Organization

So, I don't know what's come over me, but the last few days I have been cleaning and organizing some much needed areas.  Seriously.  I don't know how they got so messy!  The 3 areas I have gone through so far are:

1}  Pantry
2}  Car
3}  Laundry Room

I CANNOT believe that I. didn't. take. ANY. pictures.  You know when you're strictly in the mood to just work and don't think about anything else?  That was me.  I had had the last straw with my pantry.  There were things that didn't belong.  There was expired food.  There was chaos.  I couldn't find anything!  It is so great to open it now and know exactly where everything is.  It is no Shelly Smith pantry, but it works for this rented house that we won't be in much longer.  My daughter even has room to play in there now.  It is her favorite place to hide.

My car had also reached my last nerve.  My problem, I found, is that I always take things to the car; ie, jackets, books, toys, water bottles...but then I NEVER bring them inside!  Thus, the pileup and mounds of things I had to put away.  Not to mention trash that collects.  So, after spending 2 hours cleaning (even the center console!), vacuuming, dusting & wiping, my car is immaculate!  My new goal is to empty the car out every time I get home so it doesn't pile up again.  Do you have any secrets for keeping your car clean?

I don't really enjoy doing laundry.  I'm sure it doesn't help that my laundry room is also a collect-all place for junk.  Not anymore!  I got rid of a lot of junk/trash that I had no idea why it was in there.  I also keep all of our medicine in the laundry room.  There isn't enough space in my kitchen, and I know enough about it to not keep it in the bathrooms. ;) I have extra shelf room, and it's nice and cool, so I figured the laundry room would be perfect.  (Although, my parents didn't think so when they were watching my daughter for me at my house and she accidentally ate something with peanuts in it and had an allergic reaction.  They couldn't find the Benedryl anywhere so they rushed out to buy some...now they know.)
I organized the meds into shoe boxes for now, getting rid of the expired ones and separating it out into different categories like children's, cough/cold, etc. 

I love an organized space!  It's so much easier to think. and breathe.  and be inspired.

I still have many areas to tackle.  Maybe I'll remember to take a picture...

Halloween Tulle Wreath

I got into the spirit of Halloween and made this tulle wreath weeks ago.  I'm sort of a slacker lately, since I'm just now getting around to posting it.  There has been a lot of these done this year and there are probably a bunch of tutorials already done, so I'm just posting the pictures! 

I used 4 different colors of fall inspired/Halloween tulle, 2 of which were of the shimmery variety; I tied them around an embroidery hoop I got from the thrift store.

The Happy Halloween sign is from Dollar Tree.  I had this on my front door, but woke up to it blown away one morning.  The wind is fierce where I live!  Soooo, it got moved inside.  I wish I would have moved my pumpkins inside too, they got taken weeks ago by some hooligans and smashed on the street when we were out of town.  Why do kids feel the need to annihilate and destroy things?  I'm still perturbed about it, can you tell?

BIG news, FIRST feature!

I'm super duper excited to be a new contributor at Design Dazzle!  It's a great decorating blog especially geared toward babies, kids and teens.  If you've never seen it before, you need to check it out, Toni is great!

While you're there, check out my first feature post on how to make your own hanging bow holder!

Hi friends!

I need to finish some projects!  I seriously have at least 20 that I'm "working on" that I can't wait to show you.

So for now, I'm just going to share a little children's rocking chair that I helped a friend with (umm, a year ago!?).  She is an awesome photographer and is always on the lookout for different props.  We found this at a local antique/consignment shop for a great deal!  I think we were so excited to begin working on it that we forgot to take a before picture! oops.

She wanted to go for something fun and bright.  Of course yellow was the answer! 

I toned it down just a bit by adding some black glaze, which also makes it look more like an antique.  I love the final product, and it looks great in pictures! See?

Now I need to find a little rocking chair for myself {by myself I mean my daughter}! 

Happy Friday!

Fall is in the air

I love love LOVE this time of year!
I love the fall leaves and the cooler weather.
I adore the fall fashion including boots, sweaters and scarves.

I had the chance to go up to the mountains to my family's cabin over the weekend.
The drive alone was worth the trip! GORGEOUS!
It seriously takes my breath away...

Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures, but this one of my brother fishing is my favorite:

Water like glass, beautiful mountains and sky...
Wish I could have stayed there longer. Much longer. But, alas, our lives must go on.

I wanted to bring some of the beautiful fall colors and leaves home, but I just couldn't do that; so I came up with the next best thing.

I bought some metal topiary stands at DI (thrift store) a couple weeks ago that I thought I could give a facelift to.

One of them had some awful fake foliage wrapped around it.  I took it off right away...

I went to the dollar store today and bought some leaves in various fall colors:

I went to work snipping each strand with my wire cutters and sticking them in the grassy straw stuff {that's a technical term} I scooted the leaves all the way to the end of the wire.

 

 

 (mental note: get a manicure)

 

Bottom half done.  (You like my daughter watching Baby Einstein in the background?) 

I ripped out all the moss that was at the base and hot glued some new moss. (from the dollar store)

Final touch, had to tie a ribbon round the old oak tree  maple leaf topiary. (ribbon also from dollar store!)

My original thought was to put these outside my front door, but I don't know if they can stand the crazy wind where I live...I think they found a new home by the TV.

It's certainly not as vibrant as the real trees are right now, but it allows me to take a small part of the outdoors and bring it inside for the season.  {And on the cheap too!}

 

Linking to:

Centsational Girl