I'm such a GIVER!!

I've been hearing about how wonderful Hobby Lobby is on a few decorating blogs that I read but also from my friends Janae and Juli. I finally decided I HAD to check it out so on Saturday I went with Aubrey (in Drew's car since the radiator in my van is cracked).

People, it is FAN-TASTIC!

What I loved is that almost everything was 50% off. And from the sounds of it, this is how it always is! That's my kind of store.

The fabric was so cute- their selection of pink and browns were top notch. I had three kinds that I was in love with (I won't admit if I had to wipe drool off of them) but I couldn't come up with projects to use them with that involve a glue gun (as I don't have a sewing machine). I settled with a remnant piece that was under $3.

Aubrey enjoyed the fabric section too. She held up every single shiny piece of fabric they had and begged for me to buy it so she could make it into a dress. She wasn't very happy that I told her my glue gun skills weren't THAT good...

I finally was able to distract her by looking at the ribbon for hair bows and I let her choose two different kinds. I picked up 4 more for her and Kait.

I spent two hours there and that wasn't enough time. I'm not sure my poor brain could have handled much longer anyway. All the potential projects were flying around at lightning speed! It was great.

So, wanna see what I created yesterday?

First up was this cute stool for $15 (of course it was 50% off). Perfect for a time out chair! We used to have this cute chair that even said Time Out but apparently the wear and tear got to it, and it collapsed.
I sprayed the bottom of it with my black spray paint and glued on the whimsical fabric. It looks a little top heavy now and I've been trying to figure out how I can fix that. However, the boys keep asking to go in time out so they can sit on it which is making me thing I think I should just leave it alone.

Next up was Kaitlyn's stuff.

This project was super simple.. I purchased cute scrapbook paper and just cut out the correct size and put it into frames that I already had but was not using. The paper is in front of the glass. You can click on the picture if you want to see it larger.


Next up took a little more effort. I warmed up my cute little pink hot glue gun and grabbed the pink and brown fabric remnant and can you guess what I did with it???? That's right, I wrapped it on a canvas!! Shocker, I know!

I also glued on three different rows of coordinating ribbon. And then I look alligator clips (that I use for hair bows) and lined them in pink and brown ribbon. After digging through my pile of "stuff I'll need one day" I found some pictures of Kait as a newborn and I clipped them to the ribbon.
I'm currently trying to figure out which pictures I need to order so there are a few more current pictures. Overall, I love how it looks!!

I had leftover fabric and the glue gun was still on so I decided to make a throw pillow with the rest of it. Luckily I had purchased the stuffing.. stuff.. last week. I LoVe it! Kait likes her new pillow into her little 'house' and pretend to go to sleep on it.

All together.
Now I just need to paint the shelf that I've had forever to hang up on the right wall so that framed picture of Kait doesn't look so awkward.

Then, I decided I should make a few bows for Kait with the new ribbon.

Did you know if you put velchro (sp?) on the back of a small bow that it holds well in fine hair if it's pulled tight (like in a little tiny pony tail on the top of your head)? And because it's not as heavy as the bows with clips on them, she leaves them in all day. :o) Below, you can see the darker pink bow is turned over and it shows the velchro strip.
The only downfall to this kind of bow is that I can't clip it onto Kaitlyn's ribbon holder.

So THEN, I had to create something for that! Darn it.

I grabbed a wooden frame that I bought forever ago (but never used) and painted the sides of it brown. I grabbed the leftover pieces of scrapbook paper from the above project and my Mod Podge and attacked the frame.

Then I glued on ribbon to the frame. And to the ribbon, I glued on the fluffy stuff that velchro sticks to. Ta-da! Instant bow holder.

It's PERFECT! No loosing these adorable little bows!
Whew. Kaitlyn's lucky I'm such a giver.. this is was all for her. The sacrifices I make for my kids. You know, cause it's not fun for me or anything.

At least this part wasn't: the clean up
At least Kait was willing to take one for the team too.

Instead of playing with the floam...
... she ate it. :-S

Pop-a-Chi

Kaitlyn's saying all sorts of new words. It's adorable! She has such a cute little voice.

My favorite new word of hers is pop-a-chi aka Popsicle.

Although, I think she might have a problem- she asks for them ALL. DAY. LONG. She says Pleeease and More (and signs it too) all while standing in front of the freezer and patting it in hopes that I'll open it up. All that is in addition to her saying pop-a-chi ever two seconds. She's just so cute when she eats them.. she bites the end off and then holds onto the stick ends with both hands and eats it corn-on-the-cob style.

You know, to be fair, the boys are just as addicted. It's just so hard to say No to this cute little face when it's something as simple as a popsicle.
We have a rule that the kids are supposed to ask before eating them. Unfortunately, the other day, Carson stopped asking and was getting his own and kept leaving the freezer open. Double whammy! I was not very happy about it- hello, it's the FREEZER! Plus our rules!!

But even worse is that Drew caught Carson leaving it open. Drew's pet peeve in the house is when kids have the fridge or freezer open and are just staring in and taking their time. Chip-chop, kids!

So, Drew removed Carson from the kitchen...
..and then locked the fridge.

Carson wasn'treally sure what the lock really meant for his popsicle eating but quickly figured it out.. as did the other kids.Hayden proclaimed it was his Worst Day Ever as he curled up in the fetal position on the couch.

Kaitlyn wailed. And about 2 seconds later she was on the floor rolling around and flailing in protest while sadly saying pop-a-chi.Luckily for Aubrey, she doesn't really care about Popsicles. So she showed off her Demi Lovato look. Did you know if you google How to dress like Demi Levato it apparently it tells you how to achieve that? Yeah, me either. But it entails black nails, white shirt and a black vest (Aubs couldn't find her vest so she selected a black shirt instead).
I'm not sure which was more... um, fun. Having the youngers kids all upset or listening to Aubrey ask over and over and OVER if I like how she looks like Demi and if I think she looks JUST like her (minues the hair) and that she really wishes I would buy her a certain pair of shoes because she's pretty sure that's what Demi would wear???

At least Drew was pleased with his energy saving technique.

Night out.

I went to a shoe party tonight. So much fun! New shoes. No kids. :o)

Spray Paint, Hot Glue Gun and Fabric

The I want to change my kitchen and front room bug has hit me. I moved some furniture around but it didn't satisfy me enough so I had to make even more changes. But there's this whole money thing that is holding me back a little so I had to figure out how to improve with minimal damage.

After reading many blogs, my goals were to bring more light in, touches of black and improve the decorations and include lemons and a pear. Just wait, you'll see why. lol

First up is on my piano:
I bought the lamp for $10 from walmart. It was super cheap compared to the other options and I liked the red lamp shade and the base is kind of a rustic black (not just black). But because it was so short, I needed something to give it more height. I bought the box at Michaels for $2ish. The lid had red on it as well as a lady so I spray painted it black (but not solid- you can still barely see the red in some spots, which I like).

Next up is a lamp I bought for $5 that was on clearance at Shopko. My camera battery was dead and I'm horribly impatient once I decide to do something so I had to take pictures with my laptop camera, which I've never used.

This is me trying to figure out how to get it to work.. (plus my face looks smaller- how can I not include that???? ROFL)
Cheese!
Sorry, back to the lamp. It was a purplish color but not really in a good way (and I like purple!). I know it's a dark picture but you get what I mean, right? On clearance for a reason.

I spray painted the bottom of it black.

After mucho effort, I came up with a pattern for the lamp shade using my Smith's ad. And I cut the fabric slightly larger than that.


Then I used Alligator hair clips (which I use to make the girls hair bows) to attatch it to the lamp. Then I slowly started gluing it on with my cute little pink hot glue gun and just put the clip back on to keep the fabric secure. It went pretty smooth and the finished product looks fantastic on my microwave. Nice, right?

I bought the fabric at Walmart for $1.89 and I love that it has some texture to it (in the black) plus the light brown since I have all sorts of wood colors in my front room and kitchen.

My microwave actually is on a printer stand that was my step-brother's, years ago. I used to have an old table cloth on it to cover up the stuff on the shelves. I decided to make a matching cover though- I hemmed the edges of the fabric using my hot glue gun and made room to slip a rod in up top (the rod was a $3 tension one you twist until it fits inside- i sprayed the edges black).

It looks much better in real life. Seriously.
And because I just love how whimsical the fabric is, I decided I should put it on a canvas (again, hot glue). Why not! The canvas was in a two-pack and $15 at Michael's but I used a 40% off coupon. Hopefully it's not overkill. If I decide down the road that it is, I can always hot glue a new layer on, right??


Here's a before picture that I happened to take last month.

And my after pic. (please note the lemons.. love them! The vase thing was $10 clearance a few weeks ago) I also swapped out a kitchen chair for a saddleback barstool ($30 at Shopko). It takes up a lot less space but it's easy to bring up the other one if we need it. The curtains were a purchase from months ago that I never ended up using.

And to tie in my lemons.. I cut one in half (did I mention they're artificial?) and glued it onto a cheap plate (again from Shopko). (I also spray painted that little black vase thing up top- from dollar store)
I got the fruit ideas from: here Love her blog!!!

Last picture: Marci gave me the frames for free- I sprayed them black and in front of the glass I put in textured brown paper (like $.70 each at Michaels). And then a $2 pear, cut in half. Gives that area so much more definition than the old hot pads I used to have hanging there!

And there you go. I accomplished what I wanted and I'm thrilled with the results. Plus, there's nothing like spending money and projects to keep my mind off of Marci and Lock leaving. sniff, sniff

Do you like it??? (LOVE comments; puh-lease leave me one!!)

Maybe if you squint your eyes a little..

I love Kaitlyn's Rose Petal Cottage and accessories. Actually, all of the kids do. They're so cute and fun.. and oh so girly! Even better is that I bought it at a screaming price (you know how I heart good deals!).

Kait loves to sit in this chair and pull up the table. This morning I brought her breakfast in so she could dine in cuteness.

I think the icing on the cake, of cuteness, is the fact that she let me do her hair this morning! She just sat there while I put the rubber band thingy in. Sat. There. No fight! And she even let me put a bow in!!


Isn't her little pony tail to die for??

(seriously, there's hair.. look harder.. Come on, put some effort in!)

And all together now: Aaawwwwwwww

Takin' it easy.

We like to take our Sundays easy.

In the morning before the kids wake up, Drew and I sneak outside and talk and play on our laptops. We have the window cracked open for the swamp cooler so we can hear the kids when they wake up. I love the time with just Drew.

Hayden likes to ride his bike around, play lego star wars until I make him stop and just be silly.
Aubrey loves riding her bike everywhere too and going on 'adventures' meaning she takes a snack so they can stop and eat it. LOL Her and Hayden like playing on the playground at the school behind our house. I love that I can see them. Works for us.
Carson is just all over the place. Sometimes we have to chase him as he runs off to the playground. Other times he's just busy going in and out of the front door (since he can open it now- SAD FOR ME!). This was his favorite toy of the hour: a yellow matchbox car.
Kait's loves her soy milk. I love her blue eyes.

Isn't her hair bow adorable??? And her cute little skirt that was Misty's daughter's? I heart adorable hand-me-downs.I puffy heart chubby feet.
Drew's idea of relaxing is yard work. I don't complain. Better him than me. Yesterday he was out there for a long time and he even kept track of Carson AND Kaitlyn. They followed him around.

mmmmm... love him.
Hayden also likes to color. The paper is in Drew's office.

Which means Hayden has to get a coin to unlock it.

And he's not always that good at remembering to lock it again (ok, he STINKS at it). Which is a huge problem for Drew.. the kids touch his stuff.

Carson, however, has no problem with it being unlocked.

He can get into mysterious things like Drew's dart blower and darts and stick them into the computer chair..

Or magic markers.
So he can color on himself.

And Kaitlyn.
Including her neck and head.

Which resulted in baths and massive scrubbing.

And a trip to Home Depot to buy a new lock for Drew's office- one that requires a key.

Good day yesterday, good day.

From the other side.

Last night Drew picked up the camera and started taking pictures of the kids.

I just put them on the computer and it was interesting to see what he came up with.

Cute picture of Carson..

Kaitlyn uh.. um.. playing with scissors? Oh. Huh. Let's hope no children were harmed in the taking of that picture. At least she was post-bath and super clean. Yeah, that makes it all better.Wait, those jammies were from yesterday morning. Does this mean Drew took pictures twice yesterday? Who knew!

Now THIS is the real deal of Kait, post bath and in her jammies. How did he get her to smile and not run away?? I must take too many pictures. She loooves her Daddy!
This is even better! Maybe I should retire as the family photographer.
... or not. And now we get to the back pictures.

Half of Aubrey. Half of my back (I'm washing Hade's hair). All taken via mirror reflection. At least he's unique.
He convinced me to join in with the mirror action. Apparently our mirror is not as clean looking from all angles and with a flash.

Looks like he's giving it a try in our bedroom..
Ha! At least I'm not the only one that gets blurry pictures of our lighting fast children.

I wonder what pictures my kids would come up with.. I might just have to let them try (with my old camera).