I Won An Award!!!

I Won An Award!!!!

 Thank you so much! I am very honored to receive this award from Brooke over at The Craft Cave. Her blog is so cute. You should check it out.

To accept this award the nominee (me) must:

Thank whomever gave it to them: Thanks Brooke!!!

Tell 7 Things about themselves.

1.) I am not married but happily engaged.

2.) I have had the same best friend since 5th grade.

3.) I have the best mom and dad in the whole world.

4.) I love to craft and try new things and each day I grow a little more confident.

5.) I love to swim and am a proud home owner with an inground swimming pool :)

6.) I LOVE Garage Sales. I have been going since I was about 14 with my mom. She always gets the best deals though.

7.) I have a horrible case of OCD. I can thank my mom for this also. My kids think I am crazy.

Pass the award on to 15 blogger's who you recently discovered and think they are fantastic.

Here is my list of 15 bloggers whom I have recently come across. I hope that you go and visit them.

1.) The Frosted Gardner

2.) The Graphics Fairy

3.) Mom Of Two Boys

4.) Two Story Cottage

5.) The Girl Creative

6.) Smart & Trendy Moms

7.) The Polka Dot Closet 

8.) Thrifty Decor Chick

9.) Trendy Treehouse

10.) A Soft Place to land

11.) All Thingz Related

12.) Home Sweet Home

13.) Beyond The Picket Fence

14.) Delightful Dwelling

15.) Our Happy Little Family

Thanks again Brooke. I hope you go and take a look at all of these blogs that I really enjoy. Oh and don't forget to let them know that they have won this wonderful award.

A Little Rearranging

Even though it was 90 and rainy here all day I decided to get some stuff done. I was cleaning like always (have I mentioned that I have OCD)? Anyway, I was cleaning and decided to move some stuff around. Our living room is pretty good sized. It is not big but the stairs come down in it so some of the bigger objects have to stay in the same place. Enough with the blabbing and on with the pictures.

Before

Notice all of the toys everywhere. Not any more.

After

The couch stayed in the same place but you can see the rocking chair has been moved next to it.

I love the rocking chair here. It freed up our huge front window which is what I have wanted all along.

This is just the cute arrangement that I placed next to the chair.(Sorry about the laptop case peeking out).

The TV also stayed in its place. I moved out birch logs and placed a photo album by the fire place.

This is the ottoman that goes with the chair in my room. I decided to move it to the living room for more seating and placed our other end table in my room.

This is right by our front door. Adam has had this trunk for quite a while. His ancestors brought it to America with everything they owned. I would love to find more cool old trunks.  I am really happy with the way it turned out. I fell like it opened everything up nicely. Like I said in the beginning, no more toys. I am slowly winning some of my house back.

Tin Can Organizer

I have to be honest and say that this was not an original idea. I saw this on someone elses blog. I thought that it was such a quick and easy idea. I wanted the organizer to sit on my desk in my dining room. I spray painted  the cans to match our buffet. I decided to use six of them. Once the paint had dried I brought them back inside and used my glue gun to glue them together. I ran a strip of glue down each side and they stuck pretty easy. When I was finished I cut a strip of leftover fabric to glue around the center outside. I also used a sheer ribbon to go over the top of the fabric for a layered look. Then I glued a flower to put on the center front to dress it up a little. Lastly I used three pieces of rope and braided them together to form a handle. I hope you enjoy the finished product.

This was such a quick and fun project and best of all it was free.

Bed Tray

For Fathers Day we decided to take a trip to South Haven which is a beautiful beach town located on Lake Michigan. We try to go as often as possible. We love Clementines which is a nice little restaurant that is on the main strip of road that is surrounded by so many cute little shops. We spent the day there shopping and eating and they also had Harbor Fest. going on down by the beach. It was the perfect day.

We found a cool antique store that we had not visited before. There were so many things that I wanted to buy. I could spend my life savings in there . I held back temptation and only walked away with one small treasure.

This is a tray for breakfast in bed.

I just love that it has a slot on the side to store a couple of my favorite magazines.

Perfect in every way. It also had a cup holder for when my lover makes homemade orange juice. I placed a small old bottle with a couple of flowers in it for decoration.

On top was the perfect space for my current read. The Lovely Bones. (I know I am a little behind) I have the movie coming on Netflix so I need to hurry and finish.

I only paid $10 for this. I think it is so cute and adds that extra bit of charm and character to my bedroom.

Brag, Brag, Brag

I saw a really cute idea on a blog about a month ago and finally decided to make one for my own home. It is a Brag Board. A Mama's Brag Board to be exact. I hung it right by my front door so that everyone can see all of the wonderful things that my children have created or the good grades the older two have received from school.

I just used an extra piece of wood that I had in the garage and painted it a tan/taupe color. It is left over paint from my kitchen. Then I used craft paint to decorate the board. I have four hooks that I tied some ribbon to and that is what I hang the art or school work from. I think that it is so cute and I love being able to display all of my kids achievements.

I Want To Pump You Up!!!

So this week we moved all of our gym equipment into our garage from our shed. It was one of those things where we wanted to be able to use it but just didn't have the room. When we moved into our house about a year and a half ago I was so excited to have a garage. I loved the thought of not having to scrape my windows in the morning to clear all of the snow that the lovely Michigan Weather provides all winter long. Our garage is a 1 1/2 car garage and I knew that I was going to park my car in there since it is so little and then it would leave space for other stuff. Our bikes, kids toys and Adams work bench. We also have storage for garage type things and my 40 million pairs of shoes.

Anyway, I decided to give up my space in the garage and move our gym equipment in there so that it could finally be used. I am so excited to start working out again. I was really good at it after I had Gabriel but since Grace has been born it has kind of been pushed to the side. Please ignore the few things that still need some work but hopefully this weekend it will be completed.

This is some of the work out equipment that we have. Please ignore all of my spray paint marks on the floor. That is the first thing to be finished next.

A little leg action.

How I would love to have amazing abs.

Say no to flabby thighs.

The bike so that I can be the next Lance Armstrong.

More legs

The bench next to this one I for some reason did not take a picture of. It is for bicep curls, bench pressing and other arm workouts.

This is just the remaining portion of the garage. All of our kids outdoor toys.

This is Adams work bench. It needs to be organized but that is one area that I do not clean!

I am so excited to be able to finally use all of this wonderful equipment that we own. I hope that everyone has a great weekend!

Coming Soon!

What a busy weekend we had. I realize that it is already Wednesday but we worked so hard around the house this weekend and came so close to getting so many projects completed. I entered the week with such a positive attitude and then it started to rain. First, we decided to turn our garage into a gym. That is 97% complete. Then we turned our back shed into a garden/ storage area. We built shelving and a counter. It is coming along well. We also prepared our very first garden. We are going to try it and hope for the best. Lastly, we bought all of our flowers to plant around the house. I am so excited to finish all of these wonderful projects and show you the pictures. Unfortunately, we are looking at another beautiful day of rain so hopefully tomorrow I will have something wonderful to share with you.

Welcome

I always have a wreath or some type of decor on my front door. I like it when people approach my house and feel welcomed as soon as they get to the front door. I have been seeing all kinds of cool and creative wreaths and monograms so I decided to combine the two. At my most recent garage sale adventure I found a wreath for $2. It was big and ready to go. When I got home I decided to spruce it up a little and added our S to the center of it. I think it is fabulous and I hope you do too.

Enjoy your Weekend!!!

Beautiful Nursery For A Beautiful Baby

I have posted the before and after of this bedroom when it was Abbie's and Graces. Now that it is just a nursery for Grace I would like to show you again.

This is actually the headboard to our twin bed that is not being used right now. I use it as a shelving unit for more space.

This is a dresser that was dark brown wood that I painted white to match the rest of the furniture. I painted the hardware pink and glued flower decals that I bought from the dollar store.

This is the top of the dresser.

These are the curtains that I made. They are made from fabric that I bought at Walmart. They add a little "edge" to her room with the skulls ;)

I love her name. It was my grandmothers name.

I painted her crib white also and it looks so good.

This is a light that I bought at IKEA and painted the stem and leaves to match.

These circles are also from the dollar Tree.

I painted these stencils at the corners of her closet.

This ABC print was given to me at my baby shower for Gabriel. I painted the frame to make it more girly.

This beauty was made for Grace by her Mema (my mother in law). The ribbons have cute barrettes hanging on them.

This little white table was also purchased at IKEA. It is a good play area for her.

I love, love, love the way this area turned out. I hope you enjoy!

And Then There Was Light

I have been seeing all of these beautiful lampshade/light makeovers all over blog land. I love all of the ideas that everyone has so I decided to try it for myself. Now, do not get me wrong. In no way are mine comparable to some of the others that I have seen. They are an improvement from their former selves and that is all I was going for.

Sorry that I do not have any before pictures. The shade with the blue flower is in my living room. All I did was hot glue some yarn onto the shade and then form a flower. The red one is a set of two and they are in my bedroom.I did the same thing with both of them minus the flower on the red ones. They add just enough character to make them look nice in each room.

Beadboard Cabinet Doors

So, not to long ago we refinished our kitchen. We redid almost all of it. New tile floor, cabinets, paint, bead board and chair rail, back splash, buffet for extra cabinet space, lighting, small center island, dinning room table, dishwasher, sink and countertops. The best part about it is that we did it all by ourselves. It took us quit sometime and there are still little things that need to be completed but everyday we get a little closer.

Anyway, I originally wanted to do white cabinets and make them a little distressed and old looking. I read and read about how to do this but was just to afraid to try. We finally decided to paint our new unfinished cabinets and antique white. I liked them a lot but soon began to question my decision. Like I said, I was happy with them but they were not exactly what I wanted.

I was looking through my IKEA kitchen catalog when I came across these pictures

I loved the look of the bead board on the cabinets. My cabinets were just stock cabinets that we bought at Menard's. They are nice and have a nice frame on the doors but the inside of the doors was just a cheap plywood. I don't think that they looked cheap and God knows that anything was better than what we had when we moved in:

These cabinets were not only old and ugly but they also had water damage and the bottoms were starting to cave in.

Just to recap, we installed the new cabinets and painted them to look like this

Like I said, I did like them but I just knew that it was not exactly what i wanted. Everywhere I looked I saw white cabinets and knew that it was only a matter of time before I would repaint them. I love the IKEA cabinets and thought that there was no reason that we couldn't do this ourselves. I told Adam about my idea and he agreed that it was great. He went to the store and bought a few packs of bead board. Two days, some white paint and sanding and $24 later this is what we had

I can not even begin to explain how happy and excited I am with how they turned out. They look so nice and I just love walking into my kitchen. They are perfect and exactly what we needed to finish the look that we were going for.