Furniture Makeover

I recently re-did a small China cabinet Ben's mom gave me.  And when I say "re-did" I don't mean that I did anything that a normal person couldn't do.  Just sanded, primed, and painted!

Supplies:
Small can of gray primer (I used Glidden brand)
pack of 150 grit sandpaper
1/2" and 2" paint brushes
pack of small paint brushes (for the detail on the front)
painters tape
small can of paint (I used Martha Stewart "Maine Lobster" in eggshell paint finish)
scrap newspaper

The cabinet had a medium brown stain when I got it, and while researching I found lots of people who said that you have to completely remove the stain before you can paint.  WRONG.  That would have taken me YEARS to finish.  Luckily, Stacy (of The Little Chick fame) gave me some very helpful and time-saving pointers before I started on this little project!

I started out by sanding everything with 150 grit sandpaper.  I can't take all of the credit for the sanding, Ben was definitely helpful, because let's be honest, sanding is no fun.  FYI - I would remove any doors or anything like that and sand those separately.

After we finished sanding, we wiped down everything with a damp cloth and let it dry for a couple of minutes.  As you can see, I had to carefully place strips of newspaper behind the wood on the front so I could paint it.  While this did not 100% keep paint off the glass it was definitely helpful.  Hint - about 5 minutes after you paint the primer remove the newspaper, otherwise the paint will make it stick to the wood (I learned this the hard way) and use new newspaper strips when painting the top coat.

While priming the cabinet I decided to leave the back and bottom brown, but after painting the first coat of red paint I went back and painted the bottom red because something just didn't look right.

Then the red painting started.  I did two coats, which was the perfect amount.  At first I was nervous about this color, because it's red and red can easily go horribly wrong, but after it was all said and done I loved it! 

Hint - do not go by what colors look like on the internet.  They are wrong wrong wrong.  Go look up Maine Lobster.  It looks nothing like this.

The flash makes the glass look weird - sorry

This project was so much fun and really didn't take very long (and you don't have to be a furniture expert to do it)!  I probably could have finished in one weekend if I had devoted most of my time to it.  If any of my instructions weren't clear or if you have any questions just e-mail me - jstansbakery [at] gmail [dot] com

Add Pizazz to your Cookie Bags!

In need of a little pizazz?  A little pick-me-up?  I wish I could claim these bag toppers as my own because they are so cute!  They add that little something extra to a plain ol'bag of cookies.

{http://www.livinglocurto.com/2009/05/thanks-printable/}

Over at Living Locurto she has a template you can print out for free!  And get this, they fit on any standard sized plastic baggie (7" wide).  I can't wait to make my next batch of cookies and use these toppers!

Happy Friday!

P.S. Thanks Polka Dot Birthday for sharing this great website! 

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree!

This post should have gone up last weekend whenever I finished decorating my family's Christmas tree,  so sorry for the delay!  I love it, though!  We started the silver and blue theme last year and while we're using the same ornaments this year, it still looks different!  The one thing that is different about the tree this year is the silver mesh-like ribbon that goes all the way down the tree.  I love this stuff.

Lights on!

Lights off!

We have the same thing in green on the mantle, around the banister and outside around the front door.  I'll try to remember to take pictures.  The ribbon is called mesh Sinamay and it can be found at Tipton-Hurst Florist if you're in Central Arkansas or at other online retailers.

Halloween Cupcakes

Ben and I went to see some friends in Memphis for Halloween and the hostess, Katie (yes, the same Katie that made my amazing birthday cake), made the cutest, most delicious Halloween cupcakes. I know this is a little too late for this year's Halloween, but good to have for future ones! Katie got the cupcake design ideas from Martha Stewart (of course) and they turned out great! She made brain, bat, and mummy cupcakes.

We cut the bat wings out of black construction paper and used red hots for the bats' and mummies' eyes.
Katie was such a great hostess! Everything was homemade and looked and tasted great.

Ben and I went as Don and Betty Draper from AMC's Mad Men, Katie was a flapper and her boyfriend, Rob, was Edward Scissorhands (great costumes!)

Now that Halloween is over, it's time to move on to Christmas!!! (oh and Thanksgiving, too.)

Icing Cupcakes

Little Rock's 16th annual Race for the Cure was this past weekend. Did you know Little Rock's RFTC is 4th largest in THE WORLD? Can you believe it? I can't. Over 45,000 people participated in the race this Saturday! It was so much fun!

So going with the pink theme, I made chocolate cupcakes with peppermint patties and pink buttercream icing. I am not the best at icing cupcakes, so I did a little research before starting this time. I found that most people (bloggers) use Wilton's 1M tip and after using it this weekend, I would have to agree. I will admit that my technique probably needs a little practice, but the icing tip is quite amazing.

Here's the recipe for the icing:
1 1/2 lbs powdered sugar (10x sifted)
1 tablespoons Wilton Meringue powder
1 dashes salt
1 1/2 cups white crisco
2 teaspoons Wilton no-color butter flavor
2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract
4 tablespoons water

Cream shortening, add butter flavor and vanilla and mix well. Add Meringue powder, sugar, and salt and gradually add water.

I put a peppermint patty in each cupcake before I baked them. The peppermint patty completely melted and dissolved, adding a slight mint flavor in the cake! Yummy!

Here's a great "How To" tutorial about icing cupcakes.

Decorating for a Crawfish Boil

Over the weekend we had a crawfish boil for my parents' 25th wedding anniversary. This was that first time we had ever bought or cooked crawfish at our house. So much fun! This post is about the decorating I did for the boil. Minimal was key, because crawfish can get messy and it has been raining for what seems like 40 days and 40 nights. I thought we were going to be able to set up the tables outside, but then the rain started around 4pm and we decided just to bring all of the tables in and set up in our house. So Ben and his brother, Bill, moved all of the furniture out of a room and we piled in the tables.

I bought blue and white gingham table clothes from Garden Ridge. These were bright and cheerful and a good color to use.

The center pieces for the table were large mason jars filled half way with dried black-eyed peas. I tied some raffia around the top and put 1-3 large sunflowers in each one.

Wedding Shower Menu

I thought I would share the menu we had for the wedding shower last weekend. Everything turned out wonderfully and tasted great!

• Baked Brie
• Fruit salad with dip
• Turkey salad finger sandwiches from Burge's in Little Rock
• Petit Fours from Community Bakery in Little Rock
• Ham & cheese party sandwiches
• Individual quiches

The table had a light pink table cloth with a lace overlay. Then I used off-white and pink tulle to add some extra detail. Let me know if you have any questions! We are hosting another shower in a couple of week, so look for more menu ideas!

Decorating for Christmas

My parents built a vacation home on a mountain in Arkansas and that's where we spent Christmas this year, so we needed to figure out what kind of decorations/theme we were going to go with since it would be our first Christmas at the mountain house. Since the house is on a mountain, in the woods, the most obvious theme was nature/woodsy and that's what we went with.

I know this post has nothing to do with baking, but it has to do with Christmas and that's what this week is all about!

I tried not buy a whole lot for this tree, because I wanted to make things from limbs and pine cones to make it more authentic, but some stores have great nature items for Christmas trees that were just too good to pass up. I bought fake birds (yes, fake birds) to hang in the tree. They went really well with the nature theme. I also bought plaid ribbon with wire in it so it's easier to shape around the tree branches. I found large (very large) plastic acorns and scattered them throughout the tree. Red berries were also very prevalent on the branches and the fireplace mantle in the house. I found that I could buy fewer berry branches if I fanned them out as much as possible.

The homemade decorations consisted of large pine cones with red ribbon hot-glued on them so they could hang from the tree. Also, Ben and I made wooden stars out of small sticks. We broke the sticks so that we could have 6" pieces. First we made a cross, then put 2 sticks on the diagonals and hot-glued them together and put a small pine cone over the hot-glued center just to add a little extra flair (does that make sense?). I think that the cutest homemade decoration was the bundle of cinnamon sticks tied together with a gold or red ribbon. We added small fake berries and branches to make them look more nature-like.

At the top of the tree, instead of putting a star or angel, we put a large rooster, and then added these sticks with feather-covered styrofoam balls on them (which my sister hated, but I loved).

I bought the decorations at either Hobby Lobby or Garden Ridge. Both had 50% sales before Christmas, which is always a plus!

For the dinner table, my mom and I bought 3 birch wood vases from Pottery Barn. I put small styrofoam blocks in the bottom of them so I could stick pine needles, berries, and other things in the vase and they would stay. The 2 table runners were also from Pottery Barn and we decided to use 2 shorter runners, instead of 1 long runner just to add a different element to the table.

Ben and I went on a walk around the house and we saw the perfect Charlie Brown tree! We decided that it was absolutely necessary to cut it down and bring it back to the house and have our own Charlie Brown tree outside on the porch. So cute!