Cooking Up A Project

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Danielle

My grandmother was a recipe collector. I don’t have memories of her spending hours in the kitchen, but she was always collecting recipes. Don’t get me wrong, she had some stellar “go-to” dishes that I can’t imagine life without. Most of them were made during the holidays… Tom & Jerry’s, Divinity, Depression Fruitcake… but some of them were just every day things like Open Face Salad. The truth is she worked outside the home and when I spent my summers at my grandparents, she was always quick to play Yahtzee or cards with me instead of being in the kitchen when she got home from work. I liked that about my summers with her.

However, when she passed away several years ago, my mom came across all of her recipes. Many of them were torn from newspapers and magazines, but my favorites were those that she took time to write out in her beautiful handwriting. I made sure to get copies of those for my own little collection.

Speaking of my own collection… frankly, it’s a hot mess.

I keep my cookbooks to a minimum, but I continually find myself collecting recipes that girlfriends have emailed me or items from Food Magazine that look SO amazing. But these clippings don’t really fit in a traditional recipe box. They are starting to take on a life of their own and it’s time to wrangle them in.

Last week, I made a trip to IKEA to pick up a set of their KNUFF boxes. I searched several craft stores and container supply and there’s nothing truly like the KNUFF containers. They come in sets of two for $9.99. They are sturdy and (my favorite) customizable.

Before I could prime the box, I taped off the interior. I like the natural wood finish for the inside, but I have something unique planned for the exterior.

In my prep, I was sure to cover the holes too.

Once everything was taped up, it was time to prime.

Then came a few light coats of black spray paint.

For the next part of this project, I color copied one of my grandmother’s recipes. My plan is to create a decorative border from the antiqued cards that are in my grandmother’s handwriting. Of course, I didn’t want to destroy any of her original recipe cards and they copied beautifully onto a heavy card stock. I also picked up Washi Tape and these decorative frames.

Before applying my copied recipe cards, I marked a 1.25 inch guideline around the bottom of the KNUFF box.

I then applied the copied recipe cards with Mod Podge and sealed the whole box off with a top coat.

Using leftover chalkboard labels and my chalk marker, I was able to make a title card for the inside of the wood frame.

I love having a larger box to put all me random recipes in… one that can stand up easily next to my cookbooks. Tyson loves that life is a little more organized in our home.

Do you have a special memory of your grandparents that makes you smile? What about a family recipe that has been passed down through the years? How do you contain recipe clutter?

This project was made with love and is being included in Victoria Elizabeth Barnes‘ link-up party. To check out all the other well loved projects or to share your own, you can visit Victoria’s site here.

Spring Pinterest Challenge: Chalkboard Subway Art

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Danielle

One of the very first projects that I shared on this blog was how I turned a cabinet door into a chalkboard for our laundry room. It was a project I loved and it seemed like a cute way to kick things off here. On it, I simply wrote “Welcome”.

Welcome to my home, to my life and to this blog.

It was the very beginning of EVERYTHING and I wasn’t sure if I could even write a blog let alone get this one word looking right. I was pleased that it looked fairly neat and I had another post written.

Fast forward a year plus several months later and that sign still says “Welcome”. And I’ve been wondering if there’s something more that I can do with it. So when Young House Love and Bower Power announced that it was time for their Spring Pinterest Challenge, I knew it was time to update my chalkboard.

The Pinterest Challenge this season is hosted again by Sherry Petersik and Katie Bower and this time they are partnering with Emily from Sparkle Meets Pop and Renee of Red Bird Blue. The goal is to get everyone to put their own unique twist on something that they’ve pinned.

My Inspiration

Dana Tanamachi is hands down one of my favorite artists. You may have seen her artwork at West Elm or on the cover of Oprah Magazine. She is a hugely talented hand letter artist and does stunning things with chalk.

Following Dana’s lead, I am combining two popular trends and hoping to create subway art with chalk.

My Pinspiration

There are loads of tutorials on Pinterest of how-to create subway art and chalk lettering. A few that I referenced were here, here and here. However, I found My Sweet Savannah’s post to be the most helpful.

I began brainstorming laundry room words: soap, bubbles, clean, iron… you get the idea.

Then I used Adobe Illustrator to help me create a subway art design with those terms. There are a lot of programs online that you can download to use, but since we already own Adobe Illustrator, I went with that. Sometimes being married to a graphic designer and illustrator has it’s perks.

AI works like several of the online design programs. It’s a matter of typing in your words, playing with fonts and sizing and moving the words around until you have a layout that you like. Seriously, I may be married to a graphic designer and illustrator, but I am not one. I was able to easily figure this out by just playing around to see what happens.

That was the easy step.

This next part would, as my son says, separate the pretenders from the contenders. That is, I had no idea if I could actually get the chalk lettering down the way I had designed it.

I was hoping to use an image projector to help in this process. However, once I started pricing them out and realized we were looking at a few hundred dollar investment, I decided I would need to consider other options.

My chalkboard space is 17.5 inches square. I printed the design off on to two 11 x 17 sheets of paper that I could overlap and leave myself with a half inch border.

You can also take your image file to a local print shop and have it printed on one sheet, but I wanted to see if I could do this challenge completely free and the legal size paper worked.

Once I taped the two sheets together, I rubbed chalk over the entire back of the paper. I then flipped the design over so that the chalk side was against the chalkboard and taped it down to keep it from shifting.

I was able to carefully trace the outline of the letters to get a copy of my subway art transposed onto the chalkboard.

I then began the process of going over the letters and filling them in… one letter at a time.

At first, I thought all the hand lettering would take forever, but it was oddly therapeutic and went quickly. I had the added benefit of being able to take the cabinet door off the wall and work on the floor, moving the board all around.

I also used Q-tips and a touch of water to “erase” and clean up any areas that needed a little extra help.

Unfortunately, there is no natural light in our laundry room, so this photo is not ideal. But I am beyond thrilled with the final artwork.

I still can’t believe it worked the way I had hoped. Tyson keeps asking if I need to seal it so the image doesn’t get smudged or lost, but I would gladly come up with something new, if the need or inspiration strikes.

Speaking of inspiration… it’s party time. Time to check out all the great links that are being shared at the Spring Pinterest Challenge. There is sure to be tons of inspiration and more things to pin. I’ll be linking up at:

Have you ever done chalk art or hand lettering? Are you participating in the Spring Pinterest Challenge? Ever take on a project and wonder if you would find yourself a pretender or a contender? That kid cracks me up!

For even more inspiration, check out these blogs that I’ll also be sharing this post at:

Spring Table

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Danielle

My heart is heavy for the people in Boston this morning. The lives that were devastatingly altered yesterday…. there simply are no words. None. And so instead I’m going to draw my family close, sit a little longer with friends and share something completely superficial and frivolous with you here… just because it makes me smile. Enjoy the people precious to you and pray for those in Boston.

One of the things on my wish list for 2013 is to paint our dining room table.

It was given to us before we were married and it has seen us through hundreds of occasions in the last 20 years. From our very first dinner party to countless DIY projects, this table has seen it all. And in a lot of ways it shows it.

But in an effort to keep my family sane and to stay focused on the three other projects we’ve got going on right now, I’ll wait to update it. Instead, I decided to whip up a new table runner. Here I mentioned that I prefer a table runner to a table cloth. For our busy family, it just makes more sense. But this time, instead of using a scarf, I decided to make my own runner.

The biggest challenge for this little project was finding the right fabric. I was looking for a bold blue to contrast with the oak table and flowers I plan to display. However, we don’t have a lot of blues in our living and dining room and most of what we do have is a robin egg blue. Finding the right design was going to be tricky.

So much like The Dating Game, I had to interview a few candidates.

Fabric #1: Has both dark and light blue with pops of green.

The design and colors are bright and upbeat, but it’s not quite right for the space. It still makes me smile and I have a feeling it will turn up somewhere else in our home.

Fabric #2: Tyson picked this one out and it has a totally different vibe.

The colors work within the room, the pattern is graphic and more masculine. But it’s too subtle for the table. At least for the look I’m going for. We still like it, so I’m sure it’ll make an appearance somewhere else in our house too.

Fabric #3: Hello, Gorgeous!

This Robert Allen fabric was love at first sight! Bold Color – check. Graphic Print – check. Good contrast against the oak table – check. It ties in nicely with the other elements in the room and is everything I had hoped for. It’s a beautiful thing when you find just the right fabric!

To get started, I purchased a half yard of fabric. Standard runners are about 14″ wide so I figured after squaring up the sides and hemming the edges I would be right around that size.

Can I just pause here and show you the back of this fabric?

Polka Dots! How great is that?! I’m not sure that I’ve seen fabric with such decorative detailing on the underside before. I love it almost as much as the front.

To create the runner, I used my favorite fusible tape to help me create a quick hem. Fold over the raw edge once with tape.

Press with iron.

Repeat so that all the raw edges are folded in.

Then to finish everything off, I added a simple stitch around the border with my machine. This last step isn’t necessary, but I thought it would be a nice way to reinforce the whole thing.

The table runner was exactly the bright new accent I was looking for as we head into spring.

I’ve dressed it up with white amaryllis…

… and crimson tulips.

It’s been such a cheery addition to our dining room, especially on some of our gray, rainy days. And I can’t wait to see how it looks with the table when we finally get a chance to update that piece too.

What are you doing to get ready for spring? Have you made any recent purchases that brighten your day? Are there any new projects that you are eager to get to?

Also, I want to say a huge thank you to those that joined in the Link-up Party. I was pretty pleased with this first event and I hope to do it again soon. However, for those that are interested, the party is still going on until midnight tonight. So if you have a Favorite Find to share, feel free to link away here!

Winter Pinterest Challenge: Mantel Tray Display

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Danielle

Our mantel is normally pretty bare. In the fall, I get it all festive, but the rest of the year, it’s fairly plain.

When we remodeled the fireplace a few years back, we chose to put the TV above the mantel because of the unique shape of the room. It’s works well for us to have it here, but it makes actually decorating the mantel a little more challenging. You can’t have anything too bulky that will block the screen, but having nothing just seems boring.

So last summer when I saw this display tray on Pinterest, I knew immediately I wanted something similar. (I just checked out the source from Pinterest and can’t get over the sectional in the post. Surprise… I love it too!)

Sarah from Thrifty Decor Chick made this beautiful tray and you can read all the details here.

However, it didn’t originally occur to me to make this tray. I truly thought I could drop into one of my favorite stores and pick one up… easy. But after months of searching, I couldn’t find a tray that was the length I wanted. I was looking for something 48″ across with a shallow lip so that it would sit nicely under the screen. We only have a 5″ clearance. I decided it was time to build the tray myself.

And by myself, I mean with the help of my man and his power tools.

Luckily, Home Depot had pre-cut 48″ boards, so Tyson’s help was actually pretty minimal. I picked up one 7″ x 48″ board and three 1.5″ x 48″ boards. This left me with a base, two sides, and a third board for Tyson to cut and make two end pieces for me.

I had also picked up upholstery tacks at JoAnn’s, but Tyson advised that I not use those since the boards were thin and would probably split. But more on that in a bit.

Armed with Minwax Dark Walnut stain left over from this project, I began staining the cut boards.

I then wiped off the excess stain and let the boards dry.

The color is beautiful! I think working with wood stain is official my new favorite.

Once the boards had thoroughly dried, it was time to assemble the tray. This is where things got a little tricky.

I applied wood glue to the long sides and used wood clamps to hold it all together. But things got dicey when I went to add the end pieces. I don’t have clamps that can span the 48″ length and frankly, holding the end pieces to the base and waiting for glue to dry wasn’t gonna happen.

So out came the upholstery tacks. And then this happened.

But I kinda loved that the tack split the wood. So I put in another one. And it split again.

And I loved it even more!

The irregular tack heads and split wood give the whole piece a more distressed look and I’m so happy with the result.

I had been planning on adding rope or drawer handles to each end, but I think the plain ends work just as well.

For now, I’ve filled it with this seashell inspired potpourri. I haven’t used potpourri in over a decade. It’s kinda fun to revisit it.

It’s pretty for spring and the perfect spot for me to add these sand dollars that we found on our beach trip last summer.

I can see changing things out down the road, but for now, this is a nice option.

I’m linking this post up with the Winter Pinterest Challenge hosted by Sherry from Young House Love and Katie of Bower Power.

This time they have asked Megan from The Remodeled Life and MIchelle from Decor and the Dog to co-host.

I was particularly thrilled that Michelle was asked to co-host as she is one of the funniest bloggers I follow and if you haven’t checked her out, you definitely need to. In fact, click on the links to any of these ladies and see hundreds of bloggers sharing their inspired Pinterest posts. There’s sure to be some outstanding craftiness on display.

Ever decide to build something yourself because you couldn’t find it in a store? Do you have a new DIY technique that is quickly becoming your favorite? Are you participating in the Winter Pinterest Challenge? Let me know… I’d love to hear what you all are up to.

And if you’re curious what I’ve done in other Pinterest Challenges, you can read all about it here, here and here.

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Category Archives: accent piece

Cooking Up A Project

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Spring Pinterest Challenge: Chalkboard Subway Art

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Spring Table

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Winter Pinterest Challenge: Mantel Tray Display

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