Oh Happy Day!!!

What a nice improvement ...

Oh happy joy joy!!! It is officially the start of spring break!!!  I can’t believe how excited I am to sit on my ass and do pretty much nothing the next 11 days!!! Usually I get bored with days off but these last few weeks have been hard and I could use this break.  I do have some exciting things planned…officially changing my name, doing some new pinspiration arts & crafts, sleeping in and of course Tiger’s baseball!!!

VIA

The weather is getting nicer, which is AWESOME!!!  Practically all of the snow is gone and the dead grass is becoming exposed.  Now I am just waiting for the trees to bud.  

My favorite thing of today besides 3:53 was the sun coming out and staying out all day and my mint Oreo Blizzard!!!  A huge thanks goes out to Dr. Highfield’s 4^th grade class for earning Blizzards and the staff taking part in their good behavior!!! Whoot whoot!!!  Hope everyone had a great day also.

Andi

I think I see the light...

These past couple of weeks have been CRAZY and in less than 24 hours it will come to an end!!!  This month has flown by and I cannot believe that April one will be here in just a few short days.  The year of 2012 was an up and down of a year and I was super happy to see it go.  I was hoping that 2013 was going to be a turn around… However with the passing of Small’s sister and my Bubby (grandmother) last month it felt like we were going to be living in the same dark shadow of 2012.  Well, we got some exciting news yesterday!!! Smalls got a new job!!! Oh we so needed this positive that I cannot contain my happiness!!! Wait a minute did I just say happiness?  I have had a hard time being “happy” lately.  It came in spurts and sputters and when it is around I soaked it up!!!

I am trying to find all of the positive through out my day and I want to share them, hell even shout them over roof tops. So instead of getting a noise violation ticket from my neighbors I thought the blog would be a good place to say it.  So what is going good for us…

-Small’s new job

-The sun shinning today

- Spring Break

-Tiger’s baseball (opening day 4/5)

-Our new teaching contract (I will be 

getting less taken out of my checks, 

which means a pay raise--sort of)

I know that none of this is life changing but I feel a weight being lifted off of my shoulders and possibly a light at the end of this tunnel!!!

VIA

Thanks for reading and I would love to hear your thoughts…

Andi

DIY - From Pennies to EAT

So this winter we got a LOT of snow/mud/ice days in our district.  We are allowed 6 days and that’s what we used.  After April 1^st we get to use more, but I am done with adjusting my lesson plans!!! Now coming off of an almost 2 week Holiday break and with a couple other days off such as MLK and Presidents day the 6 (snow/mud/ice) days we got because of Mother Nature, made me a bit stir-crazy.  I know that this is psycho talk but when your husband has to go to work, you don’t have any children of your own to entertain and all of your friends still have to report; you begin to do loopy things. Cleaning the house can get old, fast!!! So I decided to scroll Pinterest for something…not sure what, though.  

After hours of scrolling and scrolling I came across this this.  OMG!!! What an awesome idea for a fun DIY art project.  Plus my dining room was the perfect place to hang something like this.  So off to Jo-Ann Fabrics I go.  I got 8” Paper Mache letters in E, A, T, copper acrylic paint, a 1” brush, E-6000 Quick Hold glue and Krylon semi-gloss finishing spray. Then it was to the couch cushions to find pennies.  In total I needed 200 pennies.

Now how do I go about making this fun craft… I pretty much followed exactly what Rebecca said to do from the The Crafted Sparrow step by step.  The paint process only took about an hour to dry and the layout of pennies on each letter about 20 minutes.  So in total I finished this whole project in just a few hours!!! I gave it an extra spray the next morning just to make sure those copper pennies wouldn’t fall off. 

Now that it was done, I needed to hang it.  Hmmm… well I can’t nail it, so now what?  Then all of a sudden a TV add came on for Command Strips and the light bulb went off. So off to the drug store I go.  I place those babies on and I made sure I got the heavy duty ones just to be safe.

Next stop was to my dining room to hang!!! Super easy, super fun and I have to say it looks good in there.  What do you think?

Thanks again to Rebecca at The Crafted Sparrow for the wonderful idea.

Andi

Inspiration Monday...

A little inspiration for everyone…

Found this on the wonderful blog Venspired. Krissy’s main goal is to push herself and be inspired/inspiring.  She makes wonderful inspiring posters that will put a smile on anyone's face.  We all need that in our life, a little push of inspiration.  One of the reasons I started this blog was to step out of the box I was living in and challenge myself and the world around me. This is me being pushed...

So I am trying a new look for my inner self with this blog.  I will enjoy life no matter what it deals me and I will hold my head high.  Happy start to a new week!!!

Andi

Buffet Refinishing...

Not that this grand idea came from Pinterest but I thought this would be a good place to check for ideas.  I didn’t see any one pin specifically so I cannot credit anyone back but I did spend many hours scrolling and scrolling.  So lets see how do I begin this adventure?  Well after we had our wedding shower we got lots of wonderful gifts from our friends and family, but now we needed a place to put all of the stuff.  We did a major reorganizing of pretty much every cupboard to accommodate everything.  We also gave a nice donation to The Salvation Army. So I thought in reorganizing the kitchen we should update the dining room too!!! I was inhaling too much stain to truly be thinking straight.  I decided that adding a buffet/sideboard would be a wonderful idea.  So off we went to Ikea to find the perfect buffet and we did, we found two, this one was the right price and this one was the right look, size, organizational space, etc. but so hard on the price :  (. So after speaking to my very knowledgeable, smart father he informed me we could take the old buffet in his basement. Score!!!

So we loaded this baby up and off we went to make it our own.  Well I do not know about you but we have never refinished furniture before so we were going in blind.  We did some research and got an idea of what we needed to do.  So back to Home Depot we go to speak to a sales person in their paint department.  She was very helpful with what we would need, stripper, scrapers, sanding blocks, gloves, masks, tarp, brushes, and polyurethane.  So we clear out our dining room because there is no way we are going to work outside in freezing cold temperatures. Now it's time to begin...we apply stripper let it sit and then start to scrape and scrape and scrape.  So more stripper goes on and more scraping happens and still nothing!!! WTF!?! So now do I not only hate staining but stripping is going on the list too. 

Becoming frustrated with this very old piece of shit I mean furniture, I take an 80 grit hand block sander and go to town on a drawer.  Smalls nicely reminds me to go with the grain and instead of returning with some smart-ass remark I tell myself that we are growing and learning together. Ha!!! I am so growing and learning at this point!!! So my nice dear friend Mary lends us her electric sander to help with our un-strippable problem. YES!!! This has to work!!! I mean if harsh chemicals can’t remove that paint and lacquer, off then I don’t know what will.  So we plug that baby in and go to town. Hahahahaha!!! We are some really stupid humans right now!!! Yes so remember how I said we didn’t want to work outside in freezing cold temps?  Well we began sanding in our dining room and the dust started to fly and I do me fly!!!  Around two corners and up a flight of stairs!!! We halted and moved the buffet out to the barn to finish the job out there.  Smalls went out and sanded in the cold and I stayed in with the shop vac and vacuumed the shiz niz out of the house.  

It did not take long once we put a little electricity behind us.  Within a few hours the whole thing was a nice natural blonde.  Now came the fun part, staining!!!! Yippee!!! We had to move the buffet back inside to “warmer” temps.  I did all of the staining and it took 3 coats.  We had a ton of snow days packed in at this time of year so I got all of the staining in, in just a few days!!!.  I don’t understand why layers of stain become tacky and maybe I never will.  After it dried I applied a few layers of polyurethane.  While the buffet was drying we went in search of new pulls and knobs.  Measuring at 2 3/8” we could not find a pull that would fit.  So at this point it is our choice to sand the drawers and doors and fill the existing holes with wood putty, re-stain and buy brand new knobs and pulls.  Or get a can of spray paint and spray the old ones.  Hmmm…decisions, decisions.  We decided on the latter and got a can of copperish spray paint.  A few applications and they were done!!!!  Which now means…we can put the buffet back together!!!  Which also means the dining room can get put back together and the kitchen can get cleaned out of vacuums, trash bags, rags, screwdrivers, etc.

We did some shuffling and rearranging but we found a fit for the buffet.  We are super happy with how it turned out!!!  I have to say it is one my favorite rooms in the house.  Ever since we updated our living room we had an extra bookcase that we needed to find a new home for.  It found a nice corner in the dining room as our new bar!!! I will post about this later.  I also want to say that I love how the buffet looks under my cousin Roslyn’s painting she made for us.  She is an amazing painter!!!  Here is her website if you want to check out her fabulous work her name is Roslyn Onickel.  

Thanks again for reading this crazy adventure.

Andi

Good start breakfast

So we started our weekend out with a little morning fuel.  Smalls made a delicious fruit smoothie from some random stuff we had in our kitchen.  I am guessing that most people would have most of these same random items.  It was a little sweet, a little creamy, a little frothy and a whole lot yummy!!!

So what random items do you need…

2-cored apples

2-bananas

2 Tablespoons-protein powder

2 teaspoons-flaxseed

1 cup-milk

2- 8oz yogurt (your choice)

1 cup-ice

*makes about 6 servings

We loaded everything up into our Ninja and away we went!!!

Smalls poured it into our coffee mugs and topped with a little cinnamon to give it a pretty look (which also added to the yumminess).  It was super easy, super yummy and super healthy!!! You can’t go wrong there.  Have a nice weekend everyone!!!

Andi

The weekend begins with some jewelry!!!

One of my new favorite jewelry stores, Charles Emerson Designs is giving away a $30 store credit just for sharing on Facebook!!!  How simple and easy is that!!!  You defiantly need to check out their beautiful jewelry. It is so original and classic you could not go wrong with anything.  So like them on Facebook--Charles Emerson Designs and share.  Do this soon because the winner will be chosen on Monday @ 9pm.

Charles Emerson Design

Good luck!!!

Andi

Blanket Ladder

So as I said at the end of my “Behind the Couch” post, that putting a table behind the couch interfered with the blanket I had draped over it.  Well first I need to preface this with I live in a very old farmhouse, and we seem to have very COLD winters here in Michigan.  It is crazy expensive to heat my 1890 home to a comfortable setting, so we bundle up to save on the heating bill.  My blanket is a MUST for me to stay sane over the cold months of November-May (seriously it always snows in April).  I have a nice brown leather chair that I could drape the blanket on but I wanted a change, something new.  Needless to say I wanted to do another fun project with Smalls that would add to our home.  So off I went on a Pinterest search to find exactly what I was looking for.  Then a few hours later one day I found my inspiration!!! From DIY Home, there it was!!! A ladder for my blanket!!! 

So off to Home Depot, Smalls and I go again to buy more stuff (wood, wood glue, drill bit, etc.) luckily we still had stain left from the couch table that we just used that.  So making a ladder seems like an odd thing to make, but we seemed to get through it pretty harmlessly.  After some measuring, drilling, a little bit more drilling, gluing and nailing we had constructed a ladder!!! Who would’ve thunk!!! 

So we let it sit for a day or 5 (I had to go back and teach my sweet little pumpkins).  Then we got to staining…I am going to officially say I HATE staining!!! A ladder is a very hard thing to stain when you do not have the appropriate materials to work with.  So on our hands and knees we went staining, letting it dry, flipping it over, staining, letting it dry, flipping it over, and on and on and on. After the very tedious process it was done but sticky, WTF?!? So more drying time and then it was finally done, whoot whoot!!! Again we had the same problem with the wood not being straight so the ladder leans or is slightly crooked but who the hell cares!!! It is supposed to be an antique ladder and we made it not a machine!!!  Best part the ladder only cost us about $20!!! I even got to get some new blankets, because one just wasn't going to do the ladder justice!!!

So thanks again to DIY Home for the awesome idea!!!

Andi