Warning! Staring at the above picture or reading this post may make your taste buds salivate.

A friend gave me a starter mix of bread the other week.  It brought back memories of when I was younger and my mom and her friends would swap bread starter mixes back and forth all Summer.  Meaning we had fresh bread and strawberry butter ALL the time!

Strawberry butter pairs with fresh bread about like peanut butter pairs with jelly.  They go hand and hand.  So before I baked my bread this past weekend I asked my mom for the butter recipe.

This quick recipe took less than ten minutes and only requires three ingredients.

Strawberry Butter Recipe

• 2 sticks of softened butter
• 1 cup strawberries
• 1/2 cup sugar

This butter can be made with any mixture of fruit.  I made a second batch using blueberries.

To make this yummy mixture mix the sugar and butter together.  Next blend the strawberries until only a few chunks remain and then add to the butter mixture.  Blending the strawberries partly juices them.  The juice is what gives the butter the pretty pink color.  While the butter was still soft I spooned it into some ramekins for a finished look. Yum!

For the blueberry butter I did the same thing except that I only blended about half of the blueberries.  The rest I just added to the butter mixture and smashed with the back of a fork.
This stuff looks so delicious you could almost justify eating without the bread.  If the thought of Summer, bathing suits, and shorts wasn’t on my mind I just might do that!

Finally, I paired my fruit flavored butter with my fresh baked bread.  Ah-mazing!
This was super easy and major yummy.  The white bread, and red, and blue butter would be perfect for a Memorial Day breakfast or any other patriotic holiday get together.

Ok.  Now be honest… Did  you make into the end of the post without your mouth watering?  Who wants some right now to pile high on a piece of bread?  Me! Me! Me!  Oh, why can’t this stuff be as healthy as a green salad?

Wit Wisdom & Food | The HumberHome Project | Corner of Main | Mailbox Journey

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Ok.  So that’s not completely true either. We have cabinets that are partially painted in Sherwin Williams Alpaca.  Partially is the key word here since so far I have only worked on the top cabinets and the doors are still covering my dining room table.

I just finished the third coat of paint on the front of all the doors and hope to start on the back side of them later today or tonight.  For the most part painting has been fairly easy and quick.  ”Well what is taking you so long?”, you ask.  Finding the time to paint.  The best time for me to paint is during Noah’s naps or after she has gone to bed.  It works well but it kind of draws the whole process out.

Thankfully I (and Michael Luke) am loving the color choice.  I’m not sure Noah has noticed. Kids these days!

Thank you so much for weighing in with your color choices in our little poll.  A majority of you chose Alpaca.  Even with all your Alpaca encouragement I still almost when with Requisite Grey.  Not because I don’t value your opinion but because I was just afraid it wouldn’t be dark enough.

After seeing Alpaca on the cabinets though I can’t imagine it being any darker.  The tonal value is really close to the existing cream color which you can still see on the bottom cabinets.

The difference is in the underlying tones.  The original cream color had a lot of yellow in it.  Too much for our taste after painting the walls yellow.  The new color has a subtle pink tint.  It doesn’t come across as pink at all but it picks up some of the warmer tones found in our floor tile.  And because red and yellow are next to each other on the color wheel they yellow walls work well with the cabinets.

The light grey of the cabinets really allows the counters to shine in all their glory.

Which is totally what I wanted!  And kind of a cool picture as we, the body of Christ (the cabinets) want God (the counter) to shine in all His glory.  Like I read in my quiet time this morning… “He must increase, but I must decrease.” – John 3:30

Hopefully, painting the bottom cabinets will move a little quicker than the top.   I’ll be sure to share pictures along the way as well as let you know the process I used to paint and prep our cabinets.

Have you ever painted cabinets before?  If so, how long did it take you?  What do you feel like has been your most labor intensive DIY project?

P.S. Don’t forget that your purchase from Color Created Family helps to cover our adoption expenses as we journey towards bringing our little girl home from Hong Kong.  This month a portion of each sale will also go towards The Sparrow Fund who helps families through the adoption process.

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Hop on over to see “Seven Ways to Use Paint” and to meet Jessica and her little corner of the blogosphere.

In the meantime I’ll continue trucking along painting our kitchen cabinets.  It’s been a slow but rewarding process much like my spiritual life but so worth it in the end.  I’ll be back later this week to share progress pictures let you know what paint color we ended up going with.  It’s so exciting to finally see the kitchen really coming together.

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I try to do this for the most part but sometimes your best use of storage is on the counter.  For instance with my knife block.  It’s a pretty bulky piece to store in the cabinets.  Plus, it’s incredibly convenient to have right next to the stove while cooking.

While I find myself knee deep in the middle of our kitchen transformation I keep looking for ways to simplify things and tie everything together with the yellow and grey color scheme we are working with.  I also like seeing the same color repeated throughout the room.  This design trick also keeps the eyes moving.  Which is one of the reasons I decided to give our knife block a little makeover.

I found the inspiration for this project a couple of months ago on Pinterest.

source

The project has been sitting on a back burner in my mind since then.  I decided to tackle it a few weeks ago while I had the Sherwin Williams Lemon Chiffon color still out from painting the walls in our kitchen.

First, I removed all the knives and cleaned the knife block with a damp rag. My block had a little metal plate screwed on the front.  I removed it and filled in the holes using Fast ‘n Final.

Next, I used a scrap piece of medium coarse sandpaper to scuff up the block a little bit.  This helps the paint adhere better.

Using the same paint that we used on our walls I applied two coats. Allowing ample time to dry between each coat.

(This is after just one coat of paint.)

Finally, to protect my little block from any abuse it may receive when “Chef Krystle” cooks I added two protective coats of Minwax Waterbased Polycrylic protective finish in Clear Gloss.  I had some leftover from when I painted the dresser in Noah’s room.

Not only does it protect the paint but it also gives it a nice glossy look.  Which I like!

(Oh, by the way!  Check out that grout job in the background.  Yay for ML!)

This was a really easy project and an inexpensive way to update one of the accessories in my kitchen.  Over time I am hoping to add a few more yellow pieces here and there.  You know, to really tie the whole thing together.

In other news… painting of the kitchen cabinets has officially begun.  The whole process is taking a little bit longer than I originally anticipated but I am too excited about the transformation to complain.  I’ll keep you updated as it progresses.

Linking up at:

Young House Love, Bower Power, Sparkle Meets Pop, Red Bird Blue

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Back before Christmas, I took Noah to Barnes and Noble for story time. Every week after the story they get to do a little activity… usually color. This was her first story time and her first introduction to coloring. She was so cute! I wish I had taken pictures because she gets so serious when coloring. She holds the colors correctly, lays flat on her belly, and contemplates each stroke of the crayon. Even with the correct form though she was still a little unsure of what to do with the crayons so I helped her out a little bit and drew a heart on her paper so that she could see how this whole coloring  thing worked.

We ended up with this little piece of paper with random strokes of color and my heart. I absolutely love it and couldn’t bare to throw it away. I have been stashing it in my night stand, procrastinating framing it. Finally, as a little Mother’s Day happy to myself I decided to find a cute frame and showcase our little piece of art. I thought it would be cool to add a Bible verse to help me with my scripture memorization and to teach with Noah. At first, I tried to find a Bible verse relating to color or art but finally decided on Deuteronomy 6:5.

Love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
strength.

Such a great reminder and an awesome commandment to share with your children. It was really easy to add to the artwork too. My first idea was to print out the scripture and apply it to Noah’s coloring but then I decided to write it directly on the sheet. Because my hand writing is less than stellar and can be hard to read I used Photoshop to layout where I wanted the verse.  Then I taped the artwork onto the computer screen and traced the verse with a fine tip Sharpie (Write Out Loud). It pretty much works like a lightbox. Next, I popped it in the frame and called it a day.  Like I said earlier this was a super easy project but an excellent way to show off your children’s first (100th) artwork. I can’t help but think of it as a little happy for myself. Do you have any DIY projects planned for Mother’s Day? Can you believe Mother’s Day is almost here? I’m still in shock that it is already May!

Linking up at:

Imparting Grace, Serenity Now

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