Monday, December 10, 2012

Christmas, Christmas Time is Here...

I just want to leave you with a few things that are inspiring my Christmas...

















MERRY DECEMBER 10th ;)









Thursday, December 6, 2012

An Entirely Homemade Success!


It is a lesser known fact that I dream of having a small farm and lots of land where we can one day live  quite self-sufficiently. I think there is something about the ability to be able to provide for yourself even if the entirety of civilization fell around you. I know to some that may sound like crazy talk but it's something I hope to one day achieve but in the mean time I'm going to take some baby steps. I have begun an interesting endeavor into Suppers made entirely from scratch.
A few days ago I blessed my husband with chicken carnitas, homemade tortillas and the best rendition of Uncle Julio's Salsa.



I've made the Carnitas before and they are DELICIOUS! 
The recipe is actually for pork carnitas but I do chicken and they are just as yummy.
ALSO, just my little amendment.. 
when you are putting all the ingredients together add about 1/4 cup of sugar.,.

Now, on to this Uncle Julio's salsa.
I love Uncle Julio's, I could eat there every single day of my life. 
However, Kansas is the wilderness and we do not have such luxuries so, I must resort to my own craftiness to create a salsa that can mirror the perfection that is Uncle Julio's salsa.
I scanned the internet for copycat recipes and made some adjustments of my own and here you have it,  
Uncle Julio's Salsa
4 Tomatoes (I used the vine ripened tomatoes)
4 cloves of garlic ...
(mine were relatively small, if you used regular sized pieces I would go with three)
1-2 Jalapeno peppers ( use one or two depending on your taste for spicy flavors)
1/2 of a large white onion
1/2 cup cilantro
The juice from half a lime
1 TBS ground black pepper
1/4 TBS Salt


1. Fire up the grill and char the tomatoes, onions, jalepenos, and garlic.
leave the paper on the cloves of garlic, but remove the paper from the exterior of the onion. You can use a gas grill or a charcoal grill, but my suggestion for a charcoal grill would be to put a piece of foil directly on the coals and set your vegetable on that, you'll achieve a better char this way.


2. Once all the ingredients have had a chance to blister and char you will then  remove them from the grill. Remove the outer paper from the garlic, core the tomatoes and Jalapeno. Roughly chop the chard vegetable and add them to your food processor. You will then add the cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper. Blend until chunky.


As an expert in Uncle Julio's salsa consumption I have to say that this was EXTREMELY close to the original.

And what would Uncle Julio's salsa be without warm tortillas to dip in?
(I grilled my tortillas, but you can definitely just fry them up on a griddle.)




Friday, November 30, 2012

A Post of Firsts!




Just incase anyone is having technical difficulties....
Mrs. Meyer's Christmas candle giveaway!
Find out all about Mrs. Meyer's line of products made from fabulous, natural ingredients here!
Mrs. Meyer's let me try out this candle for free and is also letting me give away 3!

I am a huge fan of their cleaning products and this candle is no exception! It smells so good and makes my whole house smell like a christmas tree farm!
Here is how you can be one of the lucky three...

1. Comment on one of my Facebook posts, stating what you use to make your house smell good for the holidays.
2. Comment on my blog, also explaining your christmas scent secrets. ( If you want to comment on or follow my blog all you must do is create a Blogger account. It is super simple and takes about 10 seconds. This does not mean you must a have a blog but it will keep track of all the blogs you follow and I find it very handy.)
Happy Giveaway!
****UPDATE******
Now anyone can comment on the blog!!! not just blogger users!

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Sock Bun Anyone?


So you have probably seen all those girls on Pinterest who use their magic witchcraft to put their hair in PERFECT buns on top of their gorgeous little heads right? 
Well, I recently found out it's not witchcraft at all, just a sock.
My lovely dear Juliana was rocking one of these too perfect to be real buns this week while she was visiting and I had to know how!!??
She showed me and now I think I will keep doing this everyday for my whole life.
I have seen plenty of pictures of the final product "Sock Bun" but I never saw a really comprehensive tutorial. So I'll throw you dogs a bone....Sock Bun How To.
I would have made y'all one but I don't have time for that non-sense these days and this one I've linked for you is great, why reinvent the wheel.

Feeling Tribal


I've been feeling a wee bit tribal lately. Let me show you what I mean....




The counsel has spoken and I think that the winner, in my humble opinion anyway would be black and neutral tribal print with pops of bright color. Which brings me to the guest room, which last time you were here was slated to look like this...



guest room

Which was inspired by this room from Holly Mathis Interiors....


Which can I just add a side note here for a minute...At the risk of sounding blog-stalker crazy, I love her! Her blog is fabulous, she is fabulous. And she always goes to this place called Urban Market in Houston and let me just say I want to go!!!!!! 
Well, the guest room ideas have sort of evolved since I shared with you my idea board, mostly being shaped by the unavailability of the duvet cover pictured on the board. I don't like to give companies bad reviews...unless they deserve it, but honestly you would have to do me wrong pretty bad to get a bad review from me, on the internet. However, I am very disappointed in the online service staff at Urban Outfitters. I ordered the duvet cover from the idea board, paid for it and waited for TWO WEEKS wondering when it was going to show up. Finally I got an email saying, "sorry we've cancelled your order because our product is unavailable." I wasn't irritated that the duvet was unavailable, it happens. Just that they sold me one, while they didn't have a grip on what kind of inventory they had and then waited two weeks to tell me about it. All that being said, if you ever want to buy anything at an Urban Outfitters store in person, not online, I support that and I will continue to. I've bought things there and been very happy with them. I'm sure this was only a fluke and if you bought something from their online store this wouldn't happen to you, but I just thought I'd warn you. 
So back to the drawing board I went...... and I bought this lovely plain duvet cover..
But I plan to dress it up with some pillows.
All of that being said, I was a bit concerned regarding the whole look of the room because that oh so perfect duvet cover was the centerpiece of the room. It brought the life....
what was I going to do???

****Update*****
Because it took me so such an incredibly long time to gather accessories for the guest room and the cleaning of it wasn't complete until just a few hours before family arrived I never finished writing this post ....until now.
So enjoy the pictures of guest room, so far. It is as everything else, a work in progress.



This is my quick art for a little tribal flair. 


I like the way the pallet headboard turned out, fit's perfectly on that awkwardly shaped wall.





 More quick art in both of these pictures, just more ways to tie in the coral. Also, the second one is hiding a fusebox.



I love the soap pumps made out of jars.


Did y'all know that stores do not sell coral colored towels in the fall? I mean I guess it makes sense, coral isn't typically a "fall color". All the coral towels seen here are hand dyed by yours truly.
It was worth it.


 Have a fabulous day!




Tuesday, November 27, 2012

We're Getting into the Spirit!


                         
I love christmas! 

And I am enjoying our Christmas bunting ....
now available at Type&Form.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Raising The Bar


We finally have a drink station!
I could have kicked myself for not buying the adorable glass drink cart I saw at the DAV thrift shop last may for only $12!!!! But back then I was thinking..."Hey, I have a buffet. What do I need a drink cart for?" I was trying to be reasonable. Little did I know just a few months later I would move and get rid of that huge behemoth buffet.
My solution though is a mirrored shelf, gives me a cute drink station without taking away floor space. 




The wall below is looking a little bare. I may add a cushioned bench in the near future, but I'm just dreaming. Enjoy my pitiful little drawing.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Makeover Campaign

Not too terribly long enough I posted here talking about my dining room plans.
Well, I just wanted to give y'all a little update on those projects...
As you can see my dining chair has been painted black and re-upholstered...trust me, the other ones have been painted and upholstered too, I just snapped a picture of this one real fast. And you may have seen this little campaign dresser here. Well, I've given him a maker and boy does he look good!
I scored the chair pillow at target for 5$ on clearance, it was totally spectacular that it matches my chairs exactly! I also dug out some books that match my color scheme. The only color I don't have is pink......I know I would have thought that ME of anyone in this world would have a pink book!! I have in mind that I will replace the candle with some kind of little doo-dad in pink and gold. As Grayson grows our low-flying candles are going to have to find new homes to protect his little fingers, so I don't want a pink candle holder there. I also need something rather resilient so when our boy or other kids pick it up and throw it across the room it won't shatter in 50,000,000 pieces.  
Here are a few options....

Both cute but both not exactly what I want....I did however see a huge novelty key at a local store sooooo that may be making an appearance.


Friday, November 2, 2012

Requiem For a Junk Room

I'm sorry, I seem to have been hacked by polyvore.....
So I got on blogger today to write this post and to my surprise like ten posts have been made, supposedly by me, but totally not by me!!! Some of them were items from my polyvore and one was a diy I've never seen before! My only guess it that polyvore somehow hacked my blogger and was able to post on my behalf, which I absolutely denied it the privilege of when I signed up. Grrrr. anyway enough ranting.

Death to the junk room..


This is a picture of our guest/craft/music room. Fabulous, no?
Really right now it is none of those things though, it's a disgusting pit. And you may say, "I can't believe she put a picture of that pigsty on the internet!" Well, here are two reasons, now that everyone has seen this nasty room I won't have to apologize to each individual person who comes over. Secondly, motivation!
We will be having Thanksgiving guests, which will be so fabulous but that means I need to get it in gear and go to work on this room! 
with the exception of the blog hacking incident I have loved polyvore for it's awesomeness in allowing me to create fabulous room inspiration boards. 
Here's my guest room board.


guest room