Martha Stewart Revamp...

Halloween is coming, and I am so excited this year. I have been kind of a bah humbug for a few years about decorating for it (too much "cheesy or too disturbing Halloween decorations out there). Because I have a 3 yr old I wanted to get into the "spirit", and finally have found some decorations that "work" for me.  Ran off to Tai Pan Trading, and started buying small cute things but I needed a little more stuff and wasn't willing to pay an arm and a leg for it.  Martha Stewart had a tutorial on how to make these super cute paper lanterns, but of course the supplies needed were things that would again, cost me arm and a leg for only Paper Decorations. So I had to find an alternative...

CEREAL BOXES, BLACK SPRAY PAINT, TISSUE GIFT WRAP, SCOTCH TAPE & A BLACK SHARPIE.

I used 1 Kix Cereal box, cut it to work with her template, than spray painted the whole thing with glossy black paint.  While it dried I printed out on regular paper Marthas templates, than traced them onto the tissue. I cut it to shape so it would fit inside of the boxes. I made a little hole in the back of the box ( so I can insert some christmas lights later on, or perhaps even buy those battery operated votive candles.) So EASY~ SO CHEAP~ SO CUTE!
So, yeah instead of spending up to $20 bucks on Marthas idea (which by the way is soooo very cute, but not quite the time or $ that I want to make home made paper crafts that most likely will only last me this Halloween), I spent.....a grand total of.....$ 0.00! Yep I had all this stuff laying around the house....:-)

Needless to say I am a happy camper, and so is my little girl who is LOVING all of her "new halloween stuff" as she calls it.

ps. the smaller lantern with the moon is made out of a fruit snack box:-)

Bookcase transformation

We have been collecting The 100 greatest books ever written from Easton Press for about 5 yrs now. Love the classics. And they are stacking up! I was on the search for an inexpensive bookcase and came across this one on KSL Classifies. $45 dollars later, a few coats of spray paint primer, Krylon's Ivory and Ralph Lauren's Glaze and Viola.....A NEW BOOKCASE! I love it, it really lightens up our room and helps out with our storage clutter. I cant wait to reclaim it someday too! The plan is when we build our future home we will have an office with built in bookcases and than I can have this piece for my doodads in my dining room:-) All good things! :-) I am so pleased how it turned out. (Now I will need a few days to rest my "painting muscles"; leg muscles are aching, and my right index finger that feels like its gonna fall off! lol )

Oh well....beauty hurts!

BEFORE

AFTER

Hazelnut cake Recipe from Holsteinborg Castle Denmark

I have an old danish recipe book that my mother gave me many years ago. It features classic Danish recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation. But guess from where? DANISH CASTLES AND MANORS! Cool huh! So, I will be making these and blogging the english translation to them. Reason being that 1~they are in Danish AND 2~they run on the metric system e.g. measurements are in grams and liters. So, my first featured recipe comes from the Castle of Holsteinborg located on the island of Sjaelland.

Here is a little background about the Castle. 

The famous Childrens fairy tale author H.C. Andersen (Little Mermaid, Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina and many more ) even lived there for a time....

HOLSTEINBORG CASTLE
Holsteinborg Castle was built by the Trolle family between 1598 and 1651 but has been owned by the Holstein family for 12 generations, since 1707. The impressive main building consists of four two storey interconnected wings surrounded by a moat. The castle is surrounded by an extensive, undulationg park, which falls gently away to the south towards Holsteinborg Cove. Because of its outstanding beautiful setting, the castle is one of the best known in Denmark. From the main building you can enjoy the view of the Småland Sea and the great Belt, including the idyllic small islands, Glænø and Ormø.

HOLSTEINBORG CASTLE AND H. C. ANDERSEN
Hans Christian Andersen visited Holsteinborg Castle for the first time in may 1856 following innumerable invitations from Count Ludvig Holstein and Countess Joachimine (Mimi) Holstein. Until his death (1875), he returned to the castle almost every year, 35 times in all. Here he truly felt at home. On a photograph taken on the veranda in 1870 he wrote:" At Holsteinborg my sun-picture was created. For here fairytales in my heart was laid."

HAZELNUT CAKE

1 cup Hazelnuts

1 cup dark chocolate ( I used morsels)

4 large egg whites

8 TBS granulated Sugar

Whip cream for garnish

Coarsely chop nuts and chocolate. Beat egg whites and sugar together in large mixing bowl. Add nuts and chocolate with spatula (set aside a little for garnish). Bake cake in a greased spring form pan for 1 hr at 255 F. When it has cooled, remove from pan and place on a round serving plate. Garnish with fresh whipped cream and sprinkled with the leftover nuts and chocolate.

I was Featured on Envy My Cooking

So excited that just shortly after I started this blog I am featured on Envymycooking.blogspot.com! It is a super cute blog that has lots of yummy recipes and cute stuff people like to show as their "Envy my Find".

Well check it out, they featured my cute blue chair AND my Aebleskiver recipe!

Thanks Envymycooking!:-)

www.envymycooking.blogspot.com

Going wild for Krylons Blue Ocean Breeze & glazing

Old mirror that used to be silver (which I loved, but I was not in love with the gold accents) so why don't we just paint it blue, and glaze it?

Oh and the pictures on the wall is part of my continual adding collage. Love it! (Someday I want to display like a ton of these by my staircase in my dreamhome!:-)

Blue Chair, again ;-)

Painted some old frames, oh and by the way the bookcase they are on, I will be painting cream with glazing on it...another post:-)

Have always loved this color, I have an old antique danish book "Dansk Grafik" that I can finally display:-)

Well, thanks AllthingsThrifty for the GREAT inspiration! :-) I am falling in love with my apartment, which I by the way, thought would NEVER happen! :-)

Chair Finished!

Here it is! I finished the seat. I ran out of staples, so it is "fluffier" than I wanted it to be, so still needs a few small adjustments, but I finished it:-) At least so we can use it in our photoshot coming on saturday, that my sweet sister in law Cherie will be doing for us. We have a sweet deal, I do her family pix and she does mine. :-) She does beautiful work. I really cant wait! Check out her blog here. 

Anyhow, back to my love....my new chair! It is my favorite peice of furniture right now, and I just love my little "corner" where I placed it. Really you need to check out Allthingsthrifty, they have me addicted to this color and I keep using it throughout my little apartment. LOVE IT! 

Check out the before pix here

Zucchini~Blueberry Bread, can you say YUM?!

My mother-in-law gave me a huge zucchini! You know, the ones that you wonder, what on earth am I going make with this? (My favorite dish in the world is Stuffed Zucchini, but this one was almost too big for that...p.s. I will post the recipe for that one next time I make it). 

Well, so what to make? Zucchini bread of course! But this one is with a twist, added blueberries. It tastes more like blueberry muffins than just plain old zucchini bread. It really is soooo delicious both me and my whole family have to restrain ourselves from consuming all of it in one day! Best of all, my daughter LOVES blueberries, and so when she smelled and saw these babies come out of the oven she was all ready to down some, as soon as possible. And because I try to get my toddler/preschooler to eat healthy, this is a good way for her to get some veggies and more fruits in. I baked these as muffins (because she doesn't "like" your regular banana/zucchini type breads. She now just calls them Cupcakes! Hmmm would be good with cream cheese frosting too I bet. These are oh so good,  YOU MUST TRY them! Easy too. Found the recipe on one of my favorite recipe websites Allrecipes.com

Here it is, give it a try...you wont regret it!

Cat

INGREDIENTS:

3 eggs, lightly beaten 1 cup vegetable oil 3 teaspoons vanilla extract 2 1/4 cups white sugar 2 cups shredded zucchini 3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon 1 pint fresh blueberries

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans.
2.	In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini-loaf pans.
3.	Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.