Window Dressings?

 If you have picked up on anything from viewing my blog, I'm sure it's no secret that I love color!  Lot's and lot's of bright bold beautiful color.  There are times when I like to go neutral but for the most part I prefer to live in color.  My neutral color of preference tends to be black.  I like black because you can bounce so many vibrant colors off of black and that's exactly what I'm going to show you.

What do you think?  Too much?  Well, not for me.  Those new drapes I put up several months ago look fantastic against the wall color, but were just a little too dark for this old summer gal.  So I decided to liven them up with a little color.

I used this beautiful fabric to make some pillows and a table runner several years ago and still had a few yards left.  If I had my druthers I would have long beautiful curtains made in this fabric.  However, I've got to be a little more thrifty these days so I decided to just dress up the drapes I have.  Since I never EVER close these drapes (it's a claustrophobia thing), I decided what would it hurt to improvise.  I simply made little mini panels to go across the top of each drapery panel.   I could do this easily since I use rings with clips and let each panel swag a little in the middle. I'm still thinking about adding some type of tassels or fringe on the edge, not sure though.

I realize this may not be ideal or even close to what some of you might consider doing, but I love it!  I even love mixing these patterns like I did.  I was really surprised how much I actually liked the mix.

It was "sew" simple and I can take them down easy enough this fall and winter when I'll be ready to move away from the tropical look.

I even made some new slipcovers for the brown pillows we keep on our club chairs.  You've seen me make slip covers for these pillows before in a blue fabric.

I only had enough fabric left to do the fronts of both pillows so I used a mini check fabric that I already had on the back.  It's a black and tan color similar to the drapes.  I like the mix!

Here's a glimpse of one of the older pillows I first made with this fabric.  I used a beautiful and fun fringe on the edge for these.  I got the bright solid pillows from work before I stopped.  These were big sellers and came in all sorts of fun bright colors.  They only cost $7.99 each too.  I chose coral and ...

...and lime green to bring out a brighter pop of color on the sofa and to coordinate with my lime green lamp shade.

The turquoise blue leopard pillows were my last splurge from work.  My final employee discount!  Oh, how I do miss that discount!  LOL!   

This runner was one that I had made for this table several years ago.  It's reversible and has the gold fabric on the back that I usually have on this table.  I finally am able to flip it now and use this side without it seeming so out of place to me.  Fun!

The sailboats are moving around now and the shells are coming back out taking center stage for the season.  I still haven't finished tweaking the small vignettes yet.  I will get to it soon enough because there's plenty of time for that now.

It's feeling much more exciting around here now to me.  I love how color just makes me come alive!  How about you?

I think I'll link this up with Marty over at A Stroll Thru Life

for; 

Inspire Me Tuesday.

Just to show you how out of touch I've been, I just realized this morning that Marty had changed the name and theme of her Tuesday party.  LOL!  I'm very happy about that though because now I get to share my, let's call it, "window dressings", shall we?

Thanks so much for stopping by and checking it out.  Let me know if you likey!  If not, you can just smile anyway, okay?  LOL!

Have a great day Y'all!

End of Summer Celebration

It is hard to believe it's the end of summer already, but it is!   I for one am very excited and ready to move on past these record breaking temps we've had this year just about ALL Summer long!  Three digit temps is waaaay too much to bear for soooo long, even for this born and bred southern gal.  I'm so thrilled to say goodbye to our hot summer that I will be celebrating with a few friends today over at;

 A Musing Potpourri for an
 End of Summer Celebration.

While we are still hitting temps here in the 90's, there has been a cooling down over the last few days in the mornings and evenings.  That's a good sign that summer is starting to move out.  Our new pool has finally dropped it's temperature to it's first all time low of 83 degrees. Burrr!!!  LOL!  It's quite refreshing though!

I've put together a few fun things in order to celebrate the end of summer.  First I've created a few mosaics of all my summer highlights.  Then, I am also sharing a very easy Chicken Salad recipe I've been working on perfecting this summer.  So thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy!

Yes ladies that is canned chicken.  I know, I know, I can just see you shaking your heads and rolling your eyes, and I'm sure many of you are considering clicking off right now...but wait!!!  I promised to share an EASY chicken salad recipe with you didn't I?  Well, yes I did! 

 I love chicken salad and there is about a bazillion ways you can make it for sure, but I really wanted a recipe that was simple and easy.

Besides taking a mini vacay, building a pool,tablescaping, and various other projects that I've been working on I've also been trying to eat lighter.

  I have been buying chicken salad like crazy this summer from our local meat market but it cost almost $7.00 for a small tub.  It had a very simple taste and the more I ate of it, the more I decided that I certainly could make this myself.  I kept looking at what was in it and then started looking for recipes online that might come close to what I was tasting.  After omitting all the recipes that required me to cook fresh chicken first, (because I knew that would not work with me)  

  I finally found a recipe I liked from allrecipes.com and tweaked it just a bit.

The tweaking was a short process and used up a few of these.  I was pretty excited to find these at Sam's Club sold in a pack of 5 cans for about $9.00.   I know the preferred "southern" method to make chicken salad is by using roasted chicken then shredding that but come on, me, really? I just don't have the patience or time for that because I literally want chicken salad for lunch almost daily. I do have the time for this though and think the secret is in using white meat.

After draining the can I dump the chunks into a bowl and use my fork to break it up and shred it more.

Then I used about two to two and half stalks of celery very finely chopped.  First I cut the then slices...

then diced it down, very small!

Add that to the chicken...

...then I added two heaping tablespoons of mayo.

Next I added three heaping "tea" spoons of dill relish.  The recipe calls for sweet relish but I prefer the dill relish.  I just don't care for a sweet sweet pickle taste but do love dill pickles.

Next add one half of a teaspoon of onion powder.  I love this!  It may taste slightly pungent the first day immediately after you make it but after being refrigerated tends to be less strong but helps flavor the chicken.

Then you add your salt and pepper.  I only used about an eight of a teaspoon of each, but this could be changed due to your tastes too.  This was just enough for us!

Continue to mix it all up good with your fork and then spoon it into a lidded tub to refrigerate.

Here's mine that I recycled from the meat market.  Sorry guys!

I've been using these for an even lighter lunch lately.  Yum!

After spreading my chicken salad on the bread, I add a few pieces of lettuce and that's it.

Roll it up and ENJOY!  I sure do!

Here's my version of the Chicken Salad recipe;

(1)13oz can of premium white chicken chunks

2 large stalks of celery very finely diced

2 heaping "table"spoonfuls of mayo

3 heaping "tea" spoonfuls of dill relish

1/2 teaspoon of onion powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Mix it all together in a bowl until chicken is finely shredded and store in a container w/sealed lid in refrigerator.  Tastes great on sandwich's and salads and no extra condiments needed for serving. 

It's a great light lunch for summer and will be even tastier this winter on toasted wheat or rye!

Yum!  I can hardly wait!

Thanks for visiting today!
Come again!