House Warming Gift Idea

Here's a fun idea for a housewarming or hostess gift that I put together for a friend.  I was struggling to find a unique and useful idea for a good friend we were visiting recently and came up with this.  A basket with homemade granola, a jar of dried cherries, raisens and a scoop.  As I was tying the bow on it, I thought this was worthy of sharing on my blog!  Unfortunately, I didn't get a pic of the final product, but I did get pics of the basket contents.  

(Imagine this with a big shimmery gold bow tied across it!)

The jars and basket were purchased at Meijer.  I used a large cracker jar for the granola and pint and 1/2 pint mason jars for the dried fruit.  Ball makes a set of mason jars specifically for gifts with silver lids that matched nicely with the cracker jar.  I also included a recipe card for the granola.  

The granola recipe is pretty easy, but you'll have to play around with it.  It has multiple options for sweetener and what to put in it.  I found doing a combination of a couple sweeteners (honey, maple syrup and brown sugar) worked nicely.  I also cut back on the salt as one batch I made was pretty salty.  It's still a work in progress, but I'm getting close to a recipe I like.

First Big Project!

Well, so much for good intentions. I had planned to document the move and transition to Michigan, but shortly after we moved my mom's health took a turn for the worse and we found ourselves immersed in caring for her during her last days. It's been tough, to say the least, but we're finding our way back to routines and diving into house projects. So many ideas, but we have to pace ourselves.

So here's a look at our first big project. I say "our" but those that know us, will know that this was all Marc! Honestly, I was skeptical at first, really did we need a third room to watch TV together as a family? But Marc insisted that we needed to do this and, of course, he had a plan. Besides, this was going to be the room specifically to watch movies, so that made it different in his mind. I was thinking we already had a 60 inch TV in the basement that was perfectly suited to watching movies. So while I was off visiting friends in Illinois, he was busy working on the media room.

I have to say it turned out fantastic. I should have never doubted it for a minute. He built a nice cabinet in the back to hold the DVD player, surround sound system and projector. Eventually we plan to hook up the cable box as well. For the screen, he painted the wall white, framed it and built a shelf to hold DVDs. We had our first movie night last night and there's not a bad seat in the room. I think we'll need to do something with the plaid couches, but for now it will do.

Here's a picture with the lights out. I think we'll need to do a Harry Potter marathon soon! Marc also hooked up the Wii in this room so we can get our Glee on or race Mario on the big screen. :)