Fireplace FINALLY Done!!!

 

 

 

 

Redoing the fireplace in my house has been a real thorn in my side ever since I bought my little house over a year and a half ago!

 

When I first bought my house (before I painted and re-did the floors) my fireplace looked a little like this (sorry the picture is a little blurry, but you get the idea)....

 

 

After my floors were done and I painted the walls, my fireplace looked really out of place (I even tired painting the existing mantle white, but it still didn't match my contemporary style)

 

The first thing I decided that I needed to do was find some really beautiful and unique tile that I would use to replace the current orange/green spanish-style tile.

 

Originally, I was set on Carrera marble in a Herringbone pattern but when I got to the tile store the choices were overwhelming! After spending hours at the store I narrowed it down to two cuts of Carrera marble and took home the samples to decide...

 

 

This was the original concept (not in the two tones, but this was the pattern I wanted)...

 

 

And this was the other sample... Also carrera marble, but cut into small hexigons and at various heights and facets (it was super textured and had a 3-D effect)

 

 



Once I saw the sample sparkle in the sunlight I had made up my mind on which one I was going to order!!!

 

 

When the tile was ordered I searched and searched the internet for the style mantle I wanted. Hours of searching and hours of phone calls later I came to the conclusion that pre-made mantles were too expensive for my tight budget :-(

 

This is when I decided to e-mail my contractor and ask if he could build me something on the cheap...

 

 

I also drew him a little picture of my current fireplace, but he said it didn't help him at all (haha).

 

When he came to my house he showed up with a pile of wood and we started to design!

 

 

 

After two long days of building and designing we ended up with this (I do have to say that he is pretty good at what he does!)

 

 

Here is my fireplace all decorated for x-mas!

 

 



Chair Makeover!

Back in college my Aunt bought me a white slipper chair from Ikea and, at the time, it was the most "grown up" piece of furniture I had in my apartment.

Now as I've gotten a little older, I've moved in with a boyfriend, adopted two dogs, moved out from the boyfriend, and bought my own house... all while carting this white slipper chair around!


Needlesstosay, the white little chair I once had was now a dingy color (even after bleaching and washing the slip cover) and covered in dog hair. This chair was in desperate need of a makeover, so that's exactly what I set out to do!

I decided that I wanted to make this a statement chair and put a bold graphic pattern on it (my favorite graphic pattern is definitely the greek key). I started off by making a paper template and then hand painting the pattern on....

I then thought that it might be nice to replicate the pattern on the seat, so I measured it out and made the pattern with masking tape...

I also decided to copy the same pattern on the back of the chair, but then realized I wasn't fond of having the large pattern repeated twice (overkill).

I also painted the bottom wood and legs silver... below is the finished project! A little paint goes a looonngggg way!

My First Aquarium Cake!

After successfully making an engagement cake and Groom's cake for my friends Ted and Christina, I knew I was going to be doing another cake when my friends Lauren and Jeff got engaged!

I knew that Jeff's Groom's cake was going to be aquarium-themed because he loves fish, but I didn't quite know how I was going to do it. So I started with the basics... an aquarium!

I first had Lauren pick up a basic aquarium from PetSmart. From there, I came up with my plan for the cake.... I wanted it to be 3-D and realistic(ish) looking! Once I got the tank from Lauren I had to remove the bottom glass so I was just left with 4 glass walls. I decided that the cake part was going to be the bottom or "gravel" of the aquarium, and then I was going to decorate it with sugar coral, chocolate shells, etc.

After making several trips to my cake store, the grocery store, and Michael's I had everything set and was now ready to start making the cake!

I thought that I should started with my most worrisome task... making the sugar coral! I was nervous about doing this because I had never done it before and was on a strict time constraint to do it (only a few days until my friend's wedding). I wouldn't have enough time to do it over if I messed it up.

I bought two bags of isomalt sugar at the cake store, added some distilled water and started cooking it on the stove. Once it reached a specific temperature I was able to add food coloring (I chose to make it a red-orange color), after I added the food color I waited for it to reach an even higher temp., and then I took it off the stove and put the pot in a pan of cold water to stop the cooking.

When the isomalt sugar got to a gooey consistency I poured it over a bowl I had filled with ice. As the extremely hot mixture melted the ice, it formed a very cool mass that resembled coral!!! I was shocked that it turned out so realistic-looking!

After picking up the sugar coral I realized how sharp it was and ended up slicing 8 of my 10 fingers! Note to Self: wear gloves next time I sculpt sugar!

I ended up doing two batches of the sugar coral in similar colors. The only thing I came to realize is that because I was making the coral on a humid night the sugar didn't harden right away (it was sticky to the touch), so I had to put it in the fridge overnight and then put it in an airtight container filled with rice to suck the moisture out. Once I did that, everything seemed to be fine.

The next task on my agenda was to make the actual cake part! Since the aquarium was more narrow and much longer than your typical sheet cake pan I had to make 3 cakes and patch them together to get the exact size I needed.

Originally when I was sketching out the plans to this cake I envisioned covering the base in candy pebbles, but since I didn't have enough time to order the pebbles online it would have just been too expensive to cover this huge cake. So then I had to start thinking of other options... I first thought of covering the base in Rice Krispies, but then I couldn't exactly decide how I could easily and evenly color them. AND THEN IT HIT ME.... DUH....FRUITY PEBBLES are already colored and look like fish tank gravel! So that's what I ended up using :-)

I then moved on to making all sorts of shells (and crawfish) out of chocolate. I got the molds from my cake decorating store and Michaels :-)

Lastly, I had to attach my sugar fish to thin florist wire to make it look like they were swimming in mid air, but was afraid that the fish wouldn't stick or would be way too fragile if I used frosting.... so I decided to attach the sugar fish to the wire with chocolate. It worked like a charm!

The afternoon of the wedding I had a friend (and fellow bridesmaid) help me set it all up. I do have to say that it ended up turning out much better than I could have imagined! The only problem is that people didn't know that it was a cake and everything in there was edible!!!

Here it is all lit up and pretty at the wedding!!!

Another cake bites the dust...