What's on the menu?

I cannot take any credit for this idea... I have a friend who has used framed menus to decorate her kitchen and I have always admired it. So when I took one look at the menus when we were recently celebrating our anniversary dinner at Bouchon in Las Vegas, I knew it was time to be a copy cat.

The menus were big pieces of parchment paper and were actually folded around our napkins when we sat down- such a fun idea! Anyways, I brought mine home and framed it. It's going up in our kitchen not only as a reminder of the wonderful weekend we had, but it's totally serving as inspiration, too!

Oh, and how was the dinner, you ask? Fabulous is an understatement :) Here's a close up of the dessert section... I'll take one of each, please!

Fresh Flowers!

I love having fresh flowers throughout the house, but the bathroom counter is one of my favorite spots to stick a bouquet of fresh and fragrant beauties. This bunch was on sale at the grocery store for $3.99 and will probably last about 7-10 days... so for just a few dollars you can add some life and vibrance throughout your home!

Doesn't this just make you happy?

Hello, Mr. Owl!

Cost Plus World Market is one of my favorite stores. It's dangerous for me since I'll go in for one thing and leave with $100+ of stuff I didn't even know I needed!

On our last trip there, in addition to finding our outdoor rug, we found this adorable owl door stop. He was only $9.99 and  he kinda makes me smile.

It's the little things :)

Outdoor Living Room

Now that the weather is finally starting to cooperate and the sun is staying out later, I love spending more time outside. I have been working on turning our patio into an outdoor living room and have been looking for an outdoor rug to tie it all together. Recently at Cost Plus World Market, I found one for $39.99. The price was right and so I figured I'd give it a try.

Here's the before pic...

And here's after...

Here's the close-up. I love the yellow/grey-blue combo...

It's made from recycled plastic so to clean it I can either shake it out or hose it off. Gotta love low-maintenance. Finding a simple accent piece like this can make a space feel totally different. I am a fan!

Bread Pudding and a China Cabinet Re-Vamp!

I came home from our vacation inspired. Inspired to cook and to breathe some new life into our china cabinet. Random, I know. Let me explain.

While in the airport terminal in New Orleans buying pralines for my grandma, I had an impulse buy of bread pudding mix they had by the cash register (remember how I am with those impulse purchases? Dangerous.) I love bread pudding and make Emeril's Bourbon Bread Pudding abnormally often now that I think about it. It's just too flippin' easy and delicious and my husband is a bourbon drinker so everybody wins. Post said purchase, I realized that the mix is a "just add water" deal. Just add water, bread and raisins. Interesting.

So here's what you need:
- 1 packet of the mix
- 1 loaf of slightly old french bread torn into pieces (it calls for 8 cups)
- about a handful of raisins
- 2 cups water

Dissolve the mix in the water...

Add the liquid to the bread and the raisins and stir until everything's coated...

Put in an 8x8 greased pan and bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes. And here's the finished product.

And it was delicious. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of cool whip on top and you're in heaven!

I looked on the pudding mix company's website, The Praline Connection, and you can't order it online... bummer. But I did find this option online, or I'm sure you can find some sort of mix in the grocery store, I've just never looked for it, but I will now!

Ok, so onto the china hutch that I re-vamped. I adore our china hutch. It's beautiful and gives us some much needed storage. On our flight home, I was thinking about house stuff and reminiscing about how I was so thrilled with that side table I repainted last week... I decided to add a coat of paint to our china cabinet. One our way home from the airport, we stopped at Home Depot and I picked out a lovely shade of paint called Egyptian Nile. Doesn't it sound exotic?

Here's the before shot:

And here's the after shot:

Not too bad, right? We also moved it from our kitchen to our dining room which was a feat in itself but now the room feels much more complete. As a matter of fact, at this very moment I am sitting at our dining room table, eating my bread pudding and admiring my paint job as I type. Sigh... all in a days work.

Salvation Army Side Table: Part 1

I picked up this side table from Salvation Army today. One thing we lack in our house is adequate side- tableage. Once I got it all spruced up, it looked weird next to everything else in our house... and totally didn't fit in as well as I had initially envisioned. I don't want my $20 to go to waste so I am going to sand it and paint it something that will go with our stuff better... stay tuned.

In the meantime, any color suggestions?