Happy Valentine's Day

I thought I'd share a few snapshots of our Valentine breakfast this morning. . .

I hope to synch up my phone sometime in the next 200 years and talk about the Wives' Workshop I spoke at last weekend. 

For now, enjoy the love . . .

Heart waffles and bacon on a new plate and a bag of dollar bin goodies . . .

One love bug

He's a ham and cheese

Another love bug . . . He likes his chalkboard I made him for practicing his writing . . .

We called daddy at work to say we loved him and to wish him a Happy Valentine's Day!

We pray your day is filled with LOVE!

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

I John 3:16

Valentine Chalkboard

I went to the Target dollar bin and filled a baggie with little odds and ends for my two little Valentines this year.  I also wanted to make my kindergartener something fun with items I had around the house.  He is really excited about writing, so I decided to use scrap wood and left over chalkboard paint to make him a chalkboard for Valentine's Day.

First I took the 12 inch by 12 inch piece of thin plywood I had left from a trip to Michael's.

I painted white acrylic craft paint over the surface.  I painted two coats.

I then--because I'm lazy and didn't want to hook up my Silhouette (someday I'll have a desk where it is permanently set up)--handdrew a heart on paper, cut it out, and then traced it onto the wet paint.  I wasn't concerned about the mess in the heart because that was getting painted.

I painted the inside of the heart with chalkboard paint and let it dry.

I covered the edges with glued red ric rac.  Voila!  This was fast, easy and will entertain him for hours.

Have fun writing messages, my little buddy!

Superbowl Grub

I love football, but I am more of a college sport follower than a pro football fan.  However, like the rest of America, I love the chance for a party, fun commercial watching and FOOD when the Superbowl arrives.

What fun snacks and meals do you eat?  It is fun when guests all bring a dish and you can concentrate on just a creative dish or two.  I thought I'd share some ideas that caught the attention of my stomach . . . er . . . eye.

The Food Network gives us chorizo and shrimp quesadillas with smoky guacamole.  It is a Rachel Ray recipe, so it is most likely straight forward.  The reviews are through the roof, and we are big quesadilla fans here!

Here is another fun traditional food with a twist:  Grilled Potato Skins with the fixings!  This is also rated easy by The Food Network.  They have a video showing you how to make this tasty treat if you follow the link.

If you are setting out snacks from a bag, how about making a creative BOWL?  The Food Network Magazine shares this fun and easy project for a "super bowl."

Safeway, yes Safeway, had this easy peasy recipe for cheddar, ranch, bacon pinwheels.  What is there not to love about crescent rolls, cheese, bacon, ranch and green onion?  Yummo!

What if you are eating healthy, like me?  How about baked zucchini fries?  These make me think I'm splurging on my diet!

Share what fun recipe you are making!  I'm sure I'll be making something the boys and Ryan will eat:  maybe a yummy spin on a hamburger.  You can read about creative hamburger ingredients and recipes at my old post here.  Enjoy Superbowl Sunday!

Easy, Affordable and Personal Valentine Day Cards

I HEART Costco. 

They are genius.  Somehow they have managed to mix low cost and high quality together, and they deliver just that.  Plus, they are awesome with their return policies.  One shopping trip I bought Tangled, the movie, and the DVD didn't make it home.  I honestly didn't know if I left it in the cart in the parking lot or if the cashier forgot to put it into my cart at checkout, but it was paid for on my receipt.  I went right back to the return counter and explained just that--I wasn't sure what happened and it could have very well been my fault.  Without hesitating, they gave me another copy and said, "Have a nice day!"  That, folks, is a lost art at stores these days.

Anyway, I digress.  Last year, we made homemade scrapbook type Valentine cards with a cute photo of the boys to mail to relatives.  It took a long time, but it was affordable and cute.  This year I don't have that much time, but I still wanted a cute, original, and AFFORDABLE Valentine card to send to our hundreds of relatives (I exaggerate, but we have a lot of family!).  If there ever is a time to send snail mail and put a stamp on an envelope, it is Valentine's Day. 

Costco to the rescue!  For $7.99, you can design a greeting card and get 10 copies, along with pre-printed return address envelopes.  Seriously, that is the cost of 2-3 cards at the Hallmark store these days.  If you have more to send, you can do the greeting cards people send at Christmas, but with Valentine trim and wording.  They are 50 for about $15.00.  They come with unprinted envelopes.  All you need to have is a Costco membership.

Here is our creation. 

My 5 year old decided to be uncooperative and would not allow his brother to hug or kiss him.  He held out his arm, winced, moaned and tried in every way to ruin the photo session.  I finally got the ONE shot of my 2 year old sneaking a kiss, but I had a mess of all the other photos.

So, I decided to just roll with it.  I added a little bit of humor to the card.

The kids punched out hearts and glued them to the inside.  On the other inside page, we will sign a little personal message.

I love the fact that you can add a little message and picture on the back of the card too!  Fun!

So, if you don't want to go spend $3-5 dollars on an impersonal card at the store, try Costco!  Oh, and I am getting no money or endorsement for promoting them.  I just like Costco.  : ) 

Happy card creating!

Happy February!

It is February!  The month of love.  Plus, my two year old has taken to potty training this week like a bee to honey, so I'm filled with thanks!  I whipped out my Silhouette and made a LOVE banner.  Happy LOVE month to you!

Project Family Room

This was our walk through on our house in April 2010 (that is our nice realtor in the picture).  This is the way the family before us had the family room decorated--LOTS of furniture, dark peach tile on the floor and fireplace, a built in holding the TV and taking up precious space in the room.  It needed some work and reconfiguring.  I am by no means streamlined or contemporary, but I can't stand clutter.  Thankfully, they had a beautiful cutout niche above the fireplace and some nice white shutters on the windows.

We tore out the peach tile (which was in the whole house practically) and put in chocolate, distressed wood floors.  We put travertine on the fireplace and tore out the built in.  Here is the family room in process right before we moved into the house.  The tile has been torn up, the built in taken out and the paint colors for the niche are being chosen--thus the weird colors on the wall.

Here is our family room currently.  I apologize for the dark picture.  I have the wonderful habit of taking pictures at the worst time of day.  That is setting sunlight on our fireplace, not some weird design.:

(Here is the blank canvas wall I mention below)

I'm working on my family room this year.  After unemployment for our family in 2011, we are thankful for the gift of an income in 2012 and ready to jump back into house projects.  We recently had both crown moulding and pocket lights put into our family room ceiling.  We were tired of squinting at our guests whenever we sat in there at night--or we'd turn on our really bright patio lights just outside to add to the illumination of the room (sad!).

I'm loving the lights!  We had four added to the room, one focal spotlight for our fireplace and one in the "hallway" between the family room and the kitchen. 

The family room is tiny.  We don't have a teeny, tiny house, but the smallest rooms by far are both the family and living room.  Entertaining can be an issue since we often entertain 50-60 people when we have ministry leadership meetings/dinners at our home.  We knew about the issue when we moved into this house, but the positives in the house/yard outweighed this negative.  Thankfully, the yard is nice and big, but even southern California has limits on how often you can ask guests to sit outside. 

Because of this, we used leather ottomans as a coffee table, which also can be separated and moved as seats.  Our small couch holds about 3 guests, and right now we have a massive leather chair by the TV wall.
We want to move that chair elsewhere and get two proportionally smaller armchairs on each side of the TV console.  We also have three barstools right where I am standing to take the pictures, as we have a breakfast bar counter facing out into our family room.  These are handy to turn around and act as additional seating.

In addition, I would like to put white federalist moulding wrapping around the bottom half of the room to brighten up this part of the house.  It gets very little direct sunlight, and I am a girl who likes light and bright. 

I also want to do a photo wall around the TV.  I can't decide if I should have white frames or black.  I love white, but I am thinking that since they will surround the TV and almost camaflouge the flatscreen into the picture wall, they should have black frames with large, white matting.  The TV will have too much "weight" with white frames around it.  I will do all black and white photos.

 I also want to paint the 80's brass on the fireplace glass with a black metal paint and, eventually, I want to get a larger, crown moulding looking mantle to cover our lovely, thin plywood one. 

Finally, I want some long, ceiling to floor white column curtains to frame the slider that leads out to the backyard.  It is immediately to the right of the couch.

What are your thoughts, my decorating friends?  Do you have any ideas for the wall around the TV?  What kind of armchairs would you buy for each side of the TV console and what color would you prefer to see?  Right now I have creams, tans, rusts and golds in the room, but I'm open to another color.  All those colors blend nicely with our dark, red undertoned kitchen cabinets and wood floor. 

I'm excited for project family room and can't wait to show you the progress!

Personalized Bulletin Board Tutorial

About a year ago, I made a giant, very affordable bulletin board with foam core and fabric.  You can see that tutorial here.  It was great until my 2 year old--whom we nicknamed Destructo very early on--got to it.  After a few swipes and knocking it off the wall, it started to fall apart, and pins were everywhere in the carpet.  Foam core had met its match.

My hubby asked if I could use a normal bulletin board with cork and decorate that for our wall.  It would hang more securely, and it would hold the pins more firmly.  In other words, it would be Destructo proof. 

I found two, smaller bulletin boards (one for each boy) at Costco and brought them home.  I was looking for some fun Mod type fabric, but I didn't find exactly what I wanted.  The fabrics were too feminine or too plain.  I knew the fabric needed to complement the tan walls and leather couch in our playroom, so I found a seafoam green fabric that worked.

I made one bulletin board by stapling the fabric into place along the edges--my teaching skills in making bulletin boards came back to me.  I didn't like all the wrinkles and loose fabric that resulted, though.  I picked the most wrinkle prone fabric in the store.  I ironed and ironed until my hand hurt, but it seemed to only multiply the wrinkles. So I made the second bulletin board by using spray adhesive.  I sprayed the cork and smoothed the fabric over the cork.  MUCH better!  I stapled the edges and then I glued a thick, dark chocolate ribbon around the edge of both bulletin boards.  I used my photo drink coasters to hold down the ribbon as the glue dried in the corners of the ribbon. 

The stapled edges before the ribbon was glued around the edges.

Do you see the wrinkles?  Ugh!  The second one is MUCH better, but I didn't take a prep picture of it.

Finally, I printed out each boy's name on dark brown vinyl on my Silhouette.  It added a little fun touch to have each board labeled with chunky letters.

Voila!  My hubby hung up both of the boards, and now we are ready to see if they are Destructo proof.