{ Lots of Rain = Lots of Crafting }

With all the rain going on here, it's been fun to stay inside {remember, I melt} & get to my "I want to try & make that" list. I've been wanting to make hair things for my girls so, I tried making these fluttery fabric flowers first {try saying that 5 times fast}.

I didn't want to spend any money so, I just used whatever I had in my stash of fabric & craft supplies. I found the directions for the flowers above here.

These felt flowers are way cute. I only made one, though. You can find the directions here.

And then, I've been dying to try the cute little felt clips that I've seen out there. I tried to think of things my girls would like & started sketching pictures.

I came up with 4 for Boo...Shamu {her favorite}, a sun {she's a Sunbeam now}, a "K" for her name & a self portrait.

Here's Boo with herself in her hair. That sounds so weird, but she thinks it cool.

And just so you know what a nerd I am, I made 2 Star Wars themed one's for me...

Yoda & Princess Leia. And, no, I didn't make them into clips for my hair. They are pushpins. :)

I got the idea when I googled Star Wars coloring pages for my kids a while ago. I am so nerdy!

{A Trip to IKEA }

I went to IKEA this morning with Traci to get some shelves for her. We didn't find the shelves she needed but, of course, I found some things for me. I've been searching for a basket weaved pot for my faux peonies {faux just sounds better than fake, doesn't it? :)}. This one was just right!

And, I was so excited when I found a duvet cover that had a print that was pretty close to what I had envisioned for curtains in my bedroom. I took down the white sheets that were our temporary curtains & hung up the duvets. I love them!

They were exactly the look that I wanted & they are the perfect length! Yay!

It's so fun to see the room coming together. My next project is the artwork for above the bed. There was no rain this weekend & today, so I was FINALLY able to get the supplies for it. And, yes, I will melt in the rain. That's why I live in California. :)

{ Another Felt Garland }

Ms. Sassypants loved the heart garland that I made yesterday & asked if she could make one. I told her to go for it. She did it all on her own, choosing circles instead of hearts. I think it looks cute hanging on her headboard. It's still rainy & gloomy outside so it was hard to get a good picture.

She loved using the sewing machine & is begging to use it again. This is a great project to introduce girls to the sewing machine. Did I mention it's super easy...and fun!?!!

{ frayed fabric flowers }

These were so easy to make and fun too!  All you need is some cute fabric, needle and thread, embellishments, and a clip or pin fastener to put on back.  You can make the flower thicker or thinner just by how long your fabric strip is.  I can't wait to make some more.  My girls love 'em!  You can find the tutorial from Maize in Montana on the Tip Junkie here.  Check it out, hers is sooo cute!

{ Heart Garland }

Well, it is another wet day here in Southern California. Knock on wood, but I haven't seen the "big" storm that they were predicting for today...yet. Tuesday has been the worst storm so far. We did find a leak in the ceiling which ran down the wall & has bubbled up our drywall. Big Bummer! But, let's talk about happier things, shall we?

While browsing blogs this morning, I found this really cute project on the fabulous made blog who found it on Made By Rae's blog. I thought it was soooo cute & it looked way easy! It totally reminds me of something Meg from the whatever blog would like. So after running my morning errands {had to get them done first thing before the rain began} I came home, cuddled in a blanket with Boo & cut out hearts.

It was seriously so easy & fun! How fun would it be to do mittens for Christmas or leaves for Thanksgiving or just a bunch of colorful circles?!!! Go here for instructions.

Of course, Boo wanted me to cut some out for her too.

With all the rain around here, I've been crafting like crazy! I can't wait to show you the hair things I've been working on. I'm getting lots of "I want to try that" things off my list this week!

{ Peanut Butter Bread }

I decided to share this yummy bread recipe with you because it is my son's favorite. He slathers on some jam and thinks it is so cool to have peanut butter and jelly that easy!Peanut Butter Bread

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter

1 large egg

1 cup milk

Stir together first four ingredients in a medium bowl.

Cut peanut butter in with a fork until it is nice and crumbly.

Stir together egg and milk; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.

Pour batter in to a greased 9x5 bread pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from

pan immediately, and cool on a wire rack.

This bread is a little crumbly, but incredibly delicious!

{ It's amazing what a little paint can do... }

Okay, here it is. My first decorating post. A little scary for me. Actually, if you've been to my house you will know that I didn't really do any new decorating here... only painted. But that can count, right? Sure....

We moved into our home 2 years ago and we have been slowly painting the rooms on the main floor... one room at a time. This weekend we got the hall bathroom and craft room done. Yah! This is a small powder bathroom. I thought it would be a breeze to paint but it was really a pain! It was not fun to paint around the pedestal sink, cabinet, lights, and toilet! Anyway, I really like how the color on the wall accented the white pieces so well. For me it is always a big feeling of relief when something comes together.

Like I said this is a small bathroom, but it gets used a lot, so I had to try and fit a lot in without cluttering it up. The mirror on the wall is also a cabinet and more spacious inside than it looks. (Lucky for us it came with the house when we bought it). The skinny hutch (or whatever it is called...) by the sink holds bigger items like toilet paper and hand towels. I think it originally came from April. Thanks! :)
My 11 yr old took this picture. I like the artistic angle she got.

This is our craft room that I share with my four girls. It gets used a lot! And the walls are really NOT peach! I took this picture over and over with the flash, without, lights on, and lights off, etc. This is the best I could get. The paint color is called honeysuckle beige and I'm really happy with it. The picture doesn't do justice.

I found these cool fabric containers at Walmart, and they fit three across a shelf perfectly!

Answers to Questions:
1.  April, the paint color in the bathroom is a family favorite.. "Eric's Green"
2.  I did not cover the fabric containers, they came that way.

* a few people actually asked for more pictures of the craft room so I will do that in another post on another day...  :)

{ DIY Day }

I'm participating in Kimba's Do It Yourself Day. There are a lot of people who joined so head on over to A Soft Place to Land & check out all the cool projects.

{ New Bedding }

Yay! I finished one of my projects! My goal was to get my bedding finished before my hubby came home from his ski trip {tomorrow}. It ended up being a busier week than I thought, so I'm super happy that I was able to finish!

Here is the before:

And the after:

I {{love}} how it looks with our new wall.

And the best part is, I didn't have to spend too much money, since I had most of what I needed already. For the pillows in the back, with the big ruffle, I used a tablecloth that I bought at Target a few years ago. It never fit quite right on my table, so it was hardly used. And I used the finished edges of the tablecloth for the fineshed edge of the ruffle so, it made it easy & saved me time.

For the patterned pillows in the front, I reused some fabric that I begged April for. Do you see it on her couch, there? She recovered those pillows but left the fabric I wanted inside. She's such a sweet sister, she actually unpicked the new fabric from the pillows & took the fabric off for me, then sewed her's back up. Thanks, April! :)

I did buy some fabric for the other two pillows. I wanted some texture on them {thanks Sheri & Mom for the suggestion} so I ran into JoAnns & found some chenille. But, instead of using the right side of the fabric & decided that I liked the wrong side better.

I've never worked with chenille before. Boy! It is messy! After I was finished, it looked like it had snowed in my house. It was all over the place...

But, it was worth it, because I love the stitched white on white stripe.

I can't believe my bedroom is finally coming along. You might have noticed the two different lamp shades. I'm experimenting a bit with them. Now, I'm getting ready to:

-redo the lamps

-refinish the nightstands

- & make an art piece for above the bed

Do you think I can finish all of that tomorrow?

That's my goal. :)

**There were a few questions about organizing my photos onto CDs post. I hope these answers help...

1. Where did you get that awesome CD case? It's from Target, but I got it a loooong time ago.

2. I so want to know how you did this. It took some time, but I feel it was totally worth it. Here's what i did. I uploaded my photos to Costco.com's photo center & ordered a photo disc from them. I put one year on one disc if it fit. I think I had one year that needed two discs.

3. Did you just fit them all in that case or did you delete some photos make new discs? I didn't have to delete any photos. The discs from Costco's photo center hold a lot more than the disc package I bought from Costco.

{ No more scratched DVD's! }

I get soooo frustrated when watching a movie and suddenly the movie freezes or stutters. My friend told me about how Brasso can fix dvd scratches so I tried it... and it worked! Maybe you'd like to try it out for yourself so here are the directions...

First of all... you can buy it at Walmart. At least that's where I found it. Also, be aware that it is highly toxic so don't let your kids around it, and you might want to wear gloves (although I didn't).

1. Use a small amount on a soft cloth and go over the area that is scratched from the inside of the dvd to the outer edge in a straight stroke.

2. Do this until it is rubbed in and shiny.

3. Run the dvd under hot water to rinse off any residue.

4. Dry with another soft cloth.

*my friend said you can also do this with a regular paste toothpaste (nothing added and it cannot be a gel or whitener)--just good old fashioned paste, but I haven't tried this method out, so you're on your own.

{ Happy 2010 }

My goodness! Is it really 2010?!!! I can hardly believe how fast the time goes!

I've had a busy couple of weeks with putting Christmas decorations away, entertaining kids while waiting for school to start again, New Year's resolution writings, Boo's birthday & lots of organizing! I love organizing. Unfortunately, organizing doesn't produce wonderful pictures. There's just been a lot of cleaning out of cupboards. Nothing pretty to photograph there.

I did want to show you an organizing project that I've needed to do for a while. I took all of these CDs from this...
To this...
Ahhh! Seven years of pictures in one little CD holder. This means more space in the cupboard & it will, actually, be easier for me to find pictures now. Yay & yay!
I always get the organizing bug after Christmas & I've noticed that lots of you feel the same way. I wonder why that is.
But, enough about organizing! I have a project I am working on next week while hubby is skiing. Hopefully, I can work quick enough to get to two projects. We will see. I am very excited!
Happy 2010!!!