Fancy Light Swith Plates

Recently, I was browsing through blogs, checking out all the neat ideas, and I came across this DIY Coasters blog on The How-To Gal’s site. She makes a neat coaster by attaching a napkin to a ceramic tile using Mod Podge, then coating it with polyurethane.

What a neat idea!!

I didn't have any tile or old coasters to work with, so I got to thinking, "Why not do this on my light switch plates???"

So I tried it. It was simple and they look fabulous!!

Livingroom light swith before:

Livingroom light swith after:

I used a red napkin since I have a lot of red accents in the room.

A close-up of the finished product:

This is just after I attached the napkin to the plate. I brushed on the Mod Podge, then carefully pressed the napkin on. It crinkled up a bit - but it just added some texture.

Kitchen light switch before:

Kitchen light swith after:

On this one, I applied another layer of Mod Podge instead of the polyurethane. I can't tell much difference, but we'll see if it holds up as well.

Now I can't wait to make some coasters!!

Elegant Strawberry Torte

This recipe has been in my family since the early 1970's. It is my absolute favorite strawberry cake. Mine doesn't exactly look elegant, but it sure did taste good!


Elegant Strawberry Torte

3 c. flour
2 c. brown sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 c. butter, softened, not melted
1 c. sour milk (add 1/2 T. vinegar to milk)
1 egg
1 t. baking soda

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease two 8" round pans. (You can also bake it in a 9" x 13" pan).

Combine first four ingredients with a pastry blender.


Mixture will be crumbly. Reserve one cup of mixture. Add remaining ingredients to mixture and mix together. (I sprinkle the baking soda over the crumble mixture, then add and mix together the remaining ingredients).

Batter will be somewhat lumpy.


Pour batter into prepared pan(s). Sprinkle reserved cup of mixture evenly over top.


Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. (Mine, shown here, were a tad over-done.)


Filling and Topping

1 lb. fresh strawberries, sliced (add more or less, however you like it)
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1/2 c. sugar

Add sugar to whipping cream and beat until thick. Add sliced strawberries and mix well. Use this mixture as both filling and/or topping of cake.

Pink & Green Wedding Shower Cake

This cake was made for the wedding shower of a friend. Her wedding colors are sage green & pink, so I tried to follow the color theme.

The bottom layer was a 10" strawberry cake with strawberry filling and the top layer was a 6" white cake with lemon filling.

I used fondant to get the smooth look I wanted. After it was set up, I added the pink daisies and ribbon.

I set it on a pedestal cake plate, topped with a silver cake boared, that I had covered with pink and green sparkle netting.

A very simple but eye-catching cake.

Cupcakes With Bright Flowers

My six-year-old granddaughter requested cupcakes for her birthday party this year. She didn't even care what they looked like, she just wanted cupcakes. This from the girl who has always had her next birthday cake picked out months in advance!

So here they are!

I swirled buttercream icing on top of white and strawberry cupcakes - not my best work, I might add.

I cut the flower parts out of tinted fondant a couple of days ahead of time and let them dry on the curved flower formers, both concave and convex. Then I stacked the pieces, gluing them together with a small amount of corn syrup. I attached them to the cupcakes with a small dob of buttercream icing.

All the little party girls loved them!

Just Paint It and Use It Again!

I love decorating with old things - things that have character and history. I like the distressed, weathered and worn look. (I also decorate with a lot of photographs of family members, which is easy to do with a photographer in the family - but that's another blog!) I also love to give things new life with spray paint. So I hardly ever get rid of anything. And if one of my kids or grandkids gave it to me, it will be with me forever. Like I said, I like to decorate with things that have a history.

I bought this candelabra at Hobby Lobby (on clearance, of course) three years ago for my daughters wedding. It was dark brown. Her wedding was light blue and silver. So . . . . I pulled out the spray paint, and it became silver.



After the wedding, I stuck it in the attic. I really didn't have a place to use it, but since it now had sentimental meaning, it was part of the family. After we moved, I had a lot more room and could do a lot more decorating.

But the silver didn't work, so I once again pulled out the spray paint. So the once brown, then silver candelabra is now black. You can't really tell from the picture, but I kind of wiped the paint so that a little of the silver would peak through.

The frames behind the candelabra were also bought at Hobby Lobby on the clearance aisle for 90% off the original price. They are beautiful wood frames. Someday I'll do something special with them. For now, they make a nice backdrop!

The scarf covering the chest top is from Vanuatu. The natives actually wear these beautiful pieces of fabric as skirts. I think they call them sarongs.

Anyway, my son is planning to live in Vanuatu after he gets married - he's going to be a school teacher in a small villiage on one of the islands. On his most recent trip there, he picked up the scarf as a gift for me and since it has sentimental value for me, I wanted to use it somewhere in my house. So here it is!

My Kind of Deal!

I picked up these neat metal wall hangings at Hobby Lobby a few months back for $4.00 each. They were clearanced because they were missing the diamond shaped tiles that were supposed to be in the diamon-shaped openings.




For that price I couldn't pass them up! I knew I could come up with something.




I was going to have amber colored glass cut into the shape and size I needed, but I happened to be at Lowe's one day and found the little rectangle pieces on clearance. They're mirror add-ons. They were kind of a putty color. I got them for something like .42 cents each, brought them home and they were a perfect fit!




So I painted them with black craft paint, then aged them with terra cotta and bronze craft paint. I then used a little of the bronze and terra cotta on the whole wall hanging to pull it all together.




Here's the finished result! I absolute love them. And no one who has looked closely at them knew they were refurbished. (The only thing I didn't do was take pictures before I started! Gotta work on that!)


Definitely my kind of deal!

Making Cookies & Memories

I babysat three of my granddaughters tonight while their mom and dad had a rare night out by themselves. We decided to make and decorate cookies.

Here are the aspiring cookie makers!

The hardest part was keeping them from eating the dough while I was rolling it out!

Here they are cutting out their cookies. My six-year-old granddaughter wanted to use the cross cookie cutter because it was "very special."

I rolled out a small amount of dough, then let them take turns cutting their cookies. After I put them on the cookie sheet, we repeated the process. After the second time, the three year old decided watching a movie would be a much better use of her time!

When she left, there was an empty chair at the bar for her twenty-month-old sister!! Here she is with some cookie dough she nabbed! But isn't she a sweetie?

Turns out, getting to decorate cookies is better than a movie any day!

The finished product.

The best part of the evening!

The icing didn't have time to set before their daddy was ready to go, so they had to eat them while it was still wet. My three year old granddaughter didn't like getting the icing on her hands, so she tried eating her cookie hands-free!!

She didn't mind getting it on her face!!

What a fun night of making cookies and memories!

Making Cookies and Memories

I babysat three of my granddaughters tonight while their mom and dad had a rare night out by themselves. We decided to make and decorate cookies.

Here are the aspiring cookie makers!

The hardest part was keeping them from eating the dough while I was rolling it out!

Here they are cutting out their cookies. My six-year-old granddaughter wanted to use the cross cookie cutter because it was "very special."

I rolled out a small amount of dough, then let them take turns cutting their cookies. After I put them on the cookie sheet, we repeated the process. After the second time, the three year old decided watching a movie would be a much better use of her time!

When she left, there was an empty chair at the bar for her twenty-month-old sister!! Here she is with some cookie dough she nabbed! But isn't she a sweetie?

Turns out, getting to decorate cookies is better than a movie any day!

The finished product.

The best part of the evening!

The icing didn't have time to set before their daddy was ready to go, so they had to eat them while it was still wet. My three year old granddaughter didn't like getting the icing on her hands, so she tried eating her cookie hands-free!!

She didn't mind getting it on her face!!

What a fun night of making cookies and memories!