The Apple Street Cottage

  We are almost through the month of February and I keep telling myself Spring will be here soon.  As you already know, Winter is not my favorite season.  I love to be outdoors but the cold and I do not get along.  Therefore, I have to find things to keep me occupied indoors.   So what have I been up to?  Read on... There was a bit of thrifting in January.  I don't have as much luck in thrift stores as I do with yard sales, but I did find this pretty five finger vase for $7.   Silk flowers included.  My other find was from Marketplace and was free - my favorite word! The ad was just for the wine corks but when I got there, the woman included some ribbon, dowels, pipe cleaners and clothespins.  Definitely the 'Deal of the Day'!  Now I really need to get started on my next wine cork project! This post may contain affiliate links. The recovery from my knee surgery continues.  You can read about the surgery HERE .  ...

  We have a wonderful local shop that makes the best soy candles and once I burn down the candle, I hate to throw out the jar.  Let me show you what I do instead! Welcome to the  Creative Craft Hop  hosted by Sara from  Birdz of a Feather .   If you just came from her blog,   welcome to the Cottage!  At the bottom of this post I'll direct you to the next stop on this hop, but be sure to visit all of the other stops too for some amazing inspiration. They will all be listed. This post may contain affiliate links. Before we get started, I have to tell you that this was not my original project for this hop.  The original one was a clear wine bottle craft that involved cutting the bottle.  Sadly, the cutting part did not go according to plan and I didn't have another clear wine bottle in the house.  Even though my husband offered to go to the store and buy another bottle of wine (he even offered to help me drink it!) I knew I would ...

  When I started this blog (many years ago) I promised to share the 'good, the bad, and the ugly'.  I've always wanted to try my hand at decorating cookies with royal icing knowing that this would take practice and my first tries would be full of - ahem - "imperfections". Come along for the ride because I finally did it!   Perusing Pinterest and seeing so many gorgeous cookies, I started reading and learned about: piping/outlining/flooding consistency, taste, eggs whites vs. meringue powder, piping tips and bags, food coloring, and more.   Down the rabbit hole I went and it was DEEP and VAST!  Let's face it, you can read and research FOREVER, so I decided to take the bull by the horns and just jump in!  The first thing I did was shop for my supplies: Cookie Cutters    Yes, I have cookie cutters - somewhere (probably in the storage unit).  I wasn't in the mood to hunt, so I bought these.   Piping Bags & Tips Set I did m...

I've been looking at my collection of vintage children's blocks for a long time and finally turned three of them into some Valentine's Day decor.  You may remember how I used a few to decorate the Chair Back Shelf , but I've still got more sitting in a box.  It was time to upcycle a few more! This is how they started: This post may contain affiliate links. Clearly they had been played with - A LOT, so I gave them a quick cleaning and a coat of white craft paint .   Yes, that's the back of one of the blocks. Once dried, the white seemed really bright to me, so I added a little linen craft paint to the white.  It definitely toned it down. Next, some pink to highlight the letters and edges of the blocks. Two hearts were cut on my Maker to fit one of the blocks.   The large one was painted antique gold , the small, pink. They were glued together and then glued to the center block. Some pretty silk roses were added in the background. Then everything wa...