Giveaway

The sweet blog over @ 4 Reluctant Entertainers is giving away a great book! The House Always Wins its about creating the home you love, without busting your budget. It’s done in a very practical way.

Sounds good to me!! So head on over and sign up for your chance to win!!

Sweet Sunday

Yesterday was my birthday and today we had our family birthday party. We always celebrate my birthday and Joe's at the same time. His birthday is August 8th - two weeks to the day after mine. Joe had requested a Chocolate Chocolate Cake for our birthday celebration. So I decided to make this cake - I love it!! It's a chocolate buttermilk cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting! DELISH!!! I'll share the recipe later this week but just wanted share a part of our "Sweet Sunday"!

White whole wheat flour

Joe found this at the grocery and we have been baking with it and love it! I used it in the zucchini bread and it worked great in that as well. This flour can be substituted for your normal all purpose flour when baking. King Arthur recommends using it in cookies, bars, and brownies where you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. For more info check out their website.

Sweet Sunday

The weather this weekend has just been glorious! It's mid July and the temps are in the mid to upper 80's. A nice breeze has been blowing and the humidity has been very low. I am just so thankful for the weather so far this summer. So nice!! I have tried to be outside as much as possible to enjoy this weather. I love looking up at the beautiful Carolina blue skies against the canopy of our lovely old trees in our yard. The mixture of colors with the greens, blues and whites are just so refreshing. I can just feel God in these moments - recognizing his amazing creation!! Were you able to get outside and enjoy the blessing of this weather?? What did you do?

The first "fruit" of our labor

We got our first zucchini out of the garden this week and I have been hankering for some zucchini bread. I found a great recipe over at Eating is Art. I assembled all my ingredients:

And got to mixing. This was a great recipe because it didn't require getting out the electric mixer; just 2 bowls and dump, dump, dump.

Then mix the two together and put in the oven! The house smelled so good while these were cooking. Tricia suggested adding raisins, dried cranberries or chocolate chips for an added surprise. I went with Craisins and it was a great combo!!

I have a cute mini loaf pan that makes 8 mini loaves and then I did a regular loaf. Just keeping my eye on them because they finished at different times. These are a hit! Go to Eating is Art and check out her yummy recipe for Zucchini Bread and find all her other great recipes too!!

Little weekend project...

I have had this metal basket on the side of the chimney forever but haven't known how to plant flowers in it. But with the help of "blog world" I came upon this really cool blog that had the exact solution!! I was so excited!

To do this project you will need: 1 bag of sheet moss, plants, and potting soil. So I compiled all my supplies and began to make my basket!

To start you soak your sheet moss for 10 minutes. This is going to be the glue that holds it all together. After the moss is nice and soaked, put the moss down as the base of pot. Then add your flowers getting the blossoms to stick out the side. Then fill in with potting soil to give the plants something to grow into. And now you just start making layers until you get to the top. You want to make sure your moss is creating a wall for your soil so when you water the plant dirt doesn't all fall out. I added some more moss on the very top to help the soil retain water. I had read about the idea of putting mulch in your potted plants to help keep the soil moist in potted plants so I figured the moss would serve the same purpose.

The ladies over at "The Babs Blog" say that it will fill in nicely... I am looking forward to it!! And if I haven't done this project justice here is there blog with nice concise instructions! I love the finished product! Thanks Babs!!

Price my Space

This is right up my alley! Nesting Place is having a "Price my $pace" and I just love a good deal - that doesn't necessarily look like a good deal. I thought the re-do on the Master Bedroom would be a good one to do. So here goes...

Queen Bed: $150 Bombay Outlet (this was such a major deal my BF and MIL bought one too!)

Side Table: $15.00 Yard Sale

Table Lamps: $20.00 each Target (waited til these went on major clearance... For Christmas I put ornaments inside for a fun festive touch)

Bedding: $65.00 IKEA I love white bedding! It goes with everything! And you can't go wrong with their toss pillows what a deal!

Window Treatments: $15.00 per pair

Window Hardware: $10.00 Yard Sale

Dresser & other bedside table: FREE Hand-me-down :-)

Buffet Lamps: $15.00 each

Silver Mirror: $115.00 Storehouse

TOTAL: $455.00

I really have been wanting some of the new decal artwork on the long wall, but have decided to have my aunt paint it instead. She's amazing and how cool to have her handy work on my wall! That will be a post hopefully in the near future!

Sweet Sunday

The garden is coming along nicely!! Check out our beautiful squash! It's pretty enough to put in a frame or maybe just eat.

Warm welcome

I love sitting out on our front porch but have never had comfy chairs so we could really relax out there. Being on the ever present budget I decided to "re-vamp" existing items.

I took 2 chairs from our existing patio set and gave them a fresh coat of paint. I have had a little iron table forever and it never really had a home. After topping that with a fresh coat it looks nice and new!

So here's what we had before. This bench was literally left in the yard when we bought the house. I painted it black all those years ago and that's how it's been. But now it's like this...

I got the cushions for a major steal at Target - a set of 2 for $9.99! I love the little splash of color! I love to sit out and watch the world go by. It's the perfect spot to watch a thunderstorm as well!!

Sweet Sunday

I'm a little late in posting for "Sweet Sunday" but I've been at the beach and I'm still in lazy beach mode!

So this past Sunday was so sweet! Picture it... warm soft sand between your toes... waves crashing... background of your favorite mix of music... your sweetie beside you... and a good book!!! Does life get any better, I ask you!?!? I read 2 books this weekend and wanted to share

Night's of Rain and Stars is a little different from Binchy's other books - very light and quick easy read. Makes you want to go to Greece!!

Secrets She Left Behind is actually a sequel to Before the Storm. But no where on the cover does it tell you that. The book was awesome! I highly recommend it but I would read the prequel first because now I pretty much know what happens in the first one. This is the first time I have read a Diane Chamberlain book, after many recommendations from friends I thought I would try one out! And boy am I glad I did!! I read this book in 2 days! Good Stuff!!

What are you reading this summer??