My friend and I went to Clevelands famous Annual American Designer Runway and Black Tie Gala Event for Fashion Week… talk about an fun experience.
First it started with live music, refreshments, and a trunk show…
which only built up to the Runway Show. Loved it.
I came upon a great idea and I wanted to share it with you! Seasonal Recipe Binders, separated into two seasons for now, Fall/Winter and Spring/Summer. Then, I want to research what fruits and vegetables are in season and make a laminated chart to put at the front, before the tabs as a reference. This will keep my recipes exciting, fresh, and true to season. Instead of arranging them in the traditional way, by type of food, they will be divided into tabs according to preparation time and method for example “grilling.” These are the factors that determine if I choose to make a meal or not, thus streamlining the whole picking a meal process. I try to plan it out for the month which helps but still I find myself having to be creative at the last second for a meal, which is not all that easy. This system will simply those last minute moments or busier days. More to come on this!
Here are the different Spring/Summer categories I am doing.
Less than 30 min.
Almost No Prep (15 min or less)
Start early/Slow Cooker Meals
Fancier Meals (Over 30 min.)
Salads
Grilled
Sides
Special Occasion/Treats
Then the trick is to make the binder cute and personalized. Use an extra wide binder and extra wide tabs to cover the sheet covers that you print your recipes off from the internet. There are tons of sites online that have great recipes and great photos. I like to use a colored printer and make sure the recipe has an appetizing picture. Sometimes it is the picture makes or breaks the meal for me. If it is a gross picture and makes me gag, I am sorry the meal doesn’t persuade me as strongly to try it out.
I hope these are some helpful tips that will get you started on your own Seasonal Recipe Binders. Eatingwell.com is a great recipe site and often has recipes for the current season.
Okay, so my friend who comes every week for piano lessons said I change my house up more than anyone she has ever met. Each week she comes and something is different. I took that as a compliment. I guess I like to keep life exciting with new adventures and fun around every corner. With the house, it is more because I have been experimenting with the best layout to have it show well now that it is on the market. Here is the latest layout and hopefully this will stay so I can move on to do other things!
I love the material and design on the shirt but was not flattering on my frame. So time for a 15 minute rehab!
First, I turned it inside out and laid it flat.
Then, I laid a shirt that I like the fit of over the top and pinned along the seam line.
The last step was to sew along the seam lines and then reinforce it with a zigzag stitch.
Now it is one of my new favorite shirts and a tribute to the much loved TV series Downton Abbey! Much of clothing fashion is influenced in the past decade by movies according to Fashionista Nina Garcia, author of the Little Black Book of Style. So, I guess this is my attempt to put a little Downton Abbey elegance and poise into my own life. 
I found this dress for cheap at a local thrift store knowing that with a few easy tweeks it would soon be great. The fun spring pattern and colors caught my eye but it was a too big and had no shape to it. I slimmed it down by turning it inside out and sewing the outside seams in and straight down to take out to a-line cut. Tip: When buying from a thrift store make sure the piece is in absolutely mint condition/worn once or your look can quickly go from looking original and crisp to worn out and ragged. You have to develop your eye and know quality when you see it. It is also all about the “blink” effect. Trust your instant reaction to it. That being said, you can find some awesome pieces, don’t be afraid. Try it! It can be a fun little adventure!
Before: It looks much cuter in the picture than it did in real life.
After the Reshaping: 
After the Accessories: 
Man, I realize I am so dorky sometimes and that is not a good thing. I guess I will post this anyway just for fun even though it confirms my dorkiness. I got these shoes for a great deal but I just felt the toe of the shoe looked a little too long. So to remedy this, I used part of this necklace. It was just a little too gaudy with one too many gold flowers. I took off two of them, sewed them to the shoes, and moved the final one over so that all the flowers would be lined up side by side on the necklace. I added the gray ribbed ribbon across the top of the shoe to emphasize the width of the toe and since I felt it look too long and pointy before. Now both items are just to my liking! Yeah!
I am back in the game. I want to start blogging more on this site. I have been a little confused as to what direction I should take with it now that I am moving and may not need to be as thrifty as I have in the past with Jason moving up in Residency. I have learned a lot from my scrimping, learning to do things myself, and re-purposing tactics but it probably won’t be as necessary as we move further on in the career. Plus, we are hoping to rent a place so I won’t be doing any major house fix-ups. This is a choice I’ve made because I want to spend my free time on different goals that I have previously set aside for a while. Now that I feel like one of my dreams of fixing up a house is completed, at least for now (warning: I may want to do this again in a couple of years with our family home… maybe an old Victorian mansion?), I am ready for some different challenges. I have some things brewing in my mind…
Until then, let’s just say I’ve been organizing the heck out of my house. I told my mom that if she thought I was bad before, now I have gone off the deep end. Just kidding, I am sure there are others that can claim to be much more queen bee at it than I. It has simply been a way to figure out what I have and what I am willing to part with. It has also been interesting to see what things I like to hold on to and what isn’t as important to me. It has made me sort through that stack of things that I have kept through the years and surprisingly I still want to hang on to most of it. There are those books I’d forgotten about that I still want to read when I get around to it, and still feel a happiness and peace from my little collections I’ve added to through the years.
What is important to you? What do you find yourself holding on to? Do you still find many of your interests are the same through the years? If so, good. I believe that means you are good at listening and respecting yourself enough to really know yourself. If not, maybe you are just a late bloomer and that is okay, too… Sure I have new interests that I have picked up along the way like photography and learning to be more computer savvy but I still love fashion, history, music, interior design all those other fun subjects. Hee, hee.
Anyway, back to what I have been doing recently. I guess on top of organizing, I’ve been doing some small/not exciting fix ups. Ones that would be terribly boring to blog about like repairing small wholes in the wall, repainting scuffed up furniture, and cleaning brass door handles. But these small things have really started adding up and I am pleased with the results. The one below is a little more drastic and hence the photo. Enjoy!
Before:
After:
Here is our house now at it’s present state! It has come a long way. We have had plumbing replaced, wood floors redone, wall paper removed from every room, re-tiled both bathrooms and kitchen, and basically everything you can think of. It has been a dream come true for us and we’ve learned a lot. We have had to sacrifice some vacations, save, learn new skills, and be thrifty on a meager income but we did it! Phew!
I thought it would be fun to post some before and after pictures of my house and what we’ve been able to do in the last couple of years living in it! I like to think it has drastically changed. Check it out!
Okay, so I found this chair on a tree lawn… It was such a neat design and just needed to be reupholstered so I thought what the heck, I will just see what I can do with it. The velvet material I chose to use is normally very expensive but I just bought two velvet curtains on clearance at Target for $35 total. This was all the material I needed. I have never done such a daring upholstery project before so I figured if it didn’t work at least I didn’t put much money into it. Luckily, it worked out and I now have a new chair for my living room!
I just unstitched the fabric pieces on the chair and used these pieces as patterns for my new material. I sewed them together with my sewing machine and stapled them on the chair. I added a trim on the back, also covering staples. It worked out great and I am happy to be finished!
I think the hardest part of the project was thinking that I may have gotten a little larger project than I knew how to do. It wasn’t too bad after all and I am glad it is done. My 2 year old daughter enjoyed helping as well!
