How my mom turned a crappy old cabinet into a really awesome accent piece

My mom wrote up a description of the steps she took while distressing a beautiful cabinet that she gave me for my birthday, complete with in-progress pics. For those of you who are crafty, here it is for your enjoyment!

There are lots of posts and blogs on line that provide a way better description of how to paint/distress furniture, so I suggest you read them if you want some good information on how to do this properly — that’s what I did. But none of those blogs have what this description has, namely, that their furniture ends up decorating Rose’s cool apartment, and as regular readers of Rose’s blog know, Rose is awesomely cool!

The Before Photo

Recipe for Coconut Lemon Cookies

Recipe

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
a dash of cinnamon & nutmeg
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
zest of three large lemons
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar for rolling cookies

Cream sugar with butter, add egg and other wet ingredients. Mix together dry ingredients separately, then add them together.

Roll cookies in sugar before placing on pan.

Bake at 350° for about ten minutes.

Complaints

• Not enough coconut flavour. I think it maybe needs something like coconut cream.
• They’re not chewy. They’re nice and soft and fine to eat, but they don’t have that delicious chewy quality.
• Overall, I’d say that these cookies are good, and they are definitely lemony, but they lack a certain X factor. I think cocoa powder and a stronger coconut flavour would really kick them up a notch. Next time!

Edited to say – I’ve kind of come around to these cookies. Ben really likes them and they’re nice and light. Still wish they were more coconutty, though!