Remember "Chicken Tonight?"

When I was a Junior in college I had a room-mate who used to make the sweet and sour chicken tonight over white rice.  I did not know how to cook at this point in my life and she was nice enough to share with me once in a while.  Since then I have had nostalgic cravings for this meal but I guess they stopped making the stuff years ago.  I found this the other day and IT TASTES ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME!!!  Yay!!!  This meal is dedicated to my old friend Tory.  Oh I found this at Shaw's.

Almost new side table

BEFORE

Every night we read in Cam's room and the books are scattered everywhere.  I have storage but when bedtime rolls around it is a mad dash to grab a book and get settled in for a story.  Having a small table with a pile of books handy was what I was hoping for.  I found an old table in my basement that was asking for a makeover.  I mod podged some maps from an old atlas onto the table and spray painted the table oil rubbed bronze.  Now we have the perfect side table!

                                                                        AFTER

Not perfect, but pretty good!

Two things I am TERRIBLE at, 1) before pictures  2) upright pictures.  I think I may have some of the steps in pictures from my terrible camera, but these things have been all over pinterest.  I just wish you could have seen the shape this frame was in before I rub-n-buffed it with gold leaf!  My dad has been here for the last two weeks and I was finally able with his help to FINISH a bunch of projects.  This magnetic black board is now in my dining room.  My dad helped cut the metal sheet and fixed the frame.  BTW I love chalkboard paint!  Anyway here is how it turned out.  We are planning on writing something on it, but I have terrible handwriting so I am waiting for my husband to figure out something to write.

Shoot, I guess I don't have a "before"!  Well, here is the finished product from a different angle!

In love with my... grillmate!

Bought this grillmate at TJ's about a month ago.  I think it was about $12 maybe? I absolutely loveeeee it!  I use the grill side almost every night to cook up veggies or the occasional ham steak.  The opposite side has a griddle, but I have not tried it out yet.

Wish I had a "before" picture!

China Hutch Project

My sister-in-law (who is REALLY into china) suggested a while back to me that I paint the inside of my china hutch for more of a contrast.  The entire hutch was white and I had white china.  It was kind of blendy-iny.

I have been ignoring my china hutch for a while, as you can see I still have my Christmas china displayed (in August).

The Christmas china pops, but my china is lost against the white.  I taped off some of the back sections and painted it the same color as my walls.

There was a pass through at some point which was walled up.  I just stuck to the sunken wall (not sure what the technical term is) parts.  The result below is very subtle.

My lighting doesn't do it justice.  Also I only have 5 china settings, so I had to be creative!

Blackberry smoothie