A re-do or re-don't? Definitely a re-DO!

I have this IKEA chest that I bought a few years ago.  It's seen better days!  It's kinda beat up from moving twice with it, and a little dirty from its years with me.  See?

Please ignore the ugly carpet.  One day it'll be replaced!  Anyways, now the chest lives in my craft room (still organizing this room, its coming a long and really cute!) and for now I am keeping all the fabric I own for sewing projects (I have a lot, I'm not sure what to do with it all) inside of it.  I wanted to make it cute, but it was hard because it was so beat up.

 I'm going with English Country Garden theme down here....with green and white being the main colors, but with yellows and pinks thrown in - really girly honestly, but in a cute way:)  So I bought some pretty green & white contact paper at the Dollar Store and tried a little something:

I covered the top with the paper!  I think it's really cute, plus it hides all that damage the poor thing sustained in being owned by me. The green looks a little bright in this pic, its more sage green then lime, I need to figure out how to edit my Iphone pics to look nice. 

So, altogether, this little fun decor project cost less than $1 (I didn't use the whole roll of contact paper).  Now I'm wondering what else I can remake with this paper!!!  Gotta love a cheap project!  Not to mention, it wasn't time consuming at all.

Have any of you used contact paper to re-make something?

Linking up with:

Link Party! @ A bowl full of lemons!

How to Bake a Perfect Life, an apron, and Book 10!

Whoa it's been a busy busy weekend!  Where to start?  Lets see, I finished Book 9 which was How to Bake a Perfect  Life by Barbara O'Neal.  I loved this book!!  First of all, you'll want to bake tons and tons of bread while reading this...I really wanted to, but I was so swamped this weekend with stuff to do - I just couldn't fit it in.  But I will get to it, I need to bake so badly after reading this!  It's about a 40-year old woman (a baker) whose very-pregnant-daughter has to fly to Germany to see her wounded soldier hubby, leaving the main character with her 13-year-old stepdaughter.  The girl was living on her own, in a homeless neighborhood after her bio mom was arrested for drugs.  The book is all about the main characters life and background, with a splash of the 13-year-old and the pregnant daughter's lives as well.  Its really good.  I give it a 4 out of 5.  It has love and laughter and baking and heartache...its a good time, I promise!

Then, after finished that I retreated to my new craft room to make an apron out of Book 8, the Martha Stewart book.  Here is it all finished, with a wonderful model, known has my husband;)

 Isn't he cute;)  LOL.  I thought it would be much more entertaining if he modeled it.  I was right.  Thanks babe!

 I made this all by myself!  I love it!  Technically it's for Ashley, but I think we'll share it.  She picked the colors which are pretty sweet together, if you ask me!  I made it by the step by step directions in the Martha book.  I gave this book a 4, since it was easy to read and came with patterns!

 I made these strappy straps! 

This took me about 2.5 hours from start to finish, including printing the pattern, cutting it out, cutting the fabric and sewing & ironing.  Good times!  Not bad for my first sewing project in a while, right?

So that brings me to Book 10 which is Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.  I am going to be brutally honest here, I don't think I'll FINISH this book by tomorrow night. I'll start it for sure, but it's not a book I want to speed through just to beat my deadline...I figure since it's month with 28 days, I can afford to go over a day or too.  I'm not going to beat myself up about it, I'm still reading 10 books! 

I can't wait to pick out my March 10!!  I can't believe it's time to pick 10 new books already!?!?  Where is the year going?

Stay tuned for pics of our new shelf in the dining room, and some IRISH decor, and a project brewing for this week.  I have to go and get ready for WORK tomorrow!  I have a job!  Yay:)

Night

Backstage with Julia

Hola!!!

I finished book 7 late last night - Backstage with Julia.  It was sweet, interesting story of a woman who worked very closely with Julia Child and was a very good friend of hers.  They not only worked on TV shows and books together, but they traveled all over and cooked together, because Julia always said, "Isn't cooking together such fun?!?!"  Man, she was such an AWESOME person!  She traveled well into her 80's and she TRAVELED, as in carried her own luggage, stayed up all night, and partied like a teen!  She said thinks like, "You are only as old as you feel..." her and her husband Paul never wanted to live in a "retirement community" because they were full of "OLD" people, even though they themselves were in their 70s when considering a new home!  She wasn't diet crazy or even healthy food crazy - yet she lived a full and happy life cooking REAL and lovely food.  Thats my kinda woman;)

I highly recommend this book, if you are interested in Julia Child and/or cooking.  I give it a 3.5 - because you know I reserve 4-5's for books I absolutely can't put down...this one is a long read because it chronicles a lot of Julia's work.  I loved it, but I know enough to know not everyone will.  Its a really good read though, if you are into that sort of thing!

 Because of work, I am WAY too exhausted to sew tonight, so I will be creating my first apron from the Martha Stewart book this weekend.  By the way, I can already say I love the MS sewing and fabric craft book.  It's hard to rate a book like this but I'm going to try.  I'm giving it a 4 because all the craft pictures were great, the instructions are great, she breaks down and defines everything and the book comes with CD that has printable patterns on it.  Perfect for a beginner, like me!! 

Now I have to sew that apron, that will be the end of Book 8.  I will start "How to Bake a perfect life" tonight and try to finish that over tonight, tomorrow and Saturday.  Then Sat - Mon is Dave Ramsey time - which will be tough because I have to take NOTES for that one....lol...not really but I want to take time and try to apply it.  Dave is going to read it again too, after I'm done (he doesn't have a Feb 28th deadline, like me!) I'm cutting it close this month, but in my defense there ARE only 28 days in Feb!!  That's 2-3 days less than most months, which is enough time for me to finish 1-2 books;)

Ok, I'm exhausted and am ready for a hot bath and a good book!  My first day went great!  Ready for my second...

Oh and I'm linking up with this beautiful blog My Romantic Blog for a show and tell Friday, showing my craft room progress:)

Craft Room Projects Revealed!!!

My craft room is coming along!!  It's not nearly done, I still have to hang pictures and decorate a little more and actually MOVE my craft stuff done here and make a curtain for the shelf...whoa that's still a lot.  BUT!  I did TWO projects this weekend, I stayed up all night painting/sanding/hammering and almost killed myself doing these things!  I decided to close in the shelf in our basement to make it more of a closet, it used to look like this:

See how it is all open?  I wanted to cover it and so we bought some plywood and had it cut in half to fit the side of this.  The other side of the plywood, I wanted to use to build a desk to put into the wall, right where that folding table with the sewing machine is.  Here is my non-carpenter-I-dont-really-know-what-Im-doing drawing....

 So we had two pieces of plywood that looked like this...

 I used magnetic paint first, three light coats of this....

 and then the chalkboard paint - two coats of this - so it would be a magnetic chalkboard in my craft room for me to draw up and dream ideas on.  Also, Dave & Ashley can leave notes here too, if they want;)

 So I painted it and used my power drill to attach it to the shelf, so it looks like this!  Its very black and once it dries and sets I can put stuff and draw stuff on it, it'll look a little cuter - but I love that I have this space to decorate with chalk and shabby magnets.  I dont really have a "shabby chic" spot in our home so this room is it..

 I'm going to make a curtain to cover the front of the shelf-made-into-closet.  Something pretty to hide all that crapOla.  Anyways, then I got started on the desk.  I went to my parents house and mom helped me, using her table saw, cut all my custom measured (lol) desk parts.  I put two braces on either side on those built in cabinets that hold our water pump and something else, to help hold up the desk top.  Then I primed and painted all the desk parts and mounted the desk top on the braces...

 Not bad, right?  I put the sewing machine on it because the desk top is bowed a little bit.  Mom says to put something heavy on it and it'll even out in a few days, if it doesnt its not a big deal.  This is my first custom built desk, I'm not expecting it to be perfect!  After that I got started on making the "legs" with cubbies.  This part was hard!  I had to glue (wood glue) the little cubby shelves on, and let them dry - see the coke cans hold them in place until they stick??  Thats the official way to do this, by the way!  LOL

 Then after they dried I nailed them in, and then nailed the other side of the shelf on, and PRESTO!  I have a desk, after fitting them under the desk top - they fit perfect and help hold the top up a little better. 

 Heres a straight shot of the whole desk.  I'm very proud of myself for making this.  It was hard and took a lot of blood, sweat and tears (seriously) but I did it and I'm very happy with it!

 Here it is with my craft boxes tucked in.  I need to fill them and make custom labels, and decorate more down here.  That shelf over on the right will be mounted on the wall to hold sewing stuff, and I have wall words and lots of pictures to put up around the room.  It's coming right along, I feel accomplished!!  Let me know what you think!

I think I am going with English Country Cottage theme in this room - it feels very "Pride and Prejudice" and I have a lot of shabby chic type of decor from my old apartment.  It feels so "old" time proper english when I sit and sew:)  Just like Elizabeth Bennett!

Oh if you havent seen what this room USED to look like, you can see that here - it's come a long way!!

Subway Art!!!

I have been looking at all these awesome blogs and so many people do this cute thing called, "Subway Art".  It can be anything that looks subway-ish, that I can tell.  A lot of people do this with a machine called Silhouette, which I reeeeeeeally want but it costs $300.  I'd settle for a Cricut....siiiiiigggggghhhh....but those are almost just as expensive.  Anyways, I figured I could do this art, on the computer, and just frame it instead of putting it on a pretty piece of wood or something.  I can do this!!!  And I did - its so cute!  I did this for our NYC dining room.  I did this on Power Point because you can stretch the text box past the borders of the page which make it look cool.  I used the Gothic type font, and put each word in a different font size.  What do you think???

I tried to put all my favorite places in NYC, plus the main spots.  Then I mounted some really cute fabric onto the back of the board that came with this frame, and then I stuck the Subway Art to that! So tell me what you think?!?  Not bad for not having the right equipment, right??  With this I can only do a 8x11 - unless I print on separate paper and use Modge Podge - that's a good idea.  I'm going to do this in a few places in the house.  Oh man, I love doing new things, that work out nice!!  YAY!!

Onto literary things, I am halfway through my Julia Child book, and I've started putting together the pattern for my project out of the Martha Stewart book!  I'm doing an apron, since I'm addicting to cooking!  So I'll post pictures of that hopefully tomorrow, plus give my review of the book AND post my craft room pictures - its done!!  Well, not DONE done, but the things I worked on this weekend are done.  ITS SO CUTE!  Come back soon:)

Linking up with a bunch of places with this one, including one of my faves: Tatertots and Jello she does a link party every week!

Moving right along...

Yay I am onto book 7!  I finished Breaking Free yesterday.  I kind of already talked about how I feel about this book - I did learn a lot from it, even though it's not the type of Bible Study I like to do.  She talks about the ways we live in Christ, the obstacles that parallel those truths, and breaking free from any bonds that hold us back.  Essentially it is a great topic to talk about, but like I said - I am not interested in reading about it from a broken, sad place.  Maybe it's because I'm not in a broken, sad place in my life?  I've had times like that, for sure - and I'm really not sure that I'd like the way this book is written even in those times.  I'm such a tough love type of person.  Suck it up, pray about it, give it to God, get over it.  But then, even though I have tragedy in life, but maybe not to the caliber that some people have where they could get a lot out of Beth Moore.

I am moving on to Backstage with Julia: My Years with Julia Child by Nancy Verde Barr.  It is a memoir of Julia Child from a friend she worked with organizing cooking demonstrations.  Julia's life fascinates me, because she basically taught herself how to cook, with help from classes here and there, and she traveled and live all over (including my FAVORITE FAVORITE city, Paris!!!), and is just generally a fascinating person.  I'll let you know how it is!  I found this book for $4 at Barnes and Noble, randomly.

To kick off this book, I am making Boeuf Bourguignon (fancy beef stew) from Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Volume 1.  This is one of Julia's best recipes in the cookbook.  Dave loves it.  I love it.  I can get Ashley to eat mushrooms with this dish - they taste just like the beef!!  It's delicious!!

I only have 1 week and 1 day to finish 4 books - Feb is a short month!!!  Can I do it?!?

Craft room is coming right along, I am custom making a desk today and tomorrow!  Can't wait to post pics;)  Have a happy Sunday!

They have got some issues!

I finished reading Wuthering Heights last night.  Wow, Catherine and Heathcliff have got some problems!!  The story is told primarily through the view of Ellen, she is/was a servant on the Wuthering Heights property.  She tells the story to a new tenant at the Grange on the property.  Ellen was born on Wuthering Heights, around the same time as Catherine, and has witnessed this tragic story from infancy.

Catherine is the master's daughter.  Heathcliff, well the master found him as an abandoned orphan on the road on a trip to town.  Catherine and Heathcliff then grow up together and are a wicked pair.  As children they were constantly running wild all over the moors and countryside of England.  As teens, it is safe to say they are in love, although Catherine ends up accepting an offer of marriage from a rich neighbor.  Her plan was to marry rich and help Heathcliff in society.  It all goes terribly wrong.  Heathcliff runs away, and when he returns he ends up marrying the sister of the man Catherine married.  They are all miserable, Catherine and Heathcliff pretty much tell their spouses they are in love with each other.  There is a moment in the book where they are together, crying and holding each other lamenting on how awful their lives are.  It's so....tragic!

I'll leave it at that.  It's a really great story.  You can really feel the pain and angst of these characters, that's great writing!  You do have to push through the language, but I found that the more I read, the easier it was and by the end I was flying through it.  I give this book a 3 out of 5.  A really good classic story, but hard to read!  Try it!

Emily Bronte wrote this book in her 20s?! Can you believe that?  Her & her sisters were sort of early day feminists, but I'm not sure it worked out well since women really had no place in the early 1800's.  She died when she was 30, from a cold - she refused medical treatment.  That is just stupid...that is where be over zealous about something can kill you!  Anyways, she originally wrote this book under and male pen name, Ellis Belle, because she feared the book would not be well-received if it where written by a woman.  Hmmmm...such a different world that what we live in!

That's that one!  I'm still on Beth Moore but I'll prob finish that today.  I'm also working on the craft room - wait until you see what I am doing;)  Happy Saturday - enjoy your weekend!

Books 5 & 6

Good evening!!

So, right now, I am reading TWO books at once!  WHOA! 

Breaking Free is a bible study type book - so it's hard to sit down and read it straight through in a day or two.  So I also started Wuthering Heights as well (PS - I always want to say WURthering Heights, so forgive if it comes out that way, its hard to change my ways, lol!!) I can switch between them.  It's nice being able to multi-task, isn't it?

Breaking Free is ok, I feel like my generation of Followers is less touchy-feely, more lets-get-to-it in our Christianity.  I don't mean to be disrespectful at all, I'm just trying to find the words to define who I am in Christ.  I feel like Beth Moore takes a long, touchy-feely way of saying: you need to give up what binds you, and find peace and freedom in Christ.  The way I am, its cut-and-dry for me....just tell me, "Tina, get over yourself and your crap, give it to God and be free!"  Also, breaking free of some stuff (like worry and anxiety about money or a job, or having a family, etc) may be a lifelong journey for me.  Something I am always praying about, always seeking God's will in, it's never ending.  I'm ok with that, I want freedom from it and hopefully one day I will have it.  I'm trying to put it all into words.  Some of those bible study books are geared towards certain Followers, and I don't think this one is for me.  I am going to finish it though.  I love all the scripture in the book - who wouldn't?  I do like the journey of the study, it does help me look at my life and apply some things - I just wish it wasn't as flowery, that's not quite the right word but hopefully you get my meaning!

On to the next, Wuthering Heights.  This one takes some getting used to - the language is so different.  Emily Bronte wrote this book in the 1800's so you can imagine the way they spoke and conversed in England back then - it's a tad harder to comprehend than the language we know today!! I'm sticking through to the end with this one, I've always wanted to read it, this is one of those Classics I MUST read, must;)  Plus I have this really cool, very very old edition of the book, maybe a second edition, its so lovely!  I can imagine by grandfather and his sister reading it back in the mid-1900s, and maybe their mother reading it before them, so cool.  The pages are all yellow and smelly, is it weird that I like that?  I'm only a few chapters into it, so I have no real opinion yet.  Stay tuned for that!

Tomorrow I am working on my craft room more - wait until you see what I am going to do, I am so excited!!!  More on that later:)

Oh and I got a job!  YAY!!  I am donig another school counseling sub position, starting in March, good experience in a school in Harford County, about 10 mins away.  I couldn't be happier!  Hopefully this will give me a GOOD GOOD chance of getting a permanent job next year, Lord willing!  This position will go until the end of the school year.  Good times, it'll be nice to have extra money again, lol!

Night!