Friday, September 30, 2011

Kitchen Fridge--Drab to Fab!

Hey All,

     I am so excited to finally be done with my kitchen! The stripping of wallpaper and painting cabinets has been done for a year now although I can't find many of my before pics. Let's just say it was a step back to the early 80's with floral wallpaper, cream cabinets and appliances, and to top it off peach and green drapes.  Yuk!  We are redoing on a budget so I am doing most of the work myself with Prince Char doing the heavy lifting.  That was 3 weeks of steaming and cleaning but I love the way it turned out...white cabs, new knobs, turquoise on top, tan on bottom, and much cleaner.  Anyway, this summer we had a pipe break and flooding ruined our floors.  Not what I wanted to deal with but I got pretty new floors, and since they had to rip out sheet rock from the pantry I got to paint that too to match my pretty turquoise walls.
     All that clean up got finished then our dishwasher died, of course.  Well you remember the cream appliances?  No more--we got a black dishwasher and since our stove was also about to die (so I convincingly told the hubby--and really it did start to die a couple of days later) we got a shiny, black stove too.  Now here is the funnest part--we had no money in the budget for a new fridge, so what was I to do?  My oldest daughter's fave show is 'Good Luck Charlie' and they have the coolest fridge.  It is chalkboard on the front and they write all over it...love it! I primed it once and about 3 coats of chalkboard paint on the front and done.  We are just waiting out the 3 day drying time.  But what about the ugly cream sides?  I got that covered, literally.  I was at the $ store a while back and had found this contact paper I loved.  It is circles, I love circles! It was also my blues and tans...perfect!  I bought 3 rolls knowing I would do something with it.  It is now on the sides of the fridge.  What is easier than peel and stick?
     We can't wait to start writing on there!  Menus, schedules, food list....so many choices!




That ugly light fixture is going next.




Thanks for stopping by!~

Thursday, September 29, 2011

SuperHero Birthday Party!

My super sweet Skater boy turned 6!  Time has flown by this last few years.  For his 4th I was in labor with his sister and last year we let Chuck E. Cheese do all the work, so this year we wanted to do our own bash.  Superhero is what he wanted and that is what he got!  We borrowed a friends back yard to make it a swim party.

Pinterest is my new love...I mean addiction!  There are just so many ideas all in one spot!  I could spend hours cruising for ideas.  There are some great Superhero parties on there and I snagged (and copied) a few ideas.  One being the 'city scape' shower curtain as a backdrop...I used it for our picture area.  I made about 30 of the 'No-sew' capes I pinned from a blog and they turned out so cute.  Cheaper than anything I could buy online, they only cost about $3 a person.

I found a super cute 'vintage' theme set on Etsy from Simonemadeit.  It is a digital file that I could customize and print out at home.  That covered his invites and party favors, snack cones, and extras.  He wanted a pinata but we couldn't find one we really liked.  There were only round ones and 1 of Spidermans head, no thanks.  BUT, being close to Halloween--well not really but the stores put stuff out so darn early--we found a smaller one in a bat shape for half the price :)  I just printed out a Batman symbol and mod podged it to the front and there you go, perfect size for a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds.

If it had been an indoor party I probably would have gone over the top...but we were working with a windy day so I did what I could.  The final bit that was the perfect touch...a friend of ours jumping out dressed as Mr. Incredible to 'save the day'!  He posed with the kids for pics and helped with the pinata.  The cake, or no cake, was a piled high plate of cupcakes.  It is funny to me that I make cakes, am known as the cake lady, and my kids don't like cake!  They like my icing and like cakes in small doses but that's it, they prefer ice cream cakes or other desserts...I'm ok with that, less pressure while I am also hosting :)

See all the capes...so cute!

Skaterboy picked our shirts
Super snack!


They got to decorate masks and create Super hero names
The Villains of the party.



See the Batman pinata before we hung it?


Posing in their capes!





Even Little Miss M got a hit!

It was a blast but a lot of work.  I'm glad Little Miss M is next and only turning 2...a nice, quiet party at home coming this weekend.



Thanks for stopping by!