between batches. ;o)

Keep re-rolling the dough, cutting and baking till you're almost out of dough. I usually use the last bit to cut out a bunch of people. These I cut on the counter and transfer to the cookie sheet. It's MUCH easier than trying to pick out all the little extra pieces from between the people.

A little foot note here, it took me about 5 hours one afternoon/evening to make 6 batches of dough and bake pieces for 26 houses. I also have 2 cookie sheets, so while one is baking I can roll another out. I take all the pieces over to the church (where the decorating fun happens) and assemble them there the day before the party.

I forgot to get photos of the assembly process, so maybe next year I will update this with more photos of that. I have included the recipe for the frosting glue to hold the houses together. I will say that you should stock up on some cake circles or rectangles. I used to cut cardboard squares and cover them with foil every year. I began to realize that my time was worth more than the little extra I spent on the cake circles (I've since found that you can get them pretty cheap on Amazon-this batch should last me a couple of years). I also found that the houses would often pop off the foil, but they tend to stick to the bare boards better, and since they're white, the kids can pretend it's snow. Win-win.

Here's the houses all lined up and ready for the kids. I provide the houses and the bags of frosting, but the kids are asked to each bring a bag or two of candy/cereal to use for decorating. I divide the unwrapped candies into disposable plates or bowls, and the wrapped candy is just spread out along the table. I usually set this up while the kids are practicing.

I make the frosting the day before and put it in disposable bags with a rubber band on the open end. You can see why in this photo. :o) I don't cut the tip off the bag until they are ready to start decorating, royal frosting crusts and hardens up pretty quick. When they finish their lunch, they come to see me, I cut the tip off a bag for them, and they are off and having fun. I also usually have a label with their name on it to put on the board of their house to help prevent any squabbles later. 

This photo was from a couple years ago, but it's a good shot of the bag.

 After all that work, and the following clean-up, your last step is to...

I guess that's about it. Hope you enjoy this little (or not so little) tutorial, and hope you get a chance to make some gingerbread houses next year. One batch of dough makes about 4 houses. Maybe your littles could invite a friend or two over for a fun afternoon. 

Gingerbread dough (makes about 4 houses using the Wilton gingerbread house cutters)

• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350. Place your cookie sheet on top of a non-skid mat (shelf liner) so it won't slide all around on you while you're rolling the dough out. Spray it well with cooking spray.
2. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. 
3. In another bowl beat the shortening and sugar until creamy. Add the molasses and eggs and combine well. Slowly stir in the dry ingredients. Your dough will probably look kind of crumbly, that's OK. 
4. Take about a third of the dough out and place it on your cookie sheet and use your hands to flatten it out a bit. It probably won't look very pretty. Sprinkle a generous amount of flour on top. Using a rolling pin and plenty of flour, roll the dough out over as much of the cookie sheet as you can. I usually try to cover the whole thing until I get to the end of my batch of dough and it just won't cover that much. You want it to be about an 1/8 inch think. 
5. Using patterns or cutters (this is TOTALLY the way to go if you're making a lot) cut out your pieces making sure you butt the pieces right up next to each other. This will help it from spreading out too much and getting out of shape. Once you've gotten as many shapes as you can on your cookie sheet, remove the extra dough and put it back in the bowl. 
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. The dough will have expanded slightly, so you need to re-cut your pieces as soon as they come out of the oven while the dough is still soft (this is where having cutters is really nice). Remove to a wire rack to cool. The pieces will harden up as they cool. (Any extra cut off pieces make yummy snacks while you're working. ;o)
7. Repeat the rolling, cutting, baking sequence with the remainder of the dough. 

Royal Frosting (Fills 6 bags)

• 6 Tablespoons meringue powder
• 2 lbs powdered sugar
• just less than 2/3 cup water

Place all ingredients in a stand mixer and whip for several minutes (5-7). This is slightly softer than most meringue recipes, but I wanted it to be easy for the kids to squeeze out of the bags. 

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!

MineCraft Birthday Party

Hello there! This new year organization stuff is pretty awesome. I've set aside some time for me to blog during the week, and it's working! I'm actually sitting down and doing it. :o) Of course, school starts back up tomorrow and life goes back to it's usual busy-ness, so we'll see how well I can keep up with this schedule then. 

Anyway, I promised a little while ago that I would share some pictures from Michelle's 11th birthday party, so here it is. As the title says, it was a MineCraft theme, and for those of you who have no idea what that is, it is a computer/video game where you build things. I kind of see it as a mix of Legos and Survivor in one game. You're given basic materials and you have to use them to build stuff to protect yourself from the bad guys. It has distinct graphics in that it is pixelated. Everything is a block, or made up of blocks. 

I would love to give credit where credit is due for the many things I printed off for this party, but to be honest, there are so many resources on the web, and I pulled things from LOTS of different websites that I can't remember what I got from where. If you simply google, or go to Pinterest and look for MineCraft party, you will find a ton of ideas and resources. The hard part was narrowing down to things I thought would work for us. 

Here was our buffet.That's the cake in the middle.

The green background is just a disposable table cloth that we hung from the ceiling to the half wall of the stair well. This gave us a backdrop for the buffet. 

I think I ordered the grass stuff from Amazon. It was fun to play with. :o) The decorations in the middle of the table I got from Pixel Papercraft. It was super easy. You find the item you want, print it, cut it out, fold it up and glue it. Because most of the items are all cubes, they're pretty easy to assemble. Oh, and it's FREE. 

 Here's another shot of the buffet. It was pretty easy to find food items to match many of the items used in the game (chicken, melon, strawberries, apples, etc).

 Michelle made these to give to her friends in their goody bags. They represent different items or creatures in the game. My personal favorite was the cake on the bottom. :o)

Our son, Nick gave this cardboard Steve head to Michelle a while ago, and it was the perfect blind fold for our game of pin the tail on the Ender Dragon. We just made the girls put it on backwards. For those who don't know, Steve is the main character in the game.

No, I didn't remove all the coats and shoes to make the photos look nice. Oh well. This is real life at our house.

 This was another one of our games, although they didn't end up using the Steve head after this photo because they couldn't see a thing out of it. We cut a Creeper face out of a box and spray painted it green. My original idea was to make bean bags for the girls to toss into the holes, but never got around to making them. Michelle pulled out her nerf bow to use instead. I think it worked better than the beanbags would have.

So, this was the cake. It was kind of crazy to make. I ganached the square cake like I usually do before covering it in fondant, but this time I covered in in sheets of wafer paper that I printed from the Pixel Papercraft blog. I simply re-sized the images to fit  the cake, printed them and "glued" them to the ganache with piping gel. Next time I would definitely use more gel around the edges as it began to peel toward the end of the party. Everything on top, except the tree, was fondant covered in more printed wafer paper. The tree was rice crispy treat. It was quite fiddly to wrap the paper around the fondant, but probably a lot easier than hand painting or piecing little tiny squares of fondant. I even stuck a birthday candle in the dynamite for effect.

 The girls seemed to like it. :o)

Here's a shot of some of the characters before I put them on the cake. 

I have to share this last shot with you. This was the first problem Michelle had for math on the Monday after her party. We got a good laugh out of it. Michelle is still wondering where her gift is from Steve. :o)

Well, I better close this here. I've got a bit more work to do at my desk before heading off to bed. 

Till next time...

God's love and blessings!