IT's Party Time Ya'll (Bathroom Walk-through)

Just as promised...

IT'S PARTY TIME YA'LL!

The big Bathroom Reveal! I am so stoked. Seriously, it seemed to have taken FOREVER!!!
There are only 2 or three things left to do in the bathroom. I need to hang the curtain over the window, I need to put in new base boards, and i need to re-caulk the tub and toilet. Those things can wait. I have to show you what we I have done!!!

We I chose a primitive country americana theme for our bathroom. I have always felt that a country theme felt more inviting.

"Ok, Stina Marie enough talking lets get on with it..."

When you enter my bathroom you are greeted by the cutest corner display. 

(I got the milk can and wheel off of craigslist.)

I have a shelf and picture hanging above this but neglected to take a good pic of it.

I installed the flooring all by myself.

Don't you love my sink?

The toothbrush holder was originally white porcelain with blue accents.

I grungy-ed it using the process I found here.

I made this functioning soap dispenser 

and grungy-ed the lid using the same technique.

I found this candle at my favorite second hand shop called "Second Glance"

It was originally baby blue and glittery. I think it was supposed to be a Christmas candle.

I bought it for $1 and took it home. It still lights up and flickers like a real candle.

  I LOVE the way it turned out.

It cannot be called "Americana" If you don't have at least 1 barn-star!

And what it more american then a vintage coke bottle found down on the ranch?

Here is the full window display

This is the far wall by the toilet. 

I had a heck-of-a-time installing the towel bar and toilet-paper-dealy.

(What the heck is that called anyway)

Quick close up of the shelf.

grungy topped jar and prim sign.

Cutesy Prim Shower Curtain I found it on amazon and fell in-love!

(I bought the rug to match but once again forgot to take a picture.)

Inside My Shower never looked so good.

Wouldn't you love to take a soak?

This is the sign that got the whole thing started.

 Well that takes you through my bathroom. Hope you enjoyed the tour. Special thanks to Michael Jones, my cousin who ripped out the old ugly sink, installed my new beautiful sink, moved the light fixture over and put up with my sleep-deprived craziness.


Always remember to LIVE WELL, LAUGH OFTEN, AND LOVE MUCH

before and afters (pt1)

I am currently working on about fifty-ba-zillion projects around my home.

I did find some "before" pictures of when we first moved in here 6 years ago and what it looked like.

I will give you a quick comparison of the doll room.

Before

(That is Dylan age 5. He was a big-for-his-age kid, but in comparison to now he is so tiny in this pic.)

After

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Before

After

 Being the bad blogger I am, I for got to get good before pics of the bathroom that we are currently remodeling. The closest I have are these...

Why yes that is a cliche pic of me in my bathroom mirror. (I was heading of to a concert that night)

PS I miss my hair. :( 

Can anyone say UGLY? I CAN!!!

We painted over this ugly wallpaper when we moved in, then we painted it again, the the sink went all crazy so it had to be replaced cabinets and all! UGH so we have spent the last several weeks off and on peeling, sanding, ripping, tearing, and generally destroying this room. 

After pics when/if we ever even finish.

Confession

Confessions have never been my strong suit.

I don't like telling on myself.

I hate admitting that I am wrong or have done wrong.

But they say confession is good for the soul

My confession for today is simple...

I miss facebook.

That is all.

What's for Dinner?

This is tonight's dinner! Borrowed from sixsistersstuff

Hearty Beef Stew

Ingredients:

1 pound beef stew cubes
4 carrots, sliced
4 red potatoes, cut into large cubes
1 package dry onion soup mix
2 cans 98% fat-free cream of mushroom soup
1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
1 (10 oz) package frozen green peas
Directions:
Place all ingredients in a resealable gallon-sized freezer bag. Mix together and zip bag closed. When ready to eat, remove from freezer and thaw in fridge for 24 hours. Cook on LOW for 7-10 hours (or HIGH for 5-6 hours).
Serve with 3 Ingredient Parmesan Rolls.
(I double-bagged this stew because it stuffed the freezer bag to the brim! Better safe than sorry!)

I will let you know how it turns out. So far it smells DIVINE!!!

Bananas, Oats, and Dinner?

What do you do when your husband lovingly brings home 3 huge bags of over-ripe bananas?

I don't have time to spend all day in the kitchen baking.

I have 50billion things to do this week. Hello, Bathroom???

So what did I do with the bananas?

I smashed them and froze them into double recipe sized portions.

You don't want to mash them completely, because they will become too runny for your recipe. Just a quick smashing will do the trick.

Anyway, I have 3, 5cup bags waiting for me to bake into banana-deliciousness.

Also to save myself a lot of effort this week, I borrowed an idea from my cousin over at House Unseen. (Hop on over and check her out! She is a remarkable person/blogger and she is hilarious too!) 

I prepped this weeks dinners and froze them. 8 meals for a family of 5 ready in under 2 hours. 

Now all I have to do this week is pull, thaw, dump, cook, serve, rejoice.

I also found this pin on pinterest. So I made several Instant oatmeal packs. Now my children can eat something other the cereal for breakfast. (They loved them this morning)

Ok off to get some of this junk down before I run out of time! 

Thoughtful Thursday

Today is Thursday, Right? Ok since it is Thursday (My Friday) and there is a good probably of the handyman coming tomorrow, I must keep this brief. I have a buttload of cleaning to do before tomorrow. Actually even without the handyman coming I like to get the house ready for the weekend...

So from now on Thursdays will be "Thoughtful Thursdays" Just a simple quote, to make you think.

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think is a much greater hunger.  A much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat."

                                                            Mother Theresa

That was deep, huh? Ok now go and ponder that thought while I go clean my house.

My Dining-Room (A Thrifter's Paradise)

Although I HATE being broke and being on a shoestring budget, I am thrilled to find a great deal.

I love shopping at second hand stores. I love goodwill, thrift town, second glance, once upon a child, and kid to kid, just to name a few. I am a huge fan of garage sales, yard sales, and flea markets.

I get super excited when I find a new thrift store. To me it is an adventure to hunt through a space and find a bargain.

Today we will be exploring the fabulous finds I have in my dining-room.

I found my China Hutch at a garage sale for $40

It houses my salt&pepper shaker collection and my tea set my husband found for $10

(The cabinets house all of my bakingware.)

The clock above my hutch is made out of a vintage pie pan. 

My husbands grandmother gave me the pan a few years ago.

Here is a picture of one similar to the one I made.  

I got my kitchen table at a local thrift store for $100 

(a little more then I like to spend but the shop donates 50% of its sales to the woman's shelter.)

I got these chairs from Goodwill for $8 a piece.

(This is the only one with arms.)

This print was found by my husband for free

We found this at a thrift store not 3 miles from my house for $2

(It really fits the whole "Country Kitchen" feel)

This shelf was $.50 at Goodwill and the teapots were gifts from various people.

This print is one from "Home Interiors" My mother had this hanging in her dining-room 

(for most of my childhood) She gave it to me about 2 years ago. I simply love it!

I love filling my home with treasures that I have found. I hope you enjoyed the tour.

Happy 31st Birthday To Me! (Wordless Wednesday)

A Work In Progress (And a bit of history)

Christmas of 1990, I was almost 9 years old.
My father got me a gift that would change my life.

I peeled the beautiful paper off my gift with all the excitement and anticipation you could imagine from an 8 year old girl. Oh yes, I had opened a few gift before this on that "cold" Texas morning. Although none of them stand out in my mind. This gift though, this one was special. I can still feel my heart race as i remember that day. My Very First PORCELAIN doll! She was gorgeous and I felt very "grown up". I remember gazing upon her perfectly crafted face, she was perfect. She had golden hair in perfectly formed curls, and the most brilliant blue eyes you could imagine. She was dressed from head-to-toe in Victorian fashion. I fell in love.
________________________________________________________________________________

You see, I have been collecting dolls since that day. One doll at a time, and over the last 22 years it has grown into a rather large collection of "My Heart On A Shelf". That doll from my Dad still holds a special place in my heart and in my collection.

I have been working on renovating The Doll Room for a while now. I had my babies housed in a small bedroom, but it had started to overflow into the rest of my house. So my husband and I decided that I could use the storage room/ 3/4 garage conversion, for my doll room if I cleared out the junk first.

I set to work ASAP. I cleared out the junk, sold what i could, donated what I could, and threw out the junk. It was a daunting task but I did it.

Then I had to repaint the walls. OH YES I said HAD TO! I am not kidding you there was no choice but to paint the walls, they were U-G-L-Y!!! The previous owners of our home, the ones who obviously made the garage conversion had chosen a horrible mustard yellow, no wait... that isn't the right description of the color. I think baby-poop-yellow is more accurate. The color made my head hurt and my eyes bleed. I can not say enough bad things about this color!  Anyway, I went and picked out the paint. I picked one for the walls and one for the trim. The color better fits a room "just for me". It is PURPLE. Medium purple walls with a very dark purple trim. The only part of the room that I did not paint is the ceiling and only because I loved the sky and clouds that were already painted there.

I hung some shelves and started working on displaying my collection. It was fun and coming along well

At this point, life got in the way, I lost motivation and took a break. (Big Mistake!)

My room then became a collect-all for junk around the house again. If it couldn't find a place to be, it found its way into my doll room. Although I hate to admit it, it was AWFUL. I could not show anyone my collection due to the mess in there. I couldn't escape into my room because it was an overwhelming clutter and disarray. I sunk into a "doll room depression" it was bad, real bad. I didn't even look into buying a new doll for a whole YEAR. Seriously, that is so not like me.

After a time I finally got up the courage to tackle the mess that had consumed my room. (remember I said 2013 is about starting over?) I started off slowly by donating the junk that did not have a place to be stored outside of my room. It took about 3 full days to clear out all the unwanted and un-needed clutter. I even went through my crafting totes and got rid of a bunch of stuff. All total I threw out 3 garbage bags of junk, donated 3 boxes of stuff and cleared out/ downsized 6 totes.

I am still working on building and installing more shelves. I am also attempting my very first furniture repaint. (I will post about that at another time.) I am proud of the work That I have put into it since the beginning of the process. Even-though the room is still very much a "work in progress" I can finally have people see my collection, and more importantly I have a place where I can escape my day-to-day life and spend time in creativity and solitude.

Here are a few pics of what it looks like today...

This is the Barbie/ Crafting Area 

The View From The Front Door

And The Porcelain Doll/ Cabbage Patch side.

Like I said it is still a work in progress but I am very pleased.

Starting Over (Again)

I have decided that 2013 is the year for starting over.

I am starting over on my home. I am going to be redecorating and remodeling my house this year (within my budget of course.) I am tired of looking at all the outdated mess! I am tired of being unorganized and clutter-filled. It is time to start over!

I am starting over on Homeschooling. I am going to focus more on the love of learning this year. Instead of cramming information down my children's throats and causing them to loathe school, I am going to provide them with the environment in which to learn. I am hoping to take them lots of places this year and use every adventure as a chance to learn and grow.

I am starting over on my relationship with My Husband. I love him so much and often wonder if I show him just how much I do. This year I am going to focus more on showing him. I am going to explore creative ideas  relating to expressing my Love and appreciation. I am going to focus on "falling in love" with him again and again.

I am starting over on my approach to the world. I have recently come to the realization that I can come across in an unintended fashion. Especially when I am nervous and/or frustrated. I am going to work on recognizing these times and stopping them before they start. I don't want people to make assumptions about me without having a just cause.

As you can see I am working on starting over in a lot of areas. I have come a long way since the early part of my marriage but I think (like most people) I have fallen into a rut. I need to be motivated and inspired to keep improving and moving forward.

So with all that said, I am looking forward to the journey that 2013 holds for my family and I.