March Project Round-Up

     I am so ready for Spring, and I think some of my projects this month reflected this. We didn't do any major projects, just lots of little ones this month. So as a recap I thought I'd share some of my faves in case you missed any. :)

     I'm tweaking some things on my blog...again....so you may notice some changes. I do know that my tabs at the top aren't working on that and I'm hoping over Spring break to get things up and running smoothly. This technical stuff is so not my thing!

     My favorite thing that happened to this homey home of ours this month is the new couch! I know its weird to say but I think this couch is bringing us closer together! We can now all sit and snuggle together for family movie night and any other time we choose! :) I love it! And if you want to know more about the IKEA couch or our history of couches, check out my link.

     To get ready for Spring I added a new wreath to my Spring wreath collection and made a little one for the bathroom. Who says you can't put a wreath in the bathroom?

          In keeping with the Spring theme I share a couple of yummy recipes for St. Patrick's day and Easter.

   

     And I did a few more projects to go along with the new couch. A Subway Art Tutorial and an Easy Slipcover Tutorial. I hope you will check them out!

     I had a lot of food on the brain {can you tell my diet started back up!} ;); so I decided to share with you my favorite recipes I've found so far on Pinterest.

And added to the yummyness with my own Chicken Lasagna.

In need of some Spring cheer I shared some yellow inspiration.

And finally I added a bit of color myself to some frames that hang in my hall.

I'm hoping to take some time off with my kiddos this week so there may not be much action here, but we'll but up and running again after Spring Break!

My God bless you this Easter as you reflect on His amazing sacrifice on our behalf!

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Tatertots and Jello
Its Overflowing
Funky Junk Interiors
Between Naps on the Porch
The House of Smiths
Not Just a Housewife
The SHabby Creek Cottage

Sometimes You Just Need Color

     Today is wacky Wednesday at my kids school. We have a neon afro, mis-matched clothes, and marker mustaches. Crazy! 

     I kind of did something crazy for me too. I got a little bolder with color! I know, call the crazy patrol! 

     For many, adding color is second nature. For me, I'd prefer calm tranquil neutrals.

In our tri-level we have short stair cases and in the hallway going upstairs I did a small gallery wall of sorts. I loved it for a long time but over the past year the white frames seemed to yellow a bit and they just didn't look right. 

It would have been easy for me to just spray paint them white but friends, I went out on a limb!

My main level has a mix of neutrals {shocking, I know!} aqua's and I'm trying to add in navy. What a perfect color palette for my frames. So a trip to Lowes was in order.

Here's the before:

And the after:

 {don't mind the laundry by the fireplace, just keeping it real} ;)

I kept the same arrangement but added in the aqua and navy with just a pop of teal. The navy and teal frames are glossy so I felt that some rusticity was needed to offset this. In came my rusty finial which helps to balance things.

*Here's another tip: Mix up your frame arrangements by changing their contents. Add a mix of pictures, child's artwork and pattern. {I found scrapbook paper in my colors for the teal frame.} {For the finger painting I gave my son colors that matched my scheme and let him do his thing}.  This mix is unpredictable and keeps things interesting.

Here are may cast of characters that I found at Lowes.

I bought the clear gloss to go over the flat light aqua paint but decided against it because the mix of glossy and flat frames  just looked better. I ended up using the gloss to cover my subway art  tutorial that I shared with you a few weeks ago and it really gives it a finished look.

If you aren't feeling wacky yet, here's some more inspiration:

Happy Wednesday!

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Tatertots and Jello
Funky Junk INteriors
Between Naps on the Porch
Not Just  a Housewife

Color Inspiration: Yellow!

     For our latest installment of 'Color Inspiration' I'm thinking yellow! Spring is supposed to be on the way {although we sure haven't seen it yet!} and that has me thinking thoughts of sunshine! 

     Yellow is a color that I think is hard to pull off. It can look totally different in different lights and as the day progresses. Trust me, I have messed this up before and ended up in a yellow bedroom that was entirely too sunny for me! So my hat is off to those who do it and do it right!

Lets start with a beautiful sunny bathroom from Brabourne Farms:

Yellow is such a popular color for the home but if you aren't brave enough {like me!} to paint a whole room how about some of these great accessories.

From BHG

Pure Home

Obaz

Or keep your walls neutral and go for big bold yellow accents:

Life in the Superburbs

Caitlin Creer


How about yellow kitchen cabinets? 

Simply Grove

Here's a fun idea, how about yellow doors!

Eat, Sleep, Decorate

So Darling

If yellow in your home isn't your thing, how about yellow for you or your phone?

Society6

This outfit is really cute and imagine my delight when I found a shirt almost exactly like this one at Goodwill this week. You better bet it made it home with me!

Now some may call this 'piano murder' but I'm in love with old painted pianos and this shade is perfect:

Our Love Nest

How about a sunny tablescape?

Are you feeling the sunshine yet? I sure hope that it means spring is on the way, but let's face it, I live in Michigan, and who knows when it will come!

For more color inspiration click the 'color inspiration' tab in the right margin!

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Between naps on the porch
Skip to my Lou
Tatertots and Jello
Its Overflowing
Funky Junk Interiors

White Chicken Lasagna

     Sharing my favorite pinterest recipes earlier this week has me thinking through some of my favorite recipes of my own that I haven't shared yet. {Click on 'recipes' in the side bar to see some of the others I've shared} So today you are in luck!

     We first had this chicken lasagna years ago when a friend made it for us. It was yummy then but is even yummier now with some tweaks of my own.

Here's the basic recipe:

• 2 cans cream of chicken soup {or one of cream of chicken and one cream of mushroom}
• 1 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 small onion diced
• 2 cloves of garlic diced
• 2 Tablespoons oil {olive or canola}
• 4-5 boneless/skinless chicken breasts
• 6 Lasagna noodles cooked

1.   Add your diced garlic, onions, and oil to a large skillet. Throw in some salt and pepper.

2.     Cube your chicken and add it to your skillet and cook the onions and garlic with the chicken. As your chicken cooks chop it into small pieces.

3.     When the chicken is fully cooked, add your cans of soup.

4.      Add the sour cream and parmesan cheese and heat through.

     With your chicken mixture done we are going to start layering our lasagna. Basically you will start with a layer of chicken mixture, a layer of noodles, a second layer of chicken mix, one cup of shredded mozzarella, the second layer of noodles, the third and final layer of chicken mix and top with the last cup of shredded mozzarella.

Tweak this yourself based on what you have in your fridge. Sometimes if I have swiss cheese I will add this instead.

Cover your pan with foil and bake it at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. It will be bubbly and slightly brown around the edges. Oooh, so yummy! During my first pregnancy I totally craved cheesy dishes and this one was made many times throughout! :)

     When you pull it from the over let it stand for 10 minutes! If you don't it will be a gooey mess when you cut it.

I know you will love this dinner! Its a huge hit here!

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Funky Junk
Tatertots and Jello
Its Overflowing
Between naps on the porch

My Favorite Pinterest Recipes

     Has Pinterest changed your life yet? For me its changed how I find recipes. There are so many mouth watering photos out there of yummy food. Makes me hungry just thinking about it!

     Can you trust what you see? I have tried a quite a few recipes from Pinterest and found some that didn't turn out as good as they looked, but some exceeded my expectations. And some, ended up in our family's recipe box.

      Its no secret that I am a picky eater. I like to think I just have a highly selective palate. ;) So today I thought I'd share with you my favorite recipes that I've found so far. In all fairness I didn't include any of my own. {You can click on the recipe tab in the side margin to see my faves that I've shared here before}.

     If you want to pin something be kind to the owner of the recipe and click on over to their site and pin from there. You  can also find the recipes for each by clicking on their link.

     In no particular order here are my faves:

Li'l Luna's White Texas Sheetcake   I made this one for the teachers at my kid's school {for parent teacher conferences}. When it was canceled due to a snowstorm we had to eat it. Oh my was it yummy. It is flavored with almond extract and I love all things almond. Even my hubby {who doesn't like almond} loved this cake!

Aunt Peg's Recipe Box's Coconut No Bake Cookies   If you love a good no-bake cookie and you like coconut, then this cookie is for you. Besides coconut these cookies also have coconut pudding mix and oatmeal in them.

Cody Kitchen Confection's Almond Sugar Cookies  I promise, all my favorites aren't sweets! But, these almond cookies are really good! I didn't have the cake flour so I used regular and they turned out great.

Lemon Crackle Cookies from Beyond Kimchee In case you thought I was on an almond theme I thought I'd share these. These are a nice refreshing change. The lemon is zingy but not too tart and these are nice and chewy.

Stick a Fork in it's Crockpot BBQ Chicken  We are big BBQ chicken fans at this house so the winter feels kind of long without our grill. My hopes were low when I came across this recipe but we were pleasantly surprised. These are really good! I will say that ours don't come out of the crockpot looking grilled like in the picture, so I'm highly suspect that this is an original pic of this recipe. Regardless, these are so good that my kids ask for them and they've made it into the dinner rotation.

Mini Pizza idea from Cooking on Clover Lane  This is less of a recipe and more of just a brilliant idea. Frozen roll dough make great mini pizza's. They taste really good and they are fun to assemble with the kids. This was also a hit meal for the Friday night babysitter to make with the kids last weekend.

Martha Stewart's Salisbury Steak What can't she do? These are amazing! My husband talked about them all week after I made them for the first time. I love a hamburger recipe that is really good, and the gravy, oh the gravy....so yummy!!!

Mommy's Kitchen No-Peek Beef Tips  Now this is the recipe that has changed my life. Kind of. Instead of making a big beef roast and laboring over the gravy, this recipe does it all at once. In fact, its what we're having tonight. Beef tips are cheaper than buying a beef roast too, {I even buy two packages and its still cheaper than one roast}.  Throw in some potatoes and carrots and dinner's done!....well after 3 hours. This is also a great Sunday after church kind of meal. {If you aren't paranoid about your oven being on while you are away!}


I may make an annual event out of this. There are so many more recipes that I have pinned to try. Feel free to follow my recipe boards.

Main Dishes

Fun Food Ideas

Oh, one last thing, Homey Home Design also has a facebook page. I'd love to have you follow along there as well!

Thanks for stopping by!

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DIY by Design
The Shabby Creek Cottage
Funky Junk
Tatertots and Jello
Its Overflowing
Between naps on the porch
Skip to my Lou