DIY Jewelry storage / display

I recently made a magazine rack from cutting an old slatted closet door in half. I picked up the door at our local Habitat Re-Store for $7.00. So that left me with the other half of the door to do something with. Below is a picture of before and after I cut the door. For some time now I had been trying to figure out how to store some of my jewelry and had scoured Pinterest but had not really found something I thought would work for me.  Staring at the other half of the closet door I came up with this idea. I still need to get it mounted on the wall and need to buy a few more S hooks for more necklaces and earings but having gotten it finished I was so excited to share it on my blog I did not want to wait. If you read my post on the magazine rack this one will look remarkable similar since up until the finishing touches it is made the same.

 I cut out every other slat. Now ideally it would be nice to use a Dremel Multi-Max with the right attachment to cut the slats flush with the sides and with a little sanding and painting you would never know the other slats were there in the first place (this is shown here on the site I got the idea for the magazine rack http://www.myrepurposedlife.net/2011/10/repurposed-shutter-magazine-rack.html). However I do not have that tool and am trying to do this project on the cheap so was not going to go out and buy it either. So I just used a Black and Decker HandiSaw (as shown in the following picture of my hubby), and just cut it the best I could without nicking the surrounding slats and removed the pieces.

 Then I sanded it just enough to score it up a bit. I also used wood puddy to fill in the cutout from where the hinges were. You don't have to do this, I think leaving it there kind of adds to the whole re-purposed look but I had the puddy on hand and figured why not.

I then proceeded to primer it. I already had the primer on hand from when the house was being worked on. I put two coats of primer on it because the wood was so dark and I thought it would be easier to put multiple layers of primer than multiple layers of paint. This is a picture of the magazine rack primered.

 Then I painted it and varnished it. The paint I bought from the Lowe's discount rack (you know the paint that people have mixed but then don't buy). From the choices available this seemed like the best option. The varnish I had from previous projects. The ornamental wood molding I also bought at Lowes and spray painted purple using paint I had on hand from another project. The hooks are just standard S hooks I picked up at the local hardware store and also spray painted purple.

 Hope you enjoy and are inspired to re-purpose something! My next project I have in the works that both my hubby and I are working on is making a coffee table using re-purposed materials. I will share when we have it finished!

Homemade Thin Mints

As most that read my blog knows my eldest is on a specialized diet and therefore there a lot of foods he cannot have. I was super sad when Girls Scout cookie time came around and we could not have them in the house because he cannot eat them due to some of the ingredients. Rest assured we still supported our Girl Scouts and hubby bought them to have at his office. However I make so much from scratch that I got on the internet to do a search for a recipe for GS cookies and found this one for Thin Mints. http://bakingbites.com/2005/10/thin-minties/ I gave it a go and they turned out great on the first try! My eldest said they were the best thing he had ever tasted, my husband loved them and so did I. I assure you I will be making them again soon. The dough is made ahead of time and frozen for a couple hours before slicing.

Ingredients for wafer
 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature (I used Tillamook)
1/3 cup milk (I used Horizon)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp peppermint extract
Ingredients for chocolate coating
18-oz dark or semisweet chocolate, (I used Ghirardelli and did half semi-sweet chocolate chips and half milk chocolate chocolate chips)
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (not in original recipe but I found the mint taste a little lacking in the wafers)
(I also added a couple teaspoons coconut oil)

Directions
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. With the mixer on low speed, add in the milk and the extracts. Mixture may look a little curdled.

Gradually, add in the flour mixture until fully incorporated. If too crumbly add a tad more milk.

Shape dough into two logs, about 1 1/2 inches (or about 4 cm) in diameter, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for at least 1-2 hours, until dough is very firm.

Preheat oven to 375F.
Slice dough into rounds not more than 1/4 inch thick – if they are too thick, they will not be as crisp. As I was slicing I would rotate the log after each slice to help prevent one side from getting flat. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cookies will not spread very much, so you can put them quite close together.
Bake for 13-15 minutes (I had a few a little too done at 10 minutes, so check them, ovens vary), until cookies are firm at the edges. Cool cookies completely on a wire rack before dipping in chocolate.

In a double boiler combine chocolate, peppermint extract and butter (and coconut oil if using it). Using double boiler in pot with a couple inches of water, melt until chocolate is smooth. If mixture is too thick add a little more butter or coconut oil. Chocolate should have a consistency somewhere between chocolate syrup and fudge for a thin coating. If you do not have a double boiler you can melt in the microwave in a microwave safe bowl.  I will caution you however, chocolate is easy to over cook and even burn in microwave so only put it in for 25 seconds at a time, stirring inbetween.

Dip each cookie in melted chocolate, turn with a fork to coat, then transfer to a piece of parchment paper or wax paper to set up for at least 30 minutes, or until chocolate is cool and firm.
Reheat chocolate as needed to keep it smooth and easy to dip into.

Makes 3 1/2-4 dozen cookies.

Worship

I posted this a few days ago on FB and thought I would share it here as well.

Psalm 95 was in my Bible reading this morning and of course made me think of this song. "Come Let Us Worship and Bow Down." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxPH34udgN0&feature=share So beautiful and soothing. It also makes me think of this Lent season. To me recognizing and following Lent it is a form of worship. The scripture talks about kneeling before the Lord, which is an act of humility, an act of humbleness, denying our self and focusing on the Lord. So too is the time of Lent, when people deny self and yield to God through prayer, fasting, and repentance. While I don't think this should only be reserved for the Lent season, Lent is often a time when people put forth an extra effort in this area. How beautiful is it to just lay everything out before Him, to strip away the old self, humbly kneeling before the Lord, Our God, Our Maker and how beautiful is it that the Maker of the Universe when we do not deserve it shows us grace, takes us in, completes us, and fills our spiritual emptiness. We truly serve and amazing, wonderful, loving, just God.

The other part of Psalm 95 that spoke to me was verse 8 "Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert" This verse has a history and personal meaning for me and my hubby, but what struck me about it today was that as previously stated in the text we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care and I really don't want to be one to harden my heart and choose not to hear his voice. I know there have been times when he has spoken to me and because of my busyness and other self placed obstacles I have not heard him. How I have missed out! It is heartbreaking for me to come to this realization and admit it but I want to make a whole hearted effort for that not to happen. To be quiet and listen and open my heart to all he has to offer.

Come, All Who Are Thirsty

My reading this morning started with Psalm 55:1, "Come, all who are thirsty, come to the waters;" It immediately reminded me of this song, "For Those Tears I Died" that I first heard as a teenager when my youth pastor sang it in church, it spoke to my heart then and still does today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwIoSGY7bLY
"And Jesus said, Come to the water, stand by my side,
 I know you are thirsty, you won't be denied.
 I felt every teardrop when in darkness you cried,
 And I strove to remind you that for those tears I died"
My reading continued in Ezekiel 47 where the Bible shares the prophesy given to Ezekiel about the restoration of Jerusalem and the healing, life giving water flowing from the temple. Kind of fitting that the water flows to the Dead Sea restoring it, freshening it, giving it life and sustaining life. This meditation from The Word Among Us sums it up really well. http://wau.org/meditations/current/   Jesus is our new temple, restoring us from the death of sin and giving us new life in him allowing us to drink freely of the water of life. He quenches our spiritual thirst and is the only source that can. Searching elsewhere for this satisfaction is pointless. His love to us is free, he has already paid he price, as the song says all we have to do is pray, invite him in. He is knocking on the door of your heart, will you hear and open the door and let him in?

DIY Magazine Rack from old Shutter

Another Pinterest project! I have long been wanting to do something in our downstairs bathroom for the magazines other than just stacking them on the floor or behind the toilet. I found this link while browsing Pinterest and thought it was a great idea. http://www.myrepurposedlife.net/2011/10/repurposed-shutter-magazine-rack.html I had wanted to use an old shutter but could not find one. I did however find this old slatted closet door at our local Habitat for Humanity restore for $7 and thought it could be used for the same purpose.

So I cut it in half and decided to use the top half for the magazine rack.

I cut out every other slat. Now ideally it would be nice to use a Dremel Multi-Max with the right attachment to cut the slats flush with the sides and with a little sanding and painting you would never know the other slats were there in the first place (this is shown on the site I got the idea from). However I do not have that tool and am trying to do this project on the cheap so was not going to go out and buy it either. So I just used a Black and Decker HandiSaw (as shown in the following picture of my hubby), and just cut it the best I could without nicking the surrounding slats and removed the pieces.









I chose to fill in the indentations where the hinges were with wood putty but you don't have too. Not doing so I think kind of adds to the whole re-purposed look, so either way works. I already had the wood putty on hand otherwise would probably not have gone out to buy some just for this.

I sanded the whole thing a little, just enough to score it a bit and then primered it. The primer I already had on hand from when the house was being worked on. Because the piece was so dark I primered twice because I figured it was easier to do that than multiple layers of paint.

Then I painted it with paint I already again had on hand from when the house was being worked on. If I was buying it I probably would have gone with a different color but again I was trying to go on the cheap. I made it work though. Our bathroom has kind of an African motif going on so to not make it look too bland I used brown spray paint to stencil on these designs. I bought the stencils on Amazon. And as a last step I applied a varnish. I am very excited to get this up in our bathroom!

Stay tuned for what I decide to use the other half of the closet door for!!

Peanut Butter Bars

Peanut butter and chocolate, how could you go wrong? I love just about anything peanut butter and am a sucker for chocolate so when I saw this recipe I knew I had to try it. Plus it was easy and that is always a bonus. I got the recipe from here http://morganmoore.typepad.com/one_more_moore/2008/08/makin-stuff.html  

Ingredients

1 c. butter
1 c peanut butter 
2 c graham cracker crumbs (I bought ones that my eldest can have, and tossed them in the food processor to help make them into crumbs)
2 c powdered sugar (I used 1 1/2 cups and still thought it was too sweet, I suggest trying 1 cup) 
1 1/2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 Tbsp peanut butter

Directions: 
Melt butter & 1 c peanut butter. Add graham cracker crumbs and powdered sugar. Mix until well blended. Press into ungreased 9"x 13" pan. Melt chocolate chips with 4 Tbsp peanut butter (either on stovetop or microwave, if mixture is too thick add a little more peanut butter or a little butter) and spread on top of graham cracker mixture. Refridgerate for at least 1 hour. Hope you enjoy!

Homemade "Twix" bars

I got this great recipe from here http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2010/09/27/im-rich-im-rich-thousand-dollar-bars/ I did tweak it slightly to fit our dietary needs. While not quite "Twix" they still taste super great.

Ingredients

Shortbread layer

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, at room temperature

1 cup confectioners' sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups white flour

Caramel layer

2 cups caramel, cut into small chunks

3 tablespoons heavy cream

Attn. Those following the Feingold diet instead of doing the above for the caramel layer I made my own caramel sauce and you can get the recipe here  http://arcticlilysloops.blogspot.com/2012/02/caramel-sauce.html The sauce was a little too thin for this purpose so I added some flour to thicken it up. You want it thin enough to be able to spread it but more of a honey consistency.

Chocolate layer

3 cups chopped milk or dark chocolate, melted (I used two cups semi - sweet Ghiradelli chocolate chips and two cups milk chocolate Ghiradelli chocolate chips.

1 tablespoon vegetable shortening (optional) (for those that know me you know I did not use shortening, I used coconut oil instead).

Directions

1) FOR THE CRUST: Preheat your oven to 300°F. Spray a 9" x 13" pan lightly with cooking spray, or line with parchment, and set aside (I lined with parchment paper). 

2) In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the butter, sugar and vanilla. Add the flour. At first the mixture may seem dry, but will come together as you continue to beat at medium speed. 

3) Take the dough (it will be somewhat stiff) and press it evenly into the pan. Lightly flouring your fingertips will help with any sticking. (To make it a little easier I took a drinking glass, coated it with a bit of oil and used it to help press it out.

4) Prick the crust all over with a fork. The holes will allow steam to escape and the crust will bake evenly with fewer bubbles. 

5) Bake the crust until it's lightly golden brown on top and the edges are deeper golden brown, about 35 to 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and immediately run a knife around the edges to loosen the crust. Set it aside to cool completely. At 32 minutes this is what mine looked like and was a little too done so check it periodically!

6) FOR THE CARAMEL LAYER: Melt the caramel and cream over low heat in a small saucepan. Pour the caramel over the cooled crust and set in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to chill and firm up. 

Attn: Feingold people, as stated before I did not make the caramel listed in the recipe but made my own and the link is in the list of ingredients above.

 

7) FOR THE CHOCOLATE LAYER: Melt the milk or dark chocolate slowly in a double boiler or over very low heat. If it seems very thick, add a tablespoon of shortening (coconut oil!) to thin it. Pour evenly over the chilled caramel layer and spread to cover all of the caramel. Return to the fridge until the chocolate is well set. Cut into 2" x 2" squares to serve. It's best to store these bars in the refrigerator.

8) These bars can also be cut and dipped in milk chocolate to resemble Twix ® bars. After the caramel layer has chilled firm, cut down the length of the pan, splitting the bars into two long, narrow bars. Then cut each long strip into "fingers". Dip the chilled bars into melted chocolate and place on parchment paper to set for several hours. 

Okay so I thought I would try to cut them up into long bars and dip the whole thing in the chocolate like in step 8. This did not work out so well for me and after doing half that way, gave up and and just  poured it over the other half like in step 7 and came out with bars looking like in the picture at the top of the page. If you want to save yourself trouble and mess that is what I suggest doing. Mine would kind of break as I was trying to dip them I think because the shortbread layer got too done, I still dipped the pieces and they still taste great but not going to go that route next time. This is how I cut them up, the the bars on the left are what I tried to dip in the chocolate and then the half on the right is what I decided to just pour the chocolate mixture over and let set in the fridge.

Here is where I tried dipping the bars in the chocolate. Kind of a mess. Oh well live and learn.

Here is how they ended up turning out pouring the chocolate over the top and I think look and taste great.

 

 

 

Caramel sauce

I got this recipe from this blog http://yankeehoosiermomma.blogspot.com/2011/04/homemade-caramel-sauce.html and it is delicious! With my eldest being on a special diet we make a lot of our sweets and treats from scratch and I was excited to find this easy recipe. Would be great drizzled on ice cream or other desserts. I also used it as a base in a recipe that called for caramel.

Ingredients
1 cup sugar (I used brown sugar thinking it would give it a richer flavor but I think she used white)
1/4 cup water
8 tbs (1 stick) of unsalted butter, cut up
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

Pour sugar into a small heavy sauce pan. Pour water evenly on top of sugar. With the stove on med-high heat, hold the saucepan handle and swirl around until sugar is dissolved all the way. Once dissolved, turn heat to high, cover pan and boil for 2 minutes.  The picture below is the point I put the lid on to boil for two minutes.

Remove cover and continue to boil until syrup turns brown around the edges and turns to a nice amber color. (you will not really be able to tell if using brown sugar). Keep going....When the syrup starts to smoke, it is done! (using the brown sugar I let it boil for awhile and had a pretty good idea of when it was done and took it just barely to the point it started to smoke.)

Now, you want to remove from heat and whisk in the pieces of butter until all butter is melted and mixed in. Be careful! When you put the butter in, the syrup will bubble and start to foam up.

Once butter is combined, stir in the cream. If mixture gets lumpy, place back on heat until smooth. Stir in the vanilla and salt.

Voila! You have caramel sauce!  Store in a mason jar in the refrigerator. This makes enough for 1 pint

Coco Rice and Beans

This has become a comfort food for me and is a favorite of mine when I want to make something quick and simple. I got the recipe from the recipe book, The 30 Minute Vegan by Mark Reinfeld and Jennifer Murray. http://www.amazon.com/30-Minute-Vegan-Delicious-Healthy-Everyday/dp/0738213276/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330364936&sr=1-1

Ingredients
2 cups white basmati rice
1 3/4 cup water or vegetable stock (I use vegetable stock)
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk
1 (15ounce) can black eyed peas drained and rinsed or 1 1/2 cup cooked beans
*2 tablespoons fresh cilantro (optional)
*1 tablespoon peeled, minced fresh ginger (optional)

*The recipe suggests as an option to use cilantro or ginger, not both, I happen to like both and toss both in and think it is super yummy.

Place rice, water or vegetable stock, thyme, salt, coconut milk and ginger if you are using it in a medium size saucepan over medium - high heat. Bring to a boil. Lower heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until liquid is absorbed, 15 - 20 minutes. (in my experience I suggest checking it at about 12 minutes and then periodically after that).

Remove from heat and transfer to a large mixing bowl with the riced and beans. Add the cilantro if you are using it. Gently mix well and enjoy.

DIY Make Up Magnet Board

Sooo, I have become obsessed with Pinterest as have many people. I love it. I am not very good at coming up with original creative ideas but when I see others creative ideas love to figure out how to make them. I have found some great ideas for things on Pinterest and here is my first attempt at trying out one of those ideas which was actually a success fueling my passion to try more. I was always so sick of rummaging around make up bags or make up drawers finding what I needed so looked up make up storage ideas and found this one. http://laurathoughts81.blogspot.com/2011/03/make-up-magnet-board.html A make-up magnet board. I am going to hang it in our bathroom next to my sink.

Materials
Old frame (bought for 50 cents at thrift shop)
sand paper
magnet circles (already had some in craft supply but can buy at craft stores)
hot glue gun with glue sticks
spray adhesive
tin to fit inside frame (hubby picked me up some at Lowe's)
cloth to fit over tin (bought for $1.50 at thrift shop)
paint (already had in craft supply)
paint brush
spray paint (to spray paint containers)
spray lacquer
containers (to toss lipstick, tweezers, mascara, misc. in. I used a couple sippy cups we lost the lids to and cut off the ridged part on top, original post used large prescription med. bottles.)

I sanded the frame a little just enough to score it, wiped off the dust and painted the frame. It may need two coats. You could also spray paint it if you so desire. Then I spray lacquered the frame. Using tin snips I cut the piece of tin to the right size to fit in the frame. I cut the fabric to fit over the tin leaving about an inch on each side. I did not have the spray adhesive on hand so just used regular glue to glue on the fabric which was a mistake. Use the spray adhesive if you have it. Then I pulled it taught and hot glued the edges of fabric to back of tin and placed tin in the frame. Then I got glued the magnets to the back of my make-up and stuck them on there. I spray painted the cups and hot glued two magnets to each and stuck them on there as well.

Stay tuned for more projects! Right now I am working on turning an old slatted closet door into a magazine rack.