Pumpkins

Pumpkin and apple picking last week was a blast and then it rained. And rained. I haven't seen rain like that in a while. I even took a video but it really doesn't come through... so I'll spare you. But here is a picture:

Some yellow leaves are appearing and my monster plant is quite happy

So for about a week I couldn't do anything with my haul of pumpkins but stare and hope they didn't rot.

And the sun finally came out so I finally played around with them. I had visions of piling them high atop a cafe table, like I had seen online but my table was a little too wobbly and my pumpkins were kinda massive. In the end I ended up with this-

I grabbed a plastic urn planter that still had some mint and lemon verbena growing in it and plopped a Cinderella pumpkin on top and topped that with a Boer Squash

This little orange guy was the one we actually picked from an actual pumpkin patch! Tip: bring a knife! 

My brother Tristan hates this cement dog so my mom called it Tristan. There is another cement dog on the other side of the door also named Tristan. My mom is hilarious. 

And I've been wanting to make Whoopie Pies for a while- and all I needed was an excuse: Boss Day! Did you know it was Boss Day on Monday?

I have loved everything I've made out of my Baked cookbook so I had no hesitations in making their Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. 

Just don't eat more than one. Promise? After testing my batch I thought this picture would surely be enhanced by having one pie with a bite mark but then you can't just put the pie back on the plate after that- so I naturally ate it. And regretted it. These are moist, creamy and decadent. Don't get greedy!

Just one Whoopie Pie

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

Makes 12-24 whoopie pies

(I used a 1/2 inch ice cream scoop and got about 24 pies that seemed big enough for me)

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1 cup canola oil
3 cups chilled pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3 cups confectioners’ sugar
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350*F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.

In a large bowl, whisk the brown sugar and oil until mixed. Add the pumpkin and whisk to combine. Add the eggs and vanilla, whisk to combine.

Sprinkle the flour over the pumpkin mixture and whisk to combine. 

Use a small ice cream scoop to drop spoonfuls of dough an inch apart onto baking sheets. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until the cookies are cracked on top and an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Allow cookies to cool completely on the pans.

For the icing, sift the confectioners’ sugar into a medium bowl.

Fit an electric mixer with the paddle attachment. Mix the butter and cream cheese on medium speed until smooth and combined. Add the confectioners’ sugar and beat until combined. Lower speed and add the vanilla, beat until just mixed.

Place about 1-2 tbls of filling on the flat side of one cookie and sandwich with another. Press gently to spread the filling to the edges of the cookies. Store covered in the refrigerator, separating layers of whoopie pies with waxed paper.

How We Refinished our Couch- Part 2

So it's been a couple weeks since we went over refinishing the bottom of the our old couch and today we are going to address that funky material on the top. And we're not just talking about a funky design- this stuff obviously hadn't been cleaned in decades!





And it felt so good ripping it all off.


Well that's a bit of a lie as I didn't really get to rip anything off- see the trick to recovering a couch is to keep the pieces of fabric intact, only ripping the seams- this was you will already have a pattern for each piece you need to cut out from your new material.

Like this! You just take the piece of fabric from your couch (i believe this the bottom of a cushion) and lay it down flat on your new fabric and cut it out.

A couple things to keep in mind:

1- You want to make sure that you are keeping the seams in mind (on my old fabric the seams are the rolled up edges) so either lay them down as you are cutting or just cut 1/4- 1/2 inch away from the original fabric to account for seam allowance.
2- When cutting out your fabric, always lay the face of the old fabric onto the face of the new fabric or just make sure you are consistent otherwise you will end up with two identical pieces cut out for your right armrest.


Once you have your pieces cut out, you just want to affix them back onto the frame of the couch in the exact same way that they on there originally. This means paying attention to the upholstering of the couch while you are taking the pieces down. So that I wouldn't have to rely entirely on my memory of how it used to be assembled, we left the left side of the couch semi-attached (notably the intricate armrest area) so we had a guide for the re-assembly on the other side.

We used a staple gun for 80% of this recovering, a sewing machine for the rest and only needed a hammer to reinforce some staples that hadn't gone in all the way. Use a very light touch when hammering in the staples as the hammer tends to leave unsightly black marks on the fabric (no matter how clean you think it is).

To finish it off, we had to find some trim to cover all those staples. The orignal couch had some really gross white braided satin trim, but once we sanded down the wooden features, the couch was feeling a little beachy so I just bought some twine from the hardware store (far too much twine, I might add).

This part was actually the most painful- it took 4 episode of Law & Order, 2 rows of twine and 3 severe burns to my fingers.

But looking back at this monstrosity....

I'd say it was worth it.

Detail shot! Hello beautiful wooden features!

Admire the perfectly tucked fabric and curvature of the trim.

aaaaaah- Totally worth it.

• Cost: 3 shower curtains from Crate and Barrel at $35 each + 2 yards of extra yellow fabric at $12 + the twine at $4.95 + a couple sheets of sandpaper at $1.95= $123.90
• Time: I would say a full weekend
• Ease: If you have a good dose of common sense, this is not that difficult- just a but labour intensive and time consuming.

How we Refinished our Couch- part 1

Hello world! It's been a while since we last spoke, but with many of the big projects which had been keeping me away complete, I thought I would share some of the knowledge acquired along the way- or maybe just prove in pictures that I haven't been slacking off!

The Big project with a capital "B" has been recovering our couch. Remember our couch?

You can tell how much Kris loved it. We got it at the Salvation army near his parents house over Christmas for $100. Considering how resilient this couch is and the fact that it was much less ugly than all other options, we were pretty pleased.

So we lived with the couch for a couple months and it was pretty cozy until the springs started popping out of the bottom causing Kris' butt (never mine of course) to hit the floor. We knew we were going to have to patch things up under there. We flipped it upside down and Kris tried hammering some of the nails back in but this "patch" didn't last very long as the burlap-esque straps were dry rotted and breaking. We needed more than a "patch up". We were going to have to Refinish The Couch.

Kris is still super happy about our purchase!

One of the hardest parts was ripping out the old straps and enough of the old nails to put in the new stuff. A lot of the nails were too frail or rusted and the straps, despite being mostly dry rotted, REFUSED TO GIVE unless they wanted to. Also- the couch had obviously been completely filled with dust before sealing it up. In short- the process was messy.

Boing-y springs!

We decided to replace the old straps with new vinyl straps meant for lawn furniture. It took us two bags of $14.99 to recover the bottom and we found the vinyl very easy to use. We started off by trying to reuse some of the old nails, but my shinny new staple gun turned out to be much more practical and efficient.
The couch was naturally sectioned into 3, so we did them one at a time- stapling the straps on both sides along the width first, not worrying about the springs and then stapling one length at a time, weaving it through the cross straps (over, under, over ect.) while the other person pushed the springs down.

It was pretty easy once we worked out a system.

Kris did mess up the over, under pattern a few times, which wasn't be the end of the world, but writing this now about a month after the fact, the sections with no crossing mistakes are holding up perfectly whereas the other section has had a spring start to pop out.

Beautiful perfection on this side!

Look at that naughty spring!

We finished everything off by folding over a length of strapping and stapling them down the middle of the 2 sections for extra support since that what had been on the couch before we ripped it all up.

Now if we really wanted to make this professional, we would have hand tied the springs but we (or maybe I) are just too lazy- plus I wasn't sure how to do it at the people who constructed our couch used some fancy metal attachments instead- but I recently stumbled on this blog which shows some professionals doing exactly this with a chair very similar to our couch!

Although it did take the better part of a evening and a morning to complete, the redo has been a huge success and we're no longer afraid of falling through the bottom.

• Cost: $68= $30 vinyl straps + $30 staple gun + $8 staples
• Time: Approx 6 hours
• Ease: Easier than you'd think and worth the investment- especially if you already have a staple gun and staples!

Getting Crafty with my walls

For those who have followed the progress of our little apartment, you may have already seen the below picture which I posted as part of a "tour" once we moved in. You may not have noticed but despite having several pictures of my necklace rail in the bathroom (which I'm sure was of supreme interest to everyone), there were none of the right side of this room.

And why you might ask? Let me show you:

Pretty hideous, right? Although the boyfriend and I were very fortunate when acquiring furniture, we did not make out with a real wardrobe. And where would we put one anyway? The apartment came with one small closet across from the front door but this was enough for someone with no clothes. which is not me. Thankfully, my mom had the above temporary wardrobe in the garage and this would have to suffice.

Then is started sagging. And leaning into Kris's "space". And driving us both nuts. So Kris decided it was due to the poles coming undone and all he would have to do is to bang them back into place. He took a hammer to it and pretty much banged it into an early but deserving grave. Something had to be done.

I theorized that the wall next to my side of the bed, the one with the bookshelf could become some sort of hanging space but the fireplace was too shallow and would mean hangers poking out from the wall. The only solution would be to hang clothes flush to the wall and hope I could find some accommodating shelves.

We headed to Ikea and I found everything I needed down to the screws and spacers.

Got myself 4 of these

3 of these babies

And just so all my hangers would be the same and swivel- I picked up a pack of these.

The result?

Ta da!!! And I have Kris to thank for all the manual labor- he did a really fantastic job with this and none of the shelves have even fallen off!

And for less than 100 bucks I got myself a full wall worth of storage. Yes, I have had to make some compromises, but keeping only my work clothes on hangers means that getting ready in the morning is practically mindless.

Now all i need is a night stand- What do you think between this recycled aluminum one and this nestling table set?

• Cost: less than $100
• Time: An afternoon
• Ease: Pretty darn easy if you have a big burly man!