No Sew Valance

Roman Shades in kitchen

In my post last week, I mentioned my "no sew valance"  I made with our mom when she came to visit me over Thanksgiving. Since my decorating style has changed since we moved in, almost 9 years ago, I wanted to give my kitchen a French Country look. The roman shades I have in the kitchen have a pattern on them. (pic on right) We have a deck off the dining room with vertical blinds, not crazy about them, but for now they have to stay. I wanted a simple solid valance over the deck door to tie the 2 rooms together and complete the look. After looking for months and not finding anything, I almost gave up-until we saw a queen size bed skirt on  clearance for under $10.  It was the perfect size and it was already lined,  and the edges were finished. All I needed to do was cut off the two long sides, leaving about 2 inches of fabric on the top. We laid the Peel n'Stick Fabric Fuse on one side of fabric and pressed it down to make a rod pocket. Then I ran the rod through it and hung it up! It took us less than 30 minutes...including ironing...including me accidently melting part of the fabric along the top edge of the bed skirt...oops- good thing we didn't get the iron on fabric fuse!  I even had extra fabric left for a table runner-who knew all from a clearance price bed skirt!

~Simply Angie

Decorating A Winter Mantel

We've been busy decorating for Christmas! I decided to scale back on the decorations this year, I think I've reached the "less is better" stage of my life! I always put my tree up first, then move on to the rest of the decorations. So my tree is done and I decided to start decorating the mantel. Before I started, I knew that I wanted to use 3 trees, partly because I love the 3 trees story and I like the number 3.So I started there. After several texts, phone calls, and pictures sent to my sister, we finally put it together. I found 3 sequence trees on sale, used a tree I already had and placed it on my infamous cake plate. I added a white feather tree, placed on a crystal dessert dish. I folded a page of sheet music and placed it in a clear vase with some glittery pom poms, and an angel tree topper off to the side. For a finishing touched, I wrapped Christmas tree pearl strands around the items on the mantel and 2 cream colored scarves. I hope you are having fun decorating and would love to hear your ideas!

Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi

Cinnamon Butter

I was recently having a conversation with my oldest granddaughter about butter. (I know...haha!!). She was telling me about the yummy butter served at one of her favorite restaurants. Since my husband and I rarely eat out except for a few locally owned establishments, I asked her to describe the butter for me and that's where I started for this recipe. I served it at Thanksgiving with our Simply Sweet Homemade Buns and she loved it! Actually, everyone loved it, even me because it was easy to make, it was sweet, and my time was becoming very limited!
Directions:
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2/3 cup powdered sugar
Mix all ingredients together and beat on low speed with mixer until everything is combined and smooth. Serve immediately on warm buns or refrigerate until needed. If you serve the buns warm, the butter will melt a little right into the buns. Yummy-licious!

 Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi

Simply DIY Winter Scene In A Jar

It seems like whenever our mom comes to visit me, we "shop til we drop" literally-then we start projects! I saw these cute little figures and trees on sale when we were out shopping, (after all the hustle and bustle was pretty much over, Black Friday afternoon).  The glass jar was a thrift store find for $1, then I added fake snowflakes from Target, for $2. I used poster tack to stick the trees and people to the bottom of the jar so later I can take them out and use my jar for other things. The whole project cost about $8.  This would also be a fun project to do with the kids.
  We also canned Spiced Cranberry Sauce and made a "No Sew Valance" from a bed skirt we found on clearance..more on those in a future post!
  We hope you enjoyed time with your friends and family, and also had some quiet moments to just relax...or maybe work on some fun projects! Let us know what you are working on, we love hearing new ideas!


~Simply Angie