Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Monkey’s Ugly Monster Doll

Monkey LOVED Rew’s ugly doll thing soooo much and Rew didn’t want him touching it.  So I had to make one for Monkey too.

While at my moms during the  AC problem Monkey fell in love with my sisters blanket and they had something similar at walmart so I had to buy him one. Forget the super expensive awesome blanket we bought him he wanted a $7 throw from Walmart. Sunshine helped me pick out a cool pattern and he loved it !!

                        blanky

But the thing is HUGE for such a little guy so I bought a second one. The first stays in bed to cover up at night time. The second I cut a corner out of and made a Monkey size Blanky . I had to sticth by hand ALL the way around the edge of it or it shed something awful !!He adores it !!

                                            blanky1

Since he likes it so much and it’s the same type of fabric as Rew’s Ugly Doll I decided to use some of the leftovers to make Monkey’s. My inspiration for design was his binky. We bought some of the Mams with the cutest little monsters on them. this one is my fave !!

                                    bink

Isn’t he cute ???   This one was also a challenge because I had to attach those legs on the front. One day I will take my own advice and make a simple one with just two pieces of fabric.

Anyway here’s my results….

                               uglydoll

I think Monkey’s pretty happy with him !

                                           uglydoll1

 Peace

Steph

Wordless Wednesday…

 

connorcolt

Monday, September 27, 2010

Monday…

Dear Monday,

        

You Suck !!!

                  

Best Wishes , (not)

  Steph

Friday, September 24, 2010

Weekend Getaway !!

As far as blog land goes this is all I’m doing today

                                        BoostMyBlogFriday

and that’s because since hubby is finally home for good we’re going on a weekend family get away to see my family.  We’ll be staying at my sisters house but I’ll be spending lots of time with with my mom where all the inspiration happens.

To anyone who may view my blog today thru this blog hop… PLEASE poke around my other posts !! I promise this is NOT my norm. I have way cooler posts with crafts and decorating and stuff !!

As a quick update to my We have a new family memeber post…

We got Yoshi neutered and apparently he was just as unhappy as Rew was. (Rew did NOT want to take him to the vet let alone leave him over night. ) When the nurse carried him out to us he stopped yowling and grabbed Rew’s face in his paws. The nurse said it was about the only time he’d been quiet since waking up after his surgery. He howled all the  way home in his carrier but as soon as I let him out in Rew’s room he was quiet and happy again. I couldn’t find him anywhere later but  a quick search yielded these results…

                                            sleep1

The flash and my putting away laundry disturbed Yoshi so he got up and got a drink and then snuggled back up as close to his boy as he could get

                                          sleep2

I guess neither one slept very well without the other the night he was gone. This is at 4 in the afternoon folks and Rew does NOT nap !!

At bed time neither one was sleepy so they played Nintendo Ds quietly in bed so Bub could get sleep.

                                       bedtime

We are not taking Yoshi on this trip so…. I hope Rew stays busy enough that he sleeps ok and that when I get home Yoshi has left my house standing ! LOL

Well I gotta go pack up…

Peace

Steph

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Menu Board / Schedule Planner

Ok  remember I said I was going to do some interior decorating for my sis a few weekends ago ?? Well we had some successes and some failures. (She claims she is happy with the failures and got compliments on them but I hate them so I’m working on a redo. )

Well one of our successful projects was a menu / schedule board. She’s using it as a menu now but I’m gonna make her a nifty one that will go on her fridge and then she can use this as a schedule/week planner.

I have seen these going around all over blog land where you turn a old picture frame into a dry erase board. But I have to say the one we drew the most inspiration from is over at Chistina's Adventures ! Hers turned out just gorgeous !!

                                           

Click on the pic to go to her original post for the tutorial since I only have a finished project picture to show of ours. And while you’re there check out some of her other stuff… She is incredibly talented !! I have sooo enjoyed following her blog as we have similar taste. Plus I have to love anyone who wants to make lists beautiful !  (HERE is my attempt to make beautiful lists.)

My sister is going to use hers as a schedule planner and has a serious bare wall problem. She lives in an apartment and can’t paint so we are filling her walls with colorful things both functional decor and purely decorative items.   This is one of the functional decor items obviously! I have been teaching her that in small spaces (which is her whole place) you make functional items decorate and vice versa. SO anyway… said all that to say this one will be hanging on the wall not in a neat bookstand like Christina’s.  Shay’s colors in her living spaces are creamy beige, black and a rusty barn red. GORGEOUS !!! She is nice blend of modern and classic/traditional.

I went out to find a frame. Shay and Hubby have only been married and had their own place 2 years so she doesn’t have a store built up like some of us. She and I both went thrifting separately and couldn’t find anything.  I was at Fred’s looking for something else when in their damaged goods clearance aisle I found an awesome frame. It retailed for $20 at the original store (Fred’s does some closeouts) and was $10 at Fred’s. Then after being damaged in Fred’s was only $3 !! SCORE !!!  It was very Shay looking too !!  I couldn’t find any damage but a neighbor pointed out that it was originally made to hang or stand and the “stand arm” had been ripped off. SO WHAT we’re hanging it !!  I picked out scrapbook paper in her colors and a pattern I thought she’d like, some swirly black letter stickers and went to work ! Here is our finished board…

                               

                           menu

I love the detail on the frame !!  I have bought so many white boards here lately I had TONS of markers and the little things you use to hook them on the boards so I gave her a set and now her marker is always right there ! It’s a clear plastic grip so it looks like the marker is floating .

Well that’s one of our successes. I’m going to try to get more posted throughout the week. But things are crazy here. I’ll share more on that later too.

Peace

Steph

 

Linking to…

                                                           All Thingz Related

Thursday, September 16, 2010

We have a new family member…

Rew is 4 years old. He has sucked his finger since he was 4 months. I have tried EVERYTHING to get him to stop nothing worked, UNTIL last weekend that is.  Last weekend we went to the pet store to get some supplies and show Monkey all the animals.  (we haven’t been to this particular pet store in awhile, it’s one that has animals in it)  Well they host a few animal shelter animals. As my husband was playing with some tiny kittens in a top cage An older kitten grabbed Andrew’s pant leg from the bottom cage and started playing with him. It was so cute how they interacted and Rew declared he needed a kitty to be his friend while Bub’s at school. We not wanting to add to the menagerie or deal with the insane adoption process of this particular shelter (seriously it would be easier to adopt a child) told him only IF or when he stopped sucking his finger would he be big enough to handle the responsibility of his own kitty. He came home wrapped transformer band aids around his index fingers and went all day without sucking them. Then all night as well. That shocked us. I figured at night he would relapse as you don’t realize what you’re doing in your sleep. Oh no he wanted his kitty soooo bad that he clutched his blanky in his balled up fists and tucked them between his chin and chest. I checked on him thru the night when I got up with the baby and he stayed that way all night. That is some SERIOUS will power.  My husband decided that such will power deserved immediate reward so the next morning we headed to an animal shelter to begin our search for Rew’s friend. We did not just want to go grab a kitten we wanted to find Andrew’s buddy. At the first shelter we stopped at the coolest kitten chose Rew.  From the minute we walked into the cat room he followed Rew occasionally meowing and always trying to get his attention. After 10 minutes of playing on the floor with several kittens Rew stood up and pronounced the “shadow” as trhe one saying “this is him, this my friend kitty”.   So we adopted the little grey and white tabby with beautifully unique markings ( I was so happy he didn’t pick some strange looking alley cat) When we got to the car Rew put on his orange collar and announced his kitty’s fave color was also orange just like him.

                                  yoshi

The kitten insisted on riding with his boy

        yoshikeys                                   yoshisnug

And Rew  shared his blanky and they snuggled. At the end of the 45 minute ride home Rew announced his friend kitty’s name is Yoshi !

Here is a pic of the perfect cirlce on his side . There is one on the other side too!! He is so cool looking I love his markings !!

                                    yoshicircle

 

 

Yoshi does indeed keep him company while Bubs at school. They spend hours in the bean bag chairs playing the Nintendo DS.

                                yoshigame

They are inseparable. They sleep together, (Yoshi has an orange blanket on Rew’s bed) play together and Yoshi shadows him everywhere.  Yoshi hangs out in the boys room with Rew instead of insisting on being in the living room like I was afraid he would. They truly are buddies. Yesterday I went in the bathroom and as Rew hopped off the potty Yoshi came out of the covered litter box. I had to laugh. They really do everything together. Rew still has not sucked his finger in almost a week!!  He is totally responsible for feeding and watering Yoshi and does an excellent job of it. I am soooo proud !!

So there is the scoop on our new family member and the story of how I FINALLY got Rew to stop sucking his finger !!

Peace

Steph

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Boys Room Furniture Re-do

I have to say I was so excited to see this party over at The Thrifty Home ! It’s a Refinished Furniture Party !!! I have actually been doing a lot of this in my boys new room.  I’ve never been very good at it before but this time something just clicked and I am proud to show these pieces off ! I have one more shelf to finish but it will not be done in time to get into this party so here’s what I have !! 

When My oldest was ready to move up from toddler bed to big boy bed we found this at a yard sale and got it for a steal !!!

                         bed_thumb

I LOVED this bed !!!!  It was so neat with so much potential but when my 2 oldest needed to start rooming together in a TINY little room we needed bunk beds. BUT with hubby unemployed at the time I had to resort to craigslist bartering. After a week I traded the really cool bed (that it killed me to part with) for these…

                                                 bed1_thumb

And yes my boys are typical messy boys. I KNOW you can see the toys everywhere don’t pretend you can’t.  We all know they’re there. LOL…

Anyway…the bunk beds remained as they were until we decided to do the room swap/ redo. Now I want all the furniture to match/blend. Yay it’s time for my fave thing, PAINT !!!!! I love how a simple coat of paint can breathe new life into any tired old thing.  (kinda like taking a shower and shaving your legs can make you feel like a new woman after a hair raising day with your kids. I have 3 boys I KNOW these things.) I broke out the sand paper and roughed my surface a bit and then started priming…

                                        bed3

And after the priming and 2 coats of white satin paint I realized the red dinosaur stamp treatment that my 4 year old had so generously given the side rails was bleeding thru no matter what I did.  On to plan B.  I sanded the side rails back down and “colored” the rails. Orange on the bottom for Rew and blue on the top for Bub. Then the safety rail got a coat of dark blue paint. Now we have this…

                                    bed5

 

It took 4 coats to get that orange right… Orange is just as bad as red when trying to get an even true shade.   Next I added bedding and we get the finished product

         bed4 bed6

Yes my boys are still messy, we haven’t gotten to the organization stage yet or the floor scrubbing. LOL ! There are paint splatters everywhere on the floor.

OH !! I almost forgot Rew’s FAVE part of this redo. He has the bottom bunk and hates that its so dim under there so I added a tap light and TA DA !!!

                                                   light_thumb

He loves it ! It’s his own light and he is in charge of turning it on and off and all the other things about a tap light that would amaze a 4 yearold.

That’s my bunk bed redo.  I took plain old dark wood bunk beds and made them bright cheery boyish beds that blend with  their room and match their other furniture and are “color coded” with their fave colors !! 

Next came the Book Shelf   Re-do

My boys needed a bookshelf to free up some space on their toy shelves. Now despite the fact that my hubs and I are both big readers and my boys love books there is only one bookshelf in our house. It is acheapo inexpensive bonus item that came with a cheapo inexpensive computer desk from Walmart. I wanted all the boys furniture in their “new room” to match / blend so again PAINT !!!! 

ALL the paint in this project is left over from other projects and the shelf we’ve had for 5 years so total cost here $0. Gotta love FREE !!!

I have no before pics of the shelf.  I forgot to take them in my excitement to get going.  But here’s one of the side of the computer desk (still cheap and ugly… oh well that’s a project for another day)  so you can get the idea of what i was working with.

                                    desk

Yes that’s all you get to see. The rest is HORRIBLY messy and un-organized. It doesn’t even qualify as an organized mess. You can see it seeping into the picture in the upper right corner. paper work, envelopes, bills etc.  LOL !  But you get the ugly silver-grey metal tubing and ugly black MDF shelving and desk top. Same thing on the bookshelf.

I took it completely apart and started with the ends. I roughed them a bit with fine grit sand paper and primed with Krylon white spray primer.

                                          BS1

Then 2 coats of Krylon Gloss White paint later they were done

                                           BS2

Next I LIGHTLY sanded with a medium grit sand paper all the MDF shelves. They were under a leak and had very slight bubbling on them from water damage. After that I primed them as well with the Kilz primer i bought for my kitchen cabinets. When it was time for paint I gave each shelf a different color like the bed rails.

                                             BS3

LtR : Behr Sparkling Apple, Krylon True Blue, Dutchboy Bouncing ball.

Yes the blue shelf is sprayed the others are not :o) And once again just like the bed that orange took MULTIPLE coats. The others only took 2.

I also primed and painted all the brackets to coordinate.

                           BS4

I let all of this dry and cure over several days. Since it’s going in a kidsBOYS room I didn’t want to end up with dings and scuffs in the paint from turning them loose on it to soon. Boys are very hard on furniture. Mine especially. When it was finally all dry and ready to go I put it all together…      

                  BS5 BS6

And there we have it! The boys get a cool new shelf that blends with their other furniture and matches their room colors ! I covered up  “made adorable” a complete eyesore. And I think it looks much better in a kids room in bright colors than in the industrial office supply look. I HATE that look. I have HATED this shelf since we got it. (still hate the matching desk. again, project for another day )  Not a bad little shelf sporting it’s new look though.

I am so happy with how these turned out !! I have created this post showcasing my boys room furniture refinishing to link up to the awesome Refinished Furniture Party ! I am going to make it so easy for you to go check out the party and all the other fun refinished furniture projects people are linking !! Just click the button below…

                                                      The Thrifty Home Refinished Furniture Party

Enjoy the party and hopefully find some great new ideas !!

Peace

Steph

I’m back again finally…

Ok I do realize I promised to be back quite sometime ago but as usual nothing I planned actually happened the way I planned it so here is a quick update.

Hubby came home and fixed the AC. It only cost $18.00 and other than going to get the part took 15 minutes to fix. Now how come FIL and all his “knowledge” couldn’t figure that out BEFORE i spent several hundred on a window unit ?? What was it I said in a previous post  “useless and annoying waste of space”??  Oh wait I was talking about the stuffed animals ! Wink wink …

While here Huby decided to finally take my advice and stop by the staffing agency that found him his previous job and just talk to them. Well guess what I was right AGAIN !! (I’m the one who sent him in last time too) They asked what experience he had and when he told them their eyes lit up and they said they had the perfect fulltime job for him and they are desperately needing help. SO Hubby turns in the keys to this fuel guzzling monster on Thursday…

                                         truck

Yay ! No more absent hubby… although it will take some readjustment I’ve kinda gotten used to having less mess . LOL He has an interview on Monday and we are crossing our fingers, praying ,etc. like crazy !

I have had to halt any more room redo for the boys… I have a few projects I’ve got all the stuff for and I’ll finish those soon but I’m out of money. Hubby will be taking a pay cut and I seem to have lost my job as Diva and monster’s dad has quit and is playing stay at home dad and no one is responding to my phone calls or emails. :o(   I miss my craft money. 

I am however working on a project that excites me greatly I am decorating my sisters guest bath and possibly living area depending on her budget !! I am already working on some projects (in those few spare moments I find) and we head down to her apartment to decorate on Sunday !! I don’t know who is more excited her or me ! I LOVE to decorate and make beautiful ! I am taking lots of pics and will be blogging the whole thing! Check back for more in the days to come !

Bub started school and is doing pretty good. The bus comes MUCH earlier this year and we’re having some morning focus problems we are working on. I may end up driving him every morning again… there goes some blog time but oh well…

Rew is on a Harry Potter kick and has decided thats who he wants to be for halloween. We have gotten a wand and glasses…

                                              hp3

I got reading glasses at Dollar Tree and just popped the lenses out. It took us almost 20minutes to find ones that fit him that he deemed Harry Potter worthy. Eye liner makes a great scar and I’m crocheting a scarf in Gryffindor colors. Now we just need a robe.

Monkey has made an olympic sport out of army crawling and is into EVERYTHING !! He is also learning to pull up. He fell over on a toy and got his first shiner. Yay now it looks like I beat him. I get many odd looks in public. There are the Moms who nod and grin like “oh yeah I’ve got boys I remember that stage” and the people with no kids who look at me like I deserve bad parent of the year. Whatever… Monkey has also outgrown ALL his clothes again. YAY more shopping !! I bought a few things to get us thru til I have my yard sale and I can do some big time shopping.

Speaking of big time shopping, I went to Osh Kosh and got Bub’s entire fall wardrobe. The deals I got were unbelievable !!! I’ll post on them this week too !

I’ve done several small projects while absent that I’ll also be blogging as soon as I can so keep checking back. Now that I’m here I have plenty to blog…

Peace

Steph