A Blog Makeover

I wish I could just leave things alone and be happy...but until that happens I gave my blog a makeover...What do you think?? I'm not completely happy with it and I may go back to the original but I'll give this a try for now.

Hooked On Photos

I may have a borderline obsession with photos. They occupy I'd say 60% of my living room walls and they find themselves in all the other rooms of the house.

Here's just a sampling...

Living Room

Dining Room (yes, there's an empty spot!)

More Dining Room

Stairway (my hubby's one wall)

Bathroom


Oh geez, I just realized I have no photos in my kitchen! We'll have to see about changing that...

Go check out what everyone else is hooked on at Hooked On Houses.

Crafty Wednesday

On Thursday...oops!

I made this ribbon holder for my oldest's room.

It's just an unfinished butterfly I picked up at Michael's.

I gave it a coat of white paint.

On the raised parts I mod podged some toile scrapbook paper.

Add a strip of ribbon to the back, I picked mine up at Dollar Tree (I just found out they had ribbon), a picture hanger and ribbon, attach to your wall then your ready to hold your clips.


Hopefully now I won't be running around trying to find a clip when we were supposed to leave 5 minutes ago.

A Chair With A New Life

I've had this old chair for a long time. So long it was still at my parent's house. It wasn't more than $10 at a resale shop. I finally decided I would refinished it and use it as my computer chair. Just a coat of black paint and a chair pad I had laying around and she's as good as new.

Madison

I stumbled upon iheartfaces blog and decided to enter their contest this week, "creative crop". I was shooting some photos of my girls in their baptism gowns and this is my favorite. I love doing face shots and love how it's a little "off".



Check out all the other entries here.

A New Addition

To our home's decor that is...

I picked up this up at Anthropologie yesterday. Isn't she cute??

Here she is in her new home on our kitchen wall.

I've never been in that store before but I'm definitely going back! They had so many cute knobs and hooks. Makes me want to change out my kitchen hardware or refinish a new dresser!

I Am Happy

Don't you just love it when things fall into place??

I went into HomeGoods awhile ago and spotted a pink toile comforter that would be perfect for my little ones room when she moves into a big girl bed but it was $100 and I didn't have the money at the time to buy something that I'm going to have to hold onto for probably another year. They only had one of them so I cast it off as something that would never be in my home.

A few weeks later I went into the same HomeGoods and saw it still sitting there but $100 is more than I have ever spent on bedding so I stayed and drooled over it, feeling the sample of fabric they had on the outside of the package (it's a really soft microplusg) then walked away.

So this week I went into a different HomeGoods with my tax refund in hand to look at dining room chairs. While I was there I browsed through the kids department and was surprised when I saw my pink toile comforter but at this store it was $69.99! It was calling my name and I couldn't say no.

Here she is...

The $160 Bathroom Makeover

One of my goals for a beautiful life is to finish my home's makeover one room at a time. The bathroom is finally done! Here's the before...





Now are you ready for the after??

The shower curtain, which was the color inspiration, and the rugs I already had. The green paint was $12, I only had to buy a quart and still have some left, the white paint I already had. I spent $30 on the shelving and about another $30 on the accessories (including the picture frames). I love it because it looks pretty but also gives me storage that I desperately need, after all this is America's smallest bathroom. The best steal was the towel bar, toilet paper holder, and towel ring, I got them all for a total of $11! I kept the existing vanity but added knobs ($2 each) and a new faucet ($40). I changed out the medicine cabinet for a smaller one ($30), the old one was too big you couldn't open the doors all the way. For the artwork I just took a couple pictures of my kids in towels. Then lastly a new curtain I made with some leftover white fabric for about $3 . There you have it, a complete bathroom makeover for only $160!

For more inspiring ways to live beautifully visit The Inspired Room's Beautiful Life series here.

Crafty Wednesday

Another card today...I'm working on something better for next week. I used another $1 stamp. the card is the same size as last week. The background paper is by Amuse (love them!) The "thanks" I stamped on white paper and used a scalloped square punch. I attached it to the green paper (don't remember the brand) with pop dots. Add a little ribbon and a button and you have yourself another handmade card!

Invitations

One of the things I love most about throwing a party is designing the invitations. Here are some of my recent creations...

This is one that I'm about to send out.

This was the cover of the invitation for my daughters 1st and 3rd birthday party. I used this digital photo edge kit.


This was the cover for my husband's welcome home party invitation. I used the same grunged photo edge kit.

This was the cover for my oldest's 1st birthday invite.

Hope this gave you some ideas for invitations of your own...

Check This Out

Everyone needs to head over to an Etsy shop I just found. WasteNot Saks has reusuable sandwich and snack sacks made from cute fabrics. You can pack your or your kids sandwiches or snacks in these stylish washable sacks and who doesn't like saving the environment while you do it? I bought two (for now) of them for when we have to take breakfast on the go or to hold snacks to keep my little quiet.

Now off to go shopping with the tax return!

Crafty Wednesdays

I recently started getting into card making. I love creating things and I love not spending $3 for a card. My favorite stamps are from the $1 bin at Michael's and AC Moore.

OK, you ready for a bad tutorial... I used one of my $1 stamps, stamped with black ink on white paper and colored it in with Copic markers. I LOVE them! I hand cut the oval (an oval punch is still on my wish list) and mounted it on a scrap of blue cardstock. I used American Crafts paper (The Goods-Lil' Man and Champ). The piece of paper measured 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" and just fold in half. I glued on a 2" strip of the coordinating paper and punched the pretty edge. I tied coordinating American Crafts ribbon around the oval and attached it to the card with pop dots. Very quick and easy to make!

A Homemade Island

I made this island for my kitchen awhile ago. It started as an old console table that I got at a yard sale for I think $10. I (err, I guess I should give hubby some credit) started out by cutting either side of the top so it wasn't so long, my kitchen is small so you might not need to do that. Then I got a piece of plywood at Home Depot and it was already cut that size, I also bought 4 bun feet there. I screwed the bun feet into the plywood then screwed the table onto the plywood with the bun feet. I painted the whole things red and distressed it by sanding some of the edges (my cat has since distressed it more by using it as her scratching post). I bought a piece of butcher block countertop from Ikea and screwed that onto the cut down table top and added a bathroom towel bar on the side. Walla, you have a "new" kitchen island.

Head over to Sanctuary Arts at Home for more trash to treasure ideas.

Home Is Where Your Story Begins

This is my story...

I married my high school sweetheart when I was 19. He had joined the Air Force and we got married on his leave after Basic Training. Our honeymoon was driving across country in a Uhaul truck (we have yet to have a real honeymoon). His first assignment was Holloman AFB, New Mexico. Boy, was that a culture shock! Driving down Route 54 we passed the sign that said "Welcome to Alamogordo" we both looked at each other and said "Is this really it?" I thought as long as there is a mall I'll be all set. We drove a little farther and there was the mall on the right, Kmart on one end and JcPenney on the other. Later on we found out the mall's nickname was the "Hall" if you stood at Kmart you could look straight down and see JcPenney, the mall was probably only 200 yards long, I guess I should have been more specific about my mall requirements. New Mexico did grow on us and we ended up loving it there.

So, we moved into our first apartment. I loved the location, beautiful views of the mountains, after all the street was named Scenic Dr. There was a big cactus beside the driveway, you had to be careful walking beside the car or it would remind you it was still there. The kitchen and bathroom both had the same cheap dark cabinets and bright orange countertops. I didn't care though I was so excited to finally have my own place. We brought the bedroom set I used in my parents house and bought a futon from Walmart for our living room couch. It was ugly but it was home, our first home.

After 9/11 with the added security measures to get on base it made the lines long, you had to leave quite a bit earlier to get to work on time so we decided to move into base housing. Had we known they had air conditioning we probably would have moved sooner. I loved that house it was the first house I had ever lived in with 2 bathrooms. It had grass in the backyard for our dog. It was 2 stories, which is unusual for the area and it was newly built. It didn't have carpet, every room had linoleum tile like schools. We did upgrade to a leather sofa set. I hated it, It was the one time my husband got what he wanted, as far as home furnishing go, and 3 years later I got the sofa set I wanted. It was comfy and oversized and all the pieces filled our big living room nicely. When we moved into our current house I realized when buying a sofa you should consider the fact that you may live in other houses (I'll explain more a little farther down). We did lose our cat there though. I opened the door to take the trash out and the cat ran right out. By the time I slipped my shoes on I couldn't find him anywhere. We drove around the neighborhood and put up a lost cat poster at the BX but no luck. A year later my hubby went next door to play poker and saw that our cat had been living next door the whole time. At that point he had been living next door longer than with us so we let him stay, he did come by and visit every once after that.

In 2005 hubby decided to leave the Air Force to pursue another career field (that still hasn't gone as planned) I started looking online at houses as soon as we made the decision and was all excited that I could finally paint walls and decorate the way I wanted. Little did I know it would take 1 1/2 years before we would find good enough jobs to make my dream a reality. We moved in with my parents while we were job and house hunting. We started trying to get pregnant a year before hubby left the Air Force and wanted a baby so badly that I didn't want to give up completely so we just stopped actively trying but just let nature take it's course. Well what do you know, I got pregnant that next month. I never thought we'd be bringing our baby home to my parent's house but we did, everything was taking a lot longer than I had wanted. We realized with the housing prices so high and only one income (we decided that I should be a SAHM) we would need to buy a two family home. My Brother-In-Law (hubby's identical twin) was renting at the time and wanted to buy also so we decided to buy a duplex together. This is it. The outside is ugly but I have big plans for that (plans that are bigger than my wallet).

We finally closed on the house a week before Christmas. We were going to rent a moving truck that next weekend so I thought I had plenty of time to start ripping down the wallpaper and painting before we moved everything in...Wrong! I really don't know what I was thinking. I got the living room, dining room and kitchen started before we moved in but nothing finished. We rented the moving truck 2 days before Christmas and filled the house with boxes. Remember that big oversized couch I mentioned? Well it spent a little time on the porch. It was too oversized to fit through the doorway. A couple weeks later hubby and his dad took out the living room window and shoved the couch through. Hubby says when we sell this house the couch goes with it! Two years later there are a couple unpacked boxes in the basement and I'm still working on the inside.

My Weekend Project

I've been looking at a lot of photos lately where people have a dresser in their kitchen, dining room or living room and I LOVE that idea. I first saw it from the taming kid clutter linky party and this one person had all their kids art supplies hidden in one of the drawers (can't remember who or find the pic again). That's exactly what I needed to do and I've been determined ever since to find a place to put one. I bought a new dresser off craigslist for my bedroom makeover that hasn't really been started yet so I took the old, much too small one and put it in my dining room. I added new hardware and accessorized...Notice my new Apothecary jars! Hubby doesn't like it, he says there isn't enough room to walk around the table, which was what I was afraid of, but I'm going to keep it. It takes care of a lot of the storage problems we have. The dining room was the only place to put the computer when daughter #2 arrived and we needed the last bedroom for her, so one drawer hides all the computer supplies (printer paper, extra cords, disks, blank cds, etc.) and one drawer has all the kid's art supplies then I still have 3 drawers left to fill up! I finally realized the key to dealing with all kinds of clutter is hiding it in attractive ways (baskets, dressers, etc.). I think I am going to spray paint the lamp and basket white but that will be for other day.

I also worked a little more on my bathroom, it's almost done!! It should have been done this weekend but I have a sick manchild and a sick baby.