Simmer Pot Jars

Merry Christmas Eve!  

I come to you with a last minute gift idea.  Not an original one at all, but one that I'd never thought of until I saw it gifted to a friend!  

Simmer pot ingredients!!!!  The perfect neighbor or hostess gift!!!  

These can be put together quickly and are relatively inexpensive.  And I can't believe I'd never thought of making these before now!

SIMMER POT JARS

Ingredients:  bag of oranges, cinnamon sticks, fresh rosemary, whole cloves, cranberries             

Other:  ribbon, jar (mine are from Dollar Tree), instruction tag (I used this one.)

Directions:  Fill bottom of jar with cranberries.  Take one orange and push cloves into it forming rings around the orange.  Place orange in the jar.  Add rosemary sprigs and cinnamon sticks on the side.  Sprinkle a few more whole cloves in, along with a few more cranberries.  Put the lid on and tie a ribbon around the edge.  Add the instruction tag on top. 

 

 

Then sneak over to your neighbor's porch and drop one off!  They'll have it for Christmas Day simmering!  Quick, simple, and cute!  Also, fun to put together!  

And hopefully you'll have leftover ingredients to simmer yourself!

Hello Again...

With winter looming......and pandemics raging......I think I may revive this little space.  Same This Vintage Grove as before.  Still obsessed with vintage and thrifting.  Still fixing up my 1921 Craftsman Bungalow.  Still decorating with secondhand.  Still curating antique booths.

Hoping to fill a small corner of the internet with cozy, collected home decor.  Starting with a sneak peek of my bedroom.  Dark, moody walls with wicker, velvet, and brown accents!  All vintage furniture.  And a Cafe Du Chateau French Press....

  

I'm officially a French Press convert now.  Why was I scared of this gadget for so long?  It definitely is much more my vibe, and makes for a cuter coffee station!  Snag one of your own for 20% off with my code thisvintagegrove!!!  Click HERE to make one yours or to get a head start on a Christmas gift!

Let me know if you snag one! 

And let me know if I should revive this ole space.  I loved this blogging hobby years ago, and with the world erupting, it might be a nice diversion from the everyday.

 

Stuffed Bell Peppers

It's been awhile, blog-land.

I didn't mean to take a break from posting, but 2017 was pretty ho-hum.  No big house projects.  No vacations.  Nothing really noteworthy.

Now here I am with my fifth snow day of 2018, and I have the hankering to write again.  Mainly for the purpose of remembering a concoction I made last night.  (But maybe a little grading avoidance too.)

Anyway, after pouring over three different recipes for stuffed bell peppers, I decided to make my own version.  And we loved them.......so in order to duplicate them in the future.......here I am....

STUFFED BELL PEPPERS

1 lb of ground turkey

1 can of red enchilada sauce

1/2 cup green salsa

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 cup of black beans ~ drained

1/2 cup of thawed frozen corn

1 pouch of Uncle Ben's Santa Fe Whole Grain Rice Medley

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1 to 2 cups of grated cheese 

3 to 4 bell peppers

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Brown and drain the ground turkey.  Return the ground turkey to the skillet and stir in the red enchilada sauce, green salsa, cumin, and chili powder.  Once combined stir in the black beans, corn, rice, and cilantro.  Simmer for five minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in cheese, saving some for topping.  Prep the peppers by removing the stems and seeds.  Fill peppers to with mixture and top with cheese.  Bake for 20-25 minutes.

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There.  Done.  Return to random blogging complete.  Now I can make these again without straining my brain or forgetting ingredients.

And maybe I'll continue to update this little corner of the internet.  I did get new curtains.  And there is a bedroom makeover in the works. 

We shall see.

Until then, find me on Instagram, which I never abandon for long. 

A Vintage Christmas

Decorating for Christmas has been especially fun this year!  For the first time ever in my whole life, we have lights on the exterior of our house.  We have two trees up only inches away from each other. And I finally own a vintage tinsel tree!  So take a peek at Christmas at the Craftsman!

Christmas on the mantel.......

This is my favorite way to display all of my vintage Shiny Brites.

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Christmas on the dining room table........

All my bottle brush trees are in a grouping on our table as a fun centerpiece....

And there she is.  That beauty of a tinsel tree.  She (it's a girl) arrived in her original box with each branch still in its original sleeve (along with the assembly directions too).  I bought it from a friend after I posted about wanting one on Facebook!  The magic of social media.  

Just a wall away from the tinsel tree is our other tree......

  

That wall divides the living room and dining room.  I wanted one tree to be seen from the street, and since you can't put lights on a tinsel tree, that tree won!  

Another win goes to colorful lights.  Multi-colored lights went on the tree to match our exterior lights.........

When I saw those vintage inspired bulbs in all the fun colors, I knew my original plan for white lights was out.

And how about those wreaths???  THEY WERE THE MISTER'S IDEA!  

As I was choosing which lights to buy, the mister wandered off.  When I found him, he said he was looking for wreaths to hang on our porch.

Swoon.

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So there you have it!  Christmas at the Craftsman.......vintage all around.  Or at least vintage inspired.  

By next Christmas, I'd like to have a new collection going strong......those ceramic Christmas trees that light up......lots of them......for the top of my piano.  

#goals

Dining Room Makeover

Did you know that painting walls makes you do strange things like volunteer to host Thanksgiving?  Not just your family, but the mister's too.  At the same time.

Be warned.

That's exactly what happened.

We painted these lovely lime walls.......

And the plan kicked into action.

But this isn't about Thanksgiving.

It's about our super cheap dining room makeover!  Cheap because we brought our chandelier with us from our previous house. And also because we received a free table that we just updated with paint.

The next thing on our list was to paint the walls and find chairs.  I wanted fresh, clean, and bright, so white to the rescue!  Of course, we weren't sure how we'd like white everything until it was finished, but when it was done..........WHOA!  We loved it.......

  
The most expensive part of the makeover was the set of windsor chairs.  I had hoped to pull off the mismatched look, but my brain couldn't take it.  The uneven heights, the different angle of the chair legs.  Couldn't handle it.  #imcrazy

So I shopped online for chairs and found a few before I decided on a set.  Target had similar chairs that I loved, but much pricier.  And I found another option that I liked the shape of, but you had to assemble them.  So Furniture Row won.

AND THEN.........my mom surprised me by buying them for Christmas!

So when I say cheap makeover, I'm not kidding.  Other than the chairs, the most expensive item was the ceiling medallion.  All the other money was spent on a few gallons of paint and new electrical outlets.

Now you might be wondering about all the white.  Never fear, the room isn't void of color.  We painted the basement door.....

And the search is on for the perfect pair of (not-white) curtains.  I also plan to hang a huge stained glass piece my dad made when I was a little girl, which is full of color.

So there you have it.  One of the most satisfying before and afters ever........

And.......everyone survived Thanksgiving.

Fashion Victim

Once upon a time, I wrote "fashion" posts.

Quite a few of them actually.

In approximately 50% of them (or more) I wore my most favorite riding boots EVER.  They could never be replaced.  I should have purchased ten pair, prepping for the day they were no longer available.

That day happened.

This year, Victoria's Secret quit selling them.  Devastation.

The hunt was on for their replacement.  Because I had worn them into the ground.  They were beyond repair.....

There was no getting another winter out of them.

So the shopping began.  I ordered two different boots online, both got returned.  I tried on countless styles in shoe stores.  And of course, nothing held a candle to the holy grail of boots, which I knew I would never own.

Until I walked in my house to find this waiting for me......

THE Frye Melissa Button riding boots.

That darling mister of mine had ordered them as an early Christmas present!

I wore them the very next day.  (No fashion post to show for it though.  I should probably stick to booth and house stuff.)

Now THESE are my most favorite riding boots ever.

The Vintage Peddler

A new antique shop opened very close to my house.  And I sort of snagged a booth there.

Yes, that's booth number four.

Booth four is at The Vintage Peddler.

Since the mall is brand new, we got a framed out booth that we could have our way with.  The owner left the booths that way so that each vendor could make their space unique.  So we shiplapped the back wall.........

I love walking up and seeing that wall with the handkerchief bunting.

We hung pegboard on the other walls, which we covered with burlap.

Then we filled it up.........

The booth spaces there are month to month, so I figured this little experiment at another antique mall couldn't hurt.

You can check out my inventory on Facebook!  There's an album dedicated to The Vintage Peddler, as well as my Relics booths!

I'm crossing my fingers that this new antique mall takes off!