I've yet to meet a dog that doesn't love peanut butter, and mine are no exception-- they take after their mommy! I'll bet yours are just the same as mine-- as soon as the peanut butter jar comes out, they're right there, ears pricked, looking hopefully up at you with big, doleful eyes.

I like to make doggy treats, since that's one way of ensuring that my babies get a healthy treat that doesn't have a lot of outlandish and questionable ingredients.   There are plenty of doggy treat recipes out there, including many with peanut butter as the starring ingredient.... irresistible for dogs who love peanut butter!




You can have a lot of fun making all kinds of uniquely shaped dog treats-- dinosaurs, little -'peanut butter' men (as opposed to gingerbread men), Halloween characters, Christmas characters....there is no lack of variety when it  comes to cookie cutters. I used a simple dog bone shape here to create a classic dog-bone shaped treat, using a dog-biscuit recipe that is an adaptation of several different recipes I found online.  




I had a lot of fun playing around with these little rustic-looking doggy bone biscuits and some new cherry-patterned melamine 'paper plates' that I recently bought.....




.....as well as some pretty retro-themed napkins that I found in one of my fabric bins (I have enough decorator fabric on hand to start a yardage store, but that can be a future post....).


























But in the end she couldn't resist and inched closer and closer to the pile of treats  (she'd already had a sample earlier, so she knew what these little guys were), until she was close enough to nab one!









On to the recipe.....This is an easy recipe with simple, wholesome ingredients, which include, in addition to peanut butter, oats, wheat flower and a broth (chicken or beef).   




I used old fashioned oatmeal for a rustic, robust-looking texture (not that dogs care about texture).


Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits

2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup of chicken or beef broth
1 cup old fashioned peanut butter (such as Laura Scudder's)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Stir in the broth and peanut butter until the flour mixture is incorporated and the dough is  crumbly.  Using your hands, form a ball. 

Kneed the dough for about 30 seconds on a lightly floured work surface until the dough holds together.  Roll the dough into a 10-inch circle, at about 1/2 inch thick.  Using a cookie cutter, cut out the 'bones' and place on the prepared cookie sheet.  Gather up the remaining scraps and form another ball, which can then be rolled out for more cookies.  Or, roll the remaining dough into a cylinder shape and cut little bite-sized treats.  

Bake until golden, about 20 minutes.  Bake a few minutes longer for more crispy treats.  Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.  These doggy biscuits can be stored in an airtight container for up to one week--- but your doggies will want to gobble these up long before then!

Do you love the look of old distressed, re-purposed wood but are rather horrified by how expensive it can be?  I'm specifically talking about using wood from old farm outbuildings and other old structures for flooring and other interior finishes---which, because this is such hot trend right now, can be pretty pricey. 

Does anyone ever over-estimate how long it will take to complete a home improvement project?  I'd be curious to know.....  We certainly do not.  We usually miss our target date by several orders of magnitude.  In the case of our fireplace re-do adventure, we're about 4 months overdue. 

"Let's do the fireplace now (we'd been talking about it for years)-- do you think we can get it done by Christmas?", I asked my husband last November, visions of charming Christmas-themed mantel-scapes dancing through my head.  "Yeah, I think we could get it done by then" was his answer.  Ha!  As I write this, we have just finished celebrating Easter. 

So, without further ado..... here are the before, during, and after photos.....and the before is pretty ugly.  Below is the ho-hum fireplace that came with our house.  Pretty unimpressive.





Something else we underestimated.  My husband thought he could get away with just removing the lower drywall surround and mantle and not have to remove the wall above the old mantle and the crown molding (and then go through the frustrating and tedious crown molding-finishing process).  It didn't work out that way....we had to rip it all out in order to reconfigure the fireplace box and chimney on top of the new raised hearth.