DIY Anniversary gift - Simple and sweet!

I had quit the time trying to come up with a budget-friendly and meaningful anniversary gift for my hubs. He was planning me some elaborate (to me at least) weekend getaway and I had absolutely nothing planned for him! He said "make me something." So after some hunting around I found a few ideas. I couldn't really bring myself to do the ones I found... they just didn't sound right for us so back to the drawing board and my trusty blog website, www.childmade.com.

Here is what I found and who I credit the idea to...

http://wave-and-smile.blogspot.com/2011/08/free-project-is-my-favorite-kind.html

So here is what I did...

It encompassed everything that makes us who we are in a simple, elegant way that we can hang on our wall and share with others... PERFECT! 

What you see is my birthday, my husband's birthday, the day we started dating (a looong time ago in 10th grade!), our wedding date, the birth date of our beautiful Jaiden, and the date we found out we were pregnant with our 2nd baby that we miscarried. I also was sure to leave a little extra space for any future pregnancies/births.

For the original blogger, the project was free. For me, it wasn't but that's because I just didn't have anything handy to make it, so it cost me about $24.

I bought:

Photo frame

Piece of scrapbook paper

# stamps

Stamp pad

Brown ribbon I actually already had

I cut the paper down to fit the 8x10 frame. then laid out my stamps to see how to space them because of course once you start stamping you can't go back... and I didn't buy an extra sheet of paper. I made sure to write down all of the dates I wished to use so I would put them in the right order and not accidentally skip one. I did make a few booboos. I even stamped the wrong number on my last date but I just cut out a piece of scrap scrapbook paper and taped it down with the right number. From there I added the ribbon border with a little bit of hot glue. The ribbon is a little crooked but I just need to open the frame back up and adjust it.

I accompanied it with a note (that I bawled my eyes out writing) and gave it to my hubby on our anniversary night. Real men shed a few tears ;)

Be Inspired!

#5 Most viewed post of 2011
2011 In Review - 2012 So Much To Do!  

Phase I: Laminate flooring install - Beautiful Brazilian Cherry!

This last weekend hubby and I tackled what we thought might have honestly been the impossible. And that's funny seeing as how we were terrified to redo our kitchen! We started the laminate flooring install and are a little less than half way done with the entire house (all 630sq ft that we plan to cover)!! I can not begin to express to you how much I am in love with my new floors... they are so beautiful. And the best part is the nasty stained up Berber is OUT!

Here are a few things we used that I recommend you buy or borrow before you get started:

Flooring, of course! - we bought Home Legend Brazilian Cherry from HomeDepot.com for $.99/sqft

Underlayment appropriate for your subfloor type - We used Roberts 630 sq. ft. of Harmony Premium 3-in-1 Underlayment for Laminate and Wood Floors that I purchased from Amazon.com for half the price it is listed for at Home Depot. We have a wood subfloor.

Floor leveling compound appropriate for your subfloor type - We used a Henry brand self-mix bag. It was last minute when we realized a spot in the hallway was way too uneven to put flooring over. I had to trowel a bunch on to make a more level surface for the flooring to go over.

A laminate flooring pull bar and wall spacers - You can find that stuff in a kit for less than $20 that also comes with a tapping block. I highly recommend a 2x4 about maybe a foot long instead of the tapping block. We happened to use a scrap we had.

Door jamb saw - you may need this to cut those pesky door jambs for your flooring to fit under.

Rubber mallet

Table saw

Saw Zaw - This came in super handy for the vents.

T-molding for door ways

Quater round - If you are like me and do not remove the base boards prior to installation, quarter round will be necessary to cover the gap between the floor and the base board.

A bar of soap - Yes. A bar of soap. You would be amazed at how much that helped when we first got started. By running the soap along the edges of the tongues and grooves it allowed us to fit the pieces easier when we were working on the first few runs of the flooring. Good spur of the moment idea and I happened to have some Ivory on hand! 

Thursday my mom, Bryan and I did the fun part of emptying out and moving our large shrunk from the living room in to our bedroom. It was the only room in the house that we could fit the pieces. Downside = we couldn't sleep in our bed at all for the next 4 nights. 
(Keep in mind during this entire install process the couch had to be left in the room because of its size)
  Friday night we started ripping up carpet. It did sound easy at first (for a newbie)... almost fun. That is until you start to see those spike strips all around the edge of the wall, then pull up the padding and see all the staples you have to pluck from the floor. That was probably a 3 or so hour process with 2 people.

So Saturday the real fun began. Laying the underlayment, then just figuring out how to put the flooring down and get started...



As you can see, the guys (hubby and my mom's hubby) started to get the hang of it. You can also see where we only ripped up half the carpet. Once enough flooring was laid they were able to move the couch over and finish the de-carpeting process.


    
I had to work Saturday so didn't get to see past the first couple rows of laid flooring. Bryan was sure to send me little pic updates a few times which is mostly what you see above. When I got home later that evening this is what I saw:


Over the next two days, Bryan and I were able to complete the living room and hallway all by ourselves. I thought we made a fantastic team! We were cruising along, working through obstacles and minor problems that would come up. I really truly enjoyed our DIY time together.


Here is a vent hole we created. That was really a test of our brain and math skills lol. Thank the Lord for the Saw Zaw!



Bryan and the table saw. I really think he enjoyed using the power tools once he got the hang of them!


After 3 days of hard work laying the flooring we finally reached our finished product. What a relief it was to get our living room put back together! We still have 3 bedrooms to do but they will be a piece of cake and after seeing my living room complete I can not wait to get them done! 


Enjoy!



This is my cute "before" photo of the carpet. It's our little girl when she was 8 months old gnawing on an unopened can of caffeine free Coke :P





(Don't mind the creepy dog eyes)






Obviously there is still work to be done; quarter round in many many places is a biggy, painting (don't even get me started on the trim pain down the hallway... previous homeowners could use a knock upside the head for that one), and other little things here and there I can't think of. It wasn't a super easy project but overall it wasn't a complete pain. Once you get started it's not so bad. You really learn as you go, and although it might not be 100 perfect and beautiful, and there might be a few nicks here and there, I think doing it yourself vs paying someone $1-$3+ a square foot to install it for you is well worth the experience if you can shimmy in the time. We both work full time and had a toddler running around half the time!

Cube organizer on the wall - Laundry closet redo

I looked almost everywhere for a blog, website, tutorial, anything that would prove I could put my cube organizer on the wall... No luck. 

Obviously I didn't let it stop me, muwahaha!

I really needed to find a new home for it. Recently I got a bedroom set that once belonged to my Mamaw. The armoire wouldn't fit in Jaiden's room with the rest of the pieces so I decided to put it in the extra room. That meant the shelf had to go.

It sat for a couple of days until I decided I would go ahead and completely reorganize my laundry closet and find a way to get that sucker on the wall!





Yeaaahh, that's my nasty laundry closet. Of course at this point it has been emptied out. Before this it was a disorganized mess so believe it or not I did spare you some pain.


It took me about a day and a half total to finish it up. I had to putty old holes, clean up all the dust and lint, and paint. (Thank you to my friend Judy for selling me an entire unopened can of great quality paint for cheap!) Then I had to hang up the cube shelf. 
That was hilarious and I never want to do it on my own ever again.




I'm not 100% confident in the bracing of this shelf. I think my stud finder is out to kill me. Had much better luck knocking on the wall looking for studs after I had already screwed a gazillion holes everywhere. Argh! So only a few of the brackets are actually in studs. 

The rest of the weight is supported by a lot of prayers and the arms of the wall shelf that was already there!

A little tugging on it did seem to prove fairly safe :\



This is to the left of the dryer. There are two shelves. The top shelf reusable bags, my Hefty & Ziploc bag collection, as well as some bread for now. The bottom shelfs holds all of my paint cans. 

After I got everything in there I realized it needed to be covered. It just looked so cluttered. There is a water softener system and water heater back there.  
(I used hooks screwed in to the top shelf and a leftover piece of quarter round, of all things, to fit across as a make-shift curtain rod.)



Just some Dollar Tree fabric cubes I used to organize little things.

Now instead of having junk piled on top of the washer and dryer making it more difficult and annoying to do laundry, I have everything organized with a home and it only cost me about $30 for the paint, Dollar Tree cubes, and wall brackets!!


Be Inspired!

#2 Most viewed post of 2011
2011 In Review - 2012 So Much To Do!
Linked:

The Wise Woman

My handsome husband & I 
September 2010

Last September my husband and I joined our new church after about a month or two of attending. It truly has been an incredible blessing to our family, our spiritual growth, and our spiritual strength! We hit a rough patch in our lives and our marriage last year before we joined that was a complete eye opener. (It was important for us to get right with God before we committed to joining a church and the whole situation was a testimony to how God's timing is always the right timing!) I'm not going to share every little story or problem we encountered, it's a private thing and we all should keep our private lives private, but please heed my advice. I do give it with love and a little smidgen of experience! What I will say is it's simply amazing how disobeying the Lord can tear you apart piece by piece while simultaneously tearing apart your home. Proverbs 14:1 tells us "Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands." I was doing just that; foolishly, selfishly plucking my house down one brick at a time, letting the devil sneak right through the threshold of my front door to freely roam.

I am a true believer that a wife should reverence her husband, build him up, and show him you love him, always. Not easy to hear when WE THINK he's being less than perfect, not helping around the house, or working too much. I'm speaking from experience when I say criticism (even if you think it is constructive) and a bad attitude (even if it is not his fault.. just you having a lot of bad days) can and will slowly bring your husband down to a whittled twig that you casually and unknowingly step on during your daily walk. I'm not saying don't have a bad day. Your husband should be there for you on your bad days, but don't drag it out. It won't happen over night but give it 6 months, a year, 10 years. Eventually he will grow tired of your lack of respect and foolishness. Tell him you love him every day he walks in the door. Give him a hug and a kiss whenever you get the chance. Don't complain around him about anything that he has done wrong or failed to do. Focus on all the positive attributes, even if only a few, instead of the negative.... And watch him flourish knowing his wife loves him!!

When I look back on what is written above I can't help but think of my Mamaw, Daisy. What a beautiful example of a virtuous woman. I wasn't very proficient on Bible knowledge growing up but she was the light of my Papaw's life, and he hers. I never heard my Mamaw say an ill word to my Papaw. She always had a smile on her face and you could see the love they had shared for years was blossoming even in their frail and old age. When Mamaw passed away in May 2011, a year and a half after my Papaw passed, the preacher at her funeral said "If I could sum up the life of Sister Daisy it would be this verse.. "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." (Prov 31:10) He was so right. She was the most humble and virtuous woman I had ever known. An amazing example of a woman who merely wanted to please her Lord by pleasing her husband.


Mamaw and I at my wedding, September 9, 2006

In 2010 after joining our church my husband and I attended the annual Couple's Retreat hosted by Shawnee Baptist Church at their beautiful Indian Creek Baptist Camp, a ministry of the church. We made it a very serious and necessary point to go to the retreat. It was important to our marriage that we surround ourselves with Christian couples in an environment that would focus on marriage. What an incredible, and I mean IN-CRED-I-BLE blessing it was to us! During one sermon the preacher went verse by verse through 1 Corinthians 13, telling us about charity (Christian love). Here is a short post I published that has the verses listed for quick reference if you wish: How do you describe love...

There was a period during the first evening that the ladies and men got separated so the preacher's wife could speak to us, and the preacher speak to the men. That was a wonderful blessing also (speaking from my experience... hubby said he thoroughly enjoyed the men's part but I can't speak too much for him)... Just to hear her personal story and her wisdom and advice on how we can be better wives... could not have asked for more!

What I loved from last year was when I looked around, I knew that all of the couples have experienced a little, or even a lot, of turbulence. We have endured struggles of all sorts, arguments, fights, maybe separations, some even divorces, remarriages, learning to raise our children, not being able to have children... the list just goes on. What made it just a joyous fellowship was knowing that we were all children of God, saved by His grace and forgiven of our sins. What better way to spend two days out of your year, completely surrounded by Godly people who want nothing more than to please Him, and what better place to let it start than with our marriage. 

 

I just want to be a blessing to ladies around me. I'm young and learning my way through life and still have a lot to learn ahead of me. I am so thankful for the Christian ladies who have inspired me through their blogs, speakings, and even the ones who inspire me visually through their mannerisms and modesty.

Couple's Retreat - October 2010

I'm praying you will Be Inspired!

DIY Spool Rack!

I feel like I'm on some sort of creative roll, and I have no clue where I got it from. I take that back, yes I do! I suppose the Good Lord sees how frustrating my old ways of organizing and decorating are to me so he has given me a nudge in the right direction. I am very thankful for it. It needs to be done, plus I'm having a blast with it!

This week I started work on a spool rack. 

Since it is my sewing room I have to have a place to store thread spools.  
Originally I had them in a tiny drawer and that got old way fast especially when I ran out of room. Then I bought wood craft boards that I wrapped with quilt batting and brown fabric, then hammered nails in to at an angle. My goal was to wall mount it. That project failed because I bought nails that were too short so the larger spools slid off :(

I wanted to do this project at ZERO cost to me, using materials I already had.

Thank you, previous homeowners, for leaving behind this ugly wall hook rack for me to keep hung in the same place for nearly 2 years before realizing how hideous it was and making it over for a beautiful new purpose!

I can't find any better pictures of the before product. You get the idea though... the other half isn't hiding any surprises. Trust me.

After a little hunting around and brainstorming I decided to use a box of corsage pins I had as the hooks for my thread spools. I hammered them in just enough to hold the spools. Then I hung the rack on the wall along with an old "Trust In The Lord" sign my MIL gave us a few years ago. 
It was pretty ugly before I painted it which explains why it sat in a closet for a long time.

 I took the old brackets off the top that allowed the shelf to hang horizontally and moved them to the side so it would hang vertically. I also had to create a way for the sign to hang since the old method was with a metal wire hot glued to the back that was in bad shape, so I nailed brown ribbon to it. I'm not too terribly pleased with the way that part looks but I'll fix it one day when a new idea comes to mind. 

Here is a close-up to give a better idea of how the pins serve their purpose. On smaller spools I can keep the bobbin with it, otherwise I just stack the bobbins up on another pin. It also worked great for my tiny stash of ribbon!

As always,

Be Inspired!

#6 Most viewed post of 2011
2011 In Review - 2012 So Much To Do! 

Desk/Vanity Redo

THIS excites me!!! 

I have been itching to redo of a piece of furniture (paint-wise) for a while. 

I finally did it!!

Last year I got a desk from my mom. 
Well, really it was from my aunt and uncle but my mom came by the house with a big desk in the back of her truck.

I told her she surely did not need any more furniture in her little house so convinced her to let me have it. Since then it has served a convenient purpose in my extra room, especially when I got my sewing machine in December. 

Can't beat FREE!!

In September of last year I also decided to go buy a vanity (or anything I could find that would work) to use as a vanity table. I have Plantar Fasciitis so standing in the bathroom for an extended period of time to do my hair/make-up was very hard on my feet. I found the perfect little desk with all kinds of beautiful potential... I think I paid $25-$30 for it.

I'm slowly in the process of trying to put our house together and I really wanted to get my sewing room set up the way I want it. That involved moving my vanity from my bedroom to the sewing room. After standing back and looking, everything was so mismatched and it drove me crazy!! Sooo... a little hunting around online and I decided to repaint the desk and vanity to match so I could get the ball rolling on the decor process.

My Inspiration: 

Kammy's Korner: The Desk I was Loathing

After a little color debate I settled for pink and white 

...and this is what I got...

I decorated it with perfumes and pretties my mom gave me that she inherited from my recently passed Mamaw. I think they made a beautiful addition.

Forgot about the white mirror I had tucked away.. PERFECT fit!
I was using a big square brown-framed one from Kirkland's. Got this white mirror off Craigslist last year originally for my bathroom whenever we redid it. Still have not redone it...






I LOVE the new knobs I bought for it! They are like a pewter color... $5 for all of those brand new!! 
(at a local store that sells stuff they buy by the truck loads from department stores and such.)

In the finished product I got rid of the shelf that was in the top right corner, and the shelf on the bottom right, as well as a roll-out keyboard tray that was attached under the desk.

I'm definitely thrilled at the results!!

I won't get in to too many details about how I did everything. It's pretty simple. Sanding and painting. 

A couple notes: I do not recommend spray paint for this. I used it at first and had to go out and buy a paint+primer in one paint to finish the project. I only used the spray paint ultimately for the metal legs on the desk as well as the black rubber-like strip that went around the outer edge of the desk. It was the only way I knew to make it white. Give that stuff plenty of time to dry! It took nearly 2 days for it to not be tacky to the touch any longer. Rubber is not easy to paint apparently!

In total, this project cost maybe $30 for the stencil, paint, and hardware. 

Be Inspired!

#1 Most viewed project of 2011!!
2011 In Review - 2012 So Much To Do! 

Home Improvement: Kitchen Finished Result

I just realized I never came back and posted the finished results of our kitchen makeover! 

I won't go in to much detail about what I did since I spotlighted most of the plans in the Home Improvement post, so here are finished photos for you to enjoy! Hubby and I did almost everything on our own except cutting and installing the counter tops, and the rewiring of the dishwasher. 

What you see when you enter the kitchen:

Sink area... new dishwasher and freshly painted cabinets with new hardware!

New sink and faucet:

Inside wall that the table is on. That is the pot rack I made from a shelf that my Papaw made years ago. Just added hooks!

Back door area. New mini pantry thing we bought to replace the big ugly plastic shelf:

I don't have a photo of it, but we were able to get the dishwasher actually wired to the house instead of having to move a plug around! How exciting! No more ugly plug above the counter, and we don't have to worry about one below it either. 

 My favorite parts are the new dishwasher, deep sink, brighter lighting fixture (It was impossible to see anything with the old tiny bedroom-style fan and light), my pot rack, and the extra little chunk of cabinet and counter space to the right of the stove. It was one crazy week to get this kitchen done, and we were flat wore out, but it was SO worth the final product! 

Bryan said the worst part was the plumbing. We had a terrible time getting the pipes to fit one badly threaded sink drain but thankfully he was able to get it to work without having to return and wait for a new drain. Oil-rubbed bronze drains are very hard to find! 

I love that man of mine! I couldn't ask for more than what the Lord has already given us in our beautiful new kitchen!

Be Inspired!

#8 Most viewed post of 2011
2011 In Review - 2012 So Much To Do!