I have always wanted a chalkboard table but I thought that it was going to be a big project or that it would be impractical or expensive but when my roomate got a new kitchen table for our house I decided to take the plunge! And it was the easiest thing ever. I'm actually kind of upset I didn't do it sooner.
The entire project took about twenty minutes of work time and cost about ten dollars.
We bought two cans of Rustoleum spray paint, one red and one chalkboard and sprayed the table. We let it dry overnight and did a second coat of the chalkboard paint. That's it.
And guys, we love our table.
If you too want a chalkboard table, you should definitely do it! Just learn from our mistake and only use a wet cloth to clean it (not paper towels).
I'm kind of on a health kick. I'll admit that it probably won't last too long but I'm determined to make the most of it. Since breakfast is the most important meal of the day (and my favorite) I thought that would be a good place to start.
I'll bake in the morning but I'll only make pancakes or dutch babies or muffins. I can't convince myself to bake something healthy so early. So I decided to bake healthy muffins and stick them in the freezer so I can pop one in the microwave before I can eat something sugary.
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 dash salt
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
3 teaspoons raisins (you can add more I just don't love raisins)
1/4 cup chocolate chips (I couldn't resist)
1/2 cup pineapple
1 cup shredded carrots
1 banana
1 egg
1/2 cup applesauce
1/3 cup milk (I use coconut or soy milk)
1. Preheat oven to 400 and spray a muffin tin with non-stick spray.
2. Whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt until there are no lumps.
3. Add oats, raisins, pineapple, carrots and banana. Stir until everything is coated with the flour mixture.
4. Add the egg, applesauce, and milk and stir until combined. The batter will be runny.
5. Put 1/3 cup of mixture into each muffin cup. Bake for 23 minutes or until golden.
6. If you want to freeze the muffins wait until they are completely cooled (otherwise they'll get mushy) and then put them in an airtight container and put that in the freezer!
And voila! You have healthy muffins to eat for the week! Enjoy!
After I moved into my new house, I found that I had a lot of empty wall space. I looked at oversized prints and posters but I wasn't happy with the idea of having so many on my walls. So, I started looking for other things to decorate with but I couldn't find anything I really liked. I decided to make something with dimension to add depth and interest.
I came up with a floral wall sculpture. Here's how it turned out!
If you like it, and you think you might want to make it, here's the how I did it!
Materials:
- 200 coffee filters
- 50 (+) styrofoam cups
(exactly how many depends on how big you want your sculpture)
- Water color paint
- A paint brush
- A hot glue gun & hot glue
- A hanging hook with adhesive
Start off hot gluing styrofoam cups together. You'll want to cut some of them down so that they're not all exactly the same height. Keep gluing them together until you get a shape you're happy with.
Once you've gotten the skeleton of the sculpture done, you're going to start making coffee filter flowers. This is the hard part. You're going to (very lightly!) paint all the coffee filters the color you want before you make them into flowers.
This is the flower-making method I used, but there are about a million different ways to do it. Find a way that works for you, because you're going to be making a lot of them!
After you've made a whole bunch of flowers, you're going to start hot gluing them onto the sculpture skeleton.
The best way is to put hot glue all around the top of the cup and to press the flower down on top. Once you have a few flowers glued down, it helps if you put a little glue on the surrounding flowers too. Then, just keep gluing flowers down.
When you're ready to hang your sculpture, hang the hook first. Then, push the sculpture onto the hook (you're going to make a hole in one of the cups).
And, that's it!
The whole sculpture costs about ten dollars to make and takes about five hours to finish. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the result!
This weekend I went on a road trip with my best friend to Gruene, Texas! We ate delicious pulled pork sandwiches, visited Texas' oldest dance hall and went to a whole bunch of antique shops.
We found these gigantic windchimes. Honestly, the picture doesn't even capture how enormous they are, they were probably five feet high.
The drive was gorgeous and we had so much fun exploring Gruene!
