It's been too long!

As many of you know, we moved from Saint Peters to Lexington, Kentucky! We technically moved in October and stayed with my parents until we bought and closed on our new house this January! Now that we have a house the decorating, unpacking, and crafting is going full steam. Here are a few photos of what I've been up to and some of the Pyrex I've collected lately! 

I am definitely a ditz about the price of paint! When did that stuff get so expensive?! Here are some of the colors I have been looking at for accent walls, the girls' bathroom and our bedroom! I'm thinking of being brave and choosing Emerald Isle for our master bedroom. I think it will look nice with our new white iron Ikea bed! 

 

This is our tiny breakfast nook! I haven't painted in here yet, but the walls are going to be a teal called "mermaid's song". The unfinished pine table will be painted white and we have wooden chairs to match that will be painted a slightly darker turquoise color---matching Butterprint Pyrex, of course! The funky white chairs are for or our dining room. The Billy bookcase with glass doors from IKEA will house my favorite pieces of Pyrex!!

This is the living room wall--well a section of it! You can see the lovely boxes of our wooden chairs in here too :). I'm painting the wall here "Fresh Peaches" and will accent the room with shades or orange and turquoise. 

This is my awesome reclaimed mantle! Thank you Aunt Betty! There are additional "boxes" that make the bottom chunkier. This will go in the living room, probably with some cool fabric filling the opening until we install an electric fireplace or something in a few years. Should I leave it rough or finish it by filling in the wood and painting bright white?!

I have found a bit of Pyrex lately. This Bridal promotional casserole is so cute, especially for spring! It was just $6.99 in great condition! 

Here's another divided dish (I'm the queen of divided dishes!). I love this black scroll promotional and plan to use it for Halloween! 

My best friend Savannah surprised me with this Christmas promotional dish! I will have to share the whole story and post a better photo later. Let's just say I am completely oblivious when shopping! I love this dish and have wanted it for so long. I kept passing it up at this one store probably three or four times! Now it's mine! 

Here's a bit more of the the kitchen. Notice the utter chaos that is this house :) 

This is the dining room area near the front door. The accent wall is a Salmon color that I love! I plan for the space by the window to be a sitting area. 

I love this black extendable dining table form ikea! It can seat 10! My funky white chairs will go with this and a funky light fixture that I also got from ikea, below, and the art work sitting by the table will also go on the wall. I think I need a rug though...

Pillows with cute covers that match the orange shades and turquoise in the living room! 

This is my funky dining room light from Ikea. It's made of awesome white paper flowers. It will probably take me 3 to 5 years to assemble! 

As you can see we are busy...and that's just the main level of the house! I have the girls' rooms and bathroom to paint, our bedroom to paint, guest room to fix up, a loft/play/school area to make pretty, and a whole basement to deal with! There will be lots of posts :)

We also have a much smaller backyard, so it's my goal to see what kind of garden we are going to do! Raised beds, definitely and probably lots of focus on the principles in the book "The Square-foot Gardener"--growing vertically! We're close to my parents, so we have access to fresh strawberry fields, chickens (and hopefully eggs soon!), a barn and country fun too! 

Looking forward to making this house...home! 

~Priscilla

Homemade Granola

My sister-in-law is a wonderful cook and also loves gardening and making things from scratch. She is also a nutritionist, so I love to pick her brain for new recipes. When I visited her recently, she was making granola and shared the recipe with me! This is from "Finding Joy in my Kitchen" and it is so easy and really tasty.
I used olive oil instead of butter and the granola is really crunchy--just the way we like it. Our youngest loves to eat it plain! Click on the link to see the recipe! It's a winner!

Garden Progress and the chairs I promised...

We finally have green beans! Our green bean tee-pee yielded a nice bowl of heirloom Missouri Pole beans. Picking them was fun, as they had started to grow in with the grapevine that covers our fence behind them. It was like hide-n-seek! 

One of our largest sunflowers broke this week, so it was time to dry and roast the seeds. I cheated a bit and dried them in the dehydrator for a few hours before roasting. I wish that I had soaked them in salt water for a salty flavor but they are still pretty tasty! 

Last but not least, I promised a photo of the chairs I scored at the antique sale a few weeks ago. They were $10 each and are in great condition. I love the design and the color. They are actually really comfortable to sit in too! We've enjoyed using them for school and for my new Usborne Books business venture!

Pyrex + Vintage Dress= Love

One of my awesome vintage dresses (a Sears and Roebuck) and my beautiful Green Wheat Promo Space-Saver dish in action!

Homemade Fruit Snacks

A friend of mine, Rebecca, shared a recipe that she found online and liked for homemade fruit snacks. We tried them out this week as we are really trying to cut out high fructose corn syrup and other potential GMO foods from our diet. They were very easy to make and yummy! I can't wait to try some different flavors. 

Here's the recipe:

3 tablespoons gelatin 

3 tablespoons honey

1/3 cup lemon juice (or juice/fruit purée for flavor)

Mix ingredients together and heat on medium until the mixture becomes runny and smooth. Pour into molds and freeze for 10 mins. Pop out fruit snacks and enjoy! 

Tips:

-I used organic cherry juice for flavor

-soak your sauce pan and utensils ASAP! That stuff is sticky!

-Target had some ice cube molds in their dollar section if you need some and are on a budget! 

- I stored mine in the fridge to be safe :)

Getting ready for Fall...

My mom and I bought supplies at Hobby Lobby awhile back to make these and I finally put mine together today! Fall is my second favorite decorating season (Christmas comes first of course), so I already hung this up! If you are going to make one, I highly suggest the wreaths with the pipe cleaner already made into it! It made the process really easy and I only had to cut one piece off wire for my bow--time saving!

August Treasures and a Christmas Preview

Summer seems to be waning earlier here this year and we've had some cooler than normal August weather. Our garden seems to be doing well though and we are now getting lots of juicy tomatoes each day! My favorites are the "Dr. Welche's Yellow Tomatoes" a great heirloom variety. I'm really excited about the black cherry tomatoes which are starting to just get ripe! 

Anyway, I finally got to get up early and go out to garage sales this summer. It's hard for be to get up early because...I hate it :). When I found out my favorite antique store was have a clearance event at their warehouse, I had to go! My friend, DeAnne, and I got up and made the trek down there. I found 2 awesome 50s style chairs for our "school" area that I'll have to photograph, and I also found these treasures at the sale and at their store location! 

I love this bit of pyrex! I've eyed this promotion piece for a bit and snagged it when I saw it hiding in a corner on the floor! This beauty should never go in the floor! It's a Green Wheat promo dish from 1960 (a 2 qt space saver dish) with the original cradle! 

While we were shopping, I got brave and tried on these vintage dresses! They fit so well, they came home with me. Now to iron them (I hate ironing and did wash them, just so you know I'm not wear someone else's 1960s sweat). I also got this cute orange apron for $1. DeAnne has one to match ;) 

Now, I know Christmas is still far off, but I couldn't help getting a family shot of my Christmas Pyrex with the new Snowflake oval casserole I found for $7 recently. It was in excellent condition and fits with my little Christmas collection nicely. I'll be looking forward to displaying these this year! Now, to get some more orange and black/white Pyrex for Halloween! 

Also, I love love love www.erincondren.com. Her life planners are amazing and this is my Lesson Planner...Yes, I am homeschooling a Kindergartener this year. Yes, I am crazy. We'll see how this goes, but I have an awesome kid to teach, so that should make things go better :)

Till next time!

~Priscilla