Day 4 of 30 Days of Creativity - Tennessee

Back in September 2009, my hubby and I took a road trip down to Tennessee.  We visited the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Gatlinburg, Dollywood and some small towns I can't remember the names of.  I don't think I ever posted any pictures from that trip on here.  I know the trip was two years ago, but I wanted to do a photography post for the 30 Days of Creativity. 
I am definitely not the most talented photographer.  I have a Nikon Coolpix S550 point-and-shoot camera, but I admit I don't really know how to use the camera (so if any of you have pointers on how to really use it, I would love to hear them!).  But this is the camera I use for everything.  It's small, portable and easy to use.

Anyway, I took a lot of pictures when we went to Tennessee.  It's so beautiful down there and I wanted to capture everything!  So for Day 4 of 30 Days of Creativity (I know...way behind), I wanted to share some the pictures I took while on this vacation.

This is a barn in Cataloochee Valley, which is actually in the North Carolina section of the park.

These two pictures are from our drive up to Clingmans Dome, which is the highest point in the Park (6,643 feet).  It was foggy the day we went, I don't have any clear pictures from the observation desk at the top. 

I actually used one of the many functions on my camera for this one!



And of course I had to add one picture from Dollywood.  Jeremy took this one for me.  I have to say, this amusement park was one of the best I have ever been to.  Dolly Parton designed the park around the history of the Smoky Mountains.  Walking around the park was like stepping back in time.  I loved it!

And that's my Day 4 entry.  I have another five days to catch up on.  We'll see how that goes...

Baby Shower Gift For My Sister

For my Day 3 of 30 Days of Creativity, I'm going to show the gift I made/refinished for my sister Amy.  We had her baby shower a few weeks ago and I refinished a changing table/dresser for her (with help from my husband, Jeremy). 

My younger sister is having her first baby, a girl, in little over a month.  While planning her baby shower, I was trying to think of a gift to make for her.  I knew I wouldn't have time to make a quilt, but still wanted to make something.  She had plans on refinishing an old dresser to use as a changing table.  It was getting closer to the shower and I still had nothing, but my sister still had not started the changing table.  I was talking to my mother-in-law about it and while she was out at some garage sales, she found a wooden changing table.  It was in great shape, but the color wouldn't match the rest of the baby's room, which is all white furniture.  So my husband helped me sand and paint (well...he did most of the sanding and painting, I guess he doesn't trust me with power tools or paint). 

After it was all painted, I added these awesome shabby chic drawer pulls to each of the drawers.  I looked all over for ones that would match my sister's style and the baby's room decor, but was having a hard time finding what I wanted.  Then I saw some beautiful pink shabby chic ones at Home Goods.  They looked great! 

Here is the changing table before (well, after it was sanded)

And here is the changing table/dresser after it's all painted and I added the knobs!

I gave the changing table to Amy at her baby shower.  I really hope she likes it!  It does look really good in the baby's room.  She bought a really pretty mattress cover for it and has already filled the changing table with diapers, wipes, and clothes.

Slacker...

So I was doing good with the whole 30 Days of Creativity for about two days.  And then the weekend hit and I haven't posted or crafted since then.  I do have a good excuse thought...I was volunteering my time with the local fire department as they were selling and serving drinks at Michael Arnone's 22nd Annual Crawfish Fest.  My dad was a member and fire chief of the fire department and that's how we got involved.  It's a lot of fun and we meet very interesting people and get to listen to some great music!  My next post will be, hopefully, a catch-up post and have at least four creative things by me. 

Our Little Garden

I love to garden.  I love all the colors from the flowers.  I love growing my own vegetables.  But there is only one problem...Jeremy and I live in a condo and we don't have a yard.  We do have an outdoor space, but it's a little patio that is just big enough for a small table, two folding chairs and a little electric grill.  This doesn't leave a lot of space to have pots of flowers, herbs and vegetables. 

For the past two summers that we've been living here, we usually have a hanging basket with flowers and three window boxes (oh...and Jeremy's rock 'garden').  So I stuck with that, planting the window boxes and buying a hanging plant.  I also found this fragrant flower that I can't remember the name of, which I put in an extra flower pot.  With all the rain we've had in northern New Jersey, everything is really growing! 

This year, a friend of mine is working part time job at a garden center and she said we should try growing some vegetables in buckets.  I asked her to pick up whatever she thinks would grow and she got us a patio tomato plant and two bell pepper plants.  She even planted them for us in two five-gallon buckets.  And I'm really impressed with how well they are doing.  There is even a small pepper growing on one of the plants!

I think a lot of creativity goes into having a garden, no matter the size.  It starts with picking all the plants and colors (I like all the flower colors to match), then figuring out where to place everything and how to make everything fit with the space you have, and taking care of the plants and keep them growing.  And then there's taking pictures of the plants and flowers as well.  With that, I'm posting my little garden for day two of the 30 Days of Creativity challenge.  And I think I broke record with number of days in a row where I posted something!  Maybe this whole challenge thing will help me become a little better at blogging.  We'll see!

My little garden gnome that I painted myself!

Chicken Kabobs

Here is my day 1 blog entry for the 30 Days of Creativity.  Last night, I made chicken kabobs for dinner.  I thought cooking would be a great way to kick of my 30 days of creativity.  It's a learning experience for me, since I'm not the most creative person when it comes to making meals.  So I have a feeling this 30 day initiative is going to be filled with lots of cooking and baking and hopefully I will share some of the recipes with you.   

Okay, so on to last night's supper.  I decided to make kabobs and oven potatoes.  For the potatoes, I used some packaged seasoning mix that I had the pantry.  So I followed the recipe on the back of the packet.  I cut up four red potatoes into bite size pieces, added some olive oil and the seasoning packet.  I then spread the potatoes onto a baking sheet and baked for about 25 minutes.

While the potatoes were cooking, I cut up the chicken, tomatoes, peppers and onions.  There is no recipe for this, I just use whatever veggies and meat I have in the house.  I placed the meat and veggies onto bamboo skewers.  Once they were all assembled, I drizzled olive oil and crushed peppercorn and garlic seasoning from Pampered Chef.  I usually will marinate the chicken and veggies in Italian salad dressing, but since my husband was picking up the veggies on his way from work, I didn't have time to let the veggies sit in the dressing.  Then it was time for the grill.  My husband and I live in a condo and we can only have an electric outdoor grill...so it doesn't hold much but it does the trick when cooking for the two of us.

I left the kabobs on the grill for a good 15 minutes (I'm paranoid about undercooked food...so I probably could have taken everything off the grill in about 10 minutes). Once taken off the grill, it was time to eat!  I think kabobs are probably one of my favorite summer time meals.  They are simple to make, but such a great tasting meal.

Day 1 down...29 more to go.  Will I make it??  I sure hope so!