Ta-da! Look What I Found!

It's already Wednesday! I'm always stating the OBVIOUS! What have you been up to? Working on any home renovations or crafty delights? Excuse my nerdiness. I am psyched because I have been to the gym three times since Saturday and  feel sore but so GOOD. I'm doing a free 7 day trial but I'm ready to join. I used to go to the gym 4-6 times a week and just haven't found a way to fit it in since having kids. I can't seem to find the motivation on my own to work out so this has got to be a lifestyle change. Anyhow enough personal stuff but I'm excited! 

Does anybody else enjoy making TO DO lists? I get so much satisfaction of making a list and marking items off the list! My dad got me hooked on a Franklin Covey day planner when I was high school and I swear by it!

As much as I'm on a computer between work and home, I found a very simple website that is a quick and easy TO DO list generator. http://123.tadalist.com/  is a great tool and you can log in from any computer. After signing up you create a user name and password and can start making to your own TO DO lists right away! Once you complete a task you simply click the bullet and it gets marked out. You can make several TO DO lists too so you're not limited to one or two.

I made a general TO DO list BELOW for your viewing pleasure! ha ha! I don't know if anyone else enjoys making lists but I couldn't live without them. 

Now, I don't have one of those new-fangled computer phones but I believe this is also an application you can download to an iPhone. I love it!

Make A One Of A Kind T-Shirt

How is everyone doing? I hope good! Okey-dokey after a long and busy weekend I'm finally able to sit down to post. I'm working on some new home decor and organizational things but after two FAIL projects this week, I took some time out today to put a smile on a little guy's face. 

To catch you up on the electronic part of the blog, I've been busy even though you haven't seen a post in over a week. ;) I've been doing some behind the scenes things like DECLUTTERING! Similar to so many things in my life, I junked up my site and HAD to spend some time cleaning up the mess. It's a learning curve and I'm trying NOT to do too many things at the same time! It's hard though!

For one thing, I have been trying to add a signature to my posts and haven't figured it out yet. GRR! I tried about 5 times via www.mylivesignature.com and it keeps coming out pixilated. I give up for the time being. I'll figure it out eventually.

So are you ready to see exactly how I put a smile on my kiddo's face??? Well I took him to see the movie smurfs for one thing but I surprised him this morning with the shirt he is wearing! It's a one and only Tow Mater t-shirt. No one else has one exactly like it so he thought it was pretty special. You wanna know how I made that happen??? Tee Hee! The secret is... drum roll please... IRON-ONS!

Iron-Ons are AWESOME! They are such a fun way to make a one of a kind t-shirt! Super cheap and very easy! 

What you need:

• a high res picture that you print to a printer - it's okay to do this as long as you aren't selling them for profit. as long as you do this for personal use, you're okay.
• cotton t-shirt (light colored works best! and you can get them for cheap at craft stores... A.C. Moore currently has them on sale four for $10.00.
• iron emptied of any water
• cardboard
• iron-on transfer paper to run through your printer

So here was the process and, by the way, I have taught myself some new things electronically to include more detail. I hope it helps!

This is the picture I saw first, which made me want to do a t-shirt for my son. I couldn't decide how to crop it so I continued looking for a MATER picture, and the instructions follow!

I simply googled tow mater. In doing so I clicked Images and Large both circled in red below. 

Several images of Mater came up, as you can see, and I chose the one below. I clicked on the image and saved it to my desktop. I named the file something I would recognize and I flipped the image. VERY IMPORTANT! Note: if there is ANY text in your image, you need to flip the image before printing so that it reads correctly when it prints.

Next I set up the image to print. See below for the settings I chose. I chose Full page so it was a good size on the t-shirt. I didn't want a small block of an image and I thought I might cut Mater out somewhat but had not decided yet.

Below is the package of transfer paper I used. Notice the bottom reads "Oops proof" with some of the letters backwards, as to remind us that we need to reverse the text as I noted above. They do have a return policy with Hanes t-shirts if you purchase them from a craft store and make a mistake, which is good to know! 

My photo is printed BELOW. 

I put the paper image on the t-shirt and played around with the placement.

I cropped the image with scissors, cutting out the top portion of the picture so that Mater's head was at the very top of the image.

Once I decided where I wanted to put Mr. Tow Mater, I ironed the t-shirt.

Be sure to empty ALL water from iron and set it on DRY to do the Iron-on.

Follow the directions on the transfer paper packaging. I put a good sized piece of cardboard inside the t-shirt so the image doesn't adhere to the back side of the shirt too.

I laid the image on the t-shirt, image side down, where I wanted it, and went to town ironing. 

I ironed with good pressure back and forth, up and down, all over the image for 180 seconds. 

After I was finished ironing, I let it cool before peeling the paper away.

The peeling part was fun! Just be sure to do it carefully.

I cautiously used both hands but had to use one hand to take the pictures! :) 

I see a Mater! WOOHOOO!

Yep, GIT-R-DONE!

We now have a Mater and one excited boy! 

I washed the shirt before he wore it anywhere and it looks superb!

Magnetic Chalkboard Pantry Door

I'm sorry I have been MIA for the past little bit. I have been under the weather for the past week and come to find out it's allergies. I've had two doctor appointments to hear the same thing. Who would have thunk it?!?!? I never would have suspected! I thought maybe laryngitis, strep or bronchitis. Just goes to show, you can never really self-diagnose!  Anyhow hopefully in the time I've been away from the computer, you have had some fun even with the higher than average temperatures we've been having. 

I'm excited to share my latest lil project! I took advantage of the inside of the pantry door to make use out of it by converting it into a magnetic chalk board! It works! 

You'll need:

Painters tape

Magnetic wall paint - I used Rust-oleum Magnetic Primer in a can from Lowe's.

Chalkboard paint - I used a small plastic jar of it bought at AC Moore. 

Paint brush or sponge and stir stick

Tape up the door panels.

Use caution when painting the magnetic primer. It has more of a paint thinner consistency so it's liable to drip.  Keep a damp paper towel nearby and put something like newspaper on the floor to catch drips. You could also be smarter than me and cover up the whole door except for the panels you intend to paint. Oh and use a face mask and make sure the kiddies are away because it's a little stinky during application.

The chalkboard paint comes in black or green and I chose black because I did my pantry labels in black. The magnetic paint only holds light weight sheets of magnets. It won't hold heavy duty ceramic types of magnets so keep that in mind. Both the magnetic and chalkboard paints are non-toxic too so they're safe for kids.

The primer went on gray. I did two coats of the magnetic primer and let it cure for 24 hours.

Then I painted on two coats of the chalkboard paint.

I let it dry for 24 hours.

Now the whole family can use the door for "to do" lists, recipes, ingredients you need to buy, magnets as long as they're light weight...

It's a fun, simple idea for any closet, cabinet or pantry door! The whole family will enjoy it!


I’m linking up to the Something to Talk About Link Party today. Go on over and see all the fabulous diy, crafts, furniture makeovers and more.

Hmmmmm! Indecisiveness and Randomness

Hello! How are you? Hope everyone had a great weekend! We had family in town so I was busy entertaining. It was a good time though.

Okay so first off I'm a little paranoid about writing now. At work last week we had a lesson on sharpening writing skills as a practice run for someone who is giving a presentation to a sales team to help with their writing skills. It took me back to about the 5th grade but it was very helpful. It was a great refresher and reminded me of all the things I do wrong writing. Now I want to put the lesson to use and write better and be more to the point. I find myself being too wordy when I get excited so just ignore me if I do that!

I am super excited to share a next project with you that I'm working on tonight while cleaning the downstairs. It's an easy project that the whole family will enjoy! I'll share it in my next post because I am still not quite finished. Can't wait!

In the meantime I am trying to decide what to do with some of this fabric. 

I have some ideas of new projects and I am playing with the fabric, moving it around the house trying to decide what to do with it. Part of my problem with any project is making decisions. Are you good at making decisions and following through? I will postpone something just so that I have no regrets. I want to make sure I am ready to proceed with a project therefore I question myself over patterns and designs for a while until I am ready to move on with it. I have several ideas for some of these fabrics I've just got to make up my mind but we'll see. Please stay tuned. I'll be posting as soon as I make some decisions and get to work! Can't wait! Until then...

Lightning Lighting

It's Tuesday night but for me it's like Wednesday night this week b/c I've got a 3 day weekend coming up. Yippee! I wanted to say thank you to all new followers and anyone who reads along! It is sincerely appreciated. I have many different simple projects I am working on and I post as often as I can! Here's a sneak peek at my last little project.

It has been a good week although I must be getting "blonder" with age. It's either that or "baby brain" that has gotten the best of me lately, I'm just not sure! Sunday I embarrassed myself terribly. I pulled out of the garage to run errands after being home for a little while from grocery shopping and drove up the street waving to several of my neighbors. When I got to the end of the street I stopped at the stop sign and then looked in my rear view mirror and realized I had a 12 pack of double rolls of tp sitting on top of my trunk. Now all our neighbors know what brand of toilet paper we're using. Leave it to me to be a lame brain! I guess it could have been worse but how embarrassing, and now I'm sharing it with you guys! Oh well, I'm sure I gave all my neighbors a laugh, I know I was laughing!

Oh I forgot to tell you that I saw Disney CARS II. Our son loved it. I kinda prefer CARS in Radiator Springs myself because of the charm but it was fun. One cool thing was that we saw someone driving a DeLorean (a replica of the Back to the Future car) in the parking lot before we saw the movie. That added to the excitement of seeing another CARS movie! 

On the CARS note, I did another small thing for the boys in the CARS theme. I felt like they needed a night light in their bathroom so I covered a night light with leftover fabric from the CARS pennant project http://keepitsimpleyay.blogspot.com/2011/06/so-super-psyched-about-cars-ii.html. Their bathroom decor is very simple so this was a small touch that added a little color that even jives with the wall color. I picked up a night light at AC Moore. You can follow the directions in my post http://keepitsimpleyay.blogspot.com/2011/01/easy-modern-fabric-night-light.html about covering a night light with fabrics and making it your own. 

I used Krylon Easy-Tack spray-on adhesive to glue the fabric down.You want to get the night light shade a little damp with the adhesive and then position the fabric over the shade, pushing out any bubbles or lumps to stick it down to the shade.

 My little paper night light is ready to be covered.

I didn't cut a particular shape out of the fabric, I just cut enough to cover the shade and then positioned it, pressing and smoothing out bumps and lumps.

After the fabric was stuck to the shade I used my sewing scissors and cut around the edges, leaving about a half an inch of fabric on all the sides. Lastly I rolled the fabric over the edges to hide them.

I look like I need a V-8 here but I think it turned out to be a nice little addition!

Go Lightning!

Decor8ing To Welcome A NEW Baby

Okay so it's not decorating the house but it's making children cuter who are in the house! How is your weekend going? Did you get to do anything exciting today? I did for a change! I got to meet my new nephew who is only a couple of days old! Babies are precious creatures but man when it's your sibling's child, it sure is something special. He is such a beautiful, sweet bundle of joy and I am so happy for my brother and his wife that they are welcoming their second baby. It's a little surreal that the baby is here now!

I wanted to do something for the newbie and the big brother so I found some iron on letters in a sorta retro font and ironed them on a solid brown onesie for the newborn and a gray t-shirt for big brother! For the baby I bought a onesie that he'll grow into since babies grow out of their newborn clothes so fast. The iron on letters are so easy and washable, which is excellent! Purchase them from any craft store and simply follow the directions and make sure you have enough packs to spell out the words you want. Be sure to see how many sheets are in a pack before you leave the store. I speak from experience! 

Anyhow I thought these shirts turned out to be pretty cool, and they were very inexpensive compared to clothing with similar phrases in stores. My sis-in-law thought I bought them so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! I look forward to seeing both of my nephews sporting these shirts! So excited to have met my new nephew! A BIG HUGE YAY for today!!!

Wax Off!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!  Hope everyone had a wonderful time celebrating and got to see some fireworks this weekend! Sort of on that note, ya know with fire and lighting up something, I thought I'd post a simple tip on removing candle wax from a container. If you're anything like me and LOVE candles you probably already know this trick, but I'm posting anyway, to be on the safe side! Ironically I'm all over wax removal and such this week. My child has another ear infection and so the doc had to pick wax out of his ear this week. Fun filled!   

So once you are finished burning a candle and are ready to toss it, try to be "GREEN" and salvage the glass container, if it's possible to either recycle or reuse but I wouldn't put any kind of food in. The candle below was an Ikea candle and I decided to reuse the glass as a votive holder. 

Freezing the candle inside the container is the best way to remove it. The wax shrinks away from the glass. I put the glass container with the "leftover wax" in the freezer door overnight. The next morning I pulled it out of the freezer and was able to remove the remaining wax very easily using a spoon. The pictures are in "flip book" style so please scroll down to the bottom to see how easy it is to get the wax out! Whatever you do, do not put any wax in the sink or toilet. It will clog the plumbing. Throw it out and scrape and scrub any excess wax that might be left on the glass. Then you are ready to recycle or reuse the glass as a votive holder of have it filled again by a candle maker. 

Have a wonderful week everybody!

I See Sea Shells!

By The Sea Shore!!!

 

I've been daydreaming a lot about the beach. I haven't been in over six months and really really wish (trying to express that I wish it A LOT!) I could get there and dig my feet in the sand. Ahh. For now I'll have to keep dreaming! We live a few hours from the the beach but it's tough getting away for even a weekend trip.

I'm not usually a big fan of beach-themed items in a house but I thought this was classy enough! I purchased this glass canister at Home Goods http://keepitsimpleyay.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-finds.html for about $6.00 a few months back when I first discovered that store. The price is pretty good considering you see these things for $20.00 or more in most stores. The shells were all found at the Outer Banks of North Carolina so they were freebies. I had leftover shells that I painted with blue latex paint for a Christmas cone tree http://keepitsimpleyay.blogspot.com/search/label/More%20Cone%20Trees that I made so I thought this would be lovely! I mixed them with some shells that I didn't paint.


I LOVE it! It's a wonderfully soothing natural accent that offers contrast to the walls and to the dark furniture. What do you think? Do you like beachy decor? I like and it was super easy!

Tackling The Shoes Blues - Ha ha!

I wanted to say thank you to anyone who reads my writing. It means a lot and I do appreciate all of your comments. 

Over the weekend I HAD to do something about the family's organization of our "kicks". Ha ha. Seriously, one thing we find challenging each morning is getting the kids ready for child care and having to locate their shoes before getting out the door. I know it sounds silly but it is a small issue for us. It's the little things yet again and I'm trying to conquer this one before it drives me batty. 

When I get the baby out of the car each night after work, one of his shoes may fall off in the car and then I'll carry him inside and the other one will come off at some point, then the next morning neither shoe to the pair is anywhere to be found. Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance so I went to Garden Ridge and purchased this clear plastic over the door hanging shoe organizer! I know it's silly! I used this type of thing in college and have had one before but not in a while. Anything to help keep our shoes together!

I think it's going to work well. We can fit plenty of our shoes in it and store them on the back of the door when we're at home. So leave it to me today to forget to take my oldest child's tennis shoes to the daycare so he could change into them after water play! GRRR! I ran myself like crazy at lunch to get him his tennis shoes. Anyhow I hope this finds everyone enjoying their week! 

I've got lots of home decor projects that I can't wait to share with you, I've just had several sleepless nights lately due to a certain tyke. Hope you have a great rest of the week!

C-you later! 

Kitchen Is Back In Order

Hello all! The weekend is winding down quickly. Hope you had a great weekend and were able to do something fun. I, for the most part ran myself ragged trying to play catch up on the essentials. Saturday seemed like another day of nothing but WORK. It was full of chores from grocery shopping to straightening up the whole house, dishes, 5 loads of laundry, taking care of two young children... I didn't even sit down until after 4:00 and even then it was STILL folding laundry, which I highly detest. 


In a world where we had money to spend on something remotely luxurious, I think I would hire a maid. Or I wish I would. Even if we had the money to spend on that I don't know that I would. I would be too embarrassed to have someone clean after me. Although it might motivate me clean up better since someone would be coming in the house regularly. It's a terrible thing to feel like you'd be too embarrassed to have someone who cleans houses for a living see your mess.

For the past couple of weeks our kitchen has been a mess because our faucet has been broken. We tried to fix it because we just replaced it a few years ago. It's never fun when you have unexpected expenses. We were forced to buy another one because we learned quickly that the piping inside had become corroded and was causing it to leak - A LOT! Unfortunately there was no fixing it.  Fun-filled. Soooo we bought another one and we finally have a working faucet again now. You know how it is when something in the kitchen breaks... the kitchen tends to be the center of the household and when something stops working, the rest of the house seems all out of whack. Finally though I have my kitchen back!   

We had a pull out sprayer before but now we've got one of those goose neck pull down jobs which is getting the job done. One thing the sales guy suggested with these types of faucets is to purchase a well known brand and to get one that has the magnets so the sprayer head will click back to the "goose neck". Never thought I'd be so happy about a kitchen faucet. YAY!