The Shabby Chic Cottage Style Kitchen is finished!

Well, it has been a work in progress for a few weeks now, but I am happy to announce that the kitchen is finally painted and put back together.  I still have a few finishing touches to make, but for now I am loving my new, hot pink kitchen paint.  All of the colors in the kitchen and dining room are from Martha Stewart's new line of paint at The Home Depot.  I went with a super-light pink on the top of the dining room walls, and a mossy green on the bottom.  The hot pink in the kitchen really helps those other colors pop!  Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Hold the pot...

After many interruptions in my life (some good, some not so good *sigh*), I was finally able to set aside a bit of time to sew.  My fabric finally came in at JoAnn's last week so I've been working on my roman shades, but the other day was able to make a couple of pot holders.  It was great to complete a project in an afternoon, as the roman shades are quite labor intensive.  :0)

I used the same two fabrics that are in my window valance.  (The shades are made from the white & green swirly fabric.)  I appliqued a heart - cut with my Cricut - on each front.  There are two layers of terry cloth inside so they're flexible, yet quite heat resistant.  They were fun to make - so much so that I am thinking they might make nice Christmas gifts!  If you'd like directions on how to make your own, please email me or post a comment.  Have a great day!   

Make Your Own Laundry Detergent - Be Green & Save Some Green!

Yep!  Off the deep end I go...again!  :0)  This time, I am turning my attention to making my home more green - both with using homemade, green products AND saving some green, as in CASH!  Today I made my own glass cleaner, as well as a batch of homemade laundry detergent.

For the glass cleaner, I simply mixed equal parts of water and white vinegar and some freshly squeezed lemon juice.  I swirled it all together in a spray bottle and viola!  It works great.  I think the stuff you get at the store - the blue juice - has alcohol and/or ammonia in it, so it dries much quicker.  I noticed as I was washing my windows that I didn't need as much spray as I normally use of the blue stuff.

For the laundry detergent, I found a recipe online that uses Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda ($2.79, Harris Teeter), Fels-Naptha soap ($1.29, also at Harris Teeter), and Borax ($2.97, Wal-Mart).  There are lots of online recipes, but here is the one I used:

1 cup grated soap, such as Fels-Naptha
1/2 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
1/2 cup 20 Mule Team Borax


Grate the soap and then mix in a pan with 3 pints of water over medium heat, until it all dissolves, roughly 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the washing soda and Borax. Mix until everything thickens, another 3 minutes or so, then remove from heat. Put 1 quart of hot water in a 2 gallon bucket, then add the soap mixture you just made. Mix well.


Now fill the bucket with the mixture with cold water. Stir until well blended. It will thicken and separate as it cools. Stir or shake well before using. Use 1/2 cup for each load, or more for very dirty items.

An average gallon of laundry detergent is around $5.00. This recipe is environmentally friendly, and costs about 25 cents per gallon (1/20th the cost!), so you save the green in two ways!

Six Week Old Chicks

Boy-oh-boy, our baby Ameraucana chicks are getting big!
Here is Sunshine at one week old:

And here she is at six weeks old:

I am just amazed at how fast they grow!

Introducing the New Babies

Okay, here are the new additions.  I am fairly certain of the breed, but they did come in a sale box of assorted biddies, so I could be wrong, especially since I am a novice.  :0)

This is Dottie, a Silver Laced Wyndotte

This is Buffy, a Buff Orpington.

This is Dixie, a Barred Rock (aka Plymouth Rock).

This is Trudy, a White Leghorn.  (She's quite squirmish, so taking a decent photo is not easy.)  :0)

And, last but not least, this is Mabel.  We think she is a New Hampshire Red, but she may be a Rhode Island Red.  Time will tell!  :0)

All of the new girls will lay light brown eggs, except for Trudy, who will lay large white eggs.  (Most Americans eat eggs from White Leghorns, pronounced "leggerns".) 

The Amerucana chicks we already have will lay either light green or light blue eggs.  I recently heard that a chicken will lay eggs similar to the color of their feet.  I can't wait to see if that is true!

Mail Order Chicks

Yep!  We're totally addicted to our chickens!  Those of you who read this blog know that we are raising six Ameraucana chicks and building them a coop.  Well, the coop is finished and we are putting the finishing touches on the outside pen (or run) this weekend.  The "big girls" (as they're now called) are sleeping in the coop at night now, and although I was not too happy about letting them go, I am somewhat at peace thanks to a $10 baby monitor I bought off of Craig's List.  Now, I can sleep knowing that they will raise a fit if anything tries to sneak up on them.  :0)  (Yes, I did say we're addicted...)

Okay, so we have a 64 square foot coop and the outside pen is about 150 square feet - plenty of room for lots of chickens.  (From what I've read, large-foul chickens need about 3 square feet of indoor space and about 8-10 of outdoor square feet.)  Given all of the extra room, we decided to buy a few more baby chicks just for kicks.  :0)

This time, rather than buying from a local hardware store, we purchased a "sale box" of assorted large foul chickens from MyPetChicken.com.  We received 25 assorted day old chicks in the mail, which we split with two other families.  Unfortunately, one baby died in transit, but the other 24 were quite happy and healthy.  We were supposed to get six new chicks, but because of the one not making it, we took five. 

So what do mail order chicks look like?  I have had a lot of folks ask me, so here is a photo of how our box came:

Our post office called us the day they arrived there and asked if we wanted them delivered, or if we wanted to come pick them up.  We opted to pick them up, but can you imagine?  Having your postal carrier bring a box of 25 chicks right to your front door?  It's just crazy!

Although getting a variety of chicks was a lot of fun (I will post pics of our new babies soon) I think I prefer going to the hardware store or local feed store and picking out our own babies a bit better.  Don't get me wrong, we love our new babies, but there was a bit of an impersonal feeling about just having a box delivered.  I guess losing one in the shipment was a bit sad too, but the kids handled it like pros.  They buried her and put a cross on her grave.  Sweet kids!

Mandy, the chicken wrangler...

This is my favorite doggie in the universe!  Her name is Mandy, also called "Nandy" because my kids used to have a hard time with the "m" sound.  :0)  Mandy is five days older than my oldest child - yep!  5 days!  Her birthday is May 27, 1995 and Carrie was born June 1, 1995.  Mandy was my 20th birthday present from Aaron.  He went out for pizza on my birthday for dinner and came home with a 1/2 pound Nandy on top of the pizza box.  She was about as big as a tennis ball and I instantly fell in love with her.  She has been with me since July 28, 1995.  I almost lost her to parvo in September of the same year, but she pulled through and has never been sick since!  She will be 15 next week and is still very healthy, although her vision and hearing are starting to slip.

Little Nan loves to chase the chickens in the yard.  At first, when they were so little, we were very cautious and didn't allow Mandy to chase them.  Now that they are older, she is quite helpful chasing them to the coop for us.  :0)  I  know the time is coming that I will lose my Little Nan, as she can't live forever, but I am so thankful for her and her bright spirit.  She truly is this "woman's best friend".