Vicki's family portrait: Vicki's Father is between her and Sloan

I have always loved Father’s Day because it makes me stop and think about how lucky I am to have the great dad I have.  This year I will make extra sure, he knows how much he is appreciated.  I lost my Mom a few weeks ago.  It has been hard on all of us because she was a great person, very creative and well liked and loved by so many.  No matter how sad we are, it can never compare to the loss that my dad is experiencing.  He and my mom have been married for 54 years.  He was a 29-year-old bachelor when he met my mom.  She was a widow with two small children.  He was smitten immediately by all three of us and signed on to be the greatest dad ever.  He taught school during the day and evening classes.  During the summer, he ran his own home improvement business.  This is where I learned how to swing a hammer and grout a bathroom.  He also taught my brothers and I the importance of family so when things got tough we knew how to come together to support one another.  As we all gathered at my dad’s last month to practice what he had taught us we were proud to lend our support to him.

We have some fun ideas and do it yourself gift ideas that you or your kids can create for the special men in your lives but the best gift any of us can give is our love, loyalty and time.  Here is to all the men that love their families.  May you have a wonderful day and not end up with another tie.

One gift you cannot go wrong with is cookies! Here is the recipe to create your own customized football cookies:

Ingredients

• Soft homemade or store bought cookies
• Frosting
• Food coloring
• M&M’s Minis
• Black decorator gel
• Black licorice

Instructions

1. For each individual cookie, first, spread a thin layer of frosting on a cookie. Cut a square from a second cookie to create a helmet shape and set it atop the first.
2. Coat the helmet with frosting tinted the color of your family’s favorite team, then add eyes (M&M’s Minis with black decorators’ gel dots), black string licorice can be used for the facemask, and two more M&M’s Minis for the helmet’s ear holes.

Another fun gift idea for Father’s day that you can make from home is a homemade craft.  A great example of this is to make an apron for grilling!  Here are the instructions on how to do it:

Materials:

• White canvas apron, in Dad’s size, available at craft stores
• Masking tape
• Fabric paints of different colors
• Paintbrushes

Instructions

1. Prewash the apron. Mark off the areas that you want to paint.
2. Kids can sketch out ideas on paper beforehand or go straight to canvas. Themes might include food on the grill, family self-portraits, or Dad’s favorite things. Remove the tape and set the paint according to the manufacturer’s directions

Do not forget the father’s day card! Here are some great websites with homemade father’s day cards and other craft ideas. There are many different creative approaches to making cards at home for your Dad. Just pick out the card that best fits your Dad’s hobbies and you will be all set for the Father’s Day Celebration!

http://crafts.slides.kaboose.com/284-father-s-day-cards

http://familyfun.go.com/fathers-day/

With the summer months approaching, it is always nice to entertain guests with delicious food on the grill and entertainment. If you want to save some money and still enjoy a great meal, you can do this from home.  Here are some great recipes for grilling and ways to keep your guests entertained while enjoying the sunny outdoors!

• Poppy seed hot dog buns
• All beef frankfurter with natural casing
• Yellow mustard
• Green sweet pickle relish
• Chopped raw onion
• Chopped red tomato
• Pickled Serrano “sport” peppers
• Kosher pickle spear
• Celery salt
• No Ketchup necessary!

Simply grill the hot dogs to your tastes then embellish with the portions of condiments desired!

• Fresh ears of corn with husks
• Butter
• Kosher Sea Salt
• Garlic Powder
• Dried Parsley
• Black Pepper
• Cold Water

Remove top layer of husks, let ears of corn soak in water 15 minutes, melt butter and combine seasonings, evenly distribute butter and seasoning mixture to each ear of corn and grill to desired taste!

• 1 Bottle of red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Rioja reds, Zinfandel, Shiraz)
• 1 Lemon cut into wedges
• 1 Orange cut into wedges
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Shot brandy
• 2 Cups ginger ale or club soda

Click here for official corn hole rules.

Learn how to build your own corn hole!

You can now follow us on Facebook at our For Your Home page.  We have just loaded some photos from last season and pose the question to our viewers–”What specific areas would you like more information about?”  Please look us up when you have a moment.

We have been working really hard to keep up with our viewers and get as much information about the show and home decorating/ gardening as we can onto the site. Please be sure to stop by the message boards and posts any comment or questions you have for us!

We are sailing smoothly into the 2010 year and are very excited about things to come!

Vicki has been making her rounds at the Atlanta Gift Show and is in Vegas for the International Builders Show.  She even snapped a few shots of some really lovely items that will be HUGE this year.  She wanted to share these great finds with all the viewers so they can get inspired, like she has, so here are her comments from the road:

Aqua just won’t go away.  That’s okay with me because I just love this color.  The “color of the year is Turquoise”  just a deeper version of aqua.  For walls and linens I am seeing this pale aqua everywhere.

Nature inspired accessories are everywhere.  My favorite was the use of “Sea Fans” as shown above.  They are delicate fan shaped pieces of dried sea weed.  I asked about ordering some and found out that they are no longer available from this vendor because they are too delicate to ship.  So if you know where I can order them please let me know!!

Anything French was hot, hot, hot.  Now I’m not talking about the Paris memorabilia that we saw on the market place a few years ago.  I am talking about authentic French styled furniture and that shabby chic Parisian look.  The furniture features exposed wooden frames.  The wood is finished in a light gray or pickled finish.  The upholstery fabrics are all natural linens in pale neutral colors.  I could have swooped up dozens of these pieces for my own home.  Love it!

Turquoise: The official home décor color of 2010 looked fabulous on this bed from Bella Notte Linens.  This company is so great.  They will die your bedding any color you like.  They had dozens from which to choose or they can even do custom colors.  Gone were all the layers and layers of satin, heavy embellished pillows and heavy comforters.  Think soft, inviting fabrics and you would have the look I saw over and over again.  The more formal bedding displays featured fresh ironed linen duvet covers.  Trust me don’t purchase linen unless you want to be ironing every day or if you can adjust your style to just accepting the “lived-in” look.

Want to update your style without buying new furniture?  I’ve got just the solution.  New pillows.  Market was filled with beautiful linen pillows featuring embroidered images inspired by nature.  No silk pillows to be found.  Hopefully we are finally out of that phase.  The linen pillows came in all shapes, colors and styles.  Most striking were the ones that featured dressmaker details like small pleats and tucks.  I also loved the mother of pearl and torturous shell buttons some of the designers were using.

What were the most popular motifs?

Crowns

Anything with birds, nests and eggs

Horse heads (a little too Godfather for me but I saw a lot of them)

Religious symbols, such as crosses and icons

That’s it for now.  More next time for the International Builders’ show in Las Vegas.

Vicki

Hello Everyone! Take a look at my first blog!

I’ve been in love with dishes since my Aunt Louise gave me my first tea set when I was six years old.  I still have it as well as 20 to30 other sets of dishes that I’ve been collecting over the years.  Most are antique sets.  I love knowing that these dishes have graces the tables of generations of families.  I keep that tradition going by using all my dishes as often as possible.  I don’t believe in putting them away and saving them for special occasions.

Three years ago I planted wisteria vines from Charleston, South Carolina on my backyard pergola.  This spring the vines exploded with thousands of magnificent purple flower clusters.  The view on the patio was too stunning for just my husband, Chris and I to enjoy alone.  It had to be shared.  It also inspired me to bring out one of my favorite sets of dishes.

an antique English china set that I bought at the antique market 10 years ago.  They feature wisteria blooms and a gentle fluted edging.  Great weather, a beautiful setting and the perfect dishes prompted me to host a Sunday afternoon luncheon for some of my favorite girlfriends.

I sent off an E-vite.  (If you haven’t used these yet…..check out our tip of the week.)

I couldn’t resist setting a dress code…”show-up sporting your favorite spring hat!”  Of course if you knew my friends then you’d know they are going to show up in some pretty crazy bonnets.  But that’s what makes them so much fun.

I love to give parties but I don’t have time to spend hours cooking.  So I made it easy on myself and asked everyone to bring a summer dish to share.  I made gazpacho.  Which worked out perfect since this set of dishes had matching bowls.  Remember it’s all about the dishes!!

Here’s the recipe it turned out great! (I added hot sauce to the leftovers and served it with chips the next day)

Ingredients

• 1 hothouse cucumber, halved and seeded, but not peeled
• 2 red bell peppers, cored and seeded
• 4 plum tomatoes
• 1 red onion
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 23 ounces tomato juice (3 cups)
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup good olive oil
• 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Roughly chop the cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, and red onions into 1-inch cubes. Put each vegetable separately into a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until it is coarsely chopped. Do not over process!

After each vegetable is processed, combine them in a large bowl and add the garlic, tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix well and chill before serving. The longer gazpacho sits, the more the flavors develop.

My friends’ food was equally as impressive.  As always, there was way to much!  But there is always room for desert.  I kept that simple, light and airy just like the weather, lemon sherbet serviced in antique cocktail glasses with a touch of mint from my garden.  See this weeks tip on other great uses for mint!

The party started at 2:00pm and everyone brought a great bottle of wine.  We had a great time just eating, laughing, drinking and enjoying the party until way after dark.

It was a wonderful way to kick off the season and share time together.  You don’t have to have great dishes or blooming wisteria to inspire a party. Your girlfriends are reason enough!

I apologize I haven’t blogged in quite sometime but we have had a lot of exciting things happening at Cutters Productions. We have been so busy with filming this season and decorating The Build for the Cure Show house. We kicked off October by attending the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure, here in Charlotte. There were some great characters there. It was a lot of fun to attend this year and to represent Build for the Cure.

The Build for the Cure Show house that I decorated opened last weekend to a sold out Sneak Peek Party. Look at that awesome pink carpet!

I had a blast decorating but and am pleased that it is finally open for tours. If you are in the Charlotte/ Fort mill area go check it out!

Our upcoming season has 9 episodes dedicated to the Build for the Cure Show House. The 26th season begins airing in January. We had some many wonderful companies support For Your Home on the Build for the Cure project. The home came out beautiful and I can’t wait for the episodes to air.

Check out these pictures of one of my favorite rooms! The Sun Room….