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 

Shadowbox Earring Holder

There are about a bazillion earring holders in blogland/cyberworld.  I was going to make one out of a frame and wire mesh like many people do, but then I found something BETTER! {In my humble opinion}

I honest to goodness can't remember if I found this at Marshall's or TJMaxx, LOVE them both!  And you could probably find something like this at either one.  It's a shadow box with a hinge door that opens and has a magnetized close.  The inside is a thin foam covered with burlap.  I bought 2 of them! {I have a lot of earrings...}

It was white when I bought it and I spray painted it Coral Isle to match my lamps and bring some more color accent to the room.

I also glazed the details with a dark brown:

I hung {most} of my earrings in the 2 shadowboxes.  I used pins for some of the hoop ones that don't have hooks.

I hung them in the corner of my bedroom right next to my necklace holder.  It is so handy to have them in close proximity.

I love that I can see right through the glass; do you ever pick out your accessories first, then chose an outfit? I do that sometimes, it's a good way to think outside the box a little bit and put together new combinations...

It opens so easily and I don't have to worry about earrings getting tangled, rifling through them to find a mate, or getting lost. Plus, it doesn't take up room on the dresser.

 Seriously, it's so handy if you're looking for a cute easy way to display/store your earrings!  I love it!


Linking to:
Southern Lovely
Someday Crafts 
Lil Luna 
Blue Cricket Design 
Domestically Speaking 
Sew Much Ado 
Todays Creative Blog 
Nap Time Crafters 
Finding Fabulous 
Remodelaholic 
Tatertots and Jello 
Design Dazzle 
504 Main 
Young and Crafty 
Whipperberry 
Redoux 
Be Different Act Normal 
The Gingerbread Blog 
Lil Luna 
Restore Interiors 
Domestically Speaking 
Blue Cricket Design 

Pinspiration Accomplished

Have you seen this quote describing Pinterest before? {I found it on, well, Pinterest} 

I saw it a while back, thought it was humorous, but then became determined to not let it happen to me!  I have already done a few things that I found the inspiration and ideas for on Pinterest.  One of them was this hairstyle:

I actually did something similar to this to my hair!  Twice!  And neither time did I think to get a picture of it.  But, I never would have thought to try it if I didn't see this picture.

Another project I did was make some flip-flop hangers.  Remember when I shared this picture?

We have some awkward space in the corners of our closet where we can't really hang clothes and there is wasted room.  Since I might have a wholelotta shoes, I figured I should try to use that space! 

I had a broken pants hanger one day that I was about to throw away, when I remembered the flip-flop hangers I had seen on Pinterest.  I did a test run on it and liked the way it worked so I asked for some pants hangers from the dry cleaners the next time I was there. And they gave them to me. For FREE. 

 So, here's what I did.  Take a hanger and break the papery part in half.  This just allows you to get it off a little easier.  You king of have to work at it a little, twisting it off.

After the paper part is off it will look like this:

 Then, just bend up each edge to the center, like this:

 And you're left with a cute, little hanger:

 Just slip your shoes inside and you're good to go!

 Soooo easy!  I didn't have to cut any wire and it took about 2 minutes per hanger.  They are definitely not as cute as the ones that Jen did on EPBOT; but they function and they hide in the corners of my closet!  What a great way to conceal those seasonal shoes!

So there!  That's at least two things that I've actually done something with from Pinterest.  I need to get in the kitchen next and re-create some of that yummy food I've found!

Have you done anything with the inspiration you find?  If not, remove yourself from the computer for a bit and DO IT! :)