My first furniture redo!!

Ok, so it's not monumental... I didn't find this beat up gem of a way super cool dresser for $5 in the back of some store and make it into the most beautiful thing ever... but it's a start!

There is a thrift store a few blocks from work so I've stopped in a few times just to see what they had. It's not the best thrift store, in my opinion it tends to be a little over priced but I still go in, hopefully every time anyway. Well finally it paid off. I was scanning the shelves over the typical things and I spotted this little guy:

(Yay for being lazy and using my phone to take pictures.... Hi Gismo!)

Admittedly, I think it's cute as is. But alas, I don't live in a cabin in the woods, so it really doesn't match our decor. The best part: sticker price $5.99 WOOHOO! I was so excited I could have skipped to my car - even I saw my inner nerd shining thru.

I decided this piece was going to go into our room. Let me just take a minute to say, our bedroom is the most neglected room in the house. There is no design, no anything. It's a functional room with a bed, dresser and nightstand. But it becomes the dumping storing grounds for all the things in our house that don't have a home. There are piles in every corner. I've managed to keep them somewhat neat at least, but I walk in the room and just sigh. I actually have an official plan of what I want to do (an inspiration post is in my near future) I just need the money fairy to come visit our house first. So I'm hoping if I start on the smaller, less expensive things and make them into the future color scheme it will annoy me enough to just suck it up and do it all!!

Back to my project. Once the kiddos were asleep I got to work. I gave it a light sanding and wiped it down, and then taped in the inside because I definitely don't have a steady hand when it comes to edges! First I did a few coats of black, then painted the back panel white. Pretty simple!!

I was impatient and wanted to take a picture so a few more touch ups have happened since. I'd love to have it all on the wall with cute things on it but I'll just have to save that picture for when the whole room is done.

Stockings & Quilts

This weekend, the Joanns flyer came in the mail (swoon!).... with allll of their black Friday sales and coupons to boot. By the third "look at this!" to Josh I had received enough eye rolls to know the excitement was limited to my side of the room. Besides a personal Cricut getting marked down to $69.95 (seriously?!) and all their holiday items 50% off (woohoo!) the biggest sale for what I already need is on fabric. Kali really wants to make a rag quilt which uses flannels. To give you an idea of the deep sale... regular price on all flannels is $5.99 and up. This weekend all flannels are $1.29 a yard! Are you for real? So I think I'm going to put a "kit" together for her so she can make one. I am so excited!

I'll also need to pick out some super cute Christmas fabric to make these babies:

I was so excited when I just "ran" into Joanns for a "minute" last night and all the McCalls patterns were on sale for $1.99 (regular price $15.95... I LOVE a good sale!) and they still had the Christmas one I wanted with the super cute stockings. Now, patterns scare me. I am still such a beginner that I get confused. Just ask me about the curtains I am making for Jack. My biggest downfall is cutting. The whole measure twice cut once thing, should be measure about 50 times, have someone else check it... ask if they are sure.. again.. and then make them be the ones to cut, for me. So hopefully these are a success! The nerd in me is SO excited for our family to have matching stockings! Is it weird to buy enough fabric for another one in case Jack ever gets another sibling? (Josh turned white when I asked this, hahahahaha!)

So I think Joanns is just about the only place I am going to brave Friday morning.. I just can't pass up those fabric sales!!

I'll keep you posted.

Menu Board!

I've seen a bunch of variations of these popping up in blog world, so I just had to give it a try. Every Sunday after the girls leave for their mom's, Josh and I sit here staring at each other hoping the other will decide on dinners for the week so we can hurry up and get the grocery shopping over with. I end up scribbling meals on a paper and throwing it on the fridge. However, my OCD h-a-t-e-s lots of clutter on the fridge. Perfect excuse to craft!

This came together easy peasy quick. I got the frame at the Dollar Tree for yep, you guessed it, a dollar. Scrap book paper and cardboard letters were a fun find at Joanns. 10 minutes later, viola! Our menu board.

Like my artistic "ooo I'll take pictures by the fire" shots?

Baby Shower Fun

This weekend did not go as planned. I had to go and get sick. I've actually been fighting a cold and it came to a head this weekend, totally knocking me off my feet. So I am totally disappointed to report I did not make it to Jenny's (Josh's sister) baby shower. However, I do some things I can share.

Josh's Aunt Harriet enlisted me for help on a project. Jenny requested a candy table and Harriet wanted something cute for guests to be able to use to put candy in. I googled and found these adorable pail kits at Michael's... even came with labels to print out "it's a girl!" Puuurfect. Well silly me waited until Friday night to go get them. Josh, Jack and I trekked into Michael's only to realize the pails were TINY. Like.. how about a gumball or two and that's it, tiny. Silly me should have paid more attention to the size ratio printed on the box! duh.

Hmmm.... enter panic mode! I did remember walking by mini Chinese food take out boxes... so I showed them to Josh and asked how we could make this work. Twenty minutes later we had a plan. What would I do without him?

These cuties only took about an hour to assemble all together. I haven't heard how the shower went yet, but I hope they were a hit!

More on what we made for Jenny, to come.

Shelving fun!

So within a few weeks of Jack being born we officially out grew our home. However, we have it in with the landlord (love you Dad!) so we are going to stay here as long as possible while saving up to buy our (hopefully) "forever" home. So what do you do when you run out of room? Go up! No, we aren't adding a second story... but we have vaulted ceilings with tons of wall space just begging for something... shelves!

Our living room serves as our central command station... tv, computer desk, sewing desk, and the most perfect huge fireplace that happens to sit smack dab in the center of the only solid wall in the room. It's long and narrow and totally awkward but it's our livingroom! Josh's biggest pet peeve is his small computer desk becomes dumping grounds for all odds and ends (thanks, girls!) and he can't get to the basics - his pens, notepads, etc.

Light bulb! I can work in an excuse to go to Joanns AND solve the problem! I found this cute shelf and thanks to a coupon got it for $10. Some black paint helped it match our decor and in a few hours Josh was a happy camper!

I'm itching to think of something cute he can hang from the hooks... or I guess we could be practical and hang headphones and other computer cords up there.. but that wouldn't be cute. :)

Update (excuses for no pictures)

So... I half wrote a blog entry last Friday with the intention of plopping in some pictures - once I took them. Now it's Monday, I took the pictures but they haven't made it to the computer yet... and everything I wrote about on Friday is now in the past tense.

I NEED MORE TIME!!!!

I was a busy bee crafting big time this weekend and it kills me to not be able to share. But, they are a gift for a shower coming up so I can't spoil any surprises. So next Sunday I can show you!!

So this last weekend:

Was Josh's 30th birthday! We are bit low key so Josh didn't want a big party. The girls wrapped gifts for him, we had his favorite breakfast, and his parents took us all out to Bucca di Beppos for dinner. I think he felt kinda loved by the end of the day. :) I also made my self-proclaimed famous cheesecake. Naturally I forgot to take a picture, but there might be one slice left in the fridge I'll snap a picture of!

Next weekend:

My oldest sister, Katie is coming into town! She lives up in San Jose and hasn't met Jack yet! We are all very excited for this to happen. Since we all have separate plans for Thanksgiving... this will be a rare time that we are all in town and free, Pattie jumped on the chance to do a "mock Thanksgiving" a week early. So we'll all head over to my parent's house Saturday and hang out. I've informed the ladies of the house that we will be doing a fun fall craft. Selfishly - this is one I have wanted to do since I saw it weeks ago but have had no time. So I decided to squeeze it into our visit!

Sunday is Josh's sister's baby shower. I am just so excited for her. She has an adorable son who is 5, and such a boys boy. So, naturally, I am thrilled she is having a girl. She needs to balance out their house a little with some princess skirts and tea parties. :) So as I said before I"ll show you our gift to her after she sees it next week! However, I also offered to help Josh's Aunt Harriet with something for the party. Jenny (Josh's sis) requested a candy table at the shower. So we needed to come up with something cute for the ladies to put their candy into. We decided on getting little white pails and decorating them. I love the idea - now I just need to hurry up and do it!!! Luckily Joanns sells a kit to make just such things... shh don't tell! Shortcut!!

On top of that there is work, Jack, dogs, laundry, chores, dinners and much much more to take up my time!! I promise to get those pictures uploaded and show you a few things going on in our world!


TTFN!

Our Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Here is our little guy in his first costume... he was such a trooper! It was a REALLY warm costume, and he runs hot like his daddy as it is... he put up with pictures and visits with grandmas and grandpas!

What a weekend! I am pooped! Right now, we only see Josh's girls on the weekends. So when they are here, we jam pack a lot into our days sometimes. This weekend was no exception. Saturday we picked out our pumpkins, made cookies to decorate and of course carved our pumpkins. We also had to watch the Shrek Halloween special and the Charlie Brown Pumpkin Patch Classic. Here are some highlights:

I have never made cookie dough for cookie cutters... so I went onto the trusty allrecipes.com website and found this recipe. I made it in the morning before we headed out to run errands and by the time we were ready to make cookies about 3 hrs later, it was good to go. They were super yummy too, so I'd highly recommend the recipe!

Once they cooled, we were good to go with decorating.. the best part. These cookies ended up NOT being passed around to family after Kali and Mackenzie had such a good time licking their fingers after every single cookie. LOL we'll keep our germs in the house thanks!

As a side note I had a moment of brilliance after we put the last batch of cookies in the oven. Mackenzie is a difficult, picky eater. It's a daily battle. Well since we already had the table covered in flour, we decided it would be a great night to make pizzas. I was rolling out the dough for the girl's pizza and thought hmmm.. yep! You can use cookie cutters on pizza dough! The girls loved it! I was so tickled at the idea, the next morning we had Halloween shaped pancakes too.... (enter Josh's eye roll here). Hey at least we got our money's worth out of the Halloween cookie cutters!


Anyway, onto the pumpkins. Every year I egg the girls on, to get the biggest pumpkins they can find. I always do this in a moment of stupidity, forgetting that I live in a house full of sissies who refuse to touch 'icky pumpkin guts'... so after I gutted 5 (ugh!) pumpkins, they were ready to carve!

Jack helped!