A happy girl am I...

One of my favorite things to do is visit our local Goodwill and Habitat Restore stores.  I've been drooling over this buffet/tv console for months and have been teased by the different blogs I follow.  A few days ago, on apartmenttherapy.com, there were probably 4 or more posts that had pictures of the console I've been on the hunt for.  That's a lot of posts!  Almost a month ago, I inquired about a console for $15 on craigslist and sadly did not get a response.  I knew I just had to wait and be patient and maybe eventually I would score my deal on this console.

Great storage for board games, DVD player and game system

Plenty of drawer space for our DVD's and games

I love the detail on the back of the chair

Today was my lucky day!  I had 3 things on my list that I was on the hunt for: the console, a chair for my desk, and a small round side table for my nightstand.  I scored 2 of the 3 today!  The chair for $6.25 at Goodwill and the console for $79 at Habitat (I've seen this console listed at $400).  I love that the chair has some of the accents that work with the desk and the console was exactly what I was hoping to find.

While at Habitat, I texted my hubby and told him I'd found my console and sent him a picture.  I was so over the moon that I found it I was looking like a crazy person roaming the aisles waiting for a response from my honey.  He never did respond (he does that thing called work) so I went ahead and  purchased it.  Then there was the matter of fitting it into the Vue.  After folding down a seat, the associate and I were able to slide it right it. 

It's funny because when I find a deal that I've been on the hunt for I get giddy and giggly and remind myself of "The Excited Southerner" from Adam Sandler's cd skits.  It's hilarious and my hubby thinks it's a riot.  I'm even more excited because I'll only have to do work on the chair, just some sanding and painting and replacing of the seat cushion.  The console is in pristine condition minus one scratch on the top.

I also found some goodies inside under the drawer.  An autographed picture of Vincent Edward (played Ben Casey on a tv show), vintage baby shower wrapping paper, vintage birthday paper, an A&P bingo sheet, and a receipt.  I love finding stuff like that!

An afternoon at Stumpy Lake's Nature Area...

 Today was our first visit to the fishing area at Stumpy Lake's Nature Preserve.  The kids loved running up and down the 'boardwalk.'

 I loved how her hair looked when she turned away from the water.

 Although it is the middle of winter, we enjoyed a mild 50 degree day.  Unfortunately, there were no fish or turtles to be seen in the water.  The kids loved looking for them anyway.

 This little guy loved climbing the benches and riding the 'horse' (the top of the bench).

 Isn't she sweet?

 One of my most favorite photos taken, it looks like glitter above the water.  Just a new setting I discovered on my camera.

 Every brother and sister has their ups and downs.  These two have their moments, but they love each other very much.

This picture says it all.  A great afternoon with my little loves.

Big girl work area...

 After Thanksgiving, I went to the Habitat Store and found this awesome desk.  The entire store was 50% off and I got it for $15.  Thanks to Santa, I got a sander for Christmas and sanded the desk down to the bare wood.  It took about 2 days  to sand and then 2 days to paint.

I brought Stella with me to the Home Depot and she picked out a lovely shade of blue called 'Spa.'  I think it compliments her room nicely.  Of course, this little girl's desk isn't complete without a little bling and she also picked out the 'crystal' drawer pulls.

Just a closer look at the paint and pulls from the side.  I love how the pulls create a prism effect when the sunlight hits it.  Instant rainbows!









Her new work area.  The desk has been filled with pencils, markers, crayons, coloring books and craft things to keep her creative juices flowing.  It's also a great spot for her to work on 'homework.'

 The mirror was also a Habitat Store find at just $5.  I spray painted it white and gave it a good cleaning, voila a beautiful mirror fit for a little princess.  The headband holder was taken from pinterest and the vanity bench (also a Habitat Store find $10)  was spray painted white also.

 The bench is a tad too big, but does the job.  I recovered the seat with leftover fabric I had from another project.

The great pinterest find that also acts as a shelf for her 'perfumes.'
















It's been a while since I last posted, I hadn't really had any projects that I worked on through the holidays.  I have another piece of furniture (my hubby's dresser) waiting in the garage for it's makeover.  I also have a headboard frame waiting for it's self improvement process to begin.  More pictures to come as these projects are completed!

Super Readers and the Princess Cheetah

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays.  Maybe it's because for one day, you can choose to be anything you want.  This year my daughter's school did something a little different to celebrate Halloween.  They wanted to incorporate literature into their Halloween parade.  So, she had to dress as her favorite book character.  Right now, she's really into the Non-fiction animal books and we always end up checking out 20 books about animals each time we visit the library.  Naturally, she wanted to be a cheetah.  Unfortunately for her, she was sick the last part of the week and missed her parade.  She did get to trick or treat and made a 'fierce' princess cheetah.  I made her costume with some cheetah print material, a black turtleneck and some black faux fur.  It was pretty easy, the skirt was an a-line skirt with an elastic waist and I just stitch witched the fur to her turtleneck.  The faux fur was the messiest material I've ever worked with, but that was just stitched to the top of the skirt hem and cuffs of the turtleneck.  She was sick while I was putting her costume together and she requested I make a stuffed cheetah friend for her.  I had never made a toy before, but I gave it my best shot and she loved it.  Total cost of her costume: <$10.

My son love PBS'  "Super Why?" show and for his birthday one of our friends made him a cape.  Every time he wears that cape he tells us he's 'Super Why.' So I knew that he would love to be Super Wyatt for Halloween.  His costume was much easier to make and less time consuming.  Total cost of materials:  <$10.  Shirt was $4 and shorts were $2 both from Target, leggings were $2 from Crazy 8's.  I painted the logo on the shirt and then hemmed the shorts to make them look like super hero bloomers.  We didn't do the eye mask because he hates to have anything around his face like that.  He totally loved it.

I decided that I was going to be Super Wyatt's sidekick, Wonder Red for my costume.  My costume cost about $6 all from the Goodwill store.  My cape was from an over sized shirt I all ready had.  I made a shirt to go around the top of the red shorts using leftovers from the red t-shirt.  I had to dig through my daughter's toy box to find my red wig and then it took about 20 minutes to comb out all the tangles and knots.

Here are a few shots from making costumes to trick or treating.  I didn't do any step by step tutorials on the costumes, I was just trying to finish them in time.  Hope you enjoy them!

CONSTRUCTING a little boy's 2nd birthday...

Well, this post is long over due!  I can't believe it's taken me over two weeks to get this post published.  Two weeks ago, we celebrated my little guy's 2nd birthday!  He is really into construction and tools and anything with wheels, your typical little boy.  I had a few ideas of what to do for his party (Finding Nemo, Pirate Party, and Construction).  I finally settled on doing a construction theme.

To make things a little easy on myself, I went with e-vites this year.  I usually enjoy spending the time to create our own unique invitations, but I didn't want to stress myself out any more than was necessary.  The wording involved 'constructing a party.'

I used authentic construction tape for streamers and decorations along with orange and black streamers (perfect since they're around this time of year for Halloween).  For the kids, I thought it would be fun for them to have their own construction hats (Target $1spot and Dollar Deals $1) with their names on them along with safety vests also personalized with their names (purchased $1 orange plastic table cloth and cut to size, fastened with duct tape).  The hats and vests took most of my time, trying to peel price tags and cut patterns took about 2 hrs from start to finish (completed while the kiddos were asleep).

Food was our typical Filipino/American party food.  For the kids we had pigs in a blanket, dino nuggets, an assortment of fruit/veggies, pasta salad, pancit, and barbecued meats.  The cake was especially easy and fun to make.  I baked it the night before (2 rectangle pans used) and then decorated with chocolate icing, praline ice cream topping, German chocolate marshmallows and a construction vehicle set that doubled as a birthday present.

We played a few games, pinata (what kind of party is it without one), balloon pop, and mini pumpkin painting.  I set up a plain white banner for the kids to draw on and decorate while guests arrived (worked wonders at keeping them busy).

The hats and vests doubled as favors, goodie bags were made with brown lunch bags with each kid's name on it and was filled with candies/goodies from the pinata.  My little guy had a 'birthday shirt' I decorated with some paint and clip art I found online.

Here are a few photos of the day, hope you get some good tips and ideas for your own 'Party under construction!'

Trick or treat, smell my feet...

Today was all things Halloween in our house.  I had a little one home sick from school, she refused to lay on the couch and rest so she helped me decorate for Halloween.  Halloween is probably one of my favorite holidays aside from Christmas.  The costumes, candy and party food are amongst the best of all holidays.  Okay, maybe behind Christmas and Thanksgiving.

This is the first year since we first moved into our house that we got 'decked out' for Halloween.  We've done some decorations here and there throughout the years, but this year we've really outdone ourselves.  I got lots of ideas from pinterest.com, like the pine cone wreath, the 'spooky' mobile, and the bat cutouts for the lampshades.  I found lots of the decorations at Dollar Tree and had stuff from Michael's too.

Pine cone wreath idea from pinterest.com

The kids get a kick out of the 'kaboom witch'

Even Mr. Gnome had to get in on the action

A witch and her spider (thanks Mama Lori for the Halloween soap)

My Target clearance buy, less than $3

One of my faves, a mobile made from black construction paper.
No template available from pinterest.com so free handed instead.

Reminds me of 'Nightmare Before Christmas'

Another pinterest.com idea from Martha Stewart.  Just drew, cut and taped bats
to the inside of our lampshades

Hope you enjoy what we've done and hope it gives you some inspiration to go 'spooky/cute' for your home this Halloween!

Renovation Realities, Part Deux...

It's officially finished!  I met my 2nd timeline of completing the bathroom project before Wednesday (originally I thought I'd have it finished on Sunday, boy was I wrong).  I was finished with the painting this morning while my little guy played in big sis' room.  Today was the fun day, it was the day of minimal painting, replacing yellowed switchplates (I hope they weren't supposed to be white), hanging a beautiful mirror, hanging towel hooks, and moving the bathroom stuff back to their home. 

Here's the complete rundown of the bathroom renovation.  Would I do it again?  Definitely.  Hope you enjoy the transformation as much as I do!  I am completely in love with our new hall bathroom.  Very reminiscent of 'craftsman' style or something you'd find in an older home (my dream is to own a beautiful, charming old house).

Before - hallway shot

Before - vanity side

Before - long wall side

1st step - remove all hardware and spackle/sand

2nd step - contact papered mirror and removed

Laid out wood strips for visual - then realized I needed to cut 5 inches to
get the height I wanted with the molding/trim

Almost finished with this wall

My beautiful new light fixture, $34 at Home Depot, with
freshly painted white walls

After - hallway shot, the shower curtain rod will be
much higher soon.  I'm just afraid to ruin the paint!

After - hallway shot of vanity side

My craigslist mirror find $30, I had to spray paint it white

View of the long wall with the new towel hooks

Another view of the long wall through the mirror

I did everything myself from the measuring, cutting of wood, electrical (scary, I know), painting, hanging of mirror and hooks.  There was never a time when I thought I wouldn't be able to do this.  I had a vision of what I wanted this project to turn out and I'm happy to say that it's exactly what I hoped for.  So ladies, don't think that you can't, because I did and look at this beautiful bathroom!  I told my husband I loved it so much I wanted to sleep in the bathroom tonight.  My 4 year old also thinks it's wonderful.  It's her 'perfect princess bathroom.'  Every little princess needs a princess bathroom right?