Recycled Curtains

When I first moved into our house, the hubby had generic Target curtains that he hung from a pressure rod and looked like something you would see in a college man's bachelor pad.

After looking at these for the last year, I finally got sick of them and decided that we needed grown up curtains!

So I broke out the sewing machine, tore down the ugly curtains, and cut them up!

We had four different kinds of curtains in the house: blue, green, brown, and brown striped. So I used the blue for a base and took a piece from the striped to put as a strip across the bottom. That curtain also had a ribbon going down it (for tying it up) so I cut that off and used sewed it over the seam.

Much better! I am very happy with the way they turned out! It looks like a girl lives here!

The next problem came that I didn't have enough blue fabric to make the same curtains for the adjoined dining room. But I had plenty of brown fabric so I made a reverse curtain with a brown base, blue stripe, and I took some left overs from the striped curtain to make a ribbon. This way the curtains still complement each other.

The lines are a little crooked but overall I like how it turned out.
Here is a picture of the two sets of curtains together.

The best part is that it was 100% recycled materials!
I still have a little fabric left over so I plan to make a skirt for the TV!

Veggie of the Month = Sweet Potato

Every month at hubby's school, they ask the teachers to present a different vegetable to the students. This month was the sweet potato. So hubby made plans to make mashed sweet potato, sweet potato fries, and he asked me to make a sweet potato pie.

Some research turned up a nice recipe on the internet and I began baking.

It took a couple hours to make this pie because the sweet potatoes had to boil for 40 minutes before I could start making them into filling. The filling and crust were very similar to pumpkin pie.

The color turned out beautiful and judging by how fast the pie was eaten the taste was even better. I thought it tasted a bit like pumpkin pie only softer and more mild.

Whole Roasted Chicken

I told my hubby during X-mas that I was nervous about cooking a Turkey because I had no experience and only had a vague idea what to do. So a couple days ago he comes home toting a whole chicken!

He had decided that the best way to practice for next Thanksgiving was to start small... So we had chicken for dinner.

I didn't look for instructions other than temperature but remembered some of what I had heard on Food Network during the Holiday Season. So I put a little butter under the skin, put aromatics (onions, carrots, celery) inside the bird, and covered the top with lemon rub, salt, and pepper.

I love the color it turned! It was moist and tasted soooo wonderful. I will definitely be trying this again.

Lesson: Never be afraid to try to make something.

Sweet Cherry Pie

After making pies with my mom for X-mas and Thanksgiving, I am ready to try my hand at making pies on my own! Mom gave me her pie crust receipt and after searching through some cookbooks, I settled on a cherry pie.

This is an odd hobby for me to pick up because I don't really like pie... but I have found that I like making them, and even more, I like watching people eat my creations.

The crust is the hardest part to make. I threw out my first attempt because it would just not do what I wanted it to do, but the second attempt went much better. Well enough that I was ambitious and tried out the lattice work on the top crust (I would not recommend that, it was hard! I think I will wait until I have much more experience before I try it again).

Overall, I think it was a very good first attempt and everyone seemed to enjoy.