Corks and Cupcakes

I actually made this a little while ago, but we finally put it up. It's not much -- just a plain corkboard covered with some fabric I picked up from Sew Mama Sew. Our new kitchen has a stainless steel fridge in it, which looks awesome, but is not magnetic. Which not only means that our magnetic letters have no home, but there's no place to put invitations, Ruby art, or little pictures. We have one spot on our kitchen wall that isn't taken up by window or cabinets, so up the corkboard went.

I didn't do anything too fancy -- no criss-crossing ribbons or trim. I just tacked down the fabric with some spray adhesive and then stapled the fabric to the back of the cork. Easy peasy. There are a few bubbles and I'm not convinced the fabric is really well adhered to the cork, but it'll have stuff stuck to it most of the time (especially with Ruby's art camp starting up this week), so it doesn't matter too much. And if the fabric comes off, we'll either stick it back on or switch it up.


And... I think I'm going to have to change the name of this blog to Elizaboothy and Cupcakes. I tried another recipe from the Cupcakes book and, again, am slightly disappointed. I did the Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcakes and aside from the fact that I popped some of the peanut butter topping into my mouth while it was still scalding hot (and I believe, destroyed a filling that will now result in root canal), I wasn't thrilled. The peanut butter filling/topping boiled over in the oven, creating a mess and some weird craters in the cakes. Also, the filling was pretty delicious warm, but the cakes weren't nearly as good at room temp. I am determined to make a great cupcake from this book though, so I'm going to keep trying. Mayhaps something plainer with a really good buttercream. That always does the trick.

Kitchen Blues

So, this is the last you, or anyone else, will see of my kitchen. Tomorrow, what you see here will be ripped out and we will begin a long (long, long, long) journey to a brand new, fully equipped, kitchen. I don't mind telling you that I'm totally freaked out.

Here's how it started: basically, we hate our current kitchen. This picture doesn't really do it's ug factor justice -- the cupboards are dark, greasy wood that just won't come clean. We thought about taking the doors off and refinishing them, but the handles are in the middle, in the centre of a big piece of built-up wood. Plus, the insides are in terrible shape, giving us slivers when we reach for a glass.

There are other problems too: the stove is on a corner, thus dangerous for little people running around. Also, neither of us have ever had a dishwasher in our adult lives. Since there's not really a spot for a dishwasher in our current kitchen (which is large enough, but makes bad use of space), the only option really was to gut it and start fresh. So, that's what we're doing.

Crazy? Yes. Expensive? Um, I'm not going to go there. But in a month in a half or so, hopefully I'll have pictures of food happily being prepared on my new apple-green counters.