Swag code Extravaganza

There will be a Swag Code Extravaganza coming up on Monday, which means a day where SEVEN different codes will be given out all throughout the day, and a total of 60 Swag Bucks in codes being given out!


In fact, they are even letting me share with you readers that the first code will be put out on the Swagbucks Twitter feed (which you can follow) at 6:00am PT on Monday.


If you have not joined swagbucks yet, here is a great way to get started: 

www.swagbucks.com  
(This is an affiliate link)



Use sign up code BIGTIMEBUCKS - it's worth and additional 70 Swag Bucks when applied during sign up, meaning that a new user would start with 100 total Swag Bucks instead of the normal 30. The code is active now and is good until 11:59pm PT this coming Monday.

{News Flash}

Maybe I am a tad over excited about this, but I HAD to share.

I am a fan/follower of Young House Love.(YHL) I love how down to earth and normal they are. They have great DIY tips and share everything they have done to both houses they  have lived in as well as normal life with a child and dog. I found them via my sister who also lives in Richmond (where they live). They are getting quite popular, magazine quotes, TV appearances, a book in the works, and I just saw John's post on FB.





The Petersiks of YHL will have their own curated home collection for Joss & Main. It will go live sometime next week. I also was looking around and saw quite a bit of cute home collections and ideas.



Sorry for the quick, random post, but it was too exciting for me not to share!

{Printable Coupons}

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{Things I Love}

First of all: Pinterest
 If you have not been to pinterest yet, or joined, let me know. I will send you an invite. You can find my boards listed under Begin to Craft.


Ok So here are a few images and projects I am looking forward to doing soon. You can find all these images on my pinterest boards if you follow me. They will take you directly to the original hosted page. If This is your project, or blog that I am featuring, feel free to grab my button for your site.

found at poppytalk.blogspot.com

So, here I want to add a curtain in my laundry room to cover where clothes hang to "drip-dry"

found at remodelaholic.com

And then I want to add a counter above my washer and dryer so that I can leave my basket  Thirty-one large utility tote on top without it being thrown off or to put things on it to remember the next day, OR decorate it. Like this other picture

found at houzz.com

There are also this great idea to use in the kids playroom to show their craft projects

http://alittleofthis---alittleofthat.blogspot.com/2010/01/favorite-projects-and-tutorials.html

Do you have any projects you love on Pinterest?

 

I saw this project and when I was in the Dollar General yesterday I saw some $1 frames that I thought would look just awesome. Now to decide how many and what papers to us. This is a copycat from ballarddesigns.com

Oh and I also saw this idea that I could use with my window panes and add knobs or hooks to hang at our back entry way to organize our stuff going out the door- Also could work in the laundry room which is at our back door and make it look a bit nicer!!

found at tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com

Now I can't wait to share with you what I found at my favorite thrift store yesterday. I spent just over $3 and got several things for some projects, and one for a Christmas gift. And my store has been getting a lot of fabric. I am just so excited! Love Love Love!!!

So what have you seen on Pinterest that you can't wait to get started on, or wish your home looked like? Any plans to get started?

Book Birdhouse

{Book Birdhouse}

 This was something else I saw on pinterest that I knew I just HAD to do. I Love books and have trouble getting rid of them. So finding another use for them is great. I took pictures AFTER I had done it. So I didn't take a picture of the hard cover, but I just took a pair of scissors and cut the binding to get the cover off.

 Ok so you start off folding a page in half vertically

 Then fold the top corner down till it touches the spine- like you are dog-ear marking your page.

 Now I took this picture to show you the folds in the 2nd page. You are going to alternate your folding.

 First take the bottom of the page and fold it up towards the spine of the book,

 then take the top of that same page and fold it down towards the spine, so that it looks like the picture below.

 Then you just keep alternating the 2 folds until you run out of pages.

Your final project will look like a birdhouse. Some people add little dark circles to look like an opening. I didn't do that because I was happy with it the way it was. You can't tell from this picture, but it is only half of a birdhouse really. It wasn't a very big book, an old elementary school book about Abe Lincoln growing up. So it works perfectly butted up against a wall on top of my writing desk.

And just so that you don't have to scroll back up to the top for the "pretty" picture I will include it again here at the bottom.

Isn't it just so cute!

Now so I can give you an idea- this took about as much time as it takes me to do a Tutu, 1/2 hour to an hour. I just folded while I relaxed and watched TV. I did several projects this same day/weekend. For example, the window pane, the stool recovering, the kitchen rearrangement, the wreath..... If you have just a little bit of time, and plan ahead you can get a lot of projects done. Its hard to manage it sometimes being pregnant and having 2 kids under 4. I usually try to get things done while my littlest is napping. And thankfully the 4 year old likes to help.

Linking up to:

Fall Wreath

Fall Wreath Project

 

I have seen these wreaths all over the place on Pinterest. So I guess this is also part of a Pinterest Challenge lol, but It was only inspired by one there. I did mine without looking at any tutorial, just using what I had on hand and figuring it out. So for me this project was totally FREE!

I went through my supplies and first off found this straw wreath form. It was thicker than the metal forms many people are using, but you don't argue with Free, ya know.

 This is a quick pic I took to show you my basic supplies, minus a few other fabric swatches I used later, but you will see those in a bit. Just scissors, and my striped outdoor fabric. I have a HUGE roll of this fabric I grabbed up at Hancock Fabric a couple years ago when outdoor fabric was 50% off. I have covered patio cushions and such with it and used leftover scrap on this so I didn't even cut off of my roll.

 You see here the length I used to tie around. I did make it a bit thinner so it would go further.

 

 just a closer shot so you can see how I tied it around, just a basic knot.

 and a closer look at the length of my fabric. I just really eye-balled it. Wanted it to have just a bit of fabric hanging over once it was knotted.

 I frayed the ends. All the ends, I just like the look of frayed fabric on wreaths like this. Something about Fall!

 more fraying- sorry my daughter liked helping and told me I needed to take another pic

 And this is where I usually felt it was frayed enough for me. Your choice if you do it.

 I had some plain burlap looking fabric that I had used on my window pane project, and used some scrap from that, and then ran across this brown on beige flowery patterned fabric that I thought would look good on it too. So Here is a quick hang on the door to see how it looks. You can see some of the straw wreath peeking through, so I think it works since it is fallish as well, you couldn't really do that with the metal wreath forms.

 This one just looks better because I adjusted the color on it and got a little closer

And just one more shot of the final project:

I like it, think it works well at our house and was super easy and quick to do!

Did any of you do any wreaths for Fall or Halloween? Care to share any pictures?

{High-Five worthy Dinner}

I am so excited about the super easy-little ingredients- little work- but tasty dinner I made last night. I am trying to find basic recipes, meaning non-processed foods, just  meats, veggies, and fruits, since my son is allergic to corn, dairy, nuts, eggs and bananas so far. We need to keep it basic and let me tell ya reading the labels will make you crazy. The corn allergy is a new one to us and we already avoided eggs and nuts b/c of the high possibility of it. But having already eliminated dairy, and then adding corn to the list really limited our pre-packaged food choices. Do you know how much corn is in products; corn flour, corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, corn oil, and the list goes on. It was actually worse than the dairy. Do a search for a corn allergen list to see it. WOW. So we are going to just keep it basic at our house so we know what we are giving him and don't have to worry about the 4 year old sharing her food.

Last nights dinner was found by doing a search for easy chicken leg recipes. Yep that was all, and then picking one that sounded yummy, got good reviews, was really a no-fail (according to the author), and was simple to make (ingredients and time). So this one sounded yummy, and boy let me tell you, it WAS!


I did not save the link, and am sorry to say I didn't take pictures. I was not expecting it to be as much of a hit as it was.

Crispy Rosemary Chicken and Fries

Prep time 15 Min
Cook time 1 Hr
Ready in 1 Hr 15 Min
This is a one pan meal that's in the oven in 15 minutes. * did not have fresh herbs so used dried. Rosemary(didn't have any used basil instead), garlic, and oregano create a mouth watering aroma.  Potatoes are crispy like french fries, just serve with ketchup. Kids just love this! (we had sweet potatoes on hand so used those)
Ingredients
6 chicken legs
3 small red potatoes, quartered ( substituted 2 sweet potatoes)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, or as needed
1-1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary (used dried basil)
3/4 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano (used dried)
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder (used garlic salt)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Place chicken and potatoes into a large bowl. Pour olive oil over them, and stir to coat. Scatter the chicken and potato pieces in a large baking dish, or cookie sheet with sides. Sprinkle with rosemary, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, uncovered. Baste during the last 15 minutes for extra crispness.

I did a quick google search for a few pictures that would show you what the food looked like and these are pretty darn close.

Really totally that was it. Hubby cut up the sweet potatoes for me, we used 2 cookie sheets cause we knew we would all love the sweet potatos and did more. We put everything- the sliced sweet potatoes and chicken legs in a large metal bowl and then drizzled a lot of olive oil over it and hand tossed for a good coverage. Then we took the chicken out and placed on the cookie sheets- I did not grease the cookie sheets b/c of all the oil that was used. The seasonings were sprinkled over the chicken but put in the bowl for the chips and tossed together. Then the chips were added to the space left on the chicken cookie sheet and the rest put on the 2nd cookie sheet.

We put them in the oven, set the timer and relaxed. Hubby was surprised it was so simple. Me too. I washed my hands off b/c of the oil and raw chicken, cleaned up the kitchen, and set the table. Oh and B-T-dubs (sorry that means BTW, or by the way, I just had to steal it from Sherry @young house love) The girl has a way of coming up with some funny sayings. Anyway, we changed up the kitchen this past weekend. see below for more of that.

When it was done, it smelled So yummy. Some of the sweet potatoes had turned a black color but tasted really good still, though the kids wouldn't eat them, they were like carmelized ( then again, I like my marshmellows flame broiled, so perfect to me). Hubby loved the ones that were sitting in the juices from the chicken and were not completely crisp, and both kids loved them. The chicken legs were also a big hit. That was what they gave me a high five for after the first bite. Now it did have a crisp skin because of the basting with olive oil towards the end of cooking, and man it was well worth it. The chicken was golden and juicy. The herbs added the perfect boost of flavor without being overboard. Highly recommend this recipe.



Ok, so now onto my kitchen change up. I am really bad about remembering to take before pictures. I guess I assumed I had pictures I could show of the kitchen before or of the dining room, but NO. So I have a few random pictures that show parts of my kitchen lol, so bear with me, mmm k.

Ok so here is a picture of our kitchen with hubby and my model at his 30th birthday (Vegas themed) she is playing with the leftover decorations.

 And another angle of the kitchen at my 30th birthday party (80's themed)

You can see the cherry cabinets, the dark granite countertops, glue down tile floor, so you see its a "nice" almost formal kitchen.  We have gone through 2 different tables in this kitchen nook. One from our first home, a townhouse with wrought iron and glass. It was too wide and did not give enough room for us to fully use it, so we sold it, and brought down a tall pub table and chairs, which was not working with a baby. It was too tall for her to reach the table in her high chair, and we were not comfortable strapping the portable high chair into one of the stools. Then when she no longer needed that, we didn't trust her sitting still in it so high up, besides her falling out or kicking it from the table one too many times.

 So, I pulled a plan off of Ana White's page. www.ana-white.com. And built this table. It Still is not stained or painted, just couldn't decide. This was my first building project like this. Hubby did not think I could do it, and was laughing at me. He did cut all the pieces for me and left me alone. I was pregnant at the time, and built this All by myself within 3 hours. It is being used above with a tablecloth over it. Works perfect. It will sit 6-8 easily in our home, and was something that I didn't care if it got dirty or messed up. It was built with scrap wood from my Father in Law who is a carpenter.

 Here it is being used at Halloween last year to carve pumpkins. You can see it is uncovered and we just put plastic down. It fit our lifestyle and being able to mess it up for projects, and physically fit in our room, though was not the aesthetic I was hoping for.

So we had been tossing around the idea of changing our formal dining room (which has only been used a handful of times- literally) into a playroom/craft room for the kids. And moving the formal table and chairs into the kitchen. I worried it would not look right with a formal table in the kitchen and talked to my friend Kristen over at The Shabby Shack and checking ideas on pinterest and Finally realized that our kitchen is more of a formal kitchen anyway. So I measured to make sure it would fit, decided to take the leaf out and only use 4 chairs for now, and hubby moved it around for me.

So, I have to say I.LOVE.IT! I think it pulls the kitchen together. We enjoy using it. We use it everyday now. My daughter likes to pretend we are eating at a restaurant, which makes me laugh. I actually think we may be able to add the leaf back in and the other chairs, but we will wait on that. It works great for now. What do you think? I moved the table I made into the dining room, so kids can use it as a craft table, or hubby can move it out to his shop to use out there for projects. I still have my formal china hutch and corner hutch in the dining room and need it out cause I am worried about the kids will get into the glass and our decor sitting on top- like the antique iron ( I can just see it falling on a kids head or something ya know). So progress. I have a few more things I want to do, like add some valences to the bay window for some color,  add a lampshade or drum to the light fixture here ala Young House Love seen here:

Ok I think this is the longest post I have ever written. I will let you digest all of that info now. Thanks for reading if you made it this far lol.


Linking up:

{ Pinterest Challenge}

So my friend Kelly challenged all of us girls to stop our addiction to Pinterest for a bit and actually MAKE something we pinned. I had several that I wanted to do, so I got to it. I actually got a lot done, but in the interest of Time, and the length that this post already will be, I will only share one today. And probably another tomorrow, and then a few others that I didn't really get before pictures of, so will be shorter or combined posts.

I wish I could get this hung like TODAY, or yesterday I could have put some nice earrings on it, or added some color that I Love. I guess I could have still hung some earrings from it to show you my idea for it. This will hang in our Master Bedroom, and I am going to hang jewelry and pictures from it. My Father in Law has a TON of these in an old building that was his grandfathers old store. This building has some of the coolest stuff in it. I have to wait til winter to get stuff out of it because of snakes and spiders, but I have a list of things I want from it.

 So this is my inspiration image from Pinterest, found here:

Ok so This is how I started this project. I have the cutest lil Vanna White helper. And she loves to pose, can you tell?

These were my basic supplies: staple gun and staples, screen, and the old window pane with the glass already removed.

Don't you just love the chipping paint and cracking, and various paint colors showing through there!

I love how she just Pops up in some pics with a random silly face. So what I did now was unroll and measure the screen to cut it, then just started stapling it onto the window pane. I also stapled it to the inner cross bars so it would stay put and be secure.

This is what it looked like once the screen was attached. And it just needed something. Our bedroom walls are a bright sky blue. I love it, its actually calming, but more so with other things toning it down, like our cherry wood furniture, white curtains, white bedding, etc. So I needed something else on the walls to help tone it down a bit and to add some charm to it. We currently don't have anything hanging on the walls besides the curtains. So definitely needs something.

So I took a piece of fabric I had in my stash that looks like a burlap type print on it and cut it down to fit.

Can you see that textured print? it is not raised at all, just plain cotton fabric. but it meets the need.

Then I got to stapling it down, but I did not staple this down to the pane pieces, just the outside and pulled it tight.

See how tight I pulled it? I didn't need to iron it once I got it secured.

I added the hanging teeth at each top corner. Those are easy, just a hammer and nails needed. These were in a picture hanging kit we already had.

One more gratuitous shot of the chipping paint with the screen and fabric added. I am very happy with it all. It just makes me smile. Hubby is glad to see it being used. 

And well the Final Product, tell me.......what do you think?

I just love how charming it looks. It just fits our home and lifestyle so well.

Do you have any pinterest challenge projects going on? What projects are you working on?


I am also linking this project up at: