Double- Tiered White for Sweets for the Soul

Sweets for the Soul is a delicously yummy chocolate treat shop. They make cupcakes, brownies, truffles, and other amazing treats. The owner called me and asked for another two-tiered stand. This is what I came up with. She loved it! Yeah Red Hen!


I also sold 4 of my 6 cake stands that I had on consignment at the Ivy's Flower Station. Hooray!

What a Find!

Isn't it gorgeous? I was minding my own business on my way to the grocery store and what do I see down a street? A beautiful shabby chic find. It has great potential. i can't decide whether to keep it or sell it. I will attempt my first upholstery job. Wish me luck!

Budget and Projects

I am plugging along in my grocery budget. I have managed to lower the weekly food bill by about $50-$75. Some weeks are better than others. Shopping the ads is the secret, plus I receive great coupons from Ralphs in the mail periodically. I can't always count on those though, because I don't always need those things. But everything helps. Last week I didn't as well as the past two months, but menu planning is essential.
I also have tried a new sourdough bread recipe that is Yum! The family loves it! I have made yogurt twice so far. it seems to last about two weeks. We are using it for smoothies mainly. I love it plain with nuts and a little honey.

As far as the projects go, well you'll see what I've been busy with lately.

Bread Baking Day

Second rising after the bread has been shaped.
I later decided to put them in pans because they were spreading out instead of rising.
They weren't rising as much as they needed to after 4 hours, so I left them out overnight.

I baked them this morning at 6:30. Wish you could have smelled the kitchen. Yum!

The texture turned out great. The starter turned out to be pretty sour and my friend's recipe contains honey, so the flavor is sour with a bit of sweetness to it. A bit funky, but still yummy.

Overall, I feel that I have learned tons about baking and especially about sourdough bread. I've baked bread several times before and have always failed, so I had basically abandoned it for years. I'm gonna try again and make a couple of changes. I have the other starter that I need to try too. (the one made with yeast and sugar) I'll keep you posted.

Food Waste Tuesdays

Every Tuesday I have been going through my fridge because Wednesday is shopping day and I need to make room. In my attempt to be frugal and use up our leftovers, sometimes I still overlook food and it is wasted. It makes me so sad to throw food away.
So here we have two avocados, half of a pb&j sandwich, lentil soup, and leftover roast. I also threw away some celery(not pictured)
I hope to do better this week.

Exciting News for "Red Hen"

Ivy's Flower Station bought 6 of my plates on consignment. She just used one of my plates For Caprice's Bridal Gown's Trunk Show. It's a pretty posh Bridal Gown Boutique in Glendale. Hooray! My plates are out there and getting noticed. If you'd like to see more you can go to Ivy's Flower Station.com and that links to her blog called Diary of a Mad Florist.  I know they are hard to see under those gorgeous flowers, but my plates are down there.

Remember this desk?

 

Before

After 

Isn't it gorgeous? Willie was right to want to stain it instead of paint it. We love how it turned out and we have so much storage space. The top is huge! We have so much room to spread out papers, kids homework, etc.