Simple Yellow Spring Mantel

My mantel has been a work in progress since I took my Valentine's Day decorations down, somewhere around the middle of March.  I haven't wanted to spend money on decorations for the mantel, mostly because my big projects right now are the girls' bedroom and the nursery.  However, the mantel was looking a bit sad, and seeing that it is now the second week of April, I decided to do something about it.  And, guess what?  It only cost me $1 to spruce up this spot!  Yes, my friends, you can decorate with minimal cost, just be creative {and read magazines for inspiration}.

I saw an idea in my  Better Homes & Gardens magazine, to cover books with spring colored paper to add some color in the decor.  This was a great idea for three reasons:  1) It seriously cost $1 for 5 pieces of paper at Michael's; 2) It took about 5 minutes to complete; 3) It looks pretty good.

A couple weeks ago I saw a tutorial on Kristin's blog for making epsom salt eggs.  I had attempted covering eggs with fabric and mod podge {that was a disaster}, and this idea seemed so much easier.  The girls were able to help and I love how they look.  The silver container was a Goodwill purchase awhile back, for $1, and I just added some spanish moss to make it sort of look like a nest.

After I finished covering the books I started walking around the house, opening cabinets, drawers, closets, trying to find whatever I could to make this whole thing come together.  I knew I had the bird {a Home Goods purchase from last summer}, and I wanted a vase of fresh flowers from the yard.  Upon opening my coat closet I found a moss covered 'W' I had made for the front door last year.  The hot temperatures had melted the glue I'd used to hang the ribbon on it, and I had never repaired it, so it has been sitting in my closet for months.  That, in addition to my covered books, vase of wildflowers, and bird, and I was done!

One of the best parts for me with this mantel is that come summer, if I want to, I only need to take off the eggs/nest and the bird, add something different, and I'll have a summer mantel.  I don't know how having 3 little ones is going to change my life, but I figure the simpler the better right now!

Have you done anything around your house to make it look like spring?

Chocolate Malt Filled Cupcakes

This cupcake recipe was born out of some research I did on cream filled cupcakes, combined with a desire to make something up using one of my favorite Easter candies:  Whoppers Robin Eggs.  I offered to bring dessert for our Easter get together yesterday, and it was fun to be able to make something with ingredients I had on hand and a little bit of creativity.  Have lots of Easter candy leftover?  Then, this would be perfect for you to make!  Everyone seemed to enjoy them, and my husband even told me they were the best cupcakes he'd ever had {I hope he wasn't lying, but it's quite possible he exaggerated a bit for his overly emotional pregnant wife}.

I used some pretty standard Betty Crocker recipes for the cake and the icing, and added a bit of a twist for the inside filling.  Hope you enjoy!

Starlight Yellow Cake
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups milk
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 large eggs

Heat oven to 350F.  Line muffin tins with cupcake liners.  Beat all ingredients together in large mixing bowl on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly.  Beat on high speed 3 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally.  Pour into cupcake liners, about 1/2 to 2/3 full.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool on wire racks.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting and Malt Filling
6 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup butter, softened
4 teaspoons vanilla
2/3 cup baking cocoa
6-8 tablespoons milk
1 cup Whoppers Robin eggs candy

Mix powdered sugar and butter in medium bowl with spoon or electric mixer on low speed.  Mix in vanilla and chocolate.  Gradually beat in just enough milk to make frosting smooth and spreadable.  If frosting is too thick, beat in more milk.  If frosting becomes too thin, beat in a small amount of powdered sugar.

Place candy in a food processor and chop until fine crumbs appear.  Place 1/3 of the icing into a small bowl and stir in the chopped candies.  This will be used for the cupcake filling.

To Assemble:

Ideally, you want to have an actual pastry bag with piping attachment for this process, but since I didn't, I used an object that could make a small hole in the cupcake, and placed the frosting in a ziploc bag with a tiny hole in one corner.  It worked fine.

Make a small hole in the top of each cupcake:

Snip a little corner of the ziploc bag for the icing to squeeze through:

Squeeze into the hole {this will work, just be patient with it; you only need a small amount of filling in each one}:

In another ziploc bag, place some of the plain chocolate frosting.  Make a bigger hole in one bottom corner of the bag and pipe on the top of the cupcake, starting on the outside of the cupcake and working in, in a swirling motion until the cupcake is covered.

Place a single Whopper egg on the top and you are finished!

cake and chocolate buttercream frosting source:  Betty Crocker's Cookbook


Linking to:

Inspiration for Easter Table Decor

It's hard to believe that Easter weekend is already here!  We're not planning much this year, since I'm now full-term with my pregnancy, and trying to stay close to home, but it's still fun to look at all of the great ideas for Easter decorations that are floating around the internet.  I normally make a big Easter dinner, but I'm not even doing that this year!  We're getting together with our home group from church for a Low Country Boil {yum!} and that is just fine with me!  For those of you who may be entertaining and looking for some last-minute inspiration for your table, here are a few inspiring photos for you.

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If you are decorating a table for Easter this year, I'd love to see what you create!  Send me your photos {if you aren't a blogger}, or a link to your blog post, and I'll do some features next week!  

Email me at:  onlyfromscratch@gmail.com

Key Lime Pie Ice Cream

Ice Cream has always been one of my favorite desserts.  In fact, I remember as a young girl laying in bed, hearing the clanking of metal spoons on glass bowls, getting angry that my parents were enjoying a nice bowl of Breyer's without me!  We registered for an ice cream maker when we got married, and we've thoroughly enjoyed it through the years.  With summer quickly approaching {maybe not for all of you, but here in GA, it's been in the high 80's!}, I thought it only appropriate to try out a new ice cream flavor.  Key Lime Pie is one of my favorite pie flavors, so this recipe sounded perfect to me.  It is quite tart, so I recommend eating it with some graham crackers, shortbread, or a piece of bitter chocolate.  The texture is really creamy and overall it's delightful.

Key Lime Pie Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups sweetened condensed milk {a little more than 1 can}
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup lime juice {I used key lime juice}

Mix ingredients together and refrigerate until cold.  Pour into ice cream maker and mix for 12-15 minutes.  {Mine was still quite runny at this point, but it froze well, so don't be alarmed if yours does the same}.  Transfer to another container, cover, and freeze for several hours.  


source:  slightly adapted from Food Network

Brown Paper Package that Made my Day

This arrived on my doorstep the other day and I am SO excited about its contents!!

I've been waiting about a year to use this product, and with some Christmas and birthday money combined, I was able to finally purchase some....

That's right, Annie Sloan Chalk Paint!  I've read many posts about people using this paint and really loving it, so it's my turn to have a try at it now.  My last big project for the nursery is to paint a dresser, and I'm hopeful that  using this paint will help it to go smoothly and quickly.  Stay tuned for my personal review of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.

The Vegetable Garden

One of the things that my husband and I both enjoy is gardening, although, I do have to say he does a majority of it now that we have children.  We planted a garden last year, but it was right after we moved in, and there wasn't as much planning and preparation as there should have been.  Once the fall came, Bradley took quite seriously the task of researching gardening in our area, looking at seeds, ordering seeds, and even starting to prepare the ground for another crop.

A few weeks ago he took some time off from work and spent almost all of his spare time making some beds for our garden.  We are blessed to have an easement behind our fence, which borders a large piece of property that doesn't get used.  It's our requirement to maintain the easement, so rather than just leaving it bare, we decided to make the most of it and plant our garden there.  

Bradley did a little bit of research before making these beds, but most of his design was purely from his own head!  He amazes me!

You may notice some red paint on the wood in this picture.  When you shop at Lowe's or Home Depot, be sure to look for carts of discounted wood.  A lot of the wood he used for our garden was marked down to $.50 or $1 or so.  These pieces may have some imperfections, but they are perfect for use in a garden.

A majority of our beds are framed with wood, but there are some areas that are simply marked with rocks.  A friend let us pick up a truck load of manure from his horse farm so Bradley incorporated that, and some hay, into the soil.

This is the second level of the garden.  I love walking in the garden at sunset!

Some yellow squash are already starting to do great.  Bradley started everything from seeds this year, and so my dining room table has been a greenhouse for the past month.  I think it's well worth it, though, to get this many plants from a packet of seeds that costs less than $2.  You can't beat that!

Cherry tomato plants going strong!

This trellis is for some cucumbers that Bradley is trying out.  Apparently they are climbing cukes, so it will be fun to see how they take off.

 Not only does Bradley work on the vegetable aspect of the garden, he also tries to make it fun for the girls {and convenient for me} by building bridges for us to walk across the drainage ditch.  Our neighborhood is still being developed, so we often find scrap lumber and wood pallets in various lots; we try to put them to good use.

As I said this garden is behind our fence, so it's quite a ways away from the house, and the hose.  The other day, Bradley dug a trench through the yard and up into the garden so that we could bury a hose and have a water source right in the garden.  This will make watering so much easier.

I originally wanted to make some pallet art out of these pallets, but Bradley snagged them first and made two bridges.  I rather like his invention!

 Here are some more plants that are almost ready for the transplant to the garden.

We're praying for a bountiful crop this year!  It really is satisfying to 'work the land' and see the fruit of your labors.  I'm so thankful for Bradley and all the hard work he puts into our yard.  Thanks, honey!


Linking to Centsational Girl's Garden Link Party

Framed Initials

This morning when I got up I made a list of some projects that have been hanging over my head for a LONG time.  During my sleepless nights these days {pregnancy induced insomnia} one of the things that keeps me awake is thinking about unfinished projects.  So, in hopes of eliminating some lack of shut-eye, I've been tackling my list today!  Most things really only took about 5 minutes to accomplish, so it was easy to do in between coloring and tea parties with the girls.

The first project was to finally hang something up in the girls' room.  This project is so easy and I love how it turned out!

My original inspiration came from a Ballard Designs catalog, where they had framed a large letter.  I like the size and texture of the letters you can purchase from Ballard Designs, but was not keen on spending the amount of money that they cost.

A friend had given me some frames leftover from her mom's yard sale; I purchased some samples of paint at Home Depot that were on sale for $.50; using a coupon at Joann's during their coupon madness a few weeks ago, I purchased the first letter of each of the girls'  names.

Here's how you can make your own framed initial:

1. Find a wooden frame that is large enough to hold a letter plaque.  Remove the glass and backing.

2. Stick some thumbtacks into the backside of the frame, to keep it elevated while painting.

Found this trick via Pinterest!

3.  Paint as many coats as needed on your frame to create the look you're going for.  {I didn't sand mine, but it probably would've been a good idea for more even coverage; I'm impatient}.

I loved this paint!  Martha Stewart samples are a bit larger and there is a brush attached to the top of the lid.

4. Allow the frame to dry completely.  Center it on your wall and hang the frame.

5. Attach a hook to the back of the letter {if there isn't one already} using hot glue or gorilla glue.  Hang it centered inside of the frame.

My girls now have a personalized little piece of art above their beds, and they were so excited about them!  They both know their letters and sounds, and the letters of their first names are of course their favorites, so this project makes Mommy and daughters happy :)

 Disclaimer:  I did not complete this entire project this morning.  The frames have been painted and sitting in the garage for almost a month now, so it was just a matter of hanging them up and getting the letters ready.