Ombre Nails

I really like doing nails. They don't last very long, but they certainly keep me from biting my nails.

I wanted to try something different and decided on the ombre style.

Materials: 

3 nail polish colors

toothpick

wax paper

some type of  smooth sponge

nail polish remover

q-tip

1. Layer on the wax paper your three colors. My top color is blue, then silver, and then white. 

2. Take your toothpick and mix the colors only where they meet.

3. Press your sponge into the mixed color.

4. Roll the sponge from one side of your nail to the other. You aren't smearing or smudging the color, just rolling it. Make sure you lift up your sponge at the end instead of dragging it off the nail.

5. You will have nail polish around the skin around your nails. There are two ways I know of that you can fix this. The first is to put nail polish remover on a q-tip and rub the polish off the skin with this. This was my choice. The second is to put Vaseline on the skin around the outside of the nail. However, because I was using a sponge, if I used the Vaseline, it would be a one time sponge use and I wanted to use my sponge as many times as possible.

Sorry, I didn't snap a finished pic. Maybe the next time I do this, I will remember to take one I can add later.

The Stockings Were Hung...

My husband made this super great sign for our stockings since we don't really have anywhere else to hang them. 

We used old barn wood, silver drawer pulls, and he burned in our words "The stockings were hung…"

It worked out perfectly!

Cowboy Boot Stockings

After several years of looking for western Christmas stockings, we just couldn't seem to find what we wanted. So, to the drawing board...

Start by drawing the shape you want of a piece of cardboard of paper. Draw it a bit bigger than you want the finished product to end up. 

I had a HUGE pile of old jeans and knew I wanted wrangler pockets on the stockings. With this in mind, I laid the stocking on top of the jeans where I wanted and traced. You want to cut this side out along the traced line.

Stop cutting right at the side seam. Flip over your pattern and trace the outline of the other side of the boot and then cut it out.

Once One side is cut out, flip it over so the backside is what you see. Line it up on another piece of jean/cloth. Trace this and cut it out just like you did with the first piece.

Once you have one side traced and cut out, open the jeans and trace the rest of the boot. Then cut this out too.

I knew I wanted an easy hanger for the stockings, so I used the thick seam of the jeans. No extra sewing :)

Just cut to the desired length and stitch onto the inside of the back side of the stocking.

Make sure to line up the wrong sides facing. 

It is slightly off which was okay with me since there would be items in the stockings at some point anyway.

Pin the two sides together making sure the edges are together. Sew it up, and turn it right side out. You may need to use a pen or scissors or the tip of something to help push out the corners and tip of the boot.

I attempted to sew on initials. I wrote initials in chalk and permanent marker to follow with my sewing machine. I decided not to do it, but it sure would look neat if you choose to. 

Merry Christmas in July! 

Pantry Organization

BEFORE

Making great use of waste to hold canned goods. Thinking that making coating the boxes with glue and covering with scrapbooking paper would add extra strength, I covered them in glue. But I never did add the scrapbooking paper. They work just fine for smaller cans like soup.

AFTER

The key was to put the things the kids get themselves like cereal down where they can reach them and the things they shouldn't be getting into like candy up higher where it is most difficult for them to reach.

Buzz LightYear Cake

For my sons birthday way bake in December (yes, I'm that far behind!) he wanted a buzz lightyear cake. 

We started with a 9x13 cake and then carved it into a rocket shape. We split it in two and cut the top layer into a square.

This was the first time we tried a special filling. We found this stuff at walmart. 

My husband dirty icing the cake.

To make the wings, we just used leftover cake. 

We put them on cardboard covered with tin foil. Make sure to make the cardboard long enough to push the extra into the sides of the cake.  

Detail work.

It takes the longest.

But it is pretty awesome to see it come together.

To attach the wings, we just pushed them into the side of the cake.

Finished product.

I think he likes it!

Happy birthday buddy!

Snap Grommet Curtains

Well before we started our kitchen redo…

We were stuck in a rut. Same window covers, same dirty carpet, same kitchen, same everything except for paint as the day we moved into our house. I am the type of person that needs and craves change be it little or big. Usually its as simple as moving some furniture around. This time, I have the craving for a change in curtains. Every time I opened and closed the curtain, the rope you had to pull on would hurt my hand. They were also white, not a good color for a family with young kids and a dog. It was also bright when we wanted it dark. To curb the curtain craving, I researched different ways to make blackout curtains. It came to my attention that making them from a new store-bought piece of fabric would actually be more expensive than buying already made curtains and fixing them up so they hung the way I wanted them to. After a trip to Walmart I had enough curtain rods and curtains to cover a very large window, a sliding door/window, and a medium sized bedroom room window. I also bought a product called snap grommets. 

The grommets come with a little tool for you to draw the middle and the circle on your fabric so you can cut out the right sized hole for the grommet. I know its hard to see, but that's what I did in this picture. Right in the middle is a little "x" with the circle around it. Unfortunately the grommets didn't come with an easy way to get the hole started. For this I used a butcher knife, cut into the center, then used my fabric scissors to cut the hole. Although it worked really well I didn't take any pictures of this. I just couldn't figure out how to maneuver a butcher knife, fabric, and a camera at the same time. =) Make sure that before you jump into this, you measure out where you want the grommets placed.

The hole is cut. 

It is called snap grommet for a reason, all you do is put it both sides on and press together. Very easy and simple.

Trial run. When I took the curtains out of the package they were obviously creased from being shoved in a tiny little package. After I made sure it look alright I tossed them (snap grommets and all) in the dryer with a damp towel. 

And, tada  they were done. Bad lighting, sorry. My college lighting teacher would be super frustrated with this and most of the pictures I post on here. Sorry professor.

Because the store bought windows did not meet the window measurements, they were too long and not wide enough, I bought three, cut one in half, and sewed the whole ones to the halves as well as shortened them. If you look closely in the picture below on the right and left sides of the curtain you can see where I sewed the halves to the wholes so it would open in the middle. 

Super easy and totally changed the look in our house. The perfect amount of change for the moment. (Little did I know that the kitchen project would be very very soon at that moment!)

Kitchen Redo- Kickboard

The final step so far in our kitchen redo was to add a kick board. We had the same dark wood around the base of our cupboards. It had to go. This was a pretty easy part. Because of the way the previous kick board was installed, it was best to simply cover it with new stuff. Measure, cute, stain, nail, and done! =)

We had a super little helper!

To see the before and after pictures click here.

To see the sanding process click here.

To see the painting and staining process click here. 

To see the mess we created click here.

To see the cabinet doors click here.

To see edging choices click here.

To see how we added a cutting board shelf click here.

Kitchen Redo- Adding a Cutting Board Shelf

The was the demo part of our "remodel." After using our kitchen for a few years we know where we cut things, mix things, and make things. It only made sense to put items that we use for cutting, for example, on the side of the kitchen that we cut things. Granted my kitchen is very tiny so walking across it to grab the cutting boards was not that big of a challenge, but it makes things so much more convenient when they are already right where you need them to be. So, to solve the cutting board dilemma, my husband created a cutting board shelf. We had, and still have, a large amount of wasted space which drives me crazy, but we can only do so much at a time. Right next to our drawers, we had a thin space that would be perfect for holding a few cutting boards.

We first had to make sure there was nothing behind where we wanted the shelf. We took off the side panel to find what we expected, wasted space. See all the space behind the drawers? They could be that much deeper or there could be something else done with that space! Ugh, wasted space!!!

After we knew we could make this work we took out the front panel with a screwdriver and hammer.

We created a bottom shelf and back, again out of the material we used for the doors.  There was already a panel on the inside part of the space (next to the drawers) so we didn't need to add anything there.

Here is a close up of how we got the bottom shelf to attach to the sides. We just notched out a space to slide the new bottom in.

Because there was already supporting boards on the front of the unit, we just had to rest the bottom of the shelf on it. We did, however, need to cut a notch out of the side to go around the 2 x 4 toward the front. 

Before we put the final side panel on, this is what it looked like.

Front panel

Stained

The counters are actually really crooked so this did happen, but not to worry because we will cover it with corner molding. 

We still don't have the corner on, but it looks pretty good!

To see the before and after pictures click here.

To see the sanding process click here.

To see the painting and staining process click here. 

To see the mess we created click here.

To see the cabinet doors click here.

To see edging choices click here.