Tip of the day

Always look for coupon codes before ordering stuff online! I just got free shipping and 10% off of orders I made for supplies for Mother's Day presents this morning.

I usually just type the name of where I'm ordering from followed by "coupon" or "coupon code" in the little search box at the top of my internet window. More often than not the codes I've used have come from retailmenot.com.

I know this isn't a new concept by any means, more of a reminder in case you have forgotten. I like saving money!

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Can you tell the difference?

Or am I the only crazy one? Let's find out! Look at the pictures below and see if you can tell the difference.

Here's what it looks like when my husband loads the dishwasher:


And when I do it:

What? You think both pictures look exactly the same? Well... I know, they do look pretty close, but they ARE different.

Does anyone else like to arrange the silverware by type when they load the dishwasher? I find it makes unloading the silverware so much faster. I guess it just bugs me having to put individual pieces away. This way I can just grab all of one type at once and dump them in the drawer.

Don't get me wrong, though... I L.O.V.E. when my husband does the dishes and I don't have to! {And it's only occasionally that I go behind him and rearrange the silverware!}

I know. I'm nuts. I really wish that this tidbit of OCD carried over to all aspects of cleaning my house. Alas, becoming a crazy cleaning woman is still on my list of things to do. Right after cleaning out my fridge and getting rid of the large quantity of cheerios my child dispersed throughout the car this weekend.

Do you have any crazy cleaning quirks?

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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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My daily job list

This is how I {attempt to} keep my house clean during the week. When I stick to it it works pretty well! I laminated it, and hung it on my fridge so I could use a dry erase marker to check the boxes each week. Because I need the reminder and the accountability to help me get motivated. (Confession: This has been hanging in my kitchen for a month and I still haven't dusted or cleaned any glass...oops!)

I didn't include things that need to be done daily, like picking up toys or doing the dishes and wiping down kitchen counters. It's so not a perfect list, but it mostly works for my situation in my apartment with my one child. I hope this idea can be useful to someone else!

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Personal Home Decor

Here's a fun video I found on Studio 5's website about making your home decor personal and something that reflects your family.

Don't hang anything on your wall that isn't meaningful to you...LOVE it!

And don't you just love those kid paintings? I don't think I'd have the guts to hang them in the formal living room...but maybe a playroom, or kids' room. Hmmm...maybe even a kitchen or dining room; the possibilities are endless!

P.S. If I ever own a wingback chair, I want it to look like that green one she brought to the studio with her!

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Cleaning Tip: non-slip bathmat

I have one of these suction non-slip bathmats in Bitty's tub. Because when he takes a bath without it he's sliding all over the place... I guess he's just a slippery boy.
While I was cleaning his tub out this week, I noticed that the underside of it was looking a little iffy. Like it needed a good cleaning, you know.

So, I used the big scrub brush I use on the tubs and scrubbed at it for a little while before I figured out that I was doing things the hard way. So...

I decided the best and easiest thing to do would be to put it in the washing machine. So I did. I put the mat in, poured in a swig of regular liquid bleach, and set the water temperature to warm/hot.

It came out looking seriously as good as new! Don't you love when the BEST solution is also the EASIEST solution?

I know this is so simple that anyone would probably think of it, so I apologize if I'm insulting anyone's intelligence by posting this. Just sayin'...maybe you should go see if your rubber bathmat could use a spin in the washing machine!

Join the party:

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Freebie craft instructions!

So, a while back I had heard about You Can Make This, a website where you can buy instructions for lots of different sewing and craft projects. I thought it was a neat idea, but didn't ever check it out, because I've usually got more projects in mind to do than I have time for, so I didn't really want to pay for more project ideas, ya know?

Well....I just found out that they have a whole ton of FREE instructions for cute craft projects!

So this week I created an account with You Can Make This and downloaded probably about 10 sets of free instructions...sewing projects, crocheting instructions (flowers and little beanies!)among other things. I would highly suggest it! And they have tons of other patterns/instructions you can buy too, of course. Most of them are around $5, so it's still fairly cheap.

Here are some of the freebies I downloaded. These will be great for my goal of making homemade gifts this year. And the flowers could work on a fabric bead necklace!


Happy Crafting!

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Fabric covered bead necklace tutorial

I've been wanting to make some of those cute fabric covered bead necklaces for a while now, and today I found this great little video tutorial on Studio 5's website.

I love how she got creative with the simple idea on the necklaces the mannequins were wearing. Love the long double strands, and of course the fabric flowers! My sister's got little girls and is always making fabric flowers, and I keep trying to think of an excuse to need to make some too...maybe this is it!

Maybe I'll have to make making some fabric necklaces a reward for finishing quilting my star quilt.

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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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Thirteen dollar renter's mantle

We moved into our new apartment two weeks ago today. It's got some really nice features like crown molding and a wood-burning fireplace in the living room.

The only negative in the living room was that our fireplace didn't have a mantle...it was just a little bare. Well, kind of a lot bare. Here's the before picture:

Pardon the mess...this is the day of or day after moving in.

I knew as soon as we walked into our apartment for the first time that I wanted to put a shelf above the fireplace, as a mantle.

I was so lucky to have my mom and my sister here to help me the first few days I after I moved in. They did all kinds of unpacking, and helping me hang pictures and whatnot. Thanks for the help!

We also did a little shopping at Hobby Lobby, and found the perfect brackets to hang a shelf with! Before choosing these we considered two other options, including scroll-y wrought iron, and fancy looking resin fleur de lis type thingies. I liked all of them, but thought the chunky wooden ones were more my style. They were in the window treatment section, and were 30% off, making them $4 apiece!

{Sorry, I took a close up of the bracket, but blogger won't let me upload it for some reason. I'll try again later}

We bought a 1x8 for $5 at Home Depot, and my mom routed the edge to make it look a little nicer than just a plain board. We painted all 3 pieces with black paint I already had, and hung the brackets and shelf flush with the tile surround.

So the 2 brackets cost $8 together, plus the $5 board, equals a shnazzy $13 mantle!

Here's the after:

I think it turned out loverly, don't you? All I need now are some candles for those (one dollar each!) thrift store candle sticks!

Check out everyone else's awesome DIY projects at DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land!

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Searching, searching...

I use a Google reader to keep track of all of the design/craft/decor etc. blogs that I read everyday. I recently made a discovery that other Google reader users have known about since day 1. I'm going to share it anyway, on the off chance that someone else is as clueless as me :)

You can SEARCH for specific topics/keywords on your Google reader! Hello, helpful! I'm pretty sure I've spent a while on more than one occasion scrolling and scrolling down lists of past posts looking for a particular post I'd seen days, weeks, or months before and wanted to find again.

Um, yeah. You know that search box, at the top your reader. You can USE IT! Haha... maybe I'm just a dummy, but my life got so much easier when I realized this! Just tonight I searched for a post about making bandana baby dresses that I saw a few months ago, and found it in about 10 seconds.

And while I'm on the topic of searching, have you ever heard of this?



I love Swagbucks. I've only been doing it for a little while, but basically it is a way to earn "swagbucks" that can be redeemed for prizes like gift cards. And the best part is you earn swagbucks by doing internet searches... Yes. That means free stuff for doing nothing we don't already do.

What's really handy is that you can make the search box at the top of your internet browser a Swagbucks search box, so you don't have to even do anything extra! Sweet.

Anyway, when you refer your friends, you earn swagbucks whenever they do! Cool, eh? Anywho, just click on the button above and we can start earning free stuff together!

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Monkey on the wall

Hi! It's Elizabeth's big sis again. I just wanted to share one of my new favorite things. I love Monkey Hooks. I discovered them at Target and have been using them to decorate the new house. They are so much easier than using anchors or trying to find a stud in the wall. If you get them in the wrong place, and need to adjust it only leaves a small nail size whole. Not to mention you don't even need a hammer to hang a picture and can safely do it without waking sleeping babies! I have used them to hang several HEAVY antique mirrors all by myself, so my husband thinks they are great too! Put your power tools away! The monkey hooks really work for me!

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Simplify Supper

If you thought my menu planning method was too much work, you might want to...

Wow. This website really does all the work for you. On the home screen of the website, you'll a pre-made calendar for the month, with recipes on each day of the week.

To the left of that is the shopping list for the current week of the calendar. And WOW, they even divide the ingredients into categories (according to where you find them in a grocery store) and label which day of the week you need each ingredient. Under the shopping list are buttons that allow you to print this week's recipes, email the list, or send it to your cell phone! They really mean business when they say they want to simplify supper.

Don't want to eat what they've got planned? No problem. You can also pick which recipes you want to make and when. The best part? The website will automatically make your fancy shmancy shopping list, no matter how many recipes you choose!

Or if you're like me, you can just use this website for recipe ideas, and browse, and browse, finding all sorts of yummies to try. And of course, being called Simplify Supper, you know that most of the recipes are very easy to make as well. Bonus!

Where do you find recipes and menu planning ideas?

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What's on the Menu?

Menu planning is one of those things that everyone does a little differently. It's always interesting to me to learn how other people do the mundane daily things in life, such as menu planning. I thought I'd share my method. It works for me.

I will admit, I don't love coming up with something to make for dinner every night. Not that I don't like making dinner. I like to try new recipes, to tweak someone else's (or my own) recipes, or to make a tried-and-true favorite and be satisfied with the yummy results.

If you know me at all, you might know that I am not the best {or quickest} decision maker. I agonize over really small decisions, and what should be no big deal turns into quite the ordeal.

This is why I prefer a more structured meal calendar. It takes the daily-ness out of deciding what's for dinner, lessening the frequency of those agonizing decisions!

So here's what I do. Since January or February I have been making a meal calendar on the computer and printing it out each month. If you want to use my method, here are the steps you should take:

1. Come up with the "categories" of food you usually eat, and decide how frequently you would like to eat from each "category." We decided we'd eat most categories every other week. For us these include pasta, sandwiches, rice, tortillas, soup, and breakfast. We have those categories assigned to Monday through Wednesday.

Every Thursday is Leftover Day. Nothing like saving money and cleaning out the fridge at the same time.

Every Friday is pizza night. Usually this is homemade pizza, but occasionally we buy a pizza, have a frozen, or do some other take on pizza, like bagel or french bread pizza. When we make homemade pizza we like to try and mix it up too. One of my FAVORITES is barbecue chicken pizza. So easy and SO GOOD!

Saturday is "Trent's Choice," because, even though planning in advance this way takes the stress off of making the decisions, I don't want to have to make ALL of the decisions. My husband has to choose what we have on Saturdays (theoretically:).

And Sundays I just leave empty at this point, because we usually try to make something yummy on a Sunday, and I don't want to be bothered with thinking about which category my Sunday dinner should fit into each week.

Some calendar programs are nice and will automatically repeat an event every two weeks if you tell it to. I just had to fill out the categories once in our calendar program, and my meal calendar was good to go for as long as I told it to repeat (mine will go until July, when things might change because we may be moving in with the in-laws for a while).

2. After you've printed your calendar with your categories set up the way you want them, you can come up with individual recipes or meals you want to make and assign them to days according to your categories. For example, Tortillas are assigned to Mondays on my calendar, so yesterday I made cheese enchiladas. (I'm going to share that recipe probably Friday, so get excited!!)

You don't have to fill out the whole calendar at once. Usually I'll do about 2 weeks at once. If I'm lazy I just do a few days at a time. Or like this month, I filled pretty much the whole month out at once, except for a few days I couldn't think of what to write in.

This is really flexible, people. I don't want you to get the idea that I'm a meal calendar Nazi. I just use it as a guideline to save me a little sanity. We don't always stick to what is written down. Last month I think I hardly made anything on the day that it was written in, but if nothing else, it was good be able to see what meals I had the ingredients to make, which brings me to the next step.

3. Go grocery shopping. I like to refer to my calendar as I make my shopping list, look at each day and add the items I need to buy for that recipe to my list. Some people are pros at grocery shopping and hardly spend any money. I'm not there yet, but maybe someday.


4. Make dinner. Make what's written in on that day. Or don't. I'm not tied to my calendar, so if I feel like making something else, I do. But, on days when I don't care one way or the other, it's SO REFRESHING to just be able to look at the calendar and know what to make, without having to think too hard about it.

How do you do menu planning? Leave a comment and share your methods!

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Water Party!

So, I just got off the phone with my mom, and she was telling me all about the water party she's helping to throw for the kids at church. I told her I would love to go to that party with all the fun activities she has planned, so I thought I would share!

The kids range from ages 3 to 11, so they've got a range of activities planned.

Here are the activities geared toward the younger kiddies:

Sprinkler: A fun one to run through.

Sidewalk chalk: Who doesn't love this?

Duck pond: A wading pool filled with rubber ducks. Each duck has a number on the bottom that corresponds with a prize. The kids choose a duck and get a prize!

Bubble station: A bubble machine and a whole lot of bubble solution and about 15 wands.

Activities for older kids/everyone else:

Water baseball: Wiffle balls, plastic bats, and wading pools for bases! I remember doing this at church activities as a teenager and thought it was so fun!

Slip 'n slide: Isn't this just everyone's favorite? You can't go wrong with a slip 'n slide!

Splash Out ball: Have you ever played with one of these? They are SO fun! It's a ball that you put a water balloon inside and play a game of hot potato with. The ball has a timer in it, and at random it will pop the balloon, soaking whoever happens to be holding it! Here's a picture I found on Amazon.com.

Relay Races: First team to finish wins! I DO LOVE A GOOD RELAY!
~Wet Towel Relay: This race starts with a bucket of water with a towel in it for each team. To run the race you pick the towel up out of the bucket, put it over your shoulders, and run to a certain point and back, where you put the towel back in the bucket for the next person.

~Pass the Cup: This is the relay where you have a bucket full of water on one end, and an empty bucket at the other, with your team in a line between the buckets. The first person on the end with the water bucket fills a cup with water, and then your team has to pass the down the line. The catch (of course there is one, that's what makes it fun!) is that you have to alternate passing "over" (over your head) and "under" (under your legs), and pass this way over, under, over, under down the line, trying not to spill the water so that you can fill up your bucket the fastest!

~Balloon Toss: This is the game that you play the same way as an egg toss. You have a partner and everyone stands the same distance apart, then you toss the balloon, and after every toss or two you have to take a step back and toss across a farther distance. And here is a BRILLIANT adaptation my mom and her friends are making to this game. They are using ziplock bags filled with water instead of water balloons so that they don't have pick up a million little bidgies of water balloon from the church lawn after the party is over. I told you. Brilliant.

~Fill Up the Bucket: I think this relay is similar to the Pass the Cup relay, but instead of having to pass over and under, this time you pass normally, except your cup has holes in the bottom, so you'd better pass it fast!

And for refreshments they are having snow cones, watermelon, and ice water!

Doesn't this sound like the perfect water party??? Summer is here! Get outside and have some fun with water!

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Take 'n Go Activities

I knew when I first had the idea for this blog that I wanted to share a really great segment of a local show, Studio 5, that I saw back in February.

This segment is all about "Take 'n Go Activities," or in other words, activity kits to bring with you while you are out and about (restaurants, doctor's office, church, etc.) to keep your kids entertained. The activities they show are pretty much geared toward preschool-aged children. When I talked about "stashing" ideas for myself on this blog for later, this is what I was thinking of. I'd like to come back to these ideas again when my baby is old enough to appreciate the activities.

The BEST part of this, is that the Studio 5 website also has FREE DOWNLOADS of the file folder games (they're pretty cute...) and tangram patterns. Also there are directions on how to put the kits together and make a few items such as a seek and find, lace up shapes, and magnetic fishing (there's a download for the fish too!). Definitely worth checking out! Enjoy!

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