Thank You, Some Flowers and a Doily!

Happy Friday to you! I hope you are ready to have a lovely weekend. We've got some plans this weekend, or rather the girls do and I'll be playing chauffeur. LOL We are going to the school for the rescheduled movie night that got cancelled due to snow a month or so ago. They are showing Up, which we've not seen. Tomorrow Jessica has a birthday party to go to and on Sunday, I just found out, she has a Daisy outing. They will be cleaning up trash at a nearby nature trail. Whew! LOL

I took the day off from cleaning and did a little crafty stuff. Yay!

First, I have to share this gorgeous thank you card that I received from Christi at Blessings on Paper. You may remember the surprise blog hop party we had for her back in January. Yes, I know it's April, but believe me, ANY card from Christi is well worth waiting for. *Ü*

She was so sweet to use one of the flowers I crocheted for her. Isn't this a beauty?? Thanks, Christi!

You can see a sneaky peek at what I picked up today, or rather the finishing touches. I picked up a wire container holder, for lack of  the proper terminology at the thrift store recently. You can fit 6 pots in it. When Michaels has their big sale a weekend or so ago, I found terracotta pots that fit perfectly on sale, so I nabbed them. Today I found some flowers at the dollar store that I liked and I filled the pots.

Here's what it looks like:

Nice and happy! Not too shabby for just a few dollars out of pocket!

Next up, remember that covered cheese holder I used to display my beaded eggs for Easter? Well, I mentioned I wanted to crochet a doily to fit inside. I just finished up the doily this afternoon. So, I've got to show you, right?

I'm thrilled that it fits perfectly! Of course, I need something to display, right? Well, for now I'm using this:

I thought the butterfly box was adorable, and fifty percent off, so it cost all of 64 cents. LOL Once I find something better to display, I'll just set the butterfly out on display but until then, this is kind of happy. I can't stand it upright because it's thismuch too tall to fit the cover. Drat.

Well, thanks ever so much for stopping by. I hope you have a fantastic Friday!

Meet Freida Frog and I'm Still Cleaning...LOL

Hi there!

We've had a few days of wonky weather, but hopefully for the rest of the week it's going to be nice and spring-like. On Tuesday morning, seemingly out of the blue, we had a hailstorm. Nothing destructive, but tiny styrofoam looking balls. The girls told me as I drove them to school that I didn't need to use the wipers because they'd bounce right off the window. ha, ha! Then yesterday, we woke up to snow! Thankfully neither episode lasted long and now the sun is shining. Yay!

I'm sure you didn't stop by to read about crazy Colorado weather, so I'll move on. I switched from cleaning/oiling slatted laundry closet doors to working on the cabinets in the kitchen! Do I know how to entertain myself or what? LOL

Just before I got busy, I spotted this little cutie on our breakfast bar! She was a little skittish, but I got her onto my finger and put her outside, where hopefully she is one happy little ladybug.

This is what I have to work with in my kitchen. I don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but the owners before us did a lot of their own projects on the house. The story, as told to us, was the lady of the house wanted the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room taken out. Apparently her husband didn't get to that project fast enough to suit her, so she knocked a hole in the wall herself. The result is the extra large breakfast bar. I'm grateful she had the idea because I love how open my kitchen and living room are. The job was definitely a diy project as the cabinet doors can attest. Not that they are horrible to me, but definitely home-made. Good thing I'm not someone who insists on an upscale kitchen. Even if I was, I'd never get it, but I just want function mostly. So, we have these wooden cabinets. That have door fronts that don't get cleaned all that much. Gosh, you guys are gonna think I live in a pit the way I'm confessing, or rather that I've not been a very good housekeeper. Well, maybe that's true, but I have been a bit busy these past years. LOL

I've attempted to do surface cleaning, I promise, but nothing real deep. Honest to goodness, I never thought before to use Murphy's Oil Soap. But I thought of it after my closet door cleaning. So I got started this morning. Now mind you, I'm not showing you what it looks like INSIDE the closed doors and drawers, but the first picture is the before and the second picture is the after. If you don't see much of a difference, bless you. I sure do! Hubby likes to make waffles, which are yummy, but he's a messy cook and not the bestest cleaner-upper. I've scraped off countless drips of dried on waffle batter. The girls are a bit messy, too and I took off a few globs of jelly. Just keepin' it real. I was going to work on the top cabinets, but decided to save that job for another day (ie, I was tired of cleaning). So the waffle drips and jelly globs are gone and the doors/drawers are drinking in a generous portion of Murphy's Oil. Yay!

I've been working on a new knitted doll this past week or so, when I've had the chance. I finished her last night. She is going to be Amy's teacher's end of year gift. Amy told me once her favorite animal is a frog and her favorite color is green. When I saw this pattern on Amy Gaines' Etsy shop, I knew just what to do. (Dang, if you buy this pattern right now, it's on SALE...shoulda waited. LOL)

The name Freida popped into my head so I'm calling her Freida Frog.

I think she came out pretty cute. The hardest part for me this time was finding three shades of green that coordinated! I never thought that would be difficult, but it took some hunting to find the yarn I used. Basic Red Heart, but not every store sells coordinating colors. Go figure. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! I sure hope you are having a good week. The weekend'll be here before you know it!

Random Stuff...

Hi there!

I hope you all had a very nice Easter Holiday. Ours was quiet, as usual, but very nice. I tried my hand at making deviled eggs for the first time...let's just say, they didn't taste as good as my friend, Felicia's! She makes THE best deviled eggs. I should have emailed you for your recipe, sweetie. *Ü* (hint, hint, pretty please-take pity on your deviled egg challenged friend) Surprisingly, they tasted better last night than they did on Easter. Go figure. I also made fresh asparagus, which was super duper yummy. I tried the canned stuff last year and let's just say...don't bother with that goop! LOL The weather was rather nice and the girls went out to play with their friends for awhile.

While they were out, I worked on completing a new knitting project. My friend, Nona of Nona's Pearls Purls of Wisdom, has recently started having knit-a-longs. Being that I don't live anywhere near her, I was pleased to see that she offers her patterns for a small fee, for out of towners like me. Well, last week, she asked for test knitters for her April project. The deadline was too tight for me to even think I could do it, but I commented and asked her to keep me in mind for future projects. She was generous enough to let me test her pattern anyway! One of the draws for me on this project is the fact that there are cables. I had never done cables before! She reassured me that I could indeed do it. I discovered I didn't have the size needed in circular needles, but I remembered that the Goodwill had a pretty decent stash of knitting needles that had been donated. So, I went, hoping against hope that they'd have what I needed. And they DID! Whoooheee! And even better, they charged me just 49 cents for them. Double Whoooo heeee!

And here's my version of the Cozy Cabled Hat that she is offering as her April Knit-a-long:

Sorry for the slightly blurry photo. When I tried taking pictures of it, the camera indicated to turn on the flash, but it was totally blowing out the hat when I did that, so I took it without the flash. I'd definitely recommend Nona's patterns if you are a knitter. This was easy to create yet challenging enough to keep you interested in the pattern. Nona's great at answering questions, too! I'm so excited to have learned simple cables! This is the child sized hat, but the girls didn't want to model it for me, darn it.

Here are the girls on Easter Morning, after their little egg hunt in the big room. Most of the photos were of the backs or tops of their heads, LOL Oh well. I was trying to get a cute shot of Amy and Jessica popped into the frame as I took the picture. Love it! Yeah, I should have edited it first, but I didn't.

I received some sweet treats in the mail to help me celebrate the holiday. Thanks, Barb and Jena! You sure do know how to make me smile! There were eggs in those adorable washcloth bunnies, but they got taken out by a couple of girlies who wanted the treats that were inside. The blue one is my Bronco Bunny! The egg in that one was orange. SO cute. And I managed to catch the glittery goodness of Barb's card, yay!!!

Yesterday the girls had the day off from school for a teacher compensation day. The teachers may have gotten a day off, but my girls didn't. (evil giggle) We worked more on getting their room cleaned up. They have shelves in their closet and bins full of junk treasures. We've been going through them and weeding out what they no longer want. They've been doing pretty well, too! But it's a time consuming project. What I was most thrilled with is that we got all the stuff off the floors!

Here's the desk we moved in there a week or so ago. The pillow on the floor is for the dog, who likes to sleep in with them. I even vacuumed that thing off. Kindly disregard the messy bookcase. That's a project for their next day off, which is April 16th. ha ha

Look at those floors! Gloriously CLEAN!!! Sighhhh Are we done? Nope, but it sure looks a heckuvalot better than it did when we started yesterday. And just so you know I'm not the meanest mom on the planet, I took them to McDonald's for lunch if they worked hard for me. That was pretty good incentive, no? LOL

And finally, today, I decided to work on cleaning some of our wood doors. Don't ask me why, there are so many other projects that need doing, but I was sick and tired of seeing how nasty our laundry closet doors looked. So, I got some Murphy's Oil Soap and straight Murphy's Oil and got to work. And I'm gonna show off my hard work. LOL

This is the closet door you see right as you walk in the front door.

I didn't take before shots, and believe me I should have for those slatted doors. Or maybe not, you'd lose respect for me, probably. LOL They are still glossy from the oil, but I'm letting as much soak in as I can before I wipe them down. I'm totally thrilled with how they look. To get in between the slats, I took a spatula and wrapped my cloth around it and used that to get in the little space between the slats. Worked wonderfully, if I do say so myself! And saved my fingers.

With that, I'm going to close for now. Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you are having a great week!

Three Stacked Basket Display

A couple of weeks ago I saw this idea and couldn't believe my luck when I found three baskets at the thrift store that I thought would work wonderfully (for about a dollar for all three)! I neglected to note the blog where I saw this idea, but I just did some sleuthing and googling and I finally found it here on Cheap Chic Home. Yay!

Steve stayed home from work today and one of the things he really wanted to do was clean the carpets and sofas. That meant lots of noise, so I headed out of the house and stopped by Michaels. Ever since I saw the post about the baskets, I have been on the look out for some flowers that I thought would look appealing, but hadn't found any that grabbed me and were inexpensive enough for my budget. My little jaunt to Michaels ended my search. I found the flower bushes on sale for $2.49 a piece and I had a super saver coupon for an additional 15% off. Yay! I bought three bunches and another little bunch with the orange flowers for a dollar. After doing some more running around, I came home and worked on my baskets. Here's how it turned out:

I picked up some floral blocks at the dollar store and hot glued them into place to give the stand a little more stability. Then I snipped apart the stems and started poking them into the blocks. I ended up cutting some stems shorter as I thought the flowers were sticking out too far. I also pulled off a lot of those long green leaves as it was too overwhelming. I am SO not a floral arranger of any sort, but even I was pleased with how this looked when I was done. I even got a "cute" from Steve, too. LOL For now it's on the tv, until I clear off the table by the couch.

For the time being, here's the rest of the little scene. I found that white glass pitcher at the Salvation Army when I stopped by there first, as it's on the way to Michaels. Steve's had his eye on a sofa or two there and he wanted me to check them out. Not sure about the sofas he's eyeing, but when I saw the 45 cent price tag on the little pitcher, I couldn't resist.

Nice and cheery on a blustery spring day, don't you think?

Thanks for stopping by and for sharing your encouraging thoughts about my recent decorating/crafty efforts. I am having a blast exploring all these different projects. I've never done any major decorating attempts in all the years I've lived here in Colorado. Mostly because I'm not creative enough to think up these neat ideas. However, once I see something I like or that appeals to me, I can usually recreate it to my satisfaction. It took my discovering the crafty blogs lately to set me off on wanting to make my home a little more welcoming and cheery.

I hope you have a wonderful start to your weekend! Steve and I are going to a 50th birthday party/retirement party for our friend Dave's wife Tracy. Yep, she just turned 50 and is retiring from the workforce after many, many years working for the Federal Reserve (most of the time we've known them, Tracy's worked the overnight shift, so she and I haven't seen each other much). I'm excited for her to be able to shift back to the land of living in daylight. The party should be fun. It's at a local hotel (about 5 minutes from our house) and I heard she might have them set up the Wii system they have. Maybe that will be the nudge to get Steve on-board for us getting one. (one can hope, right?) The girls are just hoping the Easter Bunny shows up and hides the eggs, so they can go a hunting. *Ü*

Updated Flower Ball Thanks to Erin

Erin saw my post, thanks to my prodding during our chat and shared that she thought I needed to add some glass beads and some ribbon. I had some laying around and here's what it looks like now. She says it looks more balanced now. Yay! Thanks, Erin!

Took a Crafty Day...

And worked on a couple of projects I've seen that I wanted to try.

First up is sure a day brightener! I got the idea for this on Organize and Decorate Everything here. It was literally easy peasy lemon squeezy! I picked up four flower bushes at the Dollar Tree and a round styrofoam ball at Hobby Lobby. I cut off the flowers and just stuck them into the ball. The gal who shared this idea used hot glue to make them stick, but for now, I liked how quick and easy it was just to stick them in.  I decided to rest it on top of the glass vase I have on my coffee table.

I tried to take pictures of it actually ON the coffee table, but I couldn't get them to look right. So I tried this way instead and thought you got a better idea of the colors in the flowers.

Next up is a project I saw in February on Someday Crafts here. Oh my goodness, I fell in love with the cheery gingham goodness! I've been collecting the supplies needed and today I decided to try my hand at it. I thought I could get three made, but only managed the one for now.

This was another tough one to photograph nicely, but I think you get a pretty good idea of what it looks like. The blog post I linked is a tutorial on how to make these, so I'll refrain giving the details. It was fairly easy and lots of fun to create. I actually put fabric over a button cover and added just a bit of fiberfill before putting it together. Aside from making the circle a little too small, it worked great. This may end up on the porch table or possibly in the girls' room.

That's it from me today. I hope your Wednesday has been a happy one! Thanks for stopping by and leaving all those lovely comments on the eggs I shared yesterday. You sure do know how to make a gal feel good! *Ü*

Today's Project...Beaded Eggs!

Now, before you think all I do all day is read blogs and make projects, I want to reassure you that I do housework, too! LOL In fact, this morning I spent a good chunk of time dusting and sweeping the house as well as cleaning a bathroom and decluttering our spare room, which has become a catch all room. Geez, I think it'd work much better as a crafty room, but hubby is not convinced. LOL After I was done with all that, THEN I worked on this project. *Ü*

Of course, I found the idea on a blog and of course, now I can't remember where.(eta: Kathi to the rescue...here's the link: http://craftysisters-nc.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-4-easy-beaded-eggs.html) Thanks, Kathi! These crafty blogs I am reading have linky parties, where lots of different bloggers link up their blogs with projects they have made. I see the idea and then I want to create it right away, ususally. I've been too impatient to note the creator. I've got to change that bad habit, so I can do better about linking up the person who gave me the inspiration.

Anyway, I took some large plastic eggs, some "ribbon" beads (both from Hobby Lobby and both purchased at 50% off) and my hot glue gun (well, low temp hot glue gun, no burning of fingers thankfully) and not too much time and I ended up with this. I had some of the beads left over, but not enough to cover another large egg, so I pulled from my stash of smaller ones and used up the rest. Yay!

You can see the idea much better in the second shot. I used a large pink and yellow egg, and a small purple and green egg. The beads are connected like ribbon. I could only find pink and white/clear beads, but I think they make other colors. I used the pink stuff on the purple egg and the white on the green one.

 I also took the second picture to show you how this display works. Again, on the crafty blogs, I've seen lots of clever ladies use a cheese dome to use as decoration. I found one this past weekend and was thrilled, especially since it was just $2! I put it on top of a large candle base that I picked up a couple of weeks ago. I don't even have to glue them together because the candlestick is large enough to keep it stable. I want to crochet a doily to go inside, but until I do that, I put a doily I found this weekend on top of the base. I love how it looks all together.

Being that this is the week before Easter a lot of crafty ladies are sharing Easter ideas. I am enjoying seeing their creativity, especially since most of these are done on a budget. Today you can go here to see the blog party going on at A Soft Place To Land.

Thanks so much for stopping by! I've got the house all opened up because it's going to be in the 70s today. Wheeee! Of course, it's the warm before the storm...tomorrow we'll be in the 50s with a chance of showers. LOL Gotta enjoy it while I can, right?