My Obsession With Black

I love using black as an accent color.... pretty much anywhere in my house.  I used it in my daughter's room.

 

I used it on the front of my house.

And in my living room

In fact I think my kid's bathroom is the only room that DOESN'T have black!

I decided over the weekend that I wanted the inside of my front and back door to be black as well.

I forgot to take the "before" picture until after I started!  haha

Here's how they turned out.

I think I like it!

And while I had the brushes and drop sheet out, I put some chalkboard paint on the desk in our office which I've been wanting to do for a while.  I will be showing some more pictures of that room makeover soon.

My son had tell me that the plays weren't finished - LOL

I thought I was doing good to use the x's and o's. 

Spring (or Summer) Cleaning

As I mentioned in a previous post, my kiddos were gone for a week to visit my parents in Kansas.  In between hangin' out with my hubby and episodes of Weeds, I deep cleaned our house.  I purposely waited for the summer because I knew the kids would be gone and I could knock it out in a few days.  One of the new products I tried was

I LOVE this stuff!!  I have used the old Murphy's where you had to have a bucket of water and a rag.  This is sooo much easier and you don't have to wipe it off after you're done.  Just spray on the rag and wipe down the surface and you're good to go! 

I used it on my cabinets, trim work, doors, kitchen table.  It worked great!!

And best of all - no more buckets!

I feel so much better now that the house has been spruced up from top to bottom and I can focus on my planning for all the upcoming fun in the fall!!

Paint makes everything better!

My entire house was painted with the dull, off-white, FLAT painter's paint when we moved in.  I have painted every room in the house now except my own.  But there are still the little things to paint that get on my nerves.  One being the inside of my pantry.  Normally this would not seem like a big deal but this is what it looked like when we moved in!

Gross!!!! And this was AFTER I cleaned it!

Needless to say, I really wanted to paint it but it was one of those things that got pushed to the back burner to do when I had "more time". 

The other night I went searching through my containers of leftover paint to try to find a color that would work.  Lime green or blue were not on the top of my list!

I ended up finding the color I recently painted our office (pics of that to come later).  My husband is a huge 49er fan and I promised him that if we ever had four rooms, I would make one a 49er room.  As hard as it was not to take over and make everything pink and shabby chic, I kept my promise and painted the walls a color called Kenya.

I had plenty to use and bonus, the color actually works well with my kitchen.

Ahhhh, that's much better!!!

It never ceases to amaze me what you can do with a can of paint and 45 minutes!

Ideas I can use!!! (from Pinterest)

I recently gave in to peer pressure and checked out Pinterest.  I totally get the obsession, it's easy to get lost for hours, drowning in pictures and ideas that spark your imagination.  I purposely don't get on very often simply because I need to sleep at night!
The pictures I love most are of things I already have but haven't used in the way they are showing.  Take the hooks I have on my closet door.  I would hang my robe mainly but that was about it until I saw a picture that used it to showcase scarves.  Well who'd have thunk?  So off to my closet I went....

I had been keeping them in a basket but like this so much better!!  I can see them all at once and quickly pick the one I want.

Here's a closer view of how you just hang then on the loop or the hook.  Whatever works for you!

The second thing I saw was a plastic piece you could buy to help store cookie sheets, pizza pans, etc. 

A few years ago I bought an old rack that was used for holding records, remember those? 

Anyway, it works perfect for the same thing.

I think it cost me a quarter!

Everything slides right in and stays upright and easy to grab when you need it.

The best part is it fits right onto a shelf in my pantry. 

So keep your eyes open at Goodwill and garage sales!!

Always Tweaking!

When I decorate a room it is never really finished for me.  I can have the walls painted, furniture where I want it, things hanging where they should but somehow there are always little additions or tweaks I think I can do to make it better.  Just ask my husband - I call it creative expression, he calls it not being able to relax!  haha
That being said, I decorated my daughter's room for her last summer and posted it here then I got the idea for one of her walls a few months later and posted it here.  But there was something about the circles that wasn't enough.  I wanted something around them but wasn't sure what.  Then I was spring cleaning, well I guess summer cleaning (the kids are at their grandparents for the week) and I looked around her room and came up with something.

The toughest part was trying to get the petals to overlap without looking weird but I just started painting and went with it. 

Here's a closer shot.  I put the hot pink around the center to bring in the pink from the dresser. 

Because of where this wall is I couldn't get a picture with the whole room but I tried!

So I do have one question.  I painted the petals with two coats to try and leave it a natural, lighter shade of white.  Should I add another coat and make it solid white or leave it like it is??

What to do???

I bought this cutie shelf for my bathroom at Target.

One glaring problem.....I want to put this on the top

Obviously those twirly little feet will fall through the slots in the metal.  So what's a girl to do? 

I thought and thought and walked around my house and garage for some ideas and then I saw some old 8X10 frames!

No I didn't frame the shelf - I took out the glass and used it as a cover!

The shelf is above eye level so you can't see the separation in two pieces of glass.

And voila!!  I don't have to worry about loofahs falling out and hitting guests on the head!

I can only hope fixing my dishwasher will be this easy......

Organized Packin' for Camp!

This was my son's first year to go to church camp.  He is nine years old and has never stayed away from home for more than one night except to visit my parents, so I was interested to see how he would do.  I was also interested to see if he would remember to bring everything home or if half of his wardrobe would end up under his bunk.  To help with the latter, we packed his bag together and tried to come up with an easy system.
First we picked out an outfit for each day.  I sent mainly play clothes as I knew having him wear nicer clothes would be a mistake.  We also picked out a couple "mud" outfits.  Those that he would wear on the waterslide and when they played in the mud.  Then we separated each outfit into a gallon ziploc bag.

I then wrote the day of the week on it.  He took out the outfit for the day, which included socks and underwear, in the morning and at the end of the day put it back into the same bag dirty.  This kept all his dirty clothes in his suitcase instead of thrown on the floor.

We then packed all the baggies in his suitcase so he could see them. 

He also had a toiletry bag that held the essentials.  It's amazing how little boys need compared to girls!!  My daughter had at least three toiletry bags.  Of course her dad says she gets it from me but I digress...

We also put in some flip flops for the shower, a towel and his pjs. 

Everything was easy to see and get to and he was ready to go. 

He did really well at camp and had a blast!  He even came home with everything we packed.  However, he didn't open his toiletry bag all week!  That's right, didn't brush his teeth and apparently used his hand and body wash that was in the shower.  I guess you can organize and prepare all you want but at the end of the day, boys are still boys!!! :)




I linked this post to:
Organize and Decorate Everything

Last minute 4th of July centerpiece

This is a cute, simple way to get in the 4th of July spirit.

You'll need red, white and blue felt (the white I used was glittery!)

skewers, ribbon a cute bucket from Target dollar spot and some floral foam to stick the skewers in.  In order to cover the foam you can use paper shred in the color of your choice.

First, I made a pattern of three different size stars out of cardboard.  I cut the stars out of the felt and hot glued them together starting with the large red, the middle blue and finally the small white.  I then cut one more star (the biggest size) and hot glued the skewer to the front of it.  After that was secure I took the tri-colored star and glued it on top of the skewer. 

Once you are done making the amount of stars you want, tie red, white or blue ribbon to a few of the skewers.  Stick them into the floral foam, cover with shred and you are good to go!

Have a wonderful Independence Day!!