Thanksgiving Day Has Arrived!

We are celebrating Thanksgiving Day today! It's early in the morning, the sun is shining through the windows, and it is perfect, peaceful morning. In a mere 5 hours, the house will be filled with the aroma of turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet corn, squash, sweet potatoes, fresh fruit salad, freshly baked sweet buns, and warm peach cobbler! The sounds of laughter will fill our home, children talking (all 7 of them at the same time), and the clanging of pots and pans will ring in the background as we place the food on the table. Then it happens, we are finally sitting at the table, ready to eat. But first, we give thanks. After the Thanksgiving blessing, we all share what we are most thankful for. The most touching and humorous responses are from the children - I can hardly wait!
I am most grateful this year for the everyday blessings. I am grateful for each morning, for my family and friends, my health, my faith, my freedom, and the tradition of holidays. As we begin the holiday season today by giving thanks, my hope is that each of us will find a way to give to those less fortunate. May you be blessed today and remember to give thanks for what you already have. My sister and I would like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!
Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi and Angie

Recovering a Vintage Chair

I recently started using my grandma's old sewing cabinet in my craft room and paired it with my husband's grandma's sewing chair. It made a perfect duo and the chair is exactly the right height. I was not too fond of the material on the chair since it goes with nothing in our home. I had one piece of my shabby chic material that I used for the DIY Shabby Chic Ottoman Project and a few other little projects, so I decided to use that. Then the chair can serve as an extra dining room chair when we are all together for special occasions.
I tipped the chair upside down and removed the 4 screws underneath and the seat fell off, just what I wanted! So I measured my material, leaving a couple of inches all the way around the outside. I cut the material and using my rather new staple gun, stapled 2 sides, then stapled the other 2 sides folding the ends like the ends on a present. One side underneath and then fold the remaining corner over the top, staple and done!
My new old sewing chair! I love doing projects with items from the family, they are the most special!

After

Before

Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi

Simply Cute Cupcake Decoration and Colored Plate

It was craft time at Nana's last weekend. My 9 year old granddaughter spent some time with me and she made a cupcake decoration. We had a house full of family, helping me with my Christmas tree, stringing lights around the deck, and making some new holiday decorations. Usually I decorate using red and green but this year I really wanted to change to a more shabby chic, vintage Christmas. You know what that means, lots of pink!
How to make cupcake decoration:
Styrofoam balls (use any size) I used the hard foam
Mod podge
Acrylic paint
Epsom salts
Glitter
Cupcake wrapper
Decoration for the cupcake top

Start with the size ball that will fit in your cupcake wrapper. Paint the ball with your favorite color. Let it dry, it only takes 15 minutes. Brush a coat of mod podge over the ball but don't brush over the top. Sprinkle glitter over the mod podge, we used pink glitter. When this is dry, paint mod podge over the top and dip the top into Epsom salts. Sprinkle glitter over the Epsom salts. Top with a decoration. We used a decoration that looks like a gum drop, it had a little wire in it, so we poked it into the top of the ball. You can glue your decoration on top if you ornament doesn't come with a wire. Place the cupcake into the cupcake wrapper. This is great project for children, you could use glitter glue rather than sprinkle glitter for younger children, it might be less messy.

Colored Cake Plate Directions:
For the cake stand we followed the directions for the Simply Homemade Party Cake Stands on a previous blog. We wanted a pink cake plate so we mixed 2 drops of red food coloring with some mod podge and brushed it on the underside of the plate and the candlestick holder. It took a couple of hours for it to dry. It's beautiful, it looks like vintage pink glass!

Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi

Simply Roasted Chickpeas

If you are looking for a crunchy, healthy snack then this is a recipe for you. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical at first, I'm not particularly fond of... beans, but thought it was worth a try. After all, garbanzo beans are cheap so wouldn't be out much if I didn't like them. I found several recipes for them on allrecipes.com. You can add what you like, there are several ideas and seasoning combinations that can be used.  I didn't really follow a recipe I just added what seasonings I like and was happily surprised when they actually tasted good!
Here's what you need:

• 1 15oz can garbanzo beans
• 2-3 T olive oil or oil of your choice, canola works well too
• cayenne pepper
• Spanish paprika
• dash of salt, optional
• any other seasonings you like, If you prefer sweet instead of salty you can use 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 T honey and 1T sugar

Rinse and blot dry with a paper towel, this will also get some of the extra skins off the chickpeas. Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with seasonings of your choice, then mix them around to cover them with oil and seasonings. Bake at 400 degrees for about 35-45 minutes on a cookie sheet, stirring or shaking them around (GENTLY..I had a few roll away) on the pan about every 15 minutes. They are done when they are golden brown and crunchy all the way through. I had to test mine before I took them out of the oven, the outsides were crunchy but they needed about 5 more minutes to get the insides done. So mine took a little over 45 minutes. Watch them the last few minutes so they don't burn.  Let cool and store in an airtight container. These also make great gifts, the recipe can be doubled or tripled. Enjoy your healthy, crunchy snack!

~Simply Angie