Old Picture Frame Redo

Ok..so I got his picture frame when my first daughter K was born.

It's not bad but sheep weren't ever really my thing or went with my theme, which was green because we were trying to be neutral.  The frame was a nice thick wood so I knew I would keep it and reuse it.  I finally decided that I would use it as a  hair clip holder for S. I would have done it for K but she's moved on from hair clips right now and loves headbands ( hence the headband hooks on the cork board redo).

I taped off the glass with newspaper and  masking tape.

When J was spray painting the ugly cork board, he sprayed the white frame too. It had a bunch of nicks and scratches so a fresh coat of paint was needed.

As the paint was drying, I worked on the lettering for her name. I really loved the font Three Dates, One Night.  It's girly but not too babyish. I laid it out in Photoshop but you could use any word program. Then I printed out the name in two pieces( to make it 8"x 16" long) and laid them over the board that I would paint the name.

Painting names freehand is not my strong suit so I used a pencil to trace down onto the white board and it left a indent that I could paint into. I had a paint sample leftover from painting S's room which I had never used.It was the darker purple we had decided against but it totally worked for this.

I painted the name and a purple border to separate the mat from the white frame and to give it a little something.

I cut six pieces of white grosgrain ribbon ( love that stuff) and asked J to use the industrial stapler to attach them to the frame on the backside (hee hee.. I said backside)

Then I took all of S's hair clips and bows and in my true OCD style put them on in color order from red to black. I left some room on each ribbon to get more bows and hair clips on when bought.

When  I went to hang this frame on her door, I noticed that the frame blended into the door. Hmmm... So I decided to paint a thin strip of purple on the frame too to make it stand out.

Now there.... that's what I'm talking about. It's so nice now that the clips/bows are right there and easy to get to. And it makes her room even cuter.

I think she likes it

I'm linking up to these great sites this week:

Monday
What is the Gunny Sack -Making the world Cuter -Debbie Doo -DIY How Off
DIY Shop - Lines Across My Face -I should be mopping the Floor

Tuesday
How to Nest For Less - Tip Junkie - My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia -The Kurtz Corner
Sugar Bee - Romance On A Dime - Chronic Christian Crafter - Funky Polka Dot Giraffe
The Winthrop Chronicles

Wednesday
Oopsey Daisy - Thrifty Home - Someday Crafts

Thursday
My rePurposed Life - Beyond the Picket Fence - Somewhat Simple - Live Laugh Rowe
Loving this Crazy Life -Scrappy Crafty Happy - Fireflies and Jellybeans - The Shabby Cottage

Friday
Naptime Crafters - Stay At Home Nation
Young and Crafty


Saturday

Six Sister's Stuff


Sunday
Nifty Thrifty Things

Other Fun Blogs

365 Days of Missing Charlie

( If you don't think of animals as part of your family, this post might not be for you.)

If I was on the floor, so was he.

I can't believe he's only been gone that long. It feels like a million years but it also feels like yesterday. I lost my Charlie.

If I was on the couch, so was he.

God, I miss him. I still cry. Usually when I'm falling asleep in bed. It was our place.  Before I met J and before we were married for 5 years, it was just Charlie and I. At night  when I was getting ready for bed, I would tell him " Come on buddy. Let's go to bed" And he would go in and lay down in the same place every night.

He loved to smell the air.

I miss him sleeping in the bed next to me, pushing me off the bed or into J.
I miss him taking up the whole bed.
I miss having to step over him when I got out of bed.

He put up with me, weirdness and all.

After I stood up, I would say his name and watch his tail go " thump thump thump" on the bed. I miss him following me into the bathroom and making me scratch him on the neck while I was sitting. I can still remember how it felt to pet him on the head and the sound of him snoring next to me.

Look at that face.

I miss the feel of his fur between my fingers.

He was my best friend. No offense to all my human friends but he was. I've felt lost without him. Life isn't the same. No matter what I was going through he was always there with me. Even when i got busier over the past four years, he was always  there sitting by me in whatever room I had to be in.

He braved THAT for me

He thought I was awesome. He looked at me like I was his world. He was my biggest fan. I could do no wrong with him.I know he called me mom in his dog way. How could you not fall in love with that?


He would lay behind me when I cooked. He would lay under the computer desk while I designed, surfed the web, or just looked at pictures. He would sleep in K's closet while I read her stories and sang lullabies.  When I sat on the couch and watched movies or TV, He would lay right under me and even get to sit next to me on the couch when J wasn't there. If I sat on the floor, he would come up to the front of me, sit down, I would hug him and his head would rest on my shoulder. Like he was really hugging me. When I cried,  I could hold him and  I would feel better. Even my two girls can't fill the space in my heart he left. They keep that space busy but not filled.

K loved her Charlie

K  said in the car the other day....

K: Mom?
Me:Yes
K: I miss Charlie. He's up in heaven. I want him to come down here.
Me: I miss him too, honey, everyday.  But he's happy and feels better up in heaven.(tears welling  in my eyes)
K: I want him to be here with me.
Me: Me too honey. Me too. ( sniff)

K and Charlie 2009

God, It breaks my heart every time she says that which seems to have just happened randomly throughout the year.

See..he had to be next to me even unwrapping K's birthday gifts.

Have you ever  read or heard the quote from Winnie the Pooh:

"If  you lived to be 100 years old . I want to  live to 100 minus one day so I wouldn't  have to live a day without you."

My buddy

That's exactly what I thought the day he left my side.That was the hardest day of my life so far. I won't forget a minute of that day maybe for the rest of my life. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

I've never wailed before. I've never collapsed before. But I did that day.  The feeling when your body literally can't hold you up because you are crying so hard. He was my first baby.Why did he have to leave me so soon?

I cried myself to sleep for a week.  It's the only way I could fall asleep.  He should still be here. 10 years isn't long enough.  I love and you and miss you buddy.

I hate ugly cork boards

I really do. They are just so bland and tan. Tan wood. Tan cork.  Blah. Why can't they be pretty?

My oldest, K, loves to collect photos, scraps of paper, other little odds and ends that are flat. So I thought  of this ugly old cork board I had in the basement. I wanted her to be able to pin stuff on it and also find a way to hold all of the headbands and necklaces she was accumulating. My sister was heading to  IKEA  so I went online looked around and asked her  to pick me up these four hooks for like $ 5.

  Then I had J screw them on to the front/bottom of the cork board before I sprayed it.  I took it and first sprayed it will 3 coats of white spray paint outside ( J helped so I could photograph and that other frame is for another project.)

Voila! Everything was now pretty and white.


I asked him to screw it to the backside/inside of her closet door so that she could reach everything but it wouldn't look all cluttered all the time.  I also had some of these awesome  jumbo pins we bought on a vacation ( long story) that were pink.

Now she has an awesome place to keep all of her paper/flat treasures and she can also get to all of her headbands so help get ready in the mornings.

Adios Ugly Cork Boards!  Hello pretty, clean, white cork boards!

We even have another one....hmm.... what can I do with that?

Magazine Organization ( for those of us with a problem)

I LOVE MAGAZINES!!!!

I read them so fast that people (mainly my family) make fun of me. I currently get seven subscriptions to my house:

- Family Fun
- Better Homes and Gardens
- Redbook
- Family Circle
- Parenting
- Family Handyman ( hubby's)
- Money (hubby got it but I read it too)

And my mom gets "O" magazine too, which she shares.

So I only had 20 pages from 14 magazines. Pretty good for me.

So after I read them in lighting fast time, There are always some articles that I want to keep or remember something from. I just can't seem to get rid of them. And in the age before e-books and me having no apps for this.... I started my binder system.

First, I figured out my categories:

-Self Help
-Money Stuff
-Mom/Kid stuff
-Beauty(Makeup/Hair/Clothes)
-Inspiration
-Organization

I found these dividers.....

Isn't that a cool tree in that ad?

and these tabs.

Then I take my really old hole punch, punch some holes, and start adding my articles. They make new ones with levers that are much more hard core. I really need to invest in one.

Now whenever I find articles that I can't live without, I have a place to putt hem without taking up valuable bookshelf space. I also go through the binder once every few months to weed out any articles that I haven't looked at or don't apply anymore. I always tell myself  that if I can't fit anymore in the binder, then I can't keep anymore.

After I have gone through my magazines, I then share with my sister and my mom and they when they are done with them we recycle them. We have a great little system so that we know which magazines from each other we have and haven't looked at.  I write an EM, my sister writes an L, and mom writes an S in marker at the top of the magazines.  I even take my old magazines with kids themes to my daughter's preschool. The teacher says they like to use them for cutting practice and just making stuff. It's a nice way to recycle.

I know....that cook book has seen better days.  It's well loved.

Adventures in Papaya

I've been reading a lot about Papaya and it's digestive help so I thought...cool... I'll try one. It's not something we ever had when I was growing up. I went to Trader Joe's and bought one for $2.99.  It's about a foot long and weighs 3 lbs-ish.  I read online that you had to wait until it was mostly yellow because that meant it was ripe. I bough it green and waited almost a week for that magic to happen.

I sliced it in half and scooped out the inside which I have to say looks like caviar....eeww.  You can kinda see in in the bottom left of the picture below.

 I threw that away and started to cut the papaya into little half circles. After that I took my knife and kinda skinned it to get to the good part. 

I will say it's a different taste. I think everyone should try one once. It's alot different than getting it in a smoothie or blended with something else. Every time I took a bite I couldn't help but think it tasted like coffee. I know, weird, but that's what I tasted. It didn't have any immediate tummy help but  it's still really good for me. K and S even tried some and didn't hate it which was amazing. Maybe some time you'll decide to have your own adventures with papaya.

Mean Girls...then and now

Have you all seen the movie " Mean Girls" with Lindsay Lohan?  I hate to say but I love it. And  I do because it is a comedy, Tina fey is in it, and  it's the kinda conclusion you wish scenarios like this would have. The mean girls figure out that it's wrong and learn their lessons. We all know that doesn't happen.

I have had my share of time with "mean girls" in my life. I would have to say grade school was the worst for me. They were down right cruel.  My hair, my clothes,  my glasses, what I watched, what I read, what I drew......everything was fair game.

There was one in 6th grade, I think, and we were having a battle of the two 6 grade classrooms. We had to decorate our door with some kind of  design and it was a top secret. So I go into the bathroom one day and  R is there. She is a girl I that I have known since I was little. We played together since we could walk.  She comes up to me backs me up into stall door and says " What are you guys doing to your door? " " I'm can't tell you." " If you don't , I'll tell everyone we played my little ponies last year." I couldn't remember if that was true or not  but I was mortified because people already made fun of me as it was. So I spilled the beans and prayed no one would find out it was me and hate me anyway. She didn't have to do that.  She used what I thought was our joint past/friendship against me to shame me into something. I never really trusted or talked to her again.

And then there was K. She made it her personal goal in life to laugh/point fingers at me whenever she could. She pants-ed me twice in gym class. I finally learned to really knot my shorts after the first time.( And not to buy flowered underwear :) )The thing is I never did anything to her.  Why did I deserve that? I'm sure if I asked her why or if she knew she really tortured me, she would have no idea. And probably say she never did those things. That 's just as sad.

The high school mean girls were just too busy with the boys /hair/clothes/social lives to bother me too much. They just used me for pens, loose leaf paper, and tried to get answers from me.

Now in my thirties...the mean girls are older,wiser, and better able to cloak their meanness in false flattery and just plain old stabbin' you in the back when you aren't around. Didn't their mommas love them enough? Don't they have anything better to do like...I don't know...raise their kids?

I look at my daughters and wish I could spare them this kind of pain. I know they are going to have mean girls in their lives. I hope they can deal with better than I did. I don't know how to tell them to deal with it because I STILL don't know how to deal with it.  I already see myself in K. She's so trusting and thinks everyone likes her even when the other kids decide to play keep away from K without telling her. She's so blissfully ignorant. I hope she keeps that just enough to not let things like that bother her. I want to tell them to not let it bother them because they won't have to deal with them forever but that's not true. And going to public school , there's the chance that they may have to deal with them for 14 years..YIKES.  I always think I  should tell them to tell themselves....(see below)

What's in my purse?

S was going through my purse today as she does any time it gets near her tiny hands and I thought ..hmm... I wonder if everyone else has such random stuff in their purses.

So here is what is in my purse today:

-Sunglasses
-Carmex Vanilla lip balm (smells good)
-pen ( stolen from somewhere)
-pictures of my kids in plastic sleeves and some that should be
-Bath and Body  sanitizer, Sagittarius. It was from back last year.
-Car keys with school door pass attached. It's high level security over there. it's a good thing.
-Receipts from Trader Joes, Well Body,  and Target
-Gift cards from : Bath and Body, Toys r Us, Crate and Barrel, and Kohls
-Cell Phone ( I wish it was an IPhone)
-Small point and shoot Canon in it's case for those quick shots
-a scratch off ticket...... that didn't win.
-a Powerball ticket...... that didn't win
-STL ZOO membership card... a lifesaver
-STL county Library card and mini card ( why do I have both in there?)
-SAMS club card
-WellBody Business cards
-Victoria Secret measuring tape ( it comes in really handy everywhere. You'd be surprised)
-Two free passes to the Museum of Transportation
- How to plant a raised bed garden brochure from Home Depot.( It's a goal of mine this summer)
- Change
- two barrettes
-pieces of gum and goldfish crackers ( eewww)

I challenge my other bloggy friends to do the same and share what's in your bag?

Things I Love about St.Louis: Ted Drewes Custard

( This is the first in the new series...Things I love about Saint Louis. I've heard a bunch of people that live here complain about Saint Louis but I love living here and want to tell you why.)

It's very warm for April  here in Saint Louis...like 80 degrees warm. So we packed up the kids last Friday night and headed into the city to go to my favorite ice cream place of all time....Ted Drewes. I grew up five minutes from this place and must have gone there a million times every summer. And even though now I live 30 minutes away, have two kids, and am lactose intolerant (sigh).  I still make it a point to go once a month when it's above 50 degrees. Yes, it's THAT worth it.

It's heavenly custard which is smoother and richer than regular ice cream. You can get it as a cone, a sundae, or a concrete. A concrete, for those that don't know, is a really thick shake with stuff mixed in it.  It's so think in fact that the folks down at Ted Drewes will hold it upside down when they give it to you.  If you can name it, you can put in on or in your custard. My new favorite is a sundae with caramel and chocolate. I use to get the Dutchman alot too. That is a sundae or concrete with butterscotch, pecans, and chocolate sauce. It's so rich and decadent.

You should have seen the rest of her. That's why she has the bib.

The girls are finally getting into the Ted Drewes experience. They dive right in now. Before I couldn't even get K to eat it. It was hard because I'm such a sweet tooth kinda gal. But S has been eating in since the first time we took her. They both only get the plain custard which is super good all by itself as you can tell....

In the summer, the place is so crowded that the line almost goes into the street and off duty cops come to direct traffic and help you find a parking place. They also offer Ted's by Fed-Ex with dry ice. It's pricey but if we ever had to move, you bet your Sweet Aunt Betsy that I would be getting it delivered.

What Would You Grab in a Fire?

I'm sure you've seen this somewhere before but if there was a fire/tornado/flood/ huge natural disaster what 5 things would you grab? And say you had 10-30 minutes. I hope none of us ever have to think of this but  I found this website : http://theburninghouse.com/ . And it made me think.

We would all say family, so should I even count that?  I'll count them all as one thing. That's including the dog.

So the other four things....

-Hard drive with every photo/video in our family history
-2 photo albums that aren't digital ( count as 1)
-All of our baby books ( all the same thing. count as 1)
-Important document Ziploc..yes I said Ziploc

( do you like how I justify all my multiples?)

All of them except the bag are in the same room, so it would make that grabbing fast and easy.


 And if timed allowed this is everything in the house I would want:

-K's stuffed Mickey mouse ( her favorite in these shirt four years)
-S's stuffed puppy ( her favorite in these short two years)
-Charlie's stuff ( old toys,dog tags, paw print)
-Camera Bag
-Wedding Dress
-Christening gowns
-jewelry (good stuff from parents and grandparents)
-Christmas ornaments( yes...I love them)
-K's Baby Box
-S's Baby Box

Everything else is the house is just stuff.  It really is just...... stuff. It really makes you think about all  of it and why we buy so much. And how we don't need it.