Warm And Fuzzy With Craigslist Success And Such

How are you? I'm sorry it has been a while. Things have been a little busy around here lately but I'm trying to catch up on some projects I've started.

There are really a lot of nice people in this world!!! I just had to say that. As many bad things that go on in the world and with all the sad things we hear about, it's uber encouraging when GOOD things happen.
 

Yesterday on my drive home from work I was greeted by a crew of neighbors at the front of the neighborhood who were collecting money to send to the families affected by the shooting in Colorado. They stood out in the heat handing out bottled water to people who donated.  They didn't have to do that but they wanted to and it struck me as such an awesome thing to do.

Then today I had a really good experience with Craigslist! I don't mean to sound like a goofball but I have had some not-so-great experiences with Craigslist and today I sold a train table and train set and met a really nice family. I tried to sell it at my Spring yard sale but not much luck. I'm excited to have the play room cleared somewhat but even cooler was to sell something that our kids had outgrown to another child who could use it, and meeting new people was a big plus. Warm and fuzzy thoughts and Craigslist was a boost.

 

An Uplifting Beachy Craft

How are you? I've been bummed so I made beachy craft to lift the spirits and give to a girlfriend who moved away. Things have been a bit sad with goodbyes. One of my closest friends just moved away and I miss her so much already. I know, I know. Change is inevitable and things will continue to change as friends come and go throughout your life but it still doesn't make it easy. Takes me back to childhood when my best friend moved to another country, sniff sniff. Oddly enough I am filled with a sense of relief after dreading saying goodbye to her for so long. I know it's not "Goodbye"  but more like "See You Later", it's just one of those things that time will heal. Anyhow this craft is one I made for my friend. She loves the beach and is decorating using beachy decor herself so I hoped she would like it. From her reaction I think she did.

I picked up a simple frame that had a whitewashed look at IKEA. It was about $3.00.

I slipped a piece of burlap in front of a sea green piece of decorative scrap book paper so you could see the bluish tint of color through the burlap. The matte framed it nicely. Then I cut some ribbon to fit the frame and glued it down.

Next I found a shell that had a hole and looped some light weight sheer ribbon to hang over the glass. The backing on the frame secured it. If our friends find a sand dollar or a special shell some day they can always change it out! It was a fun craft and helped me tell my friend, "See you later", not "Goodbye". : )

Easy Trick To Remove Crayon From Walls

So my child finally did it. Boo hiss.  I was seriously hoping that one day I could say my kids never took a crayon to a wall. Think again! Yes my little one has used a permanent marker on my parents' dog and a highlighter on my husband's face when he was sleeping but now he has attacked the walls. Darnit. I asked my friends what would remove it and got a couple of responses, one of which was surprising!

 WD-40! They should add "crayon removal" as a bullet point on the can!

A good friend of mine told me this trick . It works well and I already had a can.

Dampen a wash cloth and use moderate pressure. The faint marks on the left did come out.

The wall dried completely AFTER I tookd this picture and you would never guess it had crayon on it!

Label A Basket

WASSSSSUP? It's Monday night and I am pooped. How about you? I'm glad Monday is over and believe it or not I actually got some things accomplished tonight. Pat on the back! Lately I have been a S-L-U-G when I get home from work. I admit it. I think I have every right to become a slug once in a while though. Don't get me wrong, I have been busting it but at night I just wannna vedge (or however you spell it) some too!

Have I ever told you how many TOYS we have? We have too many to count. It's ridiculous. I go through them every so often and weed them out. Don't tell my kids though! ;- ) I am not so mean that I'm blatant about it. I do have to get a little sneaky and do it when they are sleeping or out of the house but I try and go through things they've either outgrown or ignore. Sometimes I put them in bags and just hide them in a closet to make sure they won't be missed. I even go as far as putting things in the attic for months at a time to pull them out and surprise them all over again with certain toys. The toys are stored in the play room and their bedrooms but we do have one basket in our living room too to corral some.
 

My oldest asked me the other day if I could label his toy bins like they do at school and I thought SURE  I could do this. I would LOVE to. I'm an organizational nut that way!

I started the label project with the basket in the living room.  I realize this isn't exactly what he meant by labeling his toys but it is a start and I thought it was cute for decoration too. It's Pottery Barnish! Or so I think!
 

I picked up some wooden letters at Michaels and painted them black. Can you guess what I spelled? Come on, see if you can guess!

I used the hot glue gun to attach the letters. My youngest has plucked the "E" off once already and I had to re-glue but I thought it turned out nice!

At least this way we can use the basket for something else later on when they outgrow toys. Or do you really ever outgrow toys?!?! Hope you have a great week!

Out With The Brass. In With The Brushed Nickel.

How are you? It has been so busy here. I'm sure you can relate! Between work and trying to keep up with things I have been running myself ragged. I'm excited with some recent progress on the house and am so glad to finally sit down to show you! I just finished up switching all of our interior doorknobs from brass to brushed nickel. I decided to do away with the brass b/c we've changed all our fixtures to silver instead of brass.  So grunt grunt like Tim the Tool man! I'm just a TAD excited! I LOVE door handles as opposed to knobs but they were not in the budget so some simple doorknobs it is!

Here is a sneak peak at one type of doorknob I used. This is the master bathroom. I picked out all the other doorknobs without any trouble but had to do some research to find these. They are dummy doorknobs, which means they screw into the door on each side of the door and do not turn at all. These are a simple ball type of doorknob and they go so much better with the overall decor style of the house.

What kind of doorknobs do you have in your house? Do you have a preference?

Fresh Flowers From Far Away

How are you? Hopefully good! This weekend was good. My parents came to visit and it was a really nice visit.

I have been working on a big outdoor project and will share the progress soon. I had to share with you how awesome my dad is though. You see these flowers??? Well they came quite a long distance in a bucket. I adore my parents and am very fortunate to have great parents. Anyhow my dad was so sweet to think of me. He plucked several gardenias off of their bushes and put them in a bucket to bring me. It was very special to me.

The flowers are so fragrant that they freshened up the patio very nicely. I put a few in water for a simple decoration.
 

It's a nice way to decorate!

A New Fence!

What have you been up to with the longer days? I love this time of year and getting to spend so much time outside.

Right now I am so excited- we just got a new fence for our back yard and it's like Christmas in May! We have been telling our kids we wouldn't get a new fence or a dog unless we won the lottery. So now that we have a new fence you know what they are thinking. They are already talking dog names. Ummm we love dogs but not anytime soon... 

The new fence has already made such a difference to the whole family. It has opened up the yard and extended our outdoor play time. Before we had a short picket fence that only enclosed part of our back yard. It was cute and I liked the look of it but we wanted more privacy and a feeling of security. It's a little hard to describe without showing loads of pictures but there is a retaining wall on one side of our lot that the picket fence met up to. A stray dog could jump in our yard before, and people could cut through our yard where it wasn't enclosed. There is a natural wooded area on the back side of the lot that was outside of the fence. 

BEFORE


Now we have a 6 foot tall wooden privacy fence for security and privacy. 
We opted for arched gates for a more decorative look. 

AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


We just realized that we can take some yard toys (mainly a battery operated children's jeep) in the back yard that we couldn't before. YAY for wider gates. Our property is fenced in all the way to the back now so it is a great feeling to know I can let the kiddos out to play in the back yard and not have to worry so much. I'm thrilled that we finally took the plunge and fenced in the whole back yard. Pretty cool!

So if you live in a house as opposed to an apartment, condo or townhouse, do you have a fence and what kind? What do you prefer?

Organize Outdoor Toys

Ahhh to sit and kick my feet up is nice. I have a problem if I haven't mentioned it before. I do not know how to relax. Does anyone else have this issue? I seriously cannot sit still. I have to force myself to slow down to veg out and relax. Ridiculous, huh? It takes pure exhaustion to cause me to lounge. 


Having said that I have been working non-stop after hours in the woods of our back yard. I've been working steadily for a couple of months to clear out the brush. I am starting to see progress. YAY! While I work to cut down trees, weed, rake leaves and such, the kids like to play in the fenced in area of our back yard. They have got so many outdoor toys but they stay entertained playing with each other.  


I was at Aldi a couple of weeks ago and found this Suncast deck box below. It was about $40.00 which I thought was a steal because I have seen it for much more. I couldn't pass it up. It was one of things on my "to look for list" but I had not begun to look for one. 


Anyhow it has been the best money I have spent since having Auto Bell clean my car! You should have seen me get this thing in my car. Ha, it wouldn't fit so I had to open the box and dissemble it to get it home.




The box is awesome! It's super simple and has no extra parts. The sides and lid all snap in place. It feels good to have some organization to the patio. Talk about bringing the indoors out! Is there anything you have bought this Spring that has made life a little easier?

Moving Furniture As A Cheap Compromise

So tell me, are there things that you and your significant other don't agree on in your house? My hubs is pretty good about handing over the decorating to me, but there are moments when he has an opinion that I would rather ignore. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and compromise though!

Here is the thing we haven't been agreeing on. LOL. It's really so silly too. Hubs mentioned it one day and I just figured he'd forget it so I kinda ignored it but then he said it again so it was obvious it was something that bothered him.

It's the position of our rectangular butcher block type kitchen table. We have a fake french doorway and the door that leads to our back yard is on the left side and he thinks you need to be able to open the door all the way to have a wide walkway to get out the back door. The problem is that we have a small light fixture in the kitchenette and if you move the table to open the pathway, the light won't be centered over the table. It's not a problem for him but it's a problem for OCD me! hah!

We originally had the table so it fit the room well lengthwise. I've racked my brain about how to solve this problem. Should we get a round table or a square table? What would fit the best? Hmm. Hubs even talked and moving the light fixture but I really don't want to move it and have to fix a hole in the ceiling. No SIRREE!

SO finally, I just turned the table in the room and it works. I should've taken a picture so you could see its position up against the bar but I'm excited. I'm telling you, it's the littlest things that make a big impact!


The room is still very functional and there is plenty of room to get around the table on all sides. Pretty sweet! Are you furniturer changer/switcheroo? I love moving furniture around but we rarely do. If we find a good room configuration, we normally keep it that way but this was fun and it made the hubs happy!

Clearing Woods and Enjoying It. Seriously.

Long time no see! How you been(and yes, I meant to say "you". : ) Since I have shared very few pictures of myself I thought I would start out with a recent one of me. It's my poison ivy/poison oak PREVENTION getup! I'm clearing out some woods in our back yard so I got my prescription sunglasses, safety goggles and mask thing going on. I do not want poison ivy, poison oak or any other kind of poisonous leaf rash. This is Mu-Wa with my ears pushed out a little from the goggles! No wonder my kids were laughing!

Hope you had a great Saturday! Mine started off with a neighborhood yard sale. After the last one I said NEVER AGAIN so I couldn't believe I was doing another one but this one turned out waaaay better! The rest of the day was great too!

Sooooooo... The back yard is something I started working on a few weeks ago after getting two high estimates from landscaping companies to clear the wooded area. It would be great to have it all cleared in one day but I'd rather save the money and do it ourselves. We have a fenced in area but want to make use of the extra land on the back side of the property. Eventually we hope to tear down the fence to have a bigger yard.

BEFORE I STARTED


AFTER Lots of raking and cutting trees and weed killer.


This picture doesn't quite capture all the work I have done but we can tell a huge difference already. I have taken 4 huge loads of trees and  several bags of leaves to the curb for pickup. Lots more to go but I'll keep you posted on this job. 

AFTER LOTS OF CUTTING, RAKING, BAGGING & PILING - see the pile of trees to the right just behind the fence. Oh it might be too hard to tell what it is...

Do you have any experience clearing out woods? I have been watching videos on the best ways to rake and bag leaves and you wouldn't believe how many I have found! Unreal! 

Until next time, I hope you are enjoying this Spring weather! I absolutely LOVE being outdoors after hibernating so long!