Monkey's New Shelf

My Monkey is one lucky duck. Because our house seems to have been designed without doors on non-private places (i.e. kitchen, dining room, living room, etc.) the only way we can contain her is with a network of baby gates - we have four in all. We gate off the kitchen and dining room so she can play in the living room and hallway to her bedroom. And when she started crawling we wanted her to have a playroom that was safe and comfortable and fun. So now, what was the dining room is now the playroom with two more door gates. My sister had a wealth of interlocking foam blocks that we lined the floor with and my sister-in-law gave us an extra-padded loveseat so adults don't HAVE to sit on the floor (although we still do.) The previous owners of the house left behind an awesome chest that serves as a toy box and we had a cheap bookshelf to hold half of Monkey's library (the other half is in her room.)

This shelf has been with us for seven years. It's old and cheap and frankly, atrocious. I mean, really - there is nothing beautiful or noteworthy about it. So in my free time, I wanted to give it a makeover.

Graandma gave the Monkey a box of (very) old books that had been left in a barn for roughly ten years and were so water damaged and mildewed that there was no way my daughter was going to be laying a hand on them. Other than that, they were perfectly fine books that I knew I could re-purpose. So I got to work doing the hardest thing I have ever done... cutting pages from books. In my world, this is akin to burning them, but I just kept telling myself that they would have a better life.

My next step was gathering my materials. I needed a brush, mod podge, the shelf (cleaned of course), scissors, trash bag and the selected pages. And now I was ready to craft! I was going to decoupage the life into this shelf!

To smooth the pages out over the surface, I used the cover of one of the book covers that no longer held pages. It worked great! I made my own mod podge with half white glue and half water, which worked great too. The biggest challenges I had were covering the exposed particle board, since glue just doesn't want to stick there, making sure every bit of every surface was covered, and keeping the peg holes clear for the shelf brackets. All told so far, this project has cost me $0.

Wait, what? $0??? Yup. That's right. I don't count the cost of the shelf because of how long we've had it. The books were my husband's old books. And the glue was a gift. (Yeah, this family gifts strange stuff.)

I still have to buy some beadboard for the backing and I need to varnish it (bought from the Habitat Store for $4) but have to wait until the weather turns warmer. So I expect the finished product to end up costing roughly $7. Pretty fab, I'd say.

But here's how its looking now. Snazzy.

Birthday Party

On January 5th, we celebrated having our Monkey for one whole year! A year has gone by so fast and I really wanted to make her first birthday something special. After she freaked out at Thanksgiving having so many people around who wanted to adore her, we decided to split the festivities into two events: One party for friends and one party for family. And I decided to make as healthy a cake as I could, so I opted for a sugarless cake with unsweetened whipped cream frosting. Both my hubby and I were skeptical so I made a trail batch and... YUM! So I made two sheets ready for the parties.

Ah. The best laid plans.

On the fifth, our Monkey got sick for the first time! Happy birthday! So of course we had to cancel the first party since it was being held on her birthday. It was a nasty stomach virus that lasted 24 hours. I only know because after Monkey got better, Hubby got sick. When Hubby got better, I got sick. Party number two canceled since 1) I was so sick on the day of the party it was gross and 2) we figured since it rounded this family in three days it must have been highly contagious. So I had these beautiful cakes stashed in the fridge with both parties canceled. Drat.

After a few days and the Monkey Virus going around to a few more family members who braved the quarantine, we decided to invite family to come for a week-late birthday party. I got decorations up haphazardly and went to decorating the cake.

 3-layer sheet cake for the adults.

3-tiered cake for the Monkey

We had a great time watching Monkey dig into her cake and presents. She LOVED the cake (the adults, however, were underwhelmed.) I decided that it might be better to try the cake recipe as morning muffins and it worked great! The best part is that you can put all sorts of stuff in them... Dried fruit, dark chocolate chips, shredded carrots, nuts, and the list goes on! So, after the adorable picture of Monkey digging into her birthday cake, get the recipe for Monkey's Morning Muffins!

1/2 C butter, melted
2 eggs
1T liquid sweetener (I think this is supposed to be a sugar alternative, but I used honey.)
1-1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
2 medium bananas, mashed (which equals about 1/2 C)
1 t vanilla
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t ginger
1 C all-purpose flour
1 C whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 "chunks" (dried fruit, nuts, chips, etc.)

Preheat oven to 300 F. Sift together all the dry ingredients. Mix together all the wet ingredients and incorporate the dry stuff gradually to make an evenly developed batter. Mix in chunks. Bake time will vary on method:
Sheet cakes=20 minutes
Muffins=35 minutes (or longer)
Loaf=50 minutes (or until springy-ish in the middle)

And if you try it, let me know what you think!