Chore Chart from Brown Paper Packages

Check out this adorable chore chart from Brown Paper Packages HERE. What a great idea! For all my teacher friends, wouldn't this be cute adapted to classroom jobs! I can think of a ton of things to do with those cute clothespins alone! Love it!

How CUTE are These Burp Rags???

I've recently discovered this adorable blog, The Autocrat. Check out the burp rags that she makes HERE. I am IN LOVE with them!!!! Check out the brown and cream line! Don't you think our little guy needs some of these?? :D

So, So Cute!!!

Home Project On Father's Day

We have had pictures that we've been meaning to hang since we moved in....about 9 months ago. Finally this morning we got around to it! These are Southern Living at Home prints that I bought when they went on liquidation. I got the frames at Michaels on clearance and just added cardboard to the back and taped it down with packing tape. Not fancy, I know. But really...who sees the back? We're on a budget and going for great decor without spending lots of $$$. :D The hooks are some of my all time favorites from Ballard Designs that I asked for for Christmas several years ago. Here is the before and after. :D

BEFORE

AFTER

So much better than a blank wall! :D

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  House of Hepworths

A Desk Makeover I LOVE!

A couple of weeks ago, I was out garage-saling, looking for baby clothes for my little man. There was a garage sale right down the street from me that was a God-send - literally! I found a friend AND an adorable desk! :D The new friend has a cute 5 month-old little boy and I found a few outfits for my little guy. She also had a desk sitting there with $15 on it. I knew as soon as I saw it exactly what I wanted to do. However, I wasn't quite ready to pay $15+the cost of the makeover. I gave her my email address and phone number and asked her to call me if the desk didn't sell. That evening I got a message from her letting me know that she still had the desk and that, if I wanted it, I COULD JUST HAVE IT FOR FREE!!! :D Whoo Hoo!!! What an unexpected blessing. I love it when little "happies" just fall into your lap like that! 

Below is the story of my little desk makeover....

Here is the "Before" picture of the desk

The baby's crib had just been delivered, so conveniently, we had alot of cardboard to lay out on our pavement for the painting project. We removed the drawers and got out our WHITE Rust-Oleum spray paint. It's my favorite because you can hold it at just about any angle and it doesn't clog up on you. I also used this same type of spray paint for my bathroom cabinet makeover.

Because I'm not supposed to be around paint fumes while I'm pregnant, my wonderful husband painted the desk for me while I watched behind the closed glass door. Our little fur-baby Lexi was trying her very best to be his little helper. :D 

What a good man! :D

Below is the desk after one light coat of paint. We still had another coat to go.

After the 2nd coat of paint, Dan and I headed down to my ALL-TIME FAVORITE STORE, Anthropologie, and found some adorable knobs. This evening we put them on and the desk looks exactly like what I had pictured in my head when I saw it sitting out at the garage sale!! I had a chair with a black and white toile cushion that I had purchased via Craig's List several years ago.....and here is the completed project! :D

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!! :D 

What is even better though is the fact that I've also made a new friend who is just as cute as she can be! She was just over this past weekend for a lady's brunch and I snapped a quick photo for the blog. :) 

Thank you, Charisa, for the desk donation! It's a perfect little spot for me to learn to sew and to work on my little craft projects! :D 

Organizing Baby's Clothes and Closet

Lately, I've been "garage-saling" and "craigs listing" like a crazy woman trying to get ready for baby. When I come across little guy clothes for a good deal, I want to be able to go ahead and take advantage of it. I just can't bring myself to buy things new and spend all that money when they outgrow things so quickly! Anyway, I needed a way to keep everything organized, so I went to Target and bought some cute clear bins with blue lids as seen below. 

Then I pulled out my scrapbook paper, pens, cardstock and glue and made labels for sizes up to 2T. I put them in snack baggies so that I can switch them out easily as time progresses. 

I even found a cute button or two to "bling it out a bit." :D

I taped the snack bags to the interior of the bins with clear packing tape and feel a little bit more organized now. 

Just for fun, here's the top of the little guy's dresser. We're slowly but surely getting ready for his arrival! 

My most recent project has been to make the baby's hanging clothes dividers. I'm not so sure I'm entirely happy with the results, but here goes anyway. I again pulled out tagboard, scrap paper, glue and scissors and went to work - not really sure what I was going for, to be entirely honest. I just knew that I wanted to hang two sizes at a time up in the closet...the size he's wearing and the size he's growing into. So...I needed two dividers and I wanted to be able to just change the size out without remaking the entire divider, so I pulled out those handy dandy snack bags again too. 

I grabbed the white tagboard and cut out a cloud shape like so. 

Sorry for the poor quality of the picture. Low light and just used my computer camera to snap a quick picture. :)

I then traced the shape onto green and blue paper that I had on hand and happened to match the labels I'd used for the little guy's clothes bins earlier. I glued blue on one side of the tagboard and green on the other. I let them dry overnight under a stack of books to try and keep them semi-flat and then carefully placed packing tape over them since, sadly (sigh), I don't own my own little laminator. How I would love to own one of those! However, we have a baby on the way and we're on a BUDGET! Thus the homemade closet dividers.  :) A couple of clips, a snack bag, scrapbook paper, some stickers and a baby hanger later.....

My little closet dividers :D

I link up to the THESE AWESOME PARTIES!

The Idea Room: Back40Life Giveaway

Check out this awesome giveaway at the The Idea Room: Back40Life Giveaway

I would LOVE to win the Matt. 22 verse to go up in our home!

My First Attempt At Glass Tile Pendants

I absolutely LOVE these! With 5 sisters, 2 sister-in-laws and a plethora of amazing girlfriends, I think these make the perfect birthday gift, "happy," stocking-stuffer, etc. I got the idea and the directions from one of my favorite blogs, The Idea Room. Check out the DIY here. Below is the very first pendant I tried. It's for my sister-in-law's belated birthday gift. :) The second one still needs the bail and is for my other sister-in-law Joy, but I LOVE the way it turned out! Now all the women in my family know what they'll be getting from me for awhile. :D

This will be my new hobby to keep me happy when we're in Mammoth Lakes for months at a time! :)

Coupon File

I've gone through several of the paper coupon holders and they always seem to fall apart - overuse, I suppose. I finally got sick of replacing them and bought a much sturdier accordian file. Sorry for the glare. :(

Then I decided on my coupon categories and alphabetized them.

In case you're interested, the categories I chose were as follows: 

Baby, Baking/Beverages, Breakfast, Cans and Jars, Cleaning/Household, Condiments/Dressings, Dogs, Frozen/Produce, Meat/Dairy, Pasta/Rice/Seasonings, Snacks/Desserts, Toiletries/Personal

There were only 12 tabs and, being a little quirky, I wanted a tab for "Coupons For Today" so I could pull them as I looked through the shopper before heading for the store and another one for "In the Cart." I pulled out my scrapbooking paper, a bit of white cardstock and some packing tape and made two more dividers. 

While I was at it, I did something just to make me smile. I know it's hard to see, but in the picture below are the two dividers that I made for the front and back of my file and then the little extra somethin', somethin' that I put in the clear pockets. It says, "Live, Laugh, Love and Save!" :D

I then added a couple of cutesy stickers to the front of the file to finish it off and, VOILA! My new coupon organizer. I'm thinking I may make these as stocking stuffers for sisters and mom one year. 

So Behind in the Blogosphere

Ugh! An entire month has gone by and I've fallen embarrassingly behind on my blogs. So sorry for the disappearing act, but with a baby on the way and lots and lots of out-of-town guests, it's been a wonderfully busy month. The blogs, however, have suffered. This is my official apology. We're gonna get back on track. Bear with me, folks! I do have a couple of projects that I've been working on and will post the pictures soon!