Baked Grapefruit

I know you're thinking that this sounds a bit weird, but it is delicious.  I made it the other night for dessert and we all agreed that grapefruit tastes fantastic warmed up.  It would be especially nice on a cold day.  If you're interested in making baked grapefruit you'll need some cinnamon and brown sugar.  First cut the grapefruit in half, then pre-cut the sections of the grapefruit.  Sprinkle the grapefruit with cinnamon and brown sugar and bake for 20 minutes at 375.  It is so yummy, give it a try.

Shopping Cart Furniture

Here's a little something bizarre for my Fabulous Furniture Friday post.  It's very quirky and creative so we will go with it.  Ramon Coronado, an artist in L.A. used reclaimed shopping carts to make furniture for a local park in downtown L.A. Interesting, right? To see other artistic projects done by Ramon you can go to his website here.

The Pantry

I'm going to show you my almost completed pantry because I just can't wait any longer to show you.  This little gem used to be our bathroom, but as you remember we moved our bathroom to where the wet-bar used to be.  This room works perfectly for our pantry and since I haven't had a pantry in this house or the house before.  I'm beyond thrilled.  What I was using as my pantry were some cabinets beside my fridge that were so deep that things always seemed to go missing.

We removed all the old fixtures (cabinet, sink, toilet, vent fan, mirror, light) and started from scratch.  We built the cabinet with the purpose to house an RO System that will be fed directly through the wall to our fridge. The other side of it holds our recycling bins.

Then we have shelving built for the rest of the pantry. A new light was installed in the ceiling since our previous one was mounted on the wall. The picture below shows the shelving that was built when you turn to the right. So, I have plenty of room in there.

We moved everything in even though there are a few more things to do.  We still need to texture the ceiling where the old vent fan was located, remove the toilet water supply valve from the wall and custom built spice racks have also been promised in my future.

I Spy Bag

I'm in the process of making 10 of these "I Spy Bags" for my moms group.  Each mom is making multiples of one project and then swapping.  So, I'll end up with 10 other cool toddler/preschool type activities for my son to do.  The "I Spy Bags" have been floating around Pinterest and I thought they looked like a quick project and fun for the kids. I didn't think my 5 year old would think much of it, but now she wants one of her own and is finding her own trinkets to put in the bag.  What I really loved about this project is that I could use up some of my leftover fleece.

Here's what you need to make your own "I Spy Bag"
Fabric (I used fleece and cut out 6" squares)
Clear Plastic Fabric
Plastic Pellets (Can be found at the craft store)
Trinkets
Ribbon
Key Ring
Laminated picture with the all the items inside

I still need to do attach a laminated picture with everything that is in the bag. Then I will attach it to the key ring. There are definitely other ways to attach the picture, but I saw this one on another blog and thought it was a great idea.

My Little Heartbreaker

Happy Valentine's Day!  Here's one of my little heartbreakers.  I made this shirt for him since there are so few shirts out there for boys.  I found the plain black t-shirt at Target and used a red knit fabric that I had on-hand to make the heart applique.  The lettering I did with fabric paint and a freezer paper stencil.

I didn't get around to making a shirt for my daughter, but I did make one for her last year.  Here is the post from her heart shirt.

Valentine's Treat Bags

I'm helping put together Valentine's treat bags for my daughter's class and ran into a snag.  The goodies that were going into the bags for the boys didn't fit.  I needed to come up with another bag for them that was bigger and of course it was late at night and I couldn't run to the store.  What I did have on hand were plenty of brown paper bags.  My husband didn't think they'd be fancy enough. :)  He knows me better than that! Like I would leave them as brown paper bags.  Ha!  I came across a tutorial on printing directly on the paper bags with your printer.  Oh my goodness, the possibilities are endless.  I'm definitely doing this from now on.  To get the paper bag through your printer you just need to tape the bottom flap of the bag down.  The fantastic "I Dig You!" graphic came from One Charming Party. I thought it was perfect! I punched two holes on each side and ran some ribbon through and tied a bow. 

Canvas Panel

I have a friend who has been in and out of the hospital this past month and wanted to send her something to cheer her up.  I found out from her sister what her favorite quote was and painted it on a canvas panel.  I don't usually use canvas panels, but I wanted it to fit inside a frame to stand up on a nightstand.  It worked fine as long as I removed the glass.  The quote is from Winnie the Pooh by his friend Christopher Robin.

Quote Painting

I had a request from my sister to paint the quote "After all, tomorrow is another day." from Gone with the Wind.  I wanted to put something else in the painting and decided to add a silhouette of Scarlett in the painting.  I have another quote painting in the works for a friend that I'll post soon.

Monstera Chair

Another fun chair for this Friday.  This chair is designed by Philip Ahlstrom and comes in two colors, green and white.  His inspiration came from the monstera leaf which can be found in Central and South America.

DVD Player Screen Holder

I literally whipped these up the night before we left for a trip.  Seriously, my husband told me at 9 o'clock at night that we needed something to hold the DVD players screens in the car.  I'm pretty sure he's testing my sewing ability under pressure or just my sanity.  The screens used to snap in to a piece that was attached to our headrests in the car, but after our multiple times being broken and glued back in to place we needed to come up with another solution.  So, here is what we came up with, it's sort of a pocket with straps.  I had some neoprene scraps to make the holders and let me say that was an experience all in itself.  Neoprene is difficult to work with, but I was trying to get it done quick so it's not pretty folks. I used velco straps to attach it to the headrest and it's worked out perfectly.  Now I just need to figure out what the tricks are to working with neoprene.

See the little black bar below the headrest.  That is where they used to snap into place and it stuck out pretty far.  Which unfortunately put it in perfect kicking range for my 2 year old when he got upset.