Living Room Completion

 

My living room is finally complete.  It didn't take nearly as long as I had thought it would and I love how it turned out.

Let me just remind you what the living room looked like before:

I loved the dark brown and maroon paint when I first did it.  Over time, the room just seemed so dark.  We don't have a ceiling light of any kind in this room and the lamps just weren't enough light for the room.

We then removed all the carpet and put down hardwood flooring.

I had originally wanted to do board and batten in this room, but realized that it would take forever and be costly so I decided against it.

What I did decide to do was paint the room and make some curtains.  

You can read about the progress here and here.

I love how it turned out.

I love how the room seems so much brighter and bigger now.

It's amazing to me what lightening up the walls will do for a room.

I also made some curtains.

They are light and airy and let in natural light, which I think is very important in any room.

So this is the room with all the pictures back on the walls and furniture in place.

Lets look at the progress:

Before

and after....

I'm very happy with it.

I'm also happy to be able to mark that room off our list of DIY home plans 2012.

Now onto our next project!

 

I'm sharing this post with these great linky parties...... 

Purse organizing love

I normally consider myself a pretty organized person.

I've always thought that I was more organized than my immediate family.

I've thought I was more organized than my friends and especially my hubby.

It comes natural to me that you should keep your papers in labeled file folders and that you should use page protectors in your binders.

I've always been a calendar lover and user. I currently have 3 calendars that I keep up with.  They all have the same information but I just can't seem to only go with one.

I recently purchased a new purse.

This purse to be exact.

 I love the purse.  I love the design of the fabric and I love that it was able to be monogrammed with my initial.

I was looking for a purse that would be big enough for me to carry around my business catalogs and flyers with me so when someone asked what I do, I could hand them a flyer so they could see exactly what I do.

To be honest, I wish the purse was a little bigger.

It has a big bottom, no pun intended; which makes it extremely roomy.

It also makes it sit up, which I love.

What I don't love about the big bottom is everything inside gets piled on top of each other.

 

Nothing is lined up and organized like I think it should be.  It takes me forever to dig through everything to get to the one thing I want that has fallen all the way to the bottom.

And so I was frustrated.  

I was frustrated that I felt like I couldn't keep catalogs with me and I was frustrated that every time I went to get something, I couldn't find it or get to it.

I was sharing my frustrations with a couple girlfriends the other night and one of them whipped out her purse to show me her organizing techniques.  She is also in direct sales and carries catalogs with her at all times.

Her solution is to put a file folder in her purse.  She tapes up the sides so it's like a little pocket.  I loved the idea and since our catalogs are the same size, knew it would work for me.

She even gave me one of her file folders.

 

She taped the sides with scotch tape but once I got home, I added packing tape to it so it would hold a little better.

 

My catalogs and flyers fit perfectly.

 

 

   Now I can have them with me at all times.

The file folder slips right down into the middle of the purse and makes a divider so I can keep different things on either side.

I can put my wallet and checkbook on one side.

With my pens, notepad and any miscellaneous things on the other side.

My girlfriend also had lots of little bags in her purse, which I will have to work on getting.

Just for the record, this is everything that had been thrown into the purse before.

I'm not sure I even knew all this stuff was in there.

Since I was organizing, I also took the opportunity to clean up a little.

All of this stuff didn't go back in.

I love the way it looks now, so clean and organized.

Do you have trouble keeping your purse organized?  Does it seem like a never-ending pit of stuff?  Mine doesn't anymore and I am very thankful for that.

 

I'm linking up with these parties....... 

Bulletin board make over

I've been wanting to do something with this everyday-run-of-the-mill bulletin board for a while now.

It started out as just a plain brown bulletin board.  I think it's been used in every room of our house.  It was originally purchased to go in the kitchen.  It did some time there, but then eventually moved into the oldest son's room.  When he was finished with it, it went to my daughter's room.  She never did like it or use it so it got taken down and put into the basement with all the other things that nobody wants.

My office/craft room is in the basement so I guess that means that I was stuck with the bulletin board.  I figure if I'm going to have it, I may as well try to make it a little exciting.

I started off by stray painting the entire thing black.

I was going to leave it like that.  The accent color in my basement is black, so it would work.

What doesn't work is how "used" the board is.  You can tell that kids had it in their possession at one time or another.

I decided that I would give it some color, or pop if you will.

I picked some scrapbook paper in bright, bold colors.

I laid it all out over the bulletin board and made any cuts to the paper to ensure it would fit.

Then, I sprayed the bulletin board with spray adhesive and applied the paper.

I made sure to start with the very bottom layer and only sprayed the adhesive to go directly under that  piece.

I then continued with the other pieces.

Lastly, I applied the very top pieces.

Make sure to press all layers down firmly paying close attention to the corners.

Allow it to dry for a few hours and then hang on the wall.

I love the way it turned out and it looks great above my sewing machine.

Let's take a closer look.

And, a couple more.

I see so many people doing this kind of fun stuff and I never get around to doing it.  I love how it turned out and it was super easy to do.  Probably took me a total of 15 minutes minus the drying time.

So when you see cool projects that you really want to try, don't be afraid.  Give it a shot, you'll be surprised how easy they can be.

I'm linking up with these parties......

Teacher Gift Idea

School is almost out for the summer here in GA.

With each end of the school year, we have Teacher Appreciation Week.

Each day of the week, the students (or parents rather) are supposed to do something for the teacher.

You know, to show their appreciation for all the time they have devoted to the classroom all year.

The week ends with a classroom gift for the teacher.

At the beginning of the year, the teachers are given a survey to fill out so the room moms can know a little more about them.  Some of the things they are asked are favorite places to eat, colors in their home, favorite books, favorite candy etc.  This helps greatly at the end of the year when you are trying to get a gift.

The parents are able to make a monetary donation towards this gift and the room moms go out and get the gift.  I was one of the room moms for my son's 5th grade class this year and this is what we came up with.

It was pretty easy to put together and we used a lot of the things she said she liked from her survey.

I started with all her favorite things.  The vases and straws were donated from the other room mom but we used money we received to purchase the rest.

I started by taping the straws to the back of the Twix.

I then dropped some Starburst into the bottom of the vase and arranged the sharpies around the edges.

After that I put all the Twix on straws into the container and arranged them so they looked good.  I continued to drop the Starburst into the base as fillers until they were all used.  The straws were bendy straws so I was able to bend some of them and hang them over the side of the vase.

Once I was done with all the Twix, I taped the gift cards to straws and put them in the top.

I love the way it turned out.  I hope our teacher will like it too.

I'm linking up to these parties......

Baseball is serious business - Part 1

I have always said that my youngest was born with a baseball bat in his hand.

It all started when he was 3 years old and was on his first baseball team.

He may not have been big in size but he was big in his love of the game.

We started him out in our church league but when it became apparent that he needed something more, we moved to the rec league at our local park.

The first team he was on was the Cardinals.

He was very proud of his first uniform.

Check out those practice swings.

When he first started out he was number 10 like his favorite player, Chipper Jones, from the Atlanta Braves.  I don't remember even knowing the names of professional baseball players when I was 4 years old.

In the Spring season of the same year, his team was the Atlanta Braves.  Go figure.

His daddy was the coach and they came in first place in the season that year.

The trophy is almost as big as he is.

After the Spring season, some of the players are asked to play on All Stars.

Zachary was asked and was very excited.

They even got to play some games at a local park that had astro turf on their field.

That was really cool to all these boys.

I think this is the smallest catcher ever!!

The next fall we were back at it.  This would be his last year in T-ball and they were the Cubs.

He hadn't grown very much since last season but look at the determination on his face.

In the Spring they were the Giants.

He rightfully earned the position of "circle" or pitcher as it is called when you get older.

Love the form.  See what I mean by being a natural.

End of year party with a very happy and proud daddy.  Who was, as you may guess, the coach again.

This concludes our T-Ball career.  Stay tuned for PeeWee, Minor and some of Majors, which is the level Zachary is playing now.