The tags were easy to make (hah!). I went to The Graphics Fairy and found some botanical prints of tea and coffee. Then worked on the tags until they were perfect in Silhouette Studio. It took some doing to get the letters to pop out of the back of the tag to act as a stopper for the images, but I got it and I loved the effect.

The only problem was the bright white cardstock I used. Never fear! Paint is here! I stamped all around the edges and then smeared the ink pad over the back of the tag, then I took metallic brown, black and gold and stippled them all over the tag. After all of that dried I glued the image inside the tag, and then topped it all off with a couple of coats of Mod Podge and called it a day. I love how these beauts look on my jars, and I love that I will never have to tell anyone again where the coffee  is. :)



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How many of us have a lot of jewelry?

I do! I do! I do!

I never 'knew' what all I had though because I couldn't find it or see it all. It was in drawers or in piles in a couple of different places in the bedroom.

Not any more! I can see almost all of my earrings and brooches now. A few select necklaces are out as well.

You know what's even better. I reused an old window that I had to make said jewelry shine! Here's what I made!

These jewelry holders are all over blog land, and I'm happy to say that this project didn't cost me one red cent. Well it did at one time, but I did not buy anything new to make this jewelry display.

So here are some close-ups!


I just stapled the hardware cloth inside of each frame. This was not as easy a task as one would think, but I made it work. Fitting the hardware cloth inside the frames and then laying down a bead of silicone probably would have been easier and more secure than the staples I used, but silicone would have taken too long to dry. I wanted this thing up pronto!

Another note - did you notice the heart hanging from the window? Its full of rose petals from the first rose that the hubs ever gave me.

Now I just need a good way to organize all those rings I have!

Did you guys see my guest post over at Creating my way to Success?

You didn't!?!?!?!?!

You must go see it. Now. Here's the link - LINK!

Ok, so that console is now done. Yay!

I picked up this beaut at the Salvation Army a few months ago, and knew that she was going to replace the black console that had been in this spot since we moved in. Here's the console that was there.
She wasn't a bad console. Just low and doesn't have a lot of storage. Oh and we have a white dog. Guess what shows up super well on black furniture? Yep, you guessed it. Fur and dust. blech.

So here is what the piece looked like before. :)  I don't have great before pictures, but you get the idea. The piece is a Bassett furniture number, and its HEAVY. I had to make sure to have the thing moved inside before Steve left for Vegas. I just made it.

So now that you've seen her ugly beginnings, lets take a look at her transformation, and how I'm utilizing her oh-so-amazing drawers. :)
 LOOK! They hold the DVDs so very nicely. Not that my children put the DVDs away any better than they did with the baskets, but still they're completely hidden when they are in the drawer!


 I used two different knobs on this piece, which is a first for me. The nickel knobs are from Target and the pretty ceramic knobs are from Hobby Lobby (from my trip to Nashville in June) :) I decided to paint the original backplates a nickel color to match the Target knobs, but to also make the ceramic knobs stand out.



The top is stained with one coat of Minwax Jacobean stain and I protected the whole piece with a coat of wax. The paint color is Metro Mist by Valspar and I primed the body of the piece with tinted Kilz oil-based primer. Oh then I did a light glazing with Valspar Asphaltum glaze. Love the result! Especially against the orange of the family room.


So what do you guys think? Did I do a good job? I love the character that this piece has, not to mention all the storage.

Oh do you want to see how I hooked this baby up without Steve's help?

Yep. I took pictures of how the DVD thing and the DVR cables were aligned. They helped a lot because I hooked it up right the first time! Yay me!

Stephen was quite happy with the change when he got home. The best part? Harrison can't reach the boxes anymore. Oh Yea!

See you guys tomorrow!


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I love old windows.

So I have a lot, I mean A LOT of old windows. I picked up about 23 of them at an estate auction last year.

I have used 4 of them for projects so far. The hubs wants me to clear the windows out.

So I took one of the more beat up window frames, the glass was gone, and decided that I needed some love for above my computer monitor in my nifty new computer closet. :)

Along with my window frame, I had the hubs cut three 1/4" plywood panels to fit inside the window spaces, and then grabbed my cork board contact paper stuff, some low loft batting, a fat quarter, some ribbon, and my stapler and a glue gun. The picture below is not a good representation of what you're about to see.
Oh and the pictures for this how-to end here, until the finished product. It might be the worst tute ever. :)

So I cut down my corkboard to fit the panels, then just adhered it to the wood. Easy Peasy.

For the padded memo board, I wrapped the batting and the fat quarter around the wood panel. Yanked out my stapler and then went to town around the edges. I did make sure to stretch everything nice and tight.

Next the glue gun and ribbon came out. I kind of eyeballed where to put the first 45 degree ribbon and then went from there. Hot gluing one edge first and then pulling the ribbon taut and gluing the other edge down.

I used an entire roll of ribbon for this.

After all of that work, I pushed the panels into the openings of the frame and then stapled everything in.  Add picture hanging stuff of your choice and . . . VOILA!

Insta - fun over my monitor. It's also quite handy at holding things. :)


Here's a close up of my pictures, cause I know you want to know who they are. Obv the photo strip is Dev and Steve. I should really put a picture of Harrison too. :) The gorgeous lady with the dog is my Mom and our first dog, Patches. Then the handsome fella in the uniform is my Daddy! He's sporting his Hargrave uniform :)

So that's what I did last night after the kids were fast asleep. :) One more window saved, and only 18 or so left to do something with.

I hope you guys have a great day!
Heather

OMG! It's a red letter day! For the first time a in a while, I'm actually writing this post ahead of schedule. :)

Yay me! I'm just going to go ahead and pat myself on the back. You don't mind, do you? I hope not, cause its happening. :)

So without any ado - HERE'S MY NEW CRAFT SPACE! *slightly excited, can you tell?*
There are still holes to sand and paint.
 Not everything is in its place.....yet.

But I have space! Lots and lots of space!

And I love it!

What do you guys think?

Oh yea - the desk. Totally an Ana White design. Find it here! :)

Have a great day guys. I'm going to finally get back to sewing.
Heather

If I do say so myself. :)

Of course, the plan for this was from the hubs.

How many have you seen the TLC commercials for Spouse or House?

I decided to let Steve redesign my storage closet to a computer closet in my sewing room.

Now I know some of you are thinking - Wait!?! Didn't you just do your craft room?

And the answer is yes, I did, but my needs changed. I needed more space for the crafts and somewhere compact and highly organized for my computer and non-craft stuff.

One of the reasons I needed better storage was because I became a Tastefully Simple consultant {insert shameless plug HERE}

I needed more file space and just a better work environment.

So here are the first shots of the closet!

The rest of the room is in shambles, ok I'm slightly exaggerating that one, but not by much.

As for me - I'm going to put my unruly children to bed and then start working on a  special order. Just in time for Mom's Day. :)

See ya soon!
~Heather

PS - if anyone knows how to get the new blogger crappy posting thing to bring back my signature image - I will love you forever and tell everyone in bloggydom about your amazing feats of blogger knowledge!

Ok so by now it's no secret that I love coffee. So it may be a surprise that my coffee station has been a point of annoyance with me. I just couldn't find the right place for it, or maybe I just hadn't found the right balance in my kitchen for all the decor I have in it. Either way....its been solved. :) Well solved except for that desk, but eh, moving on. The working kitchen counters are now just perfect, and here's why. :)
 The desk. Its bad. Really bad. We've got a plan. We need to implement it. Oh and the boys are helping make breakfast. Dev is totally into it. I mean. Well, he's in to whatever was on the tv. Probably Disney or PBS kids, but H was paying attention. Are you wondering about that cabinet door? Yea. Harrison broke it. Right off its hinges. Wasn't that nice? Stephen has since fixed this poor broken cabinet door.

The boys are waiting patiently for the orange sweet rolls to come out. :)

I hope you guys didn't think I'd forgotten about my laundry room. I didn't. In fact, I was trying to hold off on posting anything until she was 100% completely done, buuuuut yea, that might take a while. I am hoping that it doesn't take too long. I'd like to have her completely done in the next week or so.

I'm so jealous of the people that have these nice walk-in laundry rooms that have room to maneuver in. Mine is ok....but it'd be better if there wasn't a nook in it. Oh well. I will work with what I have.

So I'm sure that you all remember the haphazard state that my laundry room was in before. Oh that's right. I didn't really show you anything. :) I really can't believe that I'm showing these pictures to you guys, because the room has looked worse and better. This would probably be on the worse side.

Last week Stephen set a brutal pace for getting the basement done and in shape for this past weekend, even though I've been after him for months to help me get the basement organized and straightened up for the parties that end up down there. This last weekend was special however, because this week Steve will be celebrating his 30th birthday. Hence the mad dash to get the basement party worthy.

Now the basement if far from finished but when you see the basement before and afters and then pics of the party then you'll understand why its such a huge improvement.

I'm going to do several posts about the basement transformation because  there were just so many projects that I can't lump them all into one.

Well she's done. FIN.ALL.Y!

It was lots of work, but I want to thank Stephen for helping me out with the room and with watching the kids. I am so happy that I have the space cleaned up, personalized and organized. I can now start sewing up all those pillow slipcovers I keep talking about selling. I've gotten 2 done....I think I need more than that. ;-)

The stripes on the wall are from Oooops paint from Lowe's and the shelves are not the sturdiest, but they'll do for now, or until I add clamps to them and secure them to the wall. All in all I think I spent about $150, mostly storage bins and the like for this room.

Not a lot of space to write...

So everyone is getting into menu planning right now, and, for once, I am ahead of the curve. I have been planning our menus for years. As I'm sure all of you know, it makes it so much simpler to do your grocery shopping and to keep track of your inventory. I am taking, and joining the rest of you, it one step further to actually plan out what meals are on what days. Before I would list all of our planned meals on a notepad that was attached to our fridge, and then we could just pick and choose what we felt like making and mark it off after it was made. Very high tech.