New (old) light

Changing a light fixture is an easy fix, that can make a huge difference in the way a room looks. We have put in new ceiling fans in all bedrooms and the living room, and we just finally got our dining room and entry way lights changed (pictures of those will come with the big kitchen reveal).

So our hall light is pretty hideous...or at least I think so...you can judge for yourself:
I can't stand the shiny yellow gold (also why we changed our dining and entry way light fixtures). I much prefer the oil-bronzed finish or a pewter finish.

However I didn't want to buy a new light just to hang in the hallway. So I took one of the lights we took down from the dining/entry way and modified it.

Before:
After some oil-bronze spray paint:
And some glass frosting (which is so much fun I want to find something else to do this too!)

Ta-da....new hall light...which still needs to be hung :)

Feeling blah...

I am really sorry that I have not posted recently. I have been feeling really blah lately and haven't done much at all.

I am so sick of the cold spells every couple days. Which means that most of the nice days in between can't be spent outside either unless you want to breath dirt, which is what it is like today. I need fresh air and I need sunshine and blue skies, desperately, yet today is brown skies and tomorrow is calling for gray skies, AND more blowing dust.

I also got a new sewing machine, because I was getting frustrated with my old used one getting stuck every 5 minutes, only to have problem because I absolutely cannot get my stitches right to sew together a piece of cotton and flannel! Is there some magical trick to get it to sew cotton and flannel together? It worked just fine when I did cotton with terry cloth. So I have been down about that, too.

My kitchen is still incomplete.

Bills and ads and receipts have once again taken over my desk.

I have no energy, so have not done much cleaning or cooking or exercising.

I haven't really posted because since I haven't done much, I haven't really had much to post about.

I am finally breaking down and we are going to purchase a new washer and dryer this weekend. I dread spending the money, but we have been searching for a good used pair that fits our needs for a couple weeks with no luck. And I don't want to risk buying used ones only to end up in this same situation 6 months from now.

I have felt terrible because we have been spending lots of money, after I was so sure I was going to start tracking and quit spending so much.

So all in all, the past few weeks have just been...well...blah... I really need something to get me out of this rut, but I don't know what it is. At this point I believe I would be willing to pay to have someone come in and organize and give me a fresh start...

Birthday Invite

I am not very experienced with digital scrapbooking. Actually I have only ever made 1 digital scrapbooking layout before, but I decided I wanted to make photo invites for Mason's first birthday party.

His first birthday is May 18, and I am also planning on making a birthday banner and maybe a few other things, so I decided I better get started.

So I bought this kit to work on the invitations:
You can find it here: Kay Miller Jungle Boogie kit

I love this kit, it is so cute!

The only thing was it doesn't have an alpha, and I had no idea how to make patterned letters how I wanted. So thanks to the help of the ladies over on the scrapbooking board on preg.org, I finally figured it out!

I haven't taken his picture for the invitation yet, because I am waiting for some warmer weather to take him out in, but here is my first digital photo card invite:

Not much going on

Sorry I haven't really posted this week. I haven't really accomplished much this week. I have been really lazy.

I did get a new sewing machine this week. I have sewn a couple burp cloths. I need to get some pictures of them.

I was just now working on sewing some more burp cloths only I am using flannel on these instead of terry cloth like my others and now I can't get my stitches right, so I gave up for now.

Earlier I was working on making invitations for my son's 1st birthday coming up in May. I am using a digital scrapbooking kit to make photo cards. I am not very experienced with digital scrapbooking though, and my kit didn't come with an alpha. So I don't know how to get the letters the way I want them, so that is on hold til I figure that out!

So all my projects seem to be on hold!

This week I HAVE to go through pictures and get some printed. Some for my Grandma's photo frame that she has been waiting on for a while, and some to give out, and some for me to scrapbook. I have a ton of older pictures printed, but I just don't feel inspired by any. Or I feel like I have all this paper and it doesn't match! And I absolutely have to use up some of my stash before buying more!

Since I haven't been working much on any of my projects or organizing I have spent my spare time play World of Warcraft. Yes, I play WoW. I have a level 80 paladin, and I am working on getting my mage to 80. I have her at 72 right now. My husband does play too, but I am the one that got him started playing. He has a 72 hunter. That is kind of our thing we get to do together, instead of spending a bunch of money on date nights to the movies or wherever.

I really hope that I can gather up so motivation to get some stuff done this weekend. My sister offered to babysit Mason Saturday, so we are planning to take her up on her offer so that we can try to work on the kitchen without interruptions. Now that we got our tax refund in, we are going to buy our microwave and lights so hopefully the kitchen will finally be done this month.

Well the little one just woke up, hopefully I will have some progress on something to post soon!

Menu Plan Monday ~ March 8

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We had company this weekend and yesterday I wasn't feeling very well, so my menu plan Monday is a day late.

Monday - Leftover Taco burgers
Tuesday - Spaghetti
Wednesday - Leftover Spaghetti
Thursday - Chicken Strips with Mac & Cheese
Friday - Eat out
Saturday - Jambalaya
Sunday - Leftovers

A money saving decision

I didn't really get a chance to work a whole lot on our budgeting last night, but I did look at our bills to try to see where we can cut some costs.

Not too long ago I changed our cell phone plan to a smaller one. We upped it while I was wedding planning because I was always on the phone and going over my minutes, but now we have almost 1,000 rollover minutes, so we obviously didn't need all that. I haven't gotten our first bill with the lower rate yet, but hopefully it will be about $30 less.

Last night though I sat down and discussed with my husband turning off our satellite. We have the smallest package on Dish Network with DVR. It costs us about 55/month. So as soon as our contract is up (we have to call and find out because we don't remember if it got renewed when we accepted the special 10/off a month for 10 months thing) we will be turning off our satellite.

We are both guilty of watching too much TV, and we really need to cut back on our spending. So this is step 2 (cell phone plan being #1).

I would love to hear what you do to cut back costs!

2 months down

Well it is already the 3rd month of the year.

I am thankful to orgjunkie, for hosting the 28 day challenge which really helped me get started organizing my house. It is in a lot better shape than it was in January, and it has motivated me to work on the rest of the house, and work hard to get into habits that keep it that way.

I actually did some scrapbooking yesterday, 2 layouts! One I feel is unfinished, but it may stay that way for a while as I'm not sure what else to do. And I picked some of it up yesterday, and put all the rest away today. I was hoping to do another yesterday which is why some was left out, but couldn't find the inspiration.

So while I feel like I am definitely making progress in the house department, I feel like I am way behind in the money department.

Money stresses me out more than anything. We aren't really BAD off, but we are no where near where we need to be and even further from where I want to be.

I am hoping to get some time today to sit and try to work out a budget and plan for our long and short term goals. Right now though, my little one has woken up from a nap and is in need of an afternoon snack.

28 Day Organization Challenge End

The 28 day challenge has come to end! I think I did pretty well for being as organizationally challenged as I am!

First of all I would like to say a big thanks to my husband for all his hard work in helping me get this accomplished!

Next I will start with the summary questions:

1. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and were you able to overcome it?

I think the hardest part of the challenge and organizing and decluttering for me in general is purging. My husband and I both have a hard time getting rid of things. I think we have made a significant difference in letting things go, but I am sure there is still lots of room for improvement!

2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?

Now that we have designated spaces for all our items, we can know where to put things away. Before we often didn't have a specific place for items to go, so they just got left wherever they landed. I think now knowing exactly where everything is supposed to go, it will be much easier to get everything put away!

3. What did you do with the “stuff” you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?

A lot of the things we purged went into the trash. And many items went into donate/sell boxes which we will be putting in a garage sale this spring, whatever doesn't sell will go straight to Goodwill.

4. What creative storage solutions were you able to introduce in order to create additional space as well as establish some limits and boundaries?

One of my favorite things was the wire shelves we added in the closet close together to store all my cake pans. Makes it easy to get to them without having them all topple over when trying to dig one out from the bottom. I really planned to do more, but when my husband went back to get more of the wire shelving (it was 12 foot wire shelving that was cut to fit our closet) it had doubled in price! OVERNIGHT. I was mad, but I really hope to add more specific shelving for items if we ever find that shelving cheap enough again.

5. Why do you think you should win this challenge?

This is a hard question for me, because I really never think I deserve to win anything, so I will try to pretend for a moment to have a few ounces of self confidence: I think I have made a dramatic improvement on our office/craft room, and I already feel a big weight lifted off my shoulders, and feel like now I actually can accomplish something in here. I joined this challenge in the hopes that it would hold me accountable to actually getting something done, and it has definitely given me the motivation to conitue organizing all over my house. I think I have turned a room that was barely usable and made me feel so stressed before into a room that will be great for doing all my craft projects, and be more inspiring than holding me back because of all the clutter. And because I have a lot of work to do organizing all over the rest of my house, I would definitely put any prize to good use!

So now to the pictures:
I will start with the closet:
Before:
AFTER:
Left side:

Right Side:
Now into the room:
My desk Before:
Our new desk area, we moved my husband's desk by mine and moved the printer table to where his desk was:
The end of my desk before:
After:


Printer Table Before:

The spot when it was my husbands desk:After:

Workbench Before:
After:
Sink Area before:
After:
Craft Table Before:
Probably the most dramatic difference in the room...After: