Almost Paradise

I'm still trying to catch up on blogging about my latest trips, but there are a lot of pictures to go through and edit. So in the meantime, I'm bloggin' about what a great day it was (still is) today.

My friend Cheri came over to play. We ended up painting birdhouses

(that I bought months ago and never got around to painting with the girls).

And by the way I take no responsibility for my girls outfits. I shouldn't have to remind you that they dress themselves and they decided that even thought it was 68+ degrees outside, they still wanted to wear their "long pants/shirt plus winter boots-combo", instead of shorts & a t-shirt. What a bunch of weirdos!

Can you tell who's belongs to who?

Let me give you a hint.....just pop on over to Cheri's blog and you'll see which one made the best house! She's so darn talented, it makes me sick!

Today was also the perfect day to give "Freida" a bath. She desperately needed it.

(And YES I name my cars. My dearly departed Caroline was my first.......*tear)

What a beautiful day! Thanks Cheri for makin' it extra special.

(and for putting up with my 80's Mega Mix and my wonderful purposely off-key singing!)

By the way today's title was brought to you by the song by Heart; Courtesy of my 80's Mega Mix.

Dinner Dissasters

I'm a good cook.

No really I am.

Just ask Dan.

However sometimes I get a little creative......

Sometimes it works out.

And this time it didn't.

I needed to be creative, cause we're out of groceries and I'm in desperate need of going to Costco.

So instead of ordering Domino's,
(like I wanted to)

I made THIS:

What is "THIS"? (You may be asking yourself)

Well I'll tell you.

"THIS" was hash browns and eggs
(which was pureed with broccoli and spinach-hence the green color)

It wasn't until I was pouring the egg mixture on top of the potatoes that I realized this is one for the books.....

.....The "Dinner Disasters" book.
(*There is no actual "book". However it might be fun to write one)

Anyways after declaring the disaster to Dan,
(who very much agreed that this was a major disaster),
he decided that we would eat out.

As much as this disaster didn't physically appeal to me, the thought of eating out definitely didn't appeal to me, one bit.

So I called off the outing and decided we would eat the dinner I made!

I mean, I knew what went into this dish. I knew it wouldn't taste bad. It just looked awful. But I had to convince the kids that.

So I decided to disguise the green mess into these:

Green Goblins

A little ketchup did the trick and my youngest daughter declared (as she always does, mind you):

"Mom, can you make dis again?"

Nope. Never again Kayla. Never again!

*We did all eat it by the way, and even though it looked awful, it still taste like potatoes and eggs. Although this one's going in the Dinner Disaster Book under "Meals for the blind."

Before and After~Living Room

I'm done another room in my house. Thank goodness for my great friend Leighann who came and helped me with the "high" parts of the walls. I couldn't have done it without her.....not only cause I'm afraid of heights, but because I didn't have a ladder that was tall enough. I've got REALLY high ceilings in some parts.

So the walls of this house were what I like to call, "The color of pink sick", or "pukey pink", or a "really ugly nutral pink". There's really no words to decribe it. The previous owners were obviously afraid of some color, because the walls lacked any sort of color, besides a pinky neutral colorless color.

Well I'm definitely a colorful person and color makes me happy. Bright & bold. That's my taste. Well the color of my living room is called Toasty Fireplace. It's a an orange tone. I would describe it as being a pumpkin color. Like the color of pumpkin pie, but brighter. Anyways the pictures don't do it justice, cause it's really not as orange as it looks.

I LOVE it and Dan thinks it looks good too. Anyways here are the before and afters you've been waiting for....

Before:

This is my crazy friend Leighann, up on the....I don't know what you call it....but it's up there.

This photo has a partial entry way wall painted. It's not as warm of a color as it looks. It's more of a warm Kahki color.

Anyways....here's the After:

The only thing that's lacking is filling the walls with pictures and getting rid of that hideous brass light fixture, in the dining room. I've already bought the ones that I want, but I have to paint them the color I want first (which is black....they're currently brushed nickel)

So other than that.....what'chya think?

Before & After~Girl's Room

I'm officially done painting my first room!

Here's the Before:

Plain white ugly walls (gag, barf, blah!)

And..........

here's the After:
Positively girly in every way!

I’m not quite finished decorating, but you pretty much get the idea, right?

It was surprisingly easy to do. Here was my inspiration.

It was some random photo I got online. I knew what colors I wanted to paint the girl’s room and when I saw this picture, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.

Mine’s obviously a little different and not so “free-handed”. If you’d like to copy it, I’m including a tutorial.


Paint used:

GREEN: 3 coats of Behr’s Grape Green (400B-5)
LIGHT PINK: 2 coats of Behr’s Hopeful (690A-2)
DARK PINK: 2 coats of Valspar’s Pink Burst (1003-1A)

I started by outlining the waves. I measured 48 inches from the baseboard as the peak of my wave and then 8 inches across to where my lowest part of the wave would be, which was 45 inches high, from the baseboard. Pretty much the peaks and valleys are 16 inches across from each point.


Once I measured the peaks, I free-handedly connected my waves together. I then made the bottom line of the wave 5 inches wide. That was the easy part. All I had to do was measure 5 inches from where I drew my line on top and it was perfect.


I then “cut in” the green and light pink areas of my wall.





When each coat was semi dry, I then painted in my first coat of the dark pink wave. In order to get my green bold enough without looking too fluorescent, I needed 3 coats of paint. Other than that 2 coats of each was sufficient.

If you have any questions about it, let me know. Also let me know if I’ve inspired you to paint a room this way. I’d love to hear from you.

I’m going to paint the other girl’s room pretty much the same, except with the dark pink on the bottom, the light pink on top and a wave of dark brown.

We've Moved.....Yet Again

I forgot to mention that we moved again. It's a severely long story, but I'll give you the low down.

We moved.

Okay, I'll give you more....

The house that we signed a 2 year lease on was all a sham. We suspected our landlord was not being entirely honest with us and then our suspicions came to be true and he was going to lose his house. Well when we confronted him, he said everything was okay, but we knew he was lying to us. So we decided that he should let us out of our lease and so we found another house closer to Dan's work and in a quieter town than we were in before. I love it! I love our house and I love our neighborhood. It was a total blessing in disguise that everything didn't work out with the other house. I was just really ticked off that I spent all the time fixing it up and painting and making it look better.

Which by the way I never did post pictures of the "after" of my bedroom. Well here it is:

Before

After

Here are some before and after's of my craft room too.

Before

After

I was so proud and happy about that room and pretty much a week after I'd finished decorating it, Dan told me we should move. I was so ticked! But I LOVE my new bedroom in this house. It's twice the size of my old bedroom and I can fit my craft stuff in there. Dan and I call it our bedroom suite, cause it's seriously huge! My closet is the size of a small bedroom. It's crazy. Our first night in the house Dan says to me, "it's like being in a hotel!".......I couldn't help but agree......and laugh.

My Finished Bathroom

Well I'm done painting my bathroom. Tada!

I hope you can tell from the pictures what a great job I did and ignore the fact that I suck at "cutting in". I'll have to get some ceiling paint and fix my mistakes. tee hee.

Okay if that made you dizzy, here's some straight photos and a "before and after" comparison. Remember from my post before that I don't really have any good "before" photos cause I forgot to take some. he he

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After