Pian Del Gallo Video

We had such a good time in our agritourismo in Greve in Chianti that we decided to film a little video while we were there. It was a beautiful and relaxing place and we just had to share! It was a little cold when we were there in early May, but I bet it would be even more lovely in summer and fall.

We were looking for a small working vineyard to stay at while we were in Chianti, and stumbled across this one online. They didn't have any online booking options, and everything was done over email so we really didn't know what to expect when we got there. But it was worth the small amount of extra hassle! The property and rooms were great. Ettore and his wife were wonderful hosts and were more than happy to show us around the property and talk about how they organically farm and produce their wine and olive oil. They had great recommendations of where to eat locally and what to go see, and they even provided us with a bottle of their wine to enjoy in the apartment! We wish it had been a little warmer and less rainy so we could sit outside and enjoy the patio and views, but I suppose that just gives us an excuse to go back again someday.

Find more information on Pian Del Gallo: http://www.piandelgallo.eu/home.html

10 Practical Things I Learned in Italy

Kacey and I just returned from our 5 year wedding anniversary trip to Italy (how has it been 5 years already?!?!) and instead of just a recap or picture post, I thought I'd share some practical knowledge I picked up. Some of these may be obvious, but others would have been reeeeeeally helpful to know beforehand. So maybe some of these tips can help others who are planning a trip.

Vegetariain Spring Rolls

Spring rolls have always intimidated me. To clarify, making them has intimidated me - eating them has never been a problem. Something about actually having to roll various ingredients together just scared me away. And rice paper, that stuff is just a disaster waiting to happen. Or so I wrongly thought. After trying these, I'm not sure why I was so afraid. They're ridiculously easy to make once you get past all the vegetable chopping. (So. Much. Chopping.) And they're completely customizable, leaving you free to put in whatever veggies you like. I made these vegetarian, but shrimp or chicken is fantastic in here as well. 

DIY Tailored Valances

Well, I was going to write a tutorial on how I made these, but then I realized that I just combined a few other people's tutorials and they probably explained things much better than I could. So I figured I'd just link to their tutorials and give any tips and tricks I picked up while making them. (Also I made these over a year ago and just got the photos off my camera yesterday, so the details are a bit fuzzy. Whoops.)

DIY Moroccan Wedding Blanket Inspired Throw Tutorial

You know those gorgeous Moroccan wedding blankets that are incredible but crazy expensive? They're beautiful and have such a great story behind them. In Morocco they're handmade by a Berber bride's female relatives and given to her for her wedding. After the ceremony the bride wears the blanket like a cape and takes it to her new home. Image 1, Image 2 I've had my eye on one of these for a while, but with their price tag it just wasn't going to happen. However, when I found this throw blanket on clearance at Hobby Lobby last week, I knew I could whip up a pretty close approximation and get the look for much less. In fact this cost me less than $50 to make.

Gold and Glitter Sprayed Pine Cones

Well hello there! How did it become Christmas already? Isn't it still October? In any case, I have a super easy DIY project to share to add some shine to rustic holiday decor. 

Spinach Bianca Lasagna

So apparently it's cold in the rest of the country? It's finally beautiful here, mid 80s during the day and 60s at night (and this, my friends, is why I moved to Arizona). It's finally cold enough to start thinking about warm comfort foods. For a somewhat healthier take on casseroles and lasagna, I like making a white lasagna so I can feel healthy eating spinach and chicken, while really I'm in it for the 3 cups of cheese. Whatever. 

See? Spinach. It's healthy. 

Cheeeeeeeese. More cheese, always. 

Ingredients:

2-3 chicken breasts

1 package of no boil lasagna noodles 

1 small bunch of green onions

1 bunch of spinach 

6 cups chicken broth 

3 cups of grated mozzarella 

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Start by cooking up the chicken in a frying and shredding it. 

Put a layer of lasagna noodles on the bottom of a 9x13" pan. Then layer, layer layer. Start with a layer of chicken and sliced green onions, then add a layer of spinach, and then mozzarella. Top with a sprinkle of salt and pepper and then add 3 cups of chicken broth.

Then repeat - chicken and onions, spinach, mozzarella, 3 cups of broth. You may not use all the broth. You want the broth to completely cover the upper layer of noodles or they'll get hard and crispy/chewy which isn't what we're going for.  Bake in the oven for 30 minutes covered with tinfoil. Remove tinfoil for the last 10 minutes to make sure the cheese is a melty golden brown.

Remove from the oven, spoon into a bowl, and eat your heart out. Mmmmm, cheesy goodness


*This recipe was originally posted on my now retired blog, Neroli Blossoms. 

DIY Gold Tipped Antlers

I have a fun, ridiculously easy DIY project to share today. Is it just me, or do other people's husbands/boyfriends have an excessive amount of deer antler sheds just lying around their house? Because I've already decorated with at least three, and I keep finding more in random boxes. (Also, for those of you who didn't grow up in the wilderness, these bits of antlers are called shed and fall off deer naturally. My husband usually picks them up off the ground when he goes camping). This is such a ridiculously easy way to get a rustic glam look. (Meanwhile, my husband is trying not to fall over as I desecrate these hallowed treasures.)

Step 1. Locate a shed. Apparently these are even for sale on ebay. I seem to have a million of them in random closets and boxes. But if you aren't related to or dating an outdoor aficionado you can sometimes find them at flea markets or antique shops.

Step 2: Tape off the area you want to spray. If you have terrible aim like me, poke holes in a plastic bag to cover the rest of the antler like some sort of bizarre plastic buffalo. It's awesome.

Step 3: Spray the antlers with gold spray paint and let dry. Caution: this stuff is strangely addicting and you may be hit with the sudden urge to spray paint everything gold. Dresser knobs, picture frames, your dog...(just kidding on that last one!!)

Step 4: Suuuuuper carefully peel off the tape and prance around your house holding the antler aloft showing off your beautiful tchotchke. Or, you know, behave like a normal person and just stick it on a dresser somewhere. But make sure to look at it appreciatively every now and then, because it is a pretty cool object.

DIY fabric headboard

I've been waiting a long time to get halfway decent photos of this headboard. We made it back in our old house, and the sage green fabric didn't match the tan walls of our bedroom at all. But I had a vision of someday having a peaceful white bedroom and I knew the headboard would be exactly what we needed. It just took us 6 months to get there! But now we're finally to the point of putting our new bedroom together and it's glorious! As a bonus, this headboard tutorial is ridiculously easy. 

Materials needed:

plywood cut to length of your bed and height that you want

quilt batting - enough to cover plywood

fabric - enough to cover plywood 

two 2x4s cut to height of headboard legs (I got a 2x4x8 and cut it in half to create two 4 ft tall legs)

staple gun

First measure the width of your mattress. Then figure out if you want the headboard to extend past the mattress. Add those measurements together to get the total length to cut the plywood. For example, our mattress is 75 inches wide and I wanted the headboard to extend 3 inches on each side of the bed. So our total width is 75 + 6 = 81 inches wide. 

Then figure out how tall you want the headboard to be. This isn't critical because you can adjust the height on the legs. I wanted our headboard to be 32" tall not including the legs, so I made that the plywood height measurement. 

Take these measurements and cut the plywood to size (ours was 81x32"). If you don't have a saw, your friendly Home Depot or Lowes employees can cut it to size for you. 

Cut the 2x4s down to size depending on how tall you want the legs to be (again, I had a 2x4x8 and had them cut it in half so each leg was 4 feet tall). 

Lay the batting on the floor, making sure there are at least 2 layers of batting to cover the entire piece of wood. Lay the wood on top of the batting, pull the batting tight around the edges and staple in place. Make sure the batting lays flat and there isn't any bunching or pulling. 

Once the batting is in place, lay the fabric face down on the floor. Lay the batting covered headboard onto the fabric, again making sure there's no bunching or pulling.

Be careful and check the front often to make sure everything is straight, especially if you are using a fabric with a print. Don't be afraid to use a lot of staples to hold the fabric down. 

Now comes the time to determine how tall you want the headboard to be. I wanted mine to be a bit taller, so I calculated the total measurement of 52 inches. I subtracted the height of the plywood (32 inches) from the total height of 52 inches to get 20 inches. I marked 20 inches up on each 2x4 and lined that mark up with the bottom of the plywood. Then nail or screw the legs into the board, making sure the nails/screws don't go through to the other side and wreck your hard work! 

Stand the headboard up to make sure it's even and then haul it into your bedroom! You can screw it into your bed frame (as I intend to do eventually) or just lean it up against the wall for now. 

It was so ridiculously easy, I don't know why we put off making it for so long.  As you can see, we've also added bedside lights and curtains to our bedroom! Now just to add some artwork above the bed and I think our master bedroom is getting pretty close to being finished! 

Protein Raw "Cookie" Bites

I'm going to admit something - I love raw cookie dough. Yes, I understand that supposedly it could be contaminated with salmonella from the raw eggs, but I just can't help it. Once when I was in grade school, my best friend and I made cookie dough for the sole purpose of eating it raw. We took it upstairs with us, had a great sleepover, and left it out overnight so we could eat it for breakfast the next morning. Needless to say, my mother freaked out when she realized we were eating raw cookie dough which contained eggs and butter that had been sitting out all night. (We were fine, and it was delicious.) 

Unfortunately, I hear that consuming large amounts of unbaked cookie dough is bad for you. Fortunately, this recipe sort of gives the taste and texture of cookie dough with much healthier ingredients! 

These snack bites are made of ground nuts and oats, and sweetened with honey and cinnamon. Throw in a few chocolate chips and it's basically a healthy uncooked cookie!  I love taking a few of these to work with me and eating them during the afternoon lull where I'd normally fill up on chips or actual cookies. It tastes like you're filling up on junk food, except you're actually getting a protein boost from all the nuts. Much better than a bag of Cheetos (although I do love me some Cheetos). 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup almonds

1/2 cup walnuts

1/2 cup pecans

1/2 cup oats

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup honey

2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

Mix the almonds, walnuts, pecans, oats, cinnamon, and salt in a food processor until ground to a meal. Add the honey and vanilla and pulse to combine. Add the chocolate chips and pulse again until just mixed together.

Drop a tablespoon of the dough onto a cookie sheet lined with freezer or parchment paper. Wetting your hands will help keep the dough from sticking. Freeze for an hour to harden and then store in an airtight container in the freezer.

Note - I'm using the word "raw" in the generic uncooked way, not the specific Raw Diet way. I don't know much about the Raw Diet, but I'm sure this recipe could be altered to fit the requirements and become a raw Raw cookie dough snack.



This post was originally posted on my now retired blog, Neroli Blossoms. 

DIY Wine Glass Stemware Rack

This little DIY wine glass shelf came from a complete lack of storage space in the kitchen and our crazy collection of glasses. I wanted a fun way to display our stemware, and what's better than a stemware shelf? The few wine glass racks I could find that were also shelves were fairly expensive, so I decided to make one myself.  It was fairly easy to make, although it did get me locked out of the house for 2 hours one night. Just make sure you don't do that too. 

Materials:

Stemware rack from Crate and Barrel

Thin sheet of wood (Home Depot will cut it to size for free!)

Paint - Glidden in "Softest Juniper"

8" decorative wall brackets from Menards

4 screws

I started with this unfinished stemware rack from Crate and Barrel and the thinnest piece of wood that I could find at Home Depot. I think it's actually meant to be a bottom of a drawer. Home Depot will cut the wood for free, so I had them cut it to the exact measurements of the shelf. 

I then painted it Glidden's "Softest Juniper" which is a great minty green. Both pieces of the wood were unfinished, so I applied 2 coats and sanded the edges just a bit to give it a worn look. 

Once everything was dry, I used wood glue to attach the top of the shelf to the rack. (This was the day I locked myself out of the house. I recommend you skip that part) 

Once the glue had dried, we measured and marked where the brackets would screw into the shelf. Note - make sure the screws are long enough to go into the wood, but not long enough that they stick out the other side since it will impede the bottom of the glasses from sliding into the racks. 

And that was it! Then we just flipped it over and attached it to the wall. 

I love how this shelf now displays both our stemware as well as our stemless glasses and Kace's beer mugs. It saves cabinet space and is great over a little bar or bar cart. 

Entryway Hat Wall

Just a little update today. We have this skinny little wall that you see immediately as you enter our front door. It's a bit of an awkward space, and I wasn't sure what to do with it. But with a few hooks and nails, a handy solution was found! The cowboy hat wall!

I used these hooks from amazon and my husband's collections of cowboy hats to decorate this entryway wall. He's able to easily grab them if he wants to wear one, and they're on display instead of hidden away in the closet. 

Master bedroom update - floors and walls

We've finally been able to move back into the master bedroom! The flooring has been installed and the walls are painted. We have a ways to go before this room is finished, but at least we're not camping out in the guest bedroom surrounded by unpacked boxes anymore. The change has been like night and day for this room. What started out as a stuffy, cave like master bedroom now feels open and relaxing. We still need to hang curtains since the sun shines right in that window at 5 am, as well as installing baseboards. But overall, I'm loving how this room is coming along! 

Take a look at what we started with when we moved in:

This room was absolutely filthy when we moved in. The 2 other bedrooms have carpeting and when we got those cleaned, the carpet cleaners took one look at the master and basically said "yeah, we're not even going to clean this, you need to rip it out". Which was fine by me! We decided to go with medium/dark wood look laminate flooring instead of hardwood since we have a large dog and the laminate should hold up better and not get scratched like wood floors. They look great so far! 

We also changed the walls from the dark green cavelike atmosphere to Benjamin Moore's White Dove to open up the room a bit. It's crazy what a little paint and new flooring can do for a room. I'm just proud that we actually did something with the master bedroom. In our last place, we hated how the room looked but never bothered to change anything about it. I'm discovering how nice it is to come home after work to a place where you feel really comfortable and happy. It's such a mood changer. Next steps - decorating! 

DIY Rustic Wooden Headboard

I don't know about you, but I've completely fallen in love with all those rustic headboards on Pinterest. However, having moved from the land of barns to the land of cacti I no longer have access to any perfectly weathered gray barn boards to make said projects. Enter the cedar fence slats. They're light, the perfect thickness, and easily cut down to size by your handy Home Depot or Lowe's worker if you don't own a saw.

Materials for a queen size bed:

6 cedar fence slats from Home Depot - have them cut to 63" long

2 two by fours for the legs - have them cut to 48" long

1 one by four cut to 32 inches for the center brace (or 1 inch shorter than the total height of the boards)

nails

wood glue 

Minwax Water Based Pre Stain Wood Conditioner

Minwax Water Based Stain in Toffee

Ploycrylic Protective Finish

Rags for wiping stain on and off

Paint/foam brushes

 Start with the boards cut to the size you need. For a queen size bed, the length of my boards was 63 inches. We sanded them all down to remove any splinters. This can either take a few minutes if you have an electric hand sander, or a few weeks if your husband won't let you buy one and promises to sand them all himself and then keeps forgetting. Ahem. Once (eventually) sanded I took a hammer to some of boards to give them that beaten, weathered look you just don't get from new cuts of lumber.

Note - the boards I used are cedar fence slats. Cedar smells. I happen to love the scent of cedar but if you don't, you might want to think about using a different type of wood. It's been in our house for 6 months now and every time you enter the room you can still detect a faint woodsy cedar smell. Like I said, I love it because it makes me think of forests and the outdoors. But it doesn't go away quickly, so make sure you're ok with that!

I used a water based stain for this project since I have an irrational fear of mineral spirits and don't want to use it to clean up regular wood stain. Minwax has a water based stain that comes as a clear tint and you add the color like you would a regular can of paint. I think it worked great and I had no trouble using it. I used the Pre-Stain Wood conditioner on the wood first to give it an even finish. I didn't use this on the headboard legs since they wouldn't be seen, and you can definitely tell the difference between the boards where I used the pre-stain and where I didn't. The boards had a much cleaner and even coloration when I used the conditioner first. 

I used 2 coats front and back of the "Toffee" color. After everything dried I finished it with a topcoat of Ploycrylic to protect and seal everything. Stain the slats and the 2 boards for the legs. I also stained the center brace because why not? This was my first time staining anything and I just followed the instructions on the cans. It worked beautifully.

Once everything dries it's time to assemble. Lay the boards out how you want them to go. Mine didn't line up perfectly, but I liked the warping and thought it added character. If you want yours to lay perfectly, check how the boards fit at the store before you buy them. 

Once everything is lined up, flip each of the boards over so the back of the headboard is facing up. Run a line of wood glue along the center brace and place perpendicular to the slats in the center of the board. Stack something heavy on top to weigh it down until the glue dries. See the photo below? The brace is under the middle bag of charcoal. My husband we have a lot of charcoal. Also, random dumbbells. 

Here's where it gets tricky. I wanted to nail the boards to the legs from the front so I could line up the nail heads. To do that, before I flipped the board back over, I lined up the legs and marked with chalk where I wanted the lowest board to land and made sure everything was level. Then I turned the whole thing over and slid the legs underneath, lining up the lowest board with the chalk marks. 

Note - I measured my bed frame and figured out exactly how far apart the holes were to screw in a headboard. If you don't want to screw the board directly to your frame, it's less important where the legs of the headboard go. 

Once I had the boards lined up, I nailed each of them to both the legs and the center brace. Then all that's left to do is screw it into the bed frame or attach it to the wall!