AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! POTS AND PANS!

I have a lot of cooking utensils.  I love to cook and I do admit I am a bit of a gadget collector.  I don't mean the silly ones on t.v. but things like a big Kitchen Aid mixer, different sized Cuisinart choppers, Mandolines, roasters of different sizes, lots of different baking tins, every size you can imagine of frying pans and pots.

I have so many that my husband built a big cupboard in the mudroom beside the washer and dryer.  That was fine until the washer broke and we had to remove the cupboard to get the old set out.  Everything was piled on the kitchen floor and counters.  The other problem is the dogs sleep in the mudroom too on three giant beds so whenever I needed a pan I had to climb over these beds.  Something has to change!

I have had my pots and pans in the cupboards but frankly they never stay like this and I have too many  and not enough  cupboards.

 My husband suggested putting them on the shelves or a pot rack.  I really don't like all of that stuff on display in my kitchen and they are not all the type of things that would fit properly on a shelf.  As for the pot rack I am always afraid they would fall and don't your pots have to be quite shiny to look great on a pot rack.

Now this is my dream!  I wish when we had built our kitchen I had done a walk in pantry but I thought the big sized cupboards were enough.  I did not plan on having so many  cooking things.  I highly recommend anyone who is designing a home,whether large or small, put in a walk in pantry and make a small room for keep all of you seasonal items, like Christmas and Halloween decorations, off season clothing and the such.  This should be in every designers work book, that little everything room.

I finally came up with a solution to my dilemma.  We have a lot of old furniture we have not used from my grandmother's estate.  As you know she was and Antique's Dealer so she had a lot of unfinished stock.  There is a table I love that I would never have the room to use as a table.  It is an old fashioned farm table with a lovely rustic Maple top, it is around 3 and a half feet long by 2 feet wide.  It has a deep skirt and straight legs.  It is just the right size to make into a cupboard with up and down slats of different widths to fit my odd shaped kitchen cooking things.  We are going to put it on wheels so I can move it and get to the cupboard in the corner that is always hard to open.  I have an gorgeous old dough box there right now with my coffee maker on one side in a tray and all of my oils on the other in another tray.  I store some dishes inside of it but I really need to have a proper pot and pan storage cupboard so the dough box will have to find a new home somewhere else in the house.

I cannot wait to get this new project going.  First we have to build two armoise and a toy box for our litte Princesses new bedroom then I will get my Pantry on Wheels.  I will keep you posted.

 Just one last thing.  I saw this on Pinterest and it made me giggle.  We've come a long way baby!

ALL YOU NEED IS....HUG!!!

It's the universal connection of man (woman) and beast.   The hug.

We hug to greet.

We hug to comfort.

We hug to love.

So today, reach out and hug someone.  A pet, a friend, a love or just someone who looks like they could use a hug.  My arms are open, come on in!

MY HIPPIE HOUSE, A DOPPELGANGER AND HALLOWEEN!!!!!

Ta Da!  It is finally finished, well there is still some touching up to do but after a long haul, since May, I am very happy with my Hippie House Gazebo.

There is my Raven Bell, and you can see the nice ceilings, I love the beams.  I hung a cool iron Peace Sign on the back window and I want to put a little stained glass window above it.  Sitting in here looking out at the farm is so calming and lovely.  I am very, very satisfied with the results.  Using the old windows frames really added something unique and very hippie like to the gazebo and we used up a lot of old windows too.   I highly recommend building a creation of your own if you can, this takes me back to the simpler times of my life.

Okay, you all know my darling Daisy, well you might think this is her but no.  This gorgeous guy was at the pound on the "out" list when Brenda got the call and rescued him.  He looks just like Daisy.  He is under a year old and already 110lbs.  He is an Akbash, a Turkish herding dog and actually quite rare here, he was a stray, never ceases to amaze me what poor dogs are at the pound.    I call him Oden and we really wanted to keep him.  With 3 big dogs already when do you consider it hoarding?  Anyway a nice guy with a farm who has been waiting for the right dog is coming to meet Oden tonight, fingers crossed it's a match or Daisy may get a twin.

Here are the latest Antique Repurposed drawer Halloween/Christmas signs for my Etsy shop WICKED FAERIE QUEEN.  I am keeping the first one I just love the way the "Spooky" and "Peace on Earth" turned out.  I don't usually keep my work but I love the patina of the wood on this one.  I love the other one too but it will be up for sale some time today.

Last today I bought this fab Alexander McQueen knock off bag on Ebay.  I just love it and it is close enough for me.  The $19.00 price tag is much more enticing than the $2,000.00 price tag of an origninal.

Hope you all have a fabulously lovely weekend with great weather and lots of love.

LET'S PLAY CATCH UP!!!

This summer seems to be flying by.  I said to my husband yesterday that it would be nice to have one week this summer where we did not have to leave the house and could just enjoy to furry babies and the weather.

After the big storm the gardens took a beating and did not really recover.  The herb garden looks nice and full this year and the pots on the back porch are okay although they are half the size as last year.

Once again I grew my heirloom tomatoes from seed, Black Krim.  If you remember last summer they were overflowing with luscious black and yellow tomatoes.  Well, I have lots but they are not ripening and are still really hard.  Any advice?

My husband finally got the roof on the gazebo, I call it my Hippie House, finished so I got to paint it this week.  I love the colour but decided to paint the inside ceiling lighter because at night it is really dark.  It is finished and I will show you the completed project tomorrow.  I am looking for a small stain glass window for the back above the old window, have not found one yet.  This great Raven bell has been hanging on the studio but it will now have a home right above the door of my Hippie House.

Alice and the Cheshire cat amazingly made it through the tornado unscathed.  They keep watch over the garden.  Atticus is always right by us, a great big lap dog.  He and Rufus play all the time and he follows Daisy around like she is his mother.  She escapes under the studio for a break.

I hung this on the front of our house and I am trying to stick by it. 

Hope you are all enjoying the end of summer where you are and that the weather is lovely and the days are long and fulfilling.