Be Our Guest

After working on the hallway, I hit a wall.  

It was a teal wall and I simply couldn't stand it any longer.  

I finally got started on our guest room shortly after Easter.  When we went home for the Holiday weekend, we brought back a matching bed and dresser that came from my grandparents' house and that my parents used as their guest bed for a while (after my brother used it for a while).  

Long story short, the bed and dresser set have been around a while (it was the set my uncle used as a kid) and my mom sent it back to Illinois with us.  She said she didn't have a place for it anymore, but I think she just didn't want to have to sleep on an air mattress when she and dad come over anymore.  

Either way, having the furniture there was enough of a kick in the pants to get the room painted.  

We picked a pale yellow (which turned out to be a bit more "yellow" than I originally thought, but it's growing on me... and I am not about to repaint it!)  And of course we kept the white trim going throughout the house!

There's a close-up of the pretty teal color that we worked to cover.

Here's the lovely "after!" 

I'm hoping to find some sort of coordinating patterned fabric to make some nicer curtains.

And there's still plenty of wall space that needs to be accentuated, but that'll come in good time. 

Until then, Elvis is the only art in the room!

 

Next time you're planning a trip to the middle-of-nowhere-Illinois, stop in and be our guest.

We'll leave the light on for you!

The hallway that made me feel smart (thanks to Pinterest)

We're (meaning "I'm") still working on redecorating the new house.  

We've (meaning "I've") got a ways to go yet, but the never-ending hallway is a little bit closer to done.  

I hung abuncha pictures in the hallway and I did not:

*have to put any extra holes in the wall,

*spend hours trying to get them evenly placed on the wall, or

*hurt myself in the process!  (Go ME!)

Instead, I looked through abuncha "gallery wall" tutorials and idea on Pinterest and I settled on this idea that made me feel like one of the smartest girls in the world.  

Arrange the photos on the floor on a giant piece of (or several small pieces of taped-together) paper.

Outline all the frames on said paper, set frames aside and tape the doodled-on paper on the wall. 

Gather necessary tools: hammer, nails, level and some nail polish.

Put a dab of nail polish on the hanger of the first frame.  Hold the frame up to the paper, center, level it and then push it up against the paper so the polish can mark where the nail should go. 

About three frames in, I realized the polish was making a bigger mess than it was worth and I switched to using toothpaste... now the frames smell minty fresh!

Hang all the photos right over the paper and then rip the paper out from behind them. 

Waalah! A picture wall that looks like a million bucks and that made me feel brilliant!! 

(Yes, I am aware that a couple of the frames are still empty, but I'm working on it!)  ;)

Glitter-bomb: tutus for trucks

Ok, so you saw the last post about the cute shirts I made for the boys and older girls to wear to Monster Jam when it was in our hometown, but I made something extra crazy special for the little girls. 

Little girls (and some of us older girls) love sparkles, but after this great idea I had, I've had my fill of glitter from while. 

I made the little girls tutus... out of tulle coated in glitter. 

When I saw this sparkly goodness in the store, I just knew the little girls would love it.

So I bought enough to make four lovely tutus.

And in making them, I have permanently coated one end of our couch and a large part of our living room carpet in silver and orange sparkles. 

You're welcome, Hubs. :)

Here's one of the little angels blowing kisses - not sure if she's blowing them at the trucks or if Uncle Awesome was on the big screen... either way, she was pretty cute in her Maximum Destruction tutu. 

After having a few tutu-clad gals running around our seats and crawling all over us, we all had enough glitter all over us that we could've gone out and stood on the corner and fit in with the workin' girls, ifyaknowwhatimean.  There was so much glitter on the floor in front of our seats that it was actually slick to try to walk on. (The poor, unfortunate folks sitting in the row in front of us had glitter all over their backs...whoops... hope none of them were married men that had to answer to their wives when they got home as to why they had glitter all over their back!  HA!)

But here's the group of kiddos in their cute gear after the show.  All of the kiddos did a great job and everyone had a lot of fun. It was a great show. 

I don't think anyone cried or had a meltdown... other than me... in the car... when it was time to leave them all.  I just can't help but love 'em! :)

Making t-shirts for some truck-lovin' kiddos

I have some pretty outstanding nieces and nephews. 

They have a way of really making my heart melt with their sweetness. 

Most of them think their uncle (the one I'm married to) is pretty awesome, and I think it's pretty awesome that they thing he's Uncle Awesome. 

And when Monster Jam is coming to their town, they think he's neater than sliced bread (do people still say that? Have little kids ever said that? I don't know...) 

But the point I'm making is that these are some monster truck lovin' kids... especially Maximum Destruction since that's who their Uncle Awesome works for. 

And, because I want to be their favorite aunt wanted them to have something special for this year's Monster Jam and because I tend to be distracted by shiny things, I decided I was going to make the boys and two older girls t-shirts to wear at the show, and the smallest of them all would be getting a hand crafted onesie. (I made something different for the four younger girls, but that'll have to wait for another post... I still haven't recovered from all the glitter)

That's an order for four boy t-shirts, two girly t-shirts and one adorable onesie. 

I started with the girls' shirts

I used my little Cricut to cut the words out of freezer paper and peeled out the letters and kept the negative space to use as a stencil, along with the middle of the o's and a's.

I ironed on my handy-dandy stencils and used some Tulip glue-for-tshirts-stuff and then sprinkled it with gold glitter.  And then I let it dry for many, many hours. (but the directions only said two hours - that was my bad.)

For the boys' shirts, I made stencils the same way and used some silver fabric paint to fill them in, and then I repeated the painting, and then I put on another coat, and then I put on another coat (seriously, like four coats of the stuff!)

Here's the finished product of the older girls' shirts (I secretly LOVE them and was really tempted to make one for myself, but thought that might be a bit too "crazy-craft-lady")

For the little guy, I made two onesies, but only because I put a hole in the first one trying to peel off the stencil (turns out if you use old-school puff paint and let it dry, the stencil won't come off. And then, if you try to peel if off using your brute-force, you just might end up ripping it.  Oh well, guess that's why plain white onesies are sold in packets of three!) But for the onesie that turned out, I used the old-school puff paint and then PEELED OFF THE STENCIL BEFORE IT DRIED! See, I do learn from my mistakes.)

And he loved it :)

And they loved them :)

The older girls loved theirs too, but I didn't get a picture of just them, so you'll have to stay tuned.

(but for reals, yo, don't I have some of the most adorable nephews you ever did see? Yeah, I think so, too)

The never ending hallway

Hi readers!

'Member me? The chick that writes this blog on a no-way-regular-or-planned-or-even-slighty-scheduled manner?

Yeah, that's me.

I figure you've either written me off or forgotten about me, so I reckon I'm writing this for a whole 'lotta no one.

Hi, no one.

Have you ever had a dream that you're walking down a hallway and you never come to the end of it?

I have. In my dreams, it kinda looks like this...

Oh wait, that's my for real hallway.

And it's not that long... but it is never ending, in a less-than-philosophical way.

And no, I haven't gotten started on my laundry room.  I got sidetracked by the hallway.

I start painting it... I painted all the grey and half of the white trim....

And then I ran out of painter's tape.  You know, the blue stuff that keeps the white paint on the trim and not all over the walls.

And then I ate a meal.... and then I slept... we all slept... for many moons

But then I found another project I wanted to do and I MADE myself finish the painting before I started anything else.

And now, the hallway is done!

(Please note: by "done" I mean that the painting is done and the blue tape is removed, but the wall register is not painted or replaced and the photos are not hung up.)

Now, on to our regularly scheduled laundry room redo...eventually

The next house project

Up next on the house re-do to-do list will be the laundry room.  

She ain't big, and she ain't beautiful (yet!), but I already love her.  In our old house, the laundry was in the corner of the basement.  It was nice because I could spread out, but it was a basement and there were occasionally spiders in our dirty clothes and that, for many reasons, creeps me out!

So here is my new hardest-working-room in the house.

It's pretty basic at this point - washer, dryer, baskets and dog feeding/drinking area.

I love the hooks on the wall.... don't love the color.  That will be going.  The pantry is just to the right (outside of the picture.)

But before I begin this project, what do you have in your laundry room that you love? 

What's in your laundry room that you hate?  

Mine needs a place for what I call "nasty" clothes... Hubs mechanic-ing clothes.... think gear oil, tranny fluid, etc. (I hate them... they stink and make my washing machine nasty)

Any wonderful suggestions that I simply MUST include?

Clue me in here, folks... let me learn from your mistakes and what you love!

mmmkkkkkkaaayyyy?  

Thanks! (and I will, of course, let you know how it goes)  

Going grey with grace

Once Hubs and I moved into our new place and some of the "new" wore off, we got to thinking about just where we were going to start to make this place our own.  

The day we looked at the house, the master bedroom looked like this. A lot of furniture, bed up against the wall and not much free space.  

And, while I thought that we should start the renovating with the main living spaces (such as the living room, dining room, kitchen), Hubs was pretty steadfast that we start in our bedroom.  And let me tell you, it's the best idea (other than marrying me) the man has ever had! 

So, over a lunch break one day, I picked the color for our bedroom.  While that is not something I highly recommend or typically do (I am much more of a "let me sleep on it" style decision maker), it worked out great! 

It's a really soft grey. The color is from True Value and is named Stunning Maiden. 

We painted the walls grey and the trim white.  I am a lover of white trim.  

Two things I want to point out:

We went to Best Buy and bought two new TVs (one for living room and one for bedroom)  The TVs we had were old and were big, heavy tube TVs.  (The poor kid at BB looked at us like we were ancient when we told him that.  Then he looked at us like we were really crazy when we played, rock, paper, scissors in the middle of the store to decide which ones to buy.... we're adults and we make decisions like children.  So what?)

But we knew we wanted to hang the bedroom TV and we wanted it to swivel up completely against the wall.  But what's so cool is the way Hubs ran the cords.... behind the wall!  I know that's like "duh" but as much as I HATE cords being exposed, I was really not thrilled about TWO cords hanging from the TV.  This is one more reason I LOVE HIM!

Number Two Thing I Wanted To Point Out:

I bought this picture at a fancy schmancy decorating store, which is usually only a place I go to look for ideas of things I can hack, but once I saw it, I had.to.have.it.  

And here's why: 

 It was the first thing I bought for our new house and I love it. 

  

I'm still looking for something for the big wall in our room and I still need to paint the doors.  However, lemme tell you, I LOVE that this room is "done." After stumbling over boxes and paint cans and tools and "stuff" all over the rest of the house while we were working on it, I love that we can come in here, shut the door and relax.  

I tell you what...that man of mine... he's a thinker... and a keeper!

I loved the grey color so much, I used it in other parts of the house, too, but you'll have to wait to see that in another post!