Cinco de Mayo Tablesetting

It's Cinco de Mayo today!  What fun!  I am joining Table scape Thursday today to celebrate.  Please check out more beautiful tables capes here @ http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ .  I am sure I won't be the only one who chose this day to join in the fun.


In our house, we eat Mexican at least once a week.  There are literally 3 Mexican restaurants within easy driving distance from our rural home.  We love Mexican food!  I have learned to cook several very delicious Mexican recipes, with a little help from Southern Living of course!  One of my favorite dish's to cook is the " Texas Style Enchilada Casserole".  It is sooo good.  Look for it at Southernliving.com. Our Sailing Club is actually hosting a Mexican night this Saturday and I will bring that signature dish, however tonight I am taking the easy way out and making Gordita's.  To celebrate, I've set a fun and festive table using my everyday wares.  We'll be dining in the kitchen as usual tonight.  Come and join us!

For my centerpiece I used my Southern Living Hurricane Vase.  I added a candle some dried orange slices, and a bit of colorful ribbon pieces.

Faux lemons and glass candy sit upon a colbalt blue glass dish.

For my dishes, I chose this fruit pattern for the first layer.  This set came from Ross about 2yrs ago, very inexpensive set.  I love how colorful they are!

Then I layered the top plates using my solid colored swirl pattern square plates.  They are a set of four, I also picked up a few months ago from Ross.  They were on clearance for $3.99 for the set.  I love how they are multicolored and smaller in size.  My napkins were a Pfaltzcraft outlet purchase at the beach.

And my serving pieces are a crystal water jug from our wedding.  This pretty green stoneware dish and this acrylic green tinted bowl.

Of course no Mexican dinner is complete without the standard salsa dishes I picked up some time ago at the Dollar tree.  Gotta love that store!

Hope you are enjoying the show so far!  How about  a sneak peek of the big picture in my kitchen before dinner is served.

Ooops!  Looks like dinner is served.  As I promised earlier, tonight is a simple affair.

It's sure to be delicious though!

Happy Cinco de Mayo Everyone!  Hope you enjoyed my setting!

Leave me a comment if you stop by, Okay?   Time to eat!  Yummm!!!

Procrastinating Pansies

I spent quite a bit of time outdoors Sunday and some on Monday too!  I was working on my back deck area. I got alot done, but still need to add in a few more beauties.  I was hoping to show you some progress  photo's but then the rains came and slowed down me down.

So today for Outdoor Wednesday,  I am sharing these little beauties! They are the last to leave the party!  Much like the energizer bunny they just keep on going and going! 

I planted these pansies last year sometime... I think?   I'm guessing close to Halloween because of their coloring but I'm really not sure.  I just don't remember when I put these in!

You see, I had this window box on our fence in the backyard and only recently moved it onto the deck.  When I moved it up here they weren't around, but soon showed up rather quickly. 

 They seem to love it here and are blooming daily.  I call them "Johnny Jump Ups" and they certainly are living up to their name! 

Sadly, I really am waiting for them to exit before starting a new breed!  However, I am now questioning how long does one wait?  They truly are hanging in there!  And now I know if someone says don't be a pansy, what they really mean is, stop waiting around or stop procrastinating!  But, I will wait, and enjoy the beauty that they are!   Hope you did too!  Thanks for joining me! Come back next week for the total reveal of the deck.

Please join the following link for more posts like mine @ http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/ for Outdoor Wednesday!


Be sure and leave me a comment if you stopped by, I love hearing form you! 

It's The "REAL" Kitchen Bar

In December I started a designated bar area in our house.  During the holidays it's always necessary to have an easy access area to locate your adult beverages.  It is a work in progress, and almost done, minus the wine cooler.   Here it is so far! 

This was our kitchen desk area!  It is directly across from the office which is located off the kitchen.  So it is never used as a desk, previously only as a catch all for junk!

While clearing all the clutter, I decided I would set up the bar here for the holidays!  Why not?  It's in a very central location in our kitchen.  I also noticed the size of the space for our desk chair is about the same size as a wine cooler.  Well, after searching around, I found out the size is wide enough but just a bit short.  I am thinking we will need to raise the desk top some and loose the drawer.  The Mr. just mentioned last night perhaps we may only need to loose the drawer, so as I said it's still a work in progress, but a very exciting one none the less.  Stay tuned for that part, it may be a bit longer on that, but will be worth the wait!

Meanwhile, last week had me stopping by Goodwill to see what I could find and I came across this for $1.50.  I snapped it right up! Wasn't crazy about the silver metal look, but I knew I would paint it and use it at various times and could add floral or ribbons and such to spruce it up.

So, I sanded it a bit and spray painted it white!  Turned out pretty good!  Question was, did I really want to stick it in a cabinet to wait on company?  No!  I left it sitting on the "bar" and then it hit me, why not a bar caddy?

 So, I pulled out a few of my bar extras and then added a few more, like these stirrers from the dollar tree!  Too cute!  I even remembered the wine markers I had, a gift from my sister in law a few years ago.  They make the perfect jewelry for the caddy while waiting on a glass.  Don't you think?

Well, this finally got my husband inspired enough to hang the acrylic wine rack I bought a month or so ago from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  Trouble was we had a light under the cabinet that was holding us back until I noticed we had enough room to shift it over and still hang the rack.  So, he got right to it!  Now I get to keep my everyday wine glasses secured and within easy reach.  I'm lovin it!

 Eventually, I hope to add the perfect ice bucket when I find it.  And I suppose some more liquor wouldn't be a bad idea either. 

 Since I'm a wine and beer girl, I  really don't drink much liquor, so I'm not even sure what all I should keep on hand here, and what is essential.  Feel free to leave a comment on that one too! Whew, it's late!  Time for a nightcap, thanks for dropping by!

I'm joining the following parties below, be sure and check more fun blogs at:
http://astrollthrulife.blogspot.com/ for Tabletop Tuesday
http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/ for Nifty Thrifty Tuesday
http://www.reinventedkb.com/ for Trash to Treasure Reinvented

As always I love to hear from you, leave me a comment if you please!

Bench Buddy

Just a few changes this past week.  They are small but go along way in getting towards where I wanna be!   It all started when I saw these bench's in the Ballard's Catalog!  Nice Right???

 I love this bench, but I am not about to pay that amount of money for a bench when I knew I would come across something eventually that fit the bill.   These little bench's have a variety of uses and that's the appeal to me!   Worse comes to worse and I would beg the Mr. to make one and I'd ONLY have to listen to him complain about it the whole time.  But, that didn't happen because I found this one!

 I purchased this little bench some time ago from a consignment store for about $18.00.  Again, the Mr. thought it was absurd, but I loved this bench and had been looking for one for some time.  As I've showed you in a previous post it really comes in handy for keeping my laptop and favorite book handy next to my best chair.

 Anyway, while I have loved this bench, I did not love the stained finish.  I wanted a black bench!  Finally after a year or two of procrastinating here is my transformed little bench!  How do you like me now???

I think it's pretty sweet now!  It even already had a built in distressed look!  LOL!

That's it for today folks! One down, a zillion to go!  How about you? 

 Have you ever gotten on on the bench kick too?  They really are great little things to have around and are so easily available in all shapes and sizes to fit any space.

I am linking up for Met Monday today, please check out more wonderful transformations here:

                                     http://www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

Leave me a note if you stop by, love to hear from ya!

Need Technical Blogging Advice

So today I switched to a new template.  I am using Minima Stretch but am having a very difficult time getting my collage pic to (fit to size) in the header.  It is either too small if I choose shrink to fit and too large if I don't shrink to fit.


I am using Picasa and cannot figure out how to shrink original photo to appropriate size, any advice would be greatly appreciated.  I would like for my collage photo to fit in my header parameters.  If anyone else out there has switched to this template and knows how to make your photos fit this header size, please let me know how.  I'm hoping to stay w/this template as I really love larger photos!  Please help.

Thanks for your help!