Tick tock, a broken red clock

Yesterday, there was a tragedy in my house.

Okay, fine, it might not exactly qualify as a tragedy, but I'm still sad! My beloved red plastic retro kitchen clock fell right off the wall and met with an untimely end on the wood floors. I thrifted the clock back in 2008--I was surprised to see that I've had it so long!

When I first bought it at the thrift store for 80¢ the clock mechanism didn't work. I fixed it by buying another 80¢ clock at the same thrift store and using the working mechanism in it to replace the non-working one in my red clock. Pretty thrifty and smart, if I do say so myself!

Now I'm on the hunt for a new retro-style wall clock. All day long yesterday I caught myself looking at the wall where this one hung! There's actually a carriage-style clock hanging directly on the other side of the kitchen so if I just turn my head in the other direction there's still a clock--but force of habit has me looking at the empty spot. If you know of a cute clock I need to see, let me know!

The power of spray paint

Since I've been on this redecorating kick, nothing is safe! We had near-70-degree weather on Monday and Tuesday, which meant it was finally warm enough for spray painting! I'd been eyeing a shelf in my kitchen for a few days and figured that it was high time for a change.

The shelf is nothing fancy. It was constructed and put up by the previous homeowners and because I'm always short on display space that is out of reach of little hands, I left it up. It sits above the pantry in my kitchen and there's really not a whole lot of clearance between the shelf and the ceiling, so I am limited in what I can display. The shelf was just a sort of nondescript golden brown, a color I have in abundance in the kitchen because of my golden oak cabinets and honey-colored wood floors.

When we first moved in, I had a cute display of vintage red wooden-handled kitchen utensils, a green Pyrex bowl, and my grandma's old BHG red gingham cookbook. When I found my huge Jadeite score back in 2008, I decided to use the shelf to display some of the pieces in the collection.

I combined the Jadeite with some of my Ovenex starburst pans and posted about it here. (Ironically, I made that post on March 6, 2008--so almost exactly 4 years ago, as I am writing this on March 7, 2012!) And that is pretty exactly much how it has looked since then.

On Monday afternoon, I unloaded all of the Jadeite and gave it a good washing (even though it's not anywhere near the stove, it still had a layer of that greasy dirt that stuff in the kitchen seems to attract). I took the shelf outside and gave it a few coats of black glossy spray paint. Easy as pie!

When I put the shelf back up and loaded in my Jadeite, I decided to try it without the Ovenex pans. It looked too naked, but I remembered some of the red and white polka dot melamine plates in my cupboard and set a few of those up there instead. I love how it looks! I've always wanted to add more red to set off the Jadeite green but couldn't figure out how to do it before. I like how crisp the black shelf looks with the pale green and bright red. It was a fun, no-cost, simple change but it makes me so happy to look at it. Hooray for the power of spray paint!

Is there anywhere in your house where a bit of spray paint and little rearranging could make a big difference?

How to camouflage a poorly-placed outlet cover or light switch

I mentioned last week that I did some furniture rearranging in my front room (in my pjs, at 7:15 am--hey, when inspiration strikes, you have to jump on it!). Unfortunately, I was not able to move the blue dresser  so that it would cover up that darn ugly outlet.

Because I couldn't completely hide it, I did the next best thing to make it disappear: Camouflage!

I used the same technique that I employed on an ill-placed light switch plate in my living room last year.

For my red wall, I used a piece of cute scrapbook paper from Jenni Bowlin that is printed with old soda water labels and was the perfect shade of deep red.

This truly is a five-minute project. It takes longer for the Mod Podge to dry than it does to put the whole thing together, and that includes finding a tiny screwdriver to remove & reinstall the outlet cover, and digging the Mod Podge and a brush out of your craft closet.

The outlet cover is still visible, but now it's not quite so obvious, and I love the tiny bit of extra detail that the vintage-style paper provides. It's nice to add a bit of flair to something as utilitarian and ubiquitous as an outlet cover!

Doily painted and reverse-applique Valentine shirt

If you don't have young kids in your home, you probably don't get Family Fun magazine, so you probably will have not seen the darling doily-print t-shirts they had on the cover of the February issue. Let me catch you up:

So cute, right? I knew as soon as I saw that picture that I wanted to make a shirt for Maren. Back when I made her Christmas reverse applique shirt, I botched my first attempt and had to buy a new red t-shirt. This left me with an otherwise-perfectly-good red shirt with pen marks right in the center, and what better way to cover them than a cute stenciled doily heart?

If you don't get Family Fun magazine, you can find the instructions and another photo here. And a warning--the color red freaks out my camera so my photos are all a little bright.

Before I made the shirt, I spent a good while with an Xacto knife, making sure all of the little holes in the doily were clear of hanging chads. It took a while, but it was worth it because the final product had a nicer pattern.

To adhere the doily to the shirt while you paint, the instructions advise you to put a light coat of glue stick on the back of the doily. I suspected that this was a bad idea--the doily would act like a cheese grater and glue would come up through the holes. I was right--even though I applied the glue stick sparingly, I still had to use a toothpick to poke chunks of glue out of the holes before I could paint.

Once the doily was adhered, I used white fabric paint and a foam stencil brush to daub paint carefully over the doily. I found that the wet paint caused the thin paper doily to curl and move, so if I didn't get a good coating of paint the first time I wasn't able to really fix it. I also had to be careful not to use too much paint and have it blob through the holes and lose the delicate lacy pattern.

Here's how the shirt looked after I removed the paper doily. The puckery part in the middle is where the glue grabbed onto the fabric and pulled as I removed the paper.

I had so much fun, that I grabbed an old shirt of my own and a handful of doilies and went to down. I went a little bit overboard, but I think the effect is cool and I like how they look like snowflakes on the gray shirt.

Remember how Maren's shirt had inkstains in the middle that I needed to cover? Well, some of them still showed in the unpainted middle of the heart, so I had to do something else. Reverse applique to the rescue! It took me about 15 minutes to fix while we watched the Grammy awards on Sunday night. I used a scrap of pale pink fabric and white embroidery thread and just followed the inside of the heart with my stitches. I love how it turned out and with the addition of a fancy hairdo

she looked perfectly sweet for Valentine's Day!

Valentine's decor 2012

Just wanted to share a few glimpses of the Valentine's decorations around my home before I pack them up for another year..

My Valentine for The Mister. I used three rolls of Rolos covered in red paper and a silver pipe cleaner folded at the top to look like the fuse. I found this idea on Pinterest (my pin) but the original source is here.

I had some friends over and we made these cute pennant flags. So easy and festive!

75¢ thrifted vintage Relpo Valentine planter. Was going to sell it but I love it too much!

I don't love how the top of the china cabinet turned out, but I was too tired to do anything about it.

A different kind of wreath: a giant pinwheel made of pleated rectangle doilies, a red and white 4th of July fan, and a shiny red heart doily.

I also made a few smaller pennant flags using stripey straws instead of skewers for the sticks

Love that giant thrifted spool of red thread! Perfect for pinning a vintage heart doily.

I used my estate sale pink Lu-Ray plates to add color to my china cabinet.

Festive candy corn in a thrifted vintage Hazel Atlas nut chopper

Queen of Hearts Valentine dinner

I knew that this year I wanted to make a special Valentine's Day dinner for my family, and was delighted when I found this cute idea with free printables for a Queen of Hearts dinner. You can even watch a video segment about it HERE (it won't let me embed for some reason). The Queen of Hearts is significant to The Mister and me (it was the first Valentine I ever gave to him!), so I knew that I wanted to use the ideas.

For our dinner, I made a special meal. There was a local restaurant in Provo called Ottavio's that The Mister and I loved to visit while we were dating, and my favorite dish was called Rigatoni Ottavio's. A few years later, I was able to get the recipe through a column in a local newspaper that would contact local restaurants for readers. The dish is a lot of work, expensive, and has about a zillion calories so it's definitely a special occasion food! I'll post the recipe separately because it's long.

To go with the Rigatoni Ottavio's, I intended to make garlic bread, but then remembered that at Ottavio's they served fresh focaccia bread with olive oil and vinegar for dipping. I've never made it before and am generally scared of making yeast breads, but I was able to find an Easy Focaccia bread recipe that truly was easy and turned out great! It tasted just like the bread we used to get at the restaurant.

For dessert at Ottavio's, we always used to order the enormous slice of chocolate cake. I didn't want to make a huge cake this time, so I made another treat that I've been craving: individual Molten Chocolate Cakes. I've never been able to make the little cakes before because I didn't have any ramekins. A quick trip to Home Goods the other day solved that problem!

Because of the cute ramekins, I didn't bother unmolding the cakes. One thing I did from another recipe was to coat the dishes with white granulated sugar after I buttered them--this gives a slightly crunchy texture to the outside of the cake that contrasts nicely with the gooey chocolate center.

As it turned out, I didn't go as much with the Queen of Hearts card theme as I had originally intended. I was so busy cooking all day and I didn't have a pack of cards that I was willing to use up! I think it all looked nice anyway and I know my family appreciated the good food and my hard work, and I was happy to do it to show my love for them!

Hooray for Overstock!

Today was a VERY good mail day at my house! Not only did I receive the foxy red dress I ordered from Modcloth.com,

 but my chair from Overstock.com showed up as well. I just barely ordered it on Monday and even though it only had to travel about 600 miles from the warehouse in Utah, I'd still say that was an exceptionally fast delivery, especially when shipping only cost me $1!

Here's the humongous box that was left on my doorstep:

Maren is thrilled because I've told her she can have the shipping carton to turn into a clubhouse. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous this weekend, so I think we'll move it out to the backyard and I imagine she'll be spending a good amount of time in it!

I did have to do some minor assembly on the chair, which I expected. It came in two pieces (the back and the seat) and I had to attach them with the long bolts provided. It took me about 15 minutes, tops--and I had my chair all ready to go!

Well, more like 99% ready to go--I do want to hit it with a good coat of Scotch Guard to protect the beautiful fabric. I will say that it's a bit larger than I had envisioned, and because of that I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to put it in my house. I purchased it with my front room in mind, but now it might even end up in my master bedroom, which I'd also like to redo soon. In fact, I've got my eye on another little treat from Overstock for that project:

I can't wait to replace the ugly ceiling fan over my bed with something pretty and sparkly like this! Add a chain cover and a dimmer switch, and I think we'll be on the right track towards creating the beautiful retreat that I have in mind!

Things that are RED: red polka dot plates

Thanks for your encouragement on my last post! I made progress last night by getting nine sets of rubber stamps listed on eBay, and I'm taking advantage of my sleeping baby right now to photograph some more stuff while the light is good.

One more good reason to clear out my cupboards: to make room for these cute red and white polka dot plates that I got on post-Valentine's clearance at Target last week!

They're salad plate-sized, and won't they look darling heaped with fresh strawberry shortcake?

Mad for Plaid

I've been thinking in plaid lately. I believe I can trace it back to the basement of the TopShop at Oxford Circus in London, where the "vintage" department was filled with racks of plaid kilts and for the more sartorially adventurous, plaid trousers. Ever since then I've had plaid on my mind, specifically of the classic red and black variety with a bit of yellow and green thrown in for good measure.

A few plaids from my own collection:

Cute ballet flats from Payless

 

Thrifted vintage Kiltie plaid Thermos

Vintage 1970s Pendleton plaid wool cape

I'm wondering if my current plaid obsession will make its way into my Christmas decorating...

REDnesday: Cute baby edition

I hope you'll indulge me...(photo-heavy post ahead)

Today this little monkey is five months old!

Here are some things about Porter at five months:

He's such a happy little guy. People remark all the time at how pleasant he is and how little he fusses or cries.He adores his big sister Maren. She's the only one who can make him belly laugh! (she's also who he was looking at when was taking these photos)He's a chow hound and eats like he's starving every time. He's just started eating rice cereal and seems to really like it.Mommy calls him Porter Pie, Daddy calls him P-Mac, and Maren calls him Goo Goos.He is starting to sleep better through the night (BIG sigh of relief from Mommy!) He usually goes to bed around 10:30 pm and wakes up around 5:00 am.
He still has big hands a feet, just like a little puppy. :) Looks like he may follow the rest of the Morgan boys and be TALL!He can roll both directions now and wants desperately to be able to sit up.Porter is a joy to have in our home! It's so fun to watch him grow and discover new things. I look forward to learning more about who he is and see his personality.

To see more RED things, visit Sue at It's A Very Cherry World for her REDnesday party every week!

REDnesday: Valentine edition

A peek at the display for Valentine's Day atop my china cabinet this year:
Proud to say that nearly everything in my display was purchased from a thrift store or on super-clearance from a retail store!

--The three largest mercury glass candlesticks are from 75% off post-Christmas clearance at Target, as were the four smaller votive holders.
--The other four mercury glass candlesticks were purchased at a thrift.--The silver bowl with silk roses was purchased at a thrift store, 50% off just before Christmas.
--The large silver champagne bucket was thrifted as well.
--The red tinsel tree was bought several years ago 90% off post-Christmas clearance at Target.
--The red candle holder was purchased years ago after Christmas at Target but was probably only50% off.--The antique beveled-edge mirror was thrifted a few years ago.
--The striped ribbon on the candles was after-Christmas clearance from JoAnn's, and the grosgrain and organdy ribbons were thrifted.

Not too bad! The jeweled vinyl frame on the mirror is from House of 3. They won't stick to my heavily-textured walls, but I love how they look on mirrors! I got my inspiration for the ribbon & heart ornaments on the pillar candles from Joy at Joys of Home.

Another bit of RED in my house this week:My first RED lipstick from MAC. Russian Red, to be exact, which the salesgirl told me was originally developed for Madonna back in the 1980s. I think I'll pair it with my shiny red heels for our Valentine's date. Look out, Major Hottie! Woo-woo!

Every Wednesday is REDnesday at Sue's place! Visit It's a Very Cherry World to see the rest of the players. Andie (my fellow RED-lover and my MAC lipstick idol also has great red stuff on her blog today, including a quilted carry-on that I COVET.)