When you really want to use that plaid flannel you bought last year... (new DIY tunic top!)

10.26.2015

When you really want to use that plaid flannel you bought last year... (new DIY tunic top!)

So many DIY projects are born from a need. In this case, it was the need to make something flannel, and the need to use up the fabric I bought last year...

Okay, they weren't really urgent needs. But I was frustrated. I bought this pretty, soft flannel check last winter and never made anything out of it. I loved the pattern, but cotton flannel DIYs aren't exactly easy to fit into a wardrobe. The fabric weight isn't right for dresses, and no way am I making myself a flannel button-up from scratch (and this fabric is too heavy, anyway). It's really best for potholders or something. You can barely even do decor projects with it! But it's so pretty, and comes in so many patterns and colors!

So, I decided to make it work for apparel. I looked around at non-button-up tops that could be made of cotton flannel. Mostly simple, tunic shapes, some loose peplums...

Here are my inspirations: (Yes, some of these are sweaters, and some aren't flannel, but they all could be!)

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

My version was most similar to the Anthropologie red/white plaid pocket top in style, but the red/grey checkered pattern has a funky woodsy look like some of the others! More cabin-ey than a preppy plaid.

I used Simplicity 2584, which I have used A LOT in the past couple years. It's a super simple shift dress pattern if you strip down the optional yokes, sleeves, and waistband. See how versatile it is??! I cut it short (to the View C/D length) for this one and used the short sleeves but tapered them in a little. I widened the neckline for more of a boat neck.

*And yes, I did match the pattern on the side seams! Why, thank you!*

Of course it goes great with denim! It would also be perfect with a lightweight vest.

Jacket: Old Navy (similar). Tote bag: Target (similar/similar). Necklace: ?? Boots: Target. Top: DIY!

Also, it's finally getting to the right weather for my new leather riding boots. Just barely.

Bonus of the flannel? It's suuuper soft and cozy! Even after pre-washing the fabric, it's soft and smooth. I want to wear thick flannel all the time now!

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9 tips & inspirations for a clean & functional kitchen

10.22.2015

9 tips & inspirations for a clean & functional kitchen

 As I shared earlier this month... we've been on a bit of a roller coaster ride with selling our house and buying another, and I've put a LOT of thought into homes since this summer! We toured tons of homes and looked at even more online, and I've thought a lot about what's important in a house. There are a lot of factors we have on our list for our next home, whenever we find it, but one thing that's really important and a big selling point is the kitchen.

The lastest in our house-buying saga is, we want to buy a small, "cosmetic fixer" that we can put some work into and increase the value on. We have an offer accepted (by the seller) on a short sale and there's a tiny chance we may go through with it if the bank accepts the offer as well, whenever that is... so sometimes, when my mind wanders, I redecorate that house in my mind.

The kitchen in particular. It's dark, closed off, and outdated. I could do a LOT with some new paint, tile, sink, appliances... I even have a spreadsheet going of all the updates we'd want to do and how much it may cost. I recently got an offer from Sears Home Appliances and Services for this and future sponsored posts about their affordable appliances and great service. (They have competitive pricing, sell great brands, and take care of repair, parts, and warranties. They are actually the leading retailer of home appliances in the US (installing 4.5 million appliances each year) and are #1 in home services, parts, and protection agreements.)

So I've been thinking about new appliances and kitchen updates for our potential new home, and have figured out some tips from our current kitchen and the many we've looked at! Follow along with me on these kitchen design tips with some of my fave inspirations from my dream kitchens pinboard.

9 Tips for a Clean & Functional Kitchen Design

We've learned a lot from living in our new, relatively basic kitchen (we got to pick out the finishes in our townhome). So here are the top 9 things I want to differently on our next home!

1. Minimal elements above the stove. Grease splatter is a major pet peeve of mine. Now, every time I look at a stove in its place in a kitchen, I think about having to wash everything around it. Our microwave and a cabinet are above our stove and it seems like they are never clean (although I clean them!). A smooth backsplash up the wall behind the stove (to the hood) would be pretty and easier to clean!

Source

2. A smooth cooking surface. I know gas is great for cooking, and we chose it for our current kitchen, but again... the grease splatter kills me! I've cooked on smooth glass elements before and they work great and are SO easy to clean up!!

Source

3. A countertop I can see crumbs on. Our granite has so much variation and pattern, it's really hard to see when it's clean and when there's salt or water or whatever on it. I know some people might like this... but I hate not knowing when it's really clean! I'd love a more uniformly colored countertop.

4. Dark grout instead of white? Perfect! Conversely, there are some things you'll just never be able to keep perfectly clean. The white grout we have on our subway tile backsplash looks nice, but some areas (near the sink, near the blender where we blend coffee...) are no longer pure white despite cleaning. But dark grout is a beautiful option, too! I'm seriously considering white tile with dark grey grout in our next place!

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5. French door refrigerator. I imagine there are as many fridge preferences as there are styles, but we've lived in places with all different kinds and I really love the French door, freezer-on-the-bottom, no ice maker model we have now. It's so nice to have the full width of the fridge (unlike in a side-by-side model) but small, easy to open doors that let out less cold air than a big hinged one. One change I might make next time we buy a fridge... I might spring for the water filer/ice maker inside the fridge door! (Like this one.) I don't love the ones on the outsides since they're hard to clean.

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6. Splurging on the dishwasher might be worth it. We do rinse our dishes!, but even on the heavy setting things sometimes come out less than spotless. If we buy a new one for the new place, I definitely won't buy the cheapest option!

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7. One wide sink would be much easier to keep clean than a split one. The two sides are so small, I have to tip things in weird angles and sometimes splash water outside it. Also, I chose not to do an undermount sink when we got this kitchen because you can't replace it if you need to when it's trapped under the countertop, but... the odds of that are slim so I might choose an undermount next time--so much easier to wipe messes into the sink without the lip and edges!

Source

8. Small compost bin. We once bought a special compost container, taller, matching lid... but it was so big that by the time it got full, it smelled awful. A small, open bowl that you take out to the compost pile or can every day (Portland has curbside composting now for residential customers) prevents smells!

9. Lighting is SO important. One overhead light just doesn't cut it for most kitchens. I'd love to replace a fluorescent or boob light with DIY recessed can lights (we watched a YouTube video on it so now we're experts, right?) but under-cabinet lighting is also so helpful. My parents have a strip light under a food prep counter in a darker side of their kitchen and it makes all the difference. It's not that expensive to add to an existing kitchen but will make a big difference.

Source

Please click over to Sears Home Appliances and Services to check out their great prices and styles!

Thanks to Sears Home Appliances and Services for sponsoring this post!

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Double layer pumpkin brownie bars - grain-free, gluten-free, Paleo-friendly

10.20.2015

Double layer pumpkin brownie bars - grain-free, gluten-free, Paleo-friendly

It's fall and I'm in the mood for baking!

Anything layered is fancier than something not layered, right??! I don't often bother with more than 2-part recipes because you have to dirty more than twice the equipment and read more than twice the recipes when you could just use a simple dessert recipe, like... regular brownies. But, my desire for something festive and pumpkin overrode my desire for fewer dishes and I came up with this recipe!

(Last fall I did a round-up of great real food pumpkin recipes. This year I wanted to make my own!)

The brownie layer is very similar to my chunky, fudgy, dark chocolate Paleo brownies with a few minor tweaks. Grain-free baking is quite an art and I'm no master, but I do have brownies figured out in a way I like!!

Adding the pumpkin mixed things up a bit but the method is surprisingly similar to the brownie method. Check it out!

Paleo double layer pumpkin brownie bars

Brownie Layer Ingredients: 

• 1/3 c. unsalted butter or coconut oil, room temperature
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1/2 c. natural sweetener of choice (I used coconut palm sugar)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 tbsp almond butter or nut butter of choice (like my homemade cashew/sunflower butter!)
• 1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 c. coconut flour

Pumpkin Layer Ingredients: 

• 1/4 c. unsalted butter or coconut oil, room temperature
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1/2 c. canned pumpkin
• 1/2 c. natural sweetener of choice (I used coconut palm sugar)
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp almond butter or nut butter of choice
• 1/8 c. (2 tbsp) coconut flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/8 tsp sea salt

Topping:

• 1-1.5 oz. dark chocolate, chopped/broken into tiny pieces

Instructions:

1. Ideally, get eggs and butter (or coconut oil) out several hours before making this recipe. Cold fat doesn't blend well!
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8"x8" or 9"x5" pan with coconut oil. 
3. For the brownie layer: In the bowl of an electric mixer or in a mixing bowl with hand mixer, combine ingredients through almond butter; mix on medium speed until well combined. Mix dry ingredients separately, then combine with wet mixture. Spread into prepared pan.
1. (TIP: If your brownie layer is sticking to the spatula and won't flatten, put in the preheated oven for about 2 minutes to soften. Then flatten with your fingers or a spatula over a layer of plastic wrap.)
4. For the pumpkin layer: In the bowl of an electric mixer or in a mixing bowl with hand mixer, combine ingredients through almond butter; mix on medium speed until well combined. Mix dry ingredients separately, then combine with wet mixture. Spread into prepared pan on top of brownie layer.
5. Sprinkle dark chocolate chunks on top of pumpkin layer. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a fork in the center comes out clean.

Let cool a little before cutting (mine made 8 pieces). They're pretty dense so even a small piece is a good-sized dessert! Would be delicious with vanilla ice cream or vanilla coconut milk ice cream.

Extra bonus: while these bake your house will smell like pumpkin pie AND chocolate!! Mmm.....

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When you need a new graphic tee... remember how easy it is to DIY?? Silhouette lettering tee

10.15.2015

When you need a new graphic tee... remember how easy it is to DIY?? Silhouette lettering tee

I got the graphic tee bug over the weekend and was inspired to make a new one! I've done tee lettering projects before, but not in a while and not with my Silhouette machine, which makes it SO easy to create designs and text in the size and style you want. (See all my Silhouette projects here.)

So, I pulled out my Silhouette Cameo machine and a newer plain black tee, and made a tee with the sentiments I had in mind at the time!

HELLO, WEEKEND!!

I keep the machine in an empty file cabinet drawer, but it's easy to pull out and plug in for projects.

I played with the fonts and size in the Silhouette Studio program that comes with the machine on CD... there are LOTS of fonts to choose from, and designs and shapes... I've barely begun to test the limits of what you can do! I love working with the vinyl package since the vinyl lettering is so perfect for ironing onto fabric and SO easy to use. The negative space around the letters peels off but the vinyl stays in place so you don't have to place the insides/multi-part letters. (See my most detailed tutorial about Silhouette vinyl lettering here.)

I highly recommend the Silhouette Cameo machine (and specifically the vinyl starter bundle) if you want to make super easy one-of-a-kind designs with iron-on vinyl or any of the other ooooodles of materials you can use with it!

Hoping to try something new (like the Fabric Ink Starter Kit I have but haven't used yet) soon! Any suggestions for projects to branch out with??

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Butternut squash chips recipe!

10.13.2015

Butternut squash chips recipe!

This was a crazy experiment! I saw the idea for DIY dehydrated butternut squash chips somewhere in passing (a store recipe card? a magazine in a waiting room? I don't remember) and was kind of surprised that simply dehydrating a raw butternut squash could make it tasty and crunchy... so I had to try it.

Especially because I've recently discovered those crunchy veggie chips they sell in bulk at specialty grocery stores... usually taro, green beans, carrots, squash, and beets, salted and fried or baked in some kind of mystery oil. I'd much rather make my own if I can!

Homemade Butternut Squash Chips

Ingredients:

• 1/2 butternut squash
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• Generous sprinkles sea salt

You will also need a dehydrator--or try it in the oven, I'm not sure how it would work! The ultimate in dehydrators is this one, but we have this one and it works great (and is lighter weight and easier to store).

Instructions:

1. Chop squash in half and scoop out the seeds.
2. Slice squash very thin. Like, as thin as you can. I tried cutting mine on a mandoline, but the squash was too tough and it didn't work. Just do it slowly and carefully with a very good, large knife.
3. Toss in a bowl with olive oil and sea salt (toss, salt; toss, salt, etc.).
4. Spread on a dehydrator and turn on high. Ours goes up to 158 degrees. Dehydrate for 24-36 hours, checking occasionally toward the end.

Store in an airtight container (I've been storing mine in the fridge).

So, did this crazy experiment work?? Well, sort of... the chips I cut the thinnest were delicious!! The thicker ones were super hard and crunchy while also being chewy (and hard to chew). Not great.

A really tasty, fun snack-ey use for butternut squash, so plentiful this time of year. I wonder what dips they'd be good with??!

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Seize this early fall weekend! 3 crafty & creative ideas

10.09.2015

Seize this early fall weekend! 3 crafty & creative ideas

It's not cold, rainy fall yet. Another weekend of mild weather is probably coming your way like it is mine! I'm planning to take advantage of it with a few early fall ideas!

I'm not one for putting up a bunch of seasonal decorations around our home, actually... I find other ways to celebrate the change in weather and foods, like picking apples last weekend (we might go again this weekend, it was so fun and they're so good), putting pumpkin pie spice in my blended coffee, and squeezing in another hike while it's still nice enough!

3 early fall crafty ideas

Here are a few ideas if you're feeling like getting creative to express your excitement for fall!

1. Pick your plaids.

I don't know about you... I'm not sure yet what I want to make, but plaid is not going anywhere this season and I want to go to the fabric store and find another one I love!! Here's one I used last year for this DIY blanket scarf.

2. Go to the farmers' market and buy some unfamiliar vegetables. 

This is the season for pumpkin everything, but I've been really into butternut squash (it goes in everything) and thinking of new uses for beets. Getting creative with foods is SO fun for me. Know what I mean?

A farmers' market is like a challenge course.

3. Make this cozy yarn fringe pillow.

JoAnn has this new "Buttercream Collection" with several lines of fabrics, trims, yarns, stencils, and more... this project is from the Elizabeth Collection but check out all of them. SO many pretty new things! The lookbooks don't even begin to cover it. This pillow tutorial is super simple (but so creative!) and on Kollabora.

What'd I miss?? What are you doing this weekend?!

Thanks to Kollabora for sponsoring this post!

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Apple picking and backyard boots

10.06.2015

Apple picking and backyard boots

I reeeeally wanted to pick apples this year. Turns out I almost missed my window, and it was pretty hard to find a place that still had them available for u-pick!

But, I did. I think I went to Duyck's Peachy Pig Farm on an elementary school field trip, so I didn't remember it at all, but turns out it's an old, hilly, bountiful farm-ey wonderland with $1/lb apples and everbearing strawberries. Seriously, 60 years of farm equipment and children's play structures mixed between the rows of crops. It was pretty awesome.

I don't even like green apples normally, but these were amazing.

And the boots. Unfortunately it's a sort of sad story about the boots. Husband and I each got a pair of these matching totally utilitarian black rubber boots a month or so ago, when we had just had our offer accepted on the big split-level house with the big yard and pretty view. We were planning our chicken flock and garden beds already. We'd been holding off on making bigger purchases for the new place, but we saw the boots and figured they'd be great and were so excited... we figured we'd need them in our new yard for yard work!!

But, no yard yet. They've been sitting in the garage of our yard-less townhouse and we don't need them. They just stare at me reminding me that we don't have a house yet. (Read the saga here.) But, I decided, I can still wear them to the muddy Christmas tree farm, and to a pumpkin patch, and now - not because I needed to since it hasn't rained in a while, but because I can - to pick apples.

It was about 80 degrees. Oh, Oregon October 2015.

Super old scale. Pretty cool.

I love being out in the country. Looking forward to pumpkin patch-ing later this year and hoping to find more opportunities to be out on beautiful Oregon farms! I highly recommend you try one in your area--maybe you can still catch apple season!

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House hunting and house selling, and here's where we are

10.02.2015

House hunting and house selling, and here's where we are

It's hard to write this, since I usually try to stay pretty positive on this blog! But, for those of you who're interested in homes and buying and selling, here's our story.

We’ve spend the past few months planning on selling our townhouse and moving into a fixer-upper—either a small ranch-type house or a split level with a basement we could rent out to my brother-in-law or someone else. (You can read more about our plans here.) It’s been an ambitious but feasible plan. Once we kicked things off and listed our home in August, though, it has not been smooth sailing. 

By the way, our goals were threefold: 1, have a yard for chickens, bees, and a dog. 2, be closer to our families... although we're not too far now. 3, save money either through a cheap house with a huge down payment from our profit selling this place, or through a home with a rental unit potential in the basement.

But, our plans didn't work out the way we were imagining. We've been stressed about it, and recently, I've been kind of depressed, so not sharing a lot about what's been going on. But now we've reached the end (for now) and I'm happy to share our story!

Our house-selling/buying story!

1. We started looking for a new place late last spring. We met with our realtor (Claudia Pobanz, highly recommend her) and talked about what we wanted. I set up search alerts and checked my Redfin app constantly. It was so exciting to think about having a new place! Hopefully one we could make our own with fresh paint, new flooring, and updated lighting. We really wanted a yard, too.

But we weren't ready to list our home yet. We had a lot going on with busy summer things and husband's school. I was anxious to get going, thinking the perfect house could come up at any moment and we'd better sell ours do we were in a position to buy!, but we realized we had to wait till early August when husband's school term was over.

2. We found a home we loved. We well cared-for but not cosmetically updated split level, a one-owner home with tilled backyard for gardening and corner lot. We got the offer papers ready, but first had to have an accepted offer on our home. We waited a few days, till a Thursday, to list. We budgeted, assuming a good sales price for our home and slight discount from the listing price of the split level (it has been on the market quite a while with no offers). We picked out flooring and I made a spreadsheet of expenses for updating it and getting the basement ready to rent.

3. We listed our house. People toured it. We got a full price offer after two days in the market and accepted it.

4. We made an offer on the split level we wanted. But after all those months of it sitting with no offers, someone else made an offer days before ours--and theirs wasn't contingent on the sale of a home. The sellers chose the other offer.

5. We were very sad. We knew we were closing on our place in a month or so, so we had to find somewhere to live! None of the smaller ranch houses appealed after the cared for, big split level we'd loved.

6. We found another split level. This one had beautiful hillside views and a larger lot, but had not been kept up or updated, and had a partially finished basement. And was overpriced. But had a spacious living room and great master suite, and we could imagine living there for a long time and making some updates immediately, some over time. We made a low offer on it, negotiated with the sellers a little, and had our offer accepted.

We scheduled all the inspections (home inspection, radon test, and sewer scope). We picked out flooring again and I updated my spreadsheet. Shopping online for home improvement stuff was my new hobby. I looked into contractor pricing options and other discounts we could get. I thought through the timing of the 10 days we'd have for immediate upgrades after closing and before we had to be out of our place. It was a crazy plan, but doable.

7. Inspection day. I was so excited to get to the home again and measure windows and doors, take photos of lighting locations, and get more info to inform my spreadsheet.

But first... We found out the the buyers on our home couldn't get the loan. Something to do with their immigration status. Bank couldn't tell us more but apparently they tried everything and hadn't expected this issue, hence their preapproval. Now no buyer on our home and still a closing date on the fixer split level pending.

Then the inspection. I headed over after work to overlap with the inspector the last hour and measure. My parents came out and I showed them around. They were supportive and helpful with improvement ideas.

When he was done, the inspector talked me through the photos and findings. Lots of little issues here and there. Electrical, water heater, siding damage, water in the crawlspace, flashing issues, deck connections, and... the roof. Totally shot. Apparently these are typical issues for older homes and the inspector wasn't worried, but we were.

We had budgeted for improvements, but not all of those.

8. We negotiated with the sellers. The bank won't lend with a dead roof, so they potentially planned to replace it before closing. We got bids on siding repair and drainage in the crawlspace. We asked the sellers for a credit for all or part of it, or to repair. They declined. Then they got a certification from a roofing contractor that the roof might be good for another 3-5 years (what the bank requires).

We couldn't do it. With no guarantee on the sales price on our house, and unreasonable sellers and no certainty on what the bank would require after the appraisal that the sellers still wouldn't agree to, we terminated our offer. We got our earnest money back, but of course were out the money for the inspections, and kept getting calls from our lender and insurance company until we explained.

9. Simultaneously...we put our house back on the market. We cleaned up again and got back into the routine of leaving it pristine when we left for work in case someone wanted to see it during the day. We were exhausted and discouraged.

We started looking at smaller homes, 1-story, in better condition but cheaper. We lowered our bar in terms of lot size, and found more homes but some of them very similar to our townhome but with tiny patches of dirt in the back. They were all father away from our jobs, and nothing too exciting to work with. There were a few nice ranch houses in our price range, but they tended to go pending in about two days before we'd had a chance to look at them.

10. We got another offer on our home. Good terms, solid buyer. Only financing $50,000 of it! Reasonable closing date and two weeks free rent after. All sounded great.

But...it didn't feel good. We'd been at this house thing for so long and considered so many housing options, and not all of them were that much better than where we currently are. We might have ended up with a lower mortgage payment, but a smaller, less nice, father away place AND we'd have to pay the bank and realtors and do all the moving stuff.

Plus, a lot of the people who looked at our home were looking for investment purposes. Renting it out. That's something we'd considered before, because rents in our area are much higher than our mortgage, but then we decided we were being too ambitious and should take advantage of the current market and set ourselves up with a great down payment plus money to spend on improvements by selling now.

But now we don't really want to move like we originally did. Our house is great. If we can wait another year or so, maybe we can save up for a 5% down payment on a new place and keep this one as a rental. I checked again, and rents for our kind of place are very high. I'm confident we could rent it out to a nice family sometime.

11. We turned down the offer. They offered us more money...we said no to that, too. We took our home off the market. With our apologies to our patient realtor.

The end!

After having our stress levels up for so long, it feels like a huge relief to postpone moving and making big decisions, but it also feels like the more responsible thing to do long-term. It's one of those situations where we can't know what might have happened... if we'd listed our home a week sooner and been the only offer on the nicely kept up split level, we could be moving next week! Would that be better? It was what we wanted... we'll never know. All we can do is make the best out of what did happen.

This process has been so long and trying, I think there should be a word for it. "Housetressed," maybe. Or, because I'm sure it's hard to do this with apartments, "Homestressed." I'm tired of being housetressed! Ready to move on!!

So, I've decided to make the most of the wonderful home we have. I'm already feeling better. (Stay tuned for my list of ways to love your home without moving!) Feeling grateful for our supportive families and our comfortable townhome, with no yard but a great location and potential for future income. We're in a great place in a lot of ways and I appreciate that. It's hard not to look at what happened as failure, but I think there are ways to see it as dodging a bullet and making better decisions rather than being lured by the appeal of something new and exciting.

That's the end of the saga for now. As my dad said in a very kind email back to us when I shared the news, "...take some time to relax, enjoy each other's company and prepare yourselves to glide easily into winter and a new year." Will do. Onward!

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