Dresser: Before and After

Greg came into this marriage with very little in the way of furniture. Me of course being the crazy wife I am re-painted the only piece of furniture he brought.

Men never win do they?

Here is the old dresser...I forgot to take a picture of it with drawers IN. By the time I remembered they were already painted and sitting out in the sun to dry. Oops!

This dresser is actually in really great shape, and was used by Greg's mom 26 years ago when Greg was just a baby (see diaper changing bumper on top of dresser) so it is a quality vintage piece.

The problem is it had outdated drawer pulls, and Child Greg had put stickers all over it with ghosts on them that said "boo!"

While cute, not suitable for our new newlywed bedroom. There is nothing sexy about ghost stickers.

Anyway my parents had a 1/2 gallon of paint left over from painting their living room in a gorgeous shade of eggshell/off-white and I bought a couple packs of $5.99 drawer pulls at Target.

Here she is now! And for a measly $12 I brought her into the 21st century without compromising any of the original design or vintage quality.

It will also be helpful when we have a little Hortling of our own and we need somewhere to change them. : ) And the can put their own stickers all over it and the cycle continues.

I need your opinion!

I am currently in the market (the FREE or CHEAP) market for a new blog design. I found this one over at The Cutest Blog on the Block, and I like it ok... I really want something a little more personalized and me. Greg IS a graphic designer so I am hoping to get him on board for this project...but we shall see what his schedule is like. 

He is working extra hard to put me through school so I don't have to work, so I won't beg to much...

In other news...

I'M GOIN' ON A CRUISE!

Greg's parents just booked us a New Years Eve cruise to Cabo and PuertoVallarta!

2012 can't get here fast enough.

What's on the menu...Saturday Morning Breakfast!

I was going to post this yesterday morning, but eggs and pancakes seems a little to irreverent for the 10th anniversary of September 11th. 

Being a newlywed has made meals so much more fun (I guess that is why they say you gain weight after you get married!) I finally have not only someone to cook for,but someone to enjoy my meals with!

And who could resist this adorable mug in the morning? Heavy metal t-shirt, messy bed head and sleepy eyes.

Yep you guess it that is my knight in shining armor. 

Pancakes:

1cup bisquick

1 Tbs sugar

1 Tbs melted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp baking powder

grated nutmeg

Enough milk to give a "pancake batter" consistency. Not too runny, but shouldn't stick to the spoon when trying to put it into the frying pan.

Don't forget the Mrs. Buttersworth -Greg's favorite.

I prefer Trader Joe's Honey Apple Butter - swoon!

Fried egg 

Toasted leftover bread

Sliced nectarines

A nice hot cup of Jo...thank you Crate & Barrel for your irresistible labeled dishware.

Another Crate & Barrel love.

9/11 10 years later

I am the first to admit that I am not the most patriotic person. But I do have sense of gratitude for where I live and the freedoms and "rights" I have become accustomed to. 

I take my freedom and liberties for granted and I do appreciate those who stand up for our rights.

Also my father being a fireman has left a soft spot in my heart for all those who lost their hero in 9/11.

Thank you NYFD for your selflessness and all those who helped in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

Greg's choice...Bread Pudding.

Greg has this thing where he will become obsessed with something and will learn about it/eat it/drink it/watch it until he finds something new to cleave to. It is one thing I find so endearing about him.

I often hear him saying things like "This is the best _blank_ that I have ever had! Let's buy a flat of this at Costco"

I swear this guy is one Costco flat away from turning our guest room into a stock house of Peace Tea and Mexican Fruit Popsicles (just 2 of his current favs)

So he has been obsessing over bread pudding lately so I figured this was an easy one to make happen for him. So here is my recipe!

*DISCLAIMER - you have to let the bread soak in the mixture for 1/2 hour and it has to cook in a water bath*

These are things I would like to know before starting a recipe. : ) Just in case I don't have time or don't have the knowledge of how to do something.

Ingredients

1. 3 cups whole milk (I used 1% and it was fine)

2. 3/4 cups milk

3. 4 large eggs

4. 1 tsp vanilla

5. 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

6. 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

7. 5-6 cups of stale (not hard, I left mine uncovered on the counter for about 8 hours) ripped into 11/2 inch cubes

8. Raisins (optional, I did not use)

I used individual ramekins so I set my measured bread aside in a large bowl. If you are doing it one large ramekin, then line bottom of the ramekin with the bread.

Add all other ingredients to a large bowl

Whisk ingredients well until fully combined and the sugar doesn't feel "grainy" on the bottom

Add liquid to the bowl (or large ramekin) on top of the bread. Using a spatula or large spoon push the bread down into the liquid until all bread absorbs liquid. 

Leave bread and liquid alone for 1/2 hour pushing bread down into liquid occasionally to make sure it absorbs correctly -This would be a good time to PRE-HEAT oven to 350

If using individual ramekins spoon the pudding into each ramekin equally making sure not to overfill, as they will puff up in the oven

Place large cookie sheet in the oven and pour hot tap water into sheet, filling it just enough to add ramekin(s) without it spilling over.

Set timer to 50-55 minutes

When finished the bread pudding should be puffy and slightly brown on top.

And smell so good you have to have one before Greg even comes home from work...wha?

Serve along side vanilla ice cream, a fruit compote or alone. 

Good food, good friends

We had our good friends over the other night, who just happen to be the parents of our ADORABLE god-daughter. We made dinner together and sat outside in the fading light to share a meal and good conversation. Pardon my cultural insensitivity but I love Indian summers and the warmth that lingers into Fall!

On the Menu

Appetizer:

Sliced tomatoes with fresh mozzarella, basil, topped with balsamic, extra virgin olive oil and cracked black pepper.

Main course:

Spinach salad with cranberries, candied pecans and bleu cheese (thank you Trader joes!), quinoa with Aleppo, salt and pepper, grilled Ahi tuna and chicken. My husband the grill master!

Dessert:

Brownies with vanilla bean ice cream with an espresso shot on top.

Vanilla bean ice cream with an espresso on top only for our favorite gluten free friend! : )

It was a great night, something we have to do more often!

Also don't forget to check out yesterday's post to win a Pinterest invite..and then be my friend and share your pinboards with me!

Pinterest Invite Give-a-way

So I know like everyone and their mother is on Pinterest these days...but I have 4 invites that I would like to give out...so leave a comment below about what inspires you the most and I will pick 4 winners on Friday to get a Pinterest invite!!

PINTEREST

It is a place to catalog inspiration that you find on the web, and to be inspired by "pins" other people put up.

It is perfect because your pin is linked back to the original site, giving credit where credit is due to whomever inspired you! I LOVE it and use it as a sort of home/life/craft inspiration journal online.

If you don't Pinterest you should. 

So leave me a comment about what inspires you the most and 4 lucky winners with get an invitation to Pinterest!

Love, Sav

A Mini house tour

So finally after a month of being married and Greg moving in we have finally started to make everything feel like OUR home and not just my home. I know that was something that was hard for Greg when he moved in after the wedding, the feeling like he was just spending the night at my house, cause I have lived in this house for a year with one of my sister's and my best friend.

So we decided to spend our labor day doing just that...laboring over cleaning the house and making the house feel like home. I wanted to share some pictures with you of some of my particular favorite spots in the house.

Living room. Don't mind the glare coming off the wall...my camera is out of commission and the only lens I have is a zoom lens which gives me pictures of about 1/3 of my living room even with my back against the back wall. iphonography will have to do until I get a new lens!

The perfect marriage of industry and crafting. Old WWII canisters from Greg's dad and my vintage egg basket filled with yarn.

My Anthropologie inspired TV stand display. The white vintage owls were a gift from my great-grandmother before she passed away. She was an owl FREAK. She had an entire hutch full of them, I snagged a couple amazing vintage pieces before it because trash. 

Again sorry for the crappy iphone shot...but I love this shelf in our house! We both don't like clutter, but we also have a tiny house and a lot of stuff...so this gives us an opportunity to display it nicely without it looking kitchy and cluttered. Thank you IKEA.

Here is another one of my favorite pieces in the house. Again we have a tiny house with no storage, so we decided to invest in some glass containers to keep rice, beans, flour, etc in and have it look nice enough to sit out on a shelf and not have to be hidden in a cupboard...which would not be a possibility with our limited space. We also had huge bags of spices from when I went to Morocco that we needed to do something with so we went to our local spice shop and loaded up on some cheap glass containers. 

You are probably noticing a theme here...tons of open storage. That is just the way it is around these parts! It is a bit intimidating because it forces up to be cleaner. We can't just shove stuff in drawers or cupboards! 

Here is a terrible picture of our dinning room. The table and chairs were $130 from IKEA. Booyah.

Greg & Savannah. We are currently working on a His & Hers hobby room. The biggest room in our house is a converted garage turned into our dinning room/hobby room. One half is a table and chairs seen above and one half is a crafting/design workshop. Will post pictures soon. 

Last but not least our guestroom/office. The quilt was made by my great-grandmother in the 60's. It is a hand embroidery quilt featuring a square for each of the states along with state flower, bird, capital and year it became a state. I cannot imagine how long it must of taken, but it is one of my "grab if there was a fire" treasures. We have a lot of "slash" rooms in our house because have I mentioned our house is tiny? : ) But on a serious note we are beyond blessed to be living in this amazing house  as poor newlyweds and we love every little square inch of it!

And the office portion of the quest room. Still a work in progress, but I am working on making a big calendar to be hung on the clipboard so I can keep all of our appointments/weddings/babyshowers/birthday parties/etc straight! I am loving Emily's idea of color coding the members of her family and her free calendar template download is fab! Since there are only currently 2 people living in the house and Greg is pretty easy to keep track of so I am not sure I am in a place in my life where color coding is necessary...but it is just so fun!

No pictures of our bedroom yet I'm sorry. It is super boring right now. Grey walls, white bed spread with grey pillows. I pretty much took all the wall art out of every room to be hung in the living room for the wall collage so our room is extra boring right now. It is a work in progress and pictures will be up soon when it is completed! I love a good productive weekend!

What did y'all do for Labor Day? I hope you didn't clean like we did!

Love, Sav

Thank you, thank you you are too kind!

So the lovely Lindsay over at Little Mudpies awarded me the versatile blogger award...and to be honest I was ashamed, but of course also extremely thankful and honored!! I had not updated my blog in about 2 months and I still got nominated! Well you will thoroughly enjoy her blog...go read about her son's new obsession. It had me laughing for quite a long time! : )

After accepting the Versatile Blogger Award, the blogger must

Thank the person who gave the award and link back to them in your post.

Share 7 things about yourself.

Pass this award along to 10 recently discovered blogs.

So here are 7 things about me...some silly, some serious, and some embarrassing (couldn't resist!)

1. I raised silk worms when I was a child. Yes, silk worms...and I LOVED it. I always was sad when they died.

2. My husband and I did not have sex until our wedding night. Quite the feat...let me tell you what. ; )

3. My entire childhood I rocked a bowl cut-mullet. You tell me how that is possible and I'll tell you how 6th grade was for me.

4. My husband is the funniest person I know and we are ridiculous together. We stayed up until 1am the other night  laying in bed and playing Angry Birds on my iphone. We were literally fighting like 2 year olds over whos turn it was to hold the phone. 

5. I am in nursing school and I love it! I can't wait to be a nurse for realsies, I want to be an OB/GYN nurse.

6. I love to craft! I would craft myself into a corner in our house if Greg didn't make me spend some of our money on say clothes and food.

7. I have a TON of pet peeves, like seriously way too many for a normal person, and none of them make any sense. Like middle aged women in mickey mouse shirts, and the way children smell when they wake up from naps. Yuck!

Anyway so now let me nominate my ladies!!

Natasha's Creative Confections

Kiwi Freckles

A Red Envelope

Lovely Chaos

Little Lulu's Nesting

Maggy Living Tall - 

She also is small with a tall husband. Love it!

To Make Love Stay

Randomness and Life

Ballpoint + Pen

Ok so I can only think of 9. Sorry!

Love, Sav

I'm back....and a HUGE Update!

So....I'm back. It has been a whirlwind couple of months but I am back in the bloggin' bitness...and I have a few new titles to throw around...

My most important new title is MRS. Yes its true I am a married lady and I am sure you will get bored with the many wedding updates/pictures and crafts I have to throw at you for the next couple of posts!

My second new title is Nursing Student. I get married, go on a honeymoon, quit my job, and start nursing school all in the same month! Holy Moly Mi Oh My!

No wonder I haven't been blogging. But that ends. right. now. I love to blog and I have a TON of inspiration and lovelies to share with you. My camera is chocked full of goodies and projects waiting to be shared with you!

I've missed you. I've missed this!

Also check out my Versatile Blogger Award acceptance and nominees tomorrow. 

Thank you Lindsay from Little Mudpies

Her blog is great, and her little family is to die for! Swoon!