Countdown to Christmas

Only 13 days and counting until Santa brings a sleigh full of goodies!  Every year I have great intentions of having all of my holiday shopping finished by the first of December, but I usually have 1 or 2 that I'm scrambling to finish the week before Christmas.  I've seen tons of organizing ideas on Pinterest and in blog land that I WILL do next year.

Anyway, on to the real purpose of my post today.  I am so excited about it!  I have been searching for a nice advent or Christmas countdown for awhile.  We are so busy this time of year travelling since our family lives so far away, the reality of getting to do a daily activity are grand, but not practical.  We do the Christmas tradition (2 years now) of reading a Christmas book every night beginning December 1. 

With my kids being 1 and 4, I get the constant question of "When does Santa come?".  So using the powers of Pinterest, I found this really cool countdown and decided to put my own spin on it.

{Source}

Unfortunately, I didn't get any in process pictures.  I was just trying to get it done and see if it would turn out anywhere close to what I had in my head. :)
I am very lucky to have a stockpile of old barn wood from my great grandmother's.  So I began with a small piece.  Then I cut the words in vinyl with my Silhoutte and put them directly on the wood.  I was going for an old, worn look.  Then just painted over the words.

Once dry, I removed the words and rubbed Valspar Antiquing Glaze over the entire piece and sanded to further enhance the old, worn look.

For the numbers, I looked everywhere for inexpensive metal numbers like my inspiration piece, but didn't have any luck, so I found a package of numbers used for mailboxes at Wal-Mart for $7.  Of course, the stark white numbers didn't work for me, so I rubbed the Antiquing Glaze over them and added some glitter.
To make the countdown easy for daily updates, I just attached some eye hooks to the back and tied jute to the numbers.  I did add some small washers I had laying around to keep the strings from being pulled through the eye hook.

All done and I absolutely LOVE it!  A holiday countdown for years to come.

Halloween Wreath

Well HELLLLOOOOO!  It has been a very long time since my last post and I apologize, life just sometimes gets in the way of hobbies.  I'm back today to show you my Halloween wreath.  I found the idea of a year round wreath here.  So far I've made one for Easter/Spring, 4th of July, Summer, Late Summer/Early Fall, and Halloween.  I'll try to do better to show you the others next year during their corresponding holiday.  I'm also going to be working on a Thanksgiving/Fall and Christmas wreath over the next couple of weeks.  It's been a lot of fun because D has been my handy dandy helper!

You can use any fabric.  I will either order a fat quarter of the fabric collection I like from The Little Fabric Shop or pick up a package from JoAnn's.  I picked up this Halloween fabric from JoAnn's and I've got plenty left to make some for friends and family (as I have time!).

                                     

For the bow, I used some glittery orange tulle and black tulle I picked up from Hobby Lobby last year.

I highly recommend checking out the tutorial.  It's been a lot of fun making these and changing them out with the holidays.  As an extra bonus, the removable pieces are MUCH easier to store than a full wreath!

Have a great Halloween!

Valentine's Day Art

Hello!  Happy Valentine's Day!  I'm just not that into the holiday personally, but any holiday centered around chocolate can't be that bad.  I usually don't decorate for the holiday, but this year to celebrate our first Valentine's as a family of four, I created this little piece of art with the boys a few weeks ago.

It will be fun to watch how much their hands grow over the years and I like having this to mark the first Valentine's Day for T.  I never thought to do this with D, but I have his prints now.

You'll need a canvas, red craft paint, and burlap for the hanger.  Super easy and fun for the little ones!

Hoping your day is filled with candy and love.

Things I Love

The past couple of weeks have been very hectic with work (with no end in sight).  I have been trying VERY hard to keep family time as family time and not more work time, but I honestly haven't stopped to really enjoy my family time.  I'm there physically, but my mind is thinking about everything else I probably should be doing.

Well, this morning kind of changed me.  My baby got up around 6 and I fed him, then put him in his swing while I showered and got ready.  As I was getting ready he just sat there and smiled at me, cooed and blew raspberries.  It was the sweetest, most adorable sounds I have ever heard.  T is a very happy baby, and he's does this every morning and evening, but I haven't stopped and actually relished the moment for several weeks.

Then, making my morning even more incredible, D came running in the bathroom and about knocked me over with his hugs.  Again, this is something he does most mornings, but for whatever reason, this morning I needed to be reminded just how much these 2 little boys love me and that everything will be okay. 

It's A Wash

I must confess, I've had this laundry room done for about a week, but haven't gotten around to showing you the pictures.

Let's go back to a few weeks ago when the laundry room looked like this:

I was itching to paint and stencil and add a little modern flair to our home that is mostly traditional country.  Sounds a little funny, doesn't it?  Traditional- country.  What is that, you ask?  Well, it's a mish mash of rustic, cabin-y,  and traditional lines and colors.  I do like a lot of straight, clean lines, so you could say it's touch of contemporary, traditional, and country....now if that isn't a contradiction!

Anyway, I wanted this room to be a little different than the rest in our home.  I really despise the size of this room as a laundry room.  It's very difficult to move around in so I wanted to do something that made me like the room a little more....not necessarily "like" doing laundry. :)

So I painted the wall that you see from the kitchen.  I've got 2 of the other walls that you can't really see stenciled, but I haven't painted it yet....I'm going to live with it for a bit and decide if I think it's worth the time to paint the rest.  It's a very time consuming process and I'm afraid I will get tired of the pattern faster than I can paint the entire room.

So here is the after. 

I wanted to add some baskets to help hide some of the visual clutter.  I am thinking about removing the cabinet above the washer and put in open shelving.  I think it will actually provide more storage than what's currently available.  We're trying to save up for some storage for the kids toy room and a really rockin' vacation this summer (we need it), so the shelving is low on the list of priorities.

I made the sign this past weekend.  I found the quote on a sign in Country Sampler magazine, but I didn't really like the style of the sign and it was too expensive for something I could easily recreate.  I used my Silhouette to cut the words out in cardstock, then traced them onto the canvas and painted.  I love the quote, it's so true to my life filled with boys!

I'm linking up with I Heart Organizing.

New Weekly Challenge - A Bowl Full of Lemons

As you know, I completed MOST of the 21 Day challenge from A Bowl Full of Lemons.  I kind of slacked off a bit on posting my accomplishments on the last couple of days because I actually did other areas that what was assigned and just got too busy to post.  But once things calm down again around here, I'll post them.

I'm attempting Toni's next round of challenges.



Go on over and check it out.  Should be fun!  Wish me luck.

New Organization Series

So I know I've been slacking off on posting and completing the challenges from A Bowl Full of Lemons.  I have been doing organization and cleaning, it just hasn't necessarily been what is assigned.  Work has been insanely busy the past week and I've been worn out from the stress and motherly duties.  Enough of the excuses....I've found another series I'm going to attempt. 

Organize Your Life over at House of Grace.

Here's to good intentions!

Rub a Dub Dub

Taking a small break from the organizing posts to share a bit of a "duh" moment with you.  Those of you that have little ones at home may find this useful or interesting enough to give it the 'ole college try.

As you probably know, I have two boys, one is 3 the other is 5 months.  With both of my boys I never use or have used a baby bath to bathe the little ones.  When my boys were very little (i.e not squirmy) I always used a plastic bowl filled with water to give them baths.  As they became more mobile I've found this doesn't work so well.  I have used those baby bath's before when my siblings were little (they are 10 and 19 years my junior so I've got experience!) but never really liked them.  I can't really pinpoint why, they just never were very helpful for me.  Plus it's extra junk lying around after they've outgrown them (and until you decide to take action and finally get rid of them).  I've also tried just putting them in the kitchen sink, but both of my boys have super-baby strength and it's just hard for me to hang on to them and try to wash them.

So, finally the light bulb went off. I decided to give my 5 month old a bath in the bathtub. However, I didn't just plop him down in there because I couldn't imagine that being very comfortable for him.  So this is where the genius came in, I folded up a big fluffy towel and put it down first in the tub, then laid him on top of it.  I don't fill the tub up to wash him, I turn on the shower and use our handheld shower head to rinse him off.  Works like a charm and he has a blast kicking and wiggling around while I wash him.  If you don't have a hand held shower head, you can use a cup to rinse them off, works about the same.

Now, be warned, the number of loads of towels to wash does increase a bit, but for me, it's worth it!  You could hang it up to dry, but I'm a little bit of a germ-a-phobe so I use a new one each time...silly, I know!

You all have probably tried this or thought of this before, but it was new to me and it works great so I wanted to pass this along.

It's the simple things in life that get me excited!

Let me know if you try it and if it works out for you.

Day #16 - The Fridge

As you may have noticed, I skipped yesterday's challenge.  It was organizing your meds and I completed that with the Medicine Cabinet overhaul, so instead I cleaned and organized our DVD's.  I didn't take any pictures because I did it on a whim, but I promise I didn't slack off yesterday!

So on with today's challenge.  I actually cleaned my fridge a few months ago, but it was good to clean it out again.  The fridge, freezer, stove and laundry area are places that I feel get neglected (at least around here they do) and generally I only remember to do a deep clean once in a great while.

I tried to maintain some order with baskets and a stacking shelf.

Ewww.....

How many cartons of sour cream does one family need?  And how many do you think are expired....um...at least one.

After a little purging and cleaning, my fridge now looks like this:

I realized moments after I took this picture that the milk on the second shelf had expired!  Oops.  Good thing we had a back up.

We sure do have the condiments.

Basket for our biscuits and sweet rolls.  On the weekends we usually fix a bigger breakfast around brunch.  I know it's not the healthiest, but it sure is tasty. 

Veggies like tomatoes and peppers are held in a basket within the veggie bin.

Other condiments are in a small basket to keep them contained.  I told you we have a lot of condiments.

It's actually a little humorous at how much I really do use baskets around this house. I can hear my Sister-in-law snickering.  If only she lived closer, I would basket-ize her house!

Day 14 - Bathroom Cabinets

Okay, so it is a good thing Toni gave us this challenge today because I told you back on Day 4 that I was going to tackle my master bathroom armoire.  Then came this burning desire to paint the coat closet and the laundry room.  So this went further and further down the list.

But it's not escaping my wrath tonight!

Here was the before underneath our master bathroom sinks:

We pretty much just threw stuff in the cabinet after we completed our remodel.  We always seem to try to finish everything up the day or two before we have house guests.  Which means we are running around trying to clean things up and sometimes stuff gets shoved in the most opportune places....much to my dismay!

Not much really changed here, however, guess what I found hiding out this cabinet?  My dolphin necklace my high school boyfriend (who is now my husband) got for me when he visited Germany the summer between our Junior and Senior year in high school.  This has been missing for at least 3 years and I was sick thinking I had lost it in our multiple moves across STATES....but there it was....just sitting in a ziploc in the back of my master bathroom cabinet.  I have NO idea how or when it got there.  The hubs is putting our 3 yr old to bed (usually my job unless D gets into trouble as he did tonight), otherwise I would have went whooping and hollering down the hall!  I really cannot believe I found it...this organization challenge ROCKS! :)

Okay, so back to the afters.

Sorry for the black paint.  I was going to put contact paper down, but I just ran out of steam for tonight.  I did find some really cute contact paper for under the kitchen sink (which I'll share on another day soon), but this bathroom will just get boring 'ole white.

And if you remember this terrifying site.

Here it is now.  It actually is a lot better and I did throw a bunch of stuff out.  I just have too much.  Hair products and make up are to me like shoes are to other women.  I have way more than I need, but I can't stop buying more.  Guess no one really is perfect.  Bummer.



 Top shelf holds all of our travel items.  We do travel quite a bit either for our jobs or to visit family, so this much space really is necessary.

Middle shelf holds all of our my stuff like hair products, lotions, hair dryer,etc.

Towels and some medicine

Feminine needs and TP- the necessities!

Well a few more items checked off the mile long To Do list and an ecstatic Mrs. ALO for finding my necklace!  Whoo-hoo!
So how about you?  Have you discovered any long lost treasures during this challenge?

Day 13 - Medicine Cabinet

Today sure was an easy one, thank goodness since it was me against the kids!  Sometimes it is truly a wonder how any mom can get anything done when they have little ones on their heels.  Guess that's why we wear a cape under our clothes.

So here is the pitiful before of the bathroom on our main level, right off the kitchen:

Left

Middle

Right



 

So I began going through everything and checking expiration dates.  I also decided it would be best to group items together and take what I could out of it's original box, especially the adult cold medicine.  We go to the same medication every time we get a cold (Nyquil, Dayquil, Sudafed) therefore we really didn't have any use for the packaging.

In came my velveeta boxes again.  This medicine cabinet is shallow and these boxes fit perfectly!  I covered them with scrapbook paper and added some labelling on a couple of the boxes.

Left-After





Middle-After

You will notice some of the creams on the second shelf are in the plastic cup that comes with your laundry detergent.  I love using these to corral small items in tight spaces too!

Right- After

Open space!  The top has eye care supplies, middle shelf is our first aid section for cuts and scrapes, bottom holds bigger items.  Since we live in a 3 story home, it's easier to have some of our necessities in this bathroom and saves us a trip up and down the stairs if we forget to de-stink-ify ourselves! Would hate to work up a sweat before we can get our deodorant on. :)

And there you have it.  Nothing grand, but I got rid of a TON of outdated medications and gained some much needed space.  A little order in the bathroom.  Now I'm off to continue with the laundry room.  Almost done!  As soon as a few goodies arrive in the mail, I can present you with the final reveal.

Have a great weekend!

Day 12 - The Spice Cabinet

Yay!  I completed this during the pantry organization challenge.  See here.

So, it will be back to work on the laundry room tonight.  Thanks, Toni, for giving me an easy one today!

Day 10 - The Laundry Room

Well I knew this was coming, I was just hoping it would be on Saturday so I could spend the weekend on this challenge.  Not because I have this huge spacious laundry room with loads (get it..haha) of storage, but because I have this:

I've told ya'll before how much I despise my laundry room when I was dreaming of turning this into a pantry.  But that isn't happening any time soon.  We've done nothing but remodel since we moved in 3 years ago and this summer the hubs and I were looking to give our piggy banks and backs a break.  Okay, mostly his back, but I try to help when I'm not pregnant or busy keeping the kids occupied while he breaks his back! :)

So, back to the reason I wanted this challenge to come on the weekend.  I am itching to paint and really brighten this space up.  I told you when I did my closet makeover that I wanted to do a pattern on the wall.  I still really want to do that....and what better time to do a COMPLETE makeover than when you've got everything out and cleaned.  Since I do work full time, evenings are pretty busy and that leaves only the weekend to really tackle the big projects.

Therefore, I leave you with this in process shot....

It's not going to be as bright as I hoped, but that's okay.  It's taking forever, but I think it will be worth it.
Can't wait to show you the final reveal!