Organizing!

I have finally got the organizing bug!  We are set to move in July, so it's too early to start packing (even though I really want to start!) I have had to come up with something to keep me motivated (besides getting this house ready to rent out).  And with my new love (obsession) Pinterest there are so many ideas out there...I could cruise all day for inspiration. 

I have decided to tackle one room/area a day and get the house as organized as possible.  One, it will make it easier when it is time to pack up and two, if I get a good system down now we will all be used to it so it will work right into the new house.  Always thinking :) 

A running theme on these amazingly organized Pinterest people is baskets...lots of baskets, fancy or not, plastic, rubber, wicker, with handles or whatever works but lots of baskets!  

I recently finished my Fridge and Pantry redo!  I am so excited to show you.  The Fridge idea came from I think this link... for the baskets which I found at Walmart (they had smaller ones at Target).  And for the Pantry...This blog has a ton of ideas!...I found a bunch of the rubber buckets with handles at the Dollar Tree. Then these Sites had Free labels! I kind of smushed the ideas together and did what worked for my space and my stuff.  I am very happy with how it turned out.  

Before...the mess! and what you don't see, a storage container on the other side of the kitchen so I always had to go back and forth and dig in the drawers for some of my baking supplies.  Now it is all in one place and I can find what I need!

After...

with the labels on...

and the fridge with the baskets with handles.

love these, you can just pull out what you need to make lunches, or the condiments for 'burger night' ...all in one place.

I also broke down all the snack boxes like cheese its, flip crackers, animal crackers, etc...and put them into snack bags.  Now they are in the 'lunch box snacks' bucket...easy to grab and toss into lunch box.  And I don't have a fancy machine (I really want one!) and my sticker machine is even out of laminate so I had to get crafty.  I cut out the printed labels and put them between layers of the clear package tape...it laminated them just fine.  It didn't take as long as I thought (you know, overwhelmed for a minute with most of our food pulled out onto the kitchen floor with my 2 year old rummaging around pulling out old candy) and it was worth it.  What areas are you reorganizing? I would love more tips!

Family Strong...old writings.

I found our old blog and linked back to my account...it was nice to go back and read the posts and see what God has done in our lives.  We started 'Family Strong' when Charming joined the Army as a place for our families and  friends to keep up with us.  Of course this was all Facebook was created....that started a whole new trend didn't it?  Still I'm glad we have it.  There are a few testimonies from me and Charming and it's awesome to be reminded of our 'call' once in a while.  It was a big move to leave our Church in Cali and enter the Army adventure that is now our life.  We miss our lives in that ministry...leading a group of people to greater experience God and all He has for us and the world around us...but we love where we are now. To be able to be a part of such an old tradition and truly 'living life' with those around us, ministering to them, being with them though moves, deployments, hardships, injury's, safe arrivals back home, etc...has been such an amazing experience.  We have grown and learned so much and know God has a plan for our future.  While we hope to one day get back into a church and truly lead a revival and ignite a city(and bigger) on fire for the Lord, we will continue to draw near, seek, move forward here where He has us and keep living our 'Army Adventure.'

Happy New Year

This New Year is off to a great start and already seems to be moving quickly, at least the calendar is filling up fast.  I'm looking around at cake designs and getting inspired for Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day.  If you have a party, dinner, class or office party coming up, or you just want to order a cake for your special someone or family please let me know and I will get you booked.   Check the cake pages for more info.

Thanks!

Christmas Projects

Is anyone else wondering where this month went?  It doesn't matter now, we are here and I am so excited for Christmas this year!  I did a few projects and actually got everything shipped off on time...and with us being military our family gets more scattered every year.  I had packages going from GA to OK, AZ, TX, etc...crazy!

Anyway, here are a few projects I finished that were pretty inexpensive and easy to make.  Each is personalized though which I love...of course I didn't get a pic of my nieces gifts, so bummed!  But out there in blog world and Pinterest I saw the $ store cookie sheet idea.  You paint the front with Chalkboard paint, embellish with a ribbon on top and there you go, a cute tray to hang on wall or fridge for notes, etc...except I went a little further and printed out their initials on pretty scrapbook paper and mod-podged  in the middle and added a few decorative magnets.  SO CUTE!  I will have them send me a pic when they open them.

The others are pretty self explanatory. I found some cute, football shaped glasses at the $ store and painted the OU (Oklahoma) letters on the side for my BIL.  Again from Pinterest the $ Store plastic frames with scrapbook paper and post it notes for the Teacher gifts, and the painted canvas' where you put stickers, paint over the whole thing and then peel off the stickers...that one is addictive and I will be making more!

I would love to see some of your projects.

Have a blessed Christmas!

Dresser Redo--for FREE!

Hey Everyone, I just finished a project and wanted to share the cuteness.  As we have outgrown our house I keep shifting furniture around and trying to find storage...it's getting old, but we are moving in about 7 months so I don't want to buy anything new right now.  I have a space on 'dining area' wall going into kitchen that was bare.  I really need a nice buffet but at this point the kids art supplies and craft stuff have taken over.  My parents found this sturdy wood dresser for me a while back for a good deal. It was super ugly green, and I mean different shades of green on different drawers, like dark hunter green and gray shades!  But it has lots of drawers and that is what I needed.  --Oh man, I just realized I don't have any before pics so you will have to trust me.


I won't go into a lot of detail because I know we all do a lot of repainting and re-purposing.  Basically a light sand, a couple of coats of primer, a couple of coats of white paint and it looked much better!  I wanted to play with an idea though so I kept going...I have this fabric that I made into a panel covering the glass door, recovered a LR lamp shade, and recovered my sewing chair with that has my blues in it and flowers, too cute.  I went with those shapes and made a template on paper of a big petal and the middle circle.  I traced it off center on the dresser and painted it with leftover house paint.  Then I free handed another flower design from the material and same thing.  Final touch, spray painted knobs with some leftover silver I had from redoing the kitchen cabinets.   I love it and you can't beat free!  I painted our dining table too and it really lightens the room, gives it a little whimsy and I love whimsy.  

My paper petal, crafty I know.

What do you think?  Well, I am off to focus on the bathroom I'm stripping of evil, super stuck wallpaper...we are putting the house up for sale/rent and I really need to finish that before I play any more (that's for this week anyway) :)  


Thanks for stopping by.

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!~

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!