Our Changing Home

Thursday, March 21, 2013

A long time coming.

Levi and I have been together for close to six years.

We've been married for four of those years and nothing has changed.

We're still best friends and the most awkward people you'll ever have the pleasure of meeting.

He proposed to me on his 19th birthday. (Whaat? We're young.)

He was acting super strange all day and I was getting worried.

I would ask him what was going on and he wouldn't tell me anything.

I had a baby the size of a cantaloupe in my belly and I kept telling myself that

I didn't have time to deal with his weirdness, damnit!

He said he wanted to go to the park for his birthday and I reluctantly agreed.

( I was pregnant and walking long distances didn't seem like the best time.)

So before we got to the park, he bought me lunch.

Once we pulled into the park's parking lot I opened the center console to fit my

over-sized drink in there and when I did, I spotted a box.

I quickly closed the console and said "I think I found something I shouldn't have."

He looked at me with complete and utter disappointment and said "of course you did, I can't hide anything from you!" We both started laughing and over my pregnant belly and fried chicken in my lap, he asked me to marry him. After I said yes, he explained his plan to propose to me in the park.

Three months later, we had our baby girl. Three months after that, we were married in the courthouse surrounded by a few of our loved ones.

We were young, new parents and just figuring everything out.

But ever since he asked me to marry him, we planned to have a real wedding

on our 5th wedding anniversary.

Two weeks ago was our 4th wedding anniversary, which means we have less than a year to plan our wedding!

Two super-dorks, in love.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Kitchen cabinet upgrades part 1

First let me start off by saying that I've missed you.

I haven't been doing much crafting or decorating lately.

I'm sure you've noticed that I only blog when I've got something new to blog about.

(Which of course is the point of blogging.)

When it comes to finding furniture and all of the things that we like in our price range, it takes patience.

It may seem like we have lots old furniture and that we find everything for cheap.

However, that's not exactly the case.

We spend our free time at flea markets, yard sales and thrift stores.

Most of the time we don't find anything.

But there's those few times that we go and we find furniture gold.

I've got a lot of cool finds and furniture to show you, but I'll catch up on that later.

This post is about a simple home renovation that cost us less than $20.

I didn't really know anything about home renovations until I met my husband.

He's taught me so much and I like being able to share that with everyone.

So when we do something new to our house with our (non-existent) budget,

I hope that it will help others that can't exactly afford all of the extravagant furnishings.

I also hope that it inspires people to make their home whatever they want it to be.

It doesn't have to cost you a bunch of money to be nice!

Our home has changed very much over the years

but one of the few things that hasn't changed much has been the kitchen.

We've put off renovating the kitchen because we knew it would cost us

a pretty penny to do what we wanted to it.

I've never blogged about the kitchen because it's really nothing special.

It's got these off-white cabinets with white/gold knobs screwed into the center of each door.

You read that right, the center of each door.

What kind of dirtbag does that?

I mentioned here that we have 32 knobs in our kitchen to replace

and that new knobs and drawer pulls aren't cheap.

Well, they still aren't but I decided to do something about it anyway.

So my first step was to take off all hardware.

That's right, take all of those gold, good for nothing, visually unpleasing, butt-bending, knobs off.

Once all of those fart-knocking knobs were off, I sanded over the small holes.

My kitchen now looks like this.

That's pretty much where we're at right now.

We're living a life without kitchen hardware for the moment.

But I'll be back with updates before you know it.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Mia's Katy Perry Costume.

A few months ago, Mia told me that she wanted to be Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time for Halloween. Me, being the impulse buyer that I am, hopped on Etsy and scoured the site for the costume of my 3 year old's dreams. I bought it, it was shipped to me and Mia loved it... for a week. Levi and I also planned on being characters from Adventure Time too. But our plans were foiled. Mia loves Katy Perry or "Kerry Perry" as she used to call her. I think I might have even mentioned it on here how obsessed she is. So of course I should have known that once we bought the Katy Perry movie that she would change her mind.

No more Princess Bubblegum. "Mommy, you can sell that costume!" Is what she said. Because she wants to be Katy Perry. Of course I was upset that I wasted money on the other costume, but I was a little more mad at myself for the impulse purchase. So Levi and I told her she could be Katy Perry but she couldn't A) wear a cupcake bra or a bra with any other kind of sweet treats on it, or B) change her mind and want another costume. That's it! She can't change her mind again! If she doesn't want to be Katy Perry, tough titties!

Okay, so I didn't say tough titties to my daughter. Or did I?

Moving on to the construction of said Katy Perry costume.

I decided that she would wear the candy dot costume that Katy Perry wears in the California Gurls music video. Because it seemed the easiest.

I started out with two yards of felt that I bought at Walmart for $9.98

( I only needed one yard)

I measured Mia and cut the height and width to size. Which ended up being a big rectangle.

I hemmed the top and bottom.

Then I pinned the edges to the right side and sewed it into a big tube.

Next I made two mini tubes for the straps.

I pinned them to the outside of the dress and sewed them on.

Once that was done I turned my dress inside out and it was finished!

So easy, right?

The next step was adding the candy buttons to the straps.

All I did was hot glue them on.

The next part was the hardest part for me. The styrofoam balls.

I had no idea how to cut them in half!

I started with a huge kitchen knife, that stunk!

Then I moved onto an Exacto Knife. I thought heating it would make it easier but it just took more time.

(that explains the candle in the back)

It took a while but I finally had them all cut in half. Then I painted them with Acrylics, the thicker paints worked better for me. Those small pink ones took like 60 coats! (exaggerating!)

Last but not least, I measured them out precisely (no, I didn't) and glued them to the dress.

The outfit wasn't complete without some shoes!

I hot glued candy dots to some sparkly shoes that I bought for $8 at Walmart.

Here's my baby's final costume.

...and Katy Perry.

Let me point out that I'm not the best seamstress.

I have never attempted to make any kind of clothing before this.

So if it looks a little crooked and wonky in the photos, that's because it is.

But that's okay, it's a costume for my 3 year old and it didn't cost me too much.

How much you ask?

Let me break it down.

1 yard of fabric - $5

2 packs of balls- $8

Paints- $10

Candy- $4

Shoes- $8

= $35

Did I forget something? If I did let me know.

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I did making it.

Do you know what you're going to be for Halloween, yet?

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Decisions, decisions!

Hello there, I'm back randomly on a Thursday to give you a quick post.

I'm afraid I don't really have any new pictures to show you on account of I've been a little busy with things that would make for boring pictures.

Like my Etsy shop. It's been going pretty well.

We've been spending most of our weekends and any of my spare time on that.

Sorry, that's why I've neglected you.

We've also been working on changing our guest room into a class room.

Levi and I have recently decided that we're going to try out homeschooling Mimi.

We can't afford to send her to a private school of our choosing so we thought we'd

try to give her the next best option.

We thought we'd start with preschool to test it out.

If we decide it doesn't work out, she'll start kindergarten next year at a regular school.

I'm super excited. I've got her curriculum, the school room is almost done and we just need a few minor things and we'll be ready to start school at the end of August. (Which will be blogged later.)

Along with homeschooling, my shop, cooking breakfast lunch and dinner, laundry and picking up toys off of the floor, I started a DayZero list.

It is a list consisting of 101 goals you would like to accomplish in 1001 days.

I found the DayZero list from our BFF Bloggers Catharine and Derek.

Here is Catherine's very informative guide to the 101 things in 1001 days list.

I tried to base my list on things I would like to do to better myself and to include my family.

Here is my list:

100

101

There's my list.

There are a few silly ones like #44. Make bacon pancakes.

That one comes from Mia's new favorite show Adventure time.

I'll let the video do all of the explaining.

In addition to all of the other things I'll be doing, I will also have this list to finish in 999 more days. Wish me luck!

I've already completed #49 Blog this list and keep track online for accountability!

BAM! Let me cross that off!

I'll keep you updated on the progress along with homeschooling and the classroom.

Let me know if you start a list of your own, I'd love to see some of the ideas you have or if you want to help me complete some of mine!

It's time for me to get back to not cleaning, even though I know I should.

Farewell my loves.