No Sew Curtains Under $15!

I recently got a box of goodies from my parents and memom and in that box was yards upon yards of the most beautiful lace. Memom had cleaned out some of her old scraps and kindly decided to ship it to me!!! I was like a fat kid in a candy shop opening that box, ogling over all the beautiful material and thinking about what I could do with it. As you can see it was put to good use on a cost effective/much needed window treatment. I spend a good amount of time in the kitchen and I was getting tired of looking out this drab window that made me feel like I was in an institution. Don't get me wrong I'm thankful for this heavy duty beast of a window considering we've had two earth quakes since I've been here and we're currently in typhoon season, but it definitely needed a feminine touch.

I didn't want to spend much on this window treatment. We move at least every 3 years and who knows what size windows my next dwelling place will have? So I found some long curtain sheer panels on sale for $7 at our local Base Exchange and also picked up a tension rod for a whopping $5. I measured out the panels and divided them into 3 sections. The measurements were 18'', 14'' and 10''. 

I then used Stitch Witchery (love this stuff) to secure each layer. The 10'' is obviously in front, then the I attached the 14'' to the back of it and the 18'' was last. It was a bit tedious but easier than sewing  it (I'm not an expert sewer) considering the material likes to slide all over the place. 

Then I measured out my lace and used Stitch Witchery to attach it to each of the three layers. I also left a little excess at the each end and folded it behind each section and secured it to the back of the curtain sheer for a clean line.

Then all that was left was to put up my new, cost effective window treatment and watch as it brought some life and warmth to a drab place. Enjoy!

What's for dinner?

With Robert's arrival less than a month away, I've been thinking about several things that are going to change when he gets home. I'll have to stop watching movies on my laptop in bed every night,  I'll also have to start sleeping on my side of the bed, and a big one is the cooking. I definitely cook less and smaller portions when he's not around. I've never been great at planning out meals for the week, but this is my crafty attempt at making it more fun!

I'm recently obsessed with making picture frames into dry erase boards...so this fit perfectly into my current need. I designed this simple background and printed it out on my little Canon computer printer. Then framed it up! Now I'm all ready to start planning out my daily meals.

If you would like to create one of these it's really simple. The picture frame is an 8x10. I will actually email you the design I created and you can print out your own! It prints out as 8.5x11 and you just have to trim it down. All I ask is that you follow my blog and shoot me a quick email or facebook message and I'll get a high resolution file of the What's For Dinner Planner to you! Enjoy...

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!

No this post has nothing to do with peas or lemons or squeezing really, but I saw that phrase on another blog this week and it's been stuck in my head! This post does involve the word easy. Above is my desk area in our office/extra guest room/craft room. I love this area of our house, which I guess is a good thing since I spend a great deal of time here. I think it's important to have a cozy area like this especially when you work from home! The newest addition to this wall is my to do list.

I found this super cheap picture frame that was once a hideous color and spray painted it this amazing orange!!! 

Yes, I put notebook paper as my background...I like straight lines when writing and if I don't have them my words always drift upward.

I wanted a little extra punch of color so I added this cut out from some amazing scrapbook paper I got from my sister-in-law...thanks Jamie...I love it!

Also some other fun facts about my desk: Starting on the left, that's a picture my three best friends from my wedding day, given to me by one of them. The framed flower is a watercolor painting that Robert picked up for me while we were engaged in all his worldly travels. The orange wire folder holder is from my great grandparent's old grocery store...thanks memom! Last but not least is my Starbuck's city mug from Pattaya...thanks amazing hubby! By the way I collect these mugs :D (cough, cough)

So there you go...easy peasy lemon squeezy. Enjoy...

Finishing Touches Are For the Birds!

I'm approaching the 4 month mark of living in Okinawa! I was teasing Robert the other day that by the time he got back I would have been here longer without him than with him...haha! I think that's the story of many wives here on the island (or any base), except their time encompasses much more than mine. In those four months, I have been quite busy making our house apartment a home. If you know me pretty well, you know that I constantly add or rearrange things until I'm satisfied. There's no such thing as finishing touches in my book, but I think I'm getting close!

I finally have our bedroom exactly almost how I want it. It took awhile and I still have a few things left...like that open wall to the right of bed, I'm thinking a collage of random frames filled with photos and random art...I let you know how it turns out. I still have a full length mirror that looks very blah and needs to be hung somewhere, I keep putting it off....oops. After all the work on the bedroom one of my favorite things about it are the birds.

In reality I hate birds. I have extremely bad luck when it comes to them. Seriously, three stories come to mind...

Exhibit A: I have been pooped on three times...all of those instances it got in my hair. One of the times I was actually running...that's efficient aim if you ask me!

Exhibit B: I've also been attacked...seriously. When I was in college working on campus over the summer, a bird swooped down at my head and it must have had some depth perception problem or it was extremely vindictive because its little claw got caught all in my hair. I was in an outdoor stairwell screaming my head off and throwing all the files I had in my hand everywhere. I don't know who was more freaked out me or the bird or the person walking up the stairs...probably the latter of the three.

Exhibit C: I also ran into a peacock in Hawaii, literally turned around ran right into it. I said I was sorry and made my way to the bathroom. When I opened my stall to go wash my hands it was standing right in front on my stall. Even though I insisted it, "shoo! shooo!" it didn't budge. So I settled for instant hand sanitizer and ran out of that bathroom. Poor Robert had no clue why I was so freaked out. When I explained the peacock followed me into the bathroom and was taunting me, he probably thought I'd been out in the sun too long that day.

As you can see, birds and I have never quite figured out how to coexist in peace on this very large earth. Even though in reality we have a mutual hate for each other, I just love the way their silhouettes look on my walls. I am quite proud of how they turned out!

They were very easy to make. I sketched the outline of the bird on scrapbook paper and then cut it out with an exacto knife (once again...my solution for everything these days). Then I framed them in some super cheap frames I picked up at the store and painted white. The background is actually some old wrapping paper that I had on hand with a subtle texture. Just goes to show you can make fun creations for under $10! Enjoy and watch out for birds (Hitchcock was one to something, I think we're kindred spirits).

Sweet Irony

WARNING: This blog post will contain at least three stories to tell one story. The good news is there's an interesting tid bit at the end!

Story #1: Robertisms:
My lovely husband has some Robertisms that he's aquired over the years. A few examples would be:
A. "Control your offspring" whenever we see an insane child reeking havoc, it never fails that he will say this under his breath...if I'm lucky...sometimes it a little louder. Movie theaters have been a great source for this Robertism.
B. "Liars go to hell" I'll never forget sitting in our current church here in Oki, it was probably our 2nd or 3rd week there and our pastor used this phrase. Robert grabbed my leg and looked at me wide-eyed and grinning ear to ear and said, "I like him!" It took everything with in me not to bust out laughing in the middle of the sermon.
C. "You know, this would be good over rice." God bless my husband, he was born and raised in Louisiana and it shows through and through. Any time I make a new dish, doesn't matter what it is, I hear this phrase. Seriously, stew, pork chops, chicken, beef, turkey...it's always the same. It's become a running joke around the White house.

Story #2: Susan's Creation
I grew up in Denison, TX and one of my mom's best friends was and is Susan. Susan, who had just moved to TX from LA, was an amazing cook and quite crafty lady. One of her lovely creations that's still around my parents' house today is the "sock 'o rice." Seriously, it's a sock filled with rice. To anyone else this is a waist of food and clothing...to us it's a heating pad! Once again...I'm serious. Put rice in a sock, sew up both ends, pop it in the microwave and you have homemade heating pad! Warning, your heating pad will smell like rice...crazy, I know. My parent's still use this. Anyone who works with my mom can attest, they can walk into the office and tell you if she's having back trouble by the smell of the room.

Story #3: New Isn't Always Good
I've been getting up at 4:30 am for the past several months and hitting the gym! There's a group of girls that I usually go with and most days I go to this amazing spin class. I come out about an hour later dripping in sweat and feeling extremely productive and energized for the day...don't ask me how! This week, we got a new instructor. I'm sure he was sent to be the death of me. Day one, RESISTANCE, MORE RESISTANCE, EVEN MORE RESISTANCE, LET'S ADD MORE RESISTANCE AND SPRINT!!!! Needless to say my knee was killing me after this insane workout. Day two was better and had less resistance but it went something like this: RESISTANCE, SPRINT, MORE SPRINT, EVEN MORE SPRINT, NOW HOVER, HOVER SOME MORE, GET YOUR BUTT BACK and HOVERRRRRRR! GET YOUR BUTT BACK FURTHER and HOVERRRRRR SOME MORE! Let me tell you, I don't know where the heck he wanted me to put my butt...it couldn't go any further back without detaching from my body! He kept shouting FORM, IT'S ALL ABOUT FORMMMM! He's a yeller if you couldn't tell. It was a great work out, but my knee and back had just about had it. I made it home, iced my worn-out little self, and hopped in the shower. As luck would have it as I was drying my hair, I flipped my head upside down like I've done my entire life and every muscle in back decided to seize. It sent me to floor immediately and there I said for a bit contemplating my situation. The thoughts running through my head were things like, "I'm stuck, my apartment door's locked, i'm in a towel, i'm stuck, no one has a key to my apt door except robert, robert's in indonesia, i'm stuck, maybe i can crawl to the couch." I made it to the couch and was smart enough to grab my phone on the way. I laid there for about an hour and my back finally started to untwist itself. I knew that once I was able to get up, I should grab a heating pad and just relax for a bit.

The Final Story: Sweet Irony
Turns out our heating pad didn't get packed in the things to bring to Oki box...oops! I was in so much pain by evening I knew I couldn't get out and buy one. I thought about soaking in a hot bath, but decided that the probability of getting myself out of that hot bath was slim to none. Finally, a fantastic idea came to mind...I have socks and I have rice! I ran hobbled to Robert's drawer (his socks are much larger than mine) and pulled out the biggest, oldest looking sock I could find. Then I ran hobbled to the kitchen and dumped all the rice I had left into his sock, sewed it up on both ends, popped it in the microwave and then went to bed and placed it under my back. As I lie there, looking up at the ceiling...all these stories flooded to my head. There is was lying over cooked rice and it was the happiest I had been all day long. So Robert, baby you're right...I wish I would've realized earlier that "this would be really good over rice."

Later on when I have more time, I think these would be great presents if I bought some really cute socks!

The following are some pics of my new best friend:

Lost Cause Lamp Shade

I have to apologize because I didn't take pictures of the process that it took to get to this lamp shade...oops! Honestly, the entire time I was thinking, "I hate this, this is going to be so horribly ugly." You may still be thinking that, but I definitely like how it turned out! I can give you the details of how I made this and that will have to suffice. What started this whole thing what our move to Okinawa. We unpacked our boxes that had traveled so far and found two extremely crushed lamp shades, too far gone to try and salvage. For any of you that have ever shopped at a base exchange of any kind you know that when it comes to things like this it's slim pickins. It also turns out that most of the lamp shades I found out in town weren't conducive to my lovely American lamp (thank you Target). Thus began my journey to create the perfect lampshade.

At first I went ahead and bought a lamp shade at the local base exchange. That was a mistake. I got it home and ran to my little lamp posts and turns out the American lamp shade from the base exchange wasn't conducive with my American lamp (thank you Target). Also, I didn't realize that my lamp was a little smaller than most, so my lamp looked like it was playing "dress up" with it's mom's lamp shade, ridiculous! So I had no choice...I pulled out my exacto knife (that's my newest solution to the world's problems...we'll see if it overtakes spray paint). I cut away at the huge, oversized and quite ugly lamp shade and made some a bit smaller and much more fitting to my little lamp stand. The material is actually an old skirt that I retired a few years back. It's just glued to the old lamp shade. I cut up an old white tshirt into circles to create the floral embellishments. You just fold the circles in half and then in half again and arrange as you want.

Last but not least I found this great button. I think it came from the huge collection that my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas. I offset it and added some more floral embellishments around it too. I'll be honest, I was shocked with the finish product. It wasn't looking good for 3/4 of the project and I almost aborted the mission several times and wrote it off as a lost cause. I'm glad I stuck it out and am pleased with what now sits on my nightside shelf (I found that on etsy)! Enjoy!

Chair Repair

Ok, so it's not really a repair as much as a spray paint job, but "chair repair" had such a nice ring to it! I found this Ethan Allen chair (pictured below) sitting in a throw away pile in the foyer of my apartment building the other day and decided...I've got time on my hands...I might as well. So I grabbed it quickly and hopped on the elevator with my newest project.

The first thing I did was Lysol, the second thing I did was Lysol and then I whipped out the handy dandy spray paint (my solution to the world's problems). The funny thing is there's no great place to spray paint around my apartment, so I ended up doing on the balcony. I got a few funny looks. I was a little worried about my neighbors complaining about the fumes, but then again they blow smoke in my direction 24/7...literally. So I just spray painted my little heart out. 

I was very pleased with the result and it's now sitting by my side of the bed...I'll have to post some pictures of the bedroom next week. I'm almost finished! I couldn't be happier with my free chair that I updated with about $3 worth of spray paint! Enjoy...

Spruce Up An Old Box

I had this old nikon box that was perfect for my friend's little girl's birthday present. It's her very first birthday and so I made her gift. I'll have to share that next week because her birthday party isn't until next Sunday (sorry I can't make it Darla! I know it will be beautiful).

All you need is an old box, scrap book paper, exacto knife, mod podge, brush to apply the mod podge and a cutting mat.

Lay the box out flat and begin gluing the paper to the surface. I did one section at a time. Once it was glued down well and pretty dry, I flipped over the box and began cutting along the outline of the box.

Once you cover your surface area, you can mod podge the top of the scrap book paper. I covered the entire box with one good coat and that worked well for me. If you have lots of creases and folds like I did make sure you're gently with the paper so it doesn't rip.

Once every thing is completely dry, carefully fold your box back together. I placed Ella's little gift inside and then tied it together with some twine.

This once a useless, ugly box is now a great gift box!

We're Ready for Guests!

The final touches have been put on the guest bedroom, so all you guys and gals who are planning to visit...go ahead and book those tickets! The pic is of Robert's grandparents...love that shot.

And of course I had to add some chalk board flare. :D I'll post some pics of the entire room soon. Can't wait to have our first guests :D

Chalkboard Bliss!

I was tired of this large mirror that we had and decided it needed a change. My dear husband had a few presents waiting for me when I got to Okinawa and one of those was a can of....you guessed it.....chalkboard spray (ok, maybe you guessed something else)! I was ecstatic I've been wanting to jump on the chalkboard bandwagon for some time now.

As you can see, the best part was that the entire spray paint bottle was in Japanese. I asked Robert how he knew what he was buying? I shouldn't have been surprised by his answer, I have an app for that! He's a walking advertisement for Apple...love you baby.


I sprayed several coats of chalk board spray on my mirror. I would suggest if your mirror can be removed easily from the frame, that would be the easiest route. Dealing with tape on the frame is quite tedious and sometimes frustrating.


If you have any old picture frames laying around, these work great for this sort of thing because the glass is so easy to remove. Also make sure it's dried thoroughly before taking chalk to the freshly painted surface...that can get messy.


Once spray painted we decided to add our own little flare to it. Robert created the "W" in the center...yes, with chalk! He's so handy. My contribution was the paisley designs on the edges.


All in all I was thrilled with the end result. It's great when a project turns out even better than how you envisioned it in your head! Hope you enjoy....

Picture Frame Tray

I actually made this tray some time ago, but recently revamped it. I found this wonderful idea from the amazing Ashley Ann (I'm hopelessly addicted to her blog). It's a very simple and quick project. My frame was a $5 Walmart buy that I sprayed painted green (once again my solution to everything). I picked up the old, rustic handles in a consignment shop in Beaufort.

I recently decided my picture frame tray was in need of an update. When I was home in Texas I spent a couple of days going through tons of "treasures" w/my Memom. She ended up giving me all my Daddy Jack's service metals, dog tags, and paper work from his time in the Army.

Some of this dates back to 1940 and it contains two of my favorite pictures of my grandparents. One is of their wedding day and the other is them standing in front of an old car in the middle of a bridge and it's gorgeous!

I didn't want to put scrap paper as the background because it just didn't seem to fit. My solution was an old paper bag that I crumpled. I was so pleased with how this turned out!

I'm just so glad I found a great way to display these precious items that my Memom entrusted me with! Hope you enjoy :D

Accordion Style Coat Rack

Our guest bedroom is the last bedroom I have to get finished. In my defense we've been waiting on the double bed to be delivered and it just got here last week. To help liven up the beige walls I spruced up this accordion coat rack!

The picture above is what I started with. As you can see it basically would have blended in with my beige walls...yuck! So I whipped out a can of spray paint. By the way spray paint is the answer to any problem in my book. If you don't believe me ask my sister-in-law, we needed a pink fruit to decorate with for her wedding reception so what did I do....that's right....I spray painted apples bright pink! Ok, back the subject at hand...

After the spray paint had dried I folded the rack out to the specific size that I wanted the diamond shape in the middle. I then traced the shape onto one sheet of scrapbook paper.

I stapled my traced scrapbook square to the other pieces of scrapbook paper that I wanted to use and cut out my diamond shapes. (I prefer to use an exacto knife, but scissors will do the job just fine too). Then all that's left is hot gluing the scrapbook paper to the back of the rack.

This was one of those quick and easy projects that really brightens up a wall. Hope you enjoy!