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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Master Bedroom Pillows

Last July after we moved into the house, we shopped for furniture and a new bed for our master bedroom. We found what we wanted for a good price at Furnitureland South in High Point. These were the first furniture items we bought for our new home after the couch, love seat, and table which we considered essential. Those we had in the house about a month or so before we moved in. I had a queen mattress and wicker dresser (which are now in our guestroom) that we lived out of until our bedroom stuff was delivered in August/Sept. I found a duvet cover that I thought would be so perfect in our room from Pottery Barn. Now I don't normally buy things from pottery barn because they are so darn expensive but I made an exception because it would go so well and was exactly the look I was going for, plus of course it is good quality.

Anywho on to the pillows... so I took a sample of the duvet to my parents house when I visited in the Spring so my mom and I could go shopping for fabric and make pillows! We went on an all day  shopping trip to Orlando to a bunch of fabric stores and found some great fabric for the master bedroom pillows and also for living room pillows and curtains which I will post about soon.

We returned to my parents house and got to work measuring and cutting the fabric and then sewing it all together on my mom's sewing machine. I do not know how to sew but she was showing me a few things because I would like to get a sewing machine of my own soon.

I saw an idea at All Things Thrifty to make a pintucked pillow. It was super easy to do - you just turn your pillow fabric inside out and pinch up a little bit the fabric and tie with string. You can pinch more or less and do lots of these or just a few depending on the look you are going for.

I think they turned out fabulous and really add to the room. We still have things we want to do to such as hang some pictures. You can see my bridal portrait on the floor where it has sat for a year waiting to be hung, don't judge me :)  I also need to find a bedskirt... then I could hide the cords under the nightstands. I found the lamps, vase, 3 pictures over our bed, and bench at HomeGoods of course! You should have seen us trying to squeeze that thing in the saturn. The basket tray was a gift and I need to figure out what to put in it that is fairly unbreakable. Any suggestions??

Linking up here:

JAG Show and Share Day
Weekend Wrap Up Party
Making the World Cuter Mondays
Frugalicious Friday
Blue Cricket Design
Remodelaholics Anonymous
Sunday Showcase Party

Thursday, July 22, 2010

First attempt at a veggie garden

I decided that this year would be my first attempt at a garden. I have many childhood memories of my dad's garden in our backyard with all kinds of vegetables. I would go out there with him and pick pole beans, squash, tomatoes, and various other veggies. We also frequently went orange and grapefruit picking in the groves and even had a couple trees right in our yard. I guess that was the beauty of being in FL as I certainly don't see orange groves here in NC.

This was my dad pushing my sister and I in the wheelbarrow. You can kinda see part of the garden in the background  to the right.



I had been throwing fruit and veggie scraps into an area of the yard with some topsoil during the winter. We are pretty lucky to have clay-like soil here though. So this is what my garden area looked like before I planted.  What can I say, I liked to eat grapefruit.

I decided to start out small this year. The 2nd weekend in April I planted tomatoes and basil. I did 9 tomato plants - 3 roma and 6 big boy. I even ran out of room in the topsoil area and just stuck one of the tomato plants next to the garden area. I used one pack of basil seeds that was like $1. So I didn't take pictures right after I planted the garden but this was about a monthish later. Little green matos started to appear on the roma plants! 

  

I had staked the plants and tied them just like my dad suggested. Then later even more matos started growing. :)
 

At this point the basil had gotten like a 1/2 inch tall (which it did very quickly at the beginning)  but hadn't grown any more. So I read that basil does better in pots and I decided to transplant them... well they didn't survive their move and all died in the pots within a couple days. Too bad since I do love the way basil smells and it goes so well in lots of dishes. So next year I am going to start with small basil plants in pots and not the seeds. Anywho, the tomatoes were still doing well. Notice the awesome shadow in the first picture.
  

The tomatoes started to turning yellowish and then red. Then I picked them. And ate them. Well I washed them first.
 

I love tomatoes. I could seriously just eat a tomato like someone would eat an apple. I like putting tomatoes in all kinds of dishes. And tomato sandwiches. Yum! You can see my failed basil plants in the background.
 

I did learn that the roma plants produced more than the big boy plants. I did have a couple of plants that produced zero tomatoes... these were down near the end that can get quite flooded after a good rain. The strip of the backyard where my garden is doesn't drain well and water sort of sit there so I think we would have had more tomatoes if that were not the case. For next year we are going to hopefully have some of our backyard issues solved... like better drainage (toward an actual drain in our sideyard area) and a sprinkler system and perhaps some grass. Good grass would be nice in a backyard I think. Eric is going to help me build up the garden higher with more dirt and frame it out with some leftover deck wood. I may expand and try squash or cucumbers perhaps... I've heard they grow well here. It was definitely a good first year for my veggie garden but I'm excited about improving it next time around.

Monday, July 19, 2010

DIY Club - vote for me please!

Hey yall, I was super excited to find out that I made the TOP 10 on the DIY Club Inc. blog! This blog is actually 5 different blogs that come together to host a monthly competition for bloggers using their sponsor products. They also blog about some of their projects too.

I entered my Homemade Play Kitchen where I used Gorilla Glue - one of the sponsor products.

PLEASE please vote for me here  it's the 4th one down- the pink play kitchen I made for Eric's niece. The voting ends Thursday at 11:59PST so head on over and cast your vote!

I feel so so honored to be featured and I really hope I win :)  I did get to put a cool new button on my sidebar so check it out!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Kiawah Island Beach Trip

The week of 4th of July we went to Kiawah Island with some good friends. The parents of our friend Justin were kind and generous enough to offer up their beach house to all 9 of us. We have been a few times before, but they recently remodeled it so it seemed like a whole different house and it was just gorgeous! Very beachy (of course) and cottage-like but also modern and simple/clean feeling. Eric and I were there from Sat. to Wed. and we had a wonderful time!

We played lots of cornhole... Eric and I have a homemade Clemson cornhole set made by him and Keith and painted by my talented friend Brooke.

 


We looked at all the sand scuptures that kids had made. The 2nd picture of toy story was pretty cool.

We grilled out for 4th of July and went to watch fireworks on the beach decked out in red white and blue.



People took turns cooking during the trip and we ate some great meals. This was chickpea chicken by Carla and Chris.


We relaxed at the pool and watched the Bachelorette - complete with ice cream and chocolate wine. Go Chris L!


A man accidentally hooked a sting ray with his fishing line. We went to see it while they were trying to figure out how to get the hook out. I made Eric take the picture... I don't take ANY chances with sting rays since I was stung by one in high school and it hurt prrrretty bad. Like awful. Seriously. The sting ray shuffle is essential to me when entering and exiting the ocean.


We read a lot (I finished the 3rd bride quartet book by nora roberts - it was great!) and enjoyed the sunshine.


The hubby and I :)


We went into Charleston for yummy seafood and walked around some city shops and the park.





We rode the bikes some too. On the morning of our last day, Eric and I rode to one end of the island to collect some shells. We found some AWESOME starfish and conchs but since they were still alive Eric said I couldn't take those... boo. I did find some other smaller shells.


We also happened upon a crab - I had no idea they had such beady eyes and scurry rather quickly.


We had a very relaxing extended 4th of July holiday with friends. The weather was good... a bit hot which is normal for SC but no rain the whole time and some breezes too! It was definitely hard to leave, it was a much needed vacation. I love the beach and would go there much more often if it was closer. Kiawah Island is a great place to go if you have never been altho nothing compares to the sandy white Florida beaches that I grew up with only an hour away. Oh beach, I hope I see you again soon! Hope everyone had just as nice a holiday as we did!

Friday, July 9, 2010

Herb and Cheese Oven Fries

This is one of my favorite side dishes because it goes so well with burgers -turkey burgers in our house and it's really simple. It is a Rachel Ray recipe tweaked a bit.

Ingredients:
(serves 4-6 as a side)

-3 medium sized all purpose potatoes (like russet)
-olive oil
-garlic powder
-italian seasoning
-ground black pepper
-grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 450. Spray a big cookie sheet or pan (or whatever sizes you have). Cut potatoes into long wedges. I usually get around 8-9 wedges out of each potato. You don't want the wedges to thick or too thin- see the size I have mine in the picture. Arrange them on the sheet/pan and drizzle olive oil over them (just enough to coat). Then sprinkle with as much garlic powder, italian seasoning, and pepper as desired. Bake for 15-20 min. Flip over each potato wedge so the seasonings are on the bottom and sprinkle with parmesan to your liking. I am a cheese lover so the more the better! Cook another 10 min before taking out to cool for a few minutes.

[caption id="attachment_203" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="before flipping"]before flipping[/caption]

I like to serve with ketchup and Eric perfers BBQ sauce but they are also good plain. These really are delish and better for you since they are BAKED. I can't eat fried food so this is a big plus for me! I think they taste just as good as fries from restaurants etc. plus they aren't greasy and you actually taste the potato! Now that I think about it this could be a great appetizer also... maybe served with some sour cream or ranch, yum! I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you probably always have all of those ingredients in your kitchen except for the potatoes so thrifty as well :)

Enjoy!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Clemson Girl Blog and Tonight

Our love story was featured on June Wedding Wednesdays at the Clemson Girl Blog! Go check it out here: http://www.clemsongirl.com/2010/06/wedding-wednesdays-part-i-emily-erics.html



Clemson girl is a blog about all things Clemson and all things girly! How perfect! She features neat gameday outfits and recipes and traditions, some cool giveaways, and recaps Clemson sports news. During the month of June she did Wedding Wednesdays - Eric and I were featured on the June 30th post! She did such a great job with the post and I felt so honored to be included. Clemson Girl is a really cool blog so you should definitely stop by. Just talking about this is getting me super excited for football season woohoo!


On another note, I am very excited today because of what I am doing tonight.... I'll give you a clue...


I'm going to see ECLIPSE!!! YAY! Team Edward! I liked all the Twilight books but Eclipse was my favorite book out of the 4 so I cannot wait to see the movie. I have been counting down the days and it is finally here.

Hope everyone has a great day!
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