I have Gone Etsy!

So if you know me . . . you know that it was only a matter of time before this happened. I mean it's in my bones. I post about it all the time. I am a lover of vintage and of crafting. So you had to know that I would do it. Right? I have opened a shop on www.etsy.com. If you don't know what ETSY is . . . well then check it out ASAP.

I have named my shop Vintage Definition I will be selling Vintage Items and Handcrafted items inspired by Vintage. As of this post I have one item on my shop. It's a beautiful rose broach, vintage of course.

Here is the direct link to my site:

http://www.etsy.com/people/VintageDefinition

And a sneak peak of THE item I have on my site (more pics of this item on site), more coming later today!

Sugars!

I love, love making sugar cookies at Christmas time! I made some to take to Dallas! So I thought I'd give you a look!

I'd made the dough ahead of time and stuck it in the freezer box. I usually make the dough and freeze it in packets of three. I then bring it to room temperature. The recipe I use makes thick, delicous cookies! So yum. Time to give her a roll.

Then I cut the cookies and popped em' in and outta the oven. Delish.

I make a Royal Frosting for my sugars. It whips up beautifully and then you can go color crazy. This time I just made blue and white.

Time to ice the sugars and give them some pizzaz! Favorite decorations for cookies are from William Sonoma.

Grab the milk! This plate is full and it is only 1/3 the dough!

If you want the recipe for the sugars or the frosting, just e-mail me at kimmybrooke@gmail.com and I'm happy to send.

Back From Dallas

Sorry I have been I little MIA. We went to Dallas for Thanksgiving and I'm bad about 2 Things.

1. Blogging when I travel

2. Taking pictures when I travel

So I have already decided those are two goals for 2011 that I am already going to start working on! During our Dallas trip I was just so grateful to be home with my family and friends that I didn't really feel like stopping to bust out the camera. Now I wish I would have done that more. That is something I need to work on more.

It was so great to be home with friends and family and it did a world of good for my heart and soul. Also, it did something pretty cool. When we left, it made our home here feel more like home. I was still sad to leave family and friends, but I was excited for our home here and what the Lord is establishing for us here.

One thing I have been praying since we left Dallas is that wherever we set up our physical home that I can remember that my home is is Him. That as I meet new people and get connected He would meet my needs, but that ultimately I would turn to Him first and that I would long for Him. This has been hard and I have fell flat on my face a few times, but I pray that as I get up each time he is building me into a stronger woman for him.

We did take a few pics though, I'm editing them and will share them soon.

Christmas Wreath!

We leave in just over a week for Dallas (yeah). We will be there for Thanksgiving visiting my family, but we are also celebrating Christmas during this time. So my mind is already on the things of Christmas Season.

I have been working on a few christmas projects and one of them is a Winter Wreath for our front door. I have never made a wreath before, but my friend Hannah made our fall one so I decided . . . I'd give it a go also. I am going to decorate the house with Christmas decor before we leave for Dallas (well that's the plan) so that it will be ready for us when we get back here! I am trying to maximize the amount of time that we can enjoy the decor, because it's so fun! Needless to say, I decided I better get going on that wreath.

Here's the supplies . . . from Michael's of course! and It was all on sale, yeah! You can't totally tell, but those are little red berries to the right. I love the whimsical look to them. I also LOVE pine cones, and when I saw those gold ones, I thought they would be perfect.

And here is the finished product (I really need to use our really camera instead of my phone). Pretty inexpensive to make and it only took about an hour or two. The wreath is on the floor here not the door. Our door is white. :) I'm still learning to tie bows, but it turned out better than my last one!

The Chocolate Factory

Last week Adam and I took a day trip to Hershey, PA-- The sweetest place on EARTH. Yep, this is where they make Hershey Chocolate. Milton S. Hershey, built the entire town around the chocolate factory so that his workers and their families would have a great place to live. You can read more about the story here.

You can take a little ride and for free and learn about the process of making chocolate. Which of course we did!

Here's the melted chocolate!

Then, the chocolate is formed into these molds that is later melted into the deliciousness that we all know and love.

They had singing cows telling you about the "milk chocolate" -- they were pretty funny!

Of course they have rows and rows of candy you can purchase. So hard to choose!

I wanted to get this, the World's largest Kiss, it's filled with little Hershey Kisses! I refrained!

After the tour of chocolate we hit the outlets in Hershey which are also great! We were doing a little Christmas shopping!

I also really wanted to go here, in Hershey:

How amazing does that sound? I have yet to find a yoga place I love . . .to0 bad that's to0 far away! Check it out: http://yogaonchocolate.com

Thrifty Chair!

I bought a chair last week at a thrift store for $2.50. yep, 2 dollars and fifty cents! It's sturdy and and a cute design so I went for it. It' another piece for the guest room. I love little chairs in rooms. It's nice to have places to sit down. It's also nice to have chairs to pull up if you have extra guest to dinner.

All the chair needed was a few new screws and new fabric. (and a good toothbrush scrub) I wanted to add a little more yellow to the room so I covered the cushion in yellow. I was hoping to get a really pretty upholstery fabric that was a solid color but an interesting texture/pattern built in. There are not two many fabric stores around and I don't know about ordering fabric online. Maybe I'll venture out with that next time. I may look when I'm in Dallas next month. I was thrilled though b/c this color was perfect!

A Few Fall Things!

As many of you know Adam is a huge KC Chiefs Fan. He posts about it all the time on Facebook, talks them up like crazy, and he would wear a KC shirt every day of the week if he could. He loves the team. Well there is one thing I didn't know about A. Scheidegger that I learned this weekend. He is an amazing artist. Check out his KC Chiefs Pumpkin below. I was actually out of town this weekend while he stayed in town and went to a pumpkin carving party. I was pretty impressed when I got a picture of this in my inbox.

In case you need to see the a picture of the logo . . . to understand how close it is, then here you go!

I also wanted to post a few pictures from a few weeks ago when my friend Hannah and I went to the Covered Bridge and Arts Festival at Knoebel's a few weeks ago. Knoebel's is actually an amusement park, but for one weekend in October every year they turn the entire park into a huge art festival. They have live entertainment, great food (that you will see below), and booth after booth of hand crafted items. There were a lot of really talented artists there. Handmade rugs, pottery, place-mats, pillows-- you name it. Pretty impressive. I bought a few really great items -- but they are presents so I can't discuss on here!

It would be so fun to enter a booth next year and try and sell some stuff. My friend Hannah likes to craft so we were coming up with all kinds of ideas of things that we want to make!

Here's a picture of Hannah and I mid-sugar coma . . . eating a huge cinnamon roll.

Yes that's the cinnamon roll (but most people here call them sticky buns), huge . . . and delicious. Either way . . . it made me very hyper!

Hannah thought so too!

Mellow Yellow

I decided to do a little thrift store shopping! Originally I found two night stands and I was going to redo them for our bedroom in a cream or khaki, but I hesitated and when I went back for them a few days later and there was only one left! Oh well . . . for $15.00 I decided to buy it and paint it yellow for the guest room. I'm not totally sure that is the best color for the room, but I just kinda got soft/ mellow yellow in my mind and got excited about it. I feel like the picture below makes it look darker than it really is! It's a very soft color. So here is the actual color:

Joyful Yellow by Dutch Boy

The nightstand painted and distressed . . . I don't have a knob on it yet, b/c I ordered a vintage silver one. See it below!

The knob!

Camping at Little Pine!

Adam and I had the privilege of going camping for the first time this past weekend with a 2 couples from the Church. Thank you Don and Vonnie for hosting us! We went to Little Pine for a weekend of camping, biking, great company, and the Apple Butter Festival. I think I have forgotten just how much I love to be outside and see the outdoors. I was drinking in the beauty all weekend and seeing just how true this verse really is, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Psalm 19:1. It is so refreshing to just be outside in God's creation.

Here is a little bit of our weekend:

This is our camping site, beautiful tree right behind the camper.

We had mountain pies for dinner, here is one cooking over the fire. So good, we had apple pie filling in them for dessert!

The next morning we went to the Apple Butter Festival where you can buy all kinds of goodies and crafts.

What would an Apple Butter Festival be w/o Apple Butter . . . I got to stir the apples for a bit!

Then we went for a bike ride on a trail that used to be a rail road. Thanks Billings for letting us use your bikes, we are now saving up to get our own! :)

We stopped for a water break at this site . . . wow beautiful.

The weekend ended with some amazing hamburgers cooked over the fire and Adam's attempt to make the perfect s'more . . . he did pretty good check out the goey-ness of the chocolate.

Bloomsburg Fair

Apparently we arrived just in time to PA. There are all kinds of festivals around here. For the last 10 days the Bloomsburg Fair has been going on and Adam and I decided to go check it out yesterday! It had been raining for the last two days so we expected to to be muddy . . .and we wore shoes for mud . . . but it really wasn't that bad. Here's a look at our adventures.

Right when we got there Adam was already thrilled b/c there was a Kansas City Chiefs Fan parked right in front us. This day started out well . . .

We wanted to get the full experience so we rode the the trolly/tractor thing into the Fair from the parking area! There was this sweet older couple sitting next to us telling us how they had been coming for over 70 years to the fair!

The first stop at the fair . . . Vince's for a Philly Cheesesteak! Adam's first in Pennsylvania and he was excited.

And the first bite did not let him down!

We passed by this Apple Cider Mill and I was intrigued! Do you see all those apples in the back. Yum!

So of course I had to get a cup of FRESH HOT apple cider and it was SO GOOD.

We then walked into the craft area and saw this insane lego land and I had to take a pic for Josh and Devon!

Also, in the craft area I found these cute little candy corns for fall decoration and Adam and I decided to take them home! We love eating candy corn!

It was a great day!

We are in the News!

Everyone this is an article that was in The Daily Item which is the local paper here. Thank you Carissa for clipping it out for us! This was taken at the welcome party that the church had for us! If you double click the image, you can actually read it!

Fall at Five. Two. One.

Five. Two. One.

Welcome to our home! Well, things at the Scheidegger household are pretty much settled and it's time to begin the tour photo style. Today we will start with the downstairs minus the kitchen and we will work our way upstairs later this week!

Come and enter . . . My new friend Hannah made us this beautiful wreath for our front door! Isn't it pretty?!

Downstairs there is a little half bath, first stop on the tour.

Now let's head on into the living room, these french door swing like saloon doors! Ha!

I am still working on the arrangement above the couch going to add a clock and hopefully some little shelves.

You can't tell from this photo but the window are really long and tall, we bought curtains that were to short at first! My aunt gave us that pretty platter on the coffee table!

My sweet mom and Don gave us this beautiful rug as a housewarming gift!

Now onto the dining room which is still in progress!

Here is a pic of my fall table decor (Mom wanted to see) made from twigs in the backyard as seen in Southern Living.

There is a little built in bookshelf . . . it's decorated for fall! Those silver and while mugs were a gift in our welcome basket from the church!

Now that I am decorated, it's time to finish this painting which will hang on the opposite wall in the dining room.

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be back with the rest of the house soon!