Egg Wreath and Easter Decor

I do not own many easter/spring decorations so I was on the hunt for just a few trinkets to place around the house and a way to spruce up my living room. I decided to use an idea that I saw on Martha Stewarts website. She made these cute egg wreaths and I wanted to make one of my own just a little different.

This is the wreath that I started with. I bought it from Walmart for $3.50.

These are the three paint colors that I chose. I already had them so they were free. The names of the colors are Calypso Sky, Blue Sapphire and Fresh Foliage. I thought about using fake eggs but why when i already have some in my fridge. I used 6 eggs and just had to blow the yolks out. To do this I used a nut pick (haha) which is what you use to dig the meat from a nut. Anyway I gently poked a hole in the large end and then a small hole in the other end. When both holes were created I then gently blew into the smaller hole to blow the yolk out the opposite end. When it was empty I ran some water through it to rinse it out and left to dry. When they were dry I painted two coats of paint on each egg.

When they were dry I used a glue gun and attached them to the wreath. I hung it above my mantle that had a spring redo also. I love the way that it turned out and I hope you do too.

A little something for my dinning room

My dinning room is not finished and it is attached to my kitchen. It is fairly large and we added a buffet with cabinets for extra storage. I have not posted any pictures or anything with my dinning room because I am hoping to have it done soon. Last night however, I was attempting to finish painting the bead board that we hung and was just not feeling it. Instead I ended up trying to hide my tv trays that are wasting space but I am to cheap to get rid of. The only time they get used is when my neices and nephews come to visit, but they do get used all the same. I do not want to get rid of them and then down the road wish that I had them. Needless to say they are in no way attractive and have nothing to add to any space in my home. In an attempt to keep them and hide them I came up with this.

The tv tray rack is in the back and I unfolded one of them and sat it in front. I used a blue sheet and drapped it over the trays to cover them up. I had the mirror given to me by my mother and I painted the wine bottles with a metallic spray paint. On each of the bottles I wrote a cute little saying. "Eat, Drink and be Merry" and the other says "Bless all who gather here". The basket was the only item that was purchased and it came from Pier 1 on sale for $5. I am happy with the final outcome and it adds a little to the space.

Entry Way Update

As much as I would love an entry way that everyone drooled over when they walked in, I unfortunatly do not have that. When you enter my front door you walk right into our living room. I think that it looks pretty but something was missing. I have been looking online for a couple of weeks for ideas and everywhere I look I find photo walls. I knew that I would love to hang pictures as soon as you walk in but I did not want to have to take out a loan to buy a ton of frames to fill the space. Our wall is huge and we have high slanted ceilings. I knew that this would add some character to the space.

A couple of days ago i went to my local dollar tree and purchased 12 frames. They range in size from 4x7 to 8x10. They are black and silver and I just love the way that it turned out.

Can We Cook It...Yes We Can!!!

Let us begin our cooking adventures together. I am not very experienced with the whole cooking aspect and my fiance is very good at it. When we were both working he would most times fix dinner and I would help. Now that I am at home I am trying to take on this part of the evening also. I am not bad at it, I just need a lot of details in order to get it right. These are two of my favorite recipes from when I was a kid. They are both easy and taste great.

The first one is Mac 'N' Cheese. We can thank my Mom and Grandma for this one.

What you will need:
1 tbsp. butter of margarine
1 tbsp. flour
1 cup of milk
Shell Noodles
1 Box Kraft Velveeta Cheese

Bring Noodles to boil and cook until soft. In a seperate pan start to prepare your cheese. Melt butter in a pan. Add the flour until it begins to boil. Reduce heat to low and slowly add the milk. Continue stirring so that it does not burn. Cook and stir until it becomes thick. Slowly add cheese to taste. When you reach the desired cheesyness then you add your noodles.  Now, your family is ready for the worlds best mac 'n' cheese.

This next one is Tuna Noodle Casserole. We have my Dad to thank for this delight.

What you will need:
2-6oz. cans of Tuna
2-101/2 oz. cans of mushroom soup
3/4 Cups of Milk
12oz. of Wide Egg Noodles

To Cook:
Bring Noodles to a boil for about 5 min. Mix drained tuna, both cans of mushroom soup and milk together. When these are mixed add in the noodles and place into a casserole dish. Preheat your oven @350. Cook for 35-40 min and enjoy.

I hope that you try these and that your family enjoys them as much as I have.

Follow Please

Like I said before, I am new at this and please be patient with me. I would love to have anyone follow me. I am loving this new blog world and I hope that you will come join me in my inexpensive and beautiful home decorations.

Kitchen

This room is finally coming along. With a lot of work to begin with and a lot of work still to come, this room is very frustrating. I love where we are headed with it and I love all of our improvments but this room has taken a life time and is very slow moving.

From the pictures you can see how bad the kitchen was. There was no fridge and that is where the giant hole is next to these cupboards. The stove/oven is great and that is the only thing that we kept. The tile floor I loved but unfortunaly it was not grouted correctly and mold was growning underneath it. We ripped all of the cupboards, countertops, dishwasher, sink and tile out and pretty much started from scratch. Like I said it is a work in progress but it is finally coming along nicely.

I had to take a couple of close up pictures of my canisters and backsplash because they are the most recent additions. The canisters were given to me by my mom and they had frogs on them. A couple of coats of spray paint and some cute DIY name tags and they are as good as new.

Living Room and Entry Way

This I think is my favorite room so far. This room did not need any structural work but it was dark and ugly when we moved in. The entry way was a dark red and all the trim was black. The living room was a grey/brown and just made the space feel cold and small.

I hated all of the dark colors and even though it took about 30 coats of primer we finally were able to make it a room that I love welcoming my guests into.

Everything in this room was owned prior to our move except for the tv stand and the mantle shelf. Other than a few pictures and the paint this room was nearly free.

1/2 Bath and Laundry Room

This room for sure still needs work. It is one of the spaces that just keep getting pushed back. With the arrival of our new baby girl a lot of things have been put off with no regret though. I love spending time with her and so does Adam. Family has to come first and I know you all agree with that. As you saw in the before pictures of Abbies room, the laundry room was originally in that area. This was changed and flip-flopped into the opposite wall. This took a ton of work and all of the plumbing had to be redone. Thankfully, Adam is so handy and was able to do it all by himself.

Sorry about the repost of this pic.

As with all of the other rooms, this space needed a lot of love and care. This entire room had to be stripped down to the 2x4's. All of the drywall had water damage and had to be taken down.

Work is still needed as to no suprise. The laundry is just to the right of the sink. It is not a room, just a space but it works and I like it. I must have forgotten to take a picture and I will have to remember to add that at a later date.

Master Bathroom

Our master bath is our only full bath. This was the only down fall of our house. We work around it and like I said before an addition is hopefully in our VERY near future. Anyway, this room was completly '70s. The countertops, tub, shower surround and toilet were all blue. Oh yes, I said blue. The toilet leaked and it was just disgusting. It took some time but we revamped the whole space.

Now, I know that this is a small space for 6 people to have to share but we work with it and even though the room still needs to be painted and some other work we are on a budget and just work on it as we can.

This room has really come a long way and I am very happy with the progress. I just painted the existing  cabinets and installed a new countertop. I insisted on the double sinks and it would have never worked without them. The mirror was something that we already owned and so is the shelf behind the toilet.

Our Biggest Project To Date

When we moved in we knew we had a lot of work ahead of us. Our house was a forclosure and we got a great deal on it. I knew as soon as we viewed it that it was the one that I wanted and luckily Adam agreed. Our lower level however was not completly finished. We originally finished this room to be a family/kids room but now it has become Abbies room. As Abbie is getting older she definitely needs a little more privacy. It is working out well for now, but an addition is definitely in our future.

As you can see from the pictures we had a lot of work to do and with a toddler and a baby on the way I was not sure if and when it was ever going to be done. It took us some time but in the end it was all worth it. In the pictures above you can see that the laundry room/area was shared with this room. This had to change and also the new found fire place that was located behind their wood burning stove was a great find and change. It still needs some work but I am so happy with this new space that we were able to create for our soon to be teenager.

Abbie was so excited when she saw her new room. There are still some of the younger kids toys down there but that is what sharing and being a family is all about, right? It looks really cute and aside from trim around the window and newly built book shelf this room has become a huge success.