You know it's a Monday in the Midwest...

When you wake up and weather.com says you are to expect 5 inches of snow that night and an additional 12 inches by Wednesday evening. I have been told (and it's true) that February is the longest month of the year up here. February 1st is TOMORROW. One of the local radio stations is calling this weather event (or events as it actually is) Snowmagedden 2011. I am from the South (Texas) and this is all new to me. To say I am a little freaked out right now is an understatement. To make things THAT MUCH EASIER (dripping with sarcasm) Edward is in sunny California for the week. Yay! NOT. So the plan of attack is that the girls and I will shovel snow, 2 at a time in rotating shifts so it doesn't pile up too much on us in case of emergency so we can get out of the driveway (and back up it hopefully). I am pretty sure there will be no school tomorrow or Wednesday. I do have plenty of craft projects to keep me busy and as long as we have electricity (let's pray) the kids can stay occupied. This is going to be one interesting week for sure.

AND TO WHOEVER IT WAS THAT DECIDED TO CHANGE MY HUSBANDS TRAVEL PLANS FROM THE 13TH OF FEBRUARY TO THIS WEEK....UGH!!!!

Fabric memo board redo

This memo board started it’s life looking like this:

But now it looks like this:

I removed the buttons and ribbon, cut the new material (which I had in my stash) with hangover so I could staple it on the back. Added black ribbon and buttons. Easy peasy and much improved. It now hangs in Marisa’s room, I would show a pic of it with her black, pink and white bedding but her room looks like a natural disaster hit it. Maybe one day when she cleans it up I will get a pic.  

I hope everyone is having a great Monday!

Chris

Newbie link party

Debbie over at Debbiedoos blogging and blabbing is having a newbie link party for blogs who are less than 6 months old or less and/or have less than 100 followers. Hey, I have less than 100 followers!! I linked up and have been looking at the other newbie blogs as well. Check it out @ Debbiedoo’s.

If you are visiting from the link party “Hello!” Have a look around and let me know what ya think!

Chris

I want to say “Thanks!” to Jen from Tatertots and Jello for showing off my wreath made from grocery bags today in her Great Ideas post. I just love it when people like (and share) my projects! Jump on over and see what other awesome projects she showed off today!

Chris

Valentine’s Wreath

Yes, it’s another wreath. lol I love making wreaths! I saw a couple of versions of this one in the last few days and liked them so I thought I would make one of my own.

Materials:

• heart shaped foam wreath
• red burlap (I used a little less than a yard)
• dowel
• black felt
• pins
• ribbon for hanging

I cut the burlap into squares, I have no idea the size I just cut strips then cut those into squares.

I folded the squares in half and then in half again

Since I didn’t have any floral pins on hand I used straight pins and bent them into a U shape so the burlap wouldn’t come off.

Then I just put them into the wreath in rows.

After the first row was done I inserted the dowel (no picture of that) and finished my rows. Then I cut shapes for the arrow out of black felt and hot glued them on and added a black ribbon for hanging.

I love how it turned out!

Thanks for stopping by! Chris

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Date night

Tonight is date night and guess where I want to go???? JOANN'S!!! LOL We are due for some nasty weather next week and I want to pick up "a few" things to keep me busy. I don't like to drive to the North side of town on my own in the winter due to slick roads so I have to get Ed to take me (plus I spend less if he is with me). Maybe we will stop by Hobby Lobby while we are up there! I so wish both stores were closer to my house.

I hope everyone has a nice, safe weekend. See ya soon!

Chris

Featured!!!

I am SO excited to announce that my Wreath from grocery bags has been featured over at Sew Woodsy!!!

Go on over and check it out. While you are there have a look around!!!

Chris

More Valentine’s Decor

I picked up a few ready made Valentine decorations while I was out shopping. I also made one from some stickers I found at Michael’s and a clearance frame from Target. Isn’t it cute?

And it was insanely easy! I took the stickers out of the package, took the back off the frame and layed the stickers on the glass to see how they would fit. Since they fit so nicely and they are on a clear plastic sheet all I needed to do was cut a piece of cardstock to fit inside the frame and replace the backing. Ta-da! That was so easy!

The rest of the stuff on the mantle was store bought. Oh well, I still think it’s cute.

Here are a couple other things I picked up while shopping-the wood heart I got today, the LOVE I bought the other night while out with hubby. I made the topiary and the 3D hearts, you can see those here.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Braces…AGAIN.

Jessica went to the orthodontist this morning and got braces put on for a second time. We won’t discuss how the OTHER ortho messed things up and why we ended up having to pay for a second set. But anyway…here she is. It took a few times for her to actually let me get her smiling so I decided to put them all on here just as a reminder that I am all powerful (on my blog that is-lol).

What a goof. So in 24 months she will finally have straight teeth (we hope anyway). Yay!

Look what I found on clearance!

I have been trying to come up with ways to organize my laundry room and make it seem less cluttered. My hanging bar is always so full of empty hangers that I have a hard time finding room to actually hang the laundry as I do it so I told Ed I needed to find a basket of some sort that I can put the hangers in. I decided I wanted one of those cute wicker type laundry baskets so I went online searching for one at a good price. The 3rd place I tried was Pier 1 and low and behold there is the basket that I want with a liner and it is on clearance for $4.98 (regularly $20)! Yes! I went to Pier 1 ASAP and picked up not 1 but 2! Ed and I had a hard time actually finding them because the store was using them for displaying other items but after wondering around a while we found the last 2 they had. OH and Pier 1’s website has a neat feature that will let you know if your store has an item in stock. Awesome.

Here are my new baskets:

As you can see one has hangers in it and it works perfectly (just the beginning of my laundry room make over). I decided to put the other one in the family room, empty. I will use it every night to pick up the kids stuff so it’s easy for them to find and put away.

I hope everyone is having a great week! Happy Hump day.  

Chris

House goals for 2011

There are so many things that I would like to do to our house this year but due to time and money I will set realistic goals.

• Kids bathroom (bead board, paint trim/door/cabinet, new mirrors, light over tub)
• stairs and railings (remove carpet, replace treads and risers, paint)
• remove carpet and put down wood in loft and upstairs hallway
• paint over as much orangey ick as possible!
• have electrician out to install ceiling fan in family room, add electrical outlets where I think there should be some and put in additional recessed lighting in kitchen
• put ceiling fan in craft room (Ed)
• organize and set up/decorate craft room
• Laundry room (replace base cabinet and countertop, paint walls, put up bead board, paint cabinets/trim/window/doors)
• Paint the boys room (added 1-25-11)
  

My first project will be the kids bathroom upstairs. It started off looking like this when we bought the house:

(When we moved in)

And it now looks like this:

The plan is to take down the towel bars and put bead board on that wall with hooks for towels, paint anything in there that is orangey ick to white (including the cabinet) and to replace the builder mirror with 2 mirrors if and when I find some I like. I love the color of the bathroom walls but I do need to do some touch up painting. Also, I would like to add a recessed light over the shower but that will depend on whether or not Ed wants to climb in the attic to do it. If not we will have an electrician do it eventually. I am going to go ahead and start working on the bathroom in the next couple of weeks. We have to wait to begin anything else until it warms up a bit.

Our MAJOR project for this year (planned as of right now) is going to be the stairs. We are going to rip out the worn out, icky carpet and replace the treads and risers with solid oak.

(When we moved in)

We would use the wood steps that are currently there but they are of very low quality plus there is a gap between the step and the wall on each side (we are guessing to tuck the carpet). We will paint the treads a dark brown and the risers white. We will also paint the railing to match the stairs. If cost permits we would like to rip the carpet out of the upstairs hall and loft and put down wood at the same time we do the stairs (let’s hope).

(When we moved in)

The laundry room.

(Before we moved in)

I spend A LOT time in there due to the enormous amount of laundry I do. Honestly I do probably 30+ loads a week when you add in towels, sheets and blankets. The room itself isn’t huge but it isn’t the smallest I have seen. It’s actually the biggest laundry room of all the houses we looked at before buying this one! The problem is that it seems very dark. Of course there is only one small window and all that orangey ick is everywhere. I know just painting over the orangey ick is going to make it feel much bigger but I also want to fix it up so that I actually don’t mind being in there so many hours a day! I have not yet decided on a color but I still have time. I will get the orangey ick painted white first then decide what I want to paint the walls.

And in my laundry room is my pantry. It is an odd place for a pantry but it’s right off the kitchen so it works well.

(Please excuse the mess, I have 2 teenagers and two 5 year olds here!)

As you can see, more orangey ick. Even the shelves are that color! I want to paint white on the orangey ick then the walls inside the pantry whatever color I choose for the laundry room. I would also like to do some stenciling like Shelly at House of Smith’s did. It is awesome, check it out if you haven’t already seen it!

My craft room/office. I moved my computer from the front living room to the spare bedroom a few months ago. I was really tired of people sitting behind me on the sofa reading my email and telling me where to play on Mahjong (Marisa, Ed). Ed and I made a trip to IKEA in Michigan and pick up the Expedit workstation so I would have space to organize and store my stuff.

soure: IKEA

I haven’t gotten far.

This actually looks better today than it did yesterday. Yesterday you couldn’t see the top of that table! lol There is still a lot of work to do in this room, look at that closet!

I am sure I will be adding to this list as we go through the year but hopefully I will get to cross stuff off the list as well. Wish me luck!

3D hearts and a topiary

The 3D hearts idea came from Brassy Apple. It was very simple and cheap. I stopped by Dollar Tree and got the heart picks and a frame. I had scrapbook paper at home but ended up using some of the tissue paper that the cashier used to wrap a pot I bought. I liked it better than the scrapbook paper I had. I also taped the cut hearts to the glass on the picture fame in case I wanted to do something different with it later. Quick, cheap and easy but cute. Hope you like it.

(The flash makes the paper look wrinkled but it really doesn’t look that bad at all).

The topiary I made with a styrofoam ball, cupcake liners (96 of them), glue and a pot. I added some of the toothpick hearts that came with the liners just for a little extra something. It turned out pretty cute I think.

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