DIY Vintage Milk Jar

     One of the most popular recipes in our house is Buffalo Chicken Dip. We buy Rickey's Chicken Wing Sauce from Sam's Club because it is a huge jar for a great price and it tastes great too. The jar it comes in is such a cool shape, I never can bring myself to put it in the recycling bin. Instead, these jars get makeovers and live in our home with us, or get passed on to a friend. I gave my last one ombre teal stripes, so when we finished the latest jar of wing sauce, I found myself pondering a few different ideas and the one I finally chose to go with this time was a vintage milk jar...can you see it!? 

Here is what the jar looks like as soon as we get it home from Sam's:

The one on the right is the one we usually get. That bigger one on the left looks awesome too, I think I'll have to get that sometime just for the jar! So first things first: I cleaned it out with super hot water to dissolve the glue, making it easy to cleanly remove the label. Then I washed it out with warm soapy water, dried it as best I could then let it air dry the rest of the way overnight. 

Now I have this plain glass jar: 

I'm sure you know what's coming next! Yep, spray paint, one of my favorite things! I used Valspar gloss white spray paint this time, but the cheapo stuff from Wally World works just as well. I took it outside, placed it upright on some cardboard and gave it a few light coats of paint, letting it dry about 10-15 minutes between coats. While that was drying, I designed a quick vintage milk label in Photoshop and saved it as a jpg. Then I opened that up in my Silhouette software and cut it out in solid black adhesive-backed vinyl. 

Here's the painted jar and vinyl, all ready to be applied!

I applied the vinyl to the milk jar using transfer paper and rubbed really well to make sure all those tiny letters stayed on the jar before peeling away the transfer paper, leaving me with an adorable DIY "vintage" milk jar. She will be right at home up on the planter's ledge in my kitchen! Technically, she is foodsafe on the inside, but I don't plan to use it that way; I just thought this made such a cute little photo, I had to stage it like that. :) Here she is in all her glory:

Isn't she pretty? She's going to look perfect up above my cabinets on that ledge! I chose "Lester" because that was my Nana and Papa's last name, my mom's maiden name, all my Northern family's last names...just another way to make me think of them every time I look at it. 

And just because I'm really nice, I'm going to share my label with you! :)

Download Printable Milk Label Here

Feel free to use it for your own personal milk jar, or how cute would this look on a wooden crate? So many adorable ways to use it! If you want to use it in your Silhouette, just open up the jpg in your software and select the Trace option, adjusting the high and low pass until you get the look you want, then remove the jpg and voila, all ready to cut! You could also easily print this out and mod podge it onto a bottle or crate if you don't have a Silhouette. I may decide to further distress it with some distress ink or a dry brush and brown glaze...but for now she's bright and shiny and ready to go on the shelf.

*If you use my label for a project and/or showcase it on your blog, please give credit to Kitchen Full of Sunshine. Personal use only. Please no redistributing. Thank you!*

Hope you have a great Saturday! It's the weekend! Get to crafting! :)

Strawberry Lemonade

Makes about 1 gallon

10 lemons
1 lb strawberries
1 1/2 - 2 cups sugar
1 cup water
+ additional water and ice

Directions:

Wash and slice strawberries, slicing the leaves and stems off the top. Place in a blender and blend for 2-3 minutes until pureed. Slice 8 lemons in half and juice them; you can squeeze the juice out using your hands or a citrus juicer. You will get about 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 cups of lemon juice. Place sugar and 1 cup of water in a glass measuring cup or bowl and microwave for about 5 minutes until sugar is dissolved and water is clear again. (You can do this on the stovetop if you prefer.) Whisk to dissolve any remaining particles. This will be your simple syrup. Pour strawberry puree through a mesh strainer into a 1 gallon pitcher, pressing with a spoon to get all the puree through--I also pour cups of water through towards the end when it gets thick and stubborn. Rinse the strainer and pour the lemon juice through it into the pitcher, again pressing with a spoon to get all the juice through. Pour simple syrup into the pitcher and stir well to combine. Add cold water and ice as needed to reach the top. Slice remaining 2 lemons and stir slices into the lemonade. Serve over ice. 



It's summertime!!! And that means lot of sweet tea and lemonade here in the south. This is one of our very favorite drinks and it really doesn't get any better than homemade strawberry lemonade straight from the strawberry patch and lemon tree. Of course running on down to Publix to pick up some strawberries and lemons is just fine too, which is what we did today. There's not much that's more refreshing that a tall, icy glass of homemade strawberry lemonade. And soon I'll be sipping mine from the new wood deck in my backyard that my husband is working on right this very minute. Can't wait! This is so easy and quick to put together! There's no reason to buy that expensive storebought stuff anymore when it's so cost-effective and easy to make your own, not to mention it's healthier too! I LOVE this, it's pretty and delicious, making this Southern girl one happy mama! Smiling faces are coming in right now from helping daddy in the yard to fill up their glasses with this treat. If you like yours more tart, juice another couple lemons and stir it in. Likewise if you prefer it sweeter, add another 1/2 cup of sugar to your water before boiling it into a simple syrup. Drink up!

5 Layer Bars

Makes 32 bars

1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup butterscotch chips

1 1/3 cup sweetened coconut flakes

1 cup chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts, almonds, peanuts or even a combo)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 for a metal pan; 325 for a glass pan.

Put butter in a 13x9 pan and place in hot oven for a few seconds to melt the butter. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs evenly over the melted butter. Sprinkle with nuts, then coconut, then chips and pour condensed milk evenly over the top. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool, cut into bars and serve.

One of my absolute favorite desserts and SO easy too. These taste similar to the famous Samoa cookie by the Girl Scouts. These are the type of bars you find yourself eating too many of! And the recipe is just so flexible, you can really make so many different types of bars by using this one as your base! Use chocolate cookie crumbs rather than graham. Try white chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips or milk chocolate and peanut butter chips. Experiment with different nuts or a combination of nuts. So many ways to make this, you could try a new one every day and not run out of ideas for weeks. So much fun and so much mmmmm!

Crockpot Calico Beans

Makes 4-6 Servings

2 lbs ground beef, browned and drained

1 lb bacon, cooked and crumbled, or 1 lb fully cooked bacon, cut up

1 large onion, chopped

1 large can baked beans

2 cans dark kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can butter beans, drained
1 can lima beans, drained
1/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon mustard

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a greased crockpot and stir together until combined well. Cook on low for 4-6 hours. Serve with cornbread and fresh chopped onion if desired.



This is one of our favorite, super easy, super quick, super filling recipes. I usually like to keep cooked ground beef in ziploc bags in my freezer, and I always have some of the fully-cooked packages of bacon on hand, so if I've forgotten to pull something out of the freezer for dinner and I look at the clock and it's 2pm already, I still have plenty of time to throw this together and still get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. It tastes sweet like baked beans, and is delicious over cornbread. Sometimes we like to put some chopped green pepper in the crockpot too and you will want to taste it and add extras of the last five ingredients and/or some salt if you think it needs it. I do a lot of tasting and adding this or that...I will never serve something to my family (or friends or anyone for that matter) that I haven't tasted first! I am a HUGE fan of crockpot meals, especially in the summer when I don't want to heat up my whole kitchen for dinner.

Happy Memorial Day

Remember the reason why we are free to celebrate today and every day. Thank you to those who have served, past and present. Today we remember and honor those who gave their lives so that we could be free to live ours in this great country of the United States of America.

Creamy Southern Cheese Grits

Makes 6-8 Servings

6 cups water
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
(OR 2 cups half & half)
2-3 teaspoons salt
1/4-1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 cups grits
2 cups grated extra sharp cheddar cheese, white or yellow
2 tablespoons parmesan
4 tablespoons butter

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, combine water, milk and cream or half and half, 2 teaspoons of salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Whisk constantly and watch closely, milk/cream can scorch and boil over VERY quickly! When liquid comes to a boil, slowly whisk in grits and reduce heat to medium-low, continuing to whisk frequently until thick and smooth, about 5-8 minutes. Stir in 1 cup of shredded cheese, whisking until melted and grits turn yellow. Stir in remaining cheddar and parmesan cheeses until melted, then stir in butter, stirring until melted. Taste and add remaining salt and pepper if desired.



This is our go-to grits recipe and it's pretty easy and basic--we always have these ingredients on hand. I frequently make these before church by themselves, or for Saturday brunch alongside eggs, bacon, sausage, etc. We like to do big breakfasts around here on the weekends. It's also a great base for shrimp and grits or my Fried Grit Cake and Tasso Cream Sauce . If I'm making it into the grit cake, I reduce the amount of cream and add a couple eggs before refrigerating it to let it get solid. We love grits 'round these parts! It's a Southern staple in this household.

Kitchen Remodel

We recently remodeled our kitchen. We painted the cabinets & hardware, replace the counters, and did some shifting in layouts.
*Note: Click images for full-size view and you can use your arrow keys to scroll through all full-size photos!*

Before:

 

Awful, right? Eep! Just look at those organgey-cabinets...they blend in with the floor and create a whole lotta dark, orange icky feelings. So much clutter too! Yeesh...I can't believe we lived with it like this for nearly 8 years! 

And now for an after: 

MUUCH better!

And here's a new one from today since I've changed a couple minor pieces of artwork:

Here's a breakdown of what we did:

• Shifted our refrigerator down and moved the odd little square of cabinet and counter down also, as well as the "bridge" cabinetry above the fridge. This got rid of a weird, neglected waste of space that just collected clutter and dust, and allowed us to have a bigger stretch of countertop space. Since we bought a French door fridge that had an in-door ice maker, being able to open that one door completely open wasn't as big of a deal, and there's still plenty of room for the door to open wide enough even being against the wall like that.

• We also got rid of the weird lifted bar area that we hated, and created a wide, flat, open piece of countertop for the bar area. (We still need to paint our barstools and return those to their spot.) 

• We purchased butcher block countertops from IKEA. We went with oak because they were out of birch, and turns out, we like oak the best after all. 

• Stained butcher block with super strong coffee and treated it with tung oil. 

• We painted our cabinets White Dove by Benjamin Moore and the hardware a hammered bronze by Rustoleum. 

I love my new kitchen, it is SO much brighter and even feels much bigger than it did before. I made my hubby's day by telling him it's my dream kitchen. :)