Family Picture Editing


It's been ages since I posted, but I wanted to share my family photos for 2012. I really LOVE how they turned out, and my dear friend Brandee did an amazing job as our photographer. I don't have photoshop, but I wanted to share a little secret of mine. I did all the photo editing MYSELF!! There's an amazing photo editing website I use. Right now, many of the premium features are FREE. So get your Holiday pictures taken, and upload them to Picmonkey, and see how GORGEOUS you can be.

BEFORE:

AFTER: (eyebrightening, spray-tanning, cloning, and cropping)

Money Saving Monday

We've all seen them...the FABULOUS posts about making your own laundry detergent, and saving "LOADS" of money. I fully support that type of thing! Unfortunately, my time manager, does not. This little money saving trick took me mere minutes to complete... and that, my friends, is all the time I have for "projects" these days. I gathered my supplies: My "DELIGHTFUL~touch of softness~ detergent" that I LOVE!! My cheap-o, store brand detergent, and a large empty container.

I just mixed them up together (2 cheapo scoops, per one lovely scoop).

I printed out a cute label... though I wanted color...our ink is out.

Adhered my label to my plastic container, and ended up with this...

Not too shabby for 5-10 minutes of work. It still smells like lovely lavender, but I have twice as much!!

Thrifty Thursday

I just wanted to share a little project that I completed recently.

I got this coffee table at my local thrift store. I loved the lines of it, and thought it had great potential. The finish HAD to go though...

I topped it with a quick coat of primer, and followed up with a couple coats of "oops" paint that I found at the Home Depot. I sanded it a little, for a distressed look.

Then finished the whole thing off with a couple coats of poly. I LOVED the original hardware, so I just gave it a quick coat of black spray paint...

What do you think...do you like how it turned out? If you're in Arizona and are interested in purchasing this table, leave a comment and I can work out a GREAT deal for you!!

Easy cupcake flowers...TUTORIAL

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope everyone gets to spend lots of time with loved ones. I woke up this morning to gobs of CHOCOLATE, and a gift card to a nail salon...loving cute, pedicured toes for SUMMER. What a WONDERFUL husband I have!!!

I wanted to share this great idea, my mom shared with me, for putting flowers on cupcakes.

You start with mini marshmallows and a pair of scissors. (Please wash your scissors BEFORE and AFTER) Cut your marshmallows in half~ corner to corner.



Next,gently push the sticky end of the marshmallow onto some pretty, colored sugar.



This is how the marshies look, when covered with the sugar.



Arrange them in a "flower" pattern on a frosted cupcake...



and, lastly, add a gumdrop to the center.




This was super easy, and we decorated 30+ cupcakes in less than an hour.



What do you think? Will you give it a try?

One Dollar Wednesday... it's all about FAMILY

I have said it before, and I'll say it again... I have a plethora of picture frames. Yes, they are random as can be. Different colors, different shapes, and different styles. For today's project, I'm focusing on some that I picked up recently at the dollar store/thrift stores.

See~~random...



but, a quick trip out to Spray Paint Place, and they're starting to look a bit more uniform!


I selected some fun scrapbook paper (from my VAST COLLECTION), and proceeded to print out the word FAMILY. Each letter, on it's own piece of paper, and in it's own FONT.


I framed them up lickety split...


and laid them out on the floor, as I wanted them on the wall.


Here's the final product...adding a little color to this quiet corner of my kitchen!

Wardrobe Makeover

I will admit, I have been a lazy blogger this past week. I worked most of the holiday weekend, but I had Monday off, and so did my wonderful husband, it was nice to spend some quality time together. Instead of blogging, I was pinning all weekend. Are you on Pinterest yet? It is super addicting, and has definitely helped clean up all my book marks. If you pin, leave me a comment so I can follow you!

Moving on, remember how I mentioned I had a fabulous IKEA trip a few weeks ago? I have to share the project my husband did, he has some serious talent. I am lucky I married a carpenter, and that he enjoys doing it as a hobby. While at IKEA I came across this beauty....

The DOMBAS (that name makes me giggle) wardrobe, for only $49.99! We have the tiniest closets ever in our small condo, but our bedrooms are large enough to handle this guy no problem. I knew he would totally help us have more space, but the only problem is, he wasn't my style. The brown just wasn't working for me. That is where my fabulous husband came to the rescue. We currently have the HEMNES bed frame in our bedroom, so we wanted the wardrobe to match. If you look close at the picture you will notice the wood of the HEMNES has knots in it.

Here we go, ready to give this wardrobe a makeover. Here are the panels, still not loving the brown.
Using semi-gloss black spray paint, he began to coat the panels of the wardrobe.
Some inexpensive hardwood from the Home Depot, with matching knots.
After a coat of paint, they were ready to go.

We didn't get photos of this next part, OOPS, he cut the planks down into sections. To match the doors. Then he used a nail gun to attach them to the panels. Once everything was attached, we took it into our bedroom to assemble it where it would stay. No use assembling it and then trying to move the giant piece around. The only problem is that it sits right next to our window, so with that light, and my poor photography skills, my after photos are a bit rough. Here is a few from the side before attaching the knobs.

Here is the before.....
And the after!!!
We found some clearance knobs at IKEA that were super cute. I think it turned out amazing and it matches our bed perfectly, down to the knots in the wood! Isn't my husband fantastic?!? I cannot tell you how much more space this has given us. Before we had a large 8 drawer dresser (we moved it into the baby's room), but even then our closet was jam packed. Now we each have our own closet, and with some re arraigning of dressers, we have so much more space. Now we just need to figure out what to do with the mirror on top (I tried to crop it our of the photo, but alas, I failed).

Dry Erase Menu board

Today I thought I'd feature a craft that my baby sister made. She's a newlywed, and just starting to get her little house in order. She has some great ideas, and I thought this was one of them. She originally saw the idea on make and takes.

She started with a simple black 12X12 picture frame that she picked up for just a couple bucks.



She added a pretty piece of scrapbook paper from her vast collection.



Then she just used stickers to spell out the days of the week.



Here it is all finished. Doesn't it look cute with my teapot?

One Dollar Wednesday... Easter Wreath

For some reason whenever I visit the Dollar Store, I can't help but pick up a couple bunches of the fake flowers they sell there. I am a sucker for flowers, and it has led to a rather large collection of random blooms. I finally decided to use some of them.



I found this simple wreath, also at Dollar Tree, and a cute Easter card in the Target Dollar Spot.



The colors of the card were my inspiration, and I sent my wreath out to The Spray paint place for a quick coat. It's beautiful and sunny here, so it dried really quickly.



I painted this little Dollar Tree frame a nice "spring green" color.



I framed my card, arranged my flowers, and glued it all together.

Friday Freebie...and a FAIL!

Do you ever have a project that you work on FOR DAYS, only to have it not turn out? That is what happened with my original project for today. FAIL! So I will be posting about a project I did a couple years ago~~ it wasn't free, but very inexpensive~~to my delight!

I found an old desk, similar to this at a yard sale, I offered $5.00 and the woman was happy to get rid of it.



I used my trusty sander, and scuffed up the finish a bit.



After a coat of primer, and three cans of this...



I ended up with this! It resides in my living/dining room, and I get comments about it all the time from visitors.


I love the little details and the pretty feet.





What do you think? What projects have you started and FAILED? Happy Weekend!

Quick Easter Basket Makeover

I found this old basket in our storage closet the other day. My baby doesn't have an Easter basket and I thought with a little love this could do the job.
A little brown spray paint and some ribbon and this is what I got....

It will work for this year, I am not 100% in love with it. What I really want is to make a basket liner, but I just don't have time this year. I have way to much to do for the birthdays, and I will be out of town for a week, maybe next year. Have you seen any cute DIY Easter basket projects? I need some inspiration.