Entertainment Center = Play Kitchen

This is an old project that I never shared but it has been a big hit with our little girl.

Last year, we turned this:

into this....

It was actually a very easy project that only took a couple of days to complete and very little money since we had several of the materials on hand.  Even though you might not find an entertainment center just like this one, I'll give the break down of how we did it.

We found our entertainment center at a local thrift store.  Before we painted it, we removed the middle piece, cut out the holes for the sink and stove top, and sanded it just enough to rough it up a little bit.

The sink was a dog bowl we found at Big Lots for just a couple of dollars and the faucet we found on clearance at Home Depot.

We found the stove top at Habitat for Humanity ReStore and the countertop is made of peel-and-stick linoleum tiles from Home Depot.  The stove knobs came from our old grill.

We cut a rectangle out of the left-side door, attached a piece of plastic from Home Depot to the inside with 4 screws, switched the hinges from the side to the bottom to make it more like an oven door, painted the inside black and added a cabinet handle (courtesy of Anna), hot glued the temperature gauge from our old grill above the door and voila! An oven!

Karlie keeps all of her kitchen supplies and food inside the pantry.  While we were sanding, we removed the back support piece, painted the left side of it black (since that would be an oven wall) and wrapped the right side in burlap (since it would be seen inside the pantry.)

The curtains were made with scraps of material from dresses I've made Karlie.  I took strips of material, sewed ruffles into them, and hot glued them onto the curtains.  We hung them by stapling them to the back.

That's it!  And since I'm a sucker for before and after pictures, here they right beside each other:

Materials:
Entertainment center - $20
Faucet - $17
Stove top - $10
Linoleum tiles - $5
Dog bowl - $5
Curtains - free (fabric scraps)
Stove knobs and temperature gauge - free (they came off our old grill that lives behind our privacy fence)
White paint - free (from past projects)

Crock-Pot New Orleans-Style Barbecue Shrimp

I think that if I made New Year's Resolutions, one of them would have been to use my crock-pot more.  This shrimp is very tasty and is one of the quicker crock-pot meals I've made - 3 hours in the pot.

The recipe is very simple, plus I already had a lot of the ingredients in my pantry!  It was originally intended as an appetizer but I served ours as an entree with rice and veggies.  We also poured the sauce over the shrimp and rice for extra flavor.  What can I say...we like to live on the wild side.  We're animals I tell ya!

Ingredients:

~ 3/4 cup butter or margarine
~ 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
~ 1/3 cup lemon juice
~ 1/4 cup dry white wine
~ 2 tablespoons hot sauce (I used 1 tablespoon since we have a toddler)
~ 2 teaspoons ground pepper
~ 1 tablespoon seafood seasoning (I used Weber Boston Bay Seafood Seasoning)
~ 1 teaspoon paprika
~ 1/2 teaspoon salt
~ 4 cloves garlic, minced
~ 2 sprigs fresh thyme
~ 2 lbs. uncooked large shrimp (I bought mine frozen, peeled, deveined, and without tails)
~ lemon wedges (I didn't use these)

1. Spray 5- to 6-quart slow cooker with cooking spray.  In slow cooker, mix all ingredients except shrimp and lemon wedges.  Cover; cook on low heat for 2 hours.

2. Stir shrimp into slow cooker.  Increase heat setting to High.  Cover; cook 30 minutes longer or until shrimp are pink.  Turn off slow cooker.  Let stand for 30 minutes.  Discard thyme sprigs.  Serve shrimp with lemon wedges.

Hey Girl

A lot of you will recognize this kind of picture:

I dragged my feet a little on this one but when Kelly over at View Along the Way had a "Hey Girl" link up party, I knew I wanted to participate. All you had to do was take your favorite picture of your own man and "Hey Girl-ify" it.  However all of the pictures I wanted to use were on our laptop which was in Georgia with my Hey-Girl Husband.  So, I'm a little late but I had a lot of fun doing these and couldn't stop at just one.

And for all you new moms who are also experiencing the joys of postpartum hair loss...

I also couldn't resist doing one of my little man.  We sent this one to his little girlfriend from church...