Recipes and Projects of Lately

Lately we have been doing some work around the house.  This includes a few furniture projects, moving rooms around, quilting, decorating and cooking.  It is always a bit tricky as we don’t have a Jo-Ann or Michael’s around the corner, but we lower our expectations and enjoy the challenge (most of the time).

Our rotting basketball backboard has been worrying us for awhile.  The bottom piece of wood has been hanging by a few nails and we always worry about it falling when we are playing with the neighborhood kids.  So last week, I was out playing with Elmer when I decided it was time to come down.  After a little yank, it fell and we continued on with our game.  Here in Nicaragua, nothing gets wasted, so I decided to make a headboard out of it.  After a little bit of paint, here is how it looks.  I decided on the word “gracias” as it has been my theme word for my time down here.  It is the perfect reminder for me!  I stitched up the edges of a fabric scrap that I found at a market, made a banner using twine and extra fabric and this is the finished project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My little friend Adria and I worked on these frames a couple of nights ago.  We painted chevron stripes on pieces of plywood and glued on the frames.  We now have these cheery pieces!  It was a fun little project that was easy to do with her.  They aren’t perfect, but they were at $2 project, so we can’t have that high of hopes.

  

When we were home for Christmas, my friend Nikki surprised me with a fabulous Christmas gift.  She had some embroidery hoops ready to go and took me to the fabric store to find some swatches.  She was inspired by the below photo she found on pinterest. I brought six back to Nicaragua and split them between two rooms.  I am sort of wishing that I could have clustered them all together like the example picture.  Changes can still be made, although I will have to convince Kevin to pound in even more concrete nails.  Overall though, I love it, mostly that it reminds me of Nikki.  It was the perfect gift to travel with.

(source)

I am currently working on a couple of quilts with some gorgeous fabric that my friend Mandy purchased for me in India.  I hope that they turn out, the fabric is too beautiful for them not to.

One of my first pins on pinterest was this lovely shelf from Ana White.  Check out this e-mail conversation from last year:

5/10/12 - From Cassie to Kevin – Will you make me this shelf?                http://ana-white.com/2010/10/plans/painter%E2%80%99s-ladder-shelf

5/11/12 – From Kevin to Cassie (wow, fast response for Kevin) – I think WE could make it Cas!

5/11/12 – From Cassie to Kevin – Go for it!

Well I hadn’t heard a thing about until last week.  Kevin had built it in secret (hiding his progress in our guest shower) and surprised me with it on Valentines Day.  I love it and have been using it for my craft and sewing storage. 

 

Kevin wanted new muffin tins for Valentines Day, so I  happily picked him up a pair.  I made these lemon poppy seed Muffins last week and they were delicious.  I love the added yogurt, omitted the sugary glaze, and am grateful that my sister brought us two jars of poppy seeds on her visit last August. 

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins – click here for recipe

I came across the following recipe and showed it to Kevin.  He thought they were super unhealthy and not a good use of our precious dark chocolate.  But I thought he would like it and threw the mix together the mix last month (before we gave up chocolate for lent).  We cannot buy peanut butter chips here, so I omitted them.  They were delicious and highly recommended from both of us!

Salted Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies – click here for recipe

I know that this is technically outside of our house, but I had to show you a picture of one of my favorite flower blooms from last week.  Right on our front porch!  I can’t say that we are missing the below zero weather here.