Recommended Reading: Bazaar Style

If you are looking for something to spark up your creativity, there are lots of books out there! One of my favorites that I've found is Bazaar Style  by Selina Lake, a pattern designer and quirky interior stylist.  The pictures are colorful, the room designs are amazing and the examples provided for making found pieces your own are priceless!

I'm a firm believer that the best way to customize your space is by mixing up one of a kind pieces that really speak to you and fit your personality.  Whenever I am feeling a bit dull or need some room pick-me-ups, this is the first book I grab.  Not to mention, it makes a really great coffee table book and sometimes I even leave it open to a favorite page on my couch just because I love the photos!  One of the great things about this book is that the rooms are from real homes, not studios decorated by the authors or other designers, so you can see the personal touches and find inspiration for your own!

If you are interested, I suggest buying it HERE or hunting it down at your favorite used book store!

Happy reading!

Love,
Ali Kay

Grandpa Jack's Peanut Butter Cookies!!

One of my childhood memories that I will always and forever cherish is helping my Grandpa bake.  He loved cooking and was always willing to let us help.  When he passed away, I was lucky enough to be given all of his recipes and cookbooks, and more recently my grandma gave me his old apron!

Of all the times that I helped him in the kitchen, the most fun was had making peanut butter cookies.  They were easy enough that I could remember the recipe and I got to help make the crosshatch marks on the top!  To this day I still regularly make these delightful little cookies.  Sometimes I make them the super simple way and sometimes I get creative with them.  You'll learn that I'm a huge fan of recipes that allow for a lot of personal tweaks and additions so that you never get tired of fixing them.

So treat your home to the smell of fresh baked peanut butter cookies and let me know what you like to add to your recipe!

Love,
Ali Kay

Grandpa Jack's Peanut Butter Cookies 


Ingredients:
1 egg
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350°.  Mix all the ingredients together until well blended.  Place small scoops of the dough on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper (for easy clean up and a greased cookie sheet causes the bottoms of the cookies to cook too fast). I use a tablespoon measuring scoop to make perfect sized cookies. Then using a fork, mash down the tops of the scoops forming a criss/cross design.  Bake for 8-12 minutes.  Poor a glass of milk and enjoy!

Ali Kay Suggests... I like a slightly richer cookie so I add...

1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup flour

... before putting them in the oven, I sprinkle a touch of sea salt on the top of each cookie.  This creates a really wonderful sweet/salty taste and really brings out the peanut taste! I adore it, my dad hates it, so I leave the salt off the top of half of them just for him!

You can also add...

• a little bit of Nutella to the cup of peanut butter in the original recipe for a really wonderful chocolaty, hazelnut peanut butter cookie! 
• your choice of chocolate or peanut butter chips for a little surprise gooiness!
• a Hershey's kiss to the middle of each scoop of dough instead of the crosshatch for a delightful Reverse Peanut Butter Cup Cookie
• crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth adds those great little bits of peanut!

Beach Towels and Blankets as Decorative Pillows?

If you're like me, you don't have a whole lot of storage space in you apartment or house.  This leads to a lot of my ideas because I can't just throw away things that I need but don't have the space to store, or would just rather use the little bit of storage for other stuff (craft supplies!!).

Blankets and beach towels tend to be simple things that can really take up a lot of storage space.  Since Fall is officially here, I don't really need my beach towel for a bit and I want my blankets to be more handy but I hate the look of a haphazardly thrown throw!  And, I love pillows.  Solution: store blankets and towels at decorative pillows!

I'm going to cover how to make pillow covers in the next Simple Sewing entry, so you will have a basic how-to starting point for creating your own throw pillows/beach blanket storage cases.  Using buttons and zippers for our pillow case closures will allow for easy storage and easy access to your stored towels and blankets.

Blankets are even easier.  Since the throws we buy are often chosen to coordinate with our decor, you can display them in a more easily accessible way.  For the blanket pictured below, I simply took some scrap crochet lace that I had in my crafting supplies (it came from a dress that I shortened) and tied it around each end of the rolled up blanket. Now, I can throw it on my couch with the rest of my pillows and it's there when I get ready to cozy up with some hot tea (or ice cream!) and a movie.  Again, this technique allows for a lot of flexibility and your own personal touch, so get creative!!

Love,
Ali Kay

Never Throw Away: Coffee Cans!

I have found that coffee cans, minus the paper label, are some of the most versatile little items and offer very useful and stylish storage!

My Nana uses the gallon sizes that her late husband bought his coffee in for storing tools and other knick-knacks.  I use mine for storing everything from dog treats to hair clips to coffee filters.

When I found that the amazing $15 vintage headboard that I found at a garage sale wasn't quite the height that I wanted, instead of spending money on plastic risers, I stuck an upside-down coffee can under each side and saved $10 (even if you count the price of the coffee in the cans originally, I still saved $4)!

As for personalizing them, you can use anything from contact paper to that wonderful spray paint that I told you to invest in.  Adding a touch of fabric or a few buttons with a hot glue gun offers a great personal touch!

So, save those coffee cans and I promise you will find multitudes of uses for them!

Love,
Ali Kay

Cornbread Casserole - Cheap, easy comfort food!

One of my all time favorite dishes when in dire need of comfort food is a seriously simple cornbread casserole that I found the recipe for on a can of sweet corn in my pantry years ago while I was living on meager wages working for entertainment executives in Los Angeles.  This was one of the few recipes I found that I could cook in my little toaster oven that resembled home cooked food. 

There are two different ways to make this recipe depending on your preference or mood or whatever you have in your cabinets.  Also, this is a perfect base recipe to add your own personal touches to.  Like green chilies?  They are fantastic in this dish! Like a more Mexican style cornbread?  Use the canned Mexican corn instead! Mine is never without a generous dash of cayenne pepper. 

I almost always make this with a side of Wolf brand Turkey Chili (or homemade chili if I can!) or black beans with a splash of Tabasco.  I can't wait to see all of your suggestions and tweaks to this little gem of a dish!

Love, 

Ali Kay

Cornbread Casserole (original recipe on sweet corn can - I half this recipe when cooking for myself and there's still enough for about 3 meals) 

Ingredients:  

2 eggs

2 tbsp milk

2 - 15oz cans sweet cream corn

1 - 1lb package corn muffin mix ( I use the Jiffy 1/2 lb package!)

1 cup sour cream

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. 

In a large bowl, mix the eggs and milk.  Add the corn and muffin mix; mix well.  Spread into a greased 9x13" baking dish. Spread sour cream on top and then top with a good layer of the shredded cheddar.  Bake for 45 mins. 

**Ali Kay suggests:  If you are making this and want to store the leftovers so that you can easily reheat individual servings or take it to work for lunch, there are two options that I use.  Either bake the casserole in 3 mini loaf pans - you can get cheap aluminum ones at the store - or use a large muffin pan.**

An even easier alternative...

Make the cornbread per the instructions on the Jiffy cornbread box (I think it's just adding one egg and some milk) but throw in an 8oz can of whole kernel corn, cook in a large muffin pan and add a dollop of sour cream to the top of each one and a square of fresh sliced block cheddar cheese.  

Vintage Buttons And A Seam Ripper A New Dress Make!

When I worked at Betsey Johnson, occasionally dresses would get discarded due to irreparable damage.  Though, I know having access to designer dresses is a plus, you can use these tips on dresses found at resale, thrift and vintage shops as you will often find nearly perfect items at a fraction of the price due to small damages, but I'm sure we'll go more into that in a later post...

If I hadn't done this months ago, I would've made myself take a before photo :( But a description will have to suffice as I cannot find a picture of the dress online either (it wasn't a great seller).  Originally there was a gray silk underlay to the top part of the dress as though a gray silk, short sleeved blouse were underneath it (this is where the damage was;  the silk was ripped very badly).  All the buttons were black.  The modifications I made required only a seam ripper, a needle and thread, some very basic button sewing skills (you have to put the needle through the fabric, through the button hole and back through the fabric over and over), and some antique/vintage/random buttons of your choosing.

Try changing the buttons on that old sweater, blouse, skirt, or dress that needs an update or just a personal touch!  Little buttons can have a huge wow factor!

Love,
Ali Kay

Invest in: Spray Paint

One of the millions of things that I never would have realized if it weren't for my dad is how easy it is to personalize stuff with a can of spray paint! Not to mention, it's super cheap!!

I suggest investing in 3-4 cans of spray paint in colors that are in your decorating scheme.  Trust me, when you find an item at a thrift or vintage store that is of great design but maybe dull (or worse, day glo!) colors, a coat or two of spray paint will give it a whole new life...and you can change the color as often as you like!

Here are just a few of the things I have taken the spray can to:  footstools, baskets, frames, patio table, lamp bases, empty coffee cans, dresser handles and knobs, and random Goodwill knick-knacks.  I've included a few pictures below.

Trust me: buy some spray paint!  Just wear gloves when you use it and cover your workspace... and never use it indoors!

Love,
Ali Kay

Welcome To The World of Ali Kay!

Hello, readers!

I'd like to start off by saying that, first and foremost, I hope that you have fun while you're here and I hope you find your own inspiration in some of mine!

This is a place where I will share with you all of the "make it your own" projects that I tend to take on.  Whether it's a dress that just needs a different hem or new buttons, my grandfather's old recipes that I like to tweak, one of a kind furniture touch ups or creating new things from old stuff, I simply desire my world to look like no one else's.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Target (especially the clearance end caps!), however, I find it so much more satisfying to find a one of a kind item, fix it up and then explain to all of my awed friends that "I did it myself"!

I am glad that you are here.  I thank you for reading and I look forward to seeing your creations as well!

Love,

Ali Kay <3