A quick redecorating project :)

Wow! It's been awhile!  I guess the whole blogging thing sort of got shoved off to the side!  Well here we are with a new year and I'll think I'll try this blogging thing again :).  This year I've decided that this is the year of the house and my word is "rejuvante".

 We are currently renting our house and will most likely be renters for another 18 months, we already been here for 2 years, and the owners have let us know that we can stay as long as we like, and even buy if we think we want to. Hmmm we're still thinking on that one, lots of pro's and con's to that decicion.

In the past, I have been reluctant to really make the house feel like ours.  I didn't want to put in the time and effort if we weren't going to be able to stay.  So we basically moved or stuff in and left anything of the previous owners as it was.

Now that I know I can stay, I feel like making some changes to have the house reflect our famiy, but I don't really want to spend too much moola!  So here's the first of hopefully many quick and easy "rejuvenating" projects on our house.

Here's a before of our master bedroom

Notice the REALLY heavy, flashback from the 80's drapes?? Yeah, it's time for those to go!  And for no cost and about an hour's worth of time here's the "rejuventaded" version!

Luckily underneath those heavy drapes was a nice sheer that actullay matches with my bedskirt :). The valances were some fabric and ribbon that I already had that match perfectly with my comforter.  I didn't even sew them, I just tucked under the raw edges!  The mini blinds have to stay since we do live in Phoenix and this is an eastern exposure.  In the summer time we'll want to make sure we can block out as much sun as possible. Oh the joys of living in the desert!  The room looks so much bigger, brighter and lighter! I love it! I wish I would have done this sooner!

Up next I have an idea for a cool wall treatment above the bed. We have some REALLY high ceilings in this room so I have something big planned :)  I hoping to have it done in the next day or two :)  And if I get rambunctious enough, there may even be some painting happening in this room!

Kind of amazing how just one little change can completely "rejuvenate" a room :)

Crochet anyone?

Well I have a new hobby, Ok well it's not really new, I learned how to crochet in high school and then just forgot about it, until now!  What sparked this renewed interest you ask?  Well it's these cute little creatures called "amigurumi". Amigurumi are fun little crocheted or knitted stuffed animals. Which for those of you that know me, the mere fact that I'm even blogging about stuffed animals  should have scratching your head, because as you know I really don't like stuffed animals but these guys are just too cute and addicting!

 So these cute little guys are my first attempt at amigurumi.  The frog is definitely better than the elephant, but hey not bad considering I haven't crocheted for about oh 20 years!

So fast forward a bit, to Ry guy who is in love with the game Angry Birds, or as he calls it cranky birds wants his own cranky bird.  So off to google I go and I found a pattern and cranked out this cute but cranky little guy.

See I told you they were cute!  Now of course he wants the whole cranky bird family!  Better go get another bag of wonderfil!

My 5-10 Chair

WowZaa it's been awhile since my last post.  Hmm guess that thing called life just sort of took over :).  Amidst all the chaos I did get to do a little DIY home decorating.  Presenting my 5-10 chairs.  5 because they cost me $5 at a garage sale, yes that's $5 for BOTH chairs! And 10 for the 10 minutes it took me to recover them!  So here's the before...

 After a little Murphy's oil soap and me taking off the cushion and replacing it with some fabric I already had you get this...

Ta Da!

Look out! I have a staple gun and I'm not afraid to use it!  This is actually the wrong side of the fabric, but I liked it better!  And even better was the fact that I got this fabric for free!  I love that people know that I love to sew and if they ever have leftover fabric from anything, they give it to me ! Gotta love free stuff!

Our "green" kitchen

This was one of our family's little "projects" to work on last year after we decided that we would not do the Project 365 (take a picture a day) for a second year in a row.  Instead we took a "green" approach to our family project.

Well I have a new project for our little humble abode..... we (I) are attempting to have a paperless kitchen.  What does that mean... no more paper towels, paper plates or paper napkins.  Our first step has been pretty easy, we ditched the paper napkins and just started using the cloth ones.  The kids have gotten a kick out of having a napkin ring with their name on it.

Thanks to Goodwill and my serger we have about 6 days worth of cloth napkins, and at the rate we do laundry around here, I don't see us running out anytime soon.  Next up in our paperless process--- paper plates!  I do however refuse to give up the Kleenex, handkerchiefs just gross me out!  Stay tuned for more of the paperless saga!

And I am happy to report that a year later we are still paper free in our kitchen!  We now have LOTS of cloth napkins, lots as in I think I could change out the napkins everyday for 14 days!  The kids no longer take paper napkins in their lunch boxes, they take a cloth one!  As far as paper plates, we don't have any at our house! Thanks to my gramma donating a whole bunch of white medium sized plastic plates we don't even miss the paper ones! And thanks to the donation of a microwave food cover from my mom we now have a very clean microwave without the use of paper!

Now I will say giving up the bleach wipes that I like to wipe off the counters with at the end of the evening in the kitchen and each morning in the bathroom, those have been a little harder to change over. In the kitchen, since it's usually just me that uses the bleach, I have my squirt bottle with bleach and water and my white cloth that I use and I just spray and wipe.  In the kids bathroom, well with a 4 yr old boy who likes to torment his sisters I've decided that they can still keep the bleach wipes :).  When he gets a little older then we'll work on the spray bottle concept!

All in all, everyone has enjoyed making the paperless change and it really went quite smoothly!

What do you do to keep a "green" kitchen? 

Do you have any little family "projects" lined up for this year? I'd love to hear about them!

Happy New Year!

Hope your 2011 is amazing!

Around here we're starting Project Life.  What's that.... we're going to take a picture a day in 2011 and then of course scrapbook it!  So the goal is that by this time next year we'll have 365 pictures of our year.      We did this in 2009 and turned out really cool! So here's to another round in 2011!

P.S - I'm so happy the previous owners left these frogs!  Yeah it's a little corny, okay it's a lot corny, but the kids get a kick out of changing out their tags each month.  I'm thinking the frogs will make their way into PL (project life) at least once a month!

Family photo cubes

Time for yet another dollar bin decorating idea!  Found these at Target after I saw them on http://dollarstorecrafts.com and had to rush and grab some up!  I had three families in mind to make Christmas gifts with them.  So for a whopping $4, $3 for the cubes and $1 for photo printing here they are...

 Before

AFTER!  

The idea is that you can change up the pictures and family quotes whenever the mood strikes you.  I've had this one out and my own kids have been changing up the pictures and sayings and it's not even our family!  

Originally I was going to just print the quotes onto scrapbook paper, stamp out the name and add the pictures, but I was working on another project in Photoshop so I did the quotes and family name in Photoshop.  When I make a set for my own family, I think I may have each kid pick out their favorite family quote and write it in their handwriting, makes it a little more personal.

Of course now that I can't find these at Target anymore the pre-teen is asking for a set for her bedroom with her friends in it! Hmmmmm there's another great gift idea for a teen! :)  If anyone finds the cubes leave me a comment and let me know where you found them, I would love to have some more! :)

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Fun Family Monogram!

Tea Rose Home: Link Party No 36!

Fun Family Monogram

In my quest to collect "L's" for our last name, I came up with this little gem of an idea!
And it only cost $2 BONUS!

I used a $1 frame from the dollar store
1 glittery monogram for stockings from Walmart for $1
and some paper and ribbon from my scrapbooking stash and voila....

A fun little family monogram!  My grand vision is to have a whole wall with different types of L's, one down, lots more to go!

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixErZV5EF3S6RwN7PlHZc5LrixTiGqYvi8RYO4mIXtx4xvn-9guIkH589ZP2Bcc8EmOYDewo7bOIe0wT1KCqC97b-Lq2D1dMV0lyXJAXDZJhfiLIti3hdafNKmbStPoNVXS5ZKsrvtaW4/s1600/GrabButtonLinkParty.jpg

p.s. trying out this new "link party" not sure if I'm doing this right or not???  Anyways got the idea from the blog above, she has great sewing stuff!