From Drab to FAB!!

My daughter goes to a fabulous preschool and every couple of weeks she has to wear her Chapel shirt at school...well last year it was purple...it was just a t-shirt, but at least it was purple. This year its beige......yes beige...she's 4 and she loves to sparkle...so a beige boring t-shirt just wasn't cutting it for her...or me, lets be honest. So I found this awesome tutorial from Recycled Lovelies on how to jazz up a drab shirt.


Ok so it was seriously so easy it took me not even 5mts. 

Here's the t-shirt before

Ok see?? No offense, but a little drab for my fashionista

So I turned it inside out, picked a side to do the cinching on, got a scrap of fabric and a long piece of a coordinating ribbon, then sewed 3 straight lines on either side of the ribbon and then in between where the ribbon folds. 

Here's the shirt on the front after I had sewn the lines before pulling the ribbon to cinch it. The lines really aren't too big of a factor, I happened to have beige thread in my machine but I was going to sew with whatever was in there because it was 9p and I was just too tired to be honest with you, I thought I had scored having the right color thread but after you cinch it it really doesn't matter.

And here it is....so tomorrow she will be rocking chapel in her new cinched chapel shirt and some coordinating leggings....well don't forget a cute hairstyle and shoes too! :)

I'm telling you, I'm doing this with my Old Navy ribbed tank tops this summer, it'll make a boring tank into a cute boutique inspired shirt. 

Seriously! SEW easy.................pun TOTALLY intended.

XO

I did this X O project last year for Valentines day to post, after I did it, I honestly wasn't really thrilled with it. Then I kept seeing more and more people doing crafts like this and was thinking "hey mine isn't so bad!". I dug it out of the holiday box and actually really like it, I didn't do too shabby of a job. I'm not good with Mod Podge, so I was grumbling the whole time. 

Step 1: I bought an X and O paper mache letters

Step 2: I painted the back and sides of each letter

Step 3: I printed all my pictures I wanted in black and white 2X2 size

I had to pick and choose which picture fit correctly on the letters, then out came the Mod Podge and off I went. It was a little time consuming I'll admit. But I don't really decorate for Valentines Day so this little "splash" of holiday decor looks nice on my shelf. I added the red sequin lines in to separate the awkward cutting lines between each picture.

Happy Valentines Day!!

Reminding myself about my Inner Awesomeness

Ok I'm on a roll.....2 posts in a month!!! I've had this jewelry box/collage frame hanging in my bathroom for a while now...empty and lonely. I wasn't excited about adding the pictures to the frame, even though I have some awesome pictures that I could see in there, I have a "slight" problem with getting bored with seeing the same pictures over and over again....and in a bathroom???? I just wasn't feeling it. 

Here's my jewelry box before hanging there lonely and boring on the bathroom wall---

Here's the inside with a few of my necklaces, the other thousand I have hanging on a curtain rod behind my bedroom door...which that is a great idea too that I got from Pinterest!

So I decided there were a few quotes that I love and I've listed them below:

• Liberate your inner awesome
• We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life we have waiting for us
• Go the extra mile, its never crowded
• Be so happy that when others look at you they become happy too
• I live in organized chaos and I'm good with it
• Peace
• All you need is love.....and a dog
• Remember this, that very little is needed to make a happy life
• Today I will be happier than a bird with a french fry

These quotes make me happy, so I thought "hey why not print them up in my bathroom colors, in cute font and put them in the collage frame so I can see this everyday and remind myself of these certain quotes that make me feel happy". AND my husband approved the design too! Woot woot!

So I just played around with Word and different fonts/colors, printed them up....and mind you it was a lot of work getting the sizing, luckily I'm not overly anal and this was a QUICK project, so I just eyeballed a lot on measurements. Also I added some shading to the edges to give it a little more depth:

Ok so here it is....I'm so happy with it!

Ok I'm hot on my New Years Eve Resolutions list of getting my projects done, so happy that this is complete and I can remind myself everyday to just BE AWESOME!!!

Round and round I go...

Yes its been a million years since I've posted, BUT my goal is to be more active on the blog. I can foresee most of the posts from me being about my total home makeover. I have big plans on a budget.

• Finish painting my ENTIRE house...yes I said ENTIRE phew!!!
• refinish my kitchen cabinets, laundry room cabinets, and 2nd bathroom cabinets phew!!!
• Paint 3 different wood art products...darn Pinterest they have my project list about 1000
• make pillows
• make curtains
• slipcover a chair
• refinish about 4 pieces of furniture
• make a duvet for my bedroom....ok maybe I'll buy that one, heck TJ Maxx is so stinkin' affordable

Those are what I consider low monetary projects, now onto my list of "saving money and begging husband" projects:

• sliding barn door into our "office" which I want to switch into a simple clean straight desk, flat screen and pull out sofa...so it becomes an office/kids room/guest room
• pull out my kitchen island and redesign it
• knock out the windows in my living room and have a sliding wall put in
• new outdoor furniture
• totally overhaul my backyard to make it more entertaining friendly

Ok after all is said and done, that is not ALL of my wish list but a big part of it. I am in the midst of painting the entire house now, as you can see thats only #1 on my "affordable" list so far, I've got a long way to go. My husband and I stopped by the Bicycle Graveyard out in Rye, AZ and bought these old rims (let me add my husband is a HUGE Mountain Biker so the biking theme was a subtle hobby decor)

Here they are....I love them!

These were bought in November, with Christmas and all they just sat until now, I've finally got one wall all painted so my husband went to town today and did a lot of my "honey do" projects...this being one of them. So he got some REALLY long screws and hung them on the wall for me. This may not be for everyone but for me...well I'm super happy with it. Once I move the furniture back and incorporate my decor colors....turquoise, tangerine, cream and brown I'm going to paint a few of them, but for now they are truly rustic.

The blue tape line next to it is for some wall art I want to do, ummmm thats down on my affordable list somewhere :)

See how rustic they really are???

Anyway it was easy to get hubby to do all the work today because if it has to do with a bike then he is in heaven....hmmmm I wonder how I can incorporate a bike into fixing the leaking toilet????

Well it feels good to be back and posting again, see you on #2 of my "Affordable" list!

5 Minute Ghost Handsoap

5 minutes...sometimes I feel like that's about all I have these days :)...but that is really all it took to make these cute guys.  

Just took a couple bottles of SoftSoap, scrap vinyl pieces, scissors and some ribbon.  You can of course break out the Silhouette or Cricut to make the ghost faces, but I opted to draw my own shapes and cut them with scissors.  

Then just stick your faces on, and I added some ribbon that I already had.  The kids really like them too...anything to make washing hands more fun :).

Happy Haunting!

Clay spiders

I've loved these clay spiders since I saw them in the October 2010 issue of Scrapbooks, Etc. Magazine.

I made the lollipop last year, but I'll be honest these little guys just stole my heart, so I had the little one leftover from last year and decided to make the momma to go with it. This is so easy to do and adds a little flair to your decor on a shelf. I aged them with glaze, otherwise as you will see below you can keep them a deeper black and the eyes bright white. 

This is my favorite baking clay to use....beware though...the little ones think this is candy!

So basically it comes in 4 bars, to make the big spider I used 2 for the body, but for the little guy I used 1, then the remaining 2 bars I cut into 6 pieces and rolled out for legs (yes I know spiders have 8 legs, but this is how it works best, 8 legs on this guy just is too crowded :) ).

So basically just 3 legs per side, I pressed the top in and then folded it down to make little feet. Then I put the spiders in a glass baking dish at 275 degrees for 15mts.

See the pix below how stark white the eyes are? I wanted the spider more aged......

The very tiniest dab of paint added to the medium helps give it an aged look. Wait until the spiders are completely dry from the oven before you paint.

Heres my lollipop with the spider attached. I think I might make more, I bought like 4 of these Bake Shop clay packs, it literally took me all of 20mts to do. This is very kid friendly as well! 

Enjoy!!

Love this time of year.......

I feel like I just might be getting my "Mojolicious-ness" back......