Laundry Room Love

I've been working on my laundry room decor, its one of the smaller rooms in the house, so therefore, will be the easiest/cheapest room to decorate.  I bought a really cute Laundry sign from HL the other day, and I've seen some really cute ideas around blogland, soooo...I decided to add my first bit of decor to my laundry room.

I had a mirror in this frame, unfortunately, it broke.  So instead, I painted this wooden frame black, got some letters from HL, traced them with scrapbook paper, I love it because it has velvet type stuff on the black area.  Then I hot glued them onto a black ribbon, and hot glued that onto the back of the frame.  Let dry, and then I hung it up!  I love it!

Christmas decoration....

Courtesy of my sweet little girls!

We decorated today, or rather, the girls decorated the entire tree!!  They won't always want to do this, so why not?  Right?  I love it!

Silhouette giveaway!!!!

Tator Tots and Jello is having an Ahhhhmazing  giveaway.  A Silhouette machine!!!  I had to blog about this for an extra entry, I just had to.  I would LOVE to have one of these to make so many fun projects, and you should enter too!!  Go check it out!

Weekend fun...

This weekend, I decided to finish up some of my crafts that I've been wanting to do.  I finished my wreath, and I am in complete love with it.  It was tedious, but easy to do.  First I bought all of my supplies at HL, big fat orange ribbon, stick wreath, fabric, a letter.  I started on the fabric flowers, I learned how to make them by going here, she has a great tutorial on how to make them.  Like I said, it was a tedious job, but they turned out so nicely when I was finally done.

 I got the idea for this wreath from Kristol over at the Magic of Ordinary things, she did one very similar, and I kind of just went with it.  Of course, I made it my own, but I have to give credit where credit is due!

 I am in much love with this.  I hot glued the flowers onto the wreath, tied my painted letter with the pretty ribbon, and used a command strip to adhere it to my glass front door.  Voila, awesome looking fall like wreath.  Now I have to figure out which wreath I want to make for Christmas....hmmm....

 

Next I made the girls their backpack hangers.  I've been wanting something to put on the wall so that they have a place to put their backpacks.  So Paul and I went to ReStore a while ago, and I found a few little things to paint, but I didn't know what to paint on them.  I saw another blog where a girl had taken some wood, and made a towel holder for her bathroom.  I thought, wow, I could do that but I don't need a towel holder.  So instead, I made this.  Hand painted the letters, drilled some drawer pulls into the wood, and sanded it a bit to make it look weathered.  The girls love it, and now they have a place to put their bags instead of just letting them go on the floor.  Nice!

 

I've been seeing these little magnets all over the place.  You take a clear rock that you can get at any hobby store, cut out some scrapbook paper to fit, glue on with some clear glue, then glue on your magnet, and voila, you have an easy peasy magnet!!  =)

I have a few more projects up my sleeves to work on this week, of course with Thanksgiving around the corner, I may not get to them all, but I can certainly try, lol.

A finished project!

I'm so excited about my little table.  I <3 it so much!

I don't have any before pictures of the ACTUAL table that I finished, but luckily we have two of the same tables, so I took pics of my next table project, lol.

 Not the prettiest thing, that's for sure.

 But she has good structure, and good bones...bought her and her sister at goodwill for $20

 They both had some water damage, the stain was coming off, stains...yeah.

 Can you believe these things have been in my house for months now?

 Now look at her!  Don't mind the messes, or the Polish pottery coffee mug...lol.

 I sanded the crap out of her, then I primed her all over, and then painted her, she looks so pretty, and I'm so proud!

Christmas project for a soldier...

Pretty much all of my friends are military families, or have been.  One of my friends asked for people to send Christmas cards, or handmade cards, or anything for her soldier for Christmas.  I have a bunch of bead board from a project that I was going to do for some of my family, so I decided to do the same project for them.  I had to get a picture of them, and her and I chatted back and forth.  Its done, and I wanted to show it off.  I think it turned out really nicely, and I can't wait to make more.  You can see the tut for it here

Aren't they a pretty family!

Idea from: this blog!

Working...

Well kind of...I am working on some projects, but I think I need to stop getting more projects to work on, because my garage looks like a hardware/craft store threw up in it...ha ha.  So I've managed to sand down the table I'm working on, complete with saw dust in my hair and everything.  I felt very accomplished, and dirty.  Primed most of it yesterday, probably going to put two more coats of primer on it today and start with my first coat of paint.  I'm so excited.  Its not a fancy table or anything, just the little table that I usually put my computer on or paint on, so nothing too fancy, but its my first piece that I'm painting, so I'm excited.  I just really really wanted to see how it would turn out and all.  It is taking longer than I thought though.  Anyway, I also have some frames to paint, I need to figure out what to do with one of my shelves, I probably need to sand and paint over it again.  I spray painted it wrong, and it has dribbles.  Lets see, what else....oh I have a backpack holder that I'm working on....soooo many projects so little time.
Since I really don't have a craft room, I've taken over the garage for now.  Luckily it isn't hot out there right now.  Plus the things I'm doing need to be done outside of the house.  My inside projects are done in the living room.

Let us ignore the messy clutter of my garage, most of that is crafts, and there is my table.  We have another one, so I can take a before shot of that one, because I will be working on that one as well.  I have a few mirrors to work on....multitudes of army crap that Paul has to go through...(we'll see if THAT ever happens), and so many more things.

Okay change of subject.  Yesterday was great, I went out with my friend shopping, and it was much much needed.  Who doesn't love some retail therapy.  We went to Hancock fabrics (which is just awesome, but a little pricey on the rotary kit that I was looking at, especially when I found it at walmart for 15 instead of 50...yikes).  Then off to Harbor Freight.  What a cool store, its kind of a guy tool store, but smaller, but hey, they give me free things, and I really can't complain about that.  Yesterday I got a free multimeter (because I had a coupon), and a free led light.  Oh I'm sorry, I did pay a little, I bought a .49 paintbrush, and paid a grand total of .53 for it all.  Sweet!

After the tool store, we went to Michael's which is the bane of my existence.  I could spend hours in there...and thousands of dollars.  But I don't have thousands of dollars, so I found a magazine, saw a craft I really wanted to do, and bought the items for it.  BUT Michael's won't let you use their 40% off coupons twice, like in different transactions...lame, and they also won't let you use your coupon on a magazine.  So I didn't buy the magazine there.  Then my friend M and I went to Sam's club, where we found that Prime Rib...is very very expensive.  I also saw that they were sold out of the pink large lego boxes...boo!  Then we went to the goodwill, and I got some great things.  A super cute coffee mug, but it needs to be cleaned, so pic coming later.  A really pretty framed mirror that needs a little updating, and the perfect silver vase for my Christmas project coming up.

After that we were hungry, so on our way home, we stopped at Jack in the box.  The lady offered us free tacos...we wondered what exactly we had to do to get said tacos...but they were completely free.  We ended up getting four tacos, two burgers, and a drink all for under 4 bucks.  Wow!  So all in all it was a great day...but it didn't end there....

After I came home, I primed my table, waited for the girls to get here, and had to run to Home Depot to get a few little things.  Then I took the girls to their fundraiser night at Chuck E Cheese.  They had 10 free tokens, plus I spent $5 so that they'd have a few more tokens.  They got to play some games, play with chuck E, and they even got some silly little prizes.

We came home, ate dinner, and my day still didn't stop.  I forgot my spray adhesive for a project, ran to walmart, found it, and looked everywhere for that darned magazine I'd seen in Michael's, and when Walmart didn't have it.  I figured I'd just go home....I ended up turning around and going to Hobby Lobby thinking maybe they would have it.  I was in there a minute, found it and guess what....Hobby Lobby WILL let me use my 40% off coupon on a magazine.  So a 6 dollar magazine I got for 3 bucks.  I love cheap stuff!

Okay, so that was my rundown of my super exhausting shopping day.  Needless to say I came home and PASSED out!  I couldn't even keep my eyes open.  So today, is a project day, and I'm not going to go much of anywhere.  So wish me luck, and if you got this far...thanks, lol.

Ahhhh internet at my fingertips again...

Today has been BRUTAL.  Ha ha.  First off, WHAT in the world did I do before I owned a computer and had internet?  Sheesh!  As I've said before, my computer is still in pieces on the table, we are awaiting the part, but it is on its way.  Then Paul's computer restarted, and of course, he has this fancy fingertip thing on his laptop where you can't get on it unless his fingertip goes over the little fingertip reader.  So what does this all mean for me...well I was computerless today.  LAME!
I did manage to clean, do laundry, and watch a bunch of HGTV (love that channel btw).  Then picked up the kids from the schools, came back and read a magazine, yes a whole magazine.  Finally, I made dinner, which was AWESOME, recipe coming, but no pics, sorry.  My husband came home, and swiped his finger...now I'm stuck on the computer for the next few hours I'm sure.  I need to play catch up.  You see, I have this whole routine on my weekday mornings, I get the girls out of the house for school, then I sip my coffee and catch up on facebook, and the blogs that I follow (which is quite a few).  So now not only do I have to catch up on the weekends blogs (we were busy), but now I have to catch up on today's blogs.  Sigh....
Okay, now onto dinner.  Delicious.  First off I made some rosemary chicken, brown rice, steamed broccoli, and garlic butter breadsticks....
Brown rice is easy, I get the success in a bag stuff, and since I was microsteaming the broccoli, I did it on the stove.  The broccoli, I have a pampered chef micro cooker, and usually just throw some frozen veggies from Sam's in there and microwave them with a little water for 5-7 minutes.  Its easy and fast, and I don't have to pay for the pricey steamers (which are still great, but I get a HUGE bag of frozen veggies at sams for the price of ONE of those steamers).  The garlic butter breadsticks are from Pillsbury, which I had a .40 coupon for, so it was cheaper!  BTW, these are really really yummy.
Now onto the Rosemary chicken, talk about EASY peasy!  First, I took 4 chicken breasts, and sauteed them in my skillet.  Make sure its pretty warm before you throw your chicken in, it will seal in the juices.  I'd rather overcook than undercook my chicken, so I let it brown nicely on medium for quite a bit.
Anyway, while your chicken is cooking, mix up this handy sauce.
4 tsp vegetable oil
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
1/2 cup Italian salad dressing
1 tsp rosemary

Mix it all up.  When the chicken is done and nicely browned on both sides, take it out of the skillet, throw in your rosemary sauce mixture, let it cook for about a minute.  Then add the chicken again, turn the chicken on both sides so it really soaks up the sauce.  Let cook for a minute, and then you are done!!  A yummy, easy, fast, and mostly healthy dinner.
(I also made some blueberry muffins for dessert, yummmmmm!!)

I started on a new project.  I'm attempting to paint a table.  Its all streaky though, so I think I messed up. I'm going to have to see if I can salvage it.  Luckily it wasn't an expensive table, but I want it back, even if it looks quite ugly.  I'll post pics when I'm done.

For now, you get to see my girls after one of their Lowe's Build to Grow things.  If you haven't done this with your kids, its great.  The girls LOVE building their own toys, they are always proud of what they've done, and hey its something to do....oh and its FREEEEEEE!!  Everything is better when its free!

Okay, and off I go to play catch up!  Yay!

Yay, its back!

So guess what????  My Mom found my power cord for my camera battery at her house the other day (I knew it was there).  She sent it to me, and my batteries are charging as we speak I write.  Now I can take pictures, and love on my camera.  Now if only my computer weren't in pieces on my dining room table still, I'd be good.  No offense to my husband, but his computer is just NOT the same...mine is a 17 inch, his is a 15 inch, so I'm constantly typing things wrong, because I'm not used to things being so close together.  Plus his computer desperately needs to be wiped.  Its sooo slow.  Its so annoying to be on it, its that slow.  Dial up anyone?  Seriously that is how it feels.  I mean its pretty bad that the computer can't keep up with my typing speed.  I'm not the fastest type-r in the world, so this is just ridiculous.  Sigh...soon!  When Paul gets paid, I will be ordering the part immediately, and hopefully have it within a few days, then my hubby gets the task of putting my entire computer together!  At least he's home for this and not deployed.  If he were deployed right now, I'd lose my mind!  I wouldn't have a computer to be on, and I wouldn't feel confident enough to do all of what he's doing by myself.  No way, I'd take my own computer apart.  But he's the technologically saavy one in the relationship.

 EEEK!

I have some pictures on my computer that I was going to post on my blog.  I made a delicious pumpkin spice cake a little bit ago, and I wanted to post the recipe, but its just not the same without the pictures.  So I'll wait.  I am going to go through the garage and figure out more stuff to put on craigslist.  We could use the funds, especially because of my broken computer part.  So get this...we can't have a garage sale...well we can....we just have to go by these idiotic rules.
First I found out from a friend that the city where we live charges a $5 fee to have a garage sale....I mean HELLO??  REALLY?  Its a garage sale!  Not only that, but you can't have any signs pointing to your said garage sale.  You can only have one in your YARD.  Again...REALLY??  I mean I live in a neighborhood.  I doubt I'd get even the $5 I'd spend to have the stupid yard sale if I had one sign in my yard.  I have seen people who have found loopholes though...they park their car on a street and their car has a huge yard sale sign in it.  So that's a plus.  Then I also found out, that if you fail to pay the fee initially, you can get charged a $750 fine.  WTF!!!!  Like I said, its a yard sale...and we are in Texas.  How dumb of a rule is THAT?  No wonder I've hardly seen any sale signs since we got here.  I was thinking that people would have yard sales all the time, they did in Dallas where my mom lives and they don't have dumb rules like this.  So rather than paying the $5, trying to park my car on the side of the highway, and maybe getting a $750 fine...I'm just going to start craigslisting everything.  I don't really want to go through all of the trouble of having a yard sale, if I literally have to jump through hoops.  We just aren't in a great area to have a yard sale, we aren't in the middle of town, or anything, we are kind of on the outskirts, so most people won't be coming this way for a yard sale anyway.  A neighbor of mine had a yard sale and I noticed that nobody was there...usually there is always SOMEONE there.  But not many people came by.  So craigslist it is.

 

LOVE MY STAND MIXER!!

  (if you look closely, you can see my bread maker too!)

Speaking of which, I big puffy heart craigslist.  Who wouldn't, its a free place to put on the stuff that you don't want or need anymore.  I've found some great items on there, and I find neat things all the time.  When we first got here, I got a bread maker that I love for $15, its great, works, and had its instruction book with recipes included, yay!  I also got my Kitchenaide stand mixer for 100 bucks!  Its blue, and purty...may not match everything in my house, but its a STAND MIXER!!  I've always wanted one, just didn't think I'd use it often enough to pay full price for something like that.  WRONG.  Its my new fav. appliance.  I find myself searching through recipes where I have an excuse to use it.  Lets see....oh we found our bar stools on craigslist for $60 for all four of them.  They match the house and are good enough for what we needed them for, plus when we moved in, we didn't have our table, so the counter top worked really well as our table.  So yeah, craigslist=awesome.

 

My cute stools for our breakfast bar!

I've been trying to find more things to do.  I'm running out of crafts.  =(  I think I'm just going to have to slow it down too.  Some of my crafts have cost more than I'd like to admit.  But I have some really cute things to show for it.  I have three walls in mind for some decor.  I want to do a plate wall...although the plates I have don't match yet.  So I need to search it out more.  I also want to do a cross wall, with different shapes and sizes of crosses.  Hobby Lobby will be my choice for doing that wall.  I'm going to just slowly start making my collection.  Last, I want to do an empty frame wall.  I have a very pretty red wall that would be perfect for them.  I just need to find nice frames.  So yard sales here I come!  Oh and goodwill, again, big puffy heart.

My Happy Thanksgiving banner hanging on my wall in my living room.  Made with cardstock, glitter glue, coffee filters, and stickers...oh and twine!

My computer is broken! =(

So I'm using my husbands laptop, and its NOT the same.  At least I have a computer though.  I will be uploading some pics from some of my other crafts, but for the time being, I don't have my power cord, for my good camera, and my computer is literally in pieces on my kitchen table.  Sigh....  the power board broke the other night, I'm sure one of the kids stepped on it, or it was loose to begin with or something, but it happened.  Its a 25 dollar piece and it will take some time to get it fixed, so I'll just have to wait, and then Paul has to figure out how to put my computer all back together...wish us luck, lol.  
Anyway, I'm really excited about my banner that I made.  I like it, and I can't wait to show you, its up on my wall right now, because its way too big for my mantle, but it looks nice above my t.v.  I only have the decent camera, but here are some pics of my newest crafties!

 I got this idea from another blog, and for some reason, blogger won't let me link right now.  I love the crafts that she does, as well as all of the ideas!  http://tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com/2010/10/holiday-entertaining-make-chalkboard.html

 This is a chalkboard, basically I took a cheap picture frame from Walmart, and spray painted it with chalkboard paint.  Then I used the chalkboard paint markers that are out, but chalk also works just fine. 

 I can't remember whose blog I borrowed the idea from, but she had painted a really cute canvas of circles, and it really meant something to her, as it does to me.  Sort of a uneven, but all around connection.  I'm not a huge fan of the colors I used, I was trying to replicate hers, but at the same time make it my own, and make it something I could hang in my house.  I have lots of reds, and browns in my house, so I thought this would work, but I'm not sure how I feel about it just yet.  I'll let ya know when I figure it out.  I may just end up priming over it, and repainting something.

 I made this little pumpkin out of a toilet paper roll, fabric, paper towels, a paper bag, some thread, and some leaves I found (fake ones).  I think its cute.  I looked everywhere for some fall type fabric and was coming up with a whole lot of nothing, so I found this blue fabric with little orange and yellow leaves.  I like how it turned out.  You can try it here: www.thefrugalgirls.com under the crafts section.  They also have great coupon deals, and other things to help with the finances.

 My entryway is very cute now, it looks all fall like, lol!

 Ahhhh, yes, my bathroom.  I really LOVE my bathroom, its the only room in the house that is almost fully and completely decorated.  Talk about my little oasis.  I really really <3 it!  I have a cute little money tree in the window with candle holders on each side.  I have my little asian corkboard picture that Paul got for me when he was stationed in Korea, as well as a vase he got for me.  A wooden rose that I got from Germany.  A partylite reed holder, and another craft.  You see that silver picture frame in the right corner...yeah, I made that!Oh

 So here is my picture frame.  First off, it was a super easy project.  I started off with a very ugly gold from the 70's picture frame that I got for 2 dollars at goodwill.  I bought some sticks at the dollar store, and spray painted them black.  I spray painted the frame with primer, and then with some metallic spray paint.  I then, stapled the sticks to the back.  I got the inspiration...actually kind of copied the whole thing from here: http://cleverlyinspired.blogspot.com/2010/10/garage-sale-frame-my-favorite-piece-of.html

 Now we get to the Happy Thanksgiving banner that I made...you can't see it very well, and that stinks, but I like it, and think its cute. 

Yes, that is House on the TV!

Is it really such a big deal??

So I'm complaining...about myself.  My camera battery died today, so I went to go get my charger so that I could take pictures of my new crafties that I've been doing, and I couldn't find my charger.  So I went to run errands, and do what I needed to do, then I came home, and looked and looked....and looked.  I was really obsessed with finding it.  I tore apart the house, looked in every nook and cranny, tried the van, the car, the garage, my room, every place that I could have possibly put it (except the place that it is, obviously).  I just couldn't let it go.  I mean it is one of the cheapest things to lose, but I don't like losing things, and I can't think of anything that was of any significance to me, that I've lost in a very very long time.  I lost my phone at a party once, but my friend had it, so I didn't really lose it.  I am STILL having trouble letting it go.  I'm racking my brain trying to figure out where I could have left it.  Or even, when the last time I had it was.  I'm pretty sure that the last time that I had it was when I went up to my Mom's house for the state fair.  I didn't use it though, because it was raining and I didn't want to get rain on it, so I ended up taking my waterproof camera...(I actually have four different cameras) instead.  I do vaguely remember charging my good dslr camera the night before we left though.  Since then, I have no clue where it is.  I also somehow lost The Time Traveler's Wife dvd that I brought there, and a workout dvd that I brought there.  Now, I called my mom and of course she hasn't seen it.  I'm not sure she's really giving it the best look possible though.  I mean its something that I want, so I would really look for it, but if it was something the girls were looking for, I'm not sure I would be so into trying to find it.  Either way, it has not been found.  Before the fair day, the last time I remember having it was in St. Louis for Paul's brother's wedding.  I had it at the hotel, and I even called the hotel today to find out if they had found it.  I mean its really of no use to someone if they don't have the camera, so I don't think it was stolen.  I'm sure its just misplaced, but why in the WORLD am I obsessing so much about it?  I can get an off brand for about 5 bucks, the normal one would run about 30, still, its not like its the 600 dollar camera, or one of the 200 dollar lenses.  Hell, its not even one of the 40 dollar batteries, but I still can't seem to let it go.  I have a feeling that its in the same place as the dvd's.  Who knows where they are though!  I have searched high and low, and don't believe I can search anymore, sigh...
So onto bigger and better things.  I painted on Monday night, and I also painted last night.  Just some little decor for the girls' rooms.  I'm no Picasso, and I'm a complete perfectionist, so I feel that these may look like children did them, but hey, I think they turned out nicely, and my girls LOVE them.  That is what really counts right?  So yeah, there's my little vent, and here are the paintings from Mon. and Tues.  I'm going to do another little craft tonight!

 All hand painted, as if you couldn't tell, lol.  But at least Sierra loves it!

 Autumn loves hers as well.  I'm so happy!

BTW- yes, I have four different cameras.  The first one, was the first decent digital camera I ever had.  Its probably 8 years old now.  The second one, is a smaller version of the same type (12x zoom, etc.), its just smaller and lighter, and fits in my purse.  The third one is my water/freezer/shatterproof camera.  I use it probably second most.  Finally, my baby, my Nikon DSLR is the one I use 99% of the time.  I love it.  I need some more lenses, and a few other little things, but I do love that camera!  So while I have multiple cameras, I can still take pictures, I just don't feel that they do any sort of justice to any picture I could ever take.  So yeah, I'm thinking that $5 charger is sounding GREAT right about now!

And since I was taking pictures, and unloading them, I realized I never uploaded some older pictures from when we were in Germany, going to Europa park.  It was a great time, but I came across this picture and think it just looks pretty cool!!