Our First Lost Tooth!

So exciting!  :o)

What does the tooth fairy leave under the pillow at your house?

Painting Laminate Furniture

Since we moved into this house, I have been on a mission to decorate and have just been so ready to have a GROWN UP house where everything matches. 
Unfortunately,  I just can't run out and replace all of our old furniture. 

The bookshelf on the left hand side here.  I just put the picture frame and other random things over the areas where the paint chipped for now.

I painted a laminate bookcase white, simply using a roller and a brush.  I didn't prime it, or sand it, or anything.  I really didn't know anything about painting at that point.  It was a learning experience.  It looks okay, but a few spots have paint that peeled or got scratched off and I need to fix them.  It's such a big bookcase that I will probably just sand down the small areas and use spray paint to fix them.  I'll probably wait until I'm about to paint C's room so I don't have to carry the whole bookshelf downstairs, I'll have drop cloths on the floor so a little spray paint won't be a big deal.

Amazing what a little trial and error will do for you though!  Now I know to prime first.  :o) 

Thrown together.  It just wasn't working for me. 

So, while working on the living room, after having it painted beige I decided I wanted to paint all of the furniture in that room to match.  Use what I have and just...make it work!  I have a large entertainment center that was handed down to us by my parents (free!) and two shelves (one made for CD's and another made for DVDs) that were made for us by my grandpa.  These are actually real wood and very nice, they mean a lot to me since he made them for us.  I debated between using black or dark brown.  Finally decided I wanted to go with a dark brown, but so dark brown that it was almost black. 

So, the entertainment center is laminate.  I know my parents got it at Walmart.  It's nice, but when we were moving it to our house, it got a little banged up.  I used some wood putty to fix a big knick that was taken out of the side of it, and any small holes or scratches, and then sanded those down. 

Then I used Zinsser Cover Stain Oil Based Primer to prime all of the furniture.  The laminate, since I couldn't really just sand it all down without messing it up, and the shelves because they had a thick coat of poly on them and I was just plain feeling too lazy to sand those down.  This primer is AWESOME!  I just put it on with foam brushes.  I did two coats, just to make sure I didn't miss any spots.  No need to sand at all when you use this stuff.

I had a lot of trouble trying to find THE dark brown.  I looked a lot of swatches and brought them home to hold them up in the room, but just wasn't finding anything dark enough.  I was walking through the paint aisle at Lowe's for something else when I spotted pre-mixed Satin Java Brown (satin enamel), by Valspar.  The brown strip around the can to show the color was exactly what I wanted!  Super dark brown, almost black, but not so dark you couldn't tell it was brown.  Turns out, the can must have been really old and faded or something, because the paint looked more like chocolate brown to me once I started using it.  I kept going, thinking maybe it would get darker as it dried.  Nope.  I finished my shelves and they were definitely CHOCOLATE.  Darn. 

Chocolate!

So, I let them dry and took them inside to live with it for a couple days and see if it grew on me.  I was pleasantly surprised once I was in  the house that the paint color looked just dark enough to satisfy me.  So, I went ahead and started the entertainment center. 

It looks much darker inside.

I used about a quart and a half of this paint, I had to run out and get another can (it's about $10 a quart).  The newer can that I bought, had a more correct shade of brown on the strip around the can, that's what made me think maybe the first can I bought was really old or something.  I don't know. 

I used a foam roller for larger areas, and a foam brush to get into corners.  I did all the edges and corners first, then painted the entire thing with the foam roller.  Let it dry, and did the edges and corners again with the foam brush, and then went over everything again with the foam roller.  It made for a really smooth finish and no brush strokes. 

I'm not really sure I will use enamel paint again.  When you brush your hand across it, it leaves a residue and if it does get scratched, it's white.  And it did scratch a little when my husband slid the TV across it.  Oh well, I took a foam brush to it and fixed it, no big deal.  I should probably have put some poly-crylic on it, but I didn't really want it to shine.  I thought about maybe some wax to protect it?  I've never waxed furniture before though.  Next time I paint furniture, I plan to just use latex paint.  The only reason I went with the enamel was because it was premixed and looked like the color I wanted.

I keep going back and forth but I think I want to cut a piece of wood or maybe beadboard to fit in the back of the entertainment center to cover up the lines that let you "punch it out" to make room for bigger TVs.  I don't know.  I'd paint it to match.  Either way, free entertainment center that cost me less than $20 to make over to fit my space!  :o)

So far, it's holding up really well, and I like the direction the living room is going in.  I started out with burgundy accents, and I like brown and burgundy together, but I thought it was just too dark and I needed to brighten things up a little.  I decided to bring in some blues and greens, and that morphed into bringing in white and cream as well.  Funny how decorating sometimes just takes off and has a mind of it's own, almost!

Cute Letters for Kids

I love the look of letters.  I made a pink A and a pink C for my girls when they shared a room. 

I love, love, loved the way the turned out.  Shabby chic! 

So, as you know, we moved to a new home a few months ago, and now the girls don't share a room any more.  My oldest wanted to keep her room pink, so her "A" matches just fine.  Don't mind my crappy paint job on the edges of the wall there if you enlarge the picture at all, haha.

I nestled it on to a shelf above her bed with some other pink/white/cream odds and ends. 

I had my youngest's pink C on her wall, but we're slowly working on her room, to make it more purple, as per her request.  So, last night I finally whipped up a more purple C for her! 

What do you think?

All I did was take a plain white C, that I got from AC Moore.  I didn't take any pictures of the unfinished project.  Whoops!  So anyway, a plain white C, and then I pick out 4-6 sheets of coordinating scrapbook paper.  Then, I tear it up!  You can totally let the kids help you with this part.  Tearing paper is FUN! 

Once the paper is torn, I just use a glue stick to stick it to the letter (kids can do this part too!). 

Once the paper and glue is dried enough to handle the letter, I take a razor blade to the edges to cut the paper off the edges of the letter and get a clean line.  It doesn't have to be perfect. 

Then, I give it a coat of clear gloss spray paint.  I let it dry, and then give it another coat.

Once it's completely dry, I take some sand paper (love the sandpaper blocks!) and smooth out the rough paper edges, and distress the edges a little as well to give a bit more of a shabby chic look.

So, here is my finished C on my little girls wall, and a sneak peek of her room progress!  One of these days we will paint her room for her too, she picked out a pretty lilac and we have the paint, it's just sitting in the garage until we get around to it.  Also, her shoes need a home, I was keeping them in the bin there under her bed, but the bin is a little too tall so it was hard for her to get it out.  I'd just put the bin in her closet, but I need to clean the closet out first, haha.

I'm not sure if I want to keep her silhouette pink too, or make that purple?  I tend to like things more monochromatic in scheme...but, she does have pink in her bedding too, and I kept some bits of pink in her letter C as well.  What would you do?  Leave it, or swap it out for a purple one?

Some Fun and Some Not So Fun

Last night, the husband took the girls and I to spend some time with friends.  They have a little boy who is Ava's age, and he is a trip! So fun!  Makes me want a boy.  :o)  My girls are a lot of fun too, and Charlotte is a total tom-boy at times though.  We went to Chuck E. Cheese.  I normally HATE that place because I'm all paranoid of the germs and one of the kids getting lost, and even though they're supposed to check your number stamps as you leave, I don't think they really pay that much attention to them and I have had them not even check before...so, yeah.  I mean, I watch the girls like a hawk, but I get super antsy when they want to crawl around in the tubes and aren't right by my side, haha.  I always drill it into their heads not to leave with anyone but mommy or daddy and to stay with one of us at all times.  We had fun though!  And I do like their pizza. 

After that we rushed over to gets our seats for The Lorax.  Such a cute movie!  The girls loved it, and so did hubby and I.  Ava was dissapointed that she didn't hear Taylor Swift sing in the movie, she LOVES her, haha. 

That was the highlight of our week, I guess?  I had an appointment with a new doctor on Wednesday.  He confirmed what I thought, that the doctor I saw a few weeks ago was wrong about the tissue I passed.  Since I was so unsure after that appointment, I took the tissue home and took a few pictures of it before I threw it out.  The new doctor said it was absolutely not a blood clot.  It was an endometrial/decidual cast (and that they can be very painful...no kidding! I was in tears a few times over the pain...I felt like a total wimp at the time, but now I don't feel bad at all.  He said sometimes women end up in the ER for them).  He said that the Seasonique I was on essentially made me have a D&C.  Awesome.  He also said it should have been sent to the lab because it had some spots that concerned him, even though he said cancer at my age would be extremely unlikely.  So, still bleeding, of course.  It's been since January 22nd...so 42 days now and counting.  But I'm on the last week of my current pack of Ortho-tricyclen so, yeah... I'm hoping it stops once I start the new pack, but I'm not counting on it.  New doc says it could take another 2 months for it to calm down (ugh) and if it doesn't, then I have to come back in and try something else.  He said last resort would be surgery, and there are a few we could discuss, but not until we're sure we don't want any more children.  And I'm not sure at all, as I'd really like to have at least one more.  Sooo, yeah. 

Other than that, it was Dr. Seuss week for us, and at Ava's school.  So fun! 

We have a low key weekend here at home planned...full of, not much at all, haha!  I'm going to enjoy it though.  It's gorgeous outside today, other than the wind.  I have a few windows open to let in some fresh air and the girls played outside for a little while earlier.  I still need to finish up the end tables I'm working on for Charlotte's room, and I'm hoping we can manage to get her room painted soon.  I keep planning to work on it and then not feeling well or we lose track of time on something else.  Oh well.  It's not like it's going anywhere. 

Room Re-Do!

I've been laying low for the past week.  Still not feeling too well.  Seems like it will never end! 

We did manage to get Ava's room switched over, it's all painted and pink and girly now.  My parents had the girls for a sleepover while we worked on it, and I had hinted to her that I was going to paint her room and make it pretty.  I didn't come right out and tell her I was going to switch it, because I'd asked her how she felt about it before and she said no way...but she's five years old, and she doesn't like change, of any kind.  At least, at first.  She warms up to it, and then she's fine.

So, she got home and immediately ran upstairs to check it out.  She ran into her "old" room first, which is now the play room.  I'm not finished with it yet so I didn't take pictures, it's done enough that the girls can play in it, but I still have a few more things to do.  Anyway, she was hysterical, crying and just...inconsolable.  I ruined her whole little life!  But then she went to see her new room, and after a few minutes in there things weren't so bad anymore.  After an hour or so, she was loving it.  She even gave me thumbs up and told me it was "cool."  :o)  

I'm still not quiiiiite finished with her room yet either, but the only things left to do are to re-paint the ceiling, get a lamp shade, and fix a dresser drawer that broke.  I took some pictures anyway.  Let me know if you have any other decorating ideas!  There is a LOT of pink, but that's what Ava likes.  She's a total girly girl and loves pink.


Heading in to her room.

So, there you have it!  :o)  I think it's cute.  Super girly, and fit for a little princess!  Like I said, the drawer is being fixed, and I need a lamp shade...thinking maybe green to tie into the green on her bedding and the greenery around the room.  I don't know.  Break up the pink a little.  I can't decide if I want to paint the lamp base or leave it cream, her blinds are cream and so are the lampshades on her little chandelier.  Also, I replaced the little babydoll cradle with a basket bassinet...the cradle was missing a part that I couldn't find.  I have no idea why, but Blogger isn't letting me add captions to the pictures except for the first one. 

Next up, Charlotte's room.  She wants her room painted purple so I picked out a lilac color.  I wanted to start working on it earlier this week, but you know, life happens.  It will probably wait until next week.  I'm still working on painting some end tables for her, I'm almost finished with them.  I finished that book case I was working on last week, except for that I decided I wanted to put some trim around the bottom.  I have to figure out how to cut it and get the angles right, I'm soooo not a tool using kinda gal.  I want to be, I'm just...not, haha. 

In other news...I just got an email about a wind advisory, up to 57mph winds, right about the time I have to pick Ava up from the bus.  That oughta be fun!  :o)  Mike said to tie Charlotte to a rope so she doesn't blow away, hehe.  I will just carry her. 

I *love* this deal!

LOVE when they offer free 8x10 photo canvases!  The others are a great deal too!  I really need to get a move on with decorating the new house.  There is nothing on the walls in the living room, family room, kitchen, hallway...and I could go on, haha.  With re-decorating and updating my style, it's going slowwwwwly, but this is an awesome deal and some black and white or sepia canvases would be timeless.

FREE 8x10 photo canvas (Just pay shipping!) or $35 off larger canvases.

11x14 photo canvas for just $27, shipped!

16x20 photo canvas for just $37, shipped!

What a great deal!

Gift Ideas!

I shop for the holidays all year round. It's the only way to go, so I don't totally irritate my hubby with massive spending, hehe! A little here, a little there, finding great deals, and Christmas (or Easter) is a breeze!

 

Right now Vistaprint is offering six free items to help you showcase your most important photographs.  All you have to pay for is, is shipping.  Not bad!

Shipping Starting Prices:

Calendar- $5.67
T-Shirt- $4.86
Magnet- $4.52
Mouse Pad- $4.41
Mug- $5.67
Photo Book- $5.83