Moving

Moving and hope to be back in another week or so. Please be patient! :) I'm sure I'll have lots of ideas for storage as we are temporarily heading to a much smaller space. Maybe even a few good cool weather recipes too.

What to do with....

Window boxes.  So wonderful to see a cozy cottage home trimmed in overflowing window boxes.  But what if you only have one really neat window box and no window to hang it on?  Try it inside.  Hang above a peg board and fill with towels in your bathroom or in an entryway and fill with scarves and gloves, or incoming and outgoing mail.  They even work well on the tank of the toilet filled with ferns, magazines, tissue, lotions, etc.  I've also found them great in a child's room filled with stuffed animals or buckets of crayons, markers, and chalk.  I'll post more pictures as I take them.

                                                                                    





Honeycrisp and PB Sandwich

This is my favorite autumn sandwich and this year it seems that I had to wait extra long to eat it. The Honeycrisp apples came a little later this year. No problem though as today was the perfect day to eat this sandwich, a little cool and rainy. So here it is...
Think grilled cheese, now replace the cheese with peanut butter, a slight drizzle of honey and thinly sliced Honeycrisp apples. I like mine on my homemade honey wheat bread, but maybe even sourdough or a regular wheat bread will do. Put the peanut butter on the inside of both pieces of bread to give the apple slices something to hang on to, then butter the outsides of the sandwich and put it in a frying pan on medium heat. Yum!!

What To Do With...

I am thinking of starting a new series called What To Do With...
I'll try to come up with some creative ways to use our favorite items in new ways. One such item is clip on earrings. If you've ever had a grandmother with a love for jewelry then chances are you have a drawer or box full of some fun and funky clip on earrings. These make great additions to necklaces, shoes, purses, bows on gifts, set out in a bowl, gift tag holders, clipped to a ponytail rubberband, even on shirt and coat collars. I've got a couple photos of some of the earrings I have and how I've put them to use. How about you?

Also, do you have any items you love but don't know what to do with it?  Post a comment and let's get creative!

Decorating for Home Selling

Don't think you need to decorate when selling your home?  Wrong!  When selling or preparing to sell your home, decorating is essential.  It can give a great first impression to realtors and potential buyers if done well or leave a really bad one and turn realtors away which also loses those buyers for you.  It is easy and doesn't have to cost much if anything at all.

One main rule is to make sure you declutter your home.  This is probably the most important one and can really set the tone for whether or not your buyer will really give your home a chance or not.  When decluttering this also goes for closets.  The less crammed full a closet is the bigger and more spacious it appears.  And who doesn't want large spacious closets?  Take out some of those out of season clothes and pack them away under your bed or in the attic.  Lose some shoes too, like the worn old dirty ones!  Go through all your closets, even the one in the front wall.  Organize, lose anything unnecessary, and clean it up.  Paint a light color to open it up or install lights if there aren't any and the lighting is low.  This really does make a big impact on potential buyers.

Another easy way to improve your homes sellability is curb appeal.  Clean out the flower beds of weeds and debris.  Trim bushes and keep the lawn mowed and water.  When the outside looks well taken care of then the buyers will be more apt to come in.  And that's where you want them - inside.  No one buys a house they haven't been in or don't want to go in.  It's worth the couple of hours a week it takes to clean  up around the house.  Also keep those walkways swept.  It's the simple things that make the most impact!

Another area that gets overlooked are the bathrooms.  Take out all those bottles and jars of lotions and creams and soaps.  Clear those counters, fold those towels, clean the shower shelves off and clean around the base of the toilet!  Again clean, tidy and spacious are the goals.

Kitchen counters should get a good decluttering too.  Pack away any unused or barely used appliances, decorative knick knacks and what nots.  Show off your best qualities and hide those unsightly ones! Clean the cabinet doors, refrigerator -inside and out- and stove tops.  Scrub tile grout and shake out the rugs.  See if it is something you would want to purchase yourself. 

The final area to keep an eye on is your tabletops.  No one needs to see 25 pictures of you and your family and friends or all the collections you have or even how many candles you can group together.  Seems a silly thing to worry about when what you are trying to sell is your home but honestly most people can't see past your decorations so how your house looks and FEELS makes a big impact on their decision as to whether or not they want to buy.  Just pack away your perfume bottles and your child's collection of hairbows and jewelry.  store the pictures, except for 2 or 3 and let your house scream out "look at me! I'm tidy.  I'm clean. I'm spacious and very well taken care of." 

Don't forget your realtor.  They've probably got lots of ideas to help you prepare your home for their buyers.  Ask and Listen!  It could mean the difference between "asking price" and "reduced to sell".

Oatmeal Monster Cookies

These are by far the favorite cookies in this house and they are so versatile that I am sure they will soon become the favorite in yours too.  It does make a large batch and the dough is hard to mix towards the end so if you have a Kitchenaid mixer then you may want to pull it out.  Save your muscles for eating these delicious cookies.  :)

2 cups flour
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 sticks butter
1 1/3 cups light brown sugar
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 eggs
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups quick cook oats
2/3 cups chopped pecans
2/3 cup chocolate chips
2/3 cup shredded coconut
2/3 cup M&M
2/3 cup raisens

combine 1st 3 ingredients in a bowl and set aside
in large mixing bowl cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy, add eggs and vanilla and beat until well blended.  Next add flour mixture to creamed mixture in 4 additions, beat on speed 2 until well mixed.  Add in oats in 4 additions.  add rest of the ingredients, 1 at a time on low until blended. 
drop by rounded tablespoons onto greased cookie sheet. 
Bake at 350* for 10-12 minutes. remove from cookie sheet and cool on wire rack.
ENJOY!

Vintage Jewelry

Vintage Jewelry.

It's all the rage.

But where to start and what to get are a mystery to those who've never collected it before. One place to start is with a style you love. 50's, 60's, 70's or even Victorian. There are so many options. Also gold, silver, brass, rhinestone, gemstone, filigree, etc. Which ever you choose you do need to make sure it is good quality and a good investment, which is pretty easy with the internet right at your fingertips. You can also feel the difference, a good quality piece will be heavier and feel more solid by touch, the cheap stuff feels - well cheap!. Also if it has a stamp of 925 on it that means it is silver (even if it has a gold overlay), good to know when looking at costume jewelry from around the 50's because it puts it at a higher value than similar pieces done in pot metal or brass. Those older costume pieces are just far superior than costume pieces of today. And they have maintained or gone up in value over the years. This is by no means all there is to know about vintage pieces, just a few little hints to help you get started. Just know that once you get into it, you'll find that all this new jewelry just "loses it's luster". haha. bad joke, I know. Well here are a few of my favorites along with some of the ways I use them. And some of these pieces will soon be available at thecoralfish.etsy.com

Enjoy!