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Going Green Product Giveaway from House of Grace

Blogs That Have Inspired Me Today

The Magic Brush's SweetPea Table...Sooo Cute!

Every Crafty Endeavor's Side Table Redo

Thrifty Parsonage Living

This was her grandmother's chest that she redid instead of throwing out. How fab!

Pretty Handy Girl's Chair Makeover

Now, If I would spend as much time doing my own makeovers as I do looking at everyone else's, then maybe I could have some of my own redo's to feature...Yeah...I think I might just have to sleep on that. What's been your inspiration to get crafty?

Black Kitchen Cabinets - To be or not to be?

I have fallen in love with the concept of updating old outdated oak colored kitchen cabinets into a chic, sophisticated black! Black is back!

The photo above is my cousin's cabinets in her new Indiana house. Blahhhhhhh.....

Here is the after! Let me hear it...Oooohhh...Aaaahhh!

Here's another before picture I found.

And after!!!

This room is gorgeous! It actually makes me want to cook in it and host a cooking show! (LOL!)

The distressed look.

This kitchen is too dark for my taste, but I love the zebra table decor!

I don't really like the marble backsplash on this one, but the lighting under the cabinets is something I could live with!

Nice clean cut style with red accents. :)

These gorgeous black cabinets are from http://www.crown-point.com/.

Above is Gwyneth Paltrow's kitchen. Love, love, love!!!!

Another shot of the one with red accents.

More distressing.

I like the glass panels that enable you to bring in color accents to brighten the black.

So, I would love to paint my ugly, outdated, oak babies a nice black sheen, but I have a smaller kitchen and deep red walls. I think it would be too dark for my space. I prefer the black cabinets with a taupe colored wall don't you? And, I definitely am not about to repaint my walls and my cabinets. Maybe one day in the future.

Various Frames and a Wooden Plaque

I tried to undomesticate myself into a sense of domestication earlier this year by trying my hand at a few artsy fartsy projects. The first and last are my faves!

This is a $1 frame from the Dollar Tree that I painted Tiffany Box blue (one of my favorite colors) with a cream inner trim. I added a black satin ribbon and a rhinestone button.
My daughter wants to redo her room in black, white, and pink into a Paris theme. I guess an 8 year old has outgrown Disney Princesses by now! So this one was for her! You can't tell, but it has glitter all over it.
My step-daughter's room was lilac. This one was put in her room displaying her favorite Bible verse.
This is a wooden name plaque for Maycee's room in brown and pink.

Clipboard Makeover

Ok! It's that time again! Time to think about going back to school. As a teacher, I use a clipboard frequently, but I couldn't take the ugliness anymore! So, with a little help from my friends Mod Podge and Scrapbook Paper, I turned ugly into pretty! (At least I think so!) I just love black, white, and pink together! Tres chic!

One Way Ticket to Heart Attack Cupcakes

I have recently started trying the art of baking cupcakes. Yes, I do consider this an art. It takes a perfect balance of ingredients just like a painting requires a perfect balance of color/gradient/shapes/etc. However, I am so not an ARTIST (although I like to try!) One of my student's mothers baked these yummidelicious treats for the class and of course the recipe was a must have, because on that very day two cupcakes were added to my already-need-to-lose-baby-fat thighs.

So, I decided to capture one of my conquered cupcake battles to share as my first undomestic blog post. Yay me! I didn't lose a digit, catch anything on fire, or make anyone sick (although I did let my daughter lick the spoon and beaters that contained raw egg in the cake batter.)

Above is one of my favorite MUST-HAVES from Pampered Chef. It is their silicone mix-n-scraper. Heat resistant and gets every little bit out of the bowl. The cheap Wal-Mart type just don't compare!

These are my cupcakes. It is important to use the cake mix (yes, the one that comes in a box) that has the pudding in the mix. I used the confetti cake mix. As you can see, my Pampered Chef Muffin Pan broke in half...Tear tear...But, it didn't stop this gal from using it!

Here are my muffins on my cooling rack. Look how the tops rose on the ones from the stone pan, but the ones from the metal pan are flat topped like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Now, if you were wondering why I call these the Heart Attack cupcakes, it's all in the icing baby!

Recipe is: 1/2 cup Crisco, 1/2 cup butter, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 tsp. milk, 1 box powdered sugar.

Of course I used a bag of sugar and put too much. .Man was it too thick. Easy to solve-added more milk, Crisco, and vanilla! It was so scrumptious!

Here comes another one of my handy, dandy PC tools - the easy accent decorator. Man I love making my deviled eggs with this one!

Time for sugar sprinkles!!! My daughter helped along the way.

Voila! :)