Under a Blue Moon

7.5.11

Happy day after the 4th of July and welcome to my bathroom.

I managed to parlay a mid-week day off into a five day weekend. My plan being to work on a few projects that have been on my to do list for some time now.

One of those projects was to create an earring holder. I have a thing for dangly, sparkly earrings (What? You didn't know this about me?) but I didn't have a good way of storing them. Beyond that door on the left is our walk in closet. I have a dresser in there and the top drawer has an insert for storing jewelry but I find that it doesn't work for my earring collection.

The lighting is all over the place in these pictures. The wall color is really a French vanilla and the frame is a pale ballet pink. I took a vintage frame and painted it with Martha Stewart's craft paint in Pink Viburnum (the perfect, pale, almost white neutral pink). Then I cut a piece of 1/4 inch wire cloth to fit the back. My frame had a slot that the backing slides into so I just slid the wire into it. No need to staple or nail it to the frame.

I painted all the small framed pictures with the same paint.

Now I can see my earrings all on display. One thing that is glaringly obvious is that I need a pair of gold and pale turquoise earrings. How many times do I feature a pair on my Friday's Favorites? You would think I would at least have one pair.

Friday’s Favorites

Flickr Favorites (please click link to see the source of these beautiful images)

Pretty set of nested bowls in a delicate aqua. Check out the berry bowl too
Clever way to use left over herbs
Interesting photography project. Miho Aikawa took photos of people eating dinner in their homes (tip – click on the next arrow in the upper right corner to advance the pictures and turn on the captions (i with a circle around it))
Delicate necklace in my favorite color combination
How well do you see color? Take the hue test and find out (I felt a little bit nervous when I was taking it – just like taking a real test! Ha! And I didn't score as well as I thought I would. All those colors look the same to me!)

This week went by really quickly for me. I am not quite sure what is in store for the weekend. I have a bunch of small projects lined up but they all involve painting. Not my favorite thing to do. My oldest son's birthday is on Sunday so we will be having a family celebration.

Happy Friday everyone!

6.26.11

My second attempt at making ice cream was a much bigger success. A couple of weeks ago I borrowed my friend Keith's ice cream maker. I've been holding it hostage until I can improve on my first, less than satisfying attempt.

First attempt was peach ice cream and my rookie mistake was doubling the amount of fruit in order to have it taste peachier. All it did was make it icier.

So yesterday Rick and I hit up our local strawberry purveyor and bought two pints of sweet, small, juicy strawberries. None of those pale, tasteless ones you find at the grocery store.

I started with this recipe but then tweaked it as follows:

Strawberry Ice Cream

2 cups sliced strawberries (measure after slicing)
1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs
1 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups cream

Combine sliced strawberries and 1/4 cup sugar and let sit while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

In a blender mix eggs for two minutes until frothy. Add milk and 3/4 cup sugar and blend for another 30 seconds or so.

Heat egg/milk/sugar mixture in sauce pan until it almost boils, stirring frequently. What I do is watch the milk carefully and as soon as it starts to bubble around the edges I take it off the heat.

Place hot egg/milk/sugar mixture into fridge until it cools off (can leave longer if need be).

Once cooled add vanilla and cream, mix.

Puree strawberries using blender or immersion blender. Add to ice cream mixture and stir to combine.

Pour ice cream mixture into ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions.

It is so creamy and delicious. My version isn't all that different from the original except that I cooked the egg mixture and left out the lemon. I also pureed the strawberries so there wouldn't be any large frozen chunks.

Rick keeps asking me to make peppermint ice cream so that might be next. I think of peppermint ice cream as being a Christmas type thing but I don't think Keith is going to be all that happy with me if I keep his ice cream maker that long.

6.25.11

Glamorous before and after pictures of my shed. Try to contain yourself.

This eyesore is just to the right of our garage. When you drive up to the house it is pretty well hidden by large azaleas and a mimosa tree but our neighbors get the full glory of the mismatched, hodge-podgy mess.

On Friday afternoon I got a notion to finally paint the thing. I had some left over paint from when we had our house painted a few years ago. The before pictures show the paint scheme the house had before we painted it.

First a little history of the building. In a previous life it was a kennel. The front and back are actually made from chain-link fence and the two sides are wooden, each with a door. Inside there is a concrete slab that makes up 2/3's of the floor. The rest is dirt.

Ignore the pile of rocks – they are left over from the landscaping we did last year. Same with the brick. We just haven't figured out what to do with them yet.

We covered the chain-link with bamboo fencing material. It was cheap and easy to attach. The camera isn't quite picking up the true color of the after – it is a light taupe color. I still need to paint the underside of the over hang but I ran out of paint and motivation.

Not the prettiest building or my idea of what a garden shed should look like but it is an improvement. It's still held together with termite poop and cobwebs but at least it looks better.

This is what it looks like inside. No way I'm ever painting the inside. I've already had one black widow spider crawling on my arm in here. I try to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Sheesh – I rarely blog and this is what you get? Prettier pictures later on this week – I promise.

Friday’s Favorites

Flickr Favorites (please click link to see the source of these beautiful images)

I think this is an adorable invitation for a Summer sleepover. You could do a whole Summer camp theme.
Pretty earrings (but I can't help but think they would be easy to make). Speaking of earrings – pretty earring holders (I tried to make a version of the bigger one but you have to buy chicken wire in 25 foot rolls)
Some chippy cast iron bits: Door knocker (love the green), door pull (or fabulous for a gate) and a funny sign for your porch (you can flip it around if you are expecting someone)
I love Slinkachu's art installations. I can just imagine how fun they would be to conceive and then set up

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you have a fabulous weekend planned. Summer is officially here!

Friday’s Favorites

Flickr Favorites (please click link to see the source of these beautiful images)

Rustic, tiered tin basket. Out in your beautifully appointed garden conservatory perhaps?
Collection of Etsy vintage trays: 70's style (same one was on Posie Gets Cozy blog earlier this week), Roosters! (love the colors), beautiful, soft aqua
I love the lines of this expandable coat rack
Prepare to lose several hours of your day – Design*Sponge Living In series – They create a mood board of carefully curated items to represent the tone or scene in a movie.
Okay I may be the last person that has heard about this movie but it looks perfectly sweet: Moonrise Kingdom

I am so happy it is Friday! I love having the whole weekend stretching out ahead of me. I have been trying to get into little projects this week and hopefully I'll have something to show for next week. Nothing overly complicated or wowing – just a couple of easy things.

Summer feels like it is officially here! It has been HOT. And is supposed to be even hotter tomorrow (forcast is for 106 degrees). I bet there will be lots of bbq-ing and outdoor activities this weekend. Me? I'm staying in my house and even turning on the creaky old air conditioner. Have a wonderful weekend!

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