Project: Jewelry Wall...

If you are a dangly earring kind of gal...this may be your solution!

Giant sheet of corkboard

Clear pushpins

Some cute photos

Lots of dangly earrings!

I got the idea from this post HERE

I commented on her post, so she brought me her left over corkboard!

Awesome, right?

Project: Finding Beautiful (and Cheap) Lighting

Wait for sales!!! :0)

I have been looking for a new chandelier type hanging light to go in our dining room since we have moved in to our house last year. But I wasn't about to spend 200 dollars on a new light when the one that is already there is...fine...

We ran to Home Depot for some air filter replacements, and outside the store there was a HUGE clearance sale...on none other than LIGHTS! I was so excited! (Seriously, see if your Home Depot is having clearance sales on the weekend!) So we found this one. 100 dollars off. Lovely. I could have cried. Not once did I pause to wonder, why are they selling all their lights for this cheap...

Anywho, moving on...Here is our before light. See? Not bad...I just look at these type of lights as hallway/entryway-ish lights. And I have this complete disgust for yellow or dim lighting...could have been the 6 years we spent in our dim student apartments, I don't know. But I really like my kitchen area to be bright and cheery! It's where I spend a lot of time during my day... 

We started taking down the fixture, when we saw this! Look at that yellow! It was shocking to see it again. I'm so glad we painted before we moved in! (For those of you who don't know, the entire house, walls + ceilings were this color! Very dingy...very dim...very.not.me.)

So we had to paint that little yellow circle white. Thank goodness I save everything. ;0) 

When we started assembling the lamp, my hubby told me he knows nothing of electricity..and I said, "GREAT! You'll learn something new today!" And I pushed him to google it. (He is an engineer...just not the electrical one.) He did! And he did an awesome job. I love it. Beautiful bright, white lights. *sigh*

On a side note: the reason why the light fixture was so cheap. Did you know the President is discontinuing normal lightbulbs?! (I say normal, because they are the inexpensive ones I used to buy all the time.) Yup. Come January, no more normal lightbulbs. And all the light fixtures that use 'normal lightbulbs' are on sale at Home Depot. And I just bought one of those light fixtures for my dining room...hahaha. Go Figure! We just stocked up on the 2 year long lasting bulbs...We have enough for 6 years, and I think we'll have moved by then. I love our government. Didn't even know they could change how we do lightbulbs! Awesome.

That being said...Have a wonderful day!

Project: White Stitched Jeans

When you first see this project you may just think I'm crazy.  Just remember I have 4 kids - I kept finding myself just sitting there....feeling completely unproductive.  Soccer practice and swim lessons alone is over 4 hours a week!  Not to mention the time we were spending on the road visiting family and moving.  I decided I needed something to do while I was 'just sitting there'........and I had this pair of jeans.......  :0)

So you all have seen the True Religion Jeans

Or really, any store white stitched jeans

Well, I don't have the $$ to buy said jeans and I had a comfy pair of plain jane jeans my sister gave me that was about 1.5 inches too short.  I cut them to capri length and hemmed them....and they just never look quite right - I'm gonna figure it out one of these days!!  

 I've cut off about a zillion pair of my girls jeans - you know, when they wear holes in the knees - and I usually add some ribbon or fun stitching, but I didn't quite feel like that would work for me.  So I decided to white stitch them!  Yup!  The whole shebang.  I took white crochet thread and double threaded it (so I was sewing with 2 strands instead of 1) to make it a bit thicker.  You could just do one thickness as well, its all in how you want it to turn out.

 And I started back stitching.  (there are lots and lots of youtube tutorials on how to back stitch) Originally I was measuring 1/4 inch stitches, then after I had finished the hem I decided I wanted the stitches a little bigger.  So on the rest of the stitching I just sewed one of my stitches for every 3 stitches in the jean.  It was MUCH easier than measuring it all out.  And I just covered all the exposed stitching with white.  You can toss it up by doing over some of them with the regular jean tan-ish color or a medium blue.  I've seen that done too.  Whatever you want really.  Pick a pair of jeans you love and copy it!  It did take a while.  But it was better than 'just sitting there!'

*And you might want to make sure you have a thimble.  Hand-stitching through multiple layers of jean isn't very friendly sometimes.

 Time for the pockets!  I drew up a pattern and mirrored it, cut it out,

 and pinned it where I wanted it on the pocket.  Then I just stitched over it!

 When I was done, I pulled the paper out and added some bling.

 I have this great tool that I picked up at Wal-Mart somewhere along the way.  I got tired of wishing I had the money to buy my girls the $20 jeans instead of the $8 that were on sale for $4 jeans.  They were just so much cuter!  So I started making my own....of course.  You just get these little jewels with glue on the back and this tool heats them on. Awesomeness, I'm tellin' ya!

 This was before I finished the top of the jeans and all the belt loops.

So there you go!  If you need something to fill in the spaces of times you are just sitting, grab a pair of boring jeans and make them fun!  I love my new capris!  So much better than this.....

And so much more cost effective than this

And not a single soul knows I did it myself - after all!  Who is crazy enough to do that?!

And now I am off to move half-way across the country.  The hubs is going to dental school!!!  YAY!!!  I will have a whole new house, with bunches of new fun projects, AND.....the kids will be in school.  As much as I love them and have thoroughly enjoyed our summer together, I'm ready for a few quiet afternoons :0)  See you in a few weeks!

Project: China Hutch Redo!

This was a huge project for me...and it was hard!

Soooo many times I wanted to give up, get another part-time job and buy a new one!

You may be thinking..."all she did was paint it..."

Uhg...I wish!

I painted, but when I went to distress it, just like I did with the yellow bar stools, I was sad to see that my paint came right off! I FORGOT you HAVE sand the hutch down first...

I thought, "Ah, I won't have to sand this down..."

I will always sand from now on. BIG MISTAKE!

As the paint was coming off in HUGE chunks and the tears rapidly ran down my face, I realized that I just added about 10 more hours to this job!

So...I began by stripping the buffet with extra strength stripper from Ace, but I found out something very quickly about my sweet little buffet-The doors have PLASTIC molding! Yikes! The stripper started eating it up...and the tears came again!

I put the hutch and buffet back into my kitchen and couldn't look at it for WEEKS! I had no idea what to do with it!

The buffet looked like someone came at it with a weed wacker! I am not kidding!

I just had to Cowgirl up! (I am by no means a cowgirl, it just felt like the right thing to say) I got out the sand paper and went at those doors like I had nothing to lose...mostly because I didn't. I washed it down, painted it with another coat of Tropicana Cabana (Benjamin Moore) and then antiqued it by sanding it down.

Disaster turned livable :)

For what I really wanted to do, check out this site: HERE

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Project: How to add a signature to your blog posts

I LOVE LOVE LOVE seeing signatures at the end of blogger's posts. Just adds that little bit of personality! Super cute! So I found this site so helpful! The first few steps, she used photoshop which I think is free. But I use Picnik.com for all my photoshop needs! Because I'm used to it...super easy site!
Step 1: Google fabric images. Choose a fabric you like, right click and save in your pictures file.
Step 2: Upload the picture of the fabric onto Picnik. And decorate! There are many fonts, colors, stickers and embellisments to choose from!
Step 3: Upload that saved picture to Photobucket. You need this step to get a HTML code!
*The rest of these steps are straight from 'The Cutest Blog on the Block' Secrets.
Step 4: Go to your blog's Layout. Click on Setting and then Formatting.
Step 5: Scroll down to the bottom where you will see a Post Template box. Paste the HTML code from your signature in that box.
Step 6: Save your settings.
*She then instructs you on how to remove the box around your signature. See her site for those instructions. Easy peasy! Good luck!

Project: Closet to Nursery Transformation

In my house, I have two kids with one on the way. I have a 3 bedroom house, in which every room is occupied. Where the heck are we going to put this new baby? :0) In the Master Closet of course! haha Now that might sound weird, but you should see the size of this closet...it's not even a closet, it's a room! A 12 x 9 foot room with 9 ft. ceilings. Craziness how someone would actually think they needed that much space for clothes and shoes...but I really love the space, and I felt it had a ton of potential. That being said...the baby is going to live in the closet/nursery.  

I found on the Pottery Barn website you can plan your room transformations for free! (I love that word: FREE.) I slapped that on here for ya so you get an idea of the space, and the pictures will make sense...

Here is a view of my side of the closet from the doorway. I already cleaned it out...just imagine this being really cluttered. And see that space above the top shelf?! That space is just screaming: Utilize me! 

Another view from the window. 

Pulled out all of the shelves and puttied them up. Once that dried I sanded the bumps down as best I could. 

Since I want this to be a comfortable living space for Baby #3, I chose a nice soft paint color for my accent wall. (This wall is where the crib will go.) 

Next step: Building the 8 foot cubby hole shelf! Ana White is an amazing teacher! She has taught me everything I know about woodwork. For this project I used 3-2x12 boards, 2" screws, wood glue, a circular saw, a drill, a pocket hole drill, paint, and a sander. It ended up costing me 24 buckaroos. Not bad! 

Brett got home and helped me carry it inside.

Then I put him to work. He was my studfinder-hehehe-and was able to hang my new clothes rods with ease. 

All done! The room looks even bigger and very calming. It will be a nice retreat for the new bubs. :0)

*We haven't started on my hubby's side of the closet yet, will post about it shortly!*