Halloween Preview!

Okay, I apologize for the poor quality of the picture (sent it to my email from my phone!) and the rushed manner of this post, but I just wanted to take a minute (literally) and post about the homemade Woody costume I made for my 2-year-old boy this year!

It was touch and go there for a bit, but I think it came together so cute! I can't wait for him to put it on this afternoon for our first of 3 Halloween parties we'll be going to today and tomorrow! What do you think?

The sheriff badge, belt buckle, holster and boots are all made from craft foam (either hot glued or stapled together...let's hope it all lasts till tomorrow!). For the boots I just made two cylinders and cut the V shape int he front. He'll wear his brown tennis shoes, and just slip the "boots" over his pants. I made the vest out of white fabric I painted cow spots onto. The shirt I made by painting the plaid and buttons on with some of that fabric paint with the skinny tip.

My husband and I are going to be Slinky Dog! Still throwing that one together though! I'll try and post a picture of that tomorrow.

I'm linking this post up to Fun on A Dime's October Fun Challenge!

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Mini Mantel Makeover

I meant to post this a week or two ago. Better late than never!

I posted about my renter's mantel here, and this is what it looked like after we got moved in and set it all up. I thought it was nice, but now it kinda looks like a bunch of stuff all lined up in a row across the mantle. But it worked.


I didn't take a picture of the mantle at Christmas, though it was lovely. Mini ornament wreaths around the candle sticks, garland, and a little white nativity in the middle.

Then....after Christmas... well I got lazy, I guess. I just kinda threw the other pictures and accessories up there and never really got around to arranging them...for a couple of months.

So this is sadly what my mantle looked like (or some variation of this) from the new year until just a couple of weeks ago. Sad, I know.

As they say, "clutter attracts clutter," so since it was in disarray already, I found myself sticking random things {that I wanted out of Bitty's reach} up there. Hence the headband, wedding announcement, and cover of yet another book my little boy destroyed.

Don't worry, I finally got sick of it, and did a little rearranging. I was going to look around and switch out a few items, but in the end I didn't.

With just about a minute's worth of rearranging, I ended up with this:

Ah, much better.

Here are a few other posts about decorating mantel's lately:

Lettered Cottage's Mantel Mania Part 1 and Part 2
Just a Girl's Spring Mantel


Makes me want to put something more springy up there!

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This is my lucky shirt!

A couple of weeks ago I was shopping at Walmart and saw these green t-shirts for $2 each, and I thought that for $2 I could make a St. Patrick's day shirt! I'm usually too cheap to buy a holiday shirt that's only going to to get worn a couple of times, but even I could handle $2!

So I picked up 3 and had my sister and sister-in-law come over so we could make shirts for our little boys. I knew I wanted to do one of the bleach stencil shirts, so we used this tutorial as a guide.

Here's how to do it:

Step 1: Cut out your letters, shapes, whatever you want to put on your shirt. We printed them off the computer onto cardstock. Figure out how you want to arrange them. This is how I did mine:


Step 2: Use spray adhesive to stick the letters onto your shirt. Mix some water and bleach in a spray bottle. I think we used about a 3:1 ratio (water:bleach). Spray it over the the part of the shirt where your letters are. Anywhere that you want bleached.

Note: Don't forget to put something inside the shirt so the bleach doesn't soak through to the back. We just put a plastic grocery sack inside.


Step 3: Once you see the bleach starting to work, rinse it out in running water. We used some dish soap too, since it was handy, then threw all of the shirts in the washer when they were all finished. We also peeled the letters off as we rinsed it in the sink.


Steps 4, 5, & 6: Wash, dry, and wear!

Super cute, eh? I love it! And it was super easy too. That's the best kind of project in my opinion!

We were thinking of maybe doing Easter ones with brown T-shirts and using the shape of a chocolate bunny for the stencil. How cute would it be if you used a scallop punch on your stencil to make it look like the chocolate bunny had a bite out of it!?

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FINALLY: Our *New* Entertainment Center

In case you missed my post several months ago about needing an entertainment center because we didn't bring our old one with us when we moved here in July, let me just show you what we used for the first few months of living in this apartment:


Pretty sad, right? "But where could you possibly be storing all of your movies and games when you've got such a {cough} sleek and streamlined entertainment center?"

In/on/around/exploding out of the wet bar. Of course!

Folks, I was desperate. You've seen the pictures above, so I'm sure you can understand why. Well, in my desperation, I jumped on the chance to buy this beastly old dresser from the Salvation Army on sale for $40.

I know you want a closer look at those Star Trek-ian handles. Here you go.

We bought the dresser in September, if I recall correctly. I finally finished it around the first week in January. Not really sure why I always drag projects on for so long... but finally! It's done! It is by no means perfect, but hello. Can you say "one thousand times better than what we had before"?? I can.

What do you think? I still look at it once and a while and wonder if other people will think it's weird that we're using a dresser as an entertainment center. But really, it's quite practical...it holds the TV and stores all of our movies, hubby's video games, as well as board games and puzzles.

And because I enjoy looking at people's after photos and seeing how beautifully staged and accessorized everyone's homes are, I will point out my Kimba-esque vase of Hobby Lobby flowers. On the other, much less glamorous side....an Xbox 360, Playstaion 2, and the Wii. Because my husband...well. I love him. And for those of you who can relate to the whole video game-loving husband thing... Here's a little treat for my kindred spirits:



I really hope that I didn't offend anyone with that video... I think it's pretty dang funny.

Anyway...back to the subject at hand...TA DA!!


Have you ever used a piece of furniture for something other than what it was intended for?

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A little bit of fall...

I found my camera! Yeah.... It was actually put away in the desk where it was supposed to be. Guess I should have looked there yesterday!

So, just for funsies, here are a few pictures of the new fall decor I made this year!

A fall wreath for my red door:

A toilet paper pumkin

And a Halloween banner

These were all really easy, really cheap projects. And I LOVE them all.

My SIL thought I was boring for not buying the actual Halloween themed paper for the banner.... but I just love the polka dots and black damask! I inked the edges of the letters for the banner. It was touch and go there for a while, but once I did a generous enough amount I was really happy with how it turned out! Oh and P.S. I bought the chipboard banner kit pre-made at Hobby Lobby for really cheap! Always nice to have an easy start!

Happy Fall!

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Birthday whatnots

We had a big weekend. Bitty's first birthday was on Saturday and we had a big little family party. Then my husband's birthday was Sunday.

Just look at this adorable kid. I think he had a great time!

We celebrated with lions...


tigers...


and monkeys...
Oh my! So, for Christmas last year my brother-in-law gave me the book Hello Cupcake! It's a good one. I had been planning on making cupcakes for Bitty's birthday for a while, and was just going back and forth on which ones to make...when, as my luck would have it, my book disappeared off of the face of the earth. Yeahhhh....

So luckily I was able to find a picture of the monkeys online. The lions I tried to remember as well as I could, and the tigers were something I just made up (hmmm...can ya tell?!). My mom was in town for the birthday party and she helped with the cupcakes, since I was running out of time to get everything done before the party started. Thanks mom!

The other big project I had been planning on before the birthday weekend (my husband's birthday was Sunday) was a homemade birthday banner.

I LOVE birthdays, and growing up we always had one of those paper Happy Birthday signs as well as some plastic pennant birthday banners that we would decorate the house with on everyone's birthdays. And at some point a few months ago I just got it in my mind that I was going to make a birthday banner out of fabric. I had see cute fabric banners all over the blogging world and thought this would be the perfect idea!

I finished it around 11pm on Friday, just in time for the big weekend! I LOVE how it turned out! I should have taken more pictures to post, but for now here's what it looked like:


Do you love it as much as I do??? I would really love to hear what you think about it... I've been toying with the idea of opening an Etsy shop for a while, but I can't decide if it would be worth the trouble... But this ended up so dang cute that I thought maybe someone would want to buy one if I sold them, right? I'll take some close-ups later and post them so you can see just how cute it really is!

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I might be crazy....

{Edited to add: I'm submitting this project as my Procrastinator Party entry at the Inspired Room. I know I posted this originally before the party...but in true procrastinator style, the project has hardly been touched since the original post date.. And the icing on the cake is that even procrastinated linking my post up. OOPS!}

Here's the story. We moved into our apartment on July 29th. We didn't bring our old entertainment center with us, because, well, it was an ugly piece of junk. We gave it back to the thrift store where it came from. Ever since then, this has been our entertainment center.

Yes. That is a {thrift store} dining room chair. With our tv on top, and video games (ah, husbands...) and a jumble of cords underneath. Pretty gangster, right? I haven't been able to find anything we wanted for an entertainment center within our budget yet. First I was looking at armiores, but my husband wasn't loving that idea... And unless we shelled out the money for one with the doors that slide back or wrap around they'd be hanging open all the time. Really. I used to complain about how much tv my husband watches, but now that we have TLC and HGTV, I'm almost just as bad. Almost.

So, I got to thinking maybe we should make a cabinet with 3 or 4 doors where we can keep everything out of sight, except for the tv. Because we SO need some storage for games and movies, etc. Just look at this. UGLY!


The problem with that idea is we don't really know how to make things. And we don't want to spend a ton of money, effort, and time on something that's going to look like we made it. (And I don't mean that in a good way!)

So, for a Saturday afternoon activity, we browsed the Salvation Army on the hunt for something that would work. I had thought of a dresser as a possibility before... Something that could be versatile, that we could use somewhere else as a buffet or an actual dresser in the future if we wanted.

We found something that we have since referred to as "a diamond in the very, very rough."

Allow me to introduce you to The Beast.And here's a closeup:


Aren't those the ugliest handles you have ever seen in your ENTIRE life? Not to mention the weirdest. It really is a beast. It weighs a TON and is going to take A LOT of work, but I'm hoping to end up with one of those beautiful wow! transformations, instead of failing miserably. Because that is a distinct possibility at this point. It could go either way.

But it was on sale 50% off. So for $40 we got it. We're just not at the point in our lives where we can go buy an expensive piece of furniture, ya know? I'm imagining beadboard to cover the damage on the sides, but I don't know if I'm that good! This is uncharted territory people! Wish me luck!

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Dining room curtain sneak peek!

I finished the curtains for the sliding door in the dining room, and I know you're all just dying to see what they look like. Or you can humor me and pretend like you are at least!

I bought a pair of khaki chino curtains at Walmart for $16, and they were a little small, so I worked up a plan to add on to them. I won't show you the WHOLE picture, until I do the entire dining room reveal (hopefully in a week), but here's a little peek to whet your appetite!


P.S. You have no idea how hard it was to find black grosgrain ribbon for this project. Seriously. I went to 4 different stores, and ended up with black twill tape instead. I am pleased with the result, but seriously? I don't live in a small town, you'd think they'd have that kind of basic crafting supply in stock. I guess it's just too popular, kind of like me (JUST KIDDING!).

And if you made it this far without giving up, I'm going to share another story with you. So, Hobby Lobby was stop #2 on the search for ribbon. I love this store, and it's just down the street from my house! {When we moved to our new apartment, I told my husband I was going to be fine, because I knew how to get to Walmart and Hobby Lobby.}

Anyway, turns out they only have black grosgrain ribbon for sale by the yard, and not by the spool. Let's do some math. I needed about 7 yards. It sells for $0.83/yard. I just "guesstimated" that would put me somewhere in the vicinity of $6-ish dollars. Maybe $5 (okay, you caught me, we're not really doing math!). Anywho, the grosgrain ribbon by the spool is 7 yards and normally sells for $4, but was on sale for $2 a spool.

I thought they might just have run out of black by the spool, but I asked the fabric lady and she said since they sell it by the yard they don't sell it by the spool. Yeeeeeaaah....so, I'm supposed to pay 3 times as much for it because you can't give me an entire spool to take home? I'm not sure if I was feeling cheap, cheated, or if my pride was wounded, but I told the lady I'd just have to buy it somewhere else. (I never say things like that to sales people!)

Well, a lot of good that did me. Two stores later I was leaving with 5/8" twill tape instead of 7/8" grosgrain. But like I said, I still think it looks good, and may have even been easier to work with, so it all turned out just fine.

But really, when did it become so hard to find black ribbon??


Oh, and just for funsies, another sneak peek:


That's right, I sanded the table last night, and will be priming it during Bitty's naps today!

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My table, Alt-erior Design-ed.

Don't you sometimes wish that you could just SEE what that new paint color would look like before you actually take the plunge (and spend the money)?

Well, I know a great girl, Ali Mae, with a great blog. It's called Alt-erior Design, and she does virtual design consultations. What she does is takes a picture that you give her, and works her magic on it to show you all of the possibilities! And she does more than just paint colors. She rearranges furniture, adds accessories, etc, so you can get a vision of what your space could look like.

And I'm super impressed (and a little jealous!) that she has found such a great way to make a little extra cash as a stay at home mom to three adorable little ones.

Like I said, she's a great girl, so after she read my post asking for advice on how to paint the dining room table, she decided to help me out and show me what the options I was considering would look like. She even threw in another option I hadn't even thought of.

Here's my before:


And here's her awesome alt-erior design (click to see it larger):


How cool is that?! Go check out Ali Mae's work at Alt-erior Design! And you'll just have to wait and see which option I decided to with! Thanks Ali Mae!

{And I know, the before is terrible, with the food and dishes all still out on the table and that ugly plastic shelf. I considered taking a new before shot for this post with all of that put away now, but I decided I'd wait and show the dining room off when I finish with the table and the curtains. It's going to be quite the improvement.}

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My {kind of} bold cornice board...

...or "corny board", as my husband affectionately calls it. He thinks decorating terms are silly. When I said something about spray painting finials, he stopped what he was doing and said, "Finials? Really? Are you just making these words up??" Oh, I love him!

Anyway, back to the point...

Remember when I finished my high chair seat re-do and showed you this picture of my cute boy in front of our vertical blinds in all of their glory. Did I tell you I HATE the look of vertical blinds?


As soon as we moved in I knew I wanted to hide them. I know I could have just taken them down altogether, but I didn't want the hassle of taking them down, storing them somewhere, and putting them back up when we'll be in this apartment for less than a year.

Also the side of the apartment with the blinds gets a LOT of sun and heat in the late-ish afternoon, so I kinda wanted to keep them as insulation from the hot hot sun. (FYI our power bill this month was about $140 more than we used to pay in our old place...what a difference 500 more sq. feet and central air makes in the price...)

So I decided I wanted to keep the blinds up, but HIDE them... So we put up curtains (which ended up being a little small...I'll fix that this week..didn't get done this weekend, oops!) and cut a board (I started with a 1x8x8) for a cornice board. My husband helped me screw it together. This is what our sliding door looked like for a while:


So, the other night I finally got around to covering the cornice board. I did it at about 10:30pm, so I hope I didn't bother the neighbors too much! Sorry Ashley!

First: Lay out your fabric, batting, and board, like a nice soon-to-be-cute little sandwich.


Next: Staple the fabric onto your board. I started in the middle and worked my way out. Apparently it also helps to leave the newspaper you had the last two boxes of kitchen stuff wrapped in on the floor if you're taking pictures. (But hooray! I finally finished unpacking the kitchen last week!)

Tip: On the ends (the little short boards screwed in to the long one) don't wrap the fabric all the way around. Stop on the 1" part that will be flush with the wall, so that you have a place to screw the brackets on to the inside. I wrapped mine all the way around and realized I needed to take it out and fix it. Live and learn.


Then: Hold the board while your cute hubby screws the L brackets onto the short pieces for you.


I know this next picture is kinda blurry, and there's a lot going on with the vert blinds hardware and curtain hardware AND the cornice board, so look closely. We connected one side of the L bracket to the short side of the cornice board and the other flush with the wall.


And Ta-Da! Tell me what you think!

It's not perfect, I know... but I think it's a heck of an improvement.

I picked a bolder fabric than anything else we have in our house, because I just didn't feel like sticking with the expected, or boring, but branching out a bit. I'll be making tie backs for the living room curtains (which we DID finish hanging this week, I'll post a picture when the tie backs are done). I'm hoping that'll tie the two rooms together a little better.

After getting the board hung up it made me so excited that I went and bought the paint for my dining room table. You'll just have to wait to see what it'll look like!

I'm hoping to get a lot of little things done this week, since my BFF is coming to stay for the weekend. Nothing like house guests to get you going!

Update: The curtains are finished! If you want a sneak peek, click here!

I'm linking this post up to the following:

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