Door Hangers/Deezy Does It

First, let me say Happy Thursday! I'm very excited both for my post this week, and being showcased on Pimp Out Your Blog from Deezy Does It. Please, if you didn't come from her site, go take a look at it. She offers a showcase once a week for someone's blog, and she always offers a prize if you link up. :)

OK, now on to my project for this week. I saw this very awesome tutorial on Pinterest for door hangers for a bedroom door. So of course, my first thought was Little Miss needed one for the nursery. I didn't want to go to the store just for a letter to decorate, so I used what I had around. Once I had finished the one for her door, my little man said he wanted one too. So together, we made his. After finishing both of them, it had only taken a little over an hour of our day, and they looked awesome! Hope you enjoy!

First for hers. I used my trusty Cricut Expression, along with the Artiste cartridge, to cut out the I. I have a light pink cardstock on the back, and the patterned one on the front. I used the cardstock as a stencil to trace the I onto 2 piece of cardboard I had hot glued together. After cutting out the cardboard and paper, I used a spray glue to coat put the paper onto the cardboard. Next, I hot-glued ribbon around the edges. I used a clear drying glue from Close to My Heart all over the front of the I, and added a dusting of clear glitter. Then I hot glued the flower embellishment and the ribbon to hand it to the door. I used a clear command hanger so that we didn't put a hole in the door. I think it turned out great!

OK, my son's was so much easier! Although he has a Cars decorated room, he wanted his W to be camo. Again, using my Cricut and the Artiste cartridge, we cut out the W from a tan and camo cardstocks. I hot-glued 2 pieces of cardstock together and after using the cardstock as a stencil, cut out our W. He got to use the spray glue to put the 2 pieces of paper on the cardboard. Since it was camo and rugged looking, he said he didn't want any ribbon on the edges, so we just hot-glued some at the top to hang it from. He also let me know that "Mommy, I am a boy and I don't need any flowers or anything on my W." So, here it is finished, and SO easy. He loves it!

Dorothy

Updated Bathroom



Happy Tuesday everyone! I wanted to share with you a not so crafty project, but a project none the less. :)

 

Thanks to Pinterest, we spent an afternoon updating our bathroom a few weeks ago. We took our boring old tub and wall (as pictured below), and we put Airstone on it. We went to Lowe's and purchased a box (We ended up having to get a second box because the salesman was wrong. A linear foot is NOT the same as a square foot!) of Airstone, some Liquid Nails, and a piece of trim.

 

Then it was time to go home and start the project. I think it took longer to decide HOW we wanted to put it on then to actually put it on. We laid it all out in our hall. Of course, our little man had to help daddy!

 

 

So, after about 4 hours and $100. This is our newly designed bathroom. We love it! It gives it such character, and really makes it look so much nicer. One of the best projects I have found on Pinterest!

 

 

 

Dorothy



4th of July Fun

Happy Thursday everyone! Ok, I know that the 4th was a week ago, and I don't care. :) I want to share how my family and I spent our day. A little unconventional, yes, but it was such a great day for us. Even with the rain. For some reason, it won't stop raining for us to really enjoy a day other than for a few hours! Today is the first day in awhile it seems that it hasn't rained at some point, and here I sit at work. Some day I won't have to work, and I can enjoy beautiful days like today.

 

Enough about the negative, and back to the positive. So, little miss and I spent most of our day in the kitchen. Here she is in her Bumbo ready to direct me. :)

 

 

I tried my hand at making jam for the first time EVER. Peach jam. YUM! My grocery store was having an awesome deal on fresh peaches (99 cents a pound!), and how could I pass that up? So I came home with 6 pounds. What the hell do I do with 6 pounds of fresh peaches? Well Dorothy, you make jam of course. So I scoured the Internet to find a recipe. I finally decided on one that I had everything it called for. I peeled and cut 5 pounds of peaches. Added some fresh lemon juice and some 5 cups of sugar. Then I had to wait for an HOUR. Who can wait for an hour when this is sitting on your counter?

 

But I did. I waited the hour. Finally, it was time to put it on the stove. I brought it to a boil, and stirred. And stirred. And stirred some more. The recipe said 25 minutes to get it to the jelly consistency. 25 minutes came, and it was still liquidy. So I stirred some more. And stirred. And stirred. I gave up after 45 minutes. Obviously, this was never going to become a jelly. Next time, I will go to the store so that I can use a recipe with Pectin in it. Lesson learned.

 

However, I did end up with 3 jars of very yummy peach syrup. :)

 

Tip for you: if you have to get whatever you are canning to a rolling boil and leave it there for awhile, you don't have to do the water bath to seal the jars. Put them upside for 30-45 minutes and the heat from the jam will seal them. Then turn them over to finish cooling.

 

So while little miss and I were making jam, my son and husband had their own project. Project fire pit! My mother-in-law had given us the metal ring for a fire pit a few years ago for Christmas. Well, 2 years later, the fire pit has been taken out of the box. Hubby went to Lowe's and got some blocks to put around it, and made this on our patio. I love it. AND, it came with a pole and rack to be able to cook over the fire. Score!

 

 

Now that we have finished making the jam, I decided to use some. So once again I went onto the Internet in search of a recipe. I found this oh so yummy recipe for a peach glazed sweet and spicy salmon. I'm salivating a little just thinking about it. I mean what doesn't sound good when you are pairing sweet and spicy together? Bonus points for it only taking 15 minutes. The broccoli salad I served along side it took longer to prepare.

 

Speaking of the salad, I have finally found a salad my son will eat! Broccoli, jicama, dried cranberries, turkey bacon, and a greek yogurt dressing. He had 2 helpings! Yay for healthy food the kiddo likes. Of course, I may have fibbed and told him the jicama was a fruit, but hey, a little white lie like that doesn't hurt. Just like when I make "sweet potatoes". He doesn't need to know it is really butternut squash! :)

 

So here's our 4th of July dinner. Sweet and Spice Salmon, Broccoli Salad, and Cilantro Lime Rice.

 





Well, once dinner was over it was time to enjoy the evening. I'm talking a fire in the new fire pit, sparklers, poppers, and of course.. SMORE'S.

What a fantastic holiday we had. It was one of those days filled with fun, great food, and family time. A perfect day if you ask me. :)

Dorothy

Bow Holder

Hello everyone! Happy Tuesday! I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend. I know I did. I have lots of projects to post this week that I worked on during my week off work. As much as I wanted to go and spend some much needed, relaxing time on the boat, mother nature did not let that happen. It was so rainy and gross out that I STILL have yet to be out on the water this year. It is July. This is sad and disappointing. Since I just got over my fear, and learned to swim at the end of last summer (you can do it to!), I was really looking forward to that first jump into the water this year. Alas, it has slipped through my fingers, and looks like it will still be a few weeks now before it will happen. Don't you worry though.. it WILL happen soon. :)

Anyway, back to my projects. The first project I worked on was a bow holder for my baby girl. She was in DESPERATE need of one because a girl can never have too many bows. (Although, my hubby says she has plenty and I need to stop even looking at them in the store, like that will happen!) So, I scoured all over Pinterest (it only took me a few minutes to find a picture of what I wanted, but no instructions). That's ok, I don't need instructions. Well, maybe it would have made it a bit easier to do, but I can figure it out. So, if you don't want to spend a long time trying to figure out the best way to do something, here are instructions. Enjoy!

BEFORE

 

 AFTER

So, I started with a $4 picture from Goodwill. I have to say, it was an UGLY picture, but I really liked the frame. Make sure you are looking at the frame when picking one, and not the picture inside. However, also make sure that it is going to be easy to remove the picture. :)

Next, remove the picture and sand the frame down. This is when I took the "before" picture, when it was ready to be spray painted. Then spray paint. I used a paint and primer in one so I could save a step. I put on 3 coats. However, the third coat was just because I was impatient and smudged the paint while doing the next step. lol

Once the paint was (COMPLETELY) dry, I added 6 of the smallest eyelet screws I could find to the inside of the frame. I then added my wire to make 3 rows. There are 12 hook screws added to the bottom of the frame.

After adding all of the hardware, I used a (borrowed, how my husband didn't have one I'll never know!) staple gun to adhere the fabric to the back. Ok, a few tips here. I used a fabric quarter that matched my paint. I ironed my fabric first to get rid of the lines from it being folded. Also, I stapled it THEN cut off the excess. Here's my biggest tip, get help! I wish I would have. Apparently, my little girly hand was not strong enough to squeeze the staple gun with only one hand, so my fabric is not as tight as I would have liked. If I would have asked for help, I could have had my hubby stretch the fabric to make it tighter.

Lastly, I hot glued the flowers onto each corner to add some "curb appeal" to it. I LOVE how it turned out, and all it took was some time and effort.

Dorothy