Monday, March 21, 2016

Carrara Marble Subway Tile Built in Makeover and Dying Easter Eggs Naturally


Hello!
I hope you are all having a great Monday.
I am trying hard to get back into the swing of blogging, it's too easy to just post on instagram and I am hoping to get back to posting weekly on the blog as well.
I wanted to share a few images of our recent kitchen makeover.
We still have lots of finish work to do I just wanted to share a few images today and I will be back to post more before and after images.


We went with Carrara marble countertops and subway tile.
The vintage French bottle drying rack I have had for five years sitting in storage.
I had planned to list it in my shop in the beginning and then decided to keep it since it is hard to find these racks with both sides attached, they often get cut and each side is sold separately.  I had hoped I would one day have the right kitchen to put it in.
I think it finally found a home : )


The built in was a fun project....
I wished I had taken more before pictures, and I only have a couple I took with my cell phone.


You can see the before here.
We tiled the inside of the hutch with Carrara marble subway tile 
and installed marble shelves.   This built in has a hutch that is directly behind it also.
We swapped the bottoms of the hutches so that I could have plenty of drawers on the kitchen side.
I painted everything in the kitchen Farrow & Ball's All White, except for the built in doors and drawers I painted Farrow & Ball's Strong White.


We still need to caulk the shelves and install the bottom shelf.
I will share more images of our kitchen in another post.

***************



I wanted to share a few images of the new items we recently listed in our online shop....





While I was in France this fall with my friend Tracey of French Larkspur,
we would wake up each morning to a bag similar to these bags hanging on our door with fresh croissants.  I had to purchase some for the shop.  
I hope to get more in stock soon.



The monogrammed bags are so pretty.




A vintage French drying rack is always a fun way to add some French charm to your kitchen.


I have used one of these for many years.
I just use a linen towel under it to catch the water.





*************************************
I wanted to repost this fun Easter egg dying experiment the kids and I did four years ago.
The eggs turned out so pretty, we are going to try and do it again this week.


The kids and I did a little Easter egg dying experiment using mostly fruits and vegetables...

I had not heard of dying Easter eggs using fruits and vegetables until
I came across a Better Homes and Garden article on how to make your own dye....
I might be the only person that had not heard of this before : ) .....
The kids and I decided to experiment with making our own dye this year.....




We ended up loving how the eggs turned out.....

We decided that we will be dying our eggs this way from now on....
It was a lot funner then just using tablets and vinegar like we always have done in the past.





These lavender colored speckled eggs were a product of mixing grape juice and vinegar together.
We left the eggs in the solution overnight.
For some reason the eggs had a bubbly film over them in the morning, so the girls rinsed them off
and this is what we ended up with.
We all loved how these turned even if it was by accident.....


A few of the foods we used to create some of our favorite colors....

Red Cabbage, Boiling Water, & Vinegar ~ Robin's Egg Blue
Blueberries & Water ~ Bluish-Gray Eggs
Tumeric, Boiling Water, and Vinegar~ Mustard Yellow Eggs
Brewed Coffee ~ Golden Brown Eggs
Beets, Boiling Water, & Vinegar ~ Pale Pink Eggs




The kids dyed a lot of eggs!
 The eggs turned out a really pretty blue, that were almost the same color as my vintage french zinc pitcher that is in the first image....



Austin and Dustan experimented with their own recipe.....
It was an interesting one.
They combined avocado skins, potato skins, and onion skins.
We added boiling water to their mixture of skins, and let it simmer for five minutes.
We then added vinegar....
They ended up with really nice peach colored eggs : )
They are mixed amongst this pile of eggs somewhere....


We only had one dye that didn't turn out.....
That was the jade green color....
You peel red onion skins and simmer them in water and then add white vinegar,
and this is supposed to produce jade green eggs, instead we ended up with
orange eggs.
I am not sure what we did wrong.....





Hope you all have a Blessed Easter Week.
I will be back with more images of our kitchen.



Wednesday, March 9, 2016

French Farmhouse Items in the Shop


Hello, I hope you are all having a great week.
I photographed my spring collection in our kitchen, however you can find more details about our kitchen on instagram. 
You can find me posting daily on Instagram, DreamyWhitesLifestyle is my username.

I wanted to share a few images of the vintage French items we recently listed 
in our online shop.











































In case you missed it, I had updated my previous post to announce the winner of the giveaway and also announced the winner on instagram 

You can find me posting daily on Instagram, DreamyWhitesLifestyle is my username.