My Roll Out Pantry

I kind of have a kitchen storage problem. It has resulted in the "cabinet of peril" (basically, to get anything out or even to open this cabinet was risky. Glass jars were not allowed on the edge of the shelves) and the combination coat closet/pantry. To say this is ridiculous is just a bit of an understatement. But I happened upon a grand solution.

This was a brilliant idea, but was not mine. I first saw it here, but she saw it at Learning to Be Me. That blog doesn't credit the idea specifically to anyone, so it may have come from there. I have seen multiple other versions of it, however. The concept is much the same in all cases though; build a box, insert shelves, dowels, and a back, and put the whole thing on wheels. Brilliant. I made a few tweaks, but this is essentially the same thing I did.

Four Things I Did With One Can of Pumpkin

I might just possibly have a pumpkin obsession. Yeah, it is pretty bad. It was made worse when I went to the store for a can of pumpkin and the giant can of the off brand was cheaper than the small can of Libby's. And they didn't have small cans of the off brand. I was only making pumpkin cookie-dough truffles. Thus, I had leftover pumpkin. Lots of it. This resulted in pumpkin cooking galore.

So here, without further ado (and without pictures because I wasn't thinking about blogging this), I have my extended thoughts about multiple pumpkin treats.

Dollar Store Wreath

There is definitely nothing too extraordinary in this post; I made a wreath--from stuff I bought at the dollar store. But I had fun and decided to document the process.

After dropping my husband off on campus, I decided to do a little dollar store shopping. I purchased a wreath frame, 7 sprigs of flowers and foliage and a roll of ribbon. I did not use the roll of ribbon in the end. Two of my sprigs were purely autumn leaves, one was berries, and the rest were flowers. One of those flower sprigs had little flowers on a central stalk and the rest were larger flowers, some with smaller "bud" type flowers mixed in. Six sprigs came from the "harvest" section of the silk flowers. The final sprig I found in the Christmas section. An y guesses which? I find it somewhat ridiculous that there is a Christmas section in September, but I digress. Anyway, the Christmas sprig is the burlap flowers.

Toddler "Proofing" Home Office: Drawer to Door

For the record, the title has quotation marks because anyone with a toddler knows  nothing is ever truly toddler proof; we just do our best to slow them down.

Well, it has been a while since I posted. In the past few months I have moved, given birth, and shown and rented numerous apartments. I also learned to fix multiple aspects of toilets, make screens, auger drains, and repair bathtub trip levers. Yes, I have moved into the fantastic world of property management. As summers are (they tell me) the property's busiest time (this is a college town in a desert; we have lots of moving out and in as well as problems with swamp coolers and AC), most of my time has been spent doing maintenance. Thus, very little has been spent on actually making our apartment our home. That really hasn't stopped us from some grand plans.

Makeshift Vanity from Custom-built Shelves

Tudor Gingerbread House

I like making gingerbread houses, and I love looking at pictures of gingerbread contest winners. I am by no means professional, have never been formally taught anything by anyone who really knows what they are talking about, and don't claim to do everything the best way.

I have to admit up front here that I live in a desert climate. Since living here, I have never had any problem with gingerbread bending from weight and the royal icing I use is nothing fancy (egg whites, powdered sugar and cream of tartar), but I have never had a problem with it and it drys rapidly enough that my problem is not getting the gingerbread to stay together until it drys, but getting it together right the first time because the royal icing will be partially dry before I get a chance to move it around. In other words, I live in a pretty ideal place for gingerbread house experimentation and I am not sure how this would hold up in, say, Houston, TX or Canandaigua, NY.

Paper Snowflake Week: Wreath

I came up with this idea immediately after coming up with the idea for snowflake week. However, I was very uncertain if it would ever turn out in a manner that I was happy with. I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

Apart from the snowflake making, this was actually a really easy process. I made the snowflakes (for my six secrets of snowflake making see Monday's post), and then dipped them in wax just like I did for the ornaments and candles. I ended up hanging this wreath on the front door in the end and I figured the wax could help the paper weather a bit better.

For the wreath frame I just bent the lower triangle part of a wire hanger into a circle. I used some fabric I had acquired secondhand to sew a tube of fabric. I contemplated hot gluing it but abandoned this idea when David took a little too much interest in the cord of the glue gun and I wound up with burnt fingers (but better me than him). In any case, I think the sewing ended up better than the glue would have.