White Wednesday

Just a few things I thought I’d show  you.   This is the upstairs guest room with white bedding.

Here are two vintage European shams I bought at the La Bahia show (near Round Top).   I visit this lady’s booth every time I go there and just drool.   This time I decided I would go ahead and buy them.  I am going to embroider on them, but can’t decide whether I should do our initial, “his” and “hers”, “yours” and “mine” or a design.   Still weighing all that!  I bought the inserts at royalpillow.com.  They have great prices -- $8.70 each for 30” x 30”.   (I’ll show them to you when they are embroidered and on our bed with the toile bedding I just ordered.)

And just for laughs --  I don’t know where I saw this, but it makes me smile just to look at them!  Don’t you love ‘em?

Another Project

checked off my list!   I found this large frame at a barn sale and it was rather wobbley (is that a word?) and missing a piece in the corner, but I really liked the carving.  Okay, I bought it for $3. My husband tightened it up with glue and clamps and I reconstructed the missing piece.  (Not perfect, but close enough.)

Now what?   It is pretty large (45 x 20) and I didn’t have a picture for it so decided it would make a great blackboard.  So I made a blackboard with a nice smooth board we found at a garage sale, bought some chalkboard paint and painted . . . and painted . . . and finally – it’s a blackboard!

It is on a wall between my kitchen and dining room and is actually the first thing you see when you walk in the back door (which is where 95% of people who come to my house come in – don’t ask me why). 

(FYI:  If you are going to make a chalkboard, I would recommend making your own paint – it worked much better than the spray paint.  The “recipe” I used was 3 tsp. black (or any color you want) acrylic paint, 1-1/2 tsp. glaze (like for faux painting) and 1/2 tsp. non-sanded grout.   I already had all of that so that’s what I used, but I also saw a formula on the internet using flat black paint and grout.)

A Recent Purchase . . .

Little by little I am showing you some of my “treasures” from my trip to Round Top – actually I think I bought this in Carmine.  Anyway, I walked past this picture, glanced at it, backed up, walked a little further, went back, looked at it again  . . . has this ever happened to you?  I just don’t know why, but I was drawn to it – just couldn’t take my eyes off.  Well, it’s one of those things that I knew that if I didn’t buy it, I’d think about it forever wondering why not!  It has a copyright date of 1907 and I tried to find out a little bit more about it, but was unable.  At first I wasn’t quite sure what was taking place here, but now I think that this lady just stopped in to have her palm read.  (Sorry about that little glare spot in the middle.)   If you have any other interpretation, I’d love to hear it!

A Little Old Lunchbox . . .

brought into the 21st century.     I bought this old lunchbox with this project in mind when we went to Round Top last week.   I had been seeing lots of “charging stations” in catalogs and stores lately and mentioned to my husband that it would be a good idea.   I started thinking about what we might find that he could modify.   We came across this cute little lunchbox and it was perfect.   He put a power strip inside and now we have our chargers (cell phones, MP3 player, Palm Pilot) all plugged in and all we have to do is connect whatever we want to charge.   He even put a switch on the back so we could turn it off instead of unplugging it all of the time.   Isn’t he the best?!   Now all I have to do is decide where to park this little gem so it will always be handy. And, I must decide -- to paint, or not to paint.

Overnight Coffee Cake

We had guests last night so I made this Overnight Coffee Cake to have ready when everyone got up.   The recipe calls for frozen bread dough and then it rises while you are sleeping; ready to bake when you are awake!  Couldn’t be easier.

Ready to rise . . .

 

Looks like this in the morning . . .

and this when it comes out . . .

Overnight Coffee Cake

1 pkg. frozen cloverleaf roll dough (about 25 rolls)
1 small pkg. vanilla pudding mix (not instant)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup pecans, chopped and/or 1/2 cup raisins
1 stick butter, melted
cinnamon

Separate frozen dough into pieces.  Combine dry pudding mix with brown sugar, cinnamon, pecans and/or raisins.  Sprinkle some pecans and/or raisins in bottom of pan.  Place half of frozen dough pieces in a well-buttered bundt pan.  Pour half of melted butter over dough and sprinkle with half of pudding mixture.  Repeat layer.  Leave cake pan out overnight; the dough rises beautifully by morning.   Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  Invert on serving plate to serve.   Sticky – but good!

(Note:  I have had trouble finding frozen cloverleaf rolls lately.  You can use the frozen dinner rolls, but only use about 22 of them.  I cut them while frozen into 2 pieces.  I cover the frozen cake with a piece of plastic wrap or wax paper, sprayed with Pam, while it is on the counter overnight.)