My Pitiful Pantry

I always thought my pantry was fairly organized, but through the years of living here it became more and more disheveled. I didn't own any good containers for things so nothing looked very streamlined. One day of being fed-up with not being able to find anything, and having chip bags fall on me while trying to reach for other things - I decided that I was going to completely organize it.

I searched for containers I loved that weren't at an outrageous price and found almost all of them at Walmart. It took a few trips to gather up all the containers I needed and after a few weeks of living with my new organized pantry I can honestly say I am in love with it! I love all of the containers I bought, and it is making life much easier in the kitchen. I spent about $200, but it was WELL worth it. The pictures will do it justice, and what is amazing is I didn't even have to get rid of any of our food either.

PANTRY BEFORE:

PANTRY AFTER: 

projects, projects, projects...

Lately I've been super busy with projects to try and get done before the baby comes. Here are a few of the ones I've finished. I love how everything is turning out, but even more - I love the fact that I can cross them off my list!

 I found some cute fabric online at fabric.com and made faux roman shades using this tutorial for our kitchen windows. It took me forever to take end result pictures of this (hence the Halloween decor in the 'before' and the St Patty's Day decor in the 'after' pic haha)

 Baby squishy now has a car seat cover which is a necessity!

 Used some fabric scraps and ric rac to make some boy burp cloths. Now he won't be spitting up on any pink frilly ones.

 I bought this ugly frame at a garage sale for $2 over a year ago, knowing I wanted to make it into a magnetic chalk board. I cleaned it, rolled on the magnetic paint, sprayed on the chalkboard paint, sprayed it red, and then glazed it. It's going to go in the baby's room. 

Oh, and I think we decided on the name Colton (Colt for short)!

 Our neighbor let us (meaning me & my father-in-law) borrow his miter saw and nail gun. Darryl installed the the wainscoting as well as painted the wall/ceiling. Now all that was left was for me to calk, spackle, re-paint the white section, paint the other walls yellow, paint stripes on Colton's curtains, and decorate!

 Darryl also helped me install these metal planter boxes I bought over a year ago. They were just sitting in our garage because Tyson didn't want to drill holes into our house. It took about a year to get him to agree ;) so here they are with fresh flowers I picked out. I LOVE how they turned out. Literally every day when I look at them - they make me smile!

I bought this ugly bench as a set for $35 at DI. Cleaned, vacuumed, painted, and found a cute pillow for it. The other two pieces I sold for $20 so the bench only ended up costing me $15 + $40 for the pillow and about $25 for the paint/primer in one. I also love how this turned out.

I love that Jayde is such a trooper when I'm getting things done. I hand her one of her fake paintbrushes and she 'paints' right alongside me. It is so cute to see her reach for the tools and mimic what I'm doing. She has some wooden puzzles and one is a tool theme and she loves hammering with her puzzle piece like it's real. So cute!

the twenty-five buck toy chest

I found this very ugly, beat-down, grimy toy chest at DI one day while I was searching for some furniture I could re-do. I've been wanting to get a toy chest for Jayde (and my future children) to hide their mass of toys in so they weren't seen in the family room. The only ones I've liked were over $250 apiece, and that wasn't going to work. So - when I found this beauty for only $25 I snatched her up to make her over!

After some majorly cleaning the chest, priming, sanding, painting a couple coats, putting a clear topcoat, reupholstering the seat with cute fabric; our family room toy area went from the above picture.... to this next one:

and LOVE how it turned out! I wanted it to be general neutral and match with the colors of our family room. The fabric is here and I got a yard to be on the safe side for $7.50, the paint was about $8 total for both cans and I already had the topcoat on hand. I seriously need to get a staple-gun because I keep having to borrow Tyson's grandpas which I'm super grateful for. The drawer in front is supposed to pull out, but I like it better the way I have it where you can open the seat portion. I can stow away all of Jayde's toys in there and will leave the top open for her to grab whatever she feels like playing with.

She approves.... and her favorite thing is to climb on top of it to play. When she gets up there she has a huge grin on her face and claps because she's so proud of herself.

More Curtains

As you found out from this post - I LOVE curtains.

Jayde's room was feeling small with her huge closet door swinging all about.
Soon that wall will have bookshelves and will be Jayde's own reading corner.
To accomplish that, I made the executive decision to remove the door,
and put a curtain panel up instead,
which I told the husband about very matter-of-factly.....

Let's just say he wasn't too thrilled about that idea.
Anything involving changing the house (i.e. painting, removing doors, and drilling holes) leaves him in a less-than-excited mood about life (which is a complete understatement)!
I told him I would do all the work including removing the door,
and that he wouldn't even notice.

Here's how it turned out:



I love it! It turned out exactly how I planned. We bought a small hook-thing to screw into the door frame so I can swoop the curtains up and out of the way if I want... which hasn't gone in yet because I'm still too nervous to use a power drill (I have no idea why - I use my power sander and love it!), and then we have Tyson's less-than-excited idea of drilling yet another hole into the wall has put it to a halt for the moment. BUT I still wanted to post about it.

Oh, and the curtain fabric came from Walmart at a measly $3 a yard! How awesome is that?! They were super easy to sew, and while I was at it I made her some curtains out of the same fabric. The cheapest rod I was able to find was at Lowes ($18?). The one from Bed Bath & Beyond was more than double and looked almost the same which is crazy. Three cheers for being able to return things back to the store!

I'm also still waiting for Tyson to want to put the 'tie backs' into the walls which requires drilling more holes. I seriously just need to toughen up and not be scared of that measly drill and just do it myself... (which I've been saying for the last 6 months)... we'll see.

the $12 end table

I picked up this beauty at DI for $12 knowing that I wanted it to be painted and stained. It took quite a bit of work cleaning, taking knobs off, sanding, priming, spray painting, hand-painting the inside light blue, staining, re-assembling, then reapplying the clear coat.

Let's just say I LOVE how it turned out!!

The Nursery

I've been working on Jayde's nursery for awhile, trying to get it how I imagined without it costing too much. The only thing I still would like to do is add curtains and take off her closet door to add another panel of fabric that matches the curtains (but I have yet to find fabric I like that's not going to cost me an arm and a leg). Here's how it all turned out:

{Dresser $180 from KSL, site like Craigslist here in UT.}
{Nightstand free from Tyson's aunt & uncle which I repainted to match, it was previously dark green.}

{I was really picky with bedding and wanted a really frilly-girls option that I found, but was quickly veto-ed by Tyson who liked a dark purple set with huge butterflies. That didn't fly with me so we compromised on me buying fabrics I liked and his mom's friend said she would make the bumper and skirt for me for a shower gift. I loved the pink and teal so that's what I went with.}
{Rug $80 from Overstock.com}
{Crib quilt was made by Tyson's mom which matches the bedding and looks awesome in her room!}

{Cube shelving and chandelier night light from Target.}
{Clock from Rod Works, Baby Girl storage was a gift.}

{The chair is from a garage sale I picked up for $20, and was in awesome shape.}
{Baby blanket on chair is her blessing blanker her grandma made for her.}
{Chair pillow I made in a class.}

{Professional baby pictures in frames given to me at baby shower.}

{Corbels holding up Willow Tree figurines from DI $1.50 each. They were orang-ey brown and I spray painted antique white}
{Plaque above from baby shower as well as pink shadow box}

{Lampshade was $2 from DownEast which I redid with fabric, texture magic, and trim.}
{Base $7 from Target.}
{Frame from TJ Maxx, and Vase $2 from DI.}

{Mirror is one of my favorite finds, it was only like $7 from DI and was gold so I spray painted antique white.}

{Top frame from Hobby Lobby for $15, bottom frame from DI $4. I spray painted them both and added ribbon to the back for her bows.}

{Both shelves are from DI $2 apiece and I spray painted to match.}
{Vase $1.50 from Michaels.}
{Piggy bank like $4 from Hobby Lobby.}
{J framed, cat, shoes are gifts as well as footprint canvas.}

{Lampshade $4 from Down East and I made it my own by adding flowers from Michaels to it.}

{Mobile from Pottery Barn which I love, but Jayde loves more. I think it was like $18 but worth every penny and I can use for all of our kids.}

I just LOVE how it all turned out! It's my favorite room in the whole house. Oh, and props for Tyson's parents for painting the two walls of her room while I was still pregnant :0)

Dear Pottery Barn,

I currently own your Deirdre Organic Duvet Cover & Shams and let's just say that they look awesome in our master bedroom and perfect with our CA king headboard.

And I am in love with it!

Well the other day, I was cruising your website and crossed upon your Crewel Embroidered Tapered Drum Lamp Shade and I stopped short.

*and possibly let out a little gasp*

These shades are absolutely adorable and would be perfect in our bedroom.

There is just one problem...
it is $49 for one shade (and it's the small). Now I could justify spending the money if that included the lamp base, but not just a shade.

I've looked all over the place to see if I can find something similar, but with no such luck - yours it is just too adorable.

Every day I pull up your website and hope that those shades will be on sale. And every day I am out of luck because they are still full-price.

So I keep trying to think of a way I can make them myself for cheaper - and I have no idea how.

What I'm getting at is - PLEASE ADD THEM TO YOUR SALE SECTION! Let's just say I would REALLY appreciate it! :)

Your loyal customer,
Laura Horrocks

Graduation Gifts

As graduation approached for Tyson I kept thinking of what I would get him as a gift. I ended up getting him a bunch of nice dress shirts for work (I know...boring), but some cuff links that I loved. Can I tell you that I was shocked how expensive cuff links are? They were the Love Knot ones, pictured on the left and I had to have them...just for him.

I was thinking about everything that we had been through these past three years and thought that I kind-of wanted a graduation gift also. I know that doesn't sound very traditional...for the person who is graduating to give the spouse a graduation gift, but I felt that I played a large role in being there for him these last 3 years. I halted my schooling after we got married and he swept me to Cleveland where I worked full-time so we wouldn't have to take out even more loans than we already needed to. We then moved to DC that first summer for his internship and I continued working while he was in school so we could go on trips together and enjoy life pre-kids and before he had a career to spend most of his time getting great at. I also wanted something to have for a long time to remember all of those adventures we had while he was in law school. I told him what I had been thinking, and he got me this gorgeous pearl necklace!

Exactly what I was thinking, he read my mind again.

Oh how I love my husband! I will cherish them forever.