Office Chair Remodel

So here is my latest project: recover an old office chair.  Since Chris and I moved into our apartment we've been using one of our 4 dining chairs when sitting in the office.  It was a pain for me to have to drag it around every day depending on what we needed.  Thankfully my grandparents had an old office chair they didn't need anymore however, the material was kind of scratchy and the color just wasn't right for our office.

So off to Hobby Lobby I went to find the perfect fabric to recover this chair!  I love the grey and yellow pattern I picked out!

Then I unscrewed the cushions and laid them out on the floor so I could cut the fabric to the correct size.

This is what the chair looked like with no cushions.

Then, I got to work with my staple gun.  I pulled the fabric tight on all sides and stapled it into place. This is the bottom cushion so the it didn't really matter what the underside looked like. 

Then I just screwed the cushion back on through the fabric so it would stay tight. 

 Next it was the back cushion. Same thing, pull each side of the fabric tight and staple into place.

All finished!

Here are a few pictures of the final product.

I actually like these colors so much it has inspired me to redo the color scheme in my office to match! Now I must find a new rug and curtains to match! I'll post pictures when my make over is complete! :)

I hope this inspires you to take an old piece of furniture and upgrade it! The whole project cost me about $10 dollars and took about 30 minutes.  So get on out there and get craftin'!

Cheers,
Courtney

Canvas Art Project

Looking for a cheap and easy art project to spruce up a boring wall?  Well I found one! Chris and I have now been in our apartment for 4 months and I have finally found the time to do some updates to our decor.  These plain white canvasses have been hanging above my bed for years in a different capacity and they just didn't match my new bedroom so something had to be done! Last week I stumbled across a cute idea on Pinterest to use a doilie as a stencil.

This project was super cheap (less than $10) because all I had to buy was the spray paint and doilies.  However, even if you had to but the canvas Hobby Lobby usually has them packaged 2 for $10.

First step: Lay out the canvas and doilies.  I tried to attach the doilies with scotch tape however as soon as I started spray painting they moved.  I would suggest either attaching them with spray adhesive or hot glue.  They will still come off the canvas easily when done so don't worry! I promise this will make your life much easier and your end product will be better as well.

Second step: Paint.

Third step: Remove doilies and make sure paint dries completely!

I am really happy with the way my project came out and I think it complements my room decor nicely! I am even planning on doing this again on a wooden "S" I bought to hang with my wedding picture  wall collage. (Pictures to come when complete!) I hope this has inspired you to create your own art. Remember, if I can do it anyone can!

Cheers,

Courtney 

Game of Thrones Watching Party

Sunday was the season finale of the HBO series Game of Thrones.  Every week a few of our friends come over on Sunday evening to watch with us.  Since this would be the last episode for about a year we decided to turn this weekly occasion into a themed dinner party!  All of the food that we served was inspired by the food that the characters eat on the show (which is roughly like medieval inspired fare).  On a side note - please ignore the terrible picture of me above, we had been out by the pool all day for my mother-in-laws birthday!

On the menu:

• Nosh plate: spicy capacola, hard salami, grapes, gorgonzola, 3 pepper colby, assorted crackers, and pecans
• Sausage with spicy garlic pepper sauce - I used beer soaked kielbasa and sriracha as the dipping sauce
• "Mutton" stew in cornbread cups - the stew was made in my crock-pot (super easy!) I used corn, green beans, and potatoes, stew meat, water, and "stew seasoning" packet from my grocery store. Cook on low 6-8 hours.
• Cherry stuffed chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing
• Cinnamon apple cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream icing - recipe to come!

I got my inspiration for the menu from the Fantasy Filter blog which lists all the food the characters eat in the book series. Also, a big thanks to Cecily for all the help making the watching party a success her cupcakes are the best for sure! I'm happy to report that by the time the episode was over we had demolished the food and are now eagerly anticipating the return of the series next spring!

Welcome home Thor!

Welcome home the newest member of the Stevens Family... Thor!  We picked him up last Thursday from the Hurst Animal Shelter.  He is a black lab that is about one.  He loves loves loves to play with Zoe and they are getting along great so far!

It is so nice to be able to stay home during the day right now to help get him housebroken and make sure the transition is as smooth as possible. The first few days were interesting as we soon found out he was terrified of the stairs, which when living on the second floor is a big problem!  Thank goodness he quickly warmed up to them.

I will keep you updated as things progress with our family! Now that things have finally slowed down in my life look forward to a few more recipe posts this week and maybe a craft or two!
Cheers,
Courtney

Spring Strawberry Salad

My Spring Salad was a big hit with the mother-in-law so it must be a winner! It is super light and only slightly sweet with a great crunch from the pecans!

For the salad I started with a great spring mix but any spinach or dark leaf lettuce would work great.  I then quartered a few strawberries and tossed those on top. Toasted pecans and gorgonzola cheese round out this fresh delight!

I topped my salad with a homemade strawberry vinaigrette. Feel free to play with the ingredient list below.  I like this recipe because its not too sweet and seems to pull all the flavors of the salad together.

For the Strawberry Vinaigrette

• 1 part white vinegar
• 2 parts oil
• 1 tbsp mustard 
• 2 tsp honey 
• 1/2 cup strawberries

Toss and enjoy this wonderful taste of spring! This salad works great by itself as a standalone meal or as the starter to a light chicken or fish dish. Stay tuned for the rest of my all vegetarian mother's day dinner...
Cheers,
Courtney

Mother's Day Weekend

What a whirlwind of a weekend... Chris and I had a lot going on this weekend.  Apparently the life of a Newlywed means nonstop fun on the weekends! I hope everyone had a blessed Mother's day filled with love and appreciation for the Mothers in your life.  Chris and I enjoyed seeing the many mothers in our lives while mixing in some other fun activities in between. Here's a recap of what we did:

Friday:
After work Chris & I headed to the TX Food Truck Fest at Valley View Mall in Dallas.  It was so fun to walk around to all of the food trucks and try different things! There were more than 20 food trucks there selling anything from pizza to snow cones.   It was $5 to get in but the proceeds went to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  We stopped at three food trucks for dinner: Eat Jo Dawgs, Yume Burger, and Ssahm BBQ.

Eat Jo Dogs is custom gourmet hot dog truck based in Ft. Worth.  We tried the "Natural Disaster" a hot dog wrapped in bacon and deep fried with jalepeno relish, chili, onion rings, and tomatos (we skipped the cole slaw). Yum but way more hot dog than I could handle.

Yume Burger sells japanese style hamburgers and is based in Dallas. Chris tried the Po-Ku Burger which he kindly let me have a bite of, it was delicious.  It's an all beef burger topped with seared pork belly, creamy wasabi slaw, and japanese pickles. This was definitely worth the wait!

Finally, we tried korean bbq tacos from the Ssahm BBQ truck which is based in Dallas as well.  Chris and I each tried a Kalbi (beef) taco which is marinated short rib topped with sesame soy vinaigrette, caramelized kimchee, cilantro & onions, spicy mayo, and korean salsa roja on a corn tortilla. Overall the festival was really fun and the rain held off so we stayed dry.  I do wish the lines had moved a little faster but if you go into the experience expecting to wait you'll have a great time.  They even had the Rangers game playing! 

After the Food Truck Fest we headed up to one of our favorite spots, The Flying Saucer in Addison where one of Chris' coworkers and some of our other friends met us for a drink.  It was nice to relax and enjoy the company after a long week!

Saturday:

Saturday we woke up early and took Chris' mom and grandma to see The Avengers.  We had lunch during the movie and it was excellent! I highly recommend this movie if you have not seen it already, it was very entertaining and if you are a super hero fan you will not be disappointed!

Saturday evening we attended the North Texas Beer Festival at the Irving Convention Center.  We had a fabulous time! It cost between $20-$40 dollars depending on when you purchased your tickets but it was well worth the cost.  You receive tons of free stuff and get to try lots of different types of beer from all over Texas! I even was able to represent my Longhorn pride while we were there! We discovered a new brewery from the New Braunfuls area called Guadeloupe that is selling their first beer with many in the works that was really tasty. You can only purchase it in Austin and San Antonio at the moment but we wish them the best and love seeing fellow Longhorns be so successful.

This picture was taken from the balcony of the convention center where a live band was playing, looking towards the Irving/Las Colinas area.  We had a great time and are looking forward to going back next year!

Finally, we ended our night at a friends 50th birthday party.  It was a 70's theme and so much fun. There was an awesome garage band, mexican food, mustaches galore, and of course delicious cupcakes made by Cecily.  My favorite were the sopapilla cheesecake (more information on how to get these delicious cupcakes to come)!

Sunday:

Sunday was all about the mothers. We started over at my Aunts house for a cookout by the pool. My cousins and grandparents were there and it was so nice to hang out with my family and relax.  We had hot dogs, hamburgers, pasta salad (my contribution), asparagus, green beans, and strawberry shortcake. 

In the evening Chris' parents and grandparents came over for a vegetarian dinner in honor of Chris' mother. Here's the menu I prepared:

Roasted Pepper Bruschetta

Strawberry Salad w/ pecans & Strawberry Vinaigrette

Roasted Asparagus

Squash & Zucchini Casserole

Risotto Cakes

Dulce De Leche Ice Cream

Don't worry I will post all of the recipes later on this week! It was nice to have everyone over for dinner and they really enjoyed all the meat-less dishes :)  We wrapped the packed weekend up with Game of Thrones watching party. So fun and with only 2 episodes left we are planning a big season finale party! 

Well, I'm exhausted just reliving this weekend. Happy Mother's day again to all the moms out there!  Have a great week and I will see you soon with recipes from my Vegetarian Menu. 

Cheers,

Courtney

How To: My Wedding Day Hair Piece

March 17, 2012 was the happiest day of my life and I have never felt more beautiful than I did on that day.  So how does a bride make it through a day of full of stress... planning, planning, and more planning!  Fortunately, I only worked part time in the months leading up to my wedding. This left me plenty of time to do lots of planning and some small wedding crafts. In the next few months I will try to share some of the crafts I did as well as how I organized/planned my wedding. Therefore...

Welcome to my first "How To:" post.  Today I'm going to show you how I made the hair piece I wore for the reception part of my wedding.  First, where did the flower come from?  My dress.  That was the easy part.  When I tried on my dress, initially I wanted to "say no to the dress" because of these ugly flowers and (what I call) shoestrings that dangled off the front and back.  But as I began to investigate I realized that they were easily taken off and what was revealed underneath was beautiful beading! Then, my challenge was what to do with these crazy fabric flowers.  Where the inspiration came from I'm not really sure, probably the hundred thousand wedding photos I looked at in the planning process. So, moral of the story?  Keep your eyes open.  I've often found that the cutest crafts have come from things I had laying around the house.  Have an old shirt you aren't going to wear any more? See some cute fabric at Hobby Lobby? Cut something off a dress (like all that extra fabric after they hemmed your dress)? Turn it into a cute head band or clip. Anyways, here is what I came up with.




What you'll need:

• Fabric (the flower in my case)
• Hot glue
• A couple of alligator hair clips 
• Thread
• Needle

 Step 1:

Cut off any unneeded parts.  I cut off the ugly shoestrings.

Step 2:
Scrunch the sides together to make it more compact.  My flower had some floral wire in it that caused it to stay in place.  However if yours does not, or it is not staying as tight as you would like it to, you can simply use a needle and thread to hold it in place.  Now don't worry, professional sewing skills are not needed. No one will even know you did it much less how badly! Simply thread the needle and push it back and forth through the bottom a few times while you hold the flower in place and then tie a knot at the end.

Step 3: 

Finally, glue a couple of alligator clips onto the back of your flower.  I found a package of 10 at Jo Ann's Fabric for around $3.00. Use as many or as few as you would like.  I wanted a pretty tight hold so I used two clips. 

And thats it! All done.  The day of the wedding I gave the clip to my hair stylist and she showed my Maid of Honor how to clip it in place after the veil was taken off.  This was a super simple DIY craft that cost me less than $5.00 and that really added something to my wedding pictures! 

I hope this was useful and that you can find the inspiration to do it yourself.  Till then, I wish you creative crafting!

Courtney