brimming over

Check it out

I wanted to share a few things I've come across while browsing online.  I hope you find them useful.  Or at the very least, interesting!

Menu Planning Primers at Home Ec 101:  Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3   

Ways to tidy the house quickly: 31 Things You Can Do in 1 Minute (Or Less).

Find something to build at Knock Off Wood and satisfy your inner carpenter.

Make a cool frame to rotate pictures on your desk. 

Create artwork from a vintage deck of cards.

An easy way to make a "mirrored" table.

Beautiful art

A few years ago my mother started taking a watercolor class at her church.  I don't think she had ever done much painting or drawing before but she always thought it would be something she'd like to learn.  The teacher is a wonderful artist and the class has faithfully met for years now. 

I am in awe of the beautiful paintings that Mama has made.  There are so many and you'd never suspect that they were painted by an "amateur".  :) 

Almost two years ago, she painted one for my birthday.  And it's really customized...down to the littlest details.

Not only does the painting feature my name, the dresses in the window are fashioned after actual favorite dresses that Amy Grace has worn.  And the two teddy bears are her little Care Bears that she loved so much.  Isn't it amazing?

Unfortunately, we all learned a hard lesson: paintings that are gifted should be framed before being handed over to the giftee.    I have had the matted painting waiting around for nearly two years for me to frame it.  At least other family members have benefited from this lesson learned!  Subsequent gifts of gorgeous paintings have been framed and ready for hanging.  You are all quite welcome.  :)

I finally got off my rear a week or so ago and took the painting to Michael's, armed with the knowledge that their custom framing was 50% off at the time.  Amy Grace (and the fine store assistant) helped me sort through the options and we made a decision, crossed our fingers, and placed the order.

I received the call yesterday that it was ready to be picked up so I went by today and got it.  Yippee!  I think it looks wonderful!

Here it is hanging between the windows (a place of honor!) in our guest room.

I don't think photos taken in this room ever turn out quite right with the colors but you get the idea.

Thank you, Mama!  I love my painting. 

When can I have another?  :) 

If you love chocolate, make this!

Sometimes you have a dessert craving at a time when going to the store for ingredients just isn't convenient.  When that happens, my solution is to search the web for a recipe that is quick, simple to make, and uses ingredients that I already have on hand.  I mean, when you need dessert, you need dessert.  Right?

When this situation occurred in our house one night a few weeks ago, I consulted a cookbook or two.  Nothing.  So next I checked one of my favorite recipe sources:  The Pioneer Woman Cooks!  I quickly found a recipe that fit my requirements and that I knew we would LOVE.

Oh, man.  I was right.  Big time.  Yummy.  And easy. 

The recipe is Molten Chocolate Lava Cake.  If you like gooey chocolate, you will think you've died and gone to heaven.  And that heaven is coated in chocolate.  Ree actually got the recipe from Brandielle on The Tasty Kitchen recipe site.  If you read the comments there you'll quickly see that everyone who has tried it loves it just as much as I do!

These little gems are the same thing that our family used to get at Chili's (in a bigger version) that we always called Chocolate Volcano Cake.  The warm gooey chocolate middle runs out and makes a wonderfully rich cake that goes especially well with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Now that I've given proper credit, I'm going to go ahead and share the recipe here with you.  You know, to make it really easy for you so you'll have no excuses not to try it!  And because I love y'all so much.  :)

Chocolate Volcano Cake

• 4 pieces (squares) Semi-sweet Baking Chocolate
• ½ cups Butter
• 1 cup Powdered Sugar
• 2 whole Eggs
• 2 whole Egg Yolks
• 6 Tablespoons Flour

How-to:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Spray 4 custard cups with Pam and place on cookie sheet.
3. Microwave chocolate and butter in large bowl on high for about 1 minute, until butter is melted. whisk until chocolate is also melted.
4. Stir in sugar until well blended. Whisk in eggs and egg yolks. Stir in flour.
5. Divide between cups.
6. Bake 13-14 minutes until sides are firm and center is soft. Let stand 1 minute.

Now some notes from me:

• One chocolate square = 1 ounce of chocolate.  I never have chocolate baking squares on hand so I have made this every time with semi-sweet chocolate chips.  It works great!  I just use my kitchen scale to weigh out 4 ounces and do everything else as instructed.
• This recipe is VERY easy to divide in half.  I do not recommend making the full recipe for just two people.  It's just too rich to each more than one cake each.  :)
• It's also easy to adapt for an odd number...half the recipe divides nicely between 3 cups for 3 people; a full recipe divides nicely for 6 people.  Each person just gets an ever-so-slightly smaller amount.
• The original recipe calls for making your own whipped cream.  Although that's delightful, I also never have heavy whipping cream just sitting around.  We've used Cool Whip as well as the real stuff in a spray can...still delicious.  And based on my experience at Chili's, it would be good with vanilla ice cream, too.
• Getting the cakes out of the ramekins/custard dishes is an art.  One that I haven't really perfected.  Oh well!  Messy volcanoes taste just as good as perfect ones.  :)

Now, go forth and make cake!  You won't regret it!

Darby had a party!

I had the pleasure of attending a birthday party for Darby, the chihuahua, this week.

"Please come to Darby birthday party.  Bring a present."

A sign points the way.

Darby's large group of friends were all in attendance...mostly her Webkinz buddies but a few others were allowed to join in.  Amy Grace dressed "fancy" for the occasion.

All the friends gathered in a circle with Darby in the middle.  An excited Darby was presented with her gifts!

Zip gives Darby her present of a lovely puzzle piece.

Darby loves Amy Grace's gift of an Animal Cracker card from Heifer International.

"I'm so excited about all my gifts," squeals Darby. "I just love having a birthday!"

The only slight sadness of the day was when Darby reminded us that her real birthday is "whatever day Amy Grace's Daddy can be home from work all day."  She did sweetly tell us that it was still wonderful to have a party, though.  :)

Mini bedroom makeover

I've been wanting to get a new headboard for our bed for a long time.  We've had the same bed since we got married and while it was a nice enough bed, I've grown rather tired of it.  Also, one of the knobs on the footboard was broken and unfixable. 

Unfortunately, bed frames and even just headboards are very expensive.  After looking around a bit, I decided an upholstered headboard was the way to go.  And then I decided we could make it ourselves for a very affordable price!

Here's a before picture:

  
I researched online and found great headboard instructions here and here.  Naturally we customized things a bit to work how we felt would do best.

I got a basic height measurement from the upholstered headboard I liked best at Pottery Barn.  We decided to hang the headboard on the wall rather than build one with legs. 

Here's the room ready for us to start working:

We started by having Lowe's cut a piece of plywood to our measurement (61" X 39").  Craig worked on measuring and attaching two 1X4 boards to the back of the headboard to create a small buffer between the headboard and the wall.

We purchased fabric, batting, and 3" foam at Joann Fabrics.  They cut the foam to size at Joann's with an electric knife (yeah, like you use to cut a Thanksgiving turkey).  Unfortunately when we started putting things together, we realized that they didn't get the size quite right and we needed to do more cutting.  Although I'd read online that the foam could be cut with a regular serrated knife, we decided that it was probably worth buying a cheap electric knife that would make a nice straight cut.  We were afraid cutting the foam with one of my serrated knives would end up costing just as much since we'd have to replace the knife and we also weren't sure the regular blade would cut as cleanly.

We attached the foam to the plywood with spray adhesive.  Take my advice...wear rubber gloves for this step!  It's very messy!

Next, we spread the fabric out right-side-down on the floor (actually on a clean sheet so it wouldn't get dirty) with the batting on top of it. 

Then we centered the wood with the foam on it on top of the fabric.  The process of stapling the fabric and batting to the frame is a bit time consuming but it's worth taking your time to get it right.  Start by pulling the fabric taut and putting one staple in the center of each side directly opposite from each other.  Next, stand the headboard up and check to see if the fabric looks like it is centered properly and not being pulled oddly in one direction or another.  As long as it looks good, continue stapling going out from the center of each side being sure to balance out by stapling equally on the opposite side.  Check frequently to be certain that everything looks right on the front side of the headboard.

At the corners, we found it worked best to cut a small square out of the fabric and batting to reduce the bulk.  After that, just work to fold the corners similarly to wrapping a package.  It took a good bit of experimenting to get it right but with a bit of patience the corners turned well.

Here's the final product:

I searched high and low for wall lamps to replace our old, yellowed bedside lamps.  I'd just about settled on some from Pottery Barn because, hard as it is to believe, they had the best prices. 

And then we decided to do a little bit more shopping in town last weekend. We found exactly what I was looking for at Home Depot for only $35 each!  Yippee!!  The lamps look fabulous and we are very happy with them.

We also looked for artwork to go above the bed and found this painting at Kohl's.  The colors turned out to be perfect and we really like the flowers.  It's just a bit small so I'd like to get something small to go on either side of it.  Maybe a pottery piece or ceramics? 

We'd still like to replace the quilt with a new one.  I've tried several white quilts and coverlets but none of them have been quite right.  Most of the ones I find have a floral pattern on them that's quite prominent but I think a more subtle geometric is needed.  Maybe just a small box pattern or stripe. 

We also moved the Monet print to be over the chest of drawers and took down the pen and ink New Orleans prints.  I really like having the large print there but I do hope we'll hang those N.O. prints somewhere else.

The last change we made was moving this small wooden desk from the guest room to our bedroom.  I'm using it as a bedside table/vanity/desk.  I really love it and the size is just perfect!  The red chair is from IKEA and is one we had stored away.  I want to redo it somehow in a different color but I can't make up my mind exactly what to do with it.  Suggestions?

Well, there you have it.  At least for now.  We still need to get a new quilt and fix up that red chair but otherwise it's pretty complete.  I'm thrilled with the changes and so far I think we've spent less than $250.