Beware....spray paint

I've discovered spray paint. I 've used it before, but I didn't quite master the method until recently. And I am on a rampage, I tell you! No photos yet...I am busy planning a birthday party. Right now, I've had to keep it to photo frames and other small items. However, I have a small night stand/phone stand in the wings waiting for some green, I think, and low and behold, I actually have this chair! Mine was not orangey-red with leopard print, but its that chair. It was my grandma's dining chair (not sure where the others went?), and its in my craft room now and it could use a cute-overhaul. So once the weather is nice and I can take my spray paint outside, I will find me a color I like and a scrap of fabric to reupholster and make myself a new chair!!!

Speaking of reupholstering, I ordered my fabric. Gulp. So there's no going back. And even with a 50% off sale (gotta love that), I was still in for a lovely $100ish. I better not mess up.

Git R Dun!

Paint. Thankfully, 7 year old paint still works once you shake it up! And much to my relief (huge sigh of relief) my walls were not sun faded, so the touch-ups I did don't stand out like a sore thumb. It looks so much nicer. Why didn't I do this sooner?

(here is my plug for Purdy brushes. they are the only brush to buy. don't mess with the cheap ones)

Today I tackle the arches. That will probably be all I have time for after yoga and a run and laundry (the story of my life).

Yesterday I took a field trip to Goodwill. Its not something I do often, because until very recently, there wasn't one that was convienent. Now there is a brand new one next to my brand new Target. Anyway, I also prefer St. Vincent de Paul - they seem to have much lower prices.

I wasn't terribly impressed with what they had, but of course, they don't have much control over that. What they do have control over is price. Sheesh - some things were quite overpriced. I did get a bunch of cute h'ween and v'tine decorations for $.49. Score. I got some 11x14 photo frames to paint. But they were $5 each. I thought that was kind of high. My happiest score was the christmas ornaments, for $.49/box of 15 (I got several). I can make a wreath next year!

Snowboarding Craze

I was shoveling and I heard, "Look mommy! I'm pretending I'm Shaun White! I am snowboarding!" (on his sled. in the yard.)

Projects!!

Sitting around the house for 3 weeks is a real treat [/sarcasm]. It made me realize that

a) I am sick of looking at the same stuff on the walls, day in and day out, for 6.5 years

b) My walls need serious touching up in places

c) The bathroom door and linen closet door are embarrassing - chipped, dirty. They need painting. Bad.

d) The arches were never painted. And they're nasty dirty. Why did I never notice that?

e) My dining room chairs could use a facelift

So I made a project list. I had Chris dig out the original paint so I can take it to HoDe to get all shook up. I brought home a mountain of fabrics from JoAnn in hopes of finding one we liked for the chairs. And I took stuff off the walls and started moving it around.

Here are some photos:

Chair before

With the fabric we've picked

And since I am a total copy cat, I stole Frills, Fluff, and Trucks artwork display idea and put that up

Then I reframed some embroidered Holly Hobby pictures that my great grandma made for me that hung in my (HH themed) bedroom when I was a little girl.

Since they were not a typical size, I would have had to custom frame them. No thanks. I worked w/ what I had

they were awful. Falling apart and frankly, ugly.

I sanded them while I wore a mask because I was pretty sure they were painted w/ lead paint.

Then I rubbed some wax on them in a few areas, painted them a vanilla color, and once they were dry, I sanded them to distress them. The wax really helped! After that, I took some tea ink and rubbed it over the frame and wiped it off w/ a damp cloth. When that was dry, I sprayed them with a clear coat that crackled, to give it an old look.

I cleaned up the glass, mounted them back in, and voila!

Normally I wouldn't put something like that in my daughter's room (I am not a cross stitch sampler or embroidery on pillows and blankets type of gal). But I always loved these as a child and thought it was neat that she could have something from her great-great-grandma.

And finally, I did this for our room. The rest of our walls will be done with some photos that I took once I blow them up and print them. I saw this on a blog and I wish I could credit the person, but I can't for the life of me recall which blog. I remember the blogger saying that she was inspired by something similar she saw at Restoration Hardware. The skeleton key is mine and its for my hope chest. The frame is a cheap IKEA frame that I spraypainted black. I used grosgrain ribbon to hang it.

Stay tuned....more projects to come this week. AND a baseball themed birthday party this weekend!!

A Special Valentines Day

How did you spend your valentines day? My valentine and I spent 8 hours sorting and putting together all of these sets of legos. Romantic, huh?

About a year ago, the kids had friends over and the younger ones dumped all of our carefully-sorted-in-separate-locked-bins lego sets into one big pile. Since then, no one wanted to play with them. Finally, enough was enough.

I sat down with Aidan and started by slowly grouping them. I finally sorted them into colored piles and we went from there. But the only way to figure out which set was which was to assemble everything. So we set to it. And some of these sets are nothing to shake a stick at.

Here are a few...

And what's left as of today... 5 castle sets

If anyone dumps them into a big mess again, they will be flogged. Regardless of whose child they are :)

No Kissing Allowed

Friday night at dinner, Elliott asked if he could always live with us, forever. I explained that there will come a time that he will not want to live with us anymore - he'll want to go live his own life as a grown up, especially if he has his own family. And besides, I wouldn't let us live with us forever. Its not healthy. He said, "ew! I don't ever want to get married!" Aidan said to him, "you'll have to kiss a girrrrrrlllllll!" And Elliott was all, "ew! ew! yuck! i don't want to ever kiss anyone! yuck!".

he he he. I will remind him of this in a few years.

Art by Norah, age 6

Some recent stuff that came home with Norah. This first one is her and daddy standing in front of our fireplace, with our current heart garland behind them. She even included the 2 brown orbs I have holding it in place! And she depicted the swirly PB candleholder that's on the wall above the FP, as well.

A funky, colorful owl. I think this is super cool.

Norah's Hospital Adventure

On Thursday after school, Norah said she had a tummy ache. I asked if she felt like she was going to puke, and she said no. About 30-60 sec. later, she said, "maybe I will puke." And so it began. And did not stop for 48 hours. Poor bean. She couldn't even lick an ice cube made of pedialyte without losing it. She had nothing left and was still wretching :(

On Saturday, when she walked toward me and staggered and started to fall, I knew it was time to take her in. So off to CHW we went.

It wasn't a pleasant experience for her to get an IV. The first attempt didn't take because she was so dehydrated. She screamed things like, "that huuuurts sooo bad!" and, "why are you doing that to me?" and, "please stop hurting me. why are you hurting me?" It was awful. Torture.

But as you can see, it worked wonders. This is her right after the IV cocktail was started...

and about 40 minutes into it...a totally different kid.

Am I Martha, or what?!?!

Kidding. I have been in the kitchen all day, though. Making the pops (prev. post) and a cake. No special occasion, except that I felt the need to try to make a yellow cake from scratch before I make one for Aidan's birthday in a few weeks. I'd hate to make one and have it be dry as sand. I am not much of a baker, because I am not a huge dessert person (salt. mnnn. i love salt). But now that I have kids, I have been baking more. But especially, I am not a cake person. Carrot and cheesecake aside (oh yum), I could never eat cake again and be perfectly content. So anyway....I tried this yellow cake recipe from Bakerella. It didn't let me down. It was quite good and not dry at all. But the best part of it? The frosting. Ohhhhh... heaven on cake. I iced the cake with this swiss buttercream from Smitten Kitchen. I forgot to put my butter out, so the consistency of the frosting wasn't as smooth as I'd have liked, but it was still yummy. If you are like me and don't care for those gritty, sweet frostings, then try this and you won't be disappointed.

To make the cake fun, I made another rainbow cake. This one was prettier than our first, though.

Ready to go in the oven!

Uh, yeah. I'd never present a cake that looked like this to anyone but my immediate family. Its so homely and I enjoy making cakes funky or pretty. However, by this time it was 8:15pm and I really did not care. So I slapped it on, dumped on some jimmies (sprinkles for the freaks who have no idea what I mean), and we were good to go!

The middle of the funky cake. I am getting low on my food coloring gels. So I used what I had: purple, green, blue, yellow, orange, and teal.

Valentines Goodies

Last year, the kids and I made these crayon hearts for their classmates as valentines. This year, I decided that I'd make marshmallow pops, put them in small cello bags, and attach a small valentine card to the ribbon. I didn't want to purchase cards, because lets face it --they are pretty lame. A friend directed me to some free printable ones and I decided on these cute ones from Secret Agent Josephine. I printed them in B&W and had the kids each color theirs. They are super cute!

The marshmallow pops, in vanilla (pink, which actually tastes like those Carnival cookies. Remember those?), and chocolate. Mnnnn.

Get Fun and Fancy! With Nancy!

Norah got her hands on Mama and Daddy and made them fancy.

applying lip gloss to daddy's nails

posing with mama

this is her "rock star" look, according to her :)

We are the champions....again!!

Go Aidan!!!

Last year (with Darth Taiter) he took 3rd in the pack, but this year, Aidan won 1st place for his den in the pinewood derby race.

The trophy and winning car (the car is a spin-off of the Milwaukee Brewers, obviously)

Floating Hearts

They're nothing fancy, but the kids love holiday decor. So I made 3 of these strings of hearts, featured on One Pretty Thing and hung them in a few places throughout the house. They would have had more of a cool effect if I had been able to hang them together, but I don't have a light fixture that allows a grouping.

Heart Garland

A fun craft that I did to add some Valentine decor to the house: garland for the (yet not finished) mantle. Since the photo was taken last week, I found a much better way to secure it (not my snowmen).

(i apologize for the photo quality)

A big thank you to Sarah at Frills, Fluff, and Trucks for the tutorial on the heart garland!

Breaking Boards

DSCN9848
Originally uploaded by flabonganator

In December, Aidan tested for his yellow belt and part of that involves having to break a board. Here's a video of him doing that. Stop the video once he's done. The camera keeps rolling and I forgot to edit before uploading (and apparently Chris forgot to turn it off?).