Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Croutons

Believe it or not, I actually have a recipe for you today! You have to change it up every once in a while, right?!

A few weeks ago we had company in town and we were left with tons and tons of extra hot dog and hamburger buns. Do you ever wonder what to do with them all? I hate throwing them away. Instead, I make croutons! This is so simple to do and not only can you use them on a salad but you can eat them as a small snack like my boys do.

All you do is cut them into squares.

I had about 8 cups of bread cubes when I was done cutting!

I used about 1/3 of a cup of veggie oil and tossed it over the bread cubes. After doing this, I decided it needed a little more oil so I added in about a 1/4 cup more of veggie oil. If you want and extra richness to them, try adding a bit of butter.

This is when the possibilities are endless. The seasonings. For this recipe I used our favorite, Johnny's Seasoning Salt and a little Garlic Powder plus a pinch of salt and black pepper. However, you can use any seasoning that you like. For example, my husband made a batch one time that tasted like Thanksgiving Dressing. It had sage, garlic, onion....It was tasty!

Make sure to mix all the bread cubes and seasoning together and spread it out on a sheet pan. Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. The trick is low and slow. Mine took about an hour, flipping them every 20 min. or so. You want them to dry out all the way to the center. No one likes a chewy crouton.

Finally, you'll have a delicious salad topping that was made especially by you! Seriously, it's cheaper that buying store bought croutons and you can control the amount of seasoning and oils that go into them. I hope you'll give this a try...it's too easy not to.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Fall{Pre-Halloween}Mantle

What do you get when you put together a hand-painted sign on an old fence board...

some sticks,

found by these two cute little boys....

and two thrift store owls painted white?

Well, my Fall Mantle of course! They're actually just shelves, but because I don't have a fireplace mantle, these work just as well for seasonal decorating. The rest of the items I'm sure you've seen before if you are a follower of my blog.

The empty frames, the blue mirror(seen in this post), and the iron star...they're all here.

For the sign, I free handed the letters and the paint. I wanted it to look more rustic. And, I'm not quite ready to go full force with all the oranges and yellows that you'd usually see in Fall decor. That's why I kept a more natural look with the whites, blues and natural wood tones.

Like these sticks in an old jelly jar. What a great way to entertain your kids...have them search for sticks(what little boy doesn't like to dig in the dirt with a stick?) and you can use them as part of your decor. It's a win win I tell ya!

I love it for the month of September! It's simple, clean, rustic and yet a bit modern looking with the white owls and blue mirror.

What about you? Have you started decorating for Fall? If so, please send me a link back to your blog. I'd love to include them in this weeks edition of Friday Favorites!





I linked up:















Monday, September 12, 2011

Owls

Last year at this time, I was already gearing up for Halloween. By October 31st, I was really ready to take it all down! So, this year I'm taking my time with the season and coming up with some Fall-ish decor. I'm not quite ready for all the pumpkins and harvest decor just yet, however Fall will soon be here so why not decorate for it?! I found this little Owl at the Habitat For Humanity store for $3. It's actually a piggy bank. I knew with a little spray paint, this owl would look like it came straight from trendy store.


I also had this little green Owl that I made over for Earth Day. You can see that makeover HERE. I really don't have a lot of green decor in my home and I was so sad to take him down after Earth Day. I figured, maybe if I made him a neutral color I could put him out more to dress an end table or cabinet.


So, with the help of Rustoleum White Spray Paint, these two little guys went from this.....


to this! Paint always amazes me. It can make the ugliest thing so stinking cute. I put them up on my mantel shelves with some other Fall touches.


I will share the rest of the mantel with you tomorrow. Till then...





I linked Up:












Friday, September 9, 2011

It's beginning to look a lot like Fall...in blog land anyways. Outside my home, it's still near 100 degrees. It's starting to change quickly and I'm holding on to the last bit of Summer. However, seeing all the fun Fall and Halloween ideas gets me excited to start on my own Fall projects. This weeks Friday Favorites is all about Fall/Halloween inspiration....Enjoy!
First, is this Candy Corn Bark made by Lindsay@ Lee La La. How yummy does this look(I'm a candy corn lover) and what a great gift it would make! I'm going to Pin this.


Next up is this super cute Fall wreath made by Beth@ Home Stories A2Z I just love this wreath. I might have to make something similar in the near future. It would be perfect to display from September to November.


Last, but certainly not least, Ali@ Honey and Maple Syrup created this cute display from Dollar Store items. I just love an inexpensive, cute and creative craft. Just goes to show, you don't need a ton of money to create something so cute. Great job Ali!

I hope everyone enjoyed my Friday Favorites this week. I'm now in the mood to run to Starbucks and grab a Pumpkin Spice Latte :) Happy Friday Everyone!

*if you were featured, feel free to grab a feature button on my sidebar.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Perfect PearBack in March, I was at a local thrift store and came across this pear.


It was only .80 cents! I had to have it. It took me a while to do anything with it because I saw it as a great Fall decoration, and the only thing that made sense to do with it was to wrap it in twine. As you can tell by the close up picture, it has a weird texture.


So, fast forward to September and I busted out the hot glue and twine. Now, last year at this time I was already gearing up for Halloween. Let me tell you, it was just too long that I had Halloween stuff up. So this year, I'm trying to ease into Fall a bit slower. This is a perfect addition to the beginning of Fall decor.


I started wrapping from right under the leaf. The leaf is connected to the pear, so everything from the leaf and above had to be cut into small sections and glued on one by one. Sounds time consuming, but it really wasn't too bad. It probably took me an hour to complete the entire thing.


Here it is all wrapped. I couldn't leave the leaf gray. It just didn't fit.


I picked out of my paint box a foliage green and simple brown....


painted it green then added a layer of thinned out brown paint to get into the creases of the leaf.


This is the final product! It went from an .80 cent thrift store find to a Ballard Designs looking accessory!


I love it! It is the perfect addition to my Fall decor.



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Monday, September 5, 2011

A Splash Of Color
So, do you remember back in June I had a post about these coffee bags my husband brought home?! Well, I finally put them to use. When we moved, we no longer needed our dining room set. However, we did need extra seats available for company. Two of the chairs would work perfect, yet they weren't very cute.

Well, I knew I wanted to use the coffee bags to recover the seats, however I was torn on what color to use for the chair. While I was looking over all the colors at Home Depot, I wanted so bad to grab a nice, neutral white. But, my heart kept telling me that we needed a splash of color to add to our new place. Which color though? Green, Blue, Pink, ahhhh!!! There were too many to choose from.

I ended up picking Rustoleum Lagoon. I love it! It reminds me of a Martha Stewart cast iron pot that I have sitting on our stove.
So, after some sanding and recovering, here is the end result...

It is absolutely perfect for our house. From previous projects, I'm sure you can tell that I love the color blue.

I was so scared when spraying them blue that is was going to be way too bright, but I think the chairs turned out perfect! I love the coffee bags as seat covers. It adds a little touch of mine and my husbands love for coffee. And, it's a sturdy fabric that will stand the test of time with kids.

We kept one in the kitchen and one in the living room. It sits perfectly under our mantle shelves, which by-the-way will be getting a touch of Fall soon.


I am so pleased with how the chairs turned out. They are just the splash of color our house needed.


I linked up:
Someday Crafts

Friday, September 2, 2011

Thank goodness it's Friday!!! I am really looking forward to the weekend. The past few weeks have seemed to run together and this weekend we finally have some time to sit, relax, BBQ and watch some college football. Yeah!

Now on to my one and only Friday Favorite this week. Today I'm featuring Emily @ Emily Ann Designs. You just have to love her catch phrase: MAKE OPENING THE MAIL FUN AGAIN. With the products she sells on her Etsy, you will definitely have fun opening your mail.


I've had the pleasure of meeting Emily as she is my Sister-in-law's good friend. Emily has a love for all things cute, vintage and crafty. You can absolutely see her love of all three through her products.

She sells the cutest, personalized stationary. Like these super cute Thank You cards with a vintage camera on them. Any blogger would love to send these thank you cards off in the mail.

Check out this adorable Pirate themed Birthday Invite. Too cute for words!

She even does personalized art prints. Wouldn't you love this hanging in a little girl's room!?

Emily recently had some of her work published in a book, 1000 More Greetings. Congrats Emily! What a testament to how creative you are.

You have to go check out Emily's Blog HERE, then go right to her Etsy Site HERE! You will not be sorry you did. Pages and pages of paper cuteness. Let her know you're visiting from Make The Best Of What's Around. Happy Friday Everyone!