House Tour- Kitchen

In between crazy craft projects, cute dog pictures, and Kindle recommendations...
I think I will give you a tour of our house. 

So far I have only posted the good stuff. 
From here on out I'll show you all of it.
The good, the bad, even the ugly....and yes, there is ugly.

Let's start with the kitchen.

Here is what our kitchen looked like around July 2008. 
Not too functional...

And here it is around September 2008. 

The dry wall is up but it would still be pretty hard to whip up some mac & cheese in this kitchen....

And December 2008. 

It is now at least functional but is missing crown molding and the island is lacking...

And here we are today!

Crown molding on the cabinets and beadboard on the island give it a little more interest.

We're still debating on a backsplash. 

We can't decide what we want and if we want to do it ourselves or hire someone.

Feel free to comment with suggestions!  We're open to anything!

Room info
Wall color: Svelte sage (Sherwin Williams)
Cabinets: Woodland/Provincial doors/Ivory
Granite: Epic stone/Black
Fridge: GE profile, french door
Cook top: Whirlpool
Oven/microwave: GE
Dishwasher: Bosch

Hope you enjoyed the tour.  There will be more next week...along with the duvet reveal!

My Kindle is My Child

I got a Kindle for Christmas.  I love it like I gave birth to it.  Seriously.



One-click ordering on Amazon.....fabulous for convenience, bad for budgeting. :P 
One-click and you have any book you want right in front of you. 
Tell me that's isn't awesome dangerous.

I try to alternate between the free books and ones for purchase. 
The free selection isn't bad but I feel I can only rot my brain with so many trashy romance novels.

I will try to share each week what I'm reading/have read.
(Amazon now has Kindle Apps for your computer, phone, etc so don't feel left out if you don't own the actual Kindle itself.)

There will be no in-depth book reviews (I'll let you read the ones on Amazon)...
I will only give you a personal rating by mwah...(basically does it suck or not suck).
This week's feature:
"Always the Baker, Never the Bride" by Sandra Bricker

Click here for book description!

It was free when I "purchased" it but now has a charge of $9.99.
I enjoyed it for free but I think it should be more in the $5 price range.
Cheesey and predictable. I did, however, have trouble putting it down!
If it goes free again, read it...if not, no loss.

I am currently reading "The Imperfectionists" by Tom Rachman.  Stay tuned for my rating...

Feel free to comment with books that you are enjoying this week!

It's Just a Sweater...Pillow

I've had my eye on Pottery Barn's Sweater-Knit Pillow cover for awhile...

Image found here

Unfortunately, Pottery Barn and I don't agree on pricing. 

I kept thinking about the pillow covers and debating if it was something I could tackle.  I then decided...what's the worse that could happen? I would ruin a $1.50 sweater I got from the Salvation Army.  I can handle that loss.

So, I headed to the Salvation Army and picked out two $1.50 sweaters (along with a pair of $3 Express Editor pants in perfect condition....yeah, awesome. I know!).



I suck at "how-to's"...especially on this because I didn't know what I was doing.

I shoved (technical term) the pillow form into the sweater. 
I cut off the arms.  I placed pins around the pillow so I had a general outline of where to sew. 
I used a large, zig-zag stitch to sew where I had pinned (on 3 sides of the pillow).  I left the 4th side open because I change my mind with decorating as often as some people change their underwear (you can decide how often that is). 
To close the last side, I tied some bows with ribbons. 
And wah-lah...........sweater pillow cover for $1.50.

 Take that Pottery Barn.