Party Like It's 1776

Fourth of July is quickly approaching, which means it's time to get a little decor up around the house. I've always loved the fourth of july, and I think it's one of the most under-appreciated holidays. This year, I decided to make this canvas. I have to admit, I wasn't clever enough to come up with the saying on my own, I saw it on some cups at Pier 1 and immediately thought it would look great on a canvas.

Confession: This canvas was a Vino Van Gogh painting gone horribly wrong. I can craft all day long, but make me paint a picture of trees starting with a blank canvas and I promise I will fail. I just started the project by giving the canvas a couple coats of white spray paint, magic I tell ya! I wasn't about to let a perfectly good canvas go to waste. 

Do you ever decorate or do anything special for the Fourth of July? 

Check out my wreath from last year here.

If I have time, I may even squeeze in a few other patriotic projects.

Wine Cork Garden Markers {and our first garden}

This year, we planted our first garden! I call it my salsa garden because I have every intention to ma ke all kinds of yummy fresh garden salsa with these vegetables. We planted tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, red onions and cilantro. We still had some extra space, so we also planted cucumbers, lettuce, and parsley. Neither of us have really ever had a garden, so we can't really be sure we will have vegetables by the end of summer. We have just been watering the plants every night and things seem to be growing quite well. 

I decided I wanted to put in some garden markers, so I pulled out my wine corks, skewers, and a permanent marker. 

I simply wrote each vegetable on a wine cork with my marker, and then stabbed a skewer into the bottom of the cork. Within minutes, I had fun garden markers ready to stick into the dirt. 

And now we wait! Hopefully we will have vegetables coming out of ears in no time. 

What do you usually grow in your garden? 

I'm kind of regretting not throwing a few strawberry plants in there. There's always next year, right?

Have a great weekend!

Vibrant Adirondack Chairs

Today I am sharing with you a project that I have been dying to complete for over a year!
Over the past few weekends, Adam built me these wonderful Adirondack chairs for the backyard, and I just finished painting them this week (just in time for the BBQ we are hosting on Sunday). Hooray! 

We used Ana White's book, The Handbuilt Home, as a reference to build these beauties. It was pretty inexpensive to buy all of the supplies, and overall took Adam two afternoons to build both chairs and the table. Once they were built, Adam sanded them down so they were ready for me to paint.

Speaking of painting, I had one heck of a time deciding which colors to go with. We spent Memorial Day weekend up north on Long Lake, and talk about immense amounts of brightly colored Adirondack chairs. One cottage had a row of chairs painted every color of the rainbow. It was to die for! Each cottage we passed had at least a few brightly colored chairs sitting in the lawn overlooking the water. I debated for-ev-er and each color combination seemed just as perfect as the next. Blues, yellows, pinks, oranges, greens. How was I ever going to decide?! I ended up narrowing it down to a few options and let Adam have the final say. He's a good decision maker when I am too indecisive. What can I say, I picked a winner. We finally decided to go with blue, green, and pink. I primed each piece, gave each piece two coats of paint, and used a spray sealer for some extra protection since they will be outside all summer long. 

I am thrilled with how they turned out, and even more excited to be sharing them with you!

What colors would you paint your Adirondack chairs?

Angel Berry Trifle

This Angel Berry Trifle is the perfect summer dessert. It is light and refreshing, and the perfect dessert to take to a backyard barbecue. My mother-in-law has made it for the past few summers and it has to be one of my favorites by far. The recipe makes a ton, I cut the recipe in half and it still nearly filled my trifle bowl. I like it with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, but you can put in any fruit you'd like.

INGREDIENTS:

1 bunt size angel food cake (or two loaves)

16 oz. of strawberries raspberries, blueberries

2 small packs of vanilla instant pudding

3 cups of milk

16 oz. of cool whip

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cut angel food cake into small pieces.

2. Wash and cut fruit as needed.
3. Mix milk and pudding, then fold in 8 oz. of cool whip.

4. In a large bowl, layer starting with 1/3 of the cake, then 1/2 the pudding mixture and 1/2 the fruit.

5. Repeat cake, pudding, and fruit layers, with the final layer being cake.

6. Top the cake with the rest of the cool whip and decorate with fruit.

yummmmm. 

Happy Monday!