AMERICANA LAUNDRY

A couple of years ago, I decided to redo our laundry/bathroom.  This room is right inside our door that leads to the garage.  It is so convenient having this bathroom right inside the door.  This room holds my washer and dryer, a few overhead cabinets, a utility sink, a toilet and a sink/cabinet combo.  It is where we feed our dog, do our laundry, and keep all the cleaning supplies.  Such a small room for so many functions!  I had no idea how I wanted to decorate this room.  95% of my home has a decor of some kind of deer, foliage, or wildlife, yet  I wanted something different for this room.  I found this adorable wall paper border at Fleet Farm, and everything just kind of fell into place.

Because all of our upstairs walls have plaster, I have a hard time hanging wall paper borders, "wallies", or even the vinyl words that are so popular right now.   I had a terrible time getting this wall paper border up, and I was worried the edges would not stick, yet my friend Kim suggested I have my carpenter husband cut me thin boards to "trim" out the border.  It worked perfectly!

The same week I painted the walls (using left over paint from a downstairs room), I went to a garage sale where they were selling a lot of Americana-type knick knacks and wall hangings.  For about $10, I purchased an American flag valance and several Americana wall pieces.

  I had a heart shaped wreath and decided to copy an idea I saw at the Michael's store.  The little clothing pieces are actually stickers for scrapbooking and I "hung" them using the tiny clothes pins.  I thought the football jersey represented my older two boys, and the baby outfit represented my little ones.

  I found the cute little soap dispenser on clearance at Kohl's.


I hate doing laundry, but having a cute little bathroom like this somehow makes it bearable!

A friend of mine, Jeri, just moved into a new home.  Her walls are all painted dark, rich colors.  I have found that I like the rooms in my home best that have the darker colors - I don't know why, but the dark, rich colors "feel" better to me.  I have decided that I will paint the other rooms in my home darker colors over the next year too - probably with Jeri's help picking the colors :-).

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

It's been a while since I've posted.  It's been a busy week all in all.  We totally changed our living room upstairs.  Our TV has been on the blink for awhile now, and we've been saving for a couple of years.  We decided that since the great deals were happening this month, we should just get a new TV now instead of waiting until the old one died.  We figured it would die right after Christmas when all the good sales were gone.  The boys got the old TV now downstairs, and that took a lot of rearranging too, and we've still got a lot to do, but man, am I ever tired.   I ended up shampooing all the carpet and then I decided to move Levi into Noah's bedroom to make Levi's room into a play room.  I happen to know that Santa is bringing them a blow up trampoline that is 80 inches in diameter, so we needed some room.  I think it will be worth it when they can jump all day long and totally wear themselves out!  Here are some before and after pics.

      





I cannot figure out how to nicely arrange these pictures on the postings.  Well, you get the idea.  We're still waiting for cables to come so we can run them in the wall and hide them from view.  For the most part, I really like this new arrangement.  It feels like a big change and feels so clean!


I also wanted to share with you Tanner's accomplishments.  He recently received a Varsity letter in football and one in academics also.  Here he is with the letters and his new varsity coat. 

We had a friend sew them on for him and he looks great in them.  I feel badly because sometimes being the "middle" child, Tanner gets forgotten.  Ty gets a lot of attention because he is the firstborn and Levi and Noah get a lot of attention because, well, they just demand it at their ages.  Tanner gets pushed to the side a lot because he's #2 in birth order and because he is potty trained and can feed himself fairly well :-).  Congratulations Tanner on receiving 2 Varsity letters!

                                      

YOUR SURROUNDINGS

It is good to surround yourself with things you love.  Sometimes I look around my house and think that I've gone way over the top with pictures of my family-mainly my boys.  But then I think, who am I trying to impress?  I mean, my home will never be featured in Better Homes and Gardens, and frankly, I don't care.  My family is important to me.  They are in my heart and ON MY WALL!

WHAT'S ON YOU WALL?


THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:  You were born an original, don't die a copy.

DECK THE HALLS

24 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!!  Does that scare you?  This year, I have a pretty good handle on my gift purchases.  There are a few things that are causing me some stress, but I'm trying to get a handle on it.

I started decorating the day after Thanksgiving.  I got all the decorations up, except the tree - that is another story altogether.  Unfortunately, we put up a live tree - not a nice one that is harvested from a tree farm, but one that is cut from our property.  The tree looks lovely out in the woods with snow on it, but something happens to it once it gets set up in my living room - see for yourself (this was taken a few years ago):
Beautiful tree!

 What happened to it???  Try as he did, even Tanner could not make it look good!









The other decorations around the house look pretty good, though.  Here are some:

I put the poinsettias and the fake bulb ornaments around the entry ways in the kitchen/dining area.  The pine garland stays up all year, and I add decorations according to the season/holiday.






















Here is the fireplace area.  Ty made the moose silhouette thing for me a few years ago - it is a permanent fixture.   The bear statue is also a permanent fixture.  My bff, Marie got it for me last summer.   I add things to the mantle for the holiday.  The cute picture below the mantle was made by Kevin's mom - it is cross stitch. 

Here is a nice wreath someone got me.

Those are just a few touches I've added for the holiday.  Red seems to brighten the place up - maybe I should make it more a permanent color in my home!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:  Creativity means believing you have greatness.

CHEAP AND EASY WAY TO GET A WALL BORDER

I wish I could say I came up with this idea, but I copied it off of a home improvement show way back before HGTV came into existence.   It is an easy way to "customize" the look of your room - without buying wall paper and wall borders. 

I did this in my bathroom when I living in beautiful, hilly Pennsylvania (just a bit homesick at the moment).  Most of my home is done in wildlife and outdoors.  I've always loved the outdoors for decorating - ironically, I spend most of my days indoors.  I wanted one room of my house that was not decorated with some kind of deer/moose/bear.  I have been to the ocean many times and love all my vacation memories of the Atlantic - along with the many treasures I either gathered on the shore or purchased in a boardwalk shop.  So I decided to decorate my bathroom in an ocean decor.  

First, I painted the walls white, then took a Caribbean blue color, dipped a damp old t-shirt in it, then proceeded to "wash" the walls with the blue.  I used swirly motions and zig zags - all to achieve a look of whimsical blue ocean waves.  It was awesome (just don't ask Dan about it).  Then, I found some cute material at Walmart to sew a simple curtain with (you can see the curtain in the photo).  I bought some extra and cut out the fish individually.  After cutting many, many fish out, I poured some fabric starch (the blueish stuff in a small jug) into a bowl.  I dipped each fish in, thoroughly soaking it, then placed it on the wall, dabbing at the excess with a cloth.  They stick like magic!  After they are dry, they will not come off - no matter how much steam is in your bathroom - until you peel them off.   They will never leave a mark on the paint or peel the paint at all.  Actually, when I moved to Wisconsin, I peeled them all off and redipped them to use in my bathroom here.  There was no evidence that they had ever been on my walls in PA, and they look great here in WI.  I placed them randomly around the top of the walls at different heights - to make them look like schools of fish swimming around a lagoon.

I also did the same thing to Levi's bedroom.  We wanted a sports theme, but we have textured walls on every square inch of this house.  Wall paper borders DO NOT WORK, neither do "wallies".  I found material that had a nice pattern of baseballs, gloves, bats, basketballs, footballs, etc.  I cut them out and placed them on a "border" that I painted on.  They worked well, although be careful with small children - he pulled them off when he was still in his crib and tried to eat one!  I took them off the wall for awhile and have since replaced them.

This can be done with large sections of wall also.  The tv segment I saw actually showed them "wall papering" the entire room with panels of material.  This is good for renters, they said, because you can just take it down when you leave and never hurt the wall.  If you wall paper an entire wall, you need a roller and lots of the blue starch, but it works!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.-Aristotle

CHOCOLATE ON MY WALLS

Oh yummy!  I love chocolate so much, I painted it on my walls in my downstairs "rec" room.  The paint is actually called "hat box brown" by Dutchboy, but doesn't "creamy milk chocolate" sound like a better title?  Who makes up the paint names anyway, and how can I get that job?

This was the only room we had never painted since I moved in and took over the decorating, which my hub was all to happy to hand over!  The walls had never been primed and were dirty in some places.  Dan helped me prime the room - he did the ceiling, I did the walls.  Then I painted the chocolate, I mean the brown paint on.  Every time I dipped my paint pad into the tray, I thought of melted chocolate.  No wonder I'm having such cravings this week.

I was nervous at first putting this on the walls - after all, there is only one small window down there and not a lot of good light (we hope to fix that soon).  But after one wall was done, I knew we had picked a good color.  I plan to do the stairwell in the same color.
I need to hang pictures and the mirrors back up, and I'll get to that this week after I clean the carpets.  

Color is good - chocolate is better!

What do you think about decorating in a Hershey's theme?   Could be interesting!  Have to see about that.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:  Eat chocolate, it just makes you feel better!  Then brush your teeth - 

CHURCH BUILDING WREATHS

How can you go from this. . . 




to . . . .




THIS. . .

 

Well, with a few tools and a little time, you can do it.   I made 2 of these wreaths for the front of our church auditorium for the winter.  
The total cost for each wreath was around $20.  I got everything on sale - the roses were 70% off!  I love the clearance bin! 

We moved into our new church building last January, I believe - wow, seems like we've been at this place a lot longer.  Anyway, the building is beautiful.  Most of the classrooms and the bathrooms are decorated very nicely.  The auditorium has just plain white walls, so to bring some color in, I started making wreaths to hang on each side of the pulpit/baptistery area.  Here is the one I made last spring:

I love to make wreaths.  Fall wreaths are my favorite, but I make them for all seasons and occasions.  Michaels craft store charges more than $50 for some of their completed wreaths.  That's just crazy!  You can buy a smaller sized wreath at Walmart for around $3.  If you want the next bigger size, you do have to go to Joann's or Michaels, and if you wait until they are on sale,  you can get them for around $8.  I paid $17.99 for the pine wreaths and got another 20% off since I had a coupon, but these are pretty big wreaths.  The flowers you can buy anywhere.  I found some beautiful flowers at the Dollar Tree!  I usually buy the little "accessories" for my wreaths at the Dollar Tree (one of my favorite places).  I buy the cute Santa faces, plastic hearts or cute scarecrows all for $1.  Dollar Tree is also a great place to buy the wired ribbon spools!

Wreath making is very easy, but if you've never done it, here is a quick tutorial from me (and believe me, I'm no expert).  What I usually like to do, is look at the completed wreaths at a craft show or at Michaels (I sometimes snap a picture with my cell phone).  Then, I purchase the flowers/decorations/ribbon I want and the wreath.  For the pine wreath, you have to first "fluff" up the branches.  Then I cut the flower bushes apart so each flower is on an individual stem.  Lay them on the the wreath and play around until you get the design you want, then just hot glue them in - sometimes you may need to use florist wire, especially if the wreath will be hanging outside.  Just a note:  think in the rule of odds - never put an even number of flowers on a wreath.  Either have 3, 5, 7, etc.   That's pretty much it - very easy.   

Well, I know this is exciting stuff, so I'd better end this post so you can digest it all!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:  You never know who may desperately need your kindness and understanding. 

IT'S SEW SIMPLE

This is my kitchen window.  I took the valance down that was hanging there in the spring.  All summer, I had no curtain or valance up.  It did not really bother me, except that there is soooo much wood in my home, I felt I needed something to "soften" it.  However, I had no clue what I wanted to do with it.  I needed all the natural light, so did not want to hang anything dark, and I did not want the curtains to come down to the bottom of the window because they would be in the way.   Well, today, I could not take it anymore, so I went to my craft room and found a Chris Madden panel that I purchased at JC Penney last winter from the clearance bin for only $1.98!   It is very well made and very long - it is made for a patio door, I think.  Anyway, I decided to cut it off  and make a valance out of it.

I'm kind of happy with the end result.  I'm not much of a sewing gal at all, but this was kind of a no-brainer, so I was able to pull it off.  I got the rod on clearance at Wal-mart for $7.00 and I got the wooden leaves at my friend's (Marie) garage sale (3/$1.00).

I love getting stuff cheap and using it in my home.  Here are a couple more cheap fixes.  
This is one of my living room windows.  Again, I need all the light available and with two toddlers, I cannot have side panels because they will pull on them.  I did not sew this cool 1/2 circle.  This was originally a table cover - one of those little round end tables that you cover and put glass on top.  I got it for $3.00 last spring, cut it in 1/2, sewed it across the top and ended up with 2 curved valances.  It is tough material to sew, so I hope people don't look too closely when they come to visit!

                                          

This is my bedroom window. (Yes, those are real deer antlers).  It is hard to see this panel, but it is a dark green with ferns and leaves in a lighter color - kind of a "shadowy" effect.  It was a single panel I got at Walmart for I think $5.  I hemed it, and cut it in 1/2.  Nothing fancy, but it works for me.  I use the blind for nighttime privacy as this window looks out onto our front porch.


Thanks for looking into my windows :-).
THINK CHEAP!




THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:  
The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Orison Swett Marden