C is for...

C is for CHANDY.  As in a chandelier.  Like in a thrifted $20.00 chandelier.  That was ugly.  That is now bee-yoo-ti-ful.


Before in its black wrought iron blah-ness:

Makes me think of hunting lodges and sightless glass-eyed taxidermied deer staring at me.  From all angles.  Or maybe that's just me.

Here's a peek.  

Its got swag.

And swag covers...  That I made myself.  With burlap.  And straight pins.  And Fabric Fusion.  Cuz this girl don't sew.

Course I had to wait 2 hours for it to dry.  

I oughta learn to sew.

CC stands for China Cabinet.  That got torn apart.  As in extreme makeover.  Inside and out.

Wanna peek?

Go ahead...  I ain't gonna stop ya.  ;)

C is for CIGARETTE SMOKE.  As in FOUR BUCKETS of soap and water to clean off YEARS of nasty smoke residue.  That turned said bucket of water into brown muddy run-off.  I don't care about the smoking, but at least be CLEAN.  Seriously.  EW. 

C is for CARING HUSBANDS who do all that techy work for you - like taking off  backs, removing glass, and unscrewing door hinges and knobs - so all ya gotta do is PAINT.

C is also for CURVACEOUSNESS.  As in the curvaceous detailing.  Its a word.  Because the little red underline thingy didn't pop up.  Thingy however, is NOT a word.

C is also for CRAP.  As in, "Crap!  The china cabinet ate all my Annie Sloan Chalk Paint!"   Every.  Last.  Drop.  Knew I should have ordered more than one quart.  :P

C could also be for CRAZY AWESOME, which is how this baby is going to look once she's been sanded and waxed and put together again.

And finally, C is for CIAO - as in see ya later.  With the reveal.  Soon.  I promise.

The Easter Egg: All Grown Up

A few days ago, I ran across a blog post by Brittany, AKA Pretty Handy Girl.  It was one of those blogs that makes you smack yourself in the head and go, "DUH! Why didn't I think of that?"  I obviously don't think outside of the box much, especially when it comes to thinking beyond traditional uses of items.  Like, Easter eggs. 

In my eighteen years as a parent, do you have any idea how many Easter eggs I have decorated?  Hundreds.  Thousands.  Millions.  Okay, ya got me.  Maybe not millions, but a lot.  A whole lot.  And I never looked outside of the pretty pastel colors that never turn out quite as good as they do on the box.  At least when you're trying to supervise six children at once.

Scott introduced me to the whole poking a hole in the top and bottom and blowing the white and yolk out of the egg back when we were dating.  I had never end heard of that.  Momma always hard boiled the eggs the night before Easter and refrigerated them over night.  Then, after the Easter egg hunt was over the next day, she peeled them and made us gag down the hard boiled egg.  Waste not, want not.  UGH.  There is NOTHING worse than greenish hard boiled eggs.  Although I'm not sure which is worse...  the hard boiled eggs or Scott wanting me to scramble the eggs I have blown out for the kids to eat, which is sure to be mixed with spit.  EW.  Needless to say, I usually blow them out while he is gone, throw them out, and become hard of hearing when he asks if we ate them or not.  There are some things I just won't do.  YUCK.

Anyhoo...

So, I was inspired to make my own Easter eggs for grown ups, last night.  And what says Spring better than a Bluebird's egg?  What I love most about this idea is that the possibilities are endless.

You can make a lovely vignette...

Nestle it in amongst spanish moss in a vase full of flowers...

Be more traditional and snuggle them in real bird's nest that you find in your yard...

Or how about tucking them and some rafia in large glass vessel?

Or how about a feminine Easter egg tree?

Adding painted eggs to a little stick tree with some twinkly lights, paper music garland, and primitive stars left over from Christmas decorating, takes you from snowy temps to...

singing blue birds and warmer weather.

Really, the possibilities are absolutely endless.

From mercury glass...

To decorative nests...

and wire baskets.

Only your imagination is the limit.

Too bad my imagination kept me at kiddie pastels and painted on spots for so long.  ;)  I'm lovin' the Easter egg, all grown up.

XO,

Voo-Doo Craft Therapy

Well, I suck.  LOL!

Its the end of the week and I'm no where close to being done with the dining room.  In fact, I've done so little that even Greyson was like, "Uh, Mom?  Can you finish it already?  I'm tired of all the junk in the living room."  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Well, if I wasn't running kids, having sick kids, washing clothes, and cleaning up after my little bunch of Pig Pens, I'd have a lot more done.  Feel my pain, moms?  ;)  Well, that and I've not really been hitting it as hard as I had planned.

I lost my mo-jo.  If you find it, will you mail it to me?   :P

I'm currently sitting at my desk, still in my robe, sipping Diet Dr. Pepper, and eating cottage cheese straight out of the container.  I think I might need an intervention.  HA HA HA!

Well that, and I'm starting to obsess about this weekend.

And with that obsessing came a funny little craft.  Its amazing how good laughter is for your soul - and how relaxing it can be.  And sometimes, crafts can be a great way to blow off some steam and doesn't always have to be something that's blog-worthy or magazine material.  But, I'm going to blog about it anyway.  HA!  I'm such a blog rebel.  ;)

I guess it would help if you knew what this weekend is...

IOWA 

AAU KIDS' STATE WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

ARGH!

I'm not sure where the time went because it just seems like yesterday that Noah took District Runner-Up.  But, here we are.

This is a big deal, peeps.  A huge deal.  It is the pinnacle of Iowa youth wrestling.  Hundreds, if not thousands of 3rd-8th grade wrestlers in the state - and only 32 from each grade and weight class make it this far.  SCARY!

Wells-Fargo Arena

Des Moines, Iowa

This is Noah's second time at State.  

He qualified last year in 2nd grade.

Clipping from our newspaper last year.
Ian is on the far left on the bottom row.
Noah is second from the right on the bottom row.

Last year gave him a little taste of what he'll be coming up against this year.  He went 1-2 and never made it close to the placing rounds.  Of course, he was a 2nd grader in with 3rd and 4th graders and we were just thrilled he was able to win one match.  This year, well, lots more pressure - at least for us.  Him?  Yeah.  Not even thinking about it.  Which, could be a good thing or a bad thing.  No nerves is probably a good thing.   Lord knows I've got enough for him.  But shouldn't be thinking about it a little bit?  According to him?  Not.

So, yesterday I was talking to another mom who's son has qualified in the same age group in the 65 lb. weight class.

We've wrestled their son once, and although Noah was able to eek  out a win in a weird overtime match, we've managed to become good friends.  We've cheered their son on at USA State, gone out to dinner, and even had the boys practice together.  They're just good people.  And the thing I like most about her is that she "gets it" when it comes to kids, competition, and youth wrestling - and the big picture of it all (This is just practice for high school and not the be all end all), but she's just as crazy of a mat mom, as I am.

So yesterday, we were discussing the weirdest mat mom behavior we've seen.  Kneeling on the mat while screaming encouraging your son is pretty basic behavior - and something you just expect,  however, she saw a mom at the recent high school state tournament literally twisting the life out of a beanie baby while rooting her son on from the stands.  A BEANIE BABY.  Really?  What'd the beanie baby ever do to her? LOL!  Somehow, one thing led to another and we started talking about making voo-doo wrestling dolls for mat moms.  And the more we laughed over it, the more I knew I actually had to make one to take to her on Saturday.

So, despite the dining room shouting withering insults at me, I brought out my tools and scraps.

Here's what I came up with and posted to my personal Facebook page last night:

I give Jennifer full credit for the suggestion of using panty hose for the body. HA HA HA!

The ensuing conversation with a few other wrestling parents chiming in was EPIC:

Its been a long time since I laughed that hard.  So I made another one for another friend of mine...

Complete with the annoying mo-hawk that some kids sport (  Some advice:  If you ever get into this sport, stay away from the mo-hawks, hair dye, and glitter...  Those are the ones the kids really rough up...  Unless of course your kid is a stud and can pull it off - same with multi-colored knee socks or a pink singlet) and a felt and button head gear.  HILARIOUS...  In a somewhat twisted and warped way, but oh so good for my heart.

See?  Sometimes crafting doesn't have to be all about the brouhaha of making something fantastic, but sometimes you can use it to brighten someone's day or just to have a good laugh.  It certainly worked for me!  Nothing like Craft Therapy.

So, now I'm off to pack.  We're heading out tomorrow - the living room is still trashed, wainscoting is all over the floor in the dining room, and the stairs are half primered.  Oh well, it'll still be waiting for when I get back on Sunday.

Say a little prayer for my little man.  Its going to be a long, tough weekend and I just hope he's not on the receiving end of this...

Color Me Yours, Valentine!

I'm glad to report I am feeling more like my old self again!  WOW!  It felt so good to do something crafty today!  Nothing like the last minute...  The day before Valentine's and I had yet to make Eva and Noah's Valentine's for their classes.  But I always seem to do better with a deadline anyhow.  ;)

So, I'm sure everyone has seen these cuties on Pinterest:

Unfortunately, there was no source attached to the pin.  If this idea is yours, please let me know!  It's adorable!

Its pretty self explanatory, but I did take a few pics to show how I did Eva's...

First, preheat your oven to 230 degrees.

While your oven is preheating, group your crayons by color.

I did 7 groups, instead of mixing them all together:

1)  Reds/Pinks

2)  Purples/Pinks

3)  Blues/Greens

4)  Greens/Dark Greens

5)  Yellows/Oranges 

6)  Grays/Blacks/Whites

7)  Browns/Beiges

Remove the paper,

and cut them up...

Fill your heart silicon pan about 1/4 to 1/2 full, according to how thick you want the hearts to be.  I used larger hearts.

Place in the oven for 15 minutes or until the crayons are completely melted.  To cool them faster, I put mine in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.  If it hadn't been snowing, I probably would have put them outside.  LOL

The final result looks like this:

In between waiting for them to completely cool and putting in a new batch, I played around with iWork Pages until I came up with a design and saying I liked, then I printed out the cards on cardstock.

After cutting the cards to size, I took leftover pieces of ribbon and buttons and glue gunned them to the cards.  Then I taped the  heart crayons to the cards.

This is the final result:

Twenty-four later and I was finally done.  It literally was an all day projects, just because the pan I used only had 6 hearts.

Eva loves them and I'm sure her friends will have a blast coloring with them.  Its an ingenious idea for a unique Valentine's card.  Don't you just love Pinterest?!

And thanks to my sis-in-law, for loaning me her silicone pan!  Total cost to me, was only the cost of the crayons, since I already had everything else here.  Aren't those the best projects?!  :)

Its All About Family

Sorry for being so late today y'all, but I got a little sidetracked with a delightful long distance phone call with Nicole @ Davis Domestications and Furniture Face-Lifts.  If you haven't checked out her blog, you need to!  Nicole is absolutely wonderful and I had an awesome time talking to her - and picking her brain of all her furniture painting knowledge.  Thanks, Nicole!

So, yesterday was a whirl-wind of rearranging my living room to the detriment of every other room of my house and finishing up a project that I gave you a sneak peek of at Our Prairie Home on Facebook on Tuesday.  Its amazing how once you get started, how you get on a roll.  Its the getting started part that's the problem.  ;)

Anyhoo...

If you missed it, this is what I started with (some of which changed as the project developed and took me another route, as it so often does):

Paper Mache Letters (50% off HOLLA!)

Scrapbook Paper

Old Book Pages

Mod Podge
Mod Podge Acrylic Sealer

Spanish Moss

Glue Gun

Spray Primer

Dutch Boy Paint in "Chalk White"

Pittsburgh Paint in "Tall Cattail"

Acrylic Folk Art Craft Paint in "Driftwood"

Technique Glaze

Craft/Purdy Paint Brushes

Scrapbook Applique Flowers

and a few odds and ends from around the house.

Most of the supplies I just had laying around from other projects, so the cost was little.  Aren't those the best kind?!

I initially got my idea from Kelli @ Restore Interiors.  She made a sign for the wall in her booth at Urban Suburban that I absolutely adored!  And of course I thought, I can do that!

Restore Interiors

 So, when I suckered the hubs into stopping in at Hobby Lobby while we were in Waterloo last Friday, I got the makings for my own.  It took me a while to figure out what word I wanted to use.  Time and time again, I kept coming back to "Family".  Because as a SAHM, that's what's most important to me.

After working on and off on it for the last couple of days, I finally finished it up last night.  I looked at it up on the wall and realized that just hanging the letters up there wasn't going to work.  What to do?

Well, I just happened to have an old unfinished wood door to the hubs and I's chest of drawers upstairs that had fallen off due to the little man using it as a swing (Does this kind of stuff happen in your house too?  Please tell me it does!) and it wasn't repairable.  He ripped the hinge clean out and splintered the wood on one corner.  I decided to replace both sides with curtains, so I just had these two doors laying around up in the attic.

So at about 10:30 last night, I decided to sand it lightly, primer it, paint it with a sample of "Fairytale" blue by True Value Color Made Simple that I got for $1.25, distress it, and glaze it.  Thus my reason for being up until 2 am.  LOL!  I don't have any befores of the door, because the light was terrible for taking pictures since it was dark.  When I hot glued the letters to it this morning, I realized it was a fantastic idea!  And I completely love how it turned out!

You wanna see it don't you?

You want me to shut up and post the pictures, right?

LOL!

Okay!  Okay!  Here it is:

For some reason,
a few of the paper rosettes look a different color only in the pictures.
Drives me nuts, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it.
It doesn't look like that when you're looking at it.

Total Cost of Project:  $11.00

And for once, since I was rearranging my living room, it actually has a home on my wall instead of being stuck in a corner somewhere after I stage it.  LOL!

As you can see, I've done a TON of rearranging!  The buffet and rocking chair are now at home in the living room, as is the ladder.  We'll save that reveal for another day, but I've already taken pictures since who know's how long it'll stay in immaculate condition!  LOL  Since I've moved everything around,  I now have more space to buy more furniture for the dining room and office.  HA HA HA!  See, there is a method to my madness!  Are you wondering what's behind those pocket doors?  Let me tell ya, you don't even want to think about seeing what's behind Door #2.  The dining room is in a shambles - which, lucky me, I get to work on today.  I get the booby prize!  :P

Here's hoping y'all have an awesome day!