Laundry Sucks!

There are a lot of things I love to do; crochet, watch movies with my husband, drink coffee (that should have been first), play at the park (well, I like to take my kids to play at the park, I like to sit and talk to my mom friends...while drinking coffee), and many many more relaxing activities. However, the one thing that would NEVER make this list is doing the laundry. I despise the laundry, if "hate" was a word I used (and it's not because it's not nice) then I would say I h&$# laundry. In an effort to motivate myself to be better about keeping up with the laundry I decided to make my laundry room a little prettier. Here's what I was working with...

View as you walk in the door. Lovely.

"Folding table" (yeah right) 

This space is across from the folding table. It's a little awkward, but nice for extra storage, which i was taking full advantage of!

 So, first of all no judging (I'm doing enough of that for the both of us!) And second, although it wasn't much different from this, I did take these photos as I was starting to clear things out. I know, I'm totally making excuses for myself. It's horrible. I admit it. Lastly, before we get to the after (and I feel a bit redeemed), we painted the walls when we first moved in. I wanted something bright and cheerful and man oh man did we get it!! I was between two paint colors and decided to jump right in and go for the brighter one. Once it was painted I immediately regretted my decision ("milk was a bad choice!" Will Ferrell fans anyone? No? Okay, moving on). It took a little while for me to get used to it, and to stop closing the door when I walked by! Okay on to the "Afters"...

Much better, right?

I bought a tablecloth at Ross and cut it up and hung it on a tension rod. I didn't take a picture of what the curtain is hiding because then you'd go back to judging me.

Bought a little hangy thing (technical name) to put my mops and brooms on.  

Anyone else just LOVE Hobby Lobby's 80% aisle?! It's great! I got the little laundry sign, the tray and the little white board for under $10. The wreath was also from Hobby Lobby, 50% off, so it was like $4, maybe less. The two jars were from Ross, I paid $6 for the both of them and the shelf I got from Goodwill. It was $4.99 and I painted it white with some leftover paint in the garage.

Of all the things in this room the tablecloth turned "hide our crap" cover is my favorite!  I used the other side of the tablecloth, cut some holes in the top and tied it with twine to our Laundry Caddy. It's great because this sits right next to the door, so even if the laundry door is open, you're not staring at all our dirty clothes!

So, in full disclosure I feel like I need to tell you that the prettier laundry room only "kind of" helps motivate me to do laundry; I still "h" word it most of the time. And I totally cleaned up the room before I took these photos...just so we're honest with one another. 

It's been TOO long!

I have this tendency to ignore things I know I should do but don't want to think about (not a great personality trait when comes to things like PAYING BILLS!) This blog, unfortunately, became one of those things. It has been months people! Months!! Now some of that time is for totally valid reasons (and to validate myself I am going to list them for you now.) First, we traveled a lot towards the end of summer and into the fall. My sweet brother-in-law got married so we were flying back and forth to Colorado for bridal showers, bachelor parties and the wedding. Then the unthinkable happened...the computer BROKE! It was awful. After weeks of fixing it and then breaking again, fixing and then breaking, I finally took it to the computer repair shop and they proceeded to keep it for TEN weeks! TEN! And then at the end of those ten weeks, they still hadn't fixed it! Anyway, (and I promise this not-so-interesting story will be over soon), we finally took it to the Apple store where they fixed it for free and in about an hour. So, we've had it back for about 4 weeks and I have spent a considerable amount of time working on New Millie and "pinning" everything on Pinterest. But it's time friends. It's time to get my little act in gear with my blog. SO welcome back! Here are some things that have happened:

This is the nap mat I made for Harper. (She asked me the NIGHT before the first day of school to make it and being already emotional about sending my kids to Preschool, I agreed. I was up very late.)

Crazy Girl and Sweet Boy on their first day of school! Look at them with their backpacks!

During one of our visits to Colorado Daddy took Luke to his first Baseball Game (Go Rockies!) He loved the game and the Hot Dog!

 My Sweet Boy got his first hair cut.

Strawberry Shortcake and Superman ready for trick-or-treating. (Note to self: do not wait until the day before Halloween to find a costume because you think you will be the only person who procrastinated. Because you will end up buying your daughter a costume that is too small and picking up a costume for your son that was laying on the floor and praying the whole time in line that the actual owner of said costume does not come and rip it from your procrastinating fingers.)

 Luke busted his head open on a window. This trauma could have a whole post dedicated to it but I'll spare you the details and just give you the facts: It bled A LOT,  he ended up getting a ton of stitches, but we gave him (and mama) chocolate and he (we) felt better.

We celebrated Christmas at home. And we have like 84 videos of it and only 2 photos. So, sorry it's not great!

Harper had her first sleepover with her best friend Lorelai. (Another note to self: just because two 4 year olds stay up until midnight, that does not mean they will sleep in the next day. They will actually get up at the exact same time they always do and then be emotional messes for the next two days.)

Ok there's the run down! This is hopefully the start of a more consistent blog life.

Come by soon and see what I did with this atrocity!

EMBARRASSING!

Crazy Girl Gets a New (well, updated) Room

So here, as promised, are the "after" pictures of The Crazy Girl's room. We still have a few things to do, which I will tell you about along the way, but this is what we have so far!

Also, let me say this re-do was a desperate attempt to get my extremely headstrong girl to stay in her room and LEVE ME ALONE in the middle of the night and early morning. Apparently, however, she can not be bribed, and continues to wake me up. Boo.

So, let's just remind ourselves of the before. And, yes, I did leave the bed unmade on purpose!

 Harper's bed before was really high (another failed attempt to get her to stay in the bed.) I took off the box spring, so the bed sits much lower and you can really see her pretty bed frame (which is from IKEA by the way.)

 I had this "Harper" banner I had made left over from her birthday party and decided to tie it to the headboard. It was either that or Harper was going to have a butterfly and flower birthday party for the next five years so I could re-use that banner! It took a long time.

 

The frames above her bed I got from Target on clearance. They were $1.74 each! Go Target! I had some leftover fabric from who knows what (I am kind of addicted to buying fabric for projects that I will probably not do and then later use that fabric for something totally different.) I simply used some photo spray adhesive to the glass and then stretched the fabric over. Super easy. I thought about crocheting some flowers to glue on but decided I liked them without anything.

This bookshelf was just plain white until I mod podged some bright pink tissue paper to the back. (I'll post that tutorial later, although I pretty much just explained everything you would need to do.) The "H" was just a chipboard letter I also mod podged tissue paper to and then hot glued it to an 8x10 canvas I covered in fabric. Harper wanted me to tell you that the owls' names are Penny and Joy and she loves them.

 I loved the canopy Harper had over her bed before (another IKEA buy), so I decided to keep it in the same place and make it into a little reading corner. Crazy Girl LOVES to read!

 The canopy was just a sheer, so I hot glued some turquoise flower and butterfly ribbon I had bought for Harper's birthday party and then never used. (I got it out of Michael's $1 bin.)

 Can you see my Sweet Boy crying in the mirror? His sister wouldn't let him sit in her new reading spot.

Crazy Girl got this sweet bow holder from her favorite Sunday School teacher, Miss Dee! It works perfectly in her room!

I made these photo frames for Harper's last room. It was simply square pieces of cork that I bought at CVS in a four pack (yes, I said CVS) and then layered with scrapbook paper and a black and white photo (which needs to be updated) and then two button sewn on with twine.

So here is where some updating needs to happen. I am going to change out the knobs on the Dresser and I would like to paint and antique the mirror...I am thinking a green or aqua color. I would like to do the same thing with the dresser but it's a pretty cheaply made piece and I'm not sure what it could handle.

The letters were Hobby Lobby and I just hot glued some buttons on them (I love me some hot glue!)

LOVE this sign! Found it at Hobby Lobby in there 66% off aisle (I also love me some Hobby Lobby!)

This cabinet is actually from the Hot Doc's college apartment. I hated the glass front so I backed it with some fabric (hides a mess well!) The butterflies were more leftovers from Harper's birthday party that I tacked on the wall.

I love the flower's hanging in the corner, one of my favorite parts. 

So, there has been big debate in my house over the paint color of this room. I was wanting to keep it kind of gender neutral, since when we have another baby (no, we are not pregnant, and we probably won't be pregnant soon...well not too soon, but we hope to be blessed with at least one more baby while living in this house and) I would like Harper and Luke to share a room. However, some very persistent girl has decided she wants pink and one head over heels daddy has said to "give her what she wants," so...

I love the idea of these wide horizontal stripes. Do you think all the way around the room would be too much? Maybe just on the "headboard wall"? I kind of love the idea of breaking up the pink...

This is Martha Stewart "Carnation." We have used Martha in the other painted rooms in our house and love how it turns out. If we decided to do stripes I think this is the color we would use...maybe... 

Here is my dream room for Harper! LOVE the lamps! Enlarge the picture if you can't see them well, they are so cute! I also adore this pink. I think if we do the ENTIRE room one shade this might be it, although I have no idea what color this is...

They made me take this picture. What you can't hear is both of them saying "cheeeeeeeeese!" And why Crazy is holding Sweet's head like that, I have no idea. They literally make me laugh out loud everyday.

Hope you enjoyed the "progress" pictures. I'll post again once the room is painted, which will be soon...I promise! Anyone have an opinion; stripes or one all over color? What to do?

Just a Little "Appe-teaser"

A lot of projects are in the works over here! Here is a little of what's going on, and a couple "before" shots to keep you on your cute little toes!

First, check out new items (like the one below) on the New Millie page.

Flower Headband with Lace and Fabric

Go to The (Almost) Organized Life page to get your complete weekly cleaning schedule. And not to get too crazy, but get ready for the ZONE cleaning schedule coming soon...Look out!

Okay, get ready for some tempting "before" pictures comin' at you!

Harper's Room Re-do

Bookcase Makeover 

Antique Store Buy meets Chalkboard Paint

And, what has made this little man so dirty and happy?

Come back soon to check out the "afters." Like really soon. Like maybe tomorrow.

Home Sweet Home

Hi! Welcome to This Homemade Life! So excited you're here and reading this! (You can tell how excited I am by the over use of exclamation points!!!) If you want to find out more about us, or why this blog came to be please head over to "About This Homemade Life."

And, If you would like to see any items I have made or that I sell in my etsy shop please stop by the New Millie page.

Okay, okay, enough of that, let's start this thing! (More exclamation points)

I thought I would begin by showing a few pictures of our previous little house in St. Louis:

 Cute right? Yeah, I got a little sentimental looking through the photos. This is the first house the Doc and I bought together. Both our kids came home from the hospital to this house. MANY projects were completed in this house. It had a lot of charm and about 85 years of character! While it was "neat" to have stained glass windows in the living and dining room, and beautiful refinished hardwood floors throughout, it also barely had any closet space and the bathroom was pink (no, no, not painted pink. It had pink tile, a pink bathtub, a pink sink and a pink TOLIET! it was upsetting.) There were leaks in the basement, it had virtually no insulation and if you set a ball at the beginning of the hallway it would roll all the way through the kitchen. Needless to say we were super excited when we moved to Pearland, Texas and had the opportunity to buy this:

A brand-new, never been used home! (Side note: please excuse the white interior door on the front and the trash can and no landscaping, this was before the house was finished.) However, now we have a new challenge (read: Steph has a new challenge) to make this builder beige house into something with charm and character. We have been here about 7 months, and while furniture is in and some things are hung up (granted not all frames have photos in them) it's still lacking some greatness, and every home NEEDS some greatness.

So, on a very tight budget I'm trying to make our house special. I started with crazy girl's room. I'll post those pictures and story soon. So get pumped and come on back to check it out!