Northern Yank becomes Southern Belle...

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Best Homemade Bread EVER

Okay, maybe not ever, but this bread recipe I found certainly was delicious. I am by no means a baker or a food blogger, but I do enjoy from time to time making things from scratch. Here's the original recipe site for the bread I made. I've since pinned it to my bread board on Pinterest, if you'd like to check out more recipes.

The only thing I changed is, I use unbleached flour, just a personal preference on my part. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

I make a mess when I bake or cook. I once heard the sign of a good chef is one that cleans up afterwards.

I had to let my bread rise in the living room because my kitchen is a very cold space. This is a problem we will be remedying soon.

The smell was amazing and the taste even better. This is a time consuming process as bread takes a long time to rise. It was a perfect day for me to make this because the weather was awful, so since I was going to be staying home for the day this was the perfect distraction from an otherwise gloomy day.

Hope you enjoyed :-)

Monday, January 19, 2015

10 minutes turned into an hour and a half

Have you ever purchased a piece of furniture that requires (in theory) so little time to put together, but in reality takes a lot longer? I'm not even talking about furniture from Ikea. I signed up to join in on the abowlfulloflemons 14 week organization challenge. It's a great way to get organized on one specific room at a time, not to mention if you join the facebook group, you will find many others in the same situation offering advice and cheering everyone on. I really enjoy the before and after pictures, it makes me feel better that we all live in our homes, and not in magazine worthy spaces.
Toni Hammersley is the creator of this popular blog, and you can view a tour of her home by clicking the highlighted link. No surprise that Joss and Main asked her to curate a collection based on her furniture and style.

See this bookcase up above? Yep, Joss and Main offered a similar look for a bargain of a price of $150. I purchased this one below in black.

I received my bookcase in less than a week, which surprised me as I was told it would be about 2 weeks.

I have a deep hatred for packing peanuts and Styrofoam. Small price to pay, I suppose.

I got so excited it arrived, I began to put it together in my entry way. I left out pictures of my 3 assistants, which included a 3 year old, a cat and a dog.

Have to love a company that supplies the right tools to put everything together. Although, I do disagree with the directions saying it will only take 10 minutes to put together. I had a difficult time lining up the pre-drilled holes. I definitely think this is a quality made product, so overall I would give this a high rating.

I will be styling and re-styling this bookcase over the next few weeks but I like the idea of keeping all our "office" items here. I also keep thinking I might want to display all my ironstone pieces.

Big changes will be occurring in my kitchen in a couple of months. I can't wait and it's long overdue.

Has anyone found some great bargains on Joss and Main? Let me know in the comments below.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Playing Dress Up

My girls have an awkward shape room which they have to share. It's an L-shape which would be fine but there is this little section of their room, I can't change. The stairs are right below it, which is why it's built kind of funny. I originally had plans to turn it into a reading nook but then got inspired to create a dress-up corner.

Here are a few I found on Pinterest. I love the re-purposing of furniture no longer needed for its intended use. Unfortunately, I do not have either of these pieces nor the space for them.

Source

This picture was exactly what I was thinking.

Source

I love to use vinyl letters and shapes when decorating. Its cheap and a very easy DIY. I use a company called Craft Cuts. They have more than just vinyl letters and no, I'm not sponsored by them.

Every girl needs jewels.

Cheap basket for shoes and purses. Also for the carpeting I purchased a Dash and Albert rug in size 2x3 to cover the small existing carpeting there. Weird right? Now, this spot has been put to good use.