8 Gallons of Paint

I haven't had as much time to blog as I had originally planned.  I've been very busy around the house.  I spent 3 days and 8 gallons of paint to address an issue I've had with the color that has graced almost every wall downstairs.  I affectionately call it "cardboard".  Don't get me wrong it isn't a terrible color.  I might even like it in certain situations.  But, I felt like there was soooooo much of it and it really was such a dark color that it made our house feel very cave like.  It was practically the same color as our floors.  I decided that I wanted gray walls.  I have a blue and green theme throughout the house and I thought gray would be a nice neutral....  After spending about a month seriously debating on the exact shade (not too dark but not too blue/purple or beige) I finally commited to Sharkey Gray and got 5 gallons of that crap!  I later came to regret that decision.  By the end of that day our house went from this:

To this:

And I absolutely hated how it looked against our floors.  It was the WORST around our fireplace.  It looks sooo blue and UGLY to me.  But, it looked amazing in our dining room...  I spent about 24 hours staring at it constantly telling Diddles how much I hated it and showing him new paint options.  We even had friends over during that 24 hour period and they said it looked fine.  Now I know who my true friends are because they straight up lied to me! haha!  So, the very next day I went out picked up a green and blue paint chip (the colors of our dining room and kitchen) along with a floor sample that was similar to ours.  I went to the light beige section and spent about 10 minutes before commiting to a light neutral shade.  This time I only purchased 3 gallons (just in case).  I had the entire downstairs repainted by the end of that day.  And I can't believe I'm going to say this..... But...... I LOVE MY BEIGE WALLS!  Never in my life have I ever liked neutrals.  However, with the floors, raised paneling details, fireplace, windows and all the other colors in our house I think it looks great!  Diddles seems to think I just repainted it the same cardboard color.  But, If you look below you can see that there is a BIG difference.

 Below you will see some during and after pics!

During

During

After



Copy Cat

It's been a while since I last blogged.... sue me!  I hardly have any time or energy during the school year to get anything else done.  But, one one of our first days of summer Diddles made me this laundry basket shelf I have been wanting for months!  We have a good sized laundry room and there has always been a big empty section and I really wanted a shelf of some kind to store stuff in.  We have cabinets above the washer and dryer, but they aren't tall/deep enough for some of the things I needed to tuck away.  I added a shower curtain rod above this little nook to hang clothes to try and what not.  I think this is the perfect piece to use to store pool towels and such.  I originally had a vision of nice green or blue laundry baskets and a white shelf....  HOWEVER, I could only find white laundry baskets and the only paint color we already had enough of was this lovely blue from our bathroom at our previous house. I don't have any during pictures.  But here is what we ended up with at the end of the day (try to ignore the excessive amount of hangers that are waiting to be returned to the cleaners)...

And just to prove that I'm not being lazy and just sitting around on my bum...  I have been working on numerous shirts - like this one:

Lazy Much?

I've had big plans to get some craftyness going around here....  But, it just hasn't happened and it really is not my fault.  I have made about three dozen shirts within the last couple of weeks (in between all of my busy stuff for work).  Today I might actually get some work done.  Yesterday I accomplished nothing. 

Well, you may see it as nothing.  But a trip to the farmer's market, lunch,  and lounging in and by the pool all day was a lot for me!  We finally got in our pool for the first time this year.  It was cold and I ended up with a nasty sunburn.  Here are a few pics from our day!

This is one of my favorite turtles.  He was so interested in what I was doing in his pen.

Don't let this cute face fool you....  He is evil!

Seven Weeks.....

I can't wait!!!!  We get out for the summer in SEVEN WEEKS!  I have been ridiculously busy!  Some nights we don't get home from work until 8:00 or 9:00 (and we leave the house at 6:00 every morning).  I looooove my job, but it is hard work.  We have been doing standardized testing this week and it really made the week drag.  So glad that is over. Anyway, I just wanted to share some of the fun stuff we did at school during our "TAKS Camp" the kids (and teachers) had a ton of fun preparing and participating in camp.

We did that reverse bleach effect to make camp shirts.  Each class was a different "camp" and had a unique color and camp name.  My kids chose CAMP AWESOME.... because they are pretty awesome.  I think our shirts turned out wonderful!

Here you can get a look at how my room and hallway was is decorated.  We worked soooo hard on this and used just about all of the butcher paper that the school had (and that is not an exaggeration).  Therefore, it will be up until the last day of school.  And we have a second round of camp before the science test at the end of this month.

We're getting closer

The turtle pen/pool bench is almost complete.  And I'm pretty sure I love it now!  It looks sooo much better with stain.  Plus, we rearranged the patio furniture and I pulled all of the cushions for the furniture out of the garage (they have been sitting on top of Brandon's old Volkswagen for months now) and scrubbed the crap out of them yesterday.  And I do mean CRAP.... literally!  We have a very nasty dog that lives in our garage.  If you ever thought you wanted an English Bulldog you were WRONG.... and I mean seriously mistaken. 

Anyway... Back to the new piece of furniture in our back yard.  Here is a little sneak preview.  It will be so much better when I get all the cushions in place and the plants start to fill in!  We can not wait for SUMMER!  It's going to be sooooo relaxing sitting out by the pool EVERYDAY! 

And when you look carefully inside the structure you can see some of our box turtle friends...

And because I previously mentioned the English Bulldog issue...  Here is our little sweetness, Klaus.  You see him and just want to grab his little cheeks.  Until you start to approach him and he begins to growl.  We've decided it's a bad breed.  Don't let the pictures fool you!

I've got a Scentsy party tonight that I need to prepare for....  Tomorrow I have big plans to get some sewing done in the morning.  Perhaps I might actually get some new shirts done.  We shall see...

Sew Busy!

Well...  It's almost the end of my spring break and I actually feel like I have started to accomplish a few things.  Here are some of the awesome things Diddles and I have been doing around our house.... BTW, I think I love our house and our awesome neighborhood more and more everyday!  It's okay if you are jealous...  I mean, we have plenty of room for all of our hobbies, awesome places to walk and ride bikes, beautiful weather and everyone knows our names (and they always stop to say hi)!!!
Anyway, let's get back to the projects:

This is a little something I whipped up for Parker...  Pretty sure she is one of the best dressed kids I know.  And about 90% of her wardrobe has been personalized for her!

And this is a shirt I made a few weeks ago for our school nurse so she can support her daughter at basketball games.

This is one of the projects I am MOST excited about!  I've been desperately trying to figure out a good way to store my ribbon.  As I was sitting in the craft room yesterday I looked in the corner and saw some curtain rods that we used in our old house and no longer had a place to use them in the new house.  It hit me...  DUH!  This would be the perfect way to store my ribbon.  So, we put them up and added a couple of cafe rods below for wrapping paper.  I am soooo in love with this!  I also have a few other cafe rods set aside for a couple more rolls of paper.  This uses up some of my blank wall space and it makes everything so much easier to access.  Yay!

 This is the beginning of our new turtle enclosure/pool side bench.  Brandon and his awesomely talented dad finished the building process on Tuesday.  Today we stained and added a few plants.  The turtles should be living in luxury within the next day or two.  This bench is HUGE!  It may not look like it from this angle, but I'm sure 20 people could sit on it all a one time.  I can't wait until the new plants start filling in.

And finally (I really had more to show off, however my computer is rude and I don't feel like dealing with it anymore)...  My new Scentsy tester baskets that I will be using at parties.  I have a party tomorrow night and I can't wait to use them for the first time.  Thank you Target dollar isle! 

Looooong Hiatus

I have to apologize for the long hiatus.  I have been beyond busy with work.  We have just six weeks until my kids take the TAKS test.  Boo!  (I hate loathe standardized testing)  So, I've been working really hard to prepare plenty of supplements for my lessons + doing before and after school tutoring. Then, my sewing machine started acting up on me.  However, spring break is coming and I plan on getting caught up on the 50+ shirt orders I  have.  AND I want to work on fixing up our home office a little bit.  We shall see...