Some of my favorite things

Table-Painted

2010-07-05T13:18:00.014-05:00

Yesterday I decided to make a table out of some scrap wood my husband was getting ready to throw away. The wood has been sitting out in the barn for a couple of years just waiting for me to get motivated to make something out of it. Here is the table put together.

I have the first coat of black paint on, I think it is looking pretty darn good. Every time I look at this table I get happy. I love it! My kids are tired of me telling them how fabulous it is every time they walk by. I can't wait for it to be finished. Can't decide if I should leave it black. We have a Halloween party every year and black table with a great big pumpkin in the middle would look great!

Or maybe I should paint it a dark red to match my house. My house is gray with white trim, my doors and shutters are painted a dark red. I could leave it out on my patio all year and it would blend with the house. Plus the red would look really good at our 4th of July party.

This is my inspiration piece. Maybe I should crackle it and paint a coat of white over the top of the black. Decisions, Decisions!

Happy Fourth!!!

2010-07-04T19:32:00.013-05:00

Wow, where has the time gone? It has been over 1 year since I last blogged. Hope everyone had a happy 4th of July! We did not have anything planned so we spent the afternoon building a table.

A couple of years ago we replaced the front porch. I knew that the post would be good for something, they have been gathering dust out in the barn for over 2 years.

I convinced Nick to help me. He wasn't too thrilled with the idea but went along with it. I measured, he cut.

Here are all the boards cut. We didn't have a plan. We just knew we needed so many boards for each length. When we found two that were pretty close, we went with that measurement. I would have like for the table to be a little longer, but wanted to use what we had and not spend any $$$$.

Next we screwed the side boards to the post. I think it looks great!! Jeff helped us put it together, the screws were a little hard to get through the wood.
And here it is with the top on.

Here is the after! Took us 3 hours from start to finish and I have $0 in it, just a bunch of old wood my husband wanted to throw away. Once the table is painted it is going to look FANTASTIC!!!< I'm thinking maybe I want to paint it black, that would look great at our Halloween party. Or maybe white and crackle it with black showing through.

When you care enough to send the very best!

2009-03-25T17:52:00.003-05:00

Yesterday when Nick went back to school, the girls all got together and made a card and wrote him a song. It is so touching. I can't tell if they like him or hate him. Here it is.

Nick's Song

Nick is a retard he broke his freakin arm.
He was slippin and a slidin on freakin dirt bike and crashed into a barn.
YOU ARE AN IDIOT!!

GET WELL!....

And try not to do anything stupid!

But we all know that won't happen. K

hey Nickle butt, eye wuv yeww! D

But it will (do something stupid) Love Mental

You are the BIGGEST retard ever! Hope you get well! Luv U bunches! NOT! C

Memo Boards

2009-03-23T18:56:00.009-05:00

Have you seen the Memo Boards on all the blogs? They are cheap, easy and you can make one in less than 10 mins. Here is my first attempt.

I had a huge blank wall in my pantry. I really wasn't sure what I wanted to hang in there. I knew I did not want a big piece of art or a mirror. I was thinking about going to a thrift store and buying a neat old frame and painting it black and putting a cork board in the middle.

The other day I was reading Nester's Blog and came across her Easy Memo Board. I had everything on hand, except the ring hooks. I found them at Hobby Lobby for $5.99. Over all each board cost under $10.00 to make. When Hobby Lobby has their painter's canvas half off, I'm going back to get one more, maybe 2. I think 3 or 4 boards on the wall would look really nice.

Here's how I started.

First I started with painter's canvas, fabric, ring hooks, ribbon and staple gun.

Then lay your fabric on your canvas and staple to the back. Can't get any easier than that. at this point, you are 3/4 of the way done.

Next put a piece of ribbon through a ring hook and and staple to the back of the frame. You will want to put several hooks on. I stapled some across the top of the back. I also stapled a ribbon going across the board about half way and 3/4 of the way down. I slid my hooks on the ribbon and stapled going across the board. If you enlarge my first picture you might be able to see. (Sorry I don't have a photo of this).

Next find a big blank wall and hang it.

Vinyl Letters

2009-03-21T19:22:00.010-05:00

Ok, I'm back. My post belows talks about how I bought jars at Wal-Mart. I organized my pantry and wanted to label my jars. After walking around Hobby Lobby, trying to find something amazing to use, I decided to use what I had on hand. My Silhouette maker would be perfect. So, I came home empty handed.

Here you can see, plain old jar. Not very exciting.

Next I cut out my letters..... then apply to jar.

Wow! Look at that. Completely changes the jar.

GOSH DARN IT! Cereal is not in that jar, it has Powdered Sugar in it. Hold on, I will be back.

Hopefully everything is labeled correctly. Wouldn't it be something if they ate bird seed instead of cereal?

If you would like to learn more about the Silhouette maker....go to Youtube and do a search for Quickutz Silhouette. Here are couple of ones that I like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TAtsMLeStA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei68tyyj7EQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyOjnn1Qr10

Cleaning the Pantry

2009-03-21T15:19:00.006-05:00

Before

Those that follow my blog know that my youngest son, Nick, broke his arm. For those that don't know, Nick loves to stay home. Now that he is injured and has an excuse, there is no getting him out of the house. I'm about to go crazy, we have not left the house since Wednesday when he had his surgery. Yesterday I decided to clean out my pantry. I have been wanting to clean it out for the last month. Might as well do it while I'm stuck at home.
After

Oh, this is so much better, I can see everything we have.

Last week Wal-mart had their jars on clearance, I bought every single one they had. In the above picture I put cereal, powdered sugar, bird seed, anything that was in a bag, I'm now storing them in the jars.

I have been looking at different blogs and all the cool things they have done to their jars.
Thrifty Decor Chick labeled her jars.

She even painted rulers with chalkboard paint and labeled each section in the pantry. Too CUTE!!!

Kimm at Reinvented painted her jars with chalkboard paint and then labeled them with chalk. Love this idea also!

My Sweet Savannah labeled her jars also.

I have some ideas, I'll be back later to show you what I did. :)

Yard Visitors

2009-03-20T07:28:00.003-05:00

These were the visitors we had this morning. I looked out the bedroom window and there were 10 deer in the middle of Nick's RC track. By the time I ran and got my camera, some of them had left.(Don't they know they are to remain together and standing still until I take their photo?) The photo is not that great. Taking it through the screen blurred the pic. And then when I opended the window, the deer that were still there ran off.

Home from the Hospital!

2009-03-18T20:07:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone, we finally made it home from the hospital. Nick crashed his motorcycle last night and broke his arm where it attaches to the shoulder. They sent him home last night and wanted him to come back today for his surgery. Of course I had to take the camera. I don't know if the look on his face is from the pain or if it is because of the camera stuck in his face. Notice his half of a wave. Anyways, now that his arm is back in place he feels 100% better.
And this is how he has been since we walked in the door. All of his friends have been calling to see how he is doing. He must be feeling better, he has a grin.

The leprechauns made a visit

2009-03-17T06:47:00.009-05:00

Happy Saint Patricks Day! During the night the leprechauns made a visit to our house.

My mom was reading a blog the other day and the poster showed how the leprechauns stopped at their home and left a bunch of green candy. I did not see the post, so sorry if this was your idea. If so, let me know and I will give you credit. Anyways, I copied her idea. Here is what we did.

On each of my sons' bedside tables we left a bunch of green candy, oops, I mean the leprechauns left a bunch of green candy.
Then from their rooms they left a trail of gold coins leading into the bathroom (if you follow my blog, yes, they are using their new bathroom).
In the bathroom the leprechauns left a pile of gold coins on the bathroom sink. They must have been playing in the water because the sink and toilet both had green water.

Update- The boys just left for school, of course wearing green. Since they are both older, 14 and 12, I didn't know if they would get into the leprechaun thing. They did, huge hit. Nick even came downstairs and said the leprechauns messed his room up (Ummm for some reason I think the room was already a mess before the naughty leprechauns stopped by). And then when he couldn't find his jacket, you guessed it, the leprechauns must have hidden it. Mom in High Heels just left a comment about her blog. They are several hours ahead of us, she posted about the green food they had for Breakfast and lunch. Now I'm off to the store so we can have a green dinner.

Once upon a time there was a plain beige bathroom

2009-03-15T14:35:00.020-05:00

Thanks to Susan for hosting Metamorphosis Monday. Click the butterfly to the right and it will take you to Susan's site for a list of other great projects.

Before

This past week I have been very busy trying to take my sons' boring beige bathroom and turn it in to something they would love. Their rooms are upstairs and they share this bathroom. They hated it and would never use it, even in the middle of the night they would come downstairs, at 2 a.m., turn on all the lights and use the bathroom downstairs.

One day I was reading Nester's blog and she said something about, "it doesn't have to be perfect". Nester also had a post about how they fixed their kitchen up to sell the house and how she wished she had done it long ago so she could have enjoyed it. I decided I wasn't going to wait for a carpenter or someone to come do it for me, I was going to do it all by myself, it didn't have to be perfect. Thanks Nester!

This is what I started with, a boring beige bathroom

One week and $400.00 later, this is the after.

At first I was just going to paint the bathroom and buy some matching towels. Well, you know how one thing leads to another. One day while reading Karla's blog
It's the little things that make a house a home I came across this. (Hi Karla, hope you don't mind I stole your picture)
I knew this look would be perfect in the bathroom. Go check out her blog, she gives directions.

I called my friend, Cindy, told her to come over I had a project and this is how we spent the day. That is me in the photo.

By the end of the day, this is what we had accomplished. Is it perfect? No. Does it matter? No.

Next came the paint. I found several old looking sports pictures, I pulled the colors for the paint from those pictures. I love the red.

We started out with the cheap premade cabinets that you buy at Lowes or Home Depot. Even though this bathroom never was used, the cabinets looked pretty sad. I painted them black. So of course, they needed new handles and hinges. I can't believe what a difference the handles made, cost was around $30.00
Before
After

The nice new paint job on the cabinet made the big plain mirror look terrible. I bought trim, cut it to the length I needed and attached it to the mirror with Velcro. The trim for the mirror was $30-$40. The nice new trim around the mirror needed a new light, $100.00. I called the electrician to come hang it for me. He couldn't come until next week, so I did it myself. And Hey, it works!!
After
Before

Next came the accessories. I knew my kids would never fold towels neat and place them on towel bars, so I put up hooks. I think they were around $5- $6 each at Home Depot. I am loving these, I will probably put these hooks in all of my bathrooms.

To finish the bathroom I hung shelves, place hand towels in old locker baskets I got from our local grade school, added old tins that I bought years ago, placed soap and other bathroom items in jars that I found at Wal-Mart on clearance, added a light because that was one of the things you need in Nester's post on "Having a bathroom you love". And there you have it, hopefully a bathroom my kids will use. And I can not tell you how satisfying it is to be able to say that I did everything in there by myself (My friend, Cindy, did help me hang the boards).

Thanks for stopping by my blog. Keep scrolling down to read each day's progress and the "how to" on framing the mirror.

Wild Thing......I think I love you!

2009-03-15T08:29:00.007-05:00

This morning when I looked out my bedroom window this is what I saw. 19 turkey hens and 3 Toms. (Don't you just love my son's motocross track through the middle of our field?)

Surely this big guy in the middle will find at least one hen that thinks he is attractive.

Update.......The tom turkeys strutted their stuff for about 10 mins. and then left with nothing to show for it. Maybe next time guys!

Boys' Bathroom- Lights

2009-03-14T22:42:00.007-05:00

My husband worked late and the kids went roller skating. I have the house to myself on a Saturday night, what should I do? Well, of course, put up a new light.

I called the electrician but he won't be here until next week. I can't wait that long! So I decided to do it myself.

Here is the before, Yuck, Ugly, Bad!

This is much better. The light is centered. The angle of the picture makes it look off to the side, but I assure you, it is in the middle of the mirror.

Yes! It works!

Granna: if you have a light there, you are going to have to put your new light in its place. Otherwise you will need to patch sheetrock, and that's a lot more work than I want to do. If the location of your old light is in a bad spot, I would suggest hiring it done. They will need to move wires, patch sheetrock.

Boys' Bathroom- Frame the Mirror

2009-03-14T13:13:00.012-05:00

Today I framed the mirror. My mirror is 4' x 3' and I have less than $40.00 in this project.

Here's the before, Boring!

And here is the after. I can't believe the difference. Oops, sorry about the white boards to the left of the picture, I should have moved them.

And here is how you frame your mirror. It is so simple you will want to frame every mirror you own. I buy the little, fancy squares so I don't have to do a lot of angle cutting. By using the squares you can make a straight cut.

Here you can see I have all of my boards cut the length I need. Next place your vel-cro to the back. You don't need much, this stuff will stick FOREVER! I have it in my master bath and tried to pull it off a couple of months ago to take a picture. I didn't think I would ever get it pulled off.

Then just stick it up. How simple is that?

And you end up with this.

The only things I have left to do in here is hang the new light fixture above the mirror and find some boards for my shelves. Check back Monday. I'm going to try and post it on Metamorphosis Monday.

Boys' Bathroom- Hang Pictures

2009-03-13T17:28:00.004-05:00

Today I went to Hobby Lobby to get my frames. They had all of their frames and Mats 50% off. I can't believe the difference the frames make.
Check back tomorrow, I will be framing out my mirror.

Boys' Bathroom- Black cabinet

2009-03-12T17:35:00.005-05:00

Today I Painted the cabinets in the bathroom black. I bought new handles and hinges. I can't believe the before and after.
Before
After

Bathroom- Shopping Day

2009-03-11T17:26:00.009-05:00

This morning I dragged my mother to goodwill. She thought I was crazy for wanting to shop there. I told her about all the great finds everyone in blog land were finding. Well, I don't know where you all live, but our goodwill has nothing but junk, no make that TRASH!!! We were in and out in less than 5 minutes. Off to Wal-Mart we go, my home away from home. There I found this little lamp. Just what I was looking for. The lamp was $10.00 and the shade was $10.00
Next we went to Home Depot for black paint. Guess what I forgot to buy? Black Paint. I did find the rest of my hooks. I decided to hang these hooks instead of towel bars. My kids would never fold anything up neat. I thought with these hooks they could just throw their towels on these little hooks when they were not using them.
The picture does not do them justice. The towels hanging look much nicer in real life. Remember Nick picked out red towels? They blended with the wall, so I'm taking them back. I found these red and blue striped towels that I like much better.
I also bought this at Home Depot. It was around $100.00, sent me over my budget. Oh well, it will look much nicer than the Miss Piggy light (strip of lights, I think it is Nester who calls them that).

I was going to come home and paint the cabinets. Since I forgot to buy the black paint, looks like I'm making another trip to town tomorrow.

Boys' Bathroom Paint

2009-03-11T07:39:00.009-05:00

After
Before

The wall color is up. I decided to go with the red on the bottom and Latte on top. I really thought about going with white on the bottom, but having only boys, I was scared that it would always be dirty. Now that the color is done I'm going to live with it a couple of days and see if I fall in love with it or maybe I will end up hating it. This was a hard decision, everyone I asked had a different opinion. I took Julie's advice and asked the boys what they wanted. Nick said he want the bottom red and blue striped. NO THANK YOU!!! I am not cutting in around all of those boards. I have always said the only thing I can not do is accessorize, add "cutting in" to the that list.
This morning I am going to buy my trim for the mirror and look for a new light. I think Nester calls those strip of lights "Miss Piggy lights" (now that I type this, I'm not sure if it is Nester)it definitely has to go.

I have almost spent my $250 for this project and I still need a lamp. While I'm in town I might stop by goodwill and see if they have any I like. I think I want a black lamp so if I can find a nice shaped lamp I will just spray paint it.

I just went back and looked at this post. Sorry for the bad quality of the photos. The light is bright and the bathroom is small.

Boys' Bathroom Redo--Paint colors

2009-03-09T18:38:00.009-05:00

Today I started the bathroom redo. You can read about it at the bottom of this post. These are the colors I am putting in the room. Help me decide on the wall color. I will be painting the bathroom cabinets black.

These are the pictures.

These are the towels.
So far I only have one coat of paint on. The red you can still see white thru it. If I go with the red, it will be a very dark red. This color is a little off, so if I go with red, I will have it matched to the towels.
Red on bottom, Hopsack (dark Khaki) on top. Hopsack is the same color in my hallway.
Hopsack (dark Khaki) on top, Sawdust (Green) on bottom.
White on bottom, Latte (light Khaki) on top.

So which one do you like? Or do you like any of them. Maybe I should pick entirely different colors.

Boys' Bathroom Redo-- Day 1

2009-03-09T16:08:00.011-05:00

Today I started the bathroom redo. My friend, Cindy, came over to help me get started. Here are the before pictures.

The bathroom is UGLY, UGLY, UGLY. We have never done a thing to it. It is just a plain old builder's box. My kids never use it. Even in the middle of the night if they need to use the restroom, they come downstairs and use my bathroom or the guest bathroom. We have lived in this house for 20 years and I think that shower has been used about 5 times. I'm hoping when it gets finished they will start using it.
Here I am getting started. I made a trip to town this morning and bought all of my trim. I'm trying to do this entire bathroom on a budget of $250.00. My trim, nails, caulking and hooks to hang the towels on came to $89.84, minus $5.00 for the bags of candy my kids bought. So, trim came to $84.84.
Here I am nailing the boards on the wall, Cindy is running the camera. Right about now I'm wishing I had a nail gun. Look how straight those boards are. Who needs a man?
One wall down, 3 to go. I think it will look really nice once it gets a coat of paint.
Oh, the fun stuff, accessories. The boys each picked what color of towels they wanted. Zach's are blue, Nick's are red. The jars I found at Wal-mart on clearance. I have been looking at them for the last several months because I wanted them for my pantry. Today when I spotted "Clearance" I bought every single one. I thought they would be neat with bars of soap in them. The old looking pictures I had. I bought them last summer with the bathroom in mind. The old locker baskets came from our local grade school. The brackets I bought from Pottery Barn in 2003, I have never taken them out of the box, I think this will be the perfect time to use them.

Budget
Home Depot, trim $84.84
jars 2 @ $3.00 6.00
Towels 54.00
Pictures ( I already had)
Shelf Brackets ( I already had)

Total $144.84

I have $110.00 left. I still need to buy paint, new knobs, rug for the floor, lamp and trim for the mirror.

Check back tomorrow, I'm painting.

Now I'm going to go clean my kitchen. It started raining before I had all the boards cut so we moved the saw in on my kitchen cabinets. I can't stand looking at a dirty kitchen. This is SCARY!

2009-03-07T16:02:00.008-06:00

After a long break from blogging, I'm back. I had a busy week, I worked at the office everyday, had a sick kid and made a trip to the emergency room. Don't worry my son is ok. He hurt his hand riding his motorcycle. Actually he hurt his thumb. I hated going to the emergency room for a thumb, but Zach kept telling me it was broken. I told him there was nothing they could do for a broken thumb. But he insisted on going. He said, "Just watch, they are going to come in and tell you it is broken and it is a good thing that you brought me". I said, "They are going to come in, take a look at your thumb and tell you to "man up and stop being a baby". I know, I'm such a loving mother. So anyways, no broken thumb, but he did mess up his ligaments so I guess it was a good thing that we went.

Now the reason for my post. Last summer we ripped off our front porch and put on a new one. I insisted on saving these columns. Everyone thought I was crazy for keeping them. But I knew there was a perfect project just waiting. So for the last year these ( I have 4 of them) have been out in the barn just waiting for something to happen with them.

And today I found the perfect project.
I can just see this table in my backyard, it is going to look FABULOUS!!!!

Award and a fabulous blog

2009-02-26T07:05:00.007-06:00

Ashley from Domestic Divas Fancy has given me an award, the Sister Hood Award. I'm always amazed that people find my blog worthy of an award. So thank you Ashley.

If you are a scrapper or crafter, you will LOVE Ashley's blog, go check it out. Below are a few photos I stole from her site.
On her blog she features amazing scrapbook rooms every Saturday. Don't you just love the way these boxes look? I have those little round circles. Today I will probably spend most of the day labeling things.

Look at this jar she has next to her washing machine for when she finds change. Beside my washing machine is an ugly plastic container. This is so much cuter than what I have, and I probably have those same stickers somewhere in my craft room.

She offers inspiration to the crafters.

And she gives inspiration to the decorators.

And every once in a while, she has inspiration for the baker.

Go check out her blog, you will not be disappointed.

Cabbages and Roses

2009-02-25T17:50:00.005-06:00

Too bad I'm on a spending freeze. I found this website Cabbages and Roses

I think I could break the bank there.

Pantry Storage Ideas

2009-02-25T15:43:00.003-06:00

After reading all the blogs where they have cleaned out and organized their pantries, I have been bitten by the bug. I did a Internet search to see what kind of ideas I could come up with to make my pantry better. I found this picture at Paradise Closets. Nice, but my family eats other things than "blue". I think when they went grocery shopping they threw everything with a blue label in their cart.

This has to be about the neatest pantry I have seen. But seriously, who has the space to do this? And how much $$$$ did those jars come to? If this was my pantry, I think I would go in there everyday and just look at it.
I love this idea. A basket with all the ingredients you need for that night's meal. I don't have room for 7 baskets, but neat idea. And if I had 7 baskets, I would actually have to plan what I was going to fix that night. No more of hubby calling to tell me he will be home in 30 minutes and me running to the kitchen frantically trying to decide what to fix.

No matter how hard I try, my pantry will never be this organized.

Not wanting to spend $$$$$, I think maybe I should just go organize it. Maybe tomorrow I will post pics. Or maybe I should post Friday. I haven't posted a Declutter Friday picture in a long time. I'm off to start cleaning!

Nester's 10 ways to avoid a house you will love

2009-02-24T12:31:00.010-06:00

Yesterday, Nester blogged about not having a house that you love, here they are,

1. Worry that it's never good enough.

Big problem for me. The minute I get done with a project, I'm ready to move on to a new one. Next on the list, the boys' bathroom. Ok, Nester would agree that this bathroom is NOT good enough. It needs a major redo. I know you all jealous of the toilet in the shower! As soon as Dave, my carpenter, can make it here, this bathroom is going to be transformed. The projects on the list are, painting, bead board, crown molding, framing the mirror, mistreatments (shower curtain).

2. Put off doing anything because you don't know where to start.

This is me. My husband is not a handy man so Dave, my carpenter, has a list of things a mile long he needs to do when he gets here. The problem, I only get Dave about 2 times a year.

3. Aspire to have a home just like the ones you see in the magazines.

This one is me also. I can paint, buy the furniture, have the window treatments made, but I can not table scape. My downfall is accessories and hanging pictures. I can not accessorize if my life depended on it. Magazines have stylist and everything looks as if it was made for that spot. Sadly this will never be my home.

4. Tell yourself you don't deserve it.

This one is not a problem for me.

5. Assume you can't have anything pretty because you have kids and not much money.

I use to have trouble with this one. Finally I found that if you make them clean what ever they dirtied, they are usually better at taking their shoes off at the door, or being more careful. (This goes for the main floor only, for some reason they don't care what their rooms look like). This is another reason why I love Nester, she uses what she has and spends NO $$$$.

6. Study up on all of those rules that the real designers tell you not to break.

This one is also a problem for me. I have more books and magazines then I have room for. Trying to remember all the rules gets so confusing.

7. Sulk because you are a renter.

This one is not a problem for me.

8. Complain because your husband won't do anything in the house.

I wish my husband was a handy man, but he is not, and nothing is going to change that. That is why I have Dave.

9. Be afraid.

This one I do not have a problem with. My house is painted just about every color. My mother tells me I have a puke yellow dinning room and a diarrhea green family room. (Sorry, I know too much information). I don't care what she thinks, I love it. Diarrhea Green
Puke Yellow

Now be honest, are the colors that bad?

10....what am I forgetting?

Two Awards and Hair Bows

2009-02-20T07:13:00.006-06:00

Today I have received 2 awards. I am always amazed when someone gives me an award. There are so many really interesting blogs out there to read, and I always wonder why they gave the award to me. So Thank You Kimm and Tanielle for thinking of me.

The first award
Kimm at Reinvented has given me the Butterfly award. Go take a look at her blog, she is in the middle of a Master Bedroom makeover. I can't wait for her to finish.

Another award I received was the Sisterhood award from Tanielle from The Polka Dot Daisy. When I went to her blog to pick it up, I noticed she makes really nice hair bows. If I had a girl, I would be buying these bows, they are spectacular!
I hope she doesn't mind that I stole these photos from her blog, but I thought everyone should see these bows. Maybe it's a good thing I don't have girls, I would be broke!! If you would like to see all of her bows click here ----->Hair Bows Tanielle will do special orders, and work with you to create a perfect custom design.