Crafty Updates

Getting it all under control....

Sort of!


So, I showed you guys a few of my organized things already, my yarn mostly, and some decorum that makes my house at least seem organized. So now I want to share with you a few more things I've done and had to DIY and make work for me.

When I bought my Krafty Kloset, it had this mysterious, oily, greasy, stain right where my mouse would have gone, and it took me a while to find something to remove it. It hit me quite suddenly to try nail polish remover. I use the full strength kind because when I do some one's nails I want to make sure they are good and free of anything old. I figured, why not? So I grabbed a few q-tips and tested my hunch. Worked wonderfully! I stepped it up a notch and got some paper towels to really cover the big area that was stained. Here you can see where I poured acetone right onto the stain and it just lifted right up! Awesome!! :D

 Ewwww! Look at whatever that is!! Gross!

So now my ugly spot is gone, gone, gone! The acetone may have also removed a bit of the clear coat (if there even was one) but I plan on painting the interior of the Kloset anyway.

Oh, say hello to our newest member of the family! Axle Grease!

This little guy was stuck under my hood! After a few hours trying to coax him out, Dw finally got under the car himself and pulled him off my axle. (Hence the name Axle Grease!) I immediately asked we could keep him, and Dw being a sucker for anything fuzzy, agreed! Our lease at this new house says no pets, so we are keeping him under wraps for now. I have taken him to the vet and had him neutered and vaccinated. He also got a bath and some flea killer (Dawn) when he first arrived.

At first he was very flighty and kept getting into my couch. Yes inside it! There was a gap where the underpinning wasn't attached and he would hide in the arm of the couch. I fixed that quick!

I found him like this this morning! Isn't that just the cutest little face!

Now he is very comfortable in our home and with us. He likes to lay next to me while I crochet. Or on my crochet! He is beside my laptop now actually, enjoying the heat thats blowing on him I bet.

                       

A toy and a surprise...

No you dirty thinkers, get your minds out of the gutter.

This weekend we went to the gun expo with my Dad, and I bought a little toy for my self.
And it fits in my pocket.

(Again, wipe that dirty mind clean!)

I bought a .22 pistol!

And only for $145!

So after work today we decided to go to the gun range and test it out and get used to it and just blow sh*t up! That's always fun! What wasn't fun was what was waiting for us when we got back home...

You see that space there in the last photo? That's where we park the Impala. Yeah. Sooo glad we were gone during this. Odd thing was, no storms came through! Nothing. Really weird. We are so glad that it was the tree out front and nothing got broken. Had it been the one next to the house, oh boy, I don't even want to think about that! I was super glad that my El Camino was unharmed also. I love my truck!

On a good note, our landlord will be coming to remove it in the morning.

Welcome home Lil' Bro!

As I said, super busy this past week. I did all that decorating and cleaning and organizing for one party. LOL! Hubby Dwayne's little brother is in the Air Force, and he wanted to throw him a welcome home party. He is back in Alabama for two weeks before he is shipping out to go to overseas. He is a cargo plane mechanic, so he should be relatively safe from danger, but we Southern folks say prayers for him no matter what.

Anyway, now the house is decorated and clean, but now I have to decorate and prepare for a party! Yikes, the week is almost over and party day is on its way! Good thing I planned ahead! My dad let us borrow his horseshoe set, and Dwayne's cousin brought his grill and cornhole game over.

Left: Husband Dwayne and his little sister (youngest) Right: Dylon (guest of honor) and his wife playing cornhole

I had been to the dollar store and picked up blue tablecloths, plates, and cups during the week. I also got some toy planes and spray painted them blue. They got set around the cake as favors for the kiddos.

Oh, the cake. Such high hopes I had for it. I had found a very nice idea on Pinterest for designing your own cake decorations from printed images, and was going to make the Air Force symbol.

Decorating tutorial here.

my cake's design

It didn't work out like I hoped, so I just blended smeared the design into the icing already on the cake. I also dyed the cake blue! I thought it would be fun to surprise everyone with a white iced cake and blue interior. It did! Everyone loved it! My cake came out a bit more turquoise-y than the one below, which is the image from the recipe I found. I think it was because my cake mix was the box kind, not scratch made. The boxed vanilla is still a bit yellow too, not white.

Blue Velvet Cake "Pinspiration"

I didn't get many pictures because we were all busy having fun and chatting it up, but I did manage to get a few. It started raining for about 20-30 minutes during the party, so everyone was inside or on the porch. The guys turned on the Xbox and were zombies for a few rounds of Call of Duty, and all us girls sat on the porch just conversing with each other. Mostly poking fun at the guys and their game faces.

Dylon and Dwayne vs Bubba and Blake

All in all we had a good party. Most all the food was eaten, so we didn't have many leftovers. Except the cake, no one took any home for later.  :P  So, now I have half of a half-sheet cake sitting on my table. I'm trying very hard to NOT eat it all. (Yeah right!)

So, who wants to come over and eat some blue vanilla cake with me?

Ok, let's decorate!

Wow have I been busy lately! I left McDonald's, after staying for one year like I said I would. And now I have all this time on my hands once again.  What have I been up to? (Other than unpacking...)

I'm working on a crochet baby blanket for my (1st!!) niece, decorating and organizing the house (better than it was before), and I had to throw a party 2 days ago! I know that doesn't sound like its that much, but it was/is. I have so much to show you guys, that I will be posting more than once today. I guess I should just jump right in!

First off let me show you all the changes I have made to the house.

Remember the shelves from Shanty2Chic that I shared a few posts ago? These are mine!

Oh, and the Bishop sign on the floor is a gift from my dad. I have yet to decide where to put it.

Entryway

Bathroom

I finally got the chance to paint them this weekend! Its been raining all the time here, so I never had a dry, sunny day to paint them until just recently. I went ahead and painted my curtain rods as well, just in case I didn't get the chance later. I made my own from thick dowel rods at Lowe's.









I found these rod hangers (corbels?) at Lowe's in the clearance section. They were the only kind to hold a rod and possibly a shelf, which I might add later. :) And I managed to find 2 sets! How perfect!

Here is the inspiration for my burlap curtains. Not Pinterest this time! I spotted these at a booth in a second hand store and snapped this picture with my cell for future copying! (Read: showing the husband what I wanted)

These curtains were super easy to make too. No sewing! I safety-pinned the twin sheets at the top to make the sleeve for the rod, and just tied the burlap onto the rod with the same jute string I used to make it look tied-back. And for the fluff at the center, I thumb-tacked it to the wall. All done in less than an hour!

Not bad for just a few twin sheets hung on a really fat dowel rod huh?

How do you like my storage unit under my air conditioner? (please ignore the air unit, I can't do anything about it) I bought some burlap and linen squares from Hobby Lobby and just hung them with tiny clips!

Want to know how much I spent? $78 TOTAL! Pretty cheap in my eyes, especially since real curtain rods alone were upwards of $25-$30 each at Lowe's.

And don't get me started on the price of curtains!

I bought 4 flat twin sheets for at $4 each! Way better!

Here is the rest of my living room. I'm not sure I like the arrangement of photos over the TV, but it works for now. The wreath is the barbwire one we used to decorate the front gate at our wedding, and so it deserves to be displayed with our engagement photos.

I also cleaned up the scary-messy closet. I can now get to what I need fairly simply. I know, it still looks scary.












I hung a few more art pieces and photos too.
The Indian lady and horse are in my bedroom, and the patience quote is in the bathroom. I bought the horse off Amazon.com. Its called "Fierce Grace". The other two I found at the thrift store.

"Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience."

My guest/craft room is much nicer as well. I have most everything put away in its proper place. With a few decor pieces too. I have a whole storage drawer thing devoted to my yarn. I think I have enough, don't you? The other one you see is winter clothes, which was this unit's original purpose until we got the armoires.

I decorated the room with a few of my horse themed pieces. My chess piece came from TJMaxx and the big horse on my Kraft Kloset is from Hobby Lobby. If I find another one I may have to get it! :) I have an Aubie statue behind him, but he needs a repair, so I have him hidden. All my tan boxes are yarn projects I have (mostly) started, so yes I do have more yarn! The blue one has a LOT of photos in it, mostly wedding and engagement 4x6's.

Lastly, my kitchen. Its much better than the last time I showed it to you, right! I'll explain the cake in the next post, sorry.

That's about it for my house update, its come a long way I will say that. As you can see I'm not done yet, but then again homes are never completely finished being decorated. Stay in tune, because I have more to come. I'll be posting more than once today to try and cut down on my insanely long posts! :) Stick around!