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generated with Smilebox   So here it is winter market first week!! I just cannot believe how fast the season outside has gone!  WOW!!  Well its been a fun week of painting signs for market and gathering up some fall deocorations to put outside the building where we will have our indoor market and oh my has it been a beautiful warm week here in MI  crazy last sat was only in the 40s and windy and oh so cold outside and this sat its gonna be near 70!!  Thats our weather though we are used to that!  I am thinking this might just be our indian summer and I am loving it!!  Lots of things to do to!  I cut a bunch of wood to make my painted snowmen signs and need to base coat them while its nice and sunny outside so they can dry and I can put another coat on them.  The fun part is the snowmen so cant wait.  And we went and picked up not the 2 that were planned but instead 4 alpacas.  2 boys and 2 girls.  They are such sweeties!!  The white girl is Rosie and then we have a tan one we named Rebecca.  One of the boys is Maveric (named already) and the other is ??? Havent figured that out yet.  Hes jet black and so pretty!  Our Curly is loving the company.  I dont know if I posted or not but we lost our other male Moe last Sat and since they are pack animals they need companions!  Well he has em now!! LOL  I will try and post some pics of them.  I love my tablet for pics since its not easy taking a laptop around to take pics!  especially without dual cameras.  So in the alpaca business!!  Theyre fur is amazingly soft and luxurious!!  Now we have to find someone who wants to buy it!  They will get sheared in the spring.  Oh my this was really funny too.... so we get them home and learn the females want the boys to come play! if you know what I mean and ... NOT now!  There gestation is 11 months and they would be babies next winter so we have to keep them seperated!  OK easier said than done let me tell you!! These girls lay down and dont move!  The boys were trying to jump the fences, they are in seperated pastures, so trying to put Rosie in her pasture was not easy!!  She laid down and that was it!  it took over an hour to move her into pasture, at least  Rebecca followed along and didnt lay down.  The boys were going crazy we had to keep chasing them back to their pasture since they would go right thru the electric fencing!  My word!  GEEZZEEE what a zoo!! we laughed so hard but it was alot of work.  crazy things! 
My Appy is doing great he turned 31 in april and is happy and healthy and my little Rosie May the goat is still with him and happy.  Love my furry kids! 
So if anyone out there reads this and can offer advise with the alpacas bring it on!  we are newbies and learning alot! and I am definitely smitten with them!!   Well I have some baking to get ready for market sat, pumpkin spice tea cakes, bagels, breads, and some cookies on the list to start today.  I hope yall have a wonderful day anda I am learning how to get the pics from my phone onto my laptop so will post pics soon!! 
 ~~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~~

HAPPY 2013~~

NEW YEAR new plans, resolutions, goals, and best of all adventures!!
I want to let yall know on a new adventure for me!!  Creative Times Magazine which is a fabo online crafting mag has allowed me to be their new quick tips article writer!!  I am excited!!  You will find it here:
www.creativetimesmagazine.com   and best of all they are working on it not only being an online mag you could also order a hard copy!! I will be doing that!!
my first article of tips is in there!!    I am inspired so wrote up the next article last night for the march/april issue.

And onto new plans:  I have a few new projects I so want to make and some of them are ideas from the most wonderful online site  PINTEREST!! oh my love love LOVE that place!!  I can so get lost on the site!! If you havent visited please do do but be warned!! LIMIT yourself!!  hours pass quickly on there and I dont get much accomplished around here!! LOL oh well!! I have 50 some boards and find new things to pin by the minute.......no second!! 
here's a link to my boards:::   http://pinterest.com/chickenscratch/
And dont you know my boys have their own board!! LOL I need to put some more pics of them on there soon.           New goals: I have a few do you?  I really want to try making some great altered mixed media jewelry pieces.  I have visions in my mind but just have to incorporate that into actuallly doing...ya know.    Another goal would be to clean up and.....oh that dreaded word............organize my craft studio!! It has become a dumping ground if you will for everything!!  I can't even think of being creative in there anymore!! =(  time has come to pitch the unwanted unused items. 

Onto some of the things I did just before xmas.  

Susan made this beautiful chocolate mint torte.  Layers of decadent moist chocolate cake with peppermint infused buttercream topped with luscious chocolate ganache' and some marizpan holly!  Oh so yummylicious!!

chocolate dipped butter squares   and they were addicting too!!

my mom decorated some little sugar cookie trees for on our cookie trays and boxes. 

our popular red raspberry filled linzer tart cookies!!

some twisted candy cane butter cookies Susan made.  These were soooooooo yummo!! 

Old milkcan for my hubby's boss.  I was very pleased with how this turned out.  I had sectioned the painted area off with chalk, *hint* chalk wipes off with no marks, use it all the time when painted signs or pretty much anything.   hubby sandblasted the area and left the rest of can it's lovely rustiness!!

OK OK!~! I got up on christmas eve at 2 am to finish this block set for my little darling neice, so yes!! can u see it!!!  I didnt until her mommy and her unwrapped it!! I will be making another R for it!! LOL

I used vintage seam binding in brown for the outside edges, painted the blocks light sage green and mod podged the awesome My Mind's Eye papers and some little pearl accents.  My cricut finally got to get used!!  I have had it sitting on a work table poor baby neglected..... I can see using that alot this year!! I have alof of things to make!! 

And a couple last minute signs I painted for gifts!  Love those snowmen and a bit unhappy to not paint them til next winter!! sad!!=( 

maybe if we had some snow I would paint them more!! but we see grass!!

 

Love this guy!! I did one similar for my shows and the lady that bought it loved it so much she ordered 2 more.

Love this one too!! 

So that is about all for today.  Hope yall had a wonderful happy safe new years!!  My mom and I went out to lunch yesterday, did a bit of shopping and then came home.

 Hubby and I stayed home with the "boys" last night, watched tv, played games and had popcorn!! What a wonderful evening and start to the new year!!  Love my boys and our family!

Have a great day! be back soon!!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

altered wood frames and more

Hey yall!!
Hope you and your families had a most blessed Thanksgiving day!!
I have so much to be thankful for and feel truly blessed for everything and everyone in my life!! 

We spent the last beautfiul warm sunny day outside working pretty much from sun up to sun down thurs.  Hubby was home and we really needed to do the outside chores before the snow comes.  I am glad our family understood it was 60 outside.  I split the big pile of wood while hubby drained and cleaned the pool out, moved things around and also we had to do the goats hooves, close in the windows on the coop and fix the gated door for the "girls", and well let's say we stayed busy every minute!! but it was fun to work with him together.

My brother was needed a project of something he could assist in making for a couple of craft shows he is in so we came up with some altered wood frames.

This pic is my first dog on my own Ozzie, oh he was a sweetie!! 

So of cource we had to do some frames for dogs!!  These are all for sale for $6.50 plus shipping and we can personalyze them too!! 

another dog one

pretty pinks with some Prima gorgeous flowers

I love the light soft blue and black together

oh an some nekked cranberry pistachio biscotti

And I finally finished up some enamel pan lids I have been collecting and some gingers I made last year! =)

Another pinkish one love those beaded flourishes!! I take them apart and use bits n pieces of them to add some "bling"

"thank heaven for little girls" on a sticker across the top

the finished dipped biscotti!! no longer nekked! LOL

Yesterday and now today the wind is just whippin around outside!! On my way out I took pics down the road so you can see how wild those waves are!! and cold!!

Cheddar foccacia

orange glazed cranberry orange bread

and some small round loaves of cheddar foccacia!  Love making foccacia, next time though I am going back to baking on the stones

This was our adventure last week  a 10 day sourdough bread  nice slices in the top and ready for the oven

after baking

while baking in the oven they plumped up ALOT!! 

and another done one!

they were most excellent!! I do however like the ciabatta we made better!! This recipe was good but with all the work of making raisin water and all the days inbetween while it soured up it really wasnt worth the work!  The ciabatta to me had such a more intense flavor and only was  a few days!!  The crust on the sourdough was nice and crisp and the inside as you can see had nice air pocket and was moist!!  I dont think I would make it again for quite awhile though.   We are experimenting with alot of bread recipes this winter so watch for another one soon!! LOL

TODAY IS SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY!! dont forget to shop locally!!

We are having our market at Foundry Hall in South Haven today with a couple new vendors popping in!! so stop on by 11-3 today!

have a wonderful weekend!!

Hugs

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~