Step 2

Back in December I took my boring half bath from blah to fun by painting it green. Before I painted it, here's how it was looking (except with hardwood floors).

So boring, right? And here's the room after a coat of paint.

My next step was to add a new mirror. The builder mirror was not doing it for me at all - bye bye mirror! I had bought a mirror at Target quite some time back with the intention to use it in this bathroom, but it sat unused for the longest time. No more! The mirror now has a home. =)

I also used my friend Meredith's directions to make a no-sew roman shade for this room. I actually made one back in December, but then I hated my fabric choice and decided to start over. I hope I'm not the only one that happens to and I also hope that I will find a use for that shade somewhere else.

After my fabric choice fail, I selected some from fabric.com and started the project once more.

Meredith's instructions were awesome and the shade ended up looking amazing! I was so proud I had done it myself. =)

Here's how the shade looks when it's down.

Here it is up as well.

I love how it turned out and I love the color it brings to the room. And of course here's the new mirror looking pretty - so much better then the builder mirror, right?

Now onto Step 3!

Pinterest Project!

My friend Kelly is getting married in October and for table decorations, she chose a project from Pinterest. The original project can be found here.

Kelly bought vases at Hobby Lobby and we grabbed the rest of our supplies.

Kelly wrapped a vase in jute.

Meanwhile, I got to work putting rubber bands on another vase.

After that we stuffed paper in them so that the spray paint wouldn't cover the inside.

Then we went outside and spray painted them which I totally forgot to take a picture of.

And the final product? Voila!

I think they look awesome and with a candle added inside they will be lovely wedding centerpieces. Kelly also said that after the wedding I can keep one. =) They would be great as candle holders or as vases for flowers. 

I can't wait to see them in action!

New Rug Sneak Peek

When I posted about my new chairs, I mentioned that I wanted to get a new rug for our living room. Well, I took a leap and got one! I'm hoping to be take some more pictures this weekend, but for now here's a peek at the new rug!

Wrinkles and all. ;-)

Homemade Brownies

I had never made homemade brownies before this past weekend. Wellll, never that I can remember. It's possible that I made them with my grandmother growing up, but I have no recollection of those events.

So anyway, I got an itch to bake and whipped up some brownies following this recipe from About.com. I altered it a bit.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups margarine
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter and then mix with cocoa. Stir in sugar and blend in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla. Stir in the flour and and mix for about 2 minutes. Bake in greased 9 x 13-inch pan for 25 minutes.

 Yay for brownies!

99 Red Balloons

They are not floating in the summer sky, but still.

I don't know why I felt compelled to share this - probably just because I am weird, but a few years ago my friends and I had a 99 Red Balloons party at my mom's house (I still lived there then and all the get-togethers took place there). Why? I don't remember. We probably didn't even have a reason anyway. Who needs a reason to throw a party?

So anyway, here's how we took that theme to a whole 'nother level.

Red everything was the basic rule. And you KNOW we had 99 Red Balloons jammin' in the background - in English, in German and even the remix.

We baked a cake and iced it with red icing and even drew 99 red balloons on the top.

Yep, there were 99 red balloons in the house. We were all in band in high school so it wasn't that horrible to blow them all up since we had band-level lungs.

For dinner we served tomato soup (duh, it's red) with veggies and we had plenty of red-colored snacks.

Can you spot the person in this picture?

*Sigh* I love parties! Even if this one is a few years past.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

The other day I got a hankering for broccoli cheese soup and what did I do? I made some. I thought I would share the recipe I used with you. It originally used chicken broth, but you all know I made it vegetarian. =)

Broccoli Cheese Soup (altered from this recipe from My Blessed Life):

1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 c. butter, melted
1/2 c. all purpose flour
4 c. milk
4 c. veggie broth
1 lb. fresh broccoli (I actually used frozen *gasp!* - the scandal!)
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 t. nutmeg
16 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Whisk butter and flour in a stock pot over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Stir constantly and slowly add in the milk (heat it up a little first). Then add in the veggie broth while still whisking. Let this simmer for 20 minutes.

During this time, prepare the onion by sauteing it in 1 tablespoon of butter.

 

You can also take this time to grate the cheese.

Since I used frozen broccoli, I microwaved it for about 4-5 minutes and then set it aside.

After the mixture has simmered for 20 minutes, add in the broccoli and onion.  Cook the soup over low heat for about 20-25 minutes then add salt and pepper to taste.

At this point, you can puree your soup in a blender. I recently bought a Kitchenaid immersion blender from Target for $50 so I just used that and it worked really well. If you use a blender, return the soup to your pot after and set the stove to  low heat. Add in your cheese and stir until well blended.  Then add the nutmeg.

I served the soup with some tasty bread.

The finished product:

I loved this soup! It was everything I dreamed it would be.

Surprise! Paneled Wall

You may have noticed in my NYE pictures that it's looking a little different in the living room these days.

Don't see anything different? Well, in case you didn't know, this is the TV wall as it had looked since I moved in:

Pretty boring, right? I always felt this wall was so bland and I thought about adding pictures, but I knew that wasn't what I really wanted for this area. I wanted to add some character to this space.

I decided on doing a paneled wall and after browsing Google Images, I finally got an idea of what I wanted and then I handed the project over to Eric. Here's the wall in-progress.

And almost done.

The grand finale!

I love it. The entire project was finished in 2 days. I was surprised at how inexpensive this project was as well. We just bought one sheet of MDF for $26 at Home depot and they cut all the pieces for us in the store.

I love the new paneled wall and how much character it adds to the room.  

And I know you're all digging the Guitar Hero World Tour drum set over in the corner... I can play most songs on hard on the drum set. Don't be jealous.

So there you have it.

Murder and Mayhem Part II

Yesterday I shared part I of our NYE murder mystery party re-cap and now I'm back for part II. When I left off yesterday, we had experienced 2 murders at our party and a little greediness from our guests (stealing money off 'dead' bodies).

With 2 murders so far, we continued asking questions and trying to figure out information to solve the crimes.

And then, another murder!

And *gasp!* another one!

So many crimes to solve!

We wrapped things up eventually and were shocked when we figured out who committed each murder and all the things that were going on right under our noses that we didn't know about. Everyone had secrets and people were blackmailing each other like crazy!

We gave out awards for best costume, best performer, guest with the most money and for each guest who solved the main murder.

After we finished the game, we had to take some group pictures (some people had already left, but we got some with the people who were still there).

Then we headed down to the end of the street to shoot off roman candles that a friend brought to the party.

After we finished with the fireworks, we walked back to the house and on the way we noticed my neighbor's yard was on fire. Yes, you read that right - on fire. That had been lighting some small fireworks in their driveway and one went off into the grass.

Of course I had to get a picture with the fire and my two friends who were trying to stomp it out since my neighbors didn't have a water hose.

And that was how we welcomed 2012 - with mystery, roman candles and fire. Happy New Year to all of you!