Welcome to my Crib!

 As any mother can tell you, the worst time to make decorating decisions is when you are bloated, tired, overly emotional, and hopelessly waiting for a day that seems to never come.  Most people call it pregnancy, but I was one of the lucky few to call it hell!  In an attempt to finish renovating our new home, we slapped pink paint in the nursery and called it a day.  The white crib was handed down from my 5 year old niece after being a bed for two lovely boys.  It took a lot of time, but I finally found my inspiration for my daughter's room.  Looking though one of the many blogs I follow, there was an article on bold and different nursery inspirations.  I saw a yellow crib and knew instantly that was where the room would start. I began by taking apart the crib, sanding down each piece leaving a perfect beautiful coat of paint on each side.  After it dried, I sanded down each piece again and retired for the day.  The next few weeks were filled with sickness and holidays, but eventually I found my way back to the crib and finished sanding and painting until I was left with a beautiful bold yellow crib.

Step one was to take apart the crib and try my hardest to remember what pieces went where!  I put all of the hardware I took off in the bottom of my toolbox so I would be able to find it.  I began by lightly sanding the gloss off of all surfaces of the crib.  It doesn't take a lot of elbow grease if you use a sanding block (which I did), but looking back I probably should have just used the hand sander.  Once you get all of the surfaces even and smooth, you put your first light coat of paint on.  Now a lot people will argue about the nest way to redo furniture.  Spray Paint is an awesome way to get a nice glossy surface and it has a quick drying time.  I would have considered using it, but with all of the spindles, most of the paint would have ended up on the ground.  I don't even want to think about how many cans of spray paint it would have taken.  I used a small can of paint I bought from Lowes for around 11 dollars.  I had plenty left over and it went on great.  After I got the first coat on, I set the crib aside to dry.  

After the first coat dries, you will need to sand back over the surfaces again.  It doesn't take much this time, just a quick once over on all surfaces to make sure the paint is even and there aren't any bumps or clumps.  Then put your next light coat of paint on.  Notice I said light coats both times.  It is more time consuming but the lighter coats you use, the better finish you will have in the end.  Repeat the sanding and painting process until you have covered all of the furniture and is nice and even.

After you have finished all of your coats and the piece is completely dry, out it back together.  This can sometimes be the hardest part, depending on how many pieces you had to take off before painting.  Also if you are anything like me, you may have to do some touching up after you finishing putting it back together.  I know I did.

 The last step was painting over the pastel pink walls with a beautiful lavender gray.  My sweet husband was nice enough to do all the cutting in and rolling on the walls.  It took him all of two days to have the entire room painted and precise.  Much faster than my weeks of crib painting, but hey, we can't all be professionals.  Then next few steps consist of painting a dresser and chifferobe and quite a few DIY crafts to complete the colorful decor.  Of course you will have to wait for the complete redo blog and pictures, but I couldn't bear to keep the crib and walls to myself.

Saigon Cinnamon Oatmeal Scotchies

Last night I had a sweet tooth and rummaged through the cabinets in search of a baking project.  I found lots of possibilities, but decided to make oatmeal cookies in the end.  I went to my trusty Old Mill Cookbook written by my Grandmother and found her oatmeal cookie recipe.  After looking over the instructions I decided to change things a little bit as I often do with her recipes, and I came up with Saigon Cinnamon Oatmeal Scotchies.  Of course by the end of the night I had plain oatmeal cookies, cranberry oatmeal cookies, and butterscotch oatmeal cookies.  They were all delicious and definitely finding their place in the Cairo Household recipe book!!

 Mammy's Oatmeal Cookies
Preheat your oven to 400 Degrees
    1 cup of margarine
    2 cups of sugar (i used one cup packed brown and 1 cup granulated sugar)
    4 eggs
    4 cups of flour sifted
    1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
    2 teaspoons of baking powder
    1 cup of buttermilk (mine was 9 weeks expired so I used reg. milk)
    1 teaspoon of baking soda (dissolved in milk)
    4 cups of plain oats
    2 teaspoons of cinnamon (I used 4 teaspoons of saigon cinnamon)
    1 teaspoon of cloves
    1 tablespoon of vanilla
    *optional I added in butterscotch morsels and dried cranberries, use your imagination and personalize your cookies to your tastes!

First Cream your margarine and sugar in a large bowl.  You may need to soften the margarine if it is not room temperature.  Slowly add in your eggs until you get a smooth consistency.  Sift in your flour, salt, and baking powder alternating with the milk (including the dissolved baking soda).  Continue to mix until you have all of the ingredients mixed well in a nice smooth batter.



                                          Next stir in your spices and flavoring.  Begin
by adding in the oats a few at a time.  You will have to start mixing by hand at this point, the batter becomes very thick and harder to manage with a mixer.  After you have added all of your oats and made sure they are all covered with batter, you will be ready to begin adding in your extras, and spooning out cookies.

            I divided out my dough and added in
            my butterscotch morsels an cranberries
to make sure they were covered with cookie batter.  Then I carefully placed a few on tope of the cookies to make sure folks would be able to distinguish between the cookie variations.  

Bake your cookies at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes depending on thickness and size.  You want the edges to brown and there to be no gooeyness in the middle of the cookies.  Place on a baking rack and allow to cool, then enjoy!!

Up, Up, and Away

Yesterday I started the first of many crafts to decorate Addy's new room.  I am trying to use materials I have around the house so that I do this redo on the cheap.  I saw a post on pinterest where the blogger took string, dyed it using food coloring and mod podge, after soaking it they wrapped it around the ballon and let it dry.  After all was said and done, they had beautiful little hanging balls.  After much consideration, I changed the process a bit, and got started on my ballon ball.

Materials Needed:
Yarn of any color enough to wrap around the ballon numerous times

Ballons of any size and color

Mod podge (or glue and water if you want to make your own)

A paint brush

A bowl

First I found the color yarn I wanted.  I used red, because I knew where the red yarn was, but any color will do just fine.  I tried submerging the yarn in mod podge and wrapping, but that was a complete disaster.  I decided to wrap my yarn around the ballon dry. It was a little hard to keep it from slipping off, but you will get the hang of it after a few wraps.  It isn't important that the yarn is perfectly tight or even across all of the surfaces.  The more random the better.  In the end it will look great no matter how the yarn goes on the ballon so try not to stress about perfection as I tend to do.

 Next I began painting on the mod podge.  It is important to make sure you cover all of the string with the mod podge.  You want it to be wet and sticky.  I poured the mod podge in a bowl and painted it on using an old paint brush I had laying around.  At first I just held the ballon by the top, but after a few coats of glue, I used a chip clip and hung the ballon from one of the cabinets in my laundry room.  It slipped off and fell many times before I finally got it to stay and shockingly, it didn't manage to damage the ballon in the slightest.

After you are completely done applying the mod podge, simply leave the ballon to dry.  I did mine around noon and let it dry overnight.  It was perfectly dry and ready for popping by then, so if you can manage to be patient, just walk away come back

tomorrow,  It will be heavy and look white, but don't worry, the glue will dry clear and shiny. 

 The next morning walk in and check your ballon.  Touch it and see if it is still tacky and soft.  If it is stiff and shiny, take a needle and simply pop the ballon.  Then pull the ballon out from the interior of the yarn ball.  See the pictures below to see how it turns out, and find a wonderful place to hang and enjoy!!  I will show pictures of how I used the balls to decorate when I do the final room redo debut.  So once again, you will have to be patient :).

Cookies Galore!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, I know we sure did at our house.  We started by making tea cakes on Christmas Eve Eve with our family.  I used a recipe that my Grandmother dubbed as Joe's Tea Cakes (Joe being my Dad).  The recipe is straight forward, simple, and absolutely delicious!  Growing up we decorated cookies for every occasion and passed them out to friends and family as gifts.  Lucky for me, I have a huge collection of cookie cutters, so we can continue the tradition in the years to come.

 My nephew and I started out the afternoon by making batches of cookies and baking them so we would have cooled cookies ready to decorate when the crowd arrived.  We picked out our various cutters, and began slowly but surely rolling out the dough and peeling out the cookies one by one.  Many batches later we had a plethora of gingerbread men, stockings, candy canes, santa clauses, and initials for each family member.  I mixed up some icing and the fun began.

 Of course no one can expect a 6 and 7 year old to simply decorate cookies cookies all night so the night turned into a hide the christmas elf party/ wrestle mania 2011.  By the end of the night, each child had cookies for santa and anyone else with a sweet tooth, and memories to last a lifetime!  I know we will be looking forward to the next holiday so we can whip up another batch of fun.  Enjoy the pictures and recipe below, and look for our next post coming soon!

                                    Joe's Tea Cakes
3 eggs                                          
1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 cup of sugar                                    
1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup of shortening                        
1 Tablespoon of baking powder

2-4 cups of flour depending on how stiff you need the cookies

350 degrees for approximately 10 minutes*

*watch cookies and when edges begin to brown remove from oven

Cream the shortening, vanilla, sugar, and eggs until throughly blended.  Add sifted flour, baking powder, and salt and blend.  If using cookie cutters add more flour for stiff cookies or ball up and put in the fridge for an hour or so.  I knead in extra flour after rolling out until the dough is stiff enough to work with.  Roll out of floured surface, cut, bake, and enjoy!  I tend to keep a cup of flour besides me and keep all dough surfaces powdered to avoid sticky surfaces.  Flour is your friend!!  To make icing simply add a few spoonfuls of confectioners sugar, 5 mL of water, and desired food coloring.  I use my daughters medicine syringes to slowly add water to get the right consistency.  It is     quite easy to add to much water so go slowly and mix well.  I bought some cheap simple craft brushes to use for icing the cookies.  Also wait until the cookies are completely cooled before decorating.