So before Thanksgiving I got an itch. I wanted to change the window treatments in the family room, but I had a small problem - I didn't know how I wanted to change them. I knew I wanted something casual and relaxed, but I also wanted it to still be a little formal. Not totally formal, but a little eensy bit formal. So I took a couple of months to think about it.

Then on a trip to Hancock I found the 'perfect' fabric. Only it wasn't as perfect as I thought it was. I mean it is perfect because it has all of the right colors but the background was the color of a natural linen. The fabric was more perfect for summer curtains (do you see the foreshadowing of a future post here?), and it would not match the curtains I wanted to alter. The curtains that were up in the family room were originally from our master bedroom. They're just a woven chocolate brown. Really nothing to write home, but oh the potential of these panels.

The winter mantle is still up in these pictures. Kind of tells you how long ago I took everything down.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: There's a fine line between laziness and creative genius, and I like to think I walk that line every day. This week is no exception. This week was all about quick fixes and simple tricks. You know what the best part is? These will save you money! I wish I knew how to make that last sentence flash green and gold because that's something we all want, right? To save where we can without sacrificing too much time or energy. Can I get an amen from all the moms out there?

So remember yesterday's tablescape and I had warmed up to the heart shape. Well.....I think I've warmed up a bit more. :)

I have something to confess. Hearts aren't all bad. I mean I still don't like them, but they're a bit more tolerable, and I'm coming to grips with that very startling new revelation. Bear with me.....this is big for me. I have felt the same way about hearts for as long as I can remember. I have to admit though....part of this change of heart {har har har} was because of this post, Paper Hearts by SmileMonsters. How can I not love those hearts. I love paper crafts of all sorts, and these were super duper quick and easy. Even better! So without any further digression let me introduce you to the Dining Room. :)

About a week ago, Deana from Country by Marriage awarded me the super stylish blogger award. I must say I was surprised and humbled. If you guys haven't seen her blog then you must go over and check it out. I'll wait while you visit. I just heated up some hot cocoa so I don't mind waiting. ;-) BTW....congratulate her on #3!

I'm so glad that you guys stopped back by. Its ok. You guys can absolutely tell me what a smartass I am. I'll probably thank you for it. Sorry...in that kind of mood. My head started hurting while I was taking my prescribed Mom-time bath. What is up with that? Ugh. So I digress {again}so without further ado here's the skinny on the award:

I am so impressed/excited with myself. Do you want to know why? Well I'm going to tell you why. I am excited/impressed with myself because this is the third month in a row where I've had an official 'theme' for my mantle!   Yay me!

Ok, please hold your applause to the end. I'm gonna start off by saying that I'm not really a fan of hearts. No, not the organ - the shape. I don't really care for them. Of all the shapes out there, hearts are my least favorite. I don't even know why I feel this way about hearts. I roll my eyes when I see a heart covered valentine. I laugh at those overly sappy heart-filled valentines day cards {or any card for that matter}. I don't do sappy. Let me clarify I don't do overly sensitive, guys crying while pouring their hearts out sappy. I will laugh. A lot. I may even point at you while doing it.

Suffice to say that I am not a sappy heart-loving person, which is why I did not include many hearts in the mantle display. There are three in this display, and I covered them in moss to make the more palatable for me. :) I'm awful aren't I? But eh....its my quirk and its my mantle......so there. :-P

Last Friday as the boys and I were all herding upstairs after lunch, Dev asked me if I could put airplanes on his new pillowcase. Well I couldn't tel him no, even though I had other plans for what I was going to do. I really needed to start on the curtains, but his sweet puppy-dog brown eyes were to adorable to not agree. So off I went.

The first thing I did was do a google search for free airplane photoshop shapes. There are a lot of them, I found these WWII planes. Lately we've been finding a lot of models and decor items that are bi-planes and WWII-era planes and Dev has been going insane with enthusiasm.

So I loaded up the new shapes, and set my paper to 11 x 17 paper (love my wide format printer!) and then just went town. I ended up with two sheets of paper, 5 airplanes and 1 line of text. I picked out 5 different paints to go with all of the colors that Dev wants in his room, and then sat there puzzled for about 5 minutes.

What was the best way to get everything on the pillowcase without it looking cluttered or silly? Well I never did figure it out so I just tackled it. :)

Mom-brain moment: After printing everything out on the 11x17 paper I transferred it to freezer paper and then painted. Sorry....it was late last night when I wrote the original post. :)

So for a while now I have wanted to replace the can light over our kitchen sink with a pendant, and the hubs agreed with me. Then came the hard part - finding a pendant that I liked. I don't know when I started looking, but I do know that I've been looking for forever!

Last week I thought I had a eureka moment which the trip to Ikea could alleviate, but Ikea was out of a key ingredient. The shade. Grumble. But wait! There's more! A second light bulb went off so I found a pendant with a glass shade, and it was $16! Then I went to Home Depot. I know its shocking. I very rarely ever go to Home Depot because there's not one really convenient to Gainesville. Not when Lowe's is 5 minutes up the road, but I happened to find myself at Home Depot with Mom and the boys, and low and behold guess what diamond popped out. This one!!!!

For some reason this song popped into my head when Dana sent me pictures of her rocking the dress I made her for Christmas. If you haven't heard Puttin' on the Ritz then you're missing out, and I'm not going to share the awesomeness with you. Sorry. I am going to keep singing it in my head though. :-)

So let me share with you the pattern I made her.
Ok....that's a pretty terrible picture, but the pattern is Simplicity 2550 and it is obviously a Project Runway creation. :) The dress I made her is the gray/black one down in the lower right hand corner.

I have something bothering me. I have debated whether or not to tell all of you, my faithful readers, but I feel like its now the white elephant in the room. At least for me. My friends and family know about this issue. I talk about it, but I'm really kind of stuck. I will have to attack this issue in steps, but I am getting ahead of myself.

My issue is our master bathroom. It looks worse than it did when we moved in, because the walls have been scuffed from cars racing on them to our first hamper. I have several issues with our bathroom. All of which we did not notice while building our house, but now that we've lived here for 18 months....well, they're quite glaring and they're buggin' me.

I'm not ready to show you my bathroom because 1- its filthy, 2- our 2nd hamper imploded, and now some of my laundry is sitting on the floor waiting for its turn in the wash, and 3 - its filthy. I know I repeated myself, but Stephen and I really hate to clean bathrooms. I mean really hate. H.A.T.E. Its truly awful, and we should be better. The boys bathrooms stay clean because we manage to clean as we go and just clean in bursts. It seems to work, but for our bathroom. Not so much. It also doesn't help that our house has 5 bathrooms. Five bathrooms for a couple who hates to clean bathrooms. We used to have a cleaning service come in and clean our house every month, but we stopped that service because of its seemingly frivolous expense,  but I'd sell my kidneys to have them come back. Even once every 6 weeks.

Ah, the French. Say what you will about them, those people can cook like nobody's business!

Little Known Fact: Oui, Merci bo cou, Omlette du frommage, and how to count to three are the only things I know how to say in French. I'm not even sure if any of those are spelled right.

When I was home over Christmas, my mum and I watched "Julie and Julia" together. I really, really like that movie, though I don't really know why. It might have something to do with all the drool-worthy food. Well, it got me all inspired. I even want a copy of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" now. If a certain hubby gets it for me, I promise to make anything he wants out of it. :-D Being inspired, I decided to look up some French recipes. I, of course, found Boeuf Bourguignon (Beef Burgundy) everywhere, but what really caught my fancy was the Coq au Vin (Chicken with Wine). I spent three days mispronouncing the name, though, until Heather finally corrected me. Well, I found some recipes that really piqued my interest here and here, but don't you know Taste of Home won out...as usual.

I am so impressed with  myself. Im.Press.Ed. I knocked off two things from my list today!

I'm on such a roll.

I'm very humble, aren't I? :)

So here's what I did today. I updated the lamps in our bedroom with a couple of brooches that I got for a buck from Michael's. You have to love the clearance jewelry section. :)

So I got my hair did today! Yay! Of course I had some errands to run after my appointment. I had to go to Target for diapers, a sugar storage thingy (very technical), a toaster (we pitched our last one) and a humongo box of gummies for the boys. Instead I came home with like $160 of crap stuff. Not that I didn't need all of it. I mean really. I needed to get that boy cookie pan full of team pennants, jerseys and rockets. It was only $2.48. I mean really. I couldn't pass that up. Then there were the set of full sheets. Dev needed those, because I need to wash his sheets and I know there's no way I'm going to get them done in a day, and really, what kind of mother would I be if I let my kid sleep on a bare mattress? ;-) Then there were all the clearance winter clothes for H. I mean I can't make that stuff for $2.80. That wouldn't have even covered the gas to get anywhere to buy the fabric. Luckily I did get everything I was supposed, and then some as I'm sure we've all done, but that's not why I'm complaining. I mean I know I'm going to veer off my list and spend more, and Target expects it, but why on God's green earth have swimsuits already been put out?

There's a rack or two in the toddler section full of swimsuits and swim shirts. Really!?!?!??! We had an ice/snow storm YESTERDAY! Did you hear that Target? There's ice and snow outside. Also how is any parent going to know what size their ever-growing infants or toddlers are going to be when warm weather comes around....in May???? Yea.....4.5 months away.....maybe other parents are going to know their kids sizes but I'm not? I mean I have a good feeling that H may be in 24 months, but he may still be in 18 months because he has NO waist. I mean he has a butt.....but even that's small {hardy har}.

So yea.....that's why I have a random post tonight, because Target is insane.  I'm going to go back to writing tomorrow's post now. :)

I'm so glad that the holidays are over so that I can start knocking out these little projects! I'm also happy to knock another project off that To-do list! Yay!

So we have this ottoman. We bought it several years ago, and it has withstood several years worth of punishment from the family. Its a storage ottoman and the boys have used it as a barrel, bathtub and prison. The inside is a little beat up from boys and legs being stuffed into it. The outside has also withstood several trials and tribulations. From spilled drinks to projectile vomit. Its seen its share of hardship. Here's what the poor thing looked like 5 minutes ago.

I am beginning to think that I am one of those people. You know those people. The people that are never actually ever done with a room. Those that keep tinkering, messing and perfecting. My house is full of those rooms. I keep changing things. My poor boys. They keep fussing at me for moving stuff around, for being one of those people. Well, I lie, Harrison does not fuss at me. He pretty much goes with whatever I say or do. He may be one of those people as well. :) At least I have some cute company.

Lest I digress any further let me introduce you to the now finished laundry room, sort of. I have put everything into this room that I originally intended to.

Ain't winter grand? First H started getting the sniffles, then that went to full blown infection. Harrison oh so kindly shared his yuck with his Daddy and I.  He's so sweet and taking those sharing lessons we keep telling him about to heart. So Steve and I have been ill since Wednesday or so. By Thursday night, Devlin was feeling the effects although to a much lesser degree. There is light, because by Friday Harrison was mostly back to his charming, lets-annoy-the-crap-outta-the-other-men-in-the-house self. Steve felt good enough to go out and promote his new magazine (seen here!), and me and Dev. Well, I'm getting better slowly. My energy level is not where its supposed to be, but lots of vitamin C and fluids in general have been helping and Dev is getting his dose of Delsym and Vicks. Hopefully we'll return to our charming selves soon.

Being as that we're the house of ill, I did not get crap done. Well that's not entirely true. I started stuff. Its not done. Which is aggravating. So I am going to share with you guys what I made for my nephew and two nieces for Christmas. :)

Hey, everyone! Sorry for my absence last week. If there's one thing that can get me down, it's a sinus headache, and I woke up with one last week. Migraine might be more correct. My sinus headaches are debilitating, thus the lack of post. Anyhoo, enough moaning and groaning, let's talk about food!

So my New Year's Mantle and Tablescape has been up for a while now, and I dunno if you noticed or not but the colors I picked for them were aqua and copper. Love that combination. Really I love anything with copper. I love the bright orangey-tone to it. Orange makes me happy. H-A-PP-Y! So now we know why I have so much copper/orange in my decorating.

I used to have a winter wreath. It was from Target and it did not even last two winters before we had to trash it. Sadness. So I had a couple of old Christmas wreaths laying around that I knew I could recycle. So here's my first crafty post of 2011!

I took off all the picks and saved the ones I could. Then the wreaths took a trip to my painting plywood out in the garage and got a couple of sloppy coats of blossom white spray paint. I didn't do a terrific job because I wanted the wreaths to look frosted. After they dried, I brought them back inside and got to work on the fun part.

I'm going to digress a bit today because I'm feeling like I need to expound on something that has been weighing on me for a while now. If you guys don't want to read ahead that's ok, I understand, and I will just tell you that tomorrow I promise to return to the crafting. In fact, I have a new wreath to show off, but I would dearly love to have this one day to step up onto my soap box. :)

I really have no idea how to start this rant other than to jump in with both feet into the puddle. What the crap is wrong with our society where our sense of self-righteous entitlement is overriding the practice of having good manners and actually displaying and using them, oh and not to mention consideration. And since when did having good manners become gauche? Le sigh.....Ok so those two sentences felt really good to put out there.

Stools, bar stools that is. :) I love our barstools. I wouldn't trade them in for the world. I was just saying to my mom the other day that she should get some small, easily-tucked-under-her-countertop stools for her kitchen, I should have remembered that CSN Stores have an amazing assortment of counter stools.

They have so many to choose from. Mom already has some bar stools that look like these:

Happy first post of 2011. I hope all of you had wonderful New Year's! Well its that time again.....RESOLUTION TIME!!!

Don't you just love this time of year? The time of year that all of us make promises for things we're {not} going to do for the upcoming year. Now this is not true for all  of us, but I'm willing to bet my right tooth that most of us fall into that category. Any who, I'm going to publish my resolutions this year. No, I am not setting myself up to fail, and I'm going to try accomplish all of them. I would like to accomplish some of them. Maybe like two. I'd be happy with two. Then again...I don't know yet how many I have. Let's just wing it!