frames, curtains and recipes - oh my

Happy Easter,
We have had a few decoration changes on the house that I am excited about. We had not put curtains in the kitchen or laundry room yet. I want to buy  Park Designs curtains but I wanted to wait until we redid the kitchen. Well, that is still a year or two away because we are a little busy at the moment soooo the sun was shining in every day when I try and make dinner and it was blinding me! Scott put up blinds in the two kitchen windows and one in the laundry room. Wow what a difference!! It makes the rooms look different - and great! Of course for two days after he installed them - no sun! On the back door we hung the curtains I had embroidered for the kitchen in our Colorado home

I love metal stars - there is an abandoned sugar factory in Longmont Colorado that has them on the outside of the building and I always wanted some in my house! Scott bought some for the fireplace

Also hung some in the study - looks great! He bought a row of stars for the bathroom in our bedroom because the hooks that are there now are gorgeous leaves but they attach in such a way that when I lift my towel the leaves come off the wall - grrrr. He hasn't hung them up yet so that will be another post.
Scott also framed a picture - he bought the frame at Goodwill and stained it.

 My Gram loved Santa and my uncle worked for the post office  so I made this for her. That was a long time ago (stitched in 1992) and the framing didn't look so great anymore. Last July we stayed at my uncle's house and we told him we wanted to take it and re-frame it. Wouldn't you know I DID NOT take a before picture - damn it, but I do still have the frame it was in. It took awhile to find the right frame but here it is - ready to go back to my uncle!

this is the frame the postal Santa used to be in and no that wall is not green

   Last year I made the Blackbird Designs Casting a Spell Box but I had tried to save money by just using the fabric needed for the stitched pieces - not thinking that they had to be big enough to cover jello boxes - grr. So mine never looked very good because I had just put some stuffing in the box and tucked the pictures in there. This weekend I decided to fix them - I turned them all into little pillows - looks much better. I used bat fabric on the back hee hee

before

after

Remember las week I said I had been making flavored water. I have some tips. The strawberry lime or strawberry mint is very good. However, you can't eat the fruit after. My favorite is orange peel (be sure to wash them well first of course) I peel an orange for my snack and then slice some of the peel and put it in the water - save the rest of the peel in the fridge for the next day. You need to make it fresh every day - and don't use cutie peels - weird and icky.

One of my friends post The Splendid Table's 20 best recipeson her facebook page. there are some fun recipes on that link. I tried the gougeres because I have never seen a recipe that you partially cook the dough on the stove - they were pretty good, kind of eggy like an eclair. I used sharp cheddar,

 I saw the panna cotta - we used to get Russian Cream at a restaurant in Kenai AK called Charlotte's. I loved that stuff. When we moved back I tried to find a recipe for Russian Cream and the one I found was disappointing so I didn't try it again. This recipe is it - so delicious (and super dooper fattening)

I used the Bonne Mamon (best jelly ever you can buy at Kroger or Walmart) jars Scott ha sbeen saving. Next time I make it I am putting a half a cup of the cream in the jar instead of a cup - too much! It's easy and fun to make.
Scott and I decided about 8 years ago to go through the GIANT box of pictures we have been hauling around for 24 years (yep next Sunday is our 24th anniversary!!) All these years every time we would get a pack of photos from the developer or pictures from family and friends we would just toss them in this box. We bought photo boxes and then never did it - it's a daunting project and life got in the way. Well, we started the project a few weeks ago. It's kind of a hard project. It's sad to see people you have lost through the years because of death or time. It's hard to see that your time with your kids is already gone. It really has been hard on us. So, we are sorting them into boxes that are labeled with years - and how frustrating is it to find stacks of pictures with no dates or names. We have thrown some pictures out. We plan on writing on the backs of all of them - year and names so that our kids don't ever have to go through them and wonder who those people are. We only work on it a few hours on the weekend, so it's taking forever. One neat thing is I came across the picture of my best friend from grade school - Staci - looked her up on facebook and there she was!! How fun is that!!
Well I didn't mean to chatter on so long. Here are two more entries from Gram's autograph book.

 Ill be polite and use white
and save the yellow
for your fellow
                  Rayetta

When you and Herby get married
don't come to me for safety pins
                                    Bobby Stanton
Hope you have a great week and thanks for stopping by!