Patina General

Happy Spring!

I just love spring!  The sounds of birds chirping all around me, the moist, damp air, a little drizzle, and even some fog!  The green grass, green plants pushing themselves out of their dormancy, and buds popping out on branches. I love being able to work in my driveway again-even scrubbing is a little fun when you haven't done it in a couple months! Having my kids home on spring break, and loving the fact that they enjoy creating floor plans together with graph paper, and a log home design book! Hope you are enjoying these first days of fresh, new spring!

March Madness

March Madness...  weather!  Hope you had a chance to enjoy the summer like outdoors this past weekend.  It was a Patina General working weekend at our house.  

 

Welcome to our garage!  April Occasional is buried in there somewhere.  This is a view of our third stall, aka Patina General storage unit.  I can't believe I'm unveiling this pic to the public when I'm always telling our kids to keep the third stall garage door closed for fear of the neighbors calling hoarders anonymous.  My husband is a saint for not giving a hoot that his garage has taken on a new purpose.

I've been known to sand furniture on a sunny somewhat warm day in the middle of winter in years past, but full blown turn on the hose scrubbing has never before happened in March.  In my neck of the woods this past weekend it was too humid to brush paint and too windy to spray paint (unless our neighbors wanted a new color scheme to their house).  Hubby and I spent Saturday dismantling furniture, cutting and fitting new backs, tops and other various parts to create pieces for the store.  

He took a few March Madness breaks to check scores and to let me know that I was beating him on our bracket challenge.  My secret to winning has nothing to do with my knowledge of sports, quite the opposite.  My strategy... I choose Syracuse to win because I like Syracuse Dishes, I'd rather visit this state over that state and many other quirky reasonings.

Hope you can make it to April Occasional in a few weeks and see if you recognize anything from this picture.

Lora, I've aired our messy garage for all to see, do you want to show them yours?

Spring Branches

The birds are chirping outside, and we have May-like weather here in Minnesota in March!
One of my favorite things to enjoy in this earliest time of spring is forced branches! I used some this last weekend that I had purchased, and were already flowering, for my baby shower centerpiece. I love how natural it all turned out.

But now it's time to harvest some of my own branches, and bring them in to warm up and bud out, before Easter!

I grab my clippers, and make sure to snip green branches-those that are still alive.

In my yard, I get branches from my lilacs, my apple tree, and my crabapple trees.  If you have forsythia, flowering plum, dogwood, or any other spring flowering tree, I think they would work also.  Bringing the branches in your warm house, just tricks them into starting some leaves and flowers.

Apple is on the left, lilac in the middle, and crabapple on the right.  The crabapple is a little thorny, which is kind of appropriate for Easter decor.

I find random vessels and fill them with lukewarm water.  I don't use any floral preservative, but that would probably help them.  I just change out the water every few days.

The already-flowered ones are from the shower.  I will sometimes tuck a few fake flowers in with them, to give them a little punch until their green leaves start showing.

My mom always trimmed her lilacs a couple weeks before Easter and would make an Easter tree, so I've carried on that tradition with my kids.  "Made in China" decor never looked so good!

I also use the fake flowering branches in my outdoor pots this time of year, when there's not much else to use-except maybe pansies-but they're too short to see from the road!

I'm not usually a fake-flower-outside kinda girl, but at this time of year...it works.  I've had a lot of people think they were real!

Hope you grab your clippers and get outside to your yard or a neighbors, and start that Easter/spring decorating!

Cupboard Organizing

I've been wanting to tackle the kitchen sink cupboard for months.  Today was the day, I finally had a chunk of time to cute-ify and organize under the sink.  Until now I had the basic white textured Martha Stewart drawer liner which served my purpose well.  It was easy to wipe clean and looked fine for several years.

Lately I've been wanting to try something more custom than the choices of liners in the stores.  I looked through my stacks of fabric and narrowed it down to one I think I can live with for quite a while.  

First I made a template of the cupboard, it's angled on both sides and standard measuring wouldn't do the trick.

I purchased the iron on laminating at the fabric store.  You can find it with the interfacing and purchase it by the yard.

This is the first time I've used it on such a large piece of fabric.  I was a little nervous about placing the laminating material just right on the fabric.  Once I got started I soon realized it wasn't an issue, the laminating is very easy to re-adjust and smooth out the wrinkles.  Something to note..  I ironed my fabric before starting to insure a flat smooth working surface.  I followed the directions on the laminating, medium heat on my iron, holding time and flipping and ironing the back side.

I traced my template (note the water pipe cut-outs) onto the laminated fabric and began to cut.

I held my breath as I put it into place, hoping I did everything right.  Yipee!  It fit perfectly.

The finished product.  Now I can enjoy opening the cupboard and seeing it clean, cute and organized.  As you can see in the picture, I like using jars.  I take many things from their packages and place them in jars.  My Spic-N-Span is in the jar on the left. My ammonia is in the glass bottle behind.  I think the vintage glass water bottle is much cuter than its original plastic bottle. My Brillo pads in the front jar (no messy chunks leaking from the box), and the dishwasher detergent in the large jar in the back.

Food for a crowd

One of the easiest recipes I make for a large crowd get-together is this Shredded Beef.  The only person to date that doesn't like it is...Mr. Freckles, but I don't work around his tastes! All you need are three ingredients, an oven, and 7-8 hours, and you will have enough meat for a good-size crowd! I always freeze a couple cups of the leftovers and have a pot of vegetable beef soup later!

Pepperoncini Shredded Beef

6-8 pounds chuck beef roast

1 small size jar pepperoncini peppers (or get the large jar and use half, because you'll want to make it again)

3 dry Hidden Valley Ranch packets

Place meat in roaster pan or large baking pan. Sprinkle dry Ranch packets over. Pour pepperoncini peppers and juice over.  Cover with heavy foil.  Bake 275 degrees for 7-8 hours, depending on your amount of meat. Shred meat apart with forks. 

We usually eat it with a whole wheat dollar bun, chips, and a crunchy Napa cabbage salad! I sometimes place the meat in a crock pot to keep warm for a big party.  Definitely a crowd pleaser!

My Favorite Color-Green!

It's March, which gets me in the mood for green, in so many ways!  St. Patrick's Day is in March, so of course we get to see all the shamrocks decorating the Target isles this month.  I happen to be a little Irish, but it's added to the rest of my mutt-like lineage: Norwegian (probably the highest percentage), Swedish, English, Scottish, Irish, Polish, and Bohemian.  Let's just say, I am a true American!

Back to green...the focus of this post!  I love when McDonalds features their Shamrock shakes-actually indulged in one last night, but forgot to snap a pic! I just love green!  It's the color of nature that surrounds us.  It's the color of food that we should eat a lot of! There are so many varieties of the color: grey-greens, lime greens, aqua greens, forest greens.  I can appreciate them all at different times of the year.  So today, I thought I'd share some of my green love with you!  I even devoted one of my Pinterest boards to my love of green. (We haven't quite gotten that link onto our blog yet...sorry).

So, here's the greens that I love, and surround myself with!

Love rustic green tables and table legs...can spot them quite quickly at estate sales!

Love Jadeite Fire-King green glassware.

Love clear green glass.

Love old books with green bindings.

Love green plants, and even fake green plants!

Love green flowers and wallpaper with green flowers.

Love funky vintage green lampshades, and Anthropologie lampshades, with a touch of green.

Love vintage green metal trays-a little hint of yellow makes me see sunshine too.

Love green classic cars...even better if it's a pickup!

I love the smell of the spring-fresh air that smells like green!  I love being surrounded by green...man-made and God-made!