This week was a week for learning and acceptance. Learning and accepting that I cannot make up a recipe without some kind of guide, especially when dealing with sardines. Let me explain about the sardines first.

Okay, so I don’t know if you know, but sardines are really, really good for you. They have a lot of Omega-3 fatty acids in them and, since they’re small, they don’t have the same mercury levels as other fish. They’re also really cheap and very filling. All of this made them sound really appealing to me, so I tried them once on toast. They were okay, but, see, sardines are packaged whole, and their bones are edible. While I was eating my sardine-toast, I pulled one of the little filets off and saw a tiny spine lying there. That kind of freaked me out and made me feel weird, so I decided not to do sardine-toast again.

So everyone has seen the glass painted with colored modge podge, and I found the perfect vase at Target on clearance for $3.48.....perfect...if I screw it up. :) Luckily this technique is amazingly awesome and easy, and I finally got around to trying it, except I couldn't decide what color to paint my vase.

I kept flip-flopping between red, yellow and orange. Think. Think. Think. Eureka! I'll paint my vase with all three of those colors!

I was going to do a post about more basement stuff today, but I want to share/show y'all this first. :)

With all of the goings-on with the weekend and getting ready for it, the boys have not had a lot of Mom and Dad  time. After H went to bed Sunday night, Dev, Steve and I headed downstairs with some munchy madness, but before I get to that. I want to share some pictures that my father-in-law, Harry, took of the boys over the weekend. Harry is the mastermind behind Spruce Studios and is located in the Reading, PA area for any of you gals that need a photographer.

{Mr. Movie Guy Voice}In a galaxy far far away. In a time long long ago....

Ok so back around Easter, my grandfather showed me some leaded glass windows that he had saved from my Great-Great-Grandmother's farmhouse. I was in {love} with this from that moment. So I told him I would love to have them and refinish them. He told me I could have them for $50. I tried to cajole him into $0, but my grandfather is a very shrewd and astute person and {knew} that he could get far more for these beauts than $50, but I was family. :) So I gladly paid him $50. They came home with us along with another chair, and then sat for the next 3 months in my garage.

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.

I have a confession. Unless something is written down in front of me, I will forget to do it. I live off of my planner at work and my calendar reminders here at home. Guess what weekly event is not written down? Yup, my weekly blog entry (and, if anyone reading follows my own blog, that hasn't been updated recently because I am stuck in a revamp). I have now set up a calendar reminder for myself, so please accept my sincerest apologies for forgetting this week. On to the show!

I am interrupting the regularly scheduled Friday Food Frenzy with this important service announcement.

The awesome Quite Red has been seen out and about in a subterranean lair in Gainesville. Citizens should remain calm and check back on Monday to see the outcome of this amazing site.

The picture above was captured by a fearless homeowner who dared to get close to the unique site. Unfortunately, he was only able to capture the entrance to Red's home. Still you can see the residue that this creature leaves.

Your regularly scheduled program will return in a moment.

Have you ever tried finding the perfect item for a makeover and not been able to find it? It happens to me all the time, but more often than not being able to find it is not wanting to pay the outlandish price that  they want me to pay. Not gonna happen. I am married to the {cheapest} funniest man alive. His spendthrift-iness has rubbed off on me. So when I couldn't find the perfect shower rings I decided that I could make some. Of course, after I decided this and then went and bought some $1 store shower rings I found tons of shower rings that were perfect.

So this is a super simple project and being as the only thing I had to buy was $1...it may also go down as one of the cheapest. :) On to the show!

So I don't know what paint colors I used because they're from the Ooops pile at Lowe's. Can't beat 2 gallons of paint for $5!

So when Dev wants us to take his picture he says Picture Me! Well, I'd like to show you some pictures of a fail in Harrison's bathroom. You see, I was going to show you the boys bathrooms today, but I didn't want to do the good news and then end it with the one fail of the project so far, so I will be leading off with the fail and then tomorrow I'll show you the grand finale!  After that I'll also be showing at least one how-to of something I did. :)

Hang on......moving the computer from a small boy that is cruising and thinks my mouse and the mouse transmitterey-thing are his play things.

Ok now that I'm in an unnatural typing position, I can continue. :) Also if anyone knows of a way to get my teething infant to stop trying to use my lower leg as a teething ring, that would be super!  :)

And without further ado.....On with the show!

Hey all! In case you missed it....there's a new look about the 'ole blog. I have no reason other than I got bored with the other one. :) There are a few bugs....and I don't know how to fix them, because they work on the 'test' blog. The date is off in chrome, but works in IE and in IE the background doesn't like to show up. Go figure. Oh well. I'm still going live with it. :) Oh, just in case you want to see what the date should look like...go here. It's cute, and I miss it, but I don't get why its not working.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the changes, or if you know how/why my issues are occurring...I'd appreciate all the feedback you can offer. :)

In other news.....the DIY Club voting is up, and the floor candlesticks I made last week are one of the top ten. I wish all the contestants this month luck, and I'm asking that all of you wonderful gals go over and vote for your favorite. Go Vote Here! I'll wait. :)

Ok, glad you're back. I missed you. I really did. :) So we got a LOT of work done this weekend and between Stephen, Evan (our very good friend) and I we're exhausted. Two nights of working till about 3am and then another late night has taken its toll on all of us, but our efforts have been rewarded and I will show all of you our progress throughout the week.

I hope y'all had a wonderful and productive weekend! Have a great day and enjoy it!

We're back in action, baby! Yes, folks, that's right. I'm back home in Nashville after my vacation to visit the family and I feel refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to hit the kitchen again. For this post, I want to share a recipe I tried for the first time while I was chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool...you get the jist...at home.

So 8 years ago, my husband and I started dating, then after a while we moved in together, and I disliked most of his furniture. So we set about buying new furniture that we both liked. Enter Barewoods Furniture. They had a mission style table set that I liked, and for 4 pieces it was $300 or so. One hitch...they were unfinished. Well even back in the day, I said I can finish it. So I did, and I hated it. Polyshades by Minwax was a new product back then, and between a combination of inexperience, conflicting advice about how stains should be applied and not doing the proper prep work I did not like the finish on the new tables. They only lasted about 8 months until I stripped them down and refinished them. I am proud to say, however; that the tables are still in use with that 2nd refinishing still looking pretty darn good. :)

I know this is an old picture but there are 2 of the tables that I refinished.

So I know I've mentioned that this week is the week for paint, and I had originally intended on showing you guys my new painted barstools, but at the last second I decided not to paint the barstools and I will instead be staining them. So needless to say.....They're not done yet. :) So I have instead decided to show you gals what I plan on doing this weekend.

Bet is taking the boys for us this weekend, starting Friday, and while the guys are away Stephen will be cleaning up the basement in preparation for his 30th birthday, and I will be painting two of the bathrooms upstairs.

I never really finished Harrison's bathroom before he was born. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do a beach theme, but didn't know exactly what direction to go from there. I ended up deciding to go with a Caribbean cabana type feel. Lots of bright happy colors set against a cool neutral backdrop. So I've been slowly collecting things for this transformation.

About a month ago, Dev tells me that he wants a Buzz and Woody themed bathroom. Ok I can do that, but instead of Buzz and Woody (don't worry...they'll still be included) I am taking a vintage cowboy take on his bathroom. We will have pictures of Buzz and Woody, but the decor will be decidedly non-Pixar. :)

So I have been wanting dreaming of a little spot on my counter just for coffee and it accurtriments. My first step was to move the coffee maker closer to the sink. That was easy. The next step in the process has not been so easy. I want a tray to hold the sugar and spoon, the coffee grinds, and my coffee mugs. I have not found the perfect tray yet, and my coffee mugs are slowly dying. Why do handles fall off coffee mugs anyway?

However, given these disappointments I am not discouraged! One of the other reasons I want this coffee station is because the cabinet that houses the coffee now, is cluttered. It also holds the meds, some baby food stuff, other hot drinks, and some miscellaneous stuff on the very top shelf. It's crowded, but the other day I had an epiphany! I could paint the coffee container and make it pretty so that I don't mind displaying it out on the counter! So without further ado.....On to the show!

So there have been a couple of posts about floor candlesticks in recent blogland history, and I'm throwing my hat in too. I have been wanting to put something next to the fireplace, but someone has decided that he's going to start cruising, so maybe having some lightweight candlesticks near the fireplace is not a good idea....hang one..I've got to go, because he just knocked over a table....again.

Ok I'm back. No harm done. Harrison just knocked over a table that had all of Dev's craft stuff on it, but nothing landed on Harrison. He just scared himself. So back to what I was saying. Yea having a pair of lightweight candlesticks in the same room the Harrison does most of his cruising around is not a good idea.
So on to the show!

Well really I'm going to take 2 days. Saturday and Sunday. I've decided that I'm not going to push myself to have a post every day of the week any longer. I need some family time. So Saturday and Sunday will no longer have posts. I feel this is something I need to do for myself and my family. Some days its just really hard to work in a craft in and amongst various family activities. It will also allow me some time to get those uncooperative projects to come over to the dark side, er, I mean my side. :)

Here is how I spent this wonderful Sunday morning:



Yep, we had breakfast together, as a family, at IHOP. :) It was good.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

So I've gotten nada done this week. Next week will be better I promise. I have lots of  ideas.....need more time.

I was hoping to have the floor candlesticks done, but yea....I accidentally painted them chrome instead of aluminum. I should probably organize my spray paints so that I don't have to  look at the paint remnants on the nozzle to guess the color.

In keeping with Heather's post about unfinished projects, I am putting up my own post about the recipes I'd like to forget about. It happens to the best of us. We find a new recipe or have a “fantastic” idea, only to have it blow up in our faces. Well, that’s how we learn I guess. I wanted to share some of my worst and best unintended cooking results.

I have a lot of crafts going on at once. I mean, really, what crafter doesn't?

So there's a heatwave all along the east coast, in case you hadn't heard. Case in point - Dana and I were looking for an impossible battery and had parked, in the shade, at Best Buy. We weren't gone but maybe 5 minutes and when we came back the temp outside {per the dash} said 114. That's just disgusting. So if any of you gals are in the same boat then this recipe will be a welcome addition to the dinner or breakfast table.

Some history into my obsession with strawberry soup. When I was 10 years old, we went on our first cruise. It was on the Big Red Boat {now the Disney Cruise Line} and the Make a Wish Foundation sent us. It was am.az.ing. One of my most favorite moments was one morning during breakfast when we were brought Chilled Strawberry Soup. Ever since that morning, I have LOVED strawberry soup. So here's the show and the recipe. :)

So on the 4th, Harrison, Dev and Dad were all wearing Hawaiian shirts. These shirts all came from the same pattern. Simplicity 3852 .

The 3 Amigos....plus Tres' cause Dev wanted to be held as well. :)

I hope that everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! We did. We all gathered at Mom and Dad's and ate a lot of food, talked about a lot, and then sat down and enjoyed the fireworks. It was pretty stupendous! :)

WARNING! Lots of amazing deliciousness ahead

So Dae and I are busy making food for the BBQ this afternoon, and we wanted to share some of the foodstuff we're making!

I can't wait to dig into this food!

Wishing everyone a Happy and Safe 4th of July!

See you guys tomorrow. I'll be sharing our 4th of July festivities. :) Enjoy!

So a while back I told you gals that I had bought some fabric crayons and the packaging said they were transferable. Score....if it works. I did have my doubts, but how awesome would it be to color something on white paper and then just iron it on to the fabric. That would be terrific. So I went off to conduct an experiment.

I designed an image in Photoshop that I wanted to transfer. I made sure to mirror it so that it would transfer correctly. Then proceeded to color in everything. Very carefully! It was kind of hard to stay inside the lines sometimes. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of this part, but it was a big 'ole fat fail. The crayons did not transfer as I imagined they would. So I went to try again.

Good morning everyone! I am so happy to report that, when you read this, I will be back in Virginia with my family for a week-long visit! I'm so excited!!! In case you couldn't tell. :-)

I'm slightly excited......can you tell? I have teamed up with Laura from Along for the Ride and she is hosting a giveaway for a credit to the new shop....so maybe you should go over there! :)

The shop is stocked and ready for shoppers! Let's help drive the American economy, because when you buy...I then have to buy more in order to make more. It's a vicious cycle. Honest. ;-)

Ok, I'm done sounding like a used car salesman. :)

I would love it if you all would take a look around and give me feedback on what you think. I have more pillows in the works, but there's a shirt dress with  my name on it that's begging to be made :) Harrison also has a hawaiian romper that's also pleading with me to be made...so I'm going to work on that stuff before I make any more pillows. :)

However, I have not forgotten that I promised you guys a surprise yesterday and here it is! A custom little image for the American Girl in your life! Just in time for the 4th too!


Just click on the image, then right click and save as. They are PNGs so you can edit and alter them w/o mussing them too much. :)

I hope you guys have a wonderful day! Tomorrow is Friday Food Frenzy, and I'm excited about Dae's post because when it publishes she will be in the air en route to ME! Yay! Dae will be visiting for 9 days, so you all will see quite a bit of hers and my shenanigans for the next week. :) I also have tons of projects that still need to be done.....hrm, maybe I can recruit Dae to help me.....*snickers* :)

Have a terrific day!