The miracle that is spray paint ...

I've known for years that a can of spray paint can transform just about any mundane object into a chic display piece, but it's been at least a couple of years since I put that knowledge to good use.  I chalk it up to laziness, but recently I've been inspired by the bevvy of great blog postings about this neat little trick.

For example, the good folks at Young House Love are always transforming some thrift store find into a Jonathan Adler knock-off for only a couple bucks!  Check out the hideous frog they transformed into something I covet in Something Crazy Happened, one of many of their postings about the wonders spray paint.

Another blog I recently stumbled upon, Pure and Noble Blogspot, shows a really clever technique for combining puffy paint (or hot glue) and spray paint with beautiful results (below).  Check out that posting here.

So armed with my new enthusiasm and inspiration I trekked down to my local Goodwill store and was delighted to find a pair of solid metal candle holders for $3.99 each (below).

 They reminded me of the ZGallerie antler candle holders that I'm slightly obsessed right now (below)!

I picked up some cheap-o metalic silver spray paint from Walmart and set about transforming my found objects with an aim to use them in my Christmas decor or tablescape. 

Mid-painting. 

And voila, the finished product!!  I think they'll look excellent topped with white candles or even some ornaments!  Stay tuned to see how they work in my future posting on Christmas decor and, until next time friends, goodbye! 

 

The BEST Basic Crepe Recipe

We eat eggs almost every single day, usually scrambled, but sometimes fried or poached.  Today I decided to get creative and try something different - crepes. 

Crepes aren't actually new to me.  I've been eating them for years, especially when I'm around my sister, Deanna, the crepe Queen!!  And I've made them a few times myself as well, when we were in France with Chris' family, for example, and had limited baking ingredients at the house we were renting.  I've made them with some success, but had never landed upon a fabulous crepe recipe ... until today!!!

I found a basic crepe recipe from AllRecipes.com and only tweaked it slightly to create perfect crepes.  You can find the recipe here.  The one thing I changed was to add an extra 1/4 cup of milk, as I thought the recipe was a bit thick and needed to be more runny to swirl easily and cover the circumference of the pan.

I sliced some bananas and smeared on some yummy Nutella and viola - a delicious breakfast treat!

I got this picture from CrumblyCookie.net and of course this is exactly what mine looked like :).   

Cute as can be customized DIY onesies

One of the girls in my mommy group is expecting her second, a baby boy to be named Henry, any day now so I wanted to make something special for her (or him actually!). 

I had a trio of brand new onesies in a pack so I decided to customize them for baby Henry.  I thought a mustache would be cute, plus an 'H' for Henry, and a German Shepherd because that is the family pet (and apparently the bain of my poor friend's existence due to incessant barking and shedding!). 

Here they are ...

And a close up of each of them ...

The process was easy.  I found images using Yahoo image search and printed them onto cardstock (regular paper would work too).  I then cut out the shapes and traced them onto 'Wonder Under' (about $1.50/yard at Walmart).  After that I ironed the Wonder Under shapes onto fabric, which I got for around $4.00 per yard at Walmart.  Next I cut them out, peeled the backing, and ironed them onto the onesies.  Then I used a small zigzag stitch on my sewing machine to stitch around each shape.   

Here's a great tutorial with detailed steps for creating your own customized onesies using a similar method to the one I used from the Small Fry and Co Blog.

Happy crafting my friends!

FlyLady's 31 Day Plan

Recently I discovered an amazing website, http://www.flylady.net/, whose goal is to help us create and then maintain clean and efficiently run households!  I have been struggling for months with creating (and sticking to) weekly routines, checklists, etc to help me manage my home, and this website offers a wealth of tips and templates for these activities. 

I've only spent an hour or so reading through the website's wealth of information, but have already become inspired to sign onto their 31 day challenge for 'baby fliers', as they call those of us just starting out in the arena of serious household management! 

Day 1 tells me to 'shine my sink' ... sounds easy enough, right?  So here I go, off to shine my sink and discover whether a squeeky clean kitchen sink actually is the beginning of household bliss.  I'll keep you posted. 

And check out FlyLady's "31 Beginner Babysteps" yourself to see if this is something you'd like to to do with me in month of November.  If you can push past the cheesy 1980's graphics, I think you will find a lot of good knowledge to glean from this site. 

Happy middle-of-the-week, friends :).

Small Changes Challenge Part II

First of all, yesterday was Halloween so I thought I'd share a few pics from our holiday.  The first was taken outside our friend's costume party on Saturday night.  We went as Grandma, the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood.

Clearly Lily was very frightened of the Big Bad Wolf ;)

Here she is looking so much the part with her little basket and hooded cape.  I made her costume and was really pleased with the results.

And now moving on to the main point of this posting, another 'Small Change Challenge' for the month of November.

As I mentioned in my first post Small Changes Challenge, I have decided to focus on achieving one small positive change each month.  They say to set yourself reasonable goals and I think one small change a month is surely doable, right?  They also say it takes 30 days to break a habit or create a new good habit, hence my decision to change one thing each month. 

The idea originally came from my decision in September to cut out all weekday drinking of alcoholic beverages.  I saw such positive results that I decided to keep my momentum going by determining to always remove items from my car in the month of October.  Well, October came to a close last night and I can happily say that my car has remained much cleaner (if a bit less than immaculate) since my adoption of this small change!

November's small change challenge will be ... drum roll please ... to read at least one Bible verse every single day.  I have both a Bible and a devotional book sitting beside my bed, so there is absolutely no reason I can't read one verse (or one devotional) before bed each night!  I had a Sunday school teacher growing up (Velma 'Mama' Hartung, God rest her soul) who always said, "Read your Bible every day, even if it's just one verse."  So this one's for you, Mama Hartung.

I'd love to hear what small change you are working on in your life right now!  Happy November, friends, let's make it count!!