Blogiversary

Well, today is my one year blogiversary.  Yep, one year ago today I made my first post.  It was simple and didn't even include pictures - it was just a "here we go" kinda post.  My first "real" posts related to the lighting in the house.   I've not been a consistent blogger over the last year and would like to do better this year but there are certain things that tend to keep me busy at this time of year......

 

 

This is where I was tonight.  A double header JV game.  And it's also why at 11:50 p.m. I am trying to write a short post to at least acknowledge my first blogiversary.    Well, it's now after midnight and I have work tomorrow as well as another set of games (and Friday, and Saturday, and Monday!) so here's to another year of blogging!!

Pinterest Challenge #3

Well folks, it's that time again! 

Yep, direct from the minds of Katie Bower and Sherry Petersik comes another issue of the Pinterest Challenge!  This time they've teamed up with Erin from The Great Indoors and Cassie from Hi Sugarplum for the Winter Edition.   Hi ya'll!  Can't wait to show you what I've been working on!! 

 And here it is........

I know I'm a little early for the 4th of July holiday but I really wanted to make one of these when I found it on Pinterest here.  From reading Sky's blog at Capital B I certainly can see why this wreath has been pinned over 5,000 times!!!!  Sky gives a great tutorial that I followed with a few changes of my own.  So let's get started with the details, shall we?

After purchasing my materials I was able to finish this project in about 4 hours.  Here's the materials you'll need:

I was not able to find a wreath form so I went with the next best thing....foam pipe covers.  If the stores would have had pool noodles out yet I could have used those also.  Because I was now using the pipe covers I needed duck tape to connect the ends.  Since I was out at home, I bought a new roll.  

The pipe covers came in a package of four and using just one didn't make a form as big as I wanted so I cut one piece down and used it as my connector to create the size I wanted.  Now there is a little trick to making a round form using the pipe covers.  You need to do a little tucking.  I also found this helpful bit of information on Pinterest here and you can find her great tutorial here.  

Ignore the yellow.  These pipe covers had pre-glued sides and that kept them from sticking together.

At this step I decided to use the floral wire to add a hanger.  Using two wires for a little more support I wrapped the ends around the pipe form creating a hanger.

 

Next, let the cutting begin!  The original tutorial called for 2"x2" pieces of felt but it also said they didn't need to be exact.  After cutting a sheet of felt I found the nerd in me was not comfortable just eyeballing it so I devised an imperfectly exact way to get my squares. I began by folding the sheet of felt longways and cutting that in half.  Then I folded each of those halves in half and cut those.  This left me with four long strips.  To get the squares I then folded each strip end to end, then end to end again.  At this point I was able to cut on the folds to create four squares from each strip.  

Fold, cut, repeat until all the felt has been cut.  Which leaves these great piles of material!  Oooohhh, how pretty!

Here's where a different type of pinning starts.  Take one of the cut pieces of felt and fold with opposite corners touching and fold once again with opposite corners touching.  Because of the imperfectly exact cutting method I used these pieces will not be square so when folding corner to corner the edges will be uneven.  So don't panic.  

After the second fold insert a straight pin in the point area and position on the wreath form.  The first four get positioned point to point.  The rest will fill in around these. 

 

Here are the starting four "fluffed."

I used a Sharpie to mark each section so I could keep them even.  There was no exact science to this...I determined how big I wanted my blue area then using my hand marked the other sections.  I lucked out when everything came out nice and even. 

Fold, fold, pin, fluff, repeat.  Continue this around the wreath form alternating red and white.  When changing colors I started the new section using the same step as above (pinning four points end to end) and then filling in the rest of the area.  

Once all three colors are completely pinned and fluffed add the stars.  I just used Word to create a star shape, printed it on white cardstock, and cut out.  They are attached with hot glue to white floral wire that was wrapped around a Sharpie pen to create the curly-q.  The floral wire was inserted into the foam exactly like the straight pins.  

And since we all love a cost break down:

Felt - 16 sheets - $.20@ Walmart - $3.20

Foam Pipe Cover - $1 for pkg of 4 on clearance at Walmart - $.50 (used 2)

Duck Tape - $1.27 but only used a small portion

Floral Wire - $1/pkg (used 9 and still have some left)

Straight pins - $2.00 (still have quite a few pins left)

Cardstock - on hand

Total Costs:   $7.97

So, for less than $10 I have a great wreath!  And here it is all done and ready for July!

Now to link up over at the hostess' sites and see what everyone else has created.  Can't wait!!!  Happy Pinning!!!

Pssst:  You can check out my other Pinterest Challenge projects here, here, and here!

Featured at:
 

Linking up at:

Young House Love

Bower Power

The Great Indoors 

Hi Sugarplum 
I Heart Naptime's Sundae Scoop 

Nifty Thrifty Things' Nifty Thrifty Sunday

Serendipity and Spice's Manic Mondays 
So Very Creative's So Creative Party Time 
Your Talking Too Much's Meet Me Monday Party
DIY Home Sweet Home's More the Merrier Monday 

Tip Junkie's Tip Me Tuesday
Not Just a Housewife's Show Me What Ya Got
Tatertot's and Jello's Weekend Wrap Up Party
Simply Designing's Simply Link Party 
The Grant Life's Financial Friday Party

Evolution of a Room Series: Half Bath

It’s time for the second installment in the Room Evolution series!  You can see the first one here.

Today we’ll take a look at the half bath evolution.  Although this is probably the smallest room in the house it still deserves to get some attention and look nice. 

When I moved in the half bath was like the rest of the house – builder beige.  A single pedestal sink on one side and toilet on the other.  No towel or toilet paper holders.  Very basic.  Nothing special here. 

 I believe this was actually the first room that got painted in the house.  I say that because the cutting in looks horrible!   I can definitely say I’ve gotten better over the years.  I do not remember the paint color but it was from Valspar.  Meadow something seems to jump out at me.  

 

The best thing about this room is the lighting.  When we moved in it only contained a standard bathroom vent/light combo which wasn’t very bright.  There was no way to get electric to above the sink without a huge amount of drywall destruction/repair.  Then I found this light/fan combo at Lowe’s.  It is still the most expensive light fixture in the house at $80 but it’s exactly what this room needed.  The light is bright and the fan quiet.  And best of all – no drywall repair!

 

I understand why a pedestal sink was installed.  It’s a small room.  A pedestal sink can take up less space.  BUT IT HAS NO STORAGE!  The way this one slants on the sides it’s even hard to put a bottle of soap there.  The mirror is plain and needs to be replaced or updated.   

I do enjoy the tins that I picked up at TJ Maxx years ago.  I don’t however enjoy the nickel finished towel ring and toilet paper holder.  I bought those even before moving in and then discovered I wasn’t a nickel finish kind of girl.  I prefer oil rubbed bronze so much more. 

This half bath is used by my youngest son to get ready in the morning so it has to house all his paraphernalia like toothbrush and paste, contact solution, and face wash.  The above the toilet cabinet has been with me for years and years but still serves it function. 

Today the storage situation looks like this (please ignore how 'lived in' it looks - remember there is a teenage boy using this room daily):

I had to add a small shelf unit to store his contacts and such after they got dropped you know where one too many times!  It got slapped up in order to serve its purpose but now it’s time for it to go.

This half bath is ready for a new evolution and you can see why updating it made my 2012 To Do Resolutions List.  I’m looking at a new paint color (maybe even some stenciling), updating fixtures, more storage, and a better mirror among other things.  I would love to change out the sink but that will have to wait for another evolution.

UPDATE:  Ace Hardware was giving away quarts of their new line of paint last weekend and I was actually able to get two (thanks to a mix up in the mixing).  So I now have a paint color!  Can't wait to get it on the walls!

UPDATE #2:  The half bath has completed another evolution!  Check out how it looks now!

New Year's Resolutions - Better Late Than Never, Right?

As the new year arrived many people began making resolutions.  As of the date of this post most of those resolutions have gone to the wayside.  I didn’t want to be in the crowd that made resolutions only to have forgotten about them in a few weeks.  I wanted to actually create more of a “To Do” resolution.  After looking long and hard at my time availability as well as what projects I wanted to do around the house I {finally} made my 2012 To Do Resolutions List. 

1. Finish younger son’s desk
2. Update half bath with paint and storage
3. Create photo book for oldest son’s graduation
4. Update kitchen cabinets
5. Find parsons chairs for dining room
6. Organize paperwork/mail

These are things I'd like to get accomplished during the year.  So far I’m off to a good start.  I’ve already purchased the parson chairs and they’re waiting to be recovered.  I’ve got vacation scheduled so I have time to work on the desk, the half bath, and the kitchen cabinets.  I’m in process of the photo book.  I’ve organized the paperwork and mail. 

So far so good on my resolutions {other than being late posting about them}.  Anyone else made resolutions that are still sticking?  Or have they already been forgotten until next new years?

Through the Years

My oldest son is a senior in high school which means that graduation is only a few months away.  As much as I hate to lose my baby I know that he grown into a kind, caring, loving young man and will have a great future ahead of him.  *sniff*

As part of the day we will, of course, have a celebratory party after the graduation ceremonies.  I’ve been planning invitees, location, invitation wording, food, and gifts since last summer.  During the party I also plan to have a video playing on a continuous loop that contains pictures of him growing up.  I knew this would take a while to go through the pictures, both digital and printed.  And it has.  That’s been one reason the blog has been neglected so much.  I’ve been spending a lot of time on this project.  The only drawback?  I haven’t actually started this video project. 

Created in Wordle

Oh, the video will happen but it’s taking a back seat to *this* project.  You see, once I started reviewing the pictures I knew I wanted more than just a video.  I wanted to make him a book.  With everything going digital in today’s world the ability to sit down and flip through pages and pages of old photos is lost on a generation.  He may not appreciate the photo book now at age 18 but when he gets to be my age he’ll certainly be glad mom took the time to do it. 

After seeing John and Sherry at Young House Love’s yearbooks and purchasing Christmas cards myself, I knew I wanted to go with MyPublisher.  I’ve had a small photo book made through Snapfish and it was fine but I didn’t like being limited to their layouts which didn’t always work for the pictures I wanted to include.  My Publisher allows me more freedom to resize and adjust their preset layouts as well as add text boxes.  My Publisher is more expensive than Snapfish or some of the other services but they seem to frequently run specials.  

Work in progress screenshot from My Publisher

As mentioned I have a mix of media.  Some pictures are digital but some are only prints, especially ones when he was a baby.  In order to work on the book all the pictures need to be digital which means a ton of scanning to get the prints digital.  I could use the scanner on my home printer but with the hundreds of pictures I’m trying to get scanned it would take me until he graduates college.  But I found my local Sam’s Club has a Rapid Scanner attached to their Kodak machine. 

Sorry no action shots - it was moving too fast for me to do by myself!

Just let me tell you I am in LOVE!  I can scan over 200 pictures in less than 15 minutes which includes time for the CD to write.  The cost of the CDs is well worth the trade off in the time it would take to do this at home.  The Rapid Scanner holds up to 20 prints of various sizes at one time.  It will even straighten the print if it goes through the scanner crooked.  Again, I am in LOVE!  This has been the best thing in moving the book project along to where it is today. 

Stay with me and I’ll explain more about how I organized the digital pictures to make it easier to put into the My Publisher program.  

Note:  I was not compensated in anyway to mention the products, services or businesses listed above.  I simply want to share things I have found that work and that I like.

Spring Fever

Don't know about everyone else around the country but here in Kentucky we've had a very mild winter.  The daffodils started blooming very early this year as did everyone's spring fever.  With days in the 70's and bright sunshine it's hard not to believe spring is here although there is a chance for snow later this week.

Like everyone else I've been itching to bring out the spring clothes, do some spring cleaning, and plant some flowers.  Since it is Kentucky and the weather can change in the blink of an eye flowers will have to wait...real ones that is...the fake ones can go up now.  Yeah!

As I was heading to run errands today I noticed a sign that Big Lots was having 20% off your entire order.  Needless to say my car made a slight detour.  There was lots of people buying mattresses, grills, and patio furniture but I wasn't in need of any big ticket items.  However I found these bunches of spring flowers and twigs for $4 each before discount.  I got several in order to do a spring and summer arrangement for the front door.  

Using the Southern Living basket I picked up at Goodwill for $2 and spray painted ORB a while back I began inserting the flowers.  And since Easter will be the next major holiday I added a few Easter egg picks also picked up at Big Lots for $1.50 before discount.  

 

Total cost for this update:  $14.00

4 bunches of flowers/twigs $3.20 each
1 bunch of Easter egg picks $1.20 

I plan on building on this arrangement a little each year until I can get the full look I really want.  Doing a little each year won't break the bank either. I've also got ideas swirling around in my head for how to make the gold/brassy fretwork in the glass disappear.  Hmmm, maybe this spring?


Happy Spring everyone!  

Featured at:

Linking up at:
I Heart Naptime's Sundae Scoop 
Nifty Thrifty Things' Nifty Thrifty Sunday
Get Out of My Head Please's Show It Off Mondays
Serendipity and Spice's Manic Mondays 
So Very Creative's So Creative Party Time 
Your Talking Too Much's Meet Me Monday Party
DIY Home Sweet Home's More the Merrier Monday 
Bacon Time with Hungry Hungry Hypo's Anything Goes 
Not Just a Housewife's Show Me What Ya Got 
Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap Up Party 
Simply Designing's Simply Link Party 
The Grant Life's Financial Friday Party