Congrats Brother!

Yep, that's where I have been this past weekend for my brothers graduation party. Here's how the weekend went down.

Harley-monster and I made the 10 hour drive up on Thursday. Let me tell you, road trips by yourself are the opposite of fun (Harley doesn't say too much ;). It went fairly smooth, for the most part.. besides moving 4 miles in 30 minutes in Virginia and hitting a terrible thunderstorm in West Virginia where lightening struck a tree which fell in the middle of the road. Yuck. We made it though!

My brothers graduation party was on Saturday so I spent all Saturday morning helping out my mom. She found a cute recipe to make little graduation caps out of mini Reese peanut butter cups.

I think this is a great place to stop and throw a hint out to Jeremy. If I had the Canon Rebel XSi that picture would be so much better! And as you like to say it would have been "phenomenal"... 

Ahem. Back to the Reese caps. I placed the Reese cups upside down and dabbed a little frosting on the bottom of it. The recipe said to use after eight mints for the cap but couldn't find them anywhere. So the next best thing were chocolate graham crackers and I cut them down to size. The frosting is used as the "glue" to hold the graham cracker's down. Then I simply used frosting in a tube and made the little loops and placed an M&M on top! Viola! 

My dad's band also played at the graduation party. 

 

My dad's the guy singing on the right. And those weirdo girls in the back may or may not be me and my sister. haha.

The rest of my time spent in Ohio consisted of hanging out and going to antique/flea markets. I scored some sweet goods that you'll have to come back and check out!

I still got it.

We needed new pillows. And yes it was a need and not a want.

That just looks sad, dark and flat from my Harley laying on them. We needed something to lighten that biotch up. So I bought some ivory pillows to match our ivory curtains. (Which reminds me, I still need to take some pictures of the house so you don't think it still looks like this!)

I decided to go with a light, pale-ish blue as the accent color for the living room area. I just couldn't find the right pillows. Joann fabrics happened to be having a sale online on their Waverly fabric, so I picked up a yard that I think is perfect. I mean, heck I took the sewing class in high school and I have a sewing machine. I surely can remember how to use it.. It wasn't that long ago! So I blew the inch of dust off my machine and set up shop. And completely blanked on how to load the thread (thank god for instruction manuals!)

The pillow took approximately 5 seconds to make, once i remembered how to work my machine. I'll spare you the details because it really is simple. And here's the finished products!

I still want one more lumbar pillow to make it asymmetrical and feel more casual.

And yes, I want it to look exactly like that. haha.

Beach Bum

Ahhhh. Glorious. This is where I have been all weekend. Jealous? muahahaha. (That was me doing the Dr. Evil laugh) Me and my friend headed down to Myrtle Beach for a nice relaxing weekend. Bonus: I finally got to try out my waterproof camera!

That last picture is alllmost flattering, ha.

While we were there I was planning on collecting some seashells to make a little display with. Buuut I got sucked into the ocean aka lazy and decided I would take the easy way out and buy some. So on Sunday, when I got back, I printed out a coupon and made a trip to Michael's to purchase said seashells. I ended up with a lot more than just seashells. I bought some decorative balls to put in our glass lamp base. It was disturbingly empty, like Heidi Montag's head, haha. (On a side note: Her separation/divorce with Spencer is such a publicity stunt! I don't believe it for a second!)

Anyways, here's the empty lamp (we it got on sale for $20 at target):

And filled with the balls:

I also threw in a starfish for good measure. I must have been really inspired by the beach, huh?

Freeze Frame

I ordered this picture off of allposters.com for a whopping $13.00 including shipping.

I wanted something with red to go with this picture in the breakfast nook:

The new picture is 9.5 x 12 inches. Yeah, I didn't really realize how random of a size that is until I tried to find a frame. I looked in every store I went to for about a week before I realized I had a frame already that would fit. Whoops. It was one Jeremy and I received as a gift, so it was freeee. Schwing! That's a whole lot cheaper than the $40 or so dollars it was going to cost to have allposters frame it.

The wooden "mat", i guess you would call it, comes out, so there were options. Only problem was neither option went with the picture. 

So what's a girl to do? Paint. Paint is always the answer. I knew I wanted the outside frame to be white-white to match the inside borders. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep the inner wooden insert or not. Or paint it and if so what color? So I called my motha'. And she suggested I paint the inner border of the frame the off-white background color of the strawberry bowls box. Phew. Follow that? Here:

It's just a slight off white, but just enough for you to notice it. I whipped out my rolodex of Benjamin Moore paint and tried to find a match. I went with Maritime White. I was a little apprehensive because it actually looks dark compared to the other colors on the swatch. But hey, a sample of paint is $3? So I went with it. I just used white spray paint we had already for the outer frame. Here's the finished result! 

 

Ps. This is linked to The DIY Show Off: DIY Project Parade!

Sprucing Up the Back Porch

When I made my way to Ohio last month I was given my Easter gift from the Easter Bunny. No more Easter baskets, now it's stuff for the house. What the kind bunny dropped off was an outdoor picture for the porch. How'd he know?!

So I taped some paper up to find the perfect spot and height.

But I thought that a random floating picture would look a little weird here. So I dragged the table from the hallway to see how it would look.

Oh yeah. Much better. Sure the faux-picture paper needed lowered but you can totally see the potential.  Since that table was still needed in the hallway, I put my building boots back on and headed on over to knock-offwood.com. I figured I would try out the rustic modern console. I modified it to 36 inches in length so it would fit better.

This was by far the easiest table to build. The total cost was $18 for 2 1x12's, 6 feet long each. It was simply two cuts per board and screwing it all together and took less than an hour. Awesome. I used a dark oak poly-stain that we already had to finish it. And this is where my fail post comes in. The stain says that you shouldn't apply it when its over 90 degrees and it was around 95 degrees the day I was building this. So being the impatient person I am, I moved it into the kitchen. And this is what happened.

Oops! Lots of paper towels and the magic eraser = no harm done.

But anyways. Back to the table. Here it is stained with the picture hung:

 

I'll be back with a post on the sweet scores I got to accessorize the table.

Baby Got Back... Porch

Last summer JJ and I decided we wanted a screened in porch. Originally we planned on doing it ourselves. JJ took construction in high school so we thought how hard could it be? We already had the roof and the concrete, so essentially it'd just be framing two walls. 

Yes, I do realize we look like we'd be hillbilly's from these picture haha.

We had heard about the Screen Tight system and figured we could do that, no problem. So off to Lowe's we went, buying everything we needed. We tend to go all gung ho on something and then lose interest. So in the garage it sat... 

And sat...

And sat... 

Until finally on another trip to Lowe's a man approached us handing us his business card and asked if we needed any work done. And bingo! We were in luck. He followed us home to give us an estimate and we happily accepted it. He looked over our materials and told us what we needed more of and what we could return. The next day 2 workers came and got started. They finished in about 2 and a half days. I think it turned out awesome, and it looks like it was built with the house!

The only thing that went wrong was JJ, in an attempt to save the tools from the craziest flash flood rain, dropped the contractors saw and it broke. Complete accident, but we had to replace that. Have I mentioned JJ accidentally breaks a lot of stuff? Such as saws, door handles, legs....

The Ants Go Marching

The day before I was leaving for Ohio I discovered ants in our bathroom. Yes, the bathroom. Not the kitchen. I thought maybe one just got lost or was brought in on Harley's back (he thinks all animals/bugs are his friend) until I saw a couple more on the bathroom counter. JJ was called upon the case then, and started looking around the bathroom and bedroom to see if there was a reason why these ant's would want to grace us with their presence. Outside JJ went. And inside JJ came with this discovery outside our bedroom:

Yikes. This is outside both JJ and my expertise. So we both decided to procrastinate doing anything because we thought it was going to be a much tougher job. I know, smart of us, huh? So finally, 3 weeks after the discovery, I used my handy-dandy google skills and found a how-to video. The first video was the mix your own mortar type and I thought, "Psh no, I can't do that!" On to the next video. This one was way more my style. The mortar came in a tube, and you applied with a caulking gun. Easy-peasy.

First step: Brush out any debris and leftover mortar. I used a paint brush to get in there.

Second step: Go to work. It says to get in there deep, but no thicker than 3/8".

And yes I purposely avoided the "that's what she said." This is what it looked like after:

Third Step: Now here's where the video said to use a jointer to smooth it out and give it the concave look. But I have the memory of a goldfish and forgot to buy one, so I used my finger.

 I think it looks fine though. I'm pretty sure the piece to the right is going to crack off soon anyways so I'm not worried.

 

Fourth Step: Admire your work. I went to look at it today and I couldn't even find it! I just keep getting more and more impressed with my sweet skills haha.

Now I'm just crossing my fingers there's no more ants.

FAIL!

Yes, that's stain spilled on the kitchen floor. Stay tuned for the full story..

Line 'Em Up

While I was home in Ohio, after the Texas trip, my mom put me to work. Welll, I kinda put myself to work. I felt like I had to make up for my mud-loving dog that left his huge paw prints everywhere. My goal was to finish the bench Jeremy and I had made for mother's day and get her master bedroom bathroom painted. After some careful deliberation, my madre decided to put the bench in the screened in porch. She recently hung some white sheers to get a light and airy feel, so we thought painting the bench white would go great. So I got to work.

First step: Priming.

 I'm pretty sure it took longer to paint this than to build it. And I'm not sure why I didn't flip the bench over.

While the primer was out and I was doing the work (haha) my mom had me prime a planter stand, and a kids tabletop too. Again, I was making up for Mr. Mud, so it was ok. I have to admit, I kinda like helping out, so I was actually more than willing. I got about halfway on the planter stand before I remembered a before picture:

And here's the kids table:

My mom started to sand off the shiny top.

Here's everything primed and ready:

The doggies wanted to get in on the action too:

My Izzie girl!

Harley got a little too ambitious and got paint on his nose.

The kids tabletop was being primed so it could become a chalkboard! We used the spray chalkboard paint. I got the honors of painting it since I primed it. Trust me, even my brother gathered around to watch, so it was an honor. He even gave it a spray so he could "feel the power." I don't even know what that means, haha.

Here's the after shot:

My goal was not achieved though because although I did get a lot of painting done, I only got one coat of paint put on the bench and one on the bathroom walls as well. So when my mom finishes both of them, I'll make her figure out her camera and send me proper after pictures!

Linked to The DIY Showoff: DIY Project Parade and Tools are for Women too!

God Bless America

Jeremy bought a new house in 2007, I moved down in December of '08. He had roommates that lived here (he's gone a lot) before I moved in. I would like to share these plain, boring, Americana, before-I-moved-in pictures.

This was the view when you walked in through the front door.It's just a hallway, but with about 20 different country, Americana stuff all over it. I'm not dissing the American flag, at all, I just don't think it needs to be on every available surface!

If you look close you can see a square of the paint color on the wall and Jeremy taking a snooze. haha

Here's a close up of the living room. More American flags and the largest coffee table in the world (which had slate rock on it and when you would put a drink down it would scrape. Gave me the heebie-jeebies.):

View going towards the left:

 

 Nice storage for the dvd's.

 

I think the American flag threw up all over the house.

Ok, now we're jumping back to the couch in front of the fireplace:

The most country hutch in the world. It's colonial blue. Yuck.

You can see the back door that leads to the screened in porch in the above picture. The room you see is the breakfast nook. Here's a pic (from the opposite angle):

And here's the kitchen sink:

Why are there glade candles being displayed on the ledge? I'm not really sure. And liquor mixes? Not a clue. That was the roommates doing. Buuut then I moved in. And the roommates moved out. And the house got whipped into shape. So stay tuned for the after pictures.