1st week of school

Wow, it kicked our butts!! My oldest is in high school and her ride comes at 6:20 in the morning! And since she's a girl, she feels she must be up at 4:45 to start getting ready!! SO, I'm up and down from 5:00. That may not be much to some of you but to me, holy crap, it's killing me!

I didn't do much last week, including house work. I have such a loving husband. BUT, today I must do some cleaning before I can go play. (bummer)

I'll leave you with this: We got my youngest a Beta fish. We've had such a hard time with his water. It gets super cloudy no matter what we do, so here he is in a "change out" container having a visit from a new friend...

Cute, isn't? It's really a snack container. At 1st I made it like the goldfish was gonna eat Lighting, but then they became fast friends! So sweet!

Yeppie Goodwill!

Oh my - check out my awesome Goodwill find! The bears were mine already. I use to be a really active collector of Boyds. Now it's only if I can find them at Goodwill and yes, I have found a few there!!

The chairs and ottomans! They were sold as a set of two for $10.91 each. They retailed for $45.00 for the set. They are so cute. BUT, I must admit, when I saw them the 1st thing that popped into my head was....

Now I must find the matching sofa and I have to build some little tables and paint them a distressed red!!! Too adorable!! The hat pins are from two earlier swaps that I will get back over the next month I think.

I have some more goodies that I bought and have BIG plans for. I will post as the projects unfold! Smiles!

House and Home

I adore my house. It's beautiful and I like the bones. BUT, after my stroke, I needed to change everything. Do not ask me why, I don't know. Now, my hubby was more than willing to aid me in this endeavor. See here:

Here's a picture of my kitchen after we pulled all the doors off the cabinets and primed the walls.

This is from the other entry to the kitchen. We pulled all of the decor out and either put it in a yard sale or gave it to Goodwill.

Here's a picture of my living room:

Here we decided that neither of us liked the marble surround. So, down it came! Mantle and all! We had already removed all the decor items and sold them or gave them away.

Now, the funny thing is.... only after we tore everything apart did we find out just how expensive it is to replace kitchen cabinets, how much money it costs to have them resurfaced and just how hard it is to repaint cabinets that are NOT real wood, have begun to fray and separate and are just this side of old. 

Here's a picture of my front entry stairs:

You can kinda see how all the carpet had been removed. Well the stairs going down have been removed and replaced with solid stained wood. They are BEAUTIFUL. However, the stairs coming up... well, we realized after the carpet was removed that to replace all the stair treads, we'd have to remove all of the spindles and hand rails!! Can I explain that one or two spindles are crazy cheap - but 700,000 (the number of spindles we needed tee hee) are soooo not crazy cheap!!

I will not add anymore pics to save face for my dear hubby. We have many, many more projects that have not been completed. He has a disorder. Its call PDD... it's a very sad disorder. It's full name is "Project Deficit Disorder".  Have you heard of this?? It's when a man has a hard time finishing the projects he starts!!  So, wanna give a guess at just how long ago these pictures were taken??  

August 2009!!! 

SHUT UP - I am NOT kidding!! 

So, I know we have no money.... I can't work since the stroke. Pooo Pe-pole!! I have been compiling a list of pics and tutorials of things I wanna do. It's hard living in a house that's all busted up with ZERO personality!! Here's one thing I really like...

Hubby has promised to make me one. He says we already have some of the needed wood in the shop.  I really like these mirrors when they are really large and leaned against the wall. So, he promised to make me one to lean against a wall downstairs and one to hang here in the dining room. =)

I will continue to post here as we re-create our entire home from scratch and on a budget thinner than a dime!!

St. Patty's Bear

Okay, here's my holiday bear I made. She's all dressed up for St. Peggie's Day.

Okay, now I must go and shower I have many things to do today =)  More later!

A little lovie here and there

Hold Cow - another, what, 4 months have blown by? I swear, when I was working a full time job, I updated my old blog everyday! Now, I'm at home and I can't seem to keep my sanity much less find time to update my blog....even though I really enjoy blogging to nobody! tee hee!!

Okay - the holiday of luuuvvv. I have finally been getting into my crap studio somewhat regularly. I go thru spells with what I feel like playing with.  I have been into paper and fabric lately. I adore sewing - creating neat things. I am waiting for the day I can buy my dress makers form to sew clothes to fit my new fluffy, weeble wobble body. =) BUT, for now, I sew home goodies and stuff for the kids. I did this cutie a week or so ago...

The really coool thing about her is I can change her accessories for Valentines, St. Peggie's Day (cute story for another day) and Easter. She's just adorable! I'll post pics of each holiday. AND, she was soooo simple to sew. I glued magnets (E6000 glue, what's not to love??) to the back and she hangs on my front door.

Now, for the wild man stuff. He and his classmates were to create a mailbox for swapping valentine cards. Since penguins seem to be "the thang" with little man, here's what we did...

This was taken the day before he took his mailbox to school, after his bath. He's sharing his bedtime snack, an Oreo cookie, with his new little friend. Ain't he cute? Here's his "pass out" valentine:

I made this with the Stampin Up top note die, tag, medium and small oval punches. I saw this while surfing the net and am sorry, I  don't remember who I cased it from, but it sure is sweet!

Now, for his birthday party, never mind that his actual birthday was in January, here's the invite I sent out. I cut the blue water paper so that it looks like he's standing on an ice burg. The card stock is actually shimmery white which worked super well! We plan on partying at McDonald's. We will close that play ground down I tell ya!! =) I used the Simply Charmed Cricut cartridge and some ready made stickers.

 Now, we have had a few friends to have babies and here's one of the cards I created. It turned out cute, I think. The stamps and hand punches are Stampin Up the paper is whatever I had on hand. =)

NOW - I have saved the best for last! I was surfing Ebay one day and came across this beauty. The lady selling it had simply glued a nice piece of patterned paper on the inside cover and is selling it for 29.99 plus about 12.00 shipping.  I fell in love. I thought of all the space this storage unit could free up! Well, me being me, I knew if I tried hard enough I could find this exact plastic storage tub and I just knew it'd be cheaper. Well, I took down the measurements she gave, grabbed a tape measure and headed to Joann Fabrics. It was almost comical. I was in the storage area for what seemed like hours, measuring almost all the plastic tubs they had.  Well, perseverance does pay off! I got this with a coupon and paid about 12.00 for it! It fits 22 cartridges with the key over lays and the books! I have been so tickled with this.

 Here it is opened...

NOW - the only thing I kinda miss is looking at the images on the back of the original boxes. Well, I created a notebook and printed off screen shots of each cartridge and I keep them filed in alpha order in a notebook I keep right on hand in the crap studio. It's been great cuz if I need a certain image, I just flip thru my notebook to find which cartridge it'll be on. How cool is that?? And to top it all off, I have fantastic boxes with magnetic flaps to alter and re-purpose! Cool Beans I tell ya!  OH YEAH - the box is for storing thread and comes with a removable thread holder where I've put the books. The dimensions of the case are: 15.5" long x 9" deep x 3" tall.  Now you too can get this awesome organizer should you want to!

Well, I have to go and play Domestic Diva as I have heard the laundry piles and dryer buzz beckoning for me. At least I am adore by some....thing? Can a person be adored by a washing machine and dryer?? I think so! Well, at least it keeps me going ; )  Later - thanks for stopping by!