Bathroom Remodel: The process

If you haven't seen my first post on our pretty bathroom makeover you can check it out here.

I wanted to share more pictures of the process this bathroom went through to get to its finished beautiful state.

It was a lonely unused bathroom that hadn't been properly finished till we moved it.

I did all the demo myself, besides the toilet my husband took that one out so we could prepare the floor to lay tile. 

We laid tile. Patched walls and ceiling. Sanded and primed everything. Put board and batten up and primed that. Ceiling was Spackle to match and painted colorplace white satin. Board and batten was painted the same colorplace white satin as the ceiling. Above the board and batten the walls were painted colorplace quaint village green. A new light fixture was installed. A new mirror was hung along with new toilet paper roll holder, and towel bar. I painted the vanity quaint village green. My husband and I built the shelves and installed them. (I will post more about how we did those soon.) 

There will be a few more post coming soon about some of the details in this bathroom and how we did  them ourselves on a budget. 

Look for those coming soon. 

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Batman Birthday cakes and cupcakes

In our family batman is pretty popular.

My husband is one of the biggest fans of batman out there and our nephew is following him.

I just wanted to share the batman birthday cake I made for my nephew and cupcakes for my husband. 

The cake was many ideas I had seen before put together in one cake. It was quite simple but very fun.

I made two 8" round chocolate cakes allowed them to cool then place on a pan covered in foil and stuck in the freezer for an hour. Freezing cakes make them really easy to frost. The frosting is a simple chocolate with a little bit of black food dye to make it look more like black without tasting like tons of food dye. The add white frosting circles in the middle to create the number 8. It was my nephews 8th birthday by the way. The buildings are chocolate wafer cookies cut at different shapes then stuck to the sides and in the middle along the white circle. Yellow frosting piped on in little dots and lines create the building effect and some yellow lines pipped on for the street. I added a few batman toys I bought for him to keep to the cake the hella-copter is on a skewer with a dot of hot glue to keep it on along with the bat symbol.

For the batman symbol cupcakes they were super simple.

I made cupcakes and yellow butter cream and frosted in a frosting bag with a round tip. For the bat symbols they are made of chocolate. I just printed of a bat symbol of the size I wanted placed it under a piece of wax paper then with melted chocolate in a frosting bag with a small hole I piped it on tracing the symbol and filling it in and allowing it to cool in the fridge. Once cool carefully peel of and place on cupcakes and ta-dah its awesome!!

Do you make birthday cakes for your family?

What are some you have done?

Tell me in the comments below! 

Also fill free to join this site by pressing join this site in the column to the right, signing up to receive these posts by email, or like my page on facebook

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

<3 Lace

Our Bathroom Remodel Reveal!

For the past three weeks my husband and I have been working on our little basement suite bathroom.

I wanted to take what we had and make it better easily and low on cost. Man we hit that goal on the head. I started looking at different blogs that have done bathrooms of the same size as ours. I love two I found and most inspiration come from 

Master Bathroom Redo @ 320 Sycamore

And I loved the board at batten from Thrifty and Chic

SO you wanna see what my bathroom looked like when we started?

Yeah it doesn't look very inviting and needed a lot of love.

But now I love it.

We added board and batten to the walls that really open up that bathroom. 

My husband built the shelves above the toilet.

This was a super fun project that made a huge difference in the spaces feel and functionality.

I will be posting more blogs on this remodle and how we did for low cost our selves. 

You can follow my blog by clicking the follow button the the right side bar or on facebook.

<3 Lace

Potato Soup with Rivels

I grew up having this soup and I love it.

My mother caught the concept on a news show cooking segment a long time ago she then adapted it for our family and taught me this recipe. I now make it for my husband and his family. 

This Potato soup is a little different then most others. It contains red potatoes, bacon, and onion, as wells as rivels.

Unlike most potato soups that are thickened by flour and butter this soup has rivels. Rivels are a egg and flour mixture that make some dumpling like pieces. 

Wanna make this super easy and yummy recipe?

Well keep reading I will take you step by step.

What you will need.

6-9 Red potatoes if you have smaller ones use more and for larger use less.

6 cups chicken broth

4 slices bacon chopped

1 cup onion chopped 

3 cups milk

1 1/2 cups flour 

2 eggs

3 drops Tabasco sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

Chop your red potatoes into small pieces.

Place in your soup pot.

Cover with chicken broth.

Allow to simmer for about 20-30 mins till soft.

While potatoes cook in a separate frying pan add chopped bacon pieces.

Cook the bacon till it starts to crisp then add chopped onion.

Cook till onion is soft and bacon is crisp. 

Let bacon and onion rest on a paper towel to drain off grease. Set aside.

In small bowl add eggs and flour and with fork mix together. Keep combining and cutting with fork till you form rivels, they will look like small rice grains. 

When potatoes are soft add the milk and rivels and cook for ten minutes on medium high heat. The rivels will thicken up the soup and rivels will be soft. 

Add bacon and onion mixture, slat, pepper, and Tabasco sauce. Cook for five more minutes on low. Then you are ready to serve.

This recipe makes six large servings.

ENjoy 

Hope you like it. If you try it let me know in the comments below! 

Love <3 Lace

Springtime Basket Wreath

Awe well happy belated happy Easter.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Sunday however you celebrate it in your family.
We had a lovely gathering with my husbands family and are nieces and nephew.
We hid Easter eggs for the kids and had too much really good food.


now down to business...

Doesn't this time of year just make you want to splash bits of color throughout your house?

I love the blooms and buds popping up all around.

And you can't forget to adorn your door with a spring inspired wreath!

This basket of spring only costed $3 to make!!

Wanna know how I made this cute yet cheep wreath?


Well if so read on and I will show you how.


First you need a few simple things as follows....
Wreath form (I used a straw one bought at the dollar store)
Yellow Crate Paper (dollar store as well. I used two rolls comes in one pack)
Wide cheap ribbon (bought for a dollar from Walmart)
Silk Leaves (had some leftover from our wedding)
And hot glue and pretty ribbon to tie a bow with if you like.

Place and hot glue your leaves on half the wreath making the handle part of the basket wreath.
I simply placed all my leaves where I wanted them then went back and glued them in place.

Next start right under where the leaves end take a piece of wide ribbon cut a length the fits across the wreath with the ends fitting behind the wreath. Hot glue in place. And repeat all the way down.

Make sure you put the ribbon on tight because this is the basket part that the flowers will attach to.


OK now onto the flower making. I must confess that I didn't get any photos of the making of the yellow pretty flowers so I took some making the same flower with brown packing paper. So this is why the following pictures will be of a brown flower.


For the flowers I cut 1' , 1' 6", and 2' strips of crate paper.

Strip of paper.

Scrunch it up in your hand.

Straighten it out again, but be careful this is still paper.

With your hands holding each end twist the paper to get a nicely twisted gathered strip like the photo.

Starting at one end fold over and place a small dot of glue to start your flower.

Wrap around the glue fold. Hold in place with your fingers and continue placing small dots of glue and wrapping around. Keep the flower flat to achieve the shape of the flowers on the wreath.

Wrap and glue until you have a tail left that is big enough to cover the backside of the flower.

Glue a circle on the tail and press on the back of the flower to cover the backside and hold in place.

Trim any excess paper that may be sticky out the edges from the back side we glued on.

Your flower should look something like this one.

The length of your strip will determine the size of your flower.

Now make a bunch more. For my wreath I used two rolls of crate paper and made the perfect amount of flowers for my wreath.

Once you have your wreath prepared and your flowers made, comes the fun part of gluing the flowers on! 

Use hot glue to glue the flowers on the ribbon. I place mine starting from the sides to the bottom placing them very close and over lapping at times. I think this achived the best look over all.

Glue them on close together. 

And your DONE!

Add a bow then hang it up and admire your hard work and few dollars spent well!

Thanks for hanging out with me.

Hope you have a super day!

Love <3 Lace

Little Ballerinas

When I was a little girl I wanted to be a ballerina, like most little girls do! My mother took me and my sisters to ballet class supporting us in this dream we all had of being ballerinas. 

I found out years later that my large feet and odd proportions were not meant for the dance floor, so I did not become a ballerina and that's fine by me. My sisters Kate and Natalie on the other hand are true ballerinas. Kate lives in Washington D.C. living the life of a ballerina. She amazes me with her talent and perseverance to reach for her dreams. Natalie continues her training in ballet along with trying new sports and activities like her new found talent in swimming. It is true that training in ballet can help you in any physical activity. It is pretty obvious that I have grown up and around the ballet world and it still is apart of my life as I continue to support my beautiful ballerina sisters. 

Kate as Clara, and Natalie as a Russian girl with the Nutcracker Prince 

We love to share are love and experience in ballet with other little girls. My cousins wife just recently had a little baby girl, we could not pass up the opportunity to make her little one her very own ballerina outfit, so with the efforts of our mother and sisters we all set off to make a very personal to us gift that held a story behind it. 

My mother crochet these very delicate soft pink baby ballerina slippers 

My sisters made this beautiful pink baby tutu names the Kate tutu.

My sisters would make tutus to raise money for their ballet school. Every ballerina that made a tutu would name it after their self, so every little girl that received one of these tutus also received a story of the ballerina that made it. Kate included hers for our cousin's baby girl.  In the card is two pictures of Kate one of her as a 3 year old little ballerina and one recent picture as the sugar plum fairy for the Washington ballet's nutcracker.

Kate as the Washington Ballet's Sugar Plum Fairy 

I appliqued these onesies by hand of ballet slippers.

And whats a cute little ballerina without some matching bows? These were also made by myself as well.

And tired with ribbons and bows.

All together these precious hand made gifts create a one of a kind baby shower gift for a little girl to be welcomed into the world with. All little girls should have the chance to dream of being a ballerina one day. 

With love <3 Lacy, Our Mommy Tamra, Kate, and Natalie!

Cherry Limeade in a Cupcake!

Ahh Spring is here and there is nothing like Cherry Limeade to ring in spring.

And nothing like a yummy cupcake either.

So how about some Cherry Limeade Cupcakes!

I made these for a family birthday party. My sister in law always makes me cherry limeade when I go to her house so when I saw this recipe for a cherry limeade cupcake I had to make them for her birthday.

Everyone loved them and thought they were super yummy.

I think they look super cute!

So are you tempted yet? Would you like to make your own cherry limeade cupcakes?
Well you can too!
Head over to Annies-Eats for the recipe.
Enjoy!!

Love <3 Lace

Bountiful Baskets and such

I grew up in CA with plentiful amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Living now in Utah I was noticing the lack of fresher and afodable produce until I heard about Bountiful Baskets a co-op that is ran by volunteers and people like me the make a contribution to buy the product. We recently started receiving bountiful baskets and LOVE everything we get. Their basic basket is made up of half fruits and vegetables and normally fills up a big laundry basket all for $16.50

They have locations for pick up in many states click here to find a location near you!

In our last basket we had kale I didn't know what to do with kale so we tried this recipe

Baked Parmesan Kale Chips from Skinny Taste 

They were so yummy I was surprised how much everyone who tried them loved them!


<3 Lace

I've been a bit MIA lately....

Sooo.....

this is not a craft post.

so if that's what you are looking for skip this one.

this isn't a post to give you a million reasons/excuses as to why I haven't blogged.

but more as to what I have learned in these about two weeks of being MIA.

it's ok to cry in public.

walks in the sun are good for the soul.

comfort food is good but a friend to talk to is much better.

I'm my worst judge/critic.

It's never as bad as it seems.

doing something I love makes my heart warm.

I miss not regularly crafting and posting!

Ok so that is my little list of things I have learned/rediscovered. 

I have been trying tweaking my blog I just wasn't loving the look and feel so maybe one day I will figure it all out as for now I am still a student in all blogging maters.

And Lastly I want to know what things you would like me to post about. If you have a recipe I should try please share it in the comments below, or if you have something you think I would love to make please share it in the comments below. 

I have a bunch of half done projects so I will get back to finishing them so I can share!! Yay! 

Love <3 Lace

My Birthday Minnie and Mickey Mouse Cupcakes!!

Yay Its my Birthday! 

I am one of those silly people who love to cook and even make there own birthday cake! Weird? I know!

I saw a picture for mickey and Minnie mouse cupcakes but for the life of me can find where it came from.

So I made up my own version and instructions.

I just made a simple white cupcake

and whipped up my fluffy white butter cream frosting.

1 cup softened butter

whipping cream

powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

With my mixer I beat the butter and start adding a little cream and a few cups of powdered sugar give it a whirl with the mixer and add vanilla and more sugar till the consistency fluffy yet not wet.

I really dont measure when making this frosting and just go by taste and texture.

When my cupcakes are cooled I piped a circle of frosting on each cupcake place one big Oreo cookie in the bottom center and two mini Oreos above the other like ears. For the Minnie ones I piped a bow on with pink with a easy sugar water and food color I mixed up. 

Super easy and super cute.

My nieces and nephews loved them so much!