Snowy day here

Hey yall!! WOW what a storm we had last night!!   We experienced snow in the am, rain mid afternoon and snow and ice last night!! BUT it is most beautiful out there!! the snow is just clumped on everything.  Here's a couple of pics I took when I went out to do chores this am.

My poor birdies, their feeders were iced up so I cleaned em up and put more seed out, they were happy and came back asap.

Looking out to our deck

This tree is gorgeous!****

LOVE SNOWY DAYS!!***

hazelnut sandie cookies

nice n golden brown

My grandmother Rose's english muffin bread all baked.  They are so aromatic and toasted with some butter and sorghum......yummo!!

had to take a taste of warm out of the oven bread~~~it doesnt get better than homemade warm bread

Susan made a batch of almond macarons!! they are waiting to get in the oven and do their magic!!

I also made some chocolate chip cookies, some brown sugar shorbread cookies, some of our "eggcellent" egg or challah bread and some foccacia and coconut macaroons dipped in chocolate.  Productive day and we are ready for market tomorrow!!

I also bought a few things for the new house, sanded and primed a few more of the kitchen cabinets and picked out a nice cafe latte color for the base of the cabinets.  We are going to go look at tiles this weekend to make our own backsplash in the kitchen.  FUN stuff!!  She should be ready to rent by early summer!!  and boy it could also be our summer place away from home LOL only 8 miles away!!

Hope yall have a wonderful weekend and stay warm and safe out there in this wintry weather!!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Kitchen cabinet re do

Hey yall!! WOW It has been like forever since I posted here!! so sorry!! This year came in like a whirlwind and is spinning us around.  Tons of emotions and tons of projects and tons of new recipes and ohhhhhhhhhh not nearly enough hours in the day!!  I so think I am becoming obsessed to make and do as much as possible in a short amount of time and in doing so am loosing my mind and whatever little and I do mean little organizational skills I do have!! LOL  All is good!!  Life is good!!
So hubby bought a small farm, I am in shock yet but not going into details I just didnt know about it til it was a done deal.   There is a darling old 1900s farm house that needs some updating.   Paneling in every yes every room!  LOL but I can fix that!!  We are going to plan on renting this house out for summer weekend or weekly rentals it is between 2 nice tourist towns and would make a great country retreat.   My first project is doing the dark brown kitchen cabinets into shabby, farmhousey, primitive rustic country love!  I fell deeply in love with the sagey green color paint I bought for my snowmen signs and have lots of that so on it goes!!

So here is part of the kitchen.  These cabinets are really built solid and heavy.   I like the details on the inlay but as you can see are dated.   Ok my friend referred to the wallpaper on this wall "willy wonka lick paper" LOL that is gone!!  ripped off quickly. 

After sanding and applying a light coat of primer the first one is painted.  This is only one coat but it did cover pretty well I thought. 

I  applied a bit of antiquing medium and then drybrushed some white here and there. 

I love that color so much couldnt wait to hang em back and see if this color would work.  They looked plain so with some drybrushed black around the edges that made em pop!

Here they are up and looking pretty good,  I loved the handles so farmhousey, I was at first going to paint them either black or white, but I like the patina on them just sanded a bit and they look good.  So now to figure out what color to paint the bases I dont like all the dark wood around the doors.  I am leaning towards a nice light almond or cream or maybe even light off white that can be distressed and antiqued up to match.  WHAT are your thoughts??

And I did make up a new item for market last week a spinach and cheese crostada!! OH MY what a delish and pretty treat that was!~!

flaky pie crust with the addition of a bit of cornmeal topped with the steamed fresh spinach, ricotta, parmesan, and romano cheeses, and a bit of seasonings

buttermilk biscuits

I did do a nice egg wash on top so they browned up beautifully. 

 here is a better clearer pic of the rustic crostada. 

and another cabinet one. Gee I wondered where that pic went to!! LOL

Hope yall have a great day I will be sharing all I do on the farmhouse and surely wanting opinions so please leave em for me!!

THANKS

HUGS

Darlene

 AND THIS SATURDAY FEB 2nd IS THE ICE BREAKER FESTIVAL IN SOUTH HAVEN MI!~ stop on by we have a great market and some wonderful vendors/crafters coming for ya!!

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~and SIMPLY~~

Christmas gifts and more

Hope yall had a most blessed Merry Christmas day!!  We had a joyous peaceful day at home on Christmas and were in pjs most of the day lounging around with the boys!  They were excited Santa paws brought them lots of presents to open.  What fun watching these guys open them and play!

Here are a few of the kinds of cookies my mom and I made at the kichen for the cookie trays we made up and boxes.  Coconut macaroons, linzer tart, mocha, chocolate hazelnut espresso cookies, decorated sugar cookies, cranberry lemon, orange marmalade filled kolachky, butter candy cane, peppermint topped chocolate, chocolate dipped butter squares, red velvet cake truffles, sugar cookies and I think that was it. 

I bought alot of boxes from Hobby Lobby after xmas last year and they looked great. 

Susan made a chocolate cake that was to die for!!!  super moist chocolate cake, peppermint infused buttercream frosting topped with chocolate ganache' and marzipan holly.  Super delish!!

these are the butter squares, just butter cookies cut with a pastry wheel baked and dipped in chocolate and topped with xmas non pariels

decorated sugar trees

cranberry pistachio biscotti 

peppermint swirl marshmallows

butter candy canes, topped with some crushed peppermint candies

linzer tart cookies filled with red raspberry preserves

candy canes

here are the butter squares I cut up

This was a block set I did up for my niece, only had to redo the r  oooppppssssss!!  It was on backwards, lol  I got up at 2am to make this so no wonder I did something wrong! 

I painted this old milk can for my hubbys boss.  Love it!!  I was very pleased with how it turned out. 

and a close up of Carissa's blocks for her room.

Well 2013 is just round the corner now!!  Hope yall have a great week and I will be back in the new year with some exciting new news and also more goodies and treats!!

God Bless!!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Cant believe we are just days away from Christmas!!  I dont think we are gonna see a white Christmas here in Michigan! IT has been in the upper40s and actually it is most pleasant!  I love the snow and yall know that but this is kind of nice too. 
Tomorrow Dec 15th is our last holiday farmers/artisans show.  I was able to find a bit of time, well at 3.00 in the mornings to work on some more snowmen signs.  These 3 are done and ready and I have 3 more almost finished. 

I so love the words around the border! 

This is my favo of the 3 I think LOL

Black currant buttermilk cake with vanilla glaze

Red raspberry muffins

and a red raspberry buttermilk cake   LOVE making bundt cakes!!

cinnamon quick bread

carrots cooked and mashed ready to be made into soup!

crumb topping for bars

blueberry apple bar filling I made

and here are the bars just out of the oven!  These are so yummy!  maybe they need a touch of powdered sugar sprinkled ontop! 

from pinterest!!  Snowflake stamped shortbread cookies.  They are so pretty! and quite tasty too!

the cinnamon bread needed "farmgirl bling"

So that was it for yesterday.  Today is gonna be a busy day I have to make a pot of creamy potato soup, cheddar foccacia, andouille cheese n pepper topped flatbreads, cookies, and mocha cinnamon coffee cakes.   Thank goodness for my mom helping at the kitchen!  Susan made this adorable and very yummy decadent chocolate mint holiday cakes.. arent they adorable? 

chocolate cake, peppermint buttercream frosting topped with chocolate ganache' and marzipan holly

this was 1 of the crates full ready for market filled with linzer tart cookies and some ciabatta rolls.

YUMMY!! 

Goodness with all the shows, markets and orders I have been so busy I am definetly ready for a break.  In january!  LOL  Next week is all about cookies and cakes for 3 markets!  We will be making our annual cookie trays up and then with Christmas fast approaching I want to be sure we have plenty of desserts available.  Red velvet bundt cake with cream cheese frosting, maybe some rum cakes and then let the cookies bake!!  So far we are making cranberry lemon, linzer tarts filled with raspberry or apricot filling, kolachky filled with orange marmalade or honey walnut, gingerbreads, chai crescents, russian tea cakes, peppermint candy canes, decorated sugar cookies, hazelnut shortbread, cranberry pistachio biscotti bites, brown sugar shortbread and make a couple others?  That should be enough!  LOL busy busy week! 

Hope yall have a wonderful weekend!!

Foundry Hall in South Haven winter holiday farmers/artisans market tomorrow!!

Hugs

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~