Sweet Tea

Summer is right around the corner.  One thing I absolutely love anytime of the year, but especially in the summer is an nice tall glass of sweet tea over ice, no lemon please!  Over the years I have learned to make, according to my son, the best sweet tea EVER!  I am writing a tutorial of sorts here to show my son in the event he decides he wants to make it himself (and pigs will fly one day)!

So here goes...

Naja's Sweet Tea

Gather your ingredients and materials:

Pot for boiling water
Glass Pitcher or Container
Sugar
6 Family Size bags of Lipton Iced Tea
tall mixing spoon
measuring cup
cold water

Heat 4 quarts of cold water over high heat.  Heat until almost boiling.  If you are forgetful like me and it starts to boil, turn it off and let it sit for a few minutes.

Add the tea bags.

Steep for 3-5 minutes.  More than 5 minutes you risk getting bitter iced tea.  I like my iced tea strong, so I steep for 5 minutes.

Add 1 cup of sugar.  Stir with a long spoon.

Store container in the refrigerator.  Serve over ice.  YUM!

Countdown Until Lucketts!

I have mentioned before how grateful I am that I live between two wonderful places to get vintage home decor - Chartreuse & co. and Lucketts Vintage Market. Both are within 15 minutes of my home!

Every year Lucketts holds a Spring Market. They will be having it this year on May 6th, 7th and 8th! Say, isn't that Mother's Day weekend? Perfect!

Check out their website www.luckettstore.com

Easter Ham!

Baked two 7.5 lb hams today for my husband's side of the family. This morning I was checking the net for a good glaze recipe and hit the nail right on the head with this one. allrecipes.com/Recipe/Annettes-Great-Ham-Glaze/Detail.aspx

This recipe made a delish glaze! I didn't have any gold rum on hand, but I did have the exact amount I needed in Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum. It was so yummy that the little amount that was left, I saved in a tiny Ball jar for my hubby's ham leftovers. Even Egan, my pseudo-vegetarian did his midwestern papa proud by eating three helpings of glazed ham!

It's been a long weekend and I am bone tired! Good night!

SAH-WEET Duvet Cover!

When we moved into our home 5+ years ago, my sweet little Momma purchased the bedding for our then new Ethan Allen bed. I really wanted all white bedding, but we had two black labs that we couldn't deny bed access to.

The Love Machine napping on said bed Trying to be wise about the dirt aspect, I settled with a solid taupe/beige colored quilt and matching sheets. Now we have a black and an unfixed chocolate lab and the same bedding is riddled with stains. Lesson learned? Better to go with white! I could have bleached those stains out! Now I am looking at various bedding and I spotted this duvet cover from Anthropologie:Isn't she a beauty? All that runched material costs, though. $208 just for the cover. So I went online to see if I could find a tutorial. Bingo! (Google never lets me down) Sweetie Pie Bakery: Anthropologie Cirrus Duvet::Tutorial This looks like a possible summer/fall project for this year. Keep an eye out!

Confession

I have a confession to make. I am officially now a dumpster-diver. Now I didn't actually go into a dumpster per se. It was much easier than that! You see, I was jogging around the neighborhood yesterday morning with Ginger (my love machine of a dog) and it just happened to be trash day. Trash day isn't usually this interesting, but I am guessing because it is Spring, people are doing a lot of purging because there were all sorts of things out. Most of it useless to me. But one thing caught my eye.....


Can you believe it?! It's really heavy, so I had to finish my jog, jump in the truck and cart it off before the trash truck came! The seat is genuine leather, but I am thinking to cover it in some leopard print fabric I have leftover from my daughter's duvet cover and let her have it for her room! What more could a twelve year old girl ask for?

Bathroom and Burlap

Hubby and I are still trying to get the master bath 100% done, but I think it's going to take a while. There is an area next to our soaking tub where there is a big blank space. Formerly, my three dirty clothes hampers hung out there. Now Hubby is saying he wants a console table there. I am thinking something white-metal-rusty with glass top that might have been outdoors. Something with loads of charm. I was shocked when he sent me to the tag sale at Chartreuse on Sunday. Of course, since I had his blessing, I found nada, zilch, nothing!
My trip was not all for naught, though. I did see some lampshades that I want to try my hand at making when the time comes. Right now I am semi-obsessed with burlap. When we moved from our townhome into our house nearly 6 years ago, I had several yards of the stuff that I had bought to use for a backdrop and a scarecrow for fall. The following year I went on a cleaning frenzy and threw it all into the Goodwill bag! Go figure! Now I am running to AC Moore weekly to buy little packages of it. (I'm afraid to commit to more than a half yard!) Anyway...you can see the pictures I shot with my iPhone. Sorry they are crappy, but it still gets the point across. Praying for sunshine!
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Ta-dah!

So I finally got my wine crates hung. It took some pleading and a few tears, but the hubby finally broke down and hung them for me!
Hubby even gave me some good feedback on positioning. He suggested that we stack it slightly askew. Then he bolted them together that way.
Here you can see where I am keeping my feminine hygiene products. I did have them in a galvanized tin container, but found this basket in Bath and Body Works that I like better. I didn't want so much silver since there is already a lot in there. Now we just have a few more things to hang in there and we will be finished!