I’m guest posting today!
Hop on over to She Wears Flowers and see my post. I personally think Tammy was very brave to let me guest post for the first time ever on her site. Make sure you come back here tomorrow for my first giveaway!
I Heart this Room
My favorite room in the house also happens to be the smallest room in our house. I think the 2 reasons it’s my favorite room is because I made everything in the room and it’s finished. Can we hear an “Oh Yeah – it’s finished!”
The first thing I found for the room was the shower curtain fabric. I bought it all the way back in June but finally got around to making the curtain in September.
The animal fabric and matching dot fabric are from City Craft. It is one of my favorite places to find unique fabrics. I think I’ve bought more fabric from there than actually made projects.
This is as close up of a picture you are going to get since my sewing skills are horrible. I hate to read through tutorials or read directions. I prefer instead to look at the pictures and figure out how to make something. Perhaps that accounts for never having enough fabric in the end.
I decided the curtain wasn’t long enough so I needed to make loops at the top to extend its length. I was shopping in IKEA one day when I found a black pillow case in the clearance section for $0.99. Bingo. I found my material for black loops.
For artwork in the room I bought a few pieces of scrapbook paper in the same colors and made some art. I used the tracer (the best art tool ever) to make the animal shape from the fabric larger so I could trace it onto some paper. I already had all the frames from some previous kitchen art.
I also painted the walls white since I thought it would look better than the builder’s tan we have everywhere else.
I had seen the quote below on other blogs and just made in a font and some colors that coordinated.
Just one more peek since I love it so.
What room of your house are you most proud of?
Meatless Meal Ideas…I need help!
Since my goal this January is to lower our eating bill by $125.00, I’ve been thinking of some ways to do this. One way is to make my meal plan for the week and stick to it. Here’s this weeks meal plan which we have stuck to so:
Monday: Italian sausage bake, fruit
Tuesday: Pork chops,corn , applesauce, rice packet
Wednesday: homemade pizza & salad
Thursday: Blueberry muffins, eggs, fruit
Friday: Beef Stir Fry, eggrolls
Saturday:taco soup, fruit
Sunday:meatball subs, green beans, fruit
I also noticed that we eat meat for practically every dinner. That’s not good on the budget and it can’t be healthy. Here’s a list of the meatless meals that are typically in our rotation. I would love to expand this list:
*tomato soup, grilled cheese, pickle
*broccoli, rice, cheese casserole
*homemade pizza
*pasta
*breakfast foods (pancakes, blueberry muffins, waffles)
Do you have any ideas for meatless meals? I’d love to hear from you.
O so Many
This is what breakfast at our house looked like the other day
3 different kids
3 different breakfast cereals
Mom taking a solo trip to the grocery store…definitely needed
Like mother, like daughter
What’s a 22 month old to do when waiting in Walmart?
Why it must be to find out what Jennifer Aniston is up to?
Sew Wrong
I have no idea how to sew correctly.
I do not read tutorials. I do not read books. I cannot read a pattern.
I simply look at pictures and try to copy the idea.
Sometimes it turns out. Sometimes not.
I bought some fabric in October from City Craft but had no idea how I would use it. I just loved the animals with the mix of red and green. I eventually settled on the idea that I would make some Christmas place mats.
Measuring is also too much of an extra step for me.
So I took an old place mat I have and placed it on top of the fabric I was using. I then ironed over the edges of the fabric. I made some rudimentary cuts in order to create some corners. I did the same thing for the back piece of fabric.
I then pinned the front and back pieces together and sewed them together.
Not pretty, awful craftsmanship, unbelievably ugly corners but… I had 4 place mats done.
Problem was I wanted 6 place mats. Since I didn’t buy enough fabric I had to think of an alternative design. I settled on a small strip of the animals down the place mat. I needed some sort of border between the 2 fabrics so I bought some red ribbon to go down the sides. You can see how it turned out.
I was pretty proud of these place mats until I washed them. My abysmal sewing skills made themselves abundantly clear. Part of the animal fabric came out from under the ribbon and instead of 6 rectangles I now have 6 oddly shaped place mats.
Have you ever had any sew wrong moments?
Christmas Pics: A Little Late
I realize this is late but I figure better late than never.We managed to decorate our house a bit for Christmas so I thought I’d show you some of the pictures and a few of the activities we did.
Here’s our Christmas mantle. I decided to go with a red, silver, and blue theme. I thought those colors might be a nice change from the typical red and green. The JOY letters were stuck on the wall until they came crashing down one night at 3 am. They have been sitting on the mantle ever since. I bought them at JoAnn’s, painted them red, and modge podged them with glitter.
I took a frame and hung snowflakes in it. I placed it next to my Pier 1 glitter trees. Boy oh boy I wish my sister still worked there. The only thing I bought bedsides the JOY letters were the blue ornaments.
These are a couple of branches I took and spray painted white. I hung various blue ornaments from the branches. I placed some white and silver Mardi Gras beads inside the jar to keep the branches stable. 
Here’s our cheap and easy Christmas card display. I wanted to create this elaborate yarn and metal display that I have floating around in my head but it never happened so I’ll keep that in mind for next year.
I took a 3M Command Strip (which failed to keep my JOY letters up) and placed them on the wall. I took strips of ribbon, punched a hole at the top, and hung the strips. We then hung the cards with clothespins.
Getting ready to visit Santa. Alex was feeling very sick that day so only Caroline and Andrew went. Turns out they were only willing to look at him and neither one would go close to Santa.
Making gingerbread houses – yes, it’s a pre-made kit, they loved it
Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas as a family.Who knew I had six chins?
The Action Nativity Set
A wise man watching from the trees, ready to attack
Every day Andrew would move the figures around and have a whisper dialogue with them. I desperately tried to hear some specifics but never could get close enough. All I know is that one day the wise men were on their sides, the animals were on top of the stable, and baby Jesus was behind the trees.
Family photo I took of everyone before we went into the ICE exhibit in Grapevine.
Hope your holidays were wonderful!
Happy New Year!
Long time, no write.
I took some time off of posting since we got kind of crazy around here and had lots of family come in for a visit.
Hope everyone has had an amazing start to 2011!
We have rung in the new year by staying in our pajamas for two whole days – love it!
Derek and I decided to make some financial goals for our family this year.
Along with those large goals, I’ve made some smaller financial goals for me to focus on. Hopefully, these smaller goals will help us reach the larger goals.
I’m probably going about it in an odd fashion but I think it’s a method that will suit me.
I’m going to make new goals each month in order to save some money. Hopefully after the month is over I will have made some long term changes. You will have to check back every month to find out what our goal is.
January’s financial goal is: to spend $125 less on groceries/eating out a month.
After looking at 2010”s financial statistics I think we spent entirely too much in this catergory. My hope is to carry this into other months but for now the focus is saving on groceries/eating out in January.
I’ll let you know our progress at the end of the month – plus give you our new method for February – it’s definitely an out of the box one.
Have you made any financial goals for 2011?
Sweets for School
I decided at the last minute to make some treats for the boys to take to school for their friends. Usually they come home from every holiday celebration at school with bags of goodies. There have been cellophane bags filled with miniature puzzles, themed pencils, candy, and even a stuffed animal one year. I never make these goodie bags because I kind of thought they were a waste of money and unnecessary. But I thought…new schools…new traditions.
Since I thought this would be a wonderful project to take on at 9:00 the night before the parties, I went to the pantry a little doubtful. I looked up into our dessert box and found marshmallows and chocolate chips – perfect!
I had seen something in blog world about using marshmallows as ghost poop during Halloween so I thought I would do something along those lines.
I scooped little handfuls of marshmallows and chocolate chips into plastic bags and tied them off. I attached a note that said,”Enjoy your Texas snow and snowman buttons.”
Alex wanted to put “Enjoy your Texas snow and reindeer poop.”
Clever, but I was afraid that wouldn’t go over so well at Andrew’s religious school so we went with the other version.
Now I say I implemented this plan at 9:00 at night but the thought about doing a treat had occurred earlier in the day. When driving through the car pool line I asked Andrew’s teacher if he could bring something for all of the kids in his classroom. She said sure, “As long as it doesn’t have too many sweets.”
Could she possibly be referring to the large box of Christmas candy I gave her the day before? I choose to think not. But I’m not too sure.
Listening Around the House
“Poopy face”
“Go poop in a bucket, pooper”
“Why did the chicken cross the road?…to get poop”
What? You are not laughing hysterically?
You must not be an 8 and under boy.
The above is what life at my house is like right now.
Wait till I introduce them to: defecation, excrement, stool, and dung.
Then we’ll really be having good times.