Summer Cottage Style Faux Fireplace

Hello, friends!  First of all, just a note to let you know that I'm having so many annoying issues with my new Wordpress blog  {loading slowly, interface troubles, etc., etc.} that I've decided to just to keep blogging  HERE with Blogger right now. I don't know if I'll ever get my Wordpress problems worked out, and frankly, I don't have time to work on them. I don't want you to have to deal with slow loading pages and images, so excuse my crazy while I tell you that I'll be continuing to update here instead of at the new site until further notice.

So, do you remember forever ago when our dining room looked like this?  It was when we first moved into the house and I was really into jewel tones.  The photo Perhaps in the fall we'll draw ourselves a roaring chalk firebelow was pre-remodel.  Just a standard little dining space with a door to the laundry room right in the middle of it!  That door was quite silly, especially considering the fact that there was another door to the laundry room in the hallway.  So we decided to wall the dining room access door up....

and build a faux fireplace in it's place.  This wall really needed to be weighted with something that would visually balance out the red cabinets on the the opposite end of the room. A fireplace was the perfect solution.  We started with a mantel I found on clearance at Lowes...

and just began building a beefy box frame out of pine boards of various widths.

Somewhere along the line, I found this old black cast iron surround at an antique shop for about $30.  I was hoping it would somehow work with our faux mantel.

And it did!  Since I wanted to make the fireplace look as realistic as possible, I painted the inside of the surround with black chalkboard paint. {Perhaps in the fall we'll draw ourselves a roaring chalk fire.} And to keep a light & airy, vacation-ey beach feel, I painted the cast iron surround white.

I just love how substantial the vertical 'legs' of  the fireplace appear.  We just kept building up and layering boards and trim pieces until we got the look we wanted.

The area around the surround is actually heavy textured paintable wallpaper that looks like tin.  Convincing, yes?  The color I chose is called 'Malted Milk'... it reminds me of sand. ;) {You may notice a gap or two at the bottom near the floor - our floor is terribly uneven in this area and we'll have to fill it in somehow the future.  I had kind of forgotten about it until seeing these photos!}

Isn't it funny how a  fake fireplace can really warm up a summer style cottage dining room?

P.S.  I made the little banner for a party for my girls recently... I haven't had the heart to take it down yet. ;)

Rolled Sugar Cookie & Buttercream Frosting Recipe

I wanted to share with you a little treasure of a recipe that I’ve happened upon recently. You all know how much I love baking, but I didn’t have a good rolled sugar cookie recipe to use for This recipe yields a soft but hearty cookie that is perfect for decorating to your heart’s content. all those fun cookie cutters available now. Well, I think I’ve found my go-to recipe! I found the recipe here and with 4½ stars and over 5,000 reviews, I had to give it a try myself. I’ve actually used this recipe twice so far and the results were absolutely sublime both times. This recipe yields a soft but hearty cookie that is perfect for decorating to your heart’s content.

The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies by Jill Saunders
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar 4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely before frosting. {I bake mine for just 6 minutes and they are perfect! }

Want frosting? I use the same frosting that I make for a lot of cakes…buttercream! Though it doesn’t get hard like royal icing, it sets up nicely and tastes heavenly! I adjusted this recipe from another one that I found online, but the original called for shortening and I just hate the aftertaste. Butter all the way for me, baby!

Buttercream Frosting
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons milk

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, shortening, and vanilla. Blend in the sugar, one cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the milk, and continue mixing until light and fluffy. Keep icing covered until ready to decorate. {I divide the frosting into smaller bowls and add various food color gels. {Depending on the size of your cookie, you’ll have plenty with some leftover.}

I wish I had remembered to count how many cookies this recipe made with this particular cookie cutter, but it was somewhere around 36-40, give or take a few.

I love using these beautiful measuring spoons that Deborah of The Fairfield House sent me. She knows my love of polka dots runs deep and she was so kind in sending this sweet little dish, too. {Deborah told me that she got the spoons from Anthropologie if you’re interested in a set for your cottage kitchen, too!}

What do you think of the red teacups?

They are actually measuring cups! {I purchased them from West Elm a few months ago, but unfortunately, they no longer sell them.}

Back to baking! What I really like about this recipe is that the cookies really don’t look much different before baking…

 …than they do after baking! If your dough is nice and chilled, the cookies will spread very little, if any at all, and they retain their shape extremely well.

You’ll find that these cookies by themselves aren’t overly sweet. When you add the fluffy rich buttercream, you’ll be pleased with the ‘just right’ balance between cookie and frosting.

If you want to fancy your cookies up with sprinkles, {I can’t fathom NOT adding sprinkles!!!} be sure to add them right after you spread the buttercream. The frosting sets up fairly quickly and if you try to add the sprinkles after it has set up, they’ll just bounce right off. Trust me on this one.

Here’s an idea: Flatten cupcake liners with an iron on low heat and use them as ‘cookie liners’ instead.:)

Store these cookies in an airtight container and they'll be soft and fresh tasting for days.

I used these same recipes recently for some cupcake shaped cookies. Excuse the cell phone photo – I was in a hurry finishing up last minute details before a house full of girls arrived for a slumber party. These looked really sweet packaged up in goody bags. {Those are red jelly beans on top, by the way.} I found the cupcake shaped cookie cutter at World Market for just 99 cents. 

If you try these cookies, please let me know what you think! If you try these cookies, please let me know what you think!

Thank you for visiting and have a great rest of the weekend!