Mudroom Reveal!

Whew! It's done!! And I lurve it to death. Total days? About 8 full days with some painting, pickeling, and lots of cutting. Thanks to our lovely Handyman Mike. He rocks it.

This would be before the hooks are up...we scored the baskets up top from Aldi for $7.00 a pop! They are fabric with a wire frame. The top shelves hold winter stuff in summer, and summer in winter. The middle shelves hold things we need, but don't use often.


Here it is with the hooks and all our crap. The bottom baskets hold our current shoes. The left side is boys, the right side is girls.


I don't know why it took me so long to really pressure the husband to do this - it is so much more effecient, and I really just love it! (the kids do too!)


Linking up to!!

http://www.centsationalgirl.com/

Oh Joy!

Well, it all started with a foot/leg going through our ceiling. A noticable water ring stain on the drywall ceiling, lead to the discovery of a blocked dryer vent.



I figured since the guys were here anyway, why not make some changes in this house. You must understand this: My husband grew up in a house full of women. Stylish, classy women. Women who love to shop, decorate, know what colors go with what, could tell you the difference between a slate blue and a navy and WHAT makes them different.
That said, when I want to make some changes in our house, he ALWAYS has a say. ALWAYS. And I get veto'd a lot. A LOT. So, I rarely even bother. Well my friends, the time has come. After 14 years of marriage, I'm stickin' to my guns. Wish me luck. Lots of wine may be consumed.

We are re-doing our mudroom. OH JOY!

Before:

See that sink? Yeah, we never used it. It actually was a wonderful place for lots of empty boxes. Piled to the ceiling. Never broken down. The closet? Couldn't get to it because there was so much CRAP in front of it.

During: We are going to get some wainscoting, and put that up against the walls. So we hired our amazing handy-man Mike...and he got to work. The shelves so far look amazing...and I'm in love. However, I'm ready to get my house back in order. This is it so far! I'll update again once it's all done. Yipee for a new mudroom!!

She's getting older.

Funny how that works. Feed em, water em, teach em, and they grow. Crazy.

This year she decided to do a cooking themed birthday party. Since I was having a scrap night with some of my closest friends prior to this, we each made an invitation for her to send.

We are making 2 teams of 4, and pulling out the cake pans, making some buttercream AND fondant (more on that later).

Decorations are the most fun. I scoured and found beautiful after beautiful tutorials on cupcake liner garlands. Pom-Pon's. So cute and easy!!

Ingredients: (keeping with the theme, ya know)...
2 packages of different colored cupcake liners
1 package of small doilies
1 package of large (not cone) coffee filters
1 needle
1 package of colored floss
Time
Patience

Take a piece of floss and thread through a medium sized needle. String the materials, varying in pattern. Be sure to also thread them off center sometimes, it adds to the variety.



It's so easy, and that growing weed loves it!

I'm planning on making some cupcake liner Pom-Pon's, which I will feature next time. Wish us luck!

Valentine's Day!!

I really need to commit myself to updating the blog more often...
Valentine's Day is upon us here, and each year, I scour the wonderful blogs looking for cool, crafty ideas for the kids to hand out at school.

This year, we are doing these!



Uber easy, super duper looking treat. Instructions? Here ya go.
Box of on-sale smaller candy canes
Sucker sticks (found at the local craft store)
Plastic pretzel bags (also found at the local craft store)

Take your candy canes and arrange them on a parchment lined cookie sheet in the shape of a heart.
Bake at 300 for about 2 min.'s
Take them out, stick the stick in the bottom middle part of the heart. Squeeze the heart around the stick. Let cool


Drop them in the pretzel bag and Wahla! Done!

OMG. It's December.

And the time has as always slipped away. I am currently in the midst of some craftyness, but with a pinched nerve in my neck (how did this happen?!??!). So I surf, blog, and dream instead of crafting. I have so many projects awaiting me. Like this one

I have all the materials, and then BAM! Shooting neck pain, muscle relaxer, and heating pad

I did finish this one though...

Super easy and inexpensive gift for a co-worker. It's a glass ball, plain, and then I took sparkly rub ons and embellished. I topped it off with a pretty ribbon! :)

love this one!!

Having Crafty Mojo Rocks.

In the past month, I have completed:

4 dryer vent pumpkins,

Thirteen 12x12 layouts for my children's albums,

3 cards,

baked cheeseburger cupcakes,

decorated my house for the witching day,

made two glass cool things,

went dumpster diving for a really cool table,

spray painted a frame,

cut chicken wire for said frame (not easy!!),

painted a real ugly collector's spoon holder for my daughter that I found in Iowa while antiqueing with my cousin,

and made a cool frame/shadow-box thingy at Archivers.

Busy bee, I am! Buzz Buzz! :)

I love this weather, it's cool out, I'm not sweating while I work, and the paint dries a little bit better.

Crafty viewing pleasure...

Thank you Amnesty day for bringing me this crazy black painted old table. See the leaf that pops up? Underneath all this black paint I think there is pine. Yes, pine. Ah....
50 cent frame. Take off the back, paint it white (again), staple in some chicken wire, and you have a holiday card holder. It's a work in progress.

Oh, and one more thing - I watched my husband and daughter try out the new Easy Bake Oven. Priceless.

Fall!!

Boy, I got my crafty mojo back! Now if I just had some time! I saw this cool, inexpensive craft out there in blog-land, and thought it was so cute. Wanna make a cute pumpkin?? I have so much fall stuff out at home already, but I had to do this too - even for friends and for the office.

Go straight to Menards or Home Depot now. Buy a box of dryer vent. It was about 9.00 for 8 feet of the stuff. It's silver, and it's used to hook up to your dryer.

Cut it. Like so.

Hot glue the ends together. Be careful, it's hot!

Then you have this:

While you are at Menards or Home Depot, by a can of Rustoleum orange spray paint. I used to work for them (shhh....it's a looong time ago), and they rock. Paint that baby orange.

Once it's all dry (get the underside too!), stick some whole cincinnamon sticks in the center, tie it with some ribbon or raffia, and Viola! You have yourself a pumpkin! For about $10.00.

Happy Crafting!!

Autumn.

Can't believe that summer is gone. My last post was summer. Now it's autumn/fall. What happened???

Well, honestly, not much of anything. Not much craftiness. More home/work stuff. I did make something for my office, but I don't have a picture to share. Basically, I did this.

One acrylic stand up photo frame for a letter

Cut out lovely letters that will spell something - I spelled "LEARN". I used a pretty font on the cricut, so it was easy peasy.

Apply a co-ordinating color behind the cut out letter. Slip it all into the frame. Wahlah!

I'll post pictures as soon as I take them. I also have something else brewing up too, but can't post it here, as it might get to the person that it's for!!!

Happy Crafting!

Summer time fun!

Well, I am officially off work! Whoot! That means, time to play catch up - if I haven't mentioned that already. First up, office clean up.

5 bags of shredded documents.

I took a picture but then deleted it. It made my OCD go overdrive. We also put together our gazebo on the deck. 4 hours later, it looked like this. We had to take a trip to Geneva, IL for the rest of the parts. They only gave us the big pieces. FUN.

We also took in a Cubs game - we went to Cellular Field (sox home) where you can't get AT&T reception on your phone. Seriously. What a scam. Anyway, we had great seats, and Zambrano got kicked out of the game for fighting Lee. Good stuff!

So what if we lost? We haven't been doing good for 100 years.

In between all that, I managed to whip up 2 batches (that's 24 in 2 days) of Pancake Muffins. Can you say YUMMO? My fam LOVED them. The recipe (and my daughter helped me spell that, the little friggin' genius - she's 7) anyway, can be found here.

Also, I finished my beautiful basket. Now to put plants in it. BBQ is in T-minus 15 days. Lord help me.

Re-cap from 365 post

Yeah! I got my new card reader - that was fast, huh? So, here's a recap of this week. We had AWESOME storms this week - another trip to the basement bathroom - this time eating dinner by the toilet. Lovely.

See the wonderful power lines that are right beside our house? So pretty.

My fav. flower has started blooming in my garden.

After the storms, came a rainbow, but somehow, it came out darker than I thought. I really need to read the instruction manual on my camera and spend a few hours playing. Yeah, I have that kind of time.

And...last but not least, I actually got down to biz and got some craft on. Can you guess what I'm going to do with this old, ugly basket that I scored for a BUCK at a garage sale?

Ideas abound

So I have seen quite frenquently the whole 365 photo idea. I brought it up with Mr. I, and he laughed. I know that I need to start taking more pictures. Starting today. And I was GOING to download the pictures I took today, but my Dazzle card disk reader isn't working!!!! So, you'll have to wait for pics.

Father's Day weekend was loads of fun. We're in high-gear for BBQ. Plants are planted..and we spent the better part of the day in the heat sweating setting up a big gazebo. Also realizing that it requires 4 people to help instead of 2.

The children fought. We saw Karate Kid (very good). We cooked dinner. And here it is, not even 7 and I'm wiped out.

Does anyone even read this? I'm thinking that this whole blog thing isn't really for me. I don't know if I'm even wasting my time.

Summer...Ahhh...

Been very busy here with baseball, crafty-ness, getting ready for our bi-annual BBQ...etc.

Here's what's been going on...1st up, baseball. Jake's team is well...they try.

And the BBQ...well, let's just say that there was a reason that we skipped a year. Between flowers, gazebo's, hanging lights, cool cups, burger cupcakes...wha? Yes, I said Burger cupcakes.

And these cool cups that I'm SO very excited about...

At the end of the school year, I always give the teachers a gift. Last year I made pails with goodies in them. This year, I found this somewhere in this wonderful blog-o-sphere...

Oh, and I found a new blog I ADORE. Ree has been around forever, and I know I'm slow to discover her and her wonderful-ness. Check her out over here.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/

I've been tinkering with the idea of switching either to Typepad, or some other bloggy place. I've been trying to plant a bug in Mr. I's ear about him creating my very own space. After all, that is what he does for a living...if that doesn't pan out, I suppose I'll do the switch. Any suggestions?

Happy Passover and Spring!!

Spring has FINALLY sprung here in Illinois. We were able to enjoy the Flower and Garden Show downtown. The kids and I had a blast, and they enjoyed seeing downtown Chicago. I am SO grateful for the wonderful weather, spring break, and flowers attempting to pop up. Since I work at a school, I have spring break off too, so we've been busy with playdates, errands, going downtown (tomorrow) and Passover!!

This year, I revived my Peeps for Passover (see these Pics..... http://www.flickr.com/photos/stylecouncil/441046093/in/set-72157600038845249/) and also, we are inviting new friends to our Seder. A Seder is a ritual meal shared with family and friends saying blessings, and eating and drinking a lot. We hide the Afikomen, (which is a piece of matzoh) and the children run to find it and get a prize). Instead of toys this year as prizes, I've bought each child - including my nephew who is a Freshman, magazines to the tune of their tastes. Who knew "Bop" was till out there?

I made this a few years ago, and it hangs in our foyer.

Bad Blogger.

Thanks Michele for the kick in the ass (by linking me) that I so needed to update this joyful, yet neglected spot. Since January, this has occured.

• I finished the Ipod Valentine's. The kids' friends loved them. One even thought it was real! Yes, I bought 48 Ipod's. Ha!


• I realized that my paying job isn't all that it's cracked up to be. People are not what they seem (waving of hands in mysterious manner)


• My nanny up and quit on me. Poof. Gone. All during my supposed relaxing weekend scrapbooking in WI.


• I found a cheaper alternative to childcare.


• I shoveled more than I've ever shoveled in my life. Damn Chicago winters.


• But, on the flip side, Spring is here, and I'm seeing tulips sprouting up.

So - re: Scrapbook weekend. (we'll skip the nasty nanny story. It involves a lot of tears, drama, throwing up, and general bitchy-ness. You wanna skip that mess, trust me.)




Mmmm. A candy cart.

The weekend warmed up a bit, notice the lack of snow on the driveway. What a great house.

Michele stitching again. That girl can sew her papers like no one's biz.






















And I actually got 10 layouts done. Even with the drama.

We are going back in October. Even though it is 8 months away, I can't wait. Good friends, awesome host (Thanks Karen!!) and too much food.

I'm back on the blogging trail - watch out!!!

Catch up and V-Day!

This is going to be a Momma of a post, lots of things to catch you up on! First, we had a mammoth snowfall here in Western IL - about 9 inches. It was purty.

Then I made some pretty 4 D snowflakes for the Holidaze that I just couldn't bring myself to bring down after the holidaze. SO easy to make!!

V-Day is around the corner and that means I am very busy making 45 treat bags for my children to give out at school. This year, I am making IPod treats. It is a bit more labor intensive than I thought, so this will probably be the last time I do them.

Supplies:

2 - 6 inch long string

a box of sweethearts (you know, the hearts that have sayings on them?)

Cardstock that is 4x7

2 candy Rolo's

glue

2x2 pieces of aluminum foil

Tape each end of a piece of string to a rolo. Tape the loose end to the candy box.

Wrap each rolo in a piece of aluminum foil.
Wrap the cardstock strip around the candy box and secure it with a glue stick.

Cut paper shapes and write text for the scroll wheel and playlist (or download Family Fun's) and use a glue stick to attach them to the box. Write a valentine message on the back of the box.

This is the mess.

Yeah, never again. But it's cool-looking!

I have some other ideaers for Valentine's Day decorations around the house. Mr. I is going to cut some wood, and it'll involve pretty paper and glitter. How can you go wrong with glitter? I'm hoping to knock it out tomorrow, since we don't have work or school because of MLK Day.

A few people have mentioned to me that they are keeping up with my blog, and it warms my little heart to hear that. :)

Have a crafty day!

I know I've been gone...

So much has happened! I can't believe I haven't updated this blog since May. Bad Blogger. Well, here's a re-cap. Summer flew, with lots of fun and warm weather. I gardened, planted potatoes, crafted, and got a job! I am now a school nurse at the local elementary school and love it. I have found that I have very little time for anything else besides coming home, cleaning, taking care of kids, making dinner and collapsing into bed.

Good thing though, is that I get the same holidays off as the kids, which means Thanksgiving break and winter break. This past winter break (I go back to work in 4 days), I spent a lot of time thinking about re-doing my space. Although I love the space I have now, I know I could utilize it better. I have 3 walls just screaming for cabinets. I have seen a lot of spaces online where kitchen cabinets are featured. I would love to re-do it all. I feel like I'm only using my big old dining room table and everything is crammed on there.

Any suggestions? Oh, and Happy New Year! I hope to post more stuff this year - that is my goal.

It could be better, thanks for asking...

But I won't go there. I'll try to think crafty, happy thoughts and everything will be ok..

Here is the finished product for the centerpieces. It turned ok, dontcha think? I know the retiring teacher will like them, and it's a total surprise! :)

Also, this area has been bugging me lately. (Like I have any energy to do something with it!). This is the area next to my crafting space. Currently, there are two tables there...and a big TV box that the kids have been coloring on for a year. I'm going to toss the box, move the rectangle table into storage, but the round table is from my Mom's house and I don't want it in storage. The garbage to the left of the sliding glass windows obviously needs to go out -reminents of my cleaning out the storage area last week...

Orginally, I was thinking of putting some wicker furniture and a table down there because eventually, outside that sliding glass door, we'll screen it in, and put patio pavers down...
but in the next room is our sectional/tv/video games...I'm thinking too much furniture...Then I thought about extending my craft area out, but I use the back wall for shelving, etc. and it's so....open...

Help! What would you do with this space? Jen? LOL...