kitchen

Re-purposing – Vintage Sewing Machine Drawers

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While visiting local yard sales, auctions, thrift shops, etc, look for items that catch your eye! You might think to yourself… I really like that piece, but I don’t really have a use for it. I want to encourage you to look through “creative eyes” when you are making a decision about a particular piece.

If you really put your mind to it, you could almost always come up with an idea about how to use a piece creatively.

As an example, here is an item that I picked up at an auction for just a few dollars. It’s original purpose was a set of drawers on a vintage sewing machine, but I have found many other uses for this piece!

I’ve used it as a place to store silverware, cloth napkins, napkin rings, letters, lace, and most recently it is standing in as my tea caddy 🙂 I love getting up in the mornings, opening a drawer & selecting whatever tea I happen to be in the mood for. There is lots of room for many different types of tea, as well as tea bag holders & a tea ball for the loose leaf varieties.

Here are the main questions I ask myself before purchasing an item.

1. Can I afford to spend the money on this piece?
2. Do I really love it?
3. Do I have room for it?
4. Then – what can I use this for?

I have found, that if I really love a piece, I usually find many different uses for it over the years.

Now… I think I’m off for a cup of tea 🙂

How to Organize Your Kitchen Drawers

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Organizing Your Kitchen Drawers

Organizing the drawers in your kitchen is a wonderful feeling! Have you ever gone to the drawer to find something and spent several minutes and had to sift through all of the little goodies that you’ve collected & added to the drawer over the years just to find that 1 item that you’re looking for?

There is one thing that I have learned over the last few months, cooking in the kitchen goes much smother when you can go right to the location of the tool that you need – and actually find it right away! The holiday season means much more time in the kitchen, so there’s no great time than the present to tidy up your creative cooking space!

Here are a few helpful tips for organizing your drawers:

1. Empty the drawer of all contents
2. Thoroughly clean the drawer
3. Go through the items one at a time
4. Put the items into different boxes – 1 to keep, 1 to pass, 1 for trash
5. Line drawer with non-slip material (I’ve purchased this in rolls at the $1 store)
6. Place clean items in drawer in a tidy organized way
7. Rinse & repeat on all of your drawers 🙂

I love having nicely organized drawers in our new kitchen!

Chicken Salad

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chicken salad

Growing up in the south, we never really mixed fruit directly into our recipes, however, over the past year or so, I have started to acquire a taste for these new recipe ideas!

This week I put together a chicken salad something like one that I had at a local restaurant.

Although you can feel free to mix the ingredients in any combination that suits your taste, this is what I decided to do today.

Mix together
– cooked chicken (cubed)
– diced green peppers
– very small sized pasta
– grapes
– mayonnaise
– salt, pepper, garlic salt, and any other seasonings that you fancy

Mix well & enjoy!

Like I said – this recipe may not be something that you might normally have, but I think you’ll come to love the little bit of crisp sweetness that the grapes add to this salad.

You can serve by itself – or in a pita or wrap as a sandwich.