Holy Stripes

Earlier this week, I mentioned my dreams of transforming my half bath into this:

Young House Love

During my hookie day, I painted the poopy brown walls a beautiful ivory.  Sherry and John at Young House Love said that it took them under 4 hours to transform their ivory bathroom into the striped heaven displayed above.  I foolishly thought I could do the same, so I planned to conquer the stripes one night after work.  Boy, was I wrong!  It took me an hour and a half to do one stripe.... Yes, I said ONE.  Don't judge.  Needless to say, I got completely discouraged and, after a much needed hug, the hubs encouraged me to call it quits for the night and offered to help me try again on a weekend when we don't have any time constraints.  Who knows when we'll get to the stripey fun, but right now I am fully enjoying the brightness of the ivory on the walls.  It is SUCH a big difference and makes me smile every time I walk by.  It's also a good reminder that it's okay to take my time with things and just let it be.

Hookie

According to the Urban Dictionary, the term "hookie" is defined as "A day in which liberty is taken upon oneself to exclude themself from school or work obligations while, most likely, pretending to be sick or having a death in the family. Usually this time is spent with a significant other (i.e. hookie for nookie), a sports activity (i.e. golf or playstation), or just plain sitting on ones ass all day editing & writing definintions for modern slang words over the internet. Commonly referred to as "playing hookie"."  For some reason, this definition does not include "working one's boot-ay off doing home improvement projects with a significant other."  Weird.

 

Why the vocab lesson?

 

Yesterday, I played hookie.  Before you shake your finger at me with an ever-dissapproving look in your eye, hear me out.  My husband is a firefighter.  This means that he works 48 hours on (yes, 48 hours away from me) and then has 72 hours off.  Because of his schedule, we rarely have days off together where he isn't just coming off an exhausting shift or about to start a new one.  This has left our huge home improvement wish list / to do list just lying there all sad and lonely.

 

Last week, my husband helped his co-worker out by switching shifts with him.  This gave him a Sunday off (YAY!).  And the best part of this particular Sunday???  NO PLANS WHATSOEVER!  Usually when we have weekends together, it's already stocked full of plans with friends and family, which is amazing, but that also means we never get to have our carefree days or our Lazy Sundays filled with movies and Chinese take-out that filled our early dating years.  We definitely made the most of this plan-free Sunday.  The hubs surprised me with a shopping spree for some summer clothes followed by an afternoon movie and then some quality "us" time.  Me being spoiled by a full day of hubs + me of course resulted in me wanting an extra day together so we could actually tackle some of our projects.  TOGETHER.  Isn't it amazing how raking dead stuck-together leaves [I swear those leaves must have been there since the beginning of the fall season... Disgusting] from all our "beds" could be fun knowing that your hubby is also working on the yard?  Weird, I know.  We woke up bright and early to get as much done in the yard as possible before it got blazin' hot.  I got a major arm and ab workout with those packed down leaves, while Hubs mowed and edged.  After that we ran a few errands to prepare for our afternoon projects.  While he worked on staining the deck, I painted our poop-brown (how appropriate) bathroom an ivory color.  It was not fun, especially considering I did not prime... Novice error (or just plain laziness that I ended up paying for).  After 5 or 6 coats (I can't remember at this point), the ivory finally covered the poop-brown nastiness.  Next step is taping off stripes and painting just a shade off.  I am so excited to see what this does for our tiny bathroom.  It already feels bigger and brighter after the first ivory coat.  My inspiration for this project came from a "little" blog called Young House Love, which I am obsessed over!  I am following every single step down to the paint colors because I fell in love with their pictures and because I am incapable of deciding on a paint color in under 2 months (Sad, I know).

 

Isn't it beautiful?
Young House Love

 

 

I am severely paying for all our hardwork today.  Every inch of my body is sore.  No exaggeration.  But I couldn't be happier.  The feeling of working on even the smallest project on our forever home with my forever mister was amazing.  I can't wait till our next To Do Day... Maybe it won't involve me playing hookie next time.

Jewelry Window

What do you get a mom that seems to have everything?  That was the question I was facing this Mother's Day.

One thing my mom LOVES is jewelry, especially earrings.  I am almost certain that she buys at least one pair a week, if not more.  The girl loves the glam.  I visited her a few weeks before Mother's Day and saw earrings spread on almost every surface.  We all have our issues with finding ways to organize our jewelry collection, so I decided that this would be the perfect gift.

There is a crazy "junk" shop in downtown Fayetteville.  It's a large plot of land COVERED in everything you could imagine.  Toilets, kitchen appliances, doors, knick-knacks... The list goes on and on.  For some random reason, this is where I decided to start my earring organizer hunt.  I ended up finding the perfect base for the project: An old window!  The nice man even broke the glass out for me for free!  Now, that's customer service!

This is what I started with:

First, I painted the window with a paint sample I got for my office (office details later).  It was my first time painting anything.  Yes, I'm being serious.  It was a lot of fun and super easy.  The color was a bright blue/white.  Definitely brighter than I thought it would be, but my mom is super fun and eclectic so it worked.

Once the paint dried, I was ready to use the Phifer Silver Gray Fiberglass Screen that I got from Home Depot for around $6.

Does anyone else notice that the label has both versions of gray/grey listed?

I rolled the screen out and cut it to size and temporarily secured it with painter's tape.

Next, my hubby used wood glue and a q-tip to secure the screen to the window.  How sweet is he?  Why the q-tip, you ask?  Because the tip of the wood glue bottle was clogged and I was too lazy/cheap to go get a new one.  The q-tip ended up being perfect because Hubs was able to get the glue in all the tiny screen holes.

I had all intentions of gluing a pretty ribbon over the border to cover up the ugly glue, but never got to that.  I consoled myself with the fact that no one would ever see the back because it will be hanging up on the wall. 

After the glue dried, I hung two basic picture brackets on the back so my mom would easily be able to hang it herself.

I of course forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but it turned out perfect!

The window idea is not for everyone but it definitely fits my mom.  She loved it and the best part is she has plenty of space to store all her earrings!

The better part?  It was super cheap!
Window $5
Fiberglass Screen $6
Paint Sample $2
TOTAL: $13

I'd say it was a success!

Our Forever Home

The hubs and I bought our first home on March 4, 2011.  The process that led up to the closing was filled with highs and lows.. Definitely a roller coaster, but we are so grateful it worked out and we were able to get our "Forever Home."

Here are a few pics that the Realtor used.  I never took any before pics myself (oops!), so these will have to do.

Our Forever Home

Driveway Detail

Back View

Office (First room on the right)

Dining Room (First room on the left)

Kitchen (Off the dining room and living room)

Breakfast Nook

Living Room

The master suite, half bath, and laundry room are off the living room through the doorway on the edge of the photo above.  Upstairs, there are 3 bedrooms and a full bath.  There is also a full basement that we plan to finish one day.

We love it and can't wait to make it our own.  It will be a slow process completely dependent on time and money, but we will get there!  Our first home holds so much meaning to us.  It marks a huge step in our relationship and our future resonates through the walls.  We truly love our Forever Home and feel very grateful for this blessing.

Creative Gift Tags

I sold some orders for Administrative Professionals Day and wanted to be sure I made them as cute as possible on a tight gift wrap budget.  Life Saver?  Thank You cards from Walmart and good ole MS Word.

I found some cute font and typed up a little something.  I had these glittery thank you cards that I bought from Walmart forever ago just sitting in my desk begging to be used.  I cut them in half to include the "Thank You" and then glued my printed message onto the back, punched a hole in the corner, and tied it on the 50 cent gift bag with pearlized raffia from Nashville Wraps.

If you've never heard of Nashville Wraps before, you have been missing out.  They have every type of gift wrap supply you could ever imagine needing.  And it's all eco-friendly!  If I was rich, I would totally have my way with that store... My guest closet would be jam-packed with wrapping goodies.  Well, more jam-packed than it already is.  I have issues with gift wrap.

The end result was super cute and got tons of raves at the Administrative Professionals Day luncheon.  Lesson learned through this process?  You don't always have to spend a lot to make something look beautiful.  You'd be surprised what you can do with things just lying around your house.

Back!

Wow, I guess I am a better blog follower than blogger.  Sorry for the long break... Been letting life get in the way.  It doesn't help that work blocked all "social networking sites."  Yes, I just admitted that I used to blog at work.  Don't judge.

Where did we leave off....?  Oh, baby shower!  The shower was beautiful and the momma-to-be got loaded down with love and gifts for Baby Riley.  I forgot my camera, so you'll have to excuse the camera phone pics.

The table at the entrance with the adorable giraffe favors

Cutest cake in the world!

"Baby Riley" onesie clothesline

Close-up

Loved the pattern

I didn't take very many pictures, unfortunately.  But, I assure you, everything was precious. :)