Salvation Army Chic

As I searched my house yesterday for something to feature on The CSI Project's Thrifty Makeover day, it occurred to me that the question was really, "what shouldn't I feature?"

Thanks to the empowerment I experienced after reading about other bloggers' victories with cans of spray paint and glue gun sticks, I started finding my own treasures to remake and blog about. Many of my favorite things are thrift store makeovers!

My $8 Salvation Army Desk Makeover is, to date, my biggest thrifty makeover. You can click that link to read about how I did it, but I'll share some before and after photos here today as well as some updates I've made to the space.

Before ($8, glass top table from the clearance aisle at Salvation Army):

After (Salvation Army Chic):

I frosted the entire glass top except for a small fleur de lis cut-out, and made a pleated muslin skirt that attaches with heavy duty decorator's velcro:

The back hallway stayed bare for awhile until I hunted down the items I wanted to accessorize with:

The chair (a $4 thrift store find) needs to be recovered, but most everything else is a thrifty find:

A $1.50 madeover planter holds craft supplies, a Wal-Mart ribbon-embellished lampshade lights up the area, and all sorts of other thrifty pretties make up this spot.

Don't you just love my Chalkboard Quote Tray?

So that's my biggest Thrifty Makeover...so far. If you keep reading, maybe I'll have more.

Happy Thrifting!


Linked to Tatertots and Jello.

Braving the Food Processor (Zucchini Bread)

A few years ago, I spent a week in San Antonio helping my aunt go through some things in my grandparents' house getting my O'pa ready to move to Houston. One of the items that caught my eye was my grandmother's 1977 GE food processor. I didn't have one of my own, so my aunt said I could take it home to Virginia with me.

The thing is, I have a slight phobia about appliances with blades and spinning attachments. It was 7 1/2 years into our marriage before I broke down and used the Kitchen Aid stand mixer T and I received as a wedding gift.

You'd think a successful run with that piece of machinery would've cured me, but a glance at the sharp blade attachments for the food processor scared me away for the better part of two years.

It took a generous neighbor with a box top full of fresh veggies for me to overcome my food processor fears.

I did a little internet searching and found a recipe for zucchini bread on allrecipes.com that had a couple thousand good reviews.

A little chopping, a little noisy shredding, and we were on our way!

The bread turned out delicious: dense, moist, and sweet.

Here's the recipe:

{Zucchini Bread}

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 1/4 cups white sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions:

1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

So it was totally worth risking my fingers for! A great treat to pair with a homemade mocha when friends come over for a playdate.

{Any recipes or appliances you've been holding off on trying?}

Linking to Tutorial Tuesday at Hope Studios and Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.

Hope you'll join me for the next Dishing It! party this week. Click here for the topic!

*Special thanks to today's Sponsor, one9designs!*

Thrifty Treasures: Martha Style

Howdy! If you missed the topic for this week's Dishing It! party, please click here. Hope to see you partying with us.

I have not had much luck with thrift stores or yard sales lately, and it's not for lack of trying! The girls and I stopped by Goodwill and Salvation Army yesterday (before treating ourselves to a chocolate chip bagel at Panera Bread) and came up with nuthin'. I'm searching for a metal shelving unit/etagere to go on my deck and a sideboard/buffet for my dining room. The good thing is that experience tells me persistence pays off...so we'll keep hunting until we find what we're looking for.

I do have one Thrifty Treasure to share with you today.

I had to stop by Macy's on Friday afternoon to pick up a few items from Clinique. After dropping $$$ on foundation and concealer (I sooo need to try our new Sephora!), I was waylaid by large clearance signs in the Martha Stewart section.

I love me some Martha Stewart.

As much as I loved all of the cute dishes, picnic items, and summery looking pitchers, I don't have room for more *stuff.* But my eyes were drawn to one small package near the door. The pricetag read $25.00, but when the cashier checked the price for me it was marked down to $4.75.

These babies came home with me:

I got four adorable flower shaped ice cream bowls and spoons for less than the price of one bowl I had been eyeing at JoAnn Fabric. We have the ingredients for strawberry shortcakes, which I think will be a hit tonight in these bowls.

So the lesson is: don't rule out stuff in department stores or Target. You can find thrifty treasures there too! I saw stuff in Goodwill yesterday marked higher than the price of those bowls.

Linking up with Rhoda's Thrifty Treasures party. Always a blast!

Your Dishing It! Party Topic for July

I wanted to remind everyone that the next Dishing It! party is coming up this Wednesday. I know some new Followers have joined up since the last party, so I'll explain what this is all about.

One of my favorite things ever is having a girlfriend over for coffee and dishing over anything and everything. That's what Dishing It! is all about: getting to know other bloggers.

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Dishing It! is my way of getting bloggers together to chat about a common topic. I'll post a topic today, and ask everyone to link up and hop around Wednesday and Thursday, after the party goes live. You can view the first party here and the second one here. 

The community aspect of blogging is so important! I found many of my favorite blogs and blog friends through participating in blog parties and leaving comments.

With that in mind, I hope this month's topic gets everyone talking. Here's our topic:

{Your Summer Reading List}

Please feel free to use this as a question and answer post, or use it as a loose guide to write your post however you like. Add or omit any questions you like, and feel free to embellish with photos! (Note: If you're a mom and haven't read anything except Goodnight, Moon in three years, think back to when you used to have time.)

~Give us your list of top 5 picks for summer reading.
~What genre of literature makes you want to pick up a book and read (biographies, chick lit, Christian fiction,  historical fiction, etc.)?
~What are your favorite magazines?
~If you had to be stuck on a desert island with any fictional character, who would you choose?
~How do you make time to escape into a good book?
~What's your favorite place to get your books?
~What's next on your "to-read" list?

All I ask is that you link back to me at the specific party post, which will go up on Tuesday night; and that you take the time to visit at least 2 or 3 other blogs on the list. If you need a few days before you know you'll have a chance to visit some of the other links, that's okay, but a blog party doesn't work unless participants join in the party. (You can read my Manifesto on Blog Parties if you're not sure what I'm talking about.)

Here's the code for the cutesy party button. I'd love it if you'd add it to your post.

<a href="http://www.serenitynow4amanda.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" src="http://i523.photobucket.com/albums/w351/laurenjh04/Custom%20Designs/Amanda/150dish.png" /></a><br/>

I hope you'll come by and link up on July 14th!

I'll be back later with a Thrifty Treasure I found this weekend.

For Those Suburbanite Guys

Please take a sec and watch this video that my sis gleefully emailed me. I guarantee you will about pee in your pants from laughing so hard. These guys nail the typical suburban daddy stereotypes with perfection. I want to be involved if they ever do a Mom Life version!

Also, just a reminder that the next Dishing It! party is coming up on Wednesday the 14th! I'll post this month's topic tomorrow, and the linky will go live on Tuesday night. These parties have been pretty small...my blog is small, it's not the latest link-up-your-crafts party, and I haven't plugged it much. But I am really enjoying sharing with those of you who do link up. Conversation is what blogging is all about! You can click here to see the last party.

Later!

::Weekend Bloggy Reading::

Happy Friday, lovelies! I know my list of super amazing links is long this week, but there were just too many to share with you. Hope you'll leave me some comment love and let me know which ones you like!

~I know it's not nice to be envious of another blogger, but I think Kate's style is superb. Her *new* Living Room is the greatest.

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~I discovered that Amy has an entire page dedicated to Zucchini Recipes! What a great discovery, as I am currently up to my eyeballs in zucchinis from a neighbor. It's a good thing.

~For Glee fans everywhere: another cool site for Gleeks United

~Courtney shared in a guest post How to Get All Your Housework Done in a Week.

~I. want. this. Playroom.

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~Kim threw a Birthday Party Fit for a Superhero.

~Little Miss Momma had an excellent tutorial for Cake Pops.

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~J'adore Melissa's Playroom Art.

~I got some great ideas from Diana's thrifty Girlie Bedroom Makeover.

~Do you know How to Wear Cropped Pants? (Not a blog, but I had to share this important info.)

{What's going on in your neck of the woods this weekend?}

I'm winding down from a super fun "Flip Flop" themed Ice Cream Social I hosted last night with a friend. Natalie has swim lessons this evening, my plants need watering majorly, and I have a pile of ironing as tall as T. I still need to watch Thursday's episode of So You Think You Can Dance? (no spoilers, please!!). Want to rent The Young Victoria, but keep forgetting....

Stay cool this weekend!

*Special thanks to today's Sponsor, Crafty Girls Workshop!*

A Catfight. Literally.

I'd love to tell you that the story behind my pale skin and the vicious scrape and bite marks are because I met Edward and turned into a Twilight vampire, but it's not nearly that Hollywood-esque.

My kids might get a bit rowdy every now and then, but no, they didn't do it either.

My mom has a cat named Mr. Darcy, and he is the very spawn of Satan. He only has eyes for my mom and enjoys leaping out from under her kitchen table to punch people with his clawless front paws.

He got mad the other day because I wouldn't let him maul our new pup, Penny, and he popped out from under the kitchen table and went to town on my leg. He must have planned the attack because he used his back paws to slash the bottom of my leg while gnawing elsewhere.

I may have said a bad word or two.

Mr. Darcy got a timeout in the dark bathroom, where he meowed pitifully and hit the door with his pathetic clawless front paws. The girls were told not to go anywhere near him, and I went to attempt to bandage my gimpy leg with 67 band-aids.

I looked super hot at the pool that night.

I like cats a lot. I always had a cat growing up, but when I married T (an avowed cat-hater), my track record went South fast. It was like the cats sent out some sort of Tweet or email that I somehow joined the other team when I married T.

A month after we were married, our landlord's cat scratched me under one eye and the swelling made it look like T had taken a baseball bat to my face. It was so bad that my college advisor pulled me aside to tell me that she volunteered at a local battered women's shelter and did I need to talk? She didn't really buy the whole "I got beat up by a cat" story.

If I get rabies, I hope you will keep reading this blog.

Right?