Antiquing in Florence Colorado

A few weekends ago I went antiquing with my wonderful mother in-law Mary. We went to Florence, which is a bout and hour and a half from her house.

I brought my audio book of stuff white people like which is hilarious and great for road trips as it does not really build on itself and it does not really matter if you stop and talk and are not really listening you can jump back in to it at anytime.

We took this for Mary's friend Cindy who wanted to soften up the ceiling at her business, and Mary happens to own an extra parachute. 

This bench was amazing detail below. 

It was thin veneer with holes punched in it to create designs.  

I love vintage mailboxes, my grandma works at the post office and when I was four or so I used to go to work with her and try to figure out the combination to open them. Don't worry I never figured it out.

But I love them, I am not sure what I would use if for but it does not stop me from wanting one. 

If this was not $450 and I knew what I could use it for I might have adopted it. 

I would love this for a walk-in closet, sweater storage on the bottom and shoe storage on the top. 

Nate-man, my incredibly awesome brother in-law is looking for dinning room chairs. 

I wish this printing would have been on the back instead of the bottom. 

The strike me as masculine and simple but still manage to have lovely detailing. 

These we would have had to repair the bottoms on but Leonard could do that no problem. 

We found these cream puffs at the Aspen Leaf Bakery there, they tastes just as good as they look. 

If you are ever in Florence you should stop in an eat.

Rachel Ray French Onion Dip Hamburgers

Ingredients

·         3 tablespoons butter

·         5 onions, 4 thinly sliced and 1 peeled

·         1 bay leaf

·         Sea salt and pepper

·         1/2 teaspoon ground thyme

·         1 cup beef consommé

·         1 1/2 cups sour cream

·         2 pounds ground beef sirloin

·         About 1/4 cup Worcestershire  sauce (eyeball it)

·         A handful flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

·         EVOO, for drizzling

·         6 brioche buns, split 

·         36 good-quality ridged or thick-cut potato chips, preferably cooked in olive oil

·         Sliced sweet pickles, for serving

Preparation

Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sliced onions and bay leaf; season with salt, pepper and the thyme. Cook, stirring occasionally, until deep caramel in color and very soft, 35 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the beef consommé and cook until all the liquid is almost absorbed. Let cool, then discard the bay leaf. Stir in the sour cream.

Preheat a griddle or large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Place the beef in a bowl and season with the Worcestershire, salt (for a crusty coating on the burgers) and pepper. Using a box or hand-held grater, grate 3 to 4 tablespoons of the peeled onion over the meat (the grated onion and its juice will flavor the meat itself, plus keep the burgers moist as you cook them). Add the parsley. Mix the meat, but do not overwork it. Form 6 patties, thinner at the center than at the edges for even cooking. Drizzle with EVOO. Cook the burgers, turning once, for 6- 8 minutes for pink centers.

Serve the burgers on the bun bottoms and top with the sour cream sauce, potato chips, a couple of pickles each and the bun tops.

Rachel Ray Website

Scrabble Tile Coasters

As  far as pintrest goes I am officially addicted. I have also recruited others some days I feel great about that and other days well I feel like I am responsible for them spending countless hours in front of their computer doing a whole lot of pinning and not much of anything else. I will admit that there are not that many things that I have actually done from my pins. I think I am probably at 5 out of a thousand:

·         Scrabble tile coasters

·         Homemade laundry soap

·         Homemade hand soap

·         Branch art

Oh wow did I say 5 I meant 4… In my defense I have cooked a lot of recipes, I have been off grid for a few months and I am aware that I never posted anything about our new year’s and regifting party but we did make everything from recipes that I discovered on pintrest. Anyway when I saw Hi Sugarplum’s pintrest challenge I thought that I should get out some of the pictures that I have been taking as I was doing projects lately and actually um, post about them. I have been really frugal lately and I have been trying to only do projects that I already have all of the elements for without purchasing anything.  Between the wedding and the leftovers from the vow scrabble tile art I did (more on this later) I had everything I needed except felt. I found three dollars in my change jar and went to town, and by town I mean Joann’s.

Supplies

·         Stiff felt

·         Scrabble tiles in the appropriate combination to make the words you want

·         A friend or in my case a husband to brainstorm words with you

·         Glue I used that super effective but stinky  E5000 glue I am sure you could use hot glue too

·         Spray poly in semi gloss

As this is a pintrest challenge in the spirit of full disclosure as mimicry is the highest form of flattery I happened across these coasters on pintrest. I immediately loved them , as I love scrabble and I used tiles in my wedding. They are sentimental as well.  While I love Esty and I have supported many artisans from there, I was not completely happy with these. I could do this myself, I could use tiles from my wedding J,  I did not like all the words that they used, mainly oily which in context of a drink frankly grosses me out, even though I am sure this relates to some glorious alcoholic beverage that I am unaware of it makes me think of that commercial that is talking about how advertising can make anything look good, it looks like they are poring a tall glass of iced ginger ale and as the camera goes wider you see that it is motor oil, yuck! Second was diet, I am hypo glycemic and it is really bad for me to have fake sugar, it kind of wacks me out, kind of like margarine it does not compete with butter at all, I would rather have less and have the real thing.

Back to the project, I started by forming the coasters out of words I liked that pertained to drinks each set has 4 coasters and all have a theme of sorts. Be aware that the tiles are not square they are rectangle. After I figured out all of the words and had my groups I cut my felt and then I began to glue. Online there are a lot of tutorials for this but what I found works best is to first glue the top row and then glue the left and glue out the rest insuring that they stay straight. The reason I picked the stinky glue (make sure you have great ventilation when using this stuff) is it remains plyable for a long time after it is applied to the surface so if you have to adjust you can.

When it came to sealing I also went away from the norm, many people leave them unsealed besides what is already there. I tried this for a while but I saw some water rings forming and as that is what coasters are to prevent it was too much. Some people covered in modpodge but as soon as that got damp from condensation it would become glue like again. Others yet used poly some made pretty thick coats that actually added stability as it sealed all the cracks but it had too much of a Joe’s Crab Shack feel for me. I went with six thin coats of poly acrylic in semi gloss and this is what I got. 

Home and Garden Show

I have been up to a lot of really cool things this year but have not been posting a whole lot. I am currently in Texas visiting family but I wanted to have something for  everyone to read. A few weeks ago I went to the Denver Home and Garden show. 

It was a long day the exhibit was huge. I love love this door, I would not use it as a door. I saw and eye for an eye when I was younger and I am afraid someone would break the window. I do love this idea for a shower door. Could you imagine showering amongst the  aspen trees?

They had some really wonderful landscaping inside. 

I loved this stacked stone. 

My favorite thing from the whole event was this formed bronze sink. I want this in a bathroom on one of those counters made out of half of a tree. 

Cherry Blossoms in DC

 My great friend Kristy was in Washington DC this last week and was sending me text messages of how much she wished I was there as it is on my bucket list to go to DC when the cherry blossoms are in bloom. My wonderful husband took me a few years ago but sadly they were not really blooming yet so we will have to go back. Being a wonderful husband he bought me a Tiffany’s bracelet on that trip that we thought looked like cherry blossoms even though the lady there told us they were not, which we both thought was funny and odd.  I found these vintage prints when I was antiquing with the other Christy in Florida a few years back.

 We found this great shop and I got so many things that day, four of these prints, cherry blossom wall carvings, the tiara that I wore at my bridal shower many other great things. Now I have always wanted these framed and as I did not want to spend the money on custom frames I put the dimensions in my phone and I looked at the frames with mats every time I went thrifting, which if you know anything about me is a lot I finally found some with the right dimensions and I purchased them. Really I do not think the world will miss these geese:

or these pastel flowers circia 1884.

 I took the pictures out gave the frames and the glass a good scrubbing and then I painted the frame and the mat black. This is not the first time doing this and it turns out great the trick is to take your time you have to do very thin coats on the mat and you never want to do it when you are in a hurry. After making sure that everything is really dry, I gave it a day or two and  I reassembled it and Voila!

1930's Mikey's fashion plan

My friend Melissa is throwing me a murder mystery birthday party soon and I am very excited for the 1930's theme costumes.  I shared the other day about how I wanted to dress, now here are my plans for Mike.

I must admit that I really love those straw barbershop hats, when I was antiquing with Mary a few weeks ago I was telling her how I love them and would love to see Mikey in one. He just bought a hat for Halloween and has not worn in since, so I think we will just have to take a minute to imagine.

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Actually I love this whole look:

Baby, nudge, nudge...

Murder Mystery Birthday Party

My friend Melissa is throwing me a murder mystery birthday party soon and I am very excited for the 1930's theme costumes.

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Since Atonement cam out I longed for a green dress like Keira's. I never found one quite as amazing, but I did buy one that is floor length, satin and green that I have never had a cause to wear before now.

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I am thinking of making a headband, I found a pin curl tutorial:

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Or I might just use the hairpins that I found with Christy for my wedding like this:

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In the movie she had a bracelet like the one below I have a large silver bracelet but it is made of flowers I cannot decide if I am going to wear that one or look for a new one that is similar. 

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More on my ideas for Mike later. ;)

I LOVE BACON, WELL WE BOTH DO

Marriages are based on things you have common love for (besides each other) complimented with enough differences to keep it interesting. It is said that they way to a man’s heart is though his stomach and I can tell you that it works the other way around too.  Mikey wooed/wowed me with wonderfully prepared dishes though out our friendship, through us dating and even now. The first time they had me over breakfast he cooked bacon that made me want to cry, perfectly crisp, coated in brown sugar, sprinked with the right amount of salt and pepper. You might be skeptical right now as I was when I heard the description but let me tell you if you ever ate it you too would be a convert. We love bacon, I have posted about adding bacon to other great things like a BLTA and Nate, Mike’s older brother and best man at our wedding had a chocolate bacon cupcake that we had made especially for him. If you have not tried these cupcakes let me tell you they are not that bad. Our bakery put maple syrup in the cake batter and it is reminiscent of pancake breakfast with chocolate. I generally stand by the saying that everything is better with bacon. One time when I was in Vegas I ordered a shrimp taco they asked me if I wanted bacon on it, nobody ever had before and let me tell you it was a revelation! So when I heard about this restaurant in New York City called FAT that cooked popcorn in clarified bacon fat I was ready for this adventure. We do try to have as little waste as possible in our household, and we make bacon a lot, but we also make popcorn a lot so it seemed like the perfect marriage, right after ours of course.  So I googled how you clarify bacon fat and it is quite easy, you fill a jar with water and pour all the drippings leftover from making the bacon in the jar, seal it and put it in the fridge. 

You let it cool  overnight and all the little bits sink to the bottom and the pure fat stay at the top. 

You then scoop out the hardened bacon fat. Put it in the pot warm it up and add the popcorn. I am not sure if we did something wrong, I know that fat can get rancid but ours was in the fridge the whole time and not more than a few days, on line is states that it can last for months. The smell was awful and stayed in the house for days and the popcorn was not good either.