Be Mine

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy New Me!

Hurray for 2012! My family was eager to say goodbye to 2011-to put all our health problems behind us-and we are embracing a new year with hope and determination. Yep, we got some BIG home projects on the horizon and I can't wait to share them with you.

In the meantime, while we plan out these projects, I'd like to share some recent fashion purchases I treated myself to during the after holiday sales. Well, first I want to point out what my loving husband got me-the iPhone 4, and as you can see I'm making good use of it. I'm even using it right now to type out this post!
I am in love with this new shirt from Land's End Canvas. I would never have thought to check out LE for updating my wardrobe, but this post by my girl crush Emily had my attention and so I clicked my way over to their sale at their hip Canvas sister store to see what I could save. I was actually surprised at what I found: cool, yet still classic, looks for both men and women. I bought myself a cream ribbed long sleeve ($15), and a floral poplin button up shirt ($15). I even found this flannel workshirt for my husband for $20, and he has received so many complements from his co-workers on it. I paired the cream shirt with my jeggings and new leather riding boots to wear to a recent baby shower and I loved the casual look. Today is the first day I'm trying out the colorful floral shirt:

It's hard to tell from the picture, but it has my three favorite colors: french blue, orange-red, and poppy pink (ok, that last color name I made up ;-)  It was told to me by a marketing co-worker in my office that the print reminded him of the 60s.  Not sure if that makes this a vintage remake or not, but I'm loving it either way!

Do you ever ponder if you should hang on to clothes that no longer fit, but maybe they will in time to come?  My body has been through so many size changes in the past 5 years that I don't know what to do now.  It has grown and shrunk, grown and shrunk, so now I don't know what my size really is anymore.  Most of my closet doesn't fit my body these days, which makes getting dressed hard to do most workday mornings.  I have work pants in 3 different sizes, tank tops I originally bought as maternity I wear regularly, and over coats that I swim laps in.  I guess I'm all over the place with how my clothes fit.  It makes me pretty self conscience when I know I really could be looking put together if I had the right sizes on.  Maybe this sounds like a rich man's crying, but it has semi-importance to my life: to look good = to feel good about myself.  I want to hold my head high.

Casa Granolé

Not long ago I was invited to a friend's Holiday Gingerbread House Party.  I could hardly contain my excitement.  You see, my dad gave me this book years ago:

and I just couldn't wait to make a real gingerbread house out of it!

The "Pueblo House" was perfect since my family had just gone to visit Casa Grandé National Monument during the Thanksgiving holiday

But my excitement was tripled when my husband and son both put their architects' caps on and sketched me out this:

I made sure to pick up some extra materials I would need, and didn't think my friend would have thought of for the more "traditional" gingerbread house.  Assorted sizes of pretzels and a few graham crackers was basically all I needed but that didn't stop me from buying gourmet marshmallows, fruit bars, chocolate chips, coconut flakes, and granola!

When I arrived at my friend's house, she was still in the midst of setting up and I helped her in the kitchen.  We made a simple Royal Frosting/Icing out of:

2 egg whites

1 cup of powdered sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

All beat together-but found we needed to add 1/2 cup more powdered sugar to get the consistency right.

Then the other guests started to arrive and so I found myself a spot at the table and set up.

I mixed crushed up graham crackers into my icing to give it that "stucco" or "adobe" look.  Then I just spread out the mixture with a knife on the rough side of the modified IKEA kit walls.

I started with the typical four wall base, added a roof/entry from a piece of wall with a window.  Then built a smaller three wall box to fit over the roof top entry.

Next I added skinny pretzels to make a ladder (to climb the wall to the roof/entry of course!), half pretzels on the sides for the ends of adobe-style framing beams (I'm a practicing architectural engineer mind you), and a large pretzel door header (strictly architectural façade here, not doing much structurally for the opening ;-).

I tried my best to add some color by making a cactus out of large pretzels and green icing, but it looks pretty sad leaning against the house in the corner.  

Going back to my architects' plans:

A marshmellow "Peep" Snowman was provided by another guest to the party, so that took very little effort on my part.  (My husband DID think I made it myself though when he first saw it...he gives me far too much credit)

Red licorice and red gum drops came in pretty handy for a side yard fire pit.  And Mr. Frosty felt a bit lonely so he asked over his friend Giant Rambo Man to come frolic in the coconut snow!!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my fun holiday activity~Merry Christmas!

If at first you don't succeed, Tie Dye Again!

I have wanted to try my hand at tie-dying for months now.  My eye was on a pair of purple jeans that I always wore with a solid top, and I thought the pants would look great in a fun tie-dye pattern on the bottom.

So the term "tie-dye" is not correct usage in this project.  There was no "dye" involved, only a "taking out" of dye by using bleach.

WARNING-SIDE RANT::  Who knows why I kept putting off completing this project...it was so EASY!  A few months back, when the idea first came to me, I picked up a bottle of hydrogen peroxide at the drug store (thinking I would use that as my beaching agent).  Why H2O2?  I don't now know why.  My brother used to use it back in high school to lighten his hair, but I don't know why I just didn't go straight to using bleach.  DAH!  :FINISH RANT

I found what I was looking for yesterday when surfing blogland: Katherine at MakingChickenSalad, tutorial for bleaching out denim.

As soon as naptime commenced, I was gathering up my materials and starting on my project.

Problem is, I have a real deficiency in following directions.  As soon as my pants were ready to go in to the washing machine, I threw them in and then turned on the water.  Wrong!  By the time I added the bleach (and I threw in the H2O2 for extra power, not sure if adding that was really was worth it) the jeans were already soaked with the hot water...I didn't allow for them to properly soak-up the bleach solution.  DOH!  As soon as I realized my mistake, I went back to the tutorial and read everything sentence by sentence.  What I decided to do was just finish out the wash/rinse cycle, post wash with detergent, and throw in the dryer to see what I got:

Some parts were not bad, but the good areas were mostly up at the waist and nothing done to the legs.  Well I did manage to get one star-burst on the leg, but it was much more subtle than I wanted.  So next naptime, back to the beginning (which included a trip to the grocery store to purchase more bleach) .  I re-banded and this time I added the bleach (I used maybe one quarter of the bottle) to the hot water BEFORE adding the jeans.  I left it to soak for about 2 hours.  When I went to check on it, what came out was entirely pink!  "Oh no!  I've OVERDONE it this time"  But, again, I went through the rest of the steps (wash, rinse, repeat with detergent, and dry).  I'm pretty happy with what I got in the end.

Now I can't wait to wear these and show off my handy-work!  :-)

Closet Wrap-Up

So over a month ago I decided to join the DIY Bloggers in their summer challenge.  I failed at completing the project on time, but eventually it did get finished.  I think I managed to have it at 98% by two weeks past the original date.  I still have some sewing to do at the top, but here it is-in all it's glory...

My closet is now a place of inspiration for me.  I'm not the best photographer, so maybe this picture doesn't do it justice, but I love the combination of gold, hot pink, and tomato red.  The white molding just pops, although I can see it sort of clashes with my off-white dresser a bit.  I finally have a shelf to keep my purfume bottles and earrings up away from my little explorer's hands.  I did leave some items on a tray though that he can get into.  I have a case filled with plastic bead necklaces, big ol' shiny plastic rings and braclets, and bright sunglasses that he loves to play dress up with me.

Some "in-progress" pics:

It's very important to have a "spotter" in case you miss something:

My first time painting stripes on my walls!  More Pinterest inspiration for that:

Source: None via Petra on Pinterest

I painted the shelves as well and installed contact paper on the tops:

I'm so happy with the result!

Before

After

Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn...

Oh boy.  Summer is usually my favorite season-just not this year.  I laugh now to see an old copy of InStyle magazine in the bathroom with the headline: "Your Best Summer!"

Should have clued me in to have picked up the magazine at PHX returning home from my grandfather's funeral- not off to a good start.  But after my family of three makes it to the emergency room four times this summer, I think it's safe to say this one was not my best.

So HELLO Autumn!  Thank goodness you have arrived.  I was about lose it.

With the fresh start of a new season, I feel the need to begin again-specifically back to blogging and getting my projects completed.  Now where'd I leave off?

Oh yeah, my closet.  A post will be arriving soon to show off the completion (almost).  I asked my husband last night what he thought of me blogging, and he said it looked like I needed to concentrate more on my projects-less on getting a blog together-and I think he's right.  I noticed during the Pinterest Challenge I was more busy trying to write the final blog post, when where I should have been was with him working on the closet project.  As the blog was finished and posted, I realized my mistake.  I guess that maybe is why I haven't posted anything since.

But I want that to all change and I've got a plan.  I will set longer deadlines for myself, to give ample time to complete projects.  I will limit my projects to one large one a season, with maybe a handful of quick ones throughout.  I will not work on writing the post until the project has been completed.  

What I decided to work on first -my large project- is not another @em_henderson challenge (although this does sound like fun), is a bookshelf for my son's room.  I've wanted to make one for some time now.  I thought maybe I'd go to the home improvement store and buy some plywood and brackets to start, but then I saw this blog post by The Thriftress:

She used her old laundry room cabinets and repurposed them by adding legs and molding around the top edge.  We scored some old kitchen cabinets from my father-in-law, and they have been taking up valuable space in the garage for way too long.  My husband already used what he wanted and was just going to haul away the leftovers.  So tomorrow I'm planning on going to check and see if I can turn them in a child's bookshelf.  We will soon see if they'll even work (keeping my fingers crossed!).

Another project I had in mind involves cut outs.  Our walls are in desperate need of artwork and I got inspired by the cover piece to the AIASF event booklet I've been carrying around with me in my purse:

I'm pretty sure this one was made with a high-tech laser cutter tool.  I'd love to do the same San Francisco map as this one, but that is just too much for lazy me.  But see the Ferry Building sketch in the background of the cover?  I think that is much more attainable.  Plus, I ate there for lunch today so it was meant to be!

Alright Blogland, as if anyone other than myself will read this, I'm back.  Bring it on Autumn!

Husband is Out of the Closet

I'm so excited to be joining in on the one week design challenge, title above, hosted by the following lovely ladies...

I've been following all of their DIY home design blogs for some time now (Younghouselove.com,BowerPowerBlog.com,stylebyemilyhenderson.com,JoeyandLana.com) and when I heard that the four of them teamed up for this challenge-well, I had to get on board.

What I didn't expect was my husband to get a whiff of my excitement and want to help out.  "Help out" turned a bit into "take over" and has stepped up the project into something much more than what can be accomplished in one week.  Or at least, when you get started Friday night-will not be complete by Monday night.

I digress.  Let's get into the inspiration for this project...

Source: bhg.com via Petra on Pinterest

Oh how I yearn for an organized closet like this one. I have the good fortune to have a pretty large closet all for myself in our spare room, but it is a disaster!

(BEFORE)

Soon after we bought this house and moved in, I had my husband take off the triple, heavy, sliding closet doors and replace them with this white steel rod and shimmery gold curtains I found at a discount linen store.  I have an extra panel of curtain that *we* (husband) have been meaning to make into a transom for filling the gap above the vertical panels, just haven't gotten around to doing so.  So both Thursday night and Friday night, after the babe was laid down to rest, we hashed out our plan.  My plan: to add some boxes to the shelf and have better organization for my jewelry and knick-knacks, and also get objects (like my perfume bottles) up high out of reach from MVP (our active 1 year old, who likes to come into Mommy's closet and pull everything down).  His plan: to completely gut out the entire closet and rebuild it all back up with unfinished lumber, which he can manipulate (with cuts, curves, and routing tools) to his hearts content.  His motivation-my love pouring over.

My Plan-Storage boxes via Target

His Plan-rip out shelves and build fresh ones with plywood

It is really coming along...he is actually still cutting, drilling, installing, and cutting some more as I type out this posting to have it done for tomorrow.  He really wants to meet the deadline tomorrow and I think he'll make it.  Just I won't have my part completed, you know, the painting of the shelves and ofcourse the filling back up of the closet.  Also, I've got further plans to sort through all my stuff and purge purge purge!  Man, I sound like my mother right now.  She's always getting into projects and losing track of time.  My husband laughed when I just read those last two statements to him.  He had just uttered in the same moment "Man, I hate it when home owners leave their furniture in place and you have to work around it" (referring to my dresser) He sounded just like his dad-the general contractor.

testing the strength of his manny-work

So for the next few days, I'm going to be living from my closet on the floor until I can find the time to paint, buy wallpaper, and more boxes, oh-and rope lights (excited about that plan=husband's).

But I will NOT admit DEFEAT!  Oh no, I have a backup project in my Pinterest board:

My mom's crochet purse from her hippiedaiz

 and some silk flowers, wah-lah!