Oooh! You think I'm stylish!

Whoo hoo! My first award!!

This just made my day! It's taken me forever to post about it because it comes with some rules. (I actually had the WHOLE post typed out...and the power went out and it was lost).

Rules for accepting the award:

1. Thank and link back to the blogger who gave you the award

2. Share 7 things about yourself

3. Award eight recently discovered stylish bloggers

4. Contact the the bloggers and inform them of their award

Here we go...

ONE:

THANK YOU SO MUCH to Allie from Miss Lovie for bestowing this award to me! 

TWO:

1. I am fluent in sign language.

2. I like to put grapes in my chocolate ice cream.

3. I anticipating getting engaged every waking moment...so my husband proposed by waking me up in the middle of the night!

4. I have some weird love/addiction to .pdf files (I convert everything to a .pdf).

5. I'm one of 4 girls and I have 5 nephews and 1 niece.

6. I can taste aspartame (artificial sweetener) in ANYTHING (ewww it's disgusting!)

7. I have a desire to be a neat freak...but I'm not! 

THREE:

1. Oopsey-Daisy (thanks for the feature too!)

2. California Callahans

3. Life in the Thrifty Lane

4. My Many Colored Days

5. The Cre8tive Outlet

6. The Diary of Dave's Wife

7. Tracy's Trinkets and Treasures

8. Inspiring Creations

FOUR:

Well...you'll just have to trust me that I told all of them :) 

Thank you again Allie!!

LightScoop Giveaway over at I [heart] Naptime!

Okay, so everyone looks forward to I <3 Naptime's Sundae Scoop linky party...well this week she's hosting a giveaway from LightScoop!  

Go check it out and enter to win!!

Earring Organization

I am awful about losing earrings.  They eventually hurt my ears and I take them out in the car and leave them in the door handle cup or I forget to take them out of my ears before bed and I leave them on my nightstand and I knock them on the floor and someone ends up eating them (I'm just assuming).  Well I've been doing better about keeping up with my smaller earrings (the ones I lose more anyways) since I started keeping them in these: 

It's a bead holder from Walmart to organize seed beads. 

It comes with 24 of these little individual boxes.  I put one pair of earrings out (you have to take the whole top off, not just the flip up dispenser part) and when I wear the earrings I take the box with me.  Then the idea is that I will put them BACK in the box if I get tired of wearing them during the day and then proceed to NOT lose the box. :) Okay, it's not fool-proof yet, but work with me. 

Today, I decided to make them prettier. I cut out some scrapbook paper to fit the top and sides and hot glued the paper in there (just a tiny drop of hot glue in each corner). I'm sure there's a better way, but the glue gun was nearby and I'm feeling awfully lazy today.

Here is what it looks like when it's *mostly* filled with earrings.

Voila!

 (the second one is completely empty)

If you need a laugh...here ya go: Today one of my kindergartners was looking at a coloring page of Martin Luther King Jr. and pretending to "read" the coloring page to me..and it read, "Martin Luther King Jr. was the first African American to discover white people."   I about lost it! Bless his heart, he was so sincere about it too. I love children.

Check out my sidebar to see where I link up!

Unintentional expensive taste

I've been looking for fabric to recover our dining room chairs in and found one that was PERFECT!!!

You know what's not perfect? The $44.99/yard price. 

Ugh, gotta keep looking.

They like me, they really like me!

I was featured!!! Whoo hoo!!!

Thank you Erin from Crafts & Sutch! Your blog is adorable!! I can't wait to peruse the whole thing tonight while my husband is at work (dishes and laundry can wait, right?)

Furbabies

I finally took some updated pictures of my furchildren.  I just bought some frames for them, but I need to paint the hallway first before hanging them up. 

Pongo

Sharpie

Panda

Hurry!

Tonight is the last night to enter Craftaholics Anonymous' Double Giveaway!! 

Go check it out NOW! 

All you need is love...

Alright, it's fixed, and I LOVE it! 

Here was my inspiration from House Tweaking (thanks to Rosita Designs for helping me find the site this picture is from). 

I bought these windows for $520 at a thrift store a couple weeks ago.

Yeah, you read that right, $520.  Why? Because my iPhone 4 got stolen in the store ($500 for the phone + $20 for the windows).  Ugh, I'm so mad. Anyways...back to the tutorial.

Sketched out my "love" on two foam boards.

 

Always need my helper...

Cut out my "love" from foam board.  I actually used two different kinds of foam board and just hot glued them where they overlapped. One piece came from Dollar Tree ($1) and the other was Elmer's foam board ($3.50)...go with the Dollar Tree one. It was SO much easier to cut (not to mention cheaper!). 

Then one of my favorite products - spackling paste.

Covered the whole thing with spackling paste. It's easier to use your fingers to apply it, plus it's fun to get messy! (The shish-kebab sticks are to keep it elevated off the newspaper so it doesn't stick). 

So then I painted it after the spackle was dry and during a test run I knocked a window off it's nail and both windows and the "love" sign came tumbling down behind my couch.  Thankfully I didn't break one of my $520 windows, but the "love" wasn't so lovely anymore...

But who always comes to my rescue when I break something??

So I just hot glued it back together and made "bandaids" out of extra foam board and glued them to the back (sorry, no picture, but hopefully this won't happen to you). 

 More spackle...and then paint

Perfect!! I'm in love :) 

Hope you're having a craftastic weekend!

Check out my sidebar to see where I link up!

Suggestions Please??

So we are currently renting our house, but we did a lease-purchase agreement and have ever intention of buying it (once we qualify for a mortgage)...anyways, so I really want to update my house, but I'm still limited since I have landlords.  My landlord (who lived here before us) and I do not have the same taste in decor (more on that later). 

So in my kitchen I have this lovely ceiling fan.

The shade and bulb holder thingys (yes, that's the technical term) are brass, but I just noticed today that the actual fan and blade holder thingys are silver...which I can work with.  I loathe brass fixtures. 

I can find an old fan on Craigslist and replace the blades. 

So here's the QUESTION:

How can I update the glass shade thing in a way that could be reversible if need-be??

Thank you!!!

Frustration Station

Just when I'm taking the final picture to show y'all my latest creation...

CRASH!

*sigh*

Thankfully, it's fixable. 

Papparedelle with Lemon, Baby Artichokes, and Asparagus

I tried this new recipe and it was delicious!!

You can get the recipe HERE.

I modified it by adding mushrooms and used fettucini noodles.

Look at this conjoined twin mushroom I found.

Mmmm and have to add a nice tomato garnish!

Paint used for my dining room table

A couple people asked what paint I used for the table.  Unfortunately, I happened to drip paint right down the front of the can (which I rarely do)...so I can't read what color it was. I do know it was the darkest brown they made and it starts with "glo" and ends with "brown". I tried to find it online with no luck. 

Sorry!

So here's the paint.

Update: I went to Lowe's and the paint I used is: Gloss Buckeye Brown

And this is the poly-stain I used.

How to hang a picture straight

Take your picture and put painter's tape across the back of it where the hangers are.

(I hate how this sentence is worded, but I've re-written it 10 times and am giving up. I hope, even through the poorly written structure, you know what I mean)

Mark where your nail will go.

See?

Then peel your tape off your picture and put it on the wall using a level to make sure it is straight (you can also mark the middle of the tape between the marks to determine the middle of the picture). Then just nail (or screw) where you made your marks on your tape and peel off!

Easy as pie!