Stencil-session

It is official. I am obsessed with stenciling.

Who knew it could be so darn addicting? I always considered stenciling to be a bit on the lame side but as it turns out, it totally kicks butt. My sister and I had an awesome time stenciling anything that was not alive in her house this past weekend. Check out some of our projects below:

 Do you want to learn to stencil? Never fear... a stenciling tutorial will be coming soon to this very blog... check back soon to see more amazing stencil transformations.

P.S. - Wondering what "Cottage Gifts" is? It is my sister's new furniture/art/adorable-handmade-things store. She opened a booth in the Mega Mall in Lansing, MI (the adorable yellow plant stands pictured above are for sale there right now). Go check it out!

"Hard"-ware Decisions

After weighing my options after my kitchen cabinet hardware spray paint test a few days ago I decided to go for it and paint them all ORB (oil rubbed bronze).

 
I really like how they turned out. They just brought the whole situation out of the 90's and into the 2010's. And it was super easy! The whole thing probably took me 30 minutes to unscrew the hardware, spray the handles, and put them back. I had to wait between coats of spray paint but I filled that time with other productive activities... like watching Dexter and eating. :-) Now if only I could snap my fingers and turn the cabinets white.  Total project cost: $3.50 - for the can of Krylon ORB spray paint from Walmart.

Here is a before shot in case you did not get to see them before when they were awful gold:

You can see more detail about their previous "gold-ness" here.

And because it is a rarity for Lexi to pose for my blog pictures here are a few she starred in today. I don't think she has even been on the blog yet! All the blog pictures with a dog in them before featured our other dog Lola.

Gosh she is cute. Look at that little white paw. :-)

The Ricer

I love breakfast. I worked as a breakfast waitress in two different family-style restaurants for 5 years in high school and college. As a result I could eat breakfast three times a day if I had to. Nothing makes me happier than eggs, hash browns, and fake buttered toast. Over the years T.J. and I (mostly T.J.) have attempted to make hash browns at home that taste like the ones in the restaurants I love. I would be happy if they were even close! Mostly they turn out too oily, not cooked in the middle, or all glopped up into a potato mush ball. We haven't even had much luck using frozen hash browns instead of making them from scratch from a real potato.

Finally we decided to act like the Gen Y adults that we are and solve this problem using the internet. Apparently the potato bits need to be nice and dry in order to fry properly. We found out we needed a little tool called a "potato ricer". Sure I thought, next time I was at Walmart I figured I'd just pick one up. Not so easy.... Walmart did not seem to have one! I was not really sure what I was looking for though so I thought maybe I'd missed it. I looked it up on the internet when I got home and found out they really did not have them. The cheapest ones online were like $40 too. I went to William Sonoma to look and they had them there... with a price tag of over $100.

Thank God for mothers. I had told my mom about this dilemma a few times, I think she was even with me when I finally found them at William Sonoma and went into shock about the price. Low and behold she found T.J. and I a potato ricer at a garage sale! For just a few dollars! And it is very cool and old looking. Works like a charm too. After running the potato over a cheese grater, T.J. put the slices into the ricer and squeezed the handles together. This squished the potato pieces against the bottom of the ricer and all the excess water/liquid came out the holes on the sides and the bottom. Those potatoes get nice and dry and are perfect for making hash browns out of.

Here is the ricer in action...

 ... and the product before it hit the griddle.

Mmmm.... hash browns how I love thee.