Ciabatta Bread

I found this great tutorial on line for making ciabatta bread.  It's extremely easy! First let's give credit where credit is due; Ciabatta tutorial.
Basically to make this bread, you take 2 cups of warm water, and stir in 1/4 tsp of yeast. Add 1 teaspoon of salt, stir it up, then drop in 4 cups of flour.  The hardest part is over! Stir it into a dough, then cover it and leave it on the counter for 8-12 hours. Plastic wrap or a towel is fine. Afterwards, the dough will have doubled, and you just dump it out onto a floured (well, flour and cornmeal in my case) cookie sheet.  Literally, just dump it out, give it a little shape if it needs it.  Here's mine before the oven:

I sprinkled on some fresh oregano, red chili flakes, pepper, whatever was around and smelled good.Throw it in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes, or until it looks done. In retrospect, mine could have used 5 more minutes, but i'm not complaining because I like when bread is moist on the inside.  Enjoy this super easy bread!

Lil' Blue Shelf

I posted a while back about new things I got, (see the post here; Score!) If you look in the back, you can see a little brown shelf. Here it is now:

Here is a picture of it before:

I really like this blue. I love blue and brown together, because who doesn't anymore, and I thought this original dark brown would be a great color to scratch into. So I painted it, then distressed it to let the brown out. I didn't realize originally, that this shelf is totally free-standing. It can of course go on a wall, but it has no trouble at all standing alone! So glad I painted the back. This project was a really fun one, and I really enjoyed the nice weather I got to work in!This item sold, but you can request something in a similar style. Unfortunately I won't likely have this exact one again! Have a great weekend!

Spice Rack Update

UPDATE:  Everyone has been asking where I got these jars, here's the link to where I ordered them from: Sunburst Bottle Company

Remember when I got those old coke bottle boxes? (See this post) Well, I got my jar order in the mail and made the switch last night. I LOVE them:

This free'd up 2 whole shelves in our cabinets. Before, I had just a shelf above the stove that held a few jars of random. I chose blue & teal over the front because I wanted color, but I wanted to keep it old looking. Next up, the kitchen! I'm aiming for the bottom half of the walls a dark turquois-ish color (beach towel), the top half probably a light teal, all with white trim. Then, a bright clover type green on the backsplash, with the bottom row of cabinets being teal, and the top half either the same teal or white. I don't know yet. Throw in yellow accents and a few vintage green shelves, and I should have a pretty colorful kitchen. Wish me luck!

Bud Vases

A little eye candy today. I have a thing for bud vases. Here are the ones I've found so far, and are for sale in my shop.

Vintage Popcorn Bowl

Greatest thing ever! I saw this great popcorn bowl this weekend at a really cool thrift shop in Felton, CA.  I saw that font and immediately thought it must be from the 80's... well after I got home and researched for a bit, I saw it's from the 70's!  Very retro and cool, the font is really neat. There is apparently a collection going around of different bowls and pieces with this font on it, I will keep my eye out for more! For now, it's for sale in my shop, here are some pictures:

Wine Break

I'm back! Work got a little crazy there, but I won't go into detail because that's about as boring as actually working. Anyway, today I listed the wine rack that I started a long time ago (2 months?). Rain and space set me back a bit, but now that the sun has come out more often, I have found time here and there to sneak outside and get some work done! Here is the finished product:

I love how it came out! I considered doing another color over the top then scratching the surface to let it through.. but I was convinced to leave it as is. Here's what it was before:

This item sold, but if you like, request it or something like it and I'll keep my eye out, and let you know when I find something. Then you can pick your colors! Have a great day!

Mail & Spices

Today I finished up the mail organizer.  I came across this nice mirror & mail organizer a couple weeks back (remember this post?), it was a little beat up.  I wanted to add color since I've been on this teal kick, and hopefully someday my kitchen will be wonderful teals & lime greens (add that to huge to-do list...). Here she is:

What do you think? Rather than trying to disguise the fact that this piece has been used a lot, I just went with it. A quick tape job and a few coats of paint later, I got my teal stripe!  I replaced the hardware and beat the paint job up just enough to match, and here we go! Here is how it was before, not a huge change:

On another note, I found these cool boxes on the side of the road (in a puddle! In the rain!!) and had to rescue them. Here is one, but I have two identical ones:

They've been totally bleached out by the sun, I think they were in someone's backyard for a while. Anyway, I think i'll rub a little color on the front here & there to compliment the yellow, and then I am on the prowl for the perfect jar, as I'm going to make this my spice rack. There are 24 slots per box, so having 2 boxes, I should have a collection of 48 spice jars when this is done... I hope it's enough! haha. Have a great day!

Teal Candle Holders,4 of 4

Finally! The 4th of the candle holders is up.  I started in on these projects here, and finally all 4 are done. I think they came out nice, especially all together!

Here's what it was before:

This one is big enough to carry a cup or plate, so it has many uses. See them all here in my shop.

Teal Candle Holders, 2 & 3 of 4

Continuing the recent obsession with teals, here is a fine set of vintage wooden candle holders to quickly brighten up a table.  Retro in style and modern in color, my favorite combination.

I spotted these in the local thrift and thought solid colors right away.   So I went with it!

$15 for the set, and $9 each, because I really want them to stay together. Click here to head to the shop. Have a great day!