Strawberry fields forever

Woot! Strawberry season is here! I don’t write food posts very often, but it’s the time of the year to share the strawberry love ♥

I’ve picked two big baskets since Thursday, and I’m eating berries like there’s no tomorrow.

There’s no comparison between the off-season berries we get 11 months of the year and fresh local berries. They’re redder and juicier and sweeter and yummier.

Kevin at Closet Cooking posted a recipe for Blueberry Quinoa Parfait a few days ago. It looked so good, I decided to make it with strawberries instead of blueberries. I added a splash of maple syrup to the quinoa while it cooked and replaced the pecans with almonds. And voila, Strawberry Quinoa Parfait :-)

I bought some rhubarb at the Farmer’s Market last Sunday and made a Rhubarb Strawberry Crumble with Orange and Ginger.

Except I didn’t have any ginger. But that didn’t matter, the crumble was delicious anyway :-)

Strawberry daiquiris are delicious any time of the year, but they taste even better on a hot summer day. And when they’re made with Bailey’s Irish Cream instead of rum – awesomeness!

The Best Strawberry Daiquiri EVER!

• 1 can Bacardi's frozen strawberry daiquiri mix
• 2 cups ice (crushed if you have it)
• 1/2 cup Bailey’s Irish Cream
• Handful washed & hulled fresh strawberries

Put first three ingredients in blender and blend till smooth. Add berries and blend for a few more seconds. Pour into glass and drink!

Warning: You’ll want to lick the glass clean. Don’t be shy, go ahead and do it.

Want to add a little strawberry inspiration to your home? Here are some juicy strawberry-inspired colours…

     

Are you enjoying strawberry season where you are?

OMG my voice! And my first dumpster dive

A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by Jonathon Narvey for the blog Build Direct. We talked about how taking care of the small design details in your home can make a big difference. If you want to be totally freaked out, click here to listen to my weird voice.

Kelly’s first dumpster dive

This is a vintage walnut dresser that I bought a couple of months ago from Tribute Decor:

This is what I picked out of somebody’s garbage yesterday:

And he had a friend (I think this one is a she):

Are you kidding me?! It’s the same furniture, right down to the drawer pulls!

Yes, those are Christmas lights hanging from the eaves trough. And yes, that’s moss between the driveway pavers.
Don’t judge me :-) And no, the dressers didn’t come home in the smart cars!

My garbage finds are kind of beat up and need lots of TLC, but these babies were 100% free – and you can’t really go wrong with free. I’ll have to replace a couple of pulls and fix some drawers (I mean, hubby will be fixing some drawers). And I think the wood is beyond refinishing, so I’ll probably be painting this vintage twosome. Maybe I’ll do something like this dresser by Beth at Make Me Pretty Again. She gave it a cobalt blue milk paint treatment. Love!

This ombre dresser by Jordan at Little Yellow Barn is cool.

I’m diggin’ this black & white dresser by Linda at It All Started With Paint.

I don’t know the source for this pretty stencilled dresser that I pinned,  but it was obviously done by someone with lots of talent and creativity and a really steady hand :-)

Here’s a fun & colourful twist on the Union Jack by Sheridan at The Southern Eclectic.

I haven’t decided what way to go with these two pieces yet, but I know I’ll be using PARA paint because this is going to be my first PARA Paints Blog Crew project :-)

I have just a few colours to choose from…. the Architecture Kit literally just arrived!

And speaking of blog crew projects, I’ve got a really big one that I’ve started planning. I’ll give you the details soon – it has a little something to do with my latest obsession, Homestyler. And it may or may not involve a bathroom…

Have you found any treasures in the trash? Did you dive right in, or did you sneak back in the dark so nobody would see you? :-)

Happy weekend!

Addicted to Homestyler

Before getting to today's post, I want to thank everyone who stopped in at JAX over the last couple of days to check out my RAST hack. I think it's my most popular blog post ever! And two extra thank yous to Kristi at Addicted 2 Decorating for featuring Mr. RAST on her blog, and Olga at Stardust - Decor & Style for asking me to guest post about Mr. RAST and some of my other projects. I love how bloggers support each other :-) Of course, you know what this means - all the fame and glory has gone right Mr. RAST's head...

I'm too sexy for my zinc, too sexy for my zinc, too sexy I think...

Oh man, what a ham!

OK, now onto today's business... my name is Kelly and I'm addicted to Homestyler. I don't want to be a bad influence or anything, but you really should go over and check it out so you can be addicted too. It's more fun being addicted together, don't you think?

Let's be unbelievably adorable Labahoula puppies addicted to Homestyler together!

So what's Homestyler, you might ask? Well, it's a super-cool and easy-to-use free online program that lets you design room layouts. My favourite part is that with the click of a button, your 2D layout turns into a 3D view of the room that you can spin around and look at from eight angles. SO COOL! And it's so easy to use, which is perfect for someone like me with the attention span of a flea. I just don't have the patience to read user guides. I figured out the basics just by playing around. A click here, a drag there, and that's all there is to it!

Here's the 2D view of a bathroom layout that I created:

 

I selected a square room and adjusted the dimensions. Then I added doors, a window, vanity, tub, shower, toilet, mirrors, art, lighting, and accessories by dragging and dropping them from the menu into the layout. I rotated and resized some of them. I also selected a tile floor, tile for two walls, and a paint colour for two walls. And it didn't take long - probably less than half an hour.

And here's my favourite part - with the click of a button, my 2D layout is magically transformed into 3D!

 

Ta-Da!

It's not 100% perfect - you're limited to the available furnishings, accessories, paint colours, etc. And did you notice that the vase of flowers is hovering above the countertop? Either they're magic flowers or it's a little glitch ;-) But if you're like me and have trouble visualizing a room without seeing it right in front of you, Homestyler is just what you need :-)

Ikea RAST hack: Greek Key with a zinc twist

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (well, OK, it wasn’t that long ago and it was in Ikea), there was a simple pine cabinet named RAST.


He was a shy and unassuming cabinet, a lot like his friends LACK and HEMNES and BILLY and MALM. They all hung out in their flat packs together, playing poker and drinking root beer floats and wishing that one day, they would get unpacked and become something super spectacular. Like these lucky RAST cousins:

Top row: Kelly at refresheddesigns, Jacob via Hodge:Podge | Middle row: Livet Hemma, Nancy at Marcus Design, Barbara at Hodge:Podge | Bottom row: Lindsay at Little House Blog, My O’verlays

RAST wasn’t sure what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he thought he might look rather fetching dressed up in zinc and brass with some Greek Key thrown in for good measure.

He wasn’t sure why he thought that, because he was Swedish, not Greek. Anyway, just when RAST was about to play his first ever official royal flush and win the poker pot, Kelly snapped him up and stuffed him into a little smart car and stuck him in her basement. Luckily, LACK came along to keep him company.


RAST sat there in the basement till what felt like forever {because Kelly is really, really good at procrastinating}. And then, finally, his big day arrived – Kelly unpacked him and rearranged all his parts by following the very clear & concise instructions that came in his box.


Kelly was confused. Did this mean that if you put RAST together with your hands behind your back you'll break him, but if use one hand he'll be OK? Her friend Rona thought it meant if you don't touch him, RAST will crack, but if you pat him reassuringly with one hand and lie him on a magic carpet, RAST will be content. And her friend Shelly thought it meant don't pee inside the RAST frame. {YES! That’s the one! Don’t pee!} Kelly didn’t have a magic carpet handy, but she did manage to get RAST put together with minimal injuries and only two-do-overs when she put some of his parts together backwards.


After all that work, RAST looked and felt… well, kind of ordinary.

Nope, this really wasn’t doing it for him. He needed something more. He definitely wasn’t feeling stylin’ and sexy, being all naked and plain like that. But never fear, Kelly had a plan. First, she stained his outer bits with a dark walnut stain. But his pine really soaked it up, and he came out almost black. So she hunted through her stash of stains and came across a medium brown gel stain that she hoped would lighten him up a bit. It did, plus it gave him a nice satiny finish.


Not a bad start – at least he was feeling a bit less naked. Next, Kelly laid out his drawers on the floor {does that sound rude?} and drew lines on them 1” in from the edges all the way around.

Hey, come on, that tickles!

And then RAST couldn’t believe what happened next – Kelly used Krazy Glue to attach a Greek Key Double O’verlay to each of his drawers! It was like she’d read his Swedish mind and knew that he secretly wanted to be Greek!


Next, Kelly covered his drawers with two coats of Zinnser Bin primer and two coats of black paint. He was feeling sexier already!


But that was just the beginning, because next it was time for some zincification. OMG! RAST thought he’d died and gone to heaven! Except the zincification process made him tickle, because there was a lot rubbing and pouncing and more rubbing and pouncing as Kelly layered on pewter Rub N Buff followed by silver metallic acrylic paint. But it was worth all the tickling, because now RAST was zincified, just like he’d dreamed.


Then the cherry landed smack dab on top of the sundae – Kelly attached pretty brass pulls from Lee Valley to RAST’s drawers. He thought they looked rather terrific, the way they contrasted against his handsome zinc self.


And with that, RAST’s makeover was complete and he was a boring naked pine cabinet no longer!


RAST felt like a star, getting all fancied up for his photo shoot…








And now RAST is impossible to live with because he’s sexy and he knows it. To paraphrase KeriAnne at Thistlewood Farm, he thinks he’s all that and the kind of chips that come in a fancy bag made from recycled materials and call themselves potato thins. But that’s OK, because Kelly loves him anyway :-)

Project details

Click here for my tutorial on how to create faux zinc. I used Rub N Buff on RAST, but actually prefer the technique in my tutorial, which uses silver paint on its own. Also, I didn’t use clear paste wax on RAST.

Supplies & cost breakdown

• 1 RAST three drawer cabinet from Ikea – $39.99
• Zinsser Bin primer (I had tinted grey primer left over from another project) – $0
• Black paint (I had Tremclad flat black paint, but would recommend latex) – $0
• DecorArt Elegant Finish Metallic Paint in Shimmering Silver (already had it) – $0
• Rub N Buff in pewter – $4.00
• Paint brushes (already had) – $0
• Pouncer brush (already had) – $0
• Three lattice & bead brass drawer pulls from Lee Valley – $8.60 x 3 = $25.80
• Krazy Glue (already had) – $0
• Three Greek Key Double  O’verlays (generously provided by Cheryle & Danika for my RAST hack project. THANKS LADIES!) – $0

TOTAL COST: ~$70.00 + taxes

But ask RAST, and he’ll tell you he’s worth a million bucks :-)



I’ll be linking up to various parties – be sure to check them out, there’s always lots of great inspiration :-)