Mrs. C Does Stuff

From the looks of the traffic on the blog here, the post I made about the Ashley Wilcot Sectional is the most popular post.  And, a number of you have asked for an update on the sofa.  Well, here it is.  No, really, below is a picture of the sectional taken yesterday.  Above is a picture of how the sectional usually looks with my throw on the end of the chaise. It was a little overcast outside, so the picture is not the best.  But, it's good enough to provide you with the update on the sofa.  When we purchased the sofa, it was a new model.  I had not seen too many reviews about it.  At the time, it was the number two selling item at Ashley.  So, we had to wait quite a while to get our sectional. Now, a year later, we are still happy with it.  I have noticed a little pilling on the cushion in the middle on the side closest to the chaise.  But, it is not anything major.  And, I don't think anyone else has noticed it. We use the sectional daily.  Most of t

Meme submitted by Bob Kane I haven't blogged much this year.  That is mainly due to the fact that we have a pretty busy schedule.  Mr. C works two jobs and six days a week.  I work full time as well.  In our spare time, we try to spend time with our Little Mister and carve out some time for our extended family also.  We managed to fit in some great vacations this year, including the Little Mister's first trip to Disney World and a family trip to Washington, DC.  Life is short, and these moments are fleeting.  We have chosen to spend our time making memories. Aside from our busy lifestyle, 2016 has been...rough, to say the least.  We've lost several family members this year.  Mr. C was laid off from one of his jobs, but has luckily just found and started a new one.  But, we are Louisiana residents and, unless you've been living under a rock, you know it's been a crazy 2016 in Louisiana.  It all began with the shooting of Alton Sterling.  Our city has always had

Remember when I did the LSU cake years ago?  The technique I used on that cake was called a buttercream transfer.  Well, I recently did another cake using that technique for the Little Mister's Mickey Mouse themed birthday party. I started with a picture of Mickey Mouse, taped down to the counter, with a piece of wax paper taped over it.  Using the appropriate colors for the character, I outlined the face with a size 5 Wilton tip in black buttercream icing.  I continued to fill in all the areas that required black.  To do this, I prefer to use a diagonal motion.  I don't know why, but it just worked for me. The Little Mister had fun watching me work on his cake.  I thought that was the sweetest thing.  That's something special about making his cakes, we get to share these special moments together. Once I completed filling in the face with all the colors, it was time to stick this in the freezer.   I actually flipped an aluminum pan upside down and

For the Little Mister's Mickey Mouse themed party, we wanted to have some cookies decorated with the Mickey theme.  I had a difficult time locating the right size cookie cutter locally.  I found a set of Mickey Mouse cookie cutters, but they would have made for some really small cookies. I had seen a few things on the internet about making your own cookie cutter.  I was running out of time and had difficulty finding the right size mouse face and ears in a cookie cutter,  I decided to give making my own cutter a try. I used this tutorial by Queen Leilani on YouTube.  The instructions for making the cutter begin around the two minute mark of the video.  This video was apparently a contest submission, so she does quite a bit of talking before the tutorial.  However, her instructions on actually making the cutter are quite easy to follow. The cookie cutter I made came out better than I expected.  I just kind of kept playing around with the shape until it seemed just right.

Our kitchen is a little small, and I need lots of kitchen storage.  So, I came up with a solution to my problem of not having enough space to put everything.  I came across this pretty armoire on Craigslist. The shape and size was perfect for what we needed.  It was simply the wrong color to match our kitchen cabinets and the other furniture in our living room area.  So, I knew I would have to stain it. Deciding what stain to use and how to use it was my first major hurdle.  I wondered if spray painting it was the best bet, given it would provide a similar look to our kitchen cabinets.  But, honestly, I could not really find too many examples online of spray painted wood in an espresso color or something of the like.  Most of the examples of spray painted wood pieces were of bright vibrant colors, none of which I wanted for our armoire. In my research, I came across the Young House Love post where they stained the cabinets in their kitchen using this Minwax Polyshades in Es