4th of July Games and Foods

 Happy 4th of July! I decided to make some cute 4th of July Crafts and Food today. It is America's Birthday after all! Woot! I'm making cream puffs and cupcakes but I'm going to use these Freebie Cupcake Toppers on toothpicks and some little AMERICAN FLAGS like the ones below. I'll have to sprinkle some patriotic sprinkles on top of the cream puffs for pizzaz!  Cute 4th of July Cupcakes are always easy and a hit. Try some cream puffs for a change of pace. They are easy too and feed a large crowd.  Patriotic 4th of July Cupcakes made with fresh blueberries and strawberries and decorated with marshmallow cream mixed with cream cheese and cool whip. Recipe is HERE. Last 4th of July pictures.[/caption] I wish I had my doggie Bruce to dress up all Patriotic! But I'll have to just enjoy seeing pics of other doggies all decked out in their amazing best of the red, white and blue. Here is our granddog Gunner in his cowbow wow tie. My Granddaughter and my Granddog in his CowBowWow tie.[/caption] FOODS for 4th of JULY:  Pasta salad is always a good choice for hot summer days because you use vinegar and oil dressing (I love KRAFT House Italian the best). Here I used a pretty bowtie and added fresh veggies, chicken and some Parmesan cheese.[/caption] I'm making a pasta salad today to go with the potato salad we love. Click on the link below the picture for the recipe. I also really like Girrards Greek dressing. But it is hard to find. I sometimes see it at Target. It is great with artichoke hearts in the pasta salad. RECIPE HERE. Potato Salad that only has 4 main ingredients but tastes out of this world. Recipe is HERE Here is one way to arrange your veggies and dip. But I found a better way. Much more creative and fun. Here is my variation after staring at pinterest for a while. haha. Veggie Tree and Dip. And some fun foods for the occasion. Here is a cool way to display veggies and dips for the 4th of July Par-tay! Woo Hoo. Fireworks here we come! Delicious fresh summer fruits on a skewer really can't be beat for any summer celebration too. They looks so much fancier on wooden skewers too, and kids can help make them!  I just need to add some red geranium silk flowers to this pot of hydrangeas and add an American flag!
  GAMES and Decor for 4th of July:  I liked this cute printable Tic Tac Toe game that my granddaughters will love playing. We are going up to our lake cabin for the weekend. So it will be fun to watch them playing games during our down time. Here are two of them with red white and blue tongues! haha. We are SO Patriotic around here.
 For decoration, I dug through the storage room and found my patriotic box. It took forever because the hubs got involved in reorganizing down there (don't ask!) and now I can't find anything. WTH?
Uncle Sam is fun to hang out in a corner for the 4th![/caption] But I did get out my placemats and of course I'm ready with my firework stockpile. (we are big spenders, I think this was 5 bucks on sale at Smiths Market). A fun game I think my grandkids will like is this magnetic match game I put together using 4 sheets of Patriotic Dollar Store magnets. They seem to have them every holiday so look for them in the picnic/kitchen supplies area. I am going to write on each pair the addends of 10, so the kids will start to memorize them as they pair them up.

 The kids  can use cookie sheets and play match game with the 2 double sets of magnets. 2 groups can play at the same time. I could also have done "doubles" and put the double equation on one magnet and the answer on the other. Fun! 

I have lots of good ways for keeping the kiddos busy. How about doing a lemonade stand at your gathering and put the kids in charge. It will keep them VERY BUSY!

I got this cute Lemonade Stand at Target. You could also have a big metal pail full of cans of pop to "sell" so the kiddies don't have to work too hard. Isn't this the cutest picnic blanket? My daughter made it out of red and white calico prints. I love it. I'm making my own version that has taken WAY too long using old Levi's jeans pockets and denim from old jeans. The quilt could back the wall of your garden party or Backyard BBQ at the food buffet. Quilts can be great decor ideas

.
 Use striped towels for food tables. Towels can be great decoration helps. I will add blue and white tin pails I got at the dollar store for silverware and napkins. The tin pails came in blue and white and red and white stars for only a buck at
All a Dollar.
 !
Another fun game is Patriotic Tic Tac Toe. The printable freebie is HERE. You could also use red and blue dollar store checkers or jewels for the markers.
Hope you all have a great holiday. I am heading out to the lake to have some fun there and relax after finishing my last week of school Thursday. Proud and thankful to be an American Happy Red, White and Blue day everybody!

Easter Decorating

I love to decorate for the seasons and for all the holidays. Easter is coming up and so I put away all the St. Patrick's day decor and got out the stuff for my Easter Table Decorating. Easter Table Decorating - I love all the spring colors and baby chicks and bunnies here on my kitchen table. My Kitchen buffet has some new pictures and cute little eggs everywhere.   I always start my Easter decorating in the kitchen, and do the Easter Table Decorating there first. Gotta have a lovely Easter Dinner table, now dontcha? Next I go into the entry way and decorate the little table there. Those are  two
areas I fuss over the most.
  
Easter Decorating is about done at my house. Yay Next I do my formal dining room Easter Table Decorating. I We got a new rustic, whitewashed, dining table and these cute blue nailhead trim chairs for the formal dining room. We hardly ever use this room except on holidays. Formal Dining Room table. I love the yellow and green and coral decor in here. I love to decorate the entry table with these cute bunnies, eggs and chicks. This sad Mr. Bunny lost his eye in a doggie-bunny stand off. Our bad boy Bruce bit it off. We called him Brucifer THAT day. snicker...
  I do the coffee and end tables last. I have gobs of stuff. I have to stay away from Hobby Lobby this month! Eek!
I love this little bunny pair on my family room end table. It goes with the brown/neutral decor in there. Darling little "Chickies" and bunnies. My grandkids love this light up Easter Bunny house. Great Room table has some of the leftover doo-dads. My 3 Easter bins are almost empty! Woot!

The kitchen island always has some bright and cheery flowers of some sort. These have some egg pics along with the florals. These mercury mirror glass eggs are my favorites. I used to have more of them. But since the grandkids.....well....you know how that goes. :D

I think I'll add some Easter Egg picks to the greenery all over the house. Maybe there IS an excuse to go look at Hobby Lobby tomorrow after all!! I'm getting ready to spray paint these old chairs and this cute bench. But for now, they are covered in stuffed animals for the grands to play with.

Next I'll do the grandkids' two tables for Easter Sunday Dinner. I'll have my Chicago peeps here sometime around Easter. So I will need two tables for all the 6 grandkiddos to sit. And THAT will be such fun! Happy decorating!!

PATTIE

Blue Beachy Bathroom Remodeling

I decided to redo my 90s bathroom that was dark green and yellow. All the decor was so dated. I found some really pretty paint in just the perfect blue-gray color that I wanted to redo these 80's light oak cabinets with.

My Old 90s bathroom decor with dated light oak cabinets has to go. 

 Bathroom Remodel Part 1. My bathroom cabinets were all this light oak that I wanted to paint a pretty color. So I bought the paint at Home Depot called GRAY MORNING in the BEHR paint line. I like the paint and primer in one to make the job easier. I really only had to use 1 coat and just touch up the edges and ridges with a 2nd coat. It looks beautiful!

I love this BEHR paint called GRAY MORNING. It is a light blue gray that looks great!

GRAY MORNING from BEHR paint turns out the perfect gray blue shade. I got flat paint. I probably should have gotten eggshell or satin. But I wanted it to look like chalk paint. Did you know you can add 1/3 cup plaster of paris and 1 cup water to a gallon of paint and it makes chalk paint? Well, that's what the Home Depot guy said. I'd check that out online before doing it though.

After painting the cabinets they still needed a little something. So I bought some pretty brushed silver knobs and 2 little, wooden, doo-dads for each of the false drawer tops. I have two of them since I have 2 sinks in that bathroom. I think they were $3.50 each.

Cabinet doo-dads really add a little flair to boring old 80s light oak cabinets. 

 The easiest way is to glue them on the cabinets first, then paint it all together. That's what I did in my master bathroom. And I think I lightly tacked them on with tiny finishing nails till they dried.  But this one I bought them after painting so I had to glue them on painted wood. It is definitely harder that way. Glue them first, paint second, just a heads up. I used a little bit of tape to hold them on while they were drying but they curled up at the ends. I'll have to do some more gluing. Bummer.

Bear Paint and Primer in one is the way to go. I only needed one coat and then a little touch up.

Bathroom Remodel Part 1 - First Step was the definitely the ugly cabinet repainting.Then we ordered our granite. I wanted dark granite for this bathroom since we already had pretty, dark, variegated slate floors.  The dark granite looks good with them. I thought I could brighten up the rest of the bathroom using a light gray paint. I wanted to get rid of all that yellow. 

Hey, they look pretty good! Finished painted cabinets look a lot better now! This is where I added the wooden doo dad. It looks a lot better. I'll post a pic when I'm finished with the knobs.

Now they just need the silver knobs. I needed 12 cuz this is a big bathroom with a bathtub and 2 sinks and lots of cabinetry. So I got 3 sets of 5 in the clearance bin at Home Depot. They were $7.00 per set. What a deal!   I love how the cabinets turned out.

Pretty Tin Shelf I got at Home Goods for $15 bucks! 

Next I went shopping for accessories.  My first stop was Home Goods of course. This cute metal shelf  will look great added to the new bathroom remodel.  I think I might replace my old wooden shelf with this one. I'll have to decide how it looks after painting the rest of the room. Maybe it is a tad too greenish. I think it will look okay though, since I have a Beachy painting I bought as my bathroom inspiration.

Pretty candle I found at Home Goods

I bought this pretty beachy candle at Home Goods too. It was only $5.99. They have great deals on candles there.

Bathroom Towel Basket I got from Taipan Trading.

 I got a few things for the countertops too, now that my granite is all put in. I thought this would look good with rolled towels inside. I may try nailing it up onto a wall, just depending on how the other stuff looks when I'm done. It was only $12.99 from Taipan Trading. And it has the nail holes if I want to screw it up onto the wall.

This area I need to add the pretty tin shelf to and maybe the wire towel basket, I have to see how they look after I paint the walls gray. 

Now I've got to paint the walls. I have to redo all the decor in here. It's gonna take me a few days. It's gonna look great though! I'm excited how everything is turning out so far.