Dining Room Shelves

This was my first attempt at woodworking. I have refinished furniture but I had never actually tried to make my own. I had been reading Ana's website for a while now and finally got the courage to go buy a kreg jig and get to work. I chose this project because of the small amount of lumber needed and the simplicity of the plan. I figured if this one turned out OK then I could move on to bigger, badder projects.

Supplies:

• (1) 1x2x8 pine board
• (2) 1x4x8 pine board
• Mini Wax Gunstock stain
• Rustoleum Dark Walnut stain
• Sandpaper
• Scrap rags
• Paintbrush
• Mini Wax Semi-gloss polyurethane

I followed Ana's plans here and watched her video to make sure I did it right. This was the first time I had used the kreg jig and I wanted to make sure I did it right. One thing I found was that you need to make sure you check the washer on your drill bit frequently with the kreg jig. Mine came loose and I didn't realize it. I almost tried drilling a hole through my kreg jig base!

When I went to go buy stain I found the color I wanted on the sample board but the store did not have it in stock. I called my mom (because that is what I do when I get stumped) to ask her for advice on what to do. I did not want to paint my shelves white because I felt it would blend in too much. White shelves on a white wall with white decorations seemed a little much. Her suggestion was to mix one of the stains I already had at home with a lighter one from the store. I thought that was crazy but it actually ended up working. The stain looks great. Not too red but not too grey either. A perfect mix of both stains.

The way I did the stain took a couple of steps.

1. First, sand your shelf to make it smooth. Wipe off all the dust.
2. Next, wipe on the dark walnut stain and let it sit for a few minutes. Remove access stain.
3. Then, wipe on the gustock stain over the walnut stain. Let sit for a few minutes and then remove access.
4. Once the shelf has dried for a few hours you can apply the polyurethane. I did two coats. Make sure to lightly sand in between coats so that you get a nice even layer.

After hanging my shelves I decorated with those superhero plates and placed my DIY artwork on either side. I am so excited with how these shelves turned out. I already have a list of projects I want to tackle next!

Dining Room Makeover

Ever since moving into my new apartment I have had a vision of what it would look like. I wanted something light, airy, and full of fun bright colors. I wanted a cute little cottage feel. Slowly, I have been adding little touches here and there. For my dining room I knew I wanted somewhere to display the superhero plates I had made for my boyfriend, some large pieces of artwork, and a nice table.

After scouring craigslist, I found the perfect French provincial table and chairs. It was the perfect size for my small dinning room and after changing the fabric it was almost perfect. I still need to refinish the table top since there are some water stains and scratches on it but that will be a project for warmer weather. The next thing I did was look for artwork. Everything I found was either not to my liking or WAY too expensive. After searching through Pinterest I found some good inspiration and made my own. I will be blogging about that project later this week so make sure to keep an eye out! The last step was to find some kind of storage. After searching for a while I realized there was nothing out there I really liked. Recently, I found Ana White's website and all her amazing building plans. I think she is super inspiring and after reading her "about me" section I picked a building plan, bought a kreg jig and some wood, and got to building my very own shelves. I am so excited with how they turned out and cannot wait to try my next project!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I think that everything came together very nicely. I love when a room finally looks put together. Even though I have been in this apartment for almost 6 months it was still looking like I had just moved in. My boyfriend had been hinting he was about to start hanging his own artwork if I didn't do it soon which definitely lit a fire under my butt to get it done. While I love the artwork he has, I think an entire apartment covered in superheros would be a little much! Hope my dining room transformation inspires you all to start your own home improvement projects!

Simple Egg Salad

This is an easy, simple recipe that takes almost no time... my kind of meal! I like to occasionally make a double batch and refrigerate it for quick access to easy lunches and dinners. You need very few ingredients and only a little bit of time.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup light miracle whip
• 3 Tbls mustard
• 5 eggs

Directions:

1. Boil eggs for 15 minutes.
2. Peel eggs and chop into small pieces.
3. Add miracle whip and mustard. Mix until well combined.
4. Chill in fridge or serve immediately on toast.

This meal is perfect for the warm months and is delicious warm or cold. Hope you enjoy!

Chicken Puffs

Many years ago when I was in high school my mom decided to try once a month cooking. She did a lot of planning, came up with a list of recipes, did some major grocery shopping and started the day long process of prepping and cooking. Out of all the meals she made that day there was one that stayed in my mind: Chicken Puffs. I now make it on a regular basis in bulk batches which I can then take to work for an easy lunch. Over the years I have modified it to work for my particular preferences and needs. I have seen variations of this recipe all over Pinterest which shows how great a recipe it is. The original version we made years ago had many more ingredients and included dairy. Now that I am lactose intolerant I have changed some ingredients to accommodate this.

Last night I decided to try my own hand at freezer cooking and made several of my favorite meals that could easily be frozen ahead of time and then later cooked. This chicken puff recipe is made completely from scratch and is 100% dairy free!

Ingredients:
Crescent Rolls - modified from Home Cooking Adventure

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 Tbls sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 3/4 cup almond milk
• 2 eggs
• 4 Tbls Earth Balance butter, softened

Filling

• 2 cups shredded chicken
• 8 oz dairy-free cream cheese, softened
• 4 Tbls butter, melted
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• Almond milk, optional

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt. Dissolve yeast in warm water and add to dry mixture. 
2. Add milk and eggs. Mix everything together well.
3. Add butter and knead dough until it is smooth. Cover with dish towel and let it rise in a warm area for one hour. Dough should double in size.
4. In medium bowl mix together chicken, cream cheese, butter, and garlic salt. May add almond milk if mixture is too dry. 
5. Roll out crescent roll dough and cut into rectangles. 
6. Add medium size scoop of chicken mixture to the middle of each crescent roll rectangle.
7. Pinch ends of crescent rolls together. Dough should form around the chicken mixture like a hot pocket.
8. Place on baking pan and cook for 15 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or until they are a nice golden brown.

This recipe makes around 8-10 chicken puffs depending on how big you make them. I cooked half right away and the rest I froze for a rainy day. If you do not want to make your own crescent rolls you can just use the canned ones at the store. That is how I used to make them but unfortunately they contain some dairy. While dairy that has been cooked does not affect me as much as uncooked dairy I have still been trying to avoid it. 

For the chicken, I made a large batch using Gimme Some Oven's crock-pot recipe. All of the extra chicken I froze in individual servings for later use. Hope you enjoy!

Strawberry Lemon Cheesecake

This last week has been a long one. I have spent it either working or sleeping and so I have not had much time to upload to this blog and for that I apologize. I also had a death in the family which has made things tough for all of us. I have not done much cooking or crafting but plan to get back into it soon. I have been planning to try some freezer cooking and will be sharing some of those recipes soon. For now I have an old recipe that I have not yet shared. My absolute favorite dessert.... Cheesecake!

Before I became lactose intolerant I used to make cheesecake all of the time. It was my favorite desert to make for people and it was so much fun to experiment with different fillings, toppings, and crusts. Not too long ago I decided to experiment with making a dairy free one. The recipe I decided to try was made up of four parts: graham cracker crust, cheesecake filling, lemon curd, and a strawberry topping.

Ingredients:

Crust

• 1 1/2 cups graham crackers
• 3 Tbls butter, melted
• 1/4 cup sugar

Filling

• 3 pkgs 8 oz cream cheese
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup sour cream

Lemon Curd

• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 4 Tbls butter

Strawberry Topping

• 2 cups strawberries
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 Tbls lemon juice

Directions:

1. Start by making the lemon curd. In a small saucepan over medium heat whisk together lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, and eggs. Once combined, add butter in small pieces and stir until mixture thickens. Strain mixture to eliminate any solid pieces and refrigerate. 
2. Next, make the crust. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Crush graham cracker crumbs and mix with sugar and butter. Press into bottom of cheesecake pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool and reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Make the filling by combining cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, and vanilla. Cheesecake works best if you do not over-mix. Stir just until everything is evenly combined. 
4. Pour mixture into pan on top of crust. Place in oven and bake for 1 hour or until center is set but jiggly.
5. While cheesecake is baking, make the strawberry sauce. Wash and slice strawberries and combine all ingredients in medium saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes, occasionally stirring. Remove from heat and cool in refrigerator.
6. Once cheesecake is done place in refrigerator and let cool overnight. Spread lemon curd evenly on top of cheesecake once cool the next morning. Cover in strawberry sauce before serving.

This cheesecake has a slightly different texture than regular cheesecake. The vanilla and lemon help hide the non-dairy taste and add some nice flavors. This is a great dessert for the coming warmer months. Hope you all enjoy!

Credenza Makeover

This week I was able to get some time off work to go visit my family. My sister has been taking singing lessons and landed her first part in her middle schools musical. She was very excited so I knew I needed to go see her perform. Since I had a couple days off, I was able to spend a few days with the family and had some good quality time with all of them. I even got to go see Divergent with my sister and we were both very happy with it. 

Since I had a couple of days I decided to tackle the credenza I talked about in one of my earliest posts. This massive piece of furniture was a huge eyesore but still a very functional piece. It was too heavy to move and provided valuable storage space for all of my mom's work files. My solution was to paint it with chalk paint and decorate the top to help it blend in more with the rest of the room. 

Before the makeover, this credenza did not fit with the decor at all and was just a catch-all for random items.

Supplies:

• Paint (I used Valspar Signiture paint & primer in one in the color "cake batter")
• Plaster of Paris
• Water
• Wood wax
• Cloths
• Paint brush
• Painters tape
• Razor

Directions:

1. First thing I did was put drop cloths around my entire project. I also covered the pool table since it was near where I was going to be painting. I then taped off all of the metal on the credenza that I did not want paint to get on. Remove all of the drawers and set those evenly spaced on a tarp.
2. Next, I mixed 1/3 cup plaster of paris with 1/3 cup water and mixed until there were no lumps. After the mixture is smooth, add 1 cup paint and mix again. 
3. Take that mixture and paint your piece of furniture. Go with the grain of the wood and coat evenly. This project took three coats of paint to get the finish I wanted. I did not wait very long in between coats. By the time I got everything painted with one coat I just started back over at the beginning for the second coat.
4. Let the paint dry overnight. Remove the painters tape and use the razor to remove any paint that got onto the metal.
5. Next step is to coat the entire thing with the wax. I used some plain scrap cotton cloths to apply the wax. I think I will buy an actual wax brush for my next project though since the cloths get pretty torn up in the process. You will use three or more depending on the size of your piece.
6. Let the wax dry a few hours.
7. Decorate and you are finished!

After painting the credenza, me and my mom went shopping for some decorative pieces to tie everything together. My mom wanted the room to have an elegant yet still masculine feel. Many of the items we found at Hobby Lobby. Many of the smaller pieces where items that had been in storage for a while but had special meaning to my parents. They had put many of these things away while me and my siblings were younger to prevent them from getting broken. Now they get their chance to be out in the open again!

This box is the perfect size to hold all of the accessories my dad uses for the pool table.

The picture on the right was a gift from my sisters soccer team to my dad to say thank you for being the coach. It deserved a prominent spot to be displayed.

The mice in the love boat is actually a music box that my dad gave to my mom when they first started dating. She has an entire collection of these but this one was my favorite.

I was really happy with how the credenza turned out and so was my family. There are still a few more things I would like to do to the room but it is definitely coming along nicely!

Spring Rose Wreath

Spring is finally in the air! There are slowly starting to be more warm days than cold and to celebrate that I decided I needed to make a spring wreath. Since Easter is just around the corner I decided I wanted to do a wreath that had a little bit of Easter but not so much that I could not use it just for spring.

After looking at some other wreaths online for inspiration I decided to use the tutorial provided by the blog By Stephanie Lynn to make my own wreath. I loved her rose covered wreath. It looked so elegant and reminded me so much of spring. I love craft projects that use book pages but I had not done any yet because the thought of tearing up a book makes me cringe. I knew that this project needed to happen though so I toughed it out, found some books I was not going to read, and got to work. I thought her tutorial was very helpful and while making the flowers was the most time consuming and tedious part, they were worth every minute spent on them. I also decided to add the small colorful eggs to add some color and bring in some aspects of Easter. 

Supplies:

• Colorful mini Easter eggs (from the Dollar Tree) - $2.00
• Pool Noodle - $1.00
• Duct Tape - Free
• Hot glue gun - Free
• Hot glue sticks - $1.00
• Ribbon - $1.00
• Books - Free (took about 1 1/2 medium sized books or 500 pages)

Directions:

1. Take your pool noodle and tape the two ends together with duct tape to create your wreath form.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Rip out the pages from your books and cut the pages into squares. Each rose is made from three pages layered together. Next, cut circles out of those squares. Cut a swirl pattern out of the circles. By Stephanie Lynn has a very good tutorial that I used. She explains how to do this much better than me.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Roll your cut-up circles starting from the outside working your way in until you have a rose form. Glue the roses together and let dry.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Glue your roses onto the wreath for with your hot glue gun. Randomly glue the colorful mini eggs, alternating colors, in with the roses. 
5. When you have almost covered the entire wreath form, leave room for where the ribbon with go. Cut out a piece of one of your book pages and glue this onto that empty area. I did this because my ribbon was shear and I did not want the wreath form to show through.
6. Next, outline that paper with the remaining colorful mini eggs. Cut your ribbon to the length you want and glue the ends together around the wreath form. This is what you will use to hang it on your door wreath hanger.
7. All done! 

Close-up of where to tie the ribbon. 

This wreath took a while to do and is definitely a full weekend project. I love how it turned out and cannot wait to show it off on my door this spring. There is a little bit of Easter in it but not so much that I will need to take it down mid-April. I will be able to leave this up all spring long to help coax in more warm weather.

This wreath cost me very little and many of the supplies I can reuse. Hope you all had an amazing weekend and will use this as an inspiration to make your own spring wreath!