Early Stage of Gallery WALL

Above is the current and early stage of the Gallery Wall I'm going to do. As you can see I have nothing up on the walls yet. I'm a researcher and plan carefully when it comes to walls. I'm a skeerdy cat about hanging things. It took over year to finally hang the first thing on the wall when we bought this house. I guess you could say I am anal about it but I want to be sure I'm happy with what and where I hang something.

I am the world's worst when it comes to photos of my kids. The whole getting portraits made and framed to hang or use as decoration, I suck at. I have soooo many pictures from my oldest when he was born that are sitting in envelopes in a big bag. I have had this on my to do list for a long time so I am going to work on this one.

I found a wall I thought was really nicely laid out. It was casual and comfortable looking without being totally uniform and perfectly aligned. This is what I want to do. As of right now, all the pictures I want to hang on the wall upstairs are sitting on our coffee table behind the couch. They are in matching IKEA frames. I found this blog and LOVE the third picture down. This is what I want to try and do my own version of.

How do you display pictures in your home?

Upgrades To Your Abode?

Upgrades To Your Abode? 

If you had plenty of disposable income, what ONE change would you LOVE to make to your home? I know what mine would be! Mine would be to rip up this carpet on our staircase and install wood stairs. Then I'd like to change up the railing so the wood matches the hardwood flooring. 

 

We had pine flooring when we moved in and upgraded to a dark wood floor and the difference between the staircase railing  and the floor drives me bonkers. It's one of those things you notice, or I should say I notice every time i go up or down the stairs. Funny thing is - over the weekend I was trying to count the number of times I use the stairs and I lost count. So this is one of those things we will definitely change one day. For now, it's good to have carpet b/c we have a fairly new walker in the house and he's learning just how to use the stairs. So until the kiddos get a little better, we'll have a mismatched foyer. I really can't complain though because our house has come a looooong way in just the last 5 years. 

I'll eventually take on this challenge and try to come up with a reasonable way to update the stairs without spending a fortune! I would LOVE to do wood stairs with some sort of awesome,fresh runner up and down the middle of the stairs! Can't wait until the day I can share this project but I think it will be a big undertaking. For now my excuse not to attempt it is the kids! 

One of these days though, one of these days!  I would love to hear what you would change about YOUR house! 


For fun, simple reasonable DIY home decor ideas come visit www.keepitsimpleyay.blogspot.com

Covering A Pocket Calendar For Fun!

What is up? How are you in this new year? I sure hope good! Things are good on this end. This year I'm trying to keep up a lot of good habits I have started and so far it's going really well!

Do you use calendars? What kind do you use? I used to use a Franklin Covey Day Planner and swore by it. I still love those but now I have a big desk calendar at work that has slots for each family member and I use a little pocket calendar that I carry in my hands free crossbody purse in case anything comes up. No, we still do not own smart phones so I do use a pocket calendar. DORKY but it works for me.

As far as pocket calendars, I love the blocked off monthly format where you can see everything laid out for each day. I personally think the stores had slim pickings for the design of the calendars. I'm not a fan for cutesy,  scenery, or themed pictures but I wound up buying one and covering it so it was more sleek. Sleek. That is funny. Being a mom of two, nothing I own is sleek but hey, it's fun to imagine!

The BEFORE - not so bad but just not quite what I wanted.

I used this roll of zebra print contact shelf lining paper I picked up at Wal-Mart a few months back...

I think it turned out nicely. This pattern is a fun one! What an easy way to change something to put a smile on your face!

The Curtain Calls When It's Pouring Rain!

Looooooong time no see! How have you been? Hope you had a wonderful Christmas this year. I normally try and post Christmas crafts and decorations but this year things have been too hectic and I just ran out of time to fit it all in.

My cat(my furry baby) of 14 years recently became ill and I was afraid I was going to have to come to the decision of putting him down. Fortunately testing and change of diet has helped tremendously. He lost a pound and a half in a month and we learned he has kidney disease. He's doing much better and is eating again!

Then our toddler dislocated his arm for the third time and a week later got stitches just above his eye. I had the stitches removed only to find that one was accidentally left in and so I had to go back to have it taken out. The whole family has been sick and I have spent most of my Christmas vacation taking care of everybody trying to avoid getting sick myself. Today I woke up to the oldest having a sore throat (hopefully not Strep!) and the youngest woke up with pink eye. I woke up to a car that won't start. So my car was towed off and everyone in the family besides me has a doctor appt. this afternoon.

This is why I have disappeared. Not to mention I have kinda taken a hiatus to get my health and fitness in order and make it a part of my everyday routine. So far it's going well!

That being said I haven't had the time I'd like to make a lot of house improvements but here is one small change I made in the living room. Curtains!  I love my DIY curtains with the iron-on stripes but I wanted to add some color to brighten things up. The room has been feeling a little dingy lately. I found these burnt orange curtains at Target and love them. I don't normally change curtains seasonally but I really do like these and it adds another dimension and warmth to the room. What types of curtains do you normally use in your living room?

Shower Power Against MOLD!

Good Morning! Happy Thanksgiving a day late! I hope your day was wonderful. I've been off for a couple of days and I must say our house has never been cleaner than it is right now. Before our big feast yesterday I spent the day vacuuming and steam cleaning all the carpet upstairs and let me tell you why I LOVE the Internet! It had to do with the steam cleaner I bought a few years ago.

Geesh, leave it to me to start using the steam cleaner and then have it crap out and think I broke it. It just wouldn't suck. It SUCKED but not for the reason of actually sucking. The darn thing would spray the water and then BLOW air out instead of sucking the water up. Instead of being impatient like I tend to be in times of stress, I hopped online and Googled the steam cleaner to trouble shoot the problem.  Come to find out - I didn't have the lid hinged properly on the receiving water tank so it didn't have full suction and caused the air to go out instead or suck. YES! Thank goodness for the Internet. I was back on track quickly and got the whole upstairs carpet steam cleaned. It's the little things indeed.

Can't believe I'm up so early on a holiday but I am and it's so peaceful with the whole house in bed still.  I just got back from my 5:00 am workout at the gym and man did it feel good! If you've read along for any length of time, I'm trying to turn over a new leaf. It's been about three months since I've had a soda and since I started back at the gym! It feels so good and I'm just thankful to have found my way back to exercising regularly.

Okay, this might gross you out so if you have a sensitive stomach, go ahead and turn back now. We have a basic box shower and separate tub. I think they are fiberglass. The master bath is nothing special and one day we hope to redo it. Anyhow I try to be clean and sanitary and all but this is one place in our house I have been ashamed of for a loooooong time. It's called MOLD and it was in our shower. It was so bad we were talking about forking out money to replace our shower sooner than later. I hated it. Mold is unsafe and it was trying to take over our shower. I finally researched and fought back with the proper steps and won! It's so easy, I wish I had figured it out long time ago. Let me show you!

See how nasty. I'm sorry and now you can see how gross things get behind closed doors. GROSS, SICK and DISGUSTING! This wasn't even the mold at its worst. I jumped to clean and didn't take any real before pictures.

What you don't want to do is scrub because you'll just spread the mold. No one wants to spread mold.

Need:Mask
Paint brush,
Baking soda,
Bleach

Using a glass bowl or jar, mix a little bleach and baking soda to make a thick paste and paint on with a paint brush. Let it sit overnight and air out the room. Keep kids and animals away from room. The mix will eat away the mold. You may have to do this a couple of nights but it works fast! To maintain the clean shower, I use a spray bottle of hot water and bleach every once in a while. Another tip to keep mold out is leaving the shower door open after showers.

I can hardly believe how clean the shower is now. It feels like new and it feels more sanitary and now we can put off a bathroom redo longer. - I need to re-post an AFTER picture. I have lost some links to the blog and am currently working on it! - Oh and the hint of orange in the bottom corner is not mold. It's a little bit of rust but I am so happy to have removed the nasty mold. I'm working on a solution for the rust! It's always something but I hope this helps you! It sure helped me! Have a great weekend!

Off Your Rocker!

I try and correlate my project titles with things going on and I'll tell you why I feel like I'm a little off my rocker lately! I have been catching my two year old talking to something or someone I can't see. Guess it's an imaginary friend but it spooks me out. There is a lot of expression in his body language when he sees, points and talks to whatever it is he sees. Does anyone else have any experience with kids and imaginary friends? I'm ready for this stage to be past tense.

Onto this little rocking chair redo. I inherited one of my cousin's little rocking chairs, which is over 20 years old. I wish I had a good before picture but I got too excited over the redo that I didn't take pictures. When I got the rocker it was oak and it had an outdated blue and white country hearts pad that was tied to the chair.

I printed several H's in different fonts and chose my favorite. I traced it to contact paper.

I cut the letter H out to use as a stencil.

I painted the chair in an off white. After the paint dried overnight, I painted the H white using the stencil I cut out.

Here is is! The kids love it! So please tell me - When have you ever felt you were off your rocker?

Trying To Decide On Lamps

They say a  creative mind is a crazy one. Hmm. That includes indecisive, right? I've got THAT covered. I am so indecisive! My mind is always going on high gear and trying to change things until things are settled, which can be very annoying. I have this thing too where I come up with ideas for something, may it be a craft or piece of art or anything that you make with your hands, and I get stuck because I am simply fascinated by the mere fact that there are so many options and solutions to the final result.

So here it is folks. I got this lamp and told you I would show you a few posts ago. I got two of these lamps actually. I like them but sadly am already thinking about what I can do with them and how I can change them up. They're brand stinking new and I am already scheming on what color to paint them. This kind of thinking is why I rarely get projects done in any organized fashion. I spread myself thin and think of different ways to do EVERYTHING. I need to break out of that!

Honestly, does this lamp look Grandpa-ish? OR could it look beachy? I am considering giving it a nice cool coat of light blue to stand out more against the wall.  Whaddayathink?

Any opinion whatsoever?

Add Some Flair To Your Cabinets With A Stylish Paper Liner

I'm so excited about how neat my bathroom cabinets look that I want to leave the cabinet doors open all the time. Well, not really but I do want to open them and take a peak at the little bit of eye candy when I'm in there. I just feel pumped when I've done something I have been wanting to do for a while! 

I mean, I have had this on my house to do list for a loooooong time. Sad huh. I have been browsing the kitchen aisles for a while waiting for some cool pattern of contact paper. I've checked out, Wally World aka Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree and Tarjay. I almost broke down and got a roll at DT even though I wasn't settled on the pattern. It was more froo-froo and ornate but I waited and I think this was worth the wait!

The floor of the cabinet was GROSS. Gross and stained from I don't know what. They just get like that after cans of crap sit there and rust.I was considering covering the bottom of the cabinet with cheap vinyl flooring tiles but I'm so glad I didn't. So are you wondering where I found this? It was one of the places I visited several times. Yes, it was Wally World. Can you believe it?

It's Peel and Stick Laminate covering. It's pretty cool stuff and washable, which is MOST important. Putting it down was a challenge but I DID IT!

I could have measured it out with a tape measure but impatient me didn't. I just stuck the roll in there, make marks with a razor blade and used scissors and a x-acto knife to cut. It's pretty forgiving but you want to be sure to cut a little more than you need to compensate for any shrinking that might occur.

So I flipped the roll upside down to figure out how big to make it. There was an awesome measurement graph on the backside so that was HUGE! I used it to fudge my measurements. Then cut it down.

It looks to nice and easy but what you don't see in my presentation (ha, sounds so formal and formal is soooo not me) is the mis-measuring and then the numerous attempts and the wads of two different pieces of paper before I got it right. Once I got it right, it just made the whole experience worth it!

If you try this at home, have patience, do it slowly and don't let sticky touch another area of sticky or you're DONE! It's a little tricky.

If you read this I hope you got some enjoyment out of it and please excuse the dusty cabinets. I didn't realize just how dusty they were until I saw these pictures! Everyone, have a wonderful Friday and a great weekend!

Garbage Bag Ghost Covering A Bird Feeder

Today was an awesome day! Our little ones did a basketball clinic at our alma mater and got to slam dunk with the team players. Then they got to run through the smoke from the locker rooms and slap all the players hands on the court. What an awesome experience for little kids. It's all about seeing smiles on their faces!

This kitchen tall Hefty made their eyes light up once we got home. It's so simple, anyone can do it! I folded up a garbage bag and cut the whole top end off, to remove the red drawstring. Then I cut up one of the sides to split the bag. I covered the bird feeder and used about 4 pieces of duck tape on the back side to close up the bag. Once I had the bag up, I used a permanent marker to color in the eyes and mouth. My neighbors were probably wondering what I was doing on my step ladder!

On Halloween night, I'll drop a battery operated candle inside the bird feeder to light it up! The kids were so excited to see the ghost go up! Do you have any ghosts in your yard?

Bedside Medicine Tray

How has your week been? Hopefully GOOD! It definitely feels like Fall here and with the seasons changing our whole household has gotten the icky, snotty crud.

So the past three days I have have spent my time in bed or on the couch sleeping and catching up on movies and this little doodad below has come in handy for all my meds. Yes it just so happened to be a little Good Will DIY redo. :)

It started with this old wooden tray that had some sort of writing (maybe Chinese?) with pictures. It was pretty worn and had several stains but I liked the shape of it and I think it cost about $1.00.

I used a Krylon White Primer and let it dry.

Next I painted it Krylon Glossy Blue Ocean Breeze.

I think it turned out nicely and it sure has helped me easily take my meds up and down the stairs depending on where I decide to plant myself.

I'm sure I will find another good use for it too! Hope you have a wonderful weekend and stay well!

linked up at CraftyHappyScrappy