Christmas Wreath Turned Into Valentine's Day Wreath

So any of you Mommies out there have boys? I am having some difficulties with my oldest in public restrooms at potty time. He is at the age where he doesn't want to go in a women's restroom but I'm not all that comfortable sending him in the men's by himself just yet. When we are at church I'll let him go in the men's room while I wait but that is about it. He has to go with me when it's just me and both boys. At what age did you start letting your son use a public restroom in the men's room?

So off of my tangent... My latest little decoration was for Valentine's Day. I did a simple little trick to turn our Christmas wreath into a Valentine's Day Wreath! Below is our Christmas wreath. It was a straw wreath I painted white and wrapped with polka dotted red and white ribbon.

I picked up a foam heart and strung a piece of twine through it and looped it on the under side of the ribbon on top so it would hang in the center of the wreath.

Simple Enough!

Staircase Basket BEFORE and AFTER

How is your weekend going? It's been a good one here. The weather has been so nice. Our oldest had a basketball game yesterday and I must say it was so much fun to watch. His team played well as a team and it's great to watch young children learn and progress and work together for a goal! He made one of his foul shots too! The weather has warmed up so we were able to get outside some too. Yippie!

So here is a fun little Before and After. I found this beauty below in my mom and dad's garage last time I visited. They don't have a staircase and my mom had me go through her old baskets. It was cute but not my colors or taste. 

I spray painted the whole basket with a blue Rustoleum and instead of gluing or threading ribbon to add a little something to it, I wrapped the basket with a ribbon and tied it under the top "step" of the basket. It's not perfect but handmade and hand-done never is. That is why I love doing something by hand so much. It's much more personal. It's cute and it holds all the randoms we find downstairs that need to go upstairs. On that note have a wonderful rest of your weekend!

New Garage Door

Never thought I'd be so excited over a new garage door. It's funny how when something breaks and you go shopping for that one single item, you start noticing that item everywhere. Or at least I do. A couple years ago our garage door broke and I mean BROKE. It fell off the tracks and luckily we were in the living room, safe, and our cars were parked outside the garage. All we heard was a loud BOOM and we went running!

So the door had a big fat crack in the front and it had buckled and was bent out of shape in a few spots. We paid to have it reinforced and it lasted a while but has recently begun creaking and it was making us nervous. Well once we decided to look at garage doors, which I didn't have much interest in at first, I started thinking "decorative"! Not sure what clicked and light bulb turned on but I LOVE the craftsman style house. My mind just thinks decorating! If I could, I would transform ours into a craftsman but that would cost a fortune!

That being said, we found something we both liked that we thought would make a nice impression. As far as garage doors we wanted something solid with great insulation and steel backing. The room above the garage is barely useable because of poor insulation. We found this garage door - it fit all our needs and it's so pretty ON! It dresses the house up nicely. We had to change the rails and opener and the darn thing is super quiet and has a key pad and is helping our bonus room stay more comfortable temperature-wise. Those were the really important things and the decoration was the plus. We are so behind the times with a lot of the modern conveniences (smart phones) but are really excited about our brand new garage door we got today. Who would have ever thought?!?!?! What was the last upgrade you got really excited about????? I'd love to hear!

That LAUNDRY Time Of The Week Again

It's THAT time of the week again and it came waaaay too fast!!!! I'm kidding. I was lagging last week and didn't do the laundry until Thursday so I don't have a ton but I wanted to get back on track with my schedule and do it since it is Monday. It works really well for me to do it on Monday. That way at the end of the week I'm not bothered with the chore of laundry. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

Not to rub it in but I am getting ready to take a much needed nap and am begging my three year old to nap so I can go nap too. It is just about my favorite part of the day. HA HA!  Before I go though just thought I'd share how I separate laundry after I fold so I can take it all upstairs. Our laundry room is on the main floor. We each have a basket and there is a bag for the linen closet too. It helps so much. I go ahead and hang the "hangables"(think I made a new word) and lay them in the baskets too so I just have to take the laundry upstairs and put it away. I'll be working on reorganizing dresser drawers and will eventually share that too.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Our Tile Backsplash

Happy Weekend! Hope your weekend is a good one. A friend is shopping for back splashes right now and asked me to send pictures of ours. Here is our back splash. We used Ivory Travertine with glass tiles. We opted for simple. What kind of back splash do you have or do you have a back splash? Have a great rest of the weekend!

Organizing Baby & School Papers All In One!

I am so psyched! I found an awesome site with lots of organizing goodies! I have to give credit where credit is due - Destination Domestication - Check her out! I didn't come up with these on my own by any means but I LOVE the idea and knew it was something I needed to make to help my sanity. I have a first grader and with all the school papers and artwork, it gets to be a lot! I think this system is going to be great for organizing my childrens' things! Right now I have boxes and bags of things in the tops of their closets and this will certainly simplify!

I still have baby books but am way behind on them and this should help to get things better organized! Woot Woot! Just a little excited!

Since I am on a budget and pinching pennies like never before I went the cheapest route I could find! I was in BJ's warehouse doing my bulk grocery shopping when I came across a box of 50 standard green hanging file folders with labels and plastic label markers for $7.00. I bought those and then found the bins 2 for $13.00 at OfficeMax this week. I scooped them up too. 

After test driving two cars and while sitting waiting on my car to be serviced at the dealership yesterday, I cut out my labels. Because I don't like my handwriting I typed them in WORD and pre-printed 'em using the same labels as on Destination Domestication. I altered the last one to "WORK" because my kids will probably have some sort of jobs before they are 18.  

Today I spent time getting help with my Cricut because it has been dragging when cutting. Finally got it reset and cut the names out of vinyl. SWEETNESS!  

LOVING this project and it didn't cost much to make. Now it's time to start transferring papers over to this new system. Can't wait! Thank you Destination Domestication!

Organizing Paper Files

I don't know about you but I am up waaaaay too late on a Saturday night, and all because of a caffeinated sweet tea I ordered at dinner. I gave up sodas over eighteen months ago and every once in a while I'll splurge and have a tea. I'm kicking myself right now because I've got to be up in a few hours for church!

Anyhow, tonight has been pretty good. Our favorite college basketball team won their game and since then I've been quite productive. After the kiddos went to bed I attacked our filing cabinet. It is the one organizational thing that overwhelms me the most. I detest it. It has so many folders and so many papers and I  do not like dealing with mail and bills, yada, yada. Just like clean laundry, I don't like sorting mail and putting it away.

It's necessary though and I decided to tackle it so I can move on to more fun activities! There was a LARGE pile of papers to sort though and I made a couple labels for new file folders and finally filed the whole thing so there are no more papers floating around. RELIEF! Below is the proof of the leftovers. Now to shred and recycle (Remember: check to see if your recycling will take shredded paper and if not, check with your county recycling centers). Maybe if I file more often I won't get so overwhelmed. I'll keep trying!

Do you have a good solution for handling papers? I figure the more folders I have, the easier it is to file papers. There are more categories that help separate important items! Have a great Sunday! I plan on having some fun. Hope you get to too!

Fans Clockwise For Winter

How is your week going? It's hump day and the week has been pretty good so far, minus a leak in our ceiling but it is fixed now. : )

 

Here is a little tip for wintertime savings! I recently learned this from my mother-in-law. She swears it is a big power savings in her house so I'm willing to try.

 

Set your ceiling fans clockwise for winter to help bring the heat down from the ceiling. I have researched this and you should do it only if you have fairly normal height ceilings. If you have vaulted or high ceilings it doesn't help as much so it's best to keep it counter clockwise. Here are some good instructions I found to explain why!

 

Hope this helps YOU.

 

 

Spray Painted Squash

I must say it has been five days since I shared my new cleaning schedule. It is going well! I've revised it somewhat and will continue making adjustments to fit my schedule better, but so far after five days the house is actually staying clean. I do a little bit every day and the house is clean! I must admit it is an awesome feeling. I don't have that constant feeling of stress over the house being a disaster! I will also start fitting in other things like slowly pulling in craft days or project days too to make a routine of them so there is no guilt! 

So I wanted to share one of my Good Will purchases. I bought this ceramic squash and honestly it wasn't bad to begin with. I've been trying to add little splashes of color here and there in the house so I painted it a solid color. It's an ocean blue spray paint and I love it. It sits in a cubby on my desk and it contrasts nicely against the dark wood. I love how it turned out!

What have you spray painted lately? Anything. I'd love to hear!

Cleaning Schedule For The Week

Cleaning For The Week

Monday: laundry, mirrors, bathroom sinks, toilets, tubs, shower & empty trash cans

                                                                      

Tuesday: dust all furniture

 

Wednesday: baseboards

 

Thursday: vacuum & mop

 

Friday: do once over before weekend