Hooooo Are You?

1. Do you wear glasses or contacts, if so for how long?

I wear contacts almost all the time, occasionally I wear my glasses.  But hopefully for not much longer!  The hubby and I are maybe, hopefully getting Lasik soon!
2. What was your favorite board game as a kid?

Monopoly Jr.
3. What is a word that you use all the time?

cute!

{referring to my baby, my hubby, and crafts I see} 
4. What is your favorite day of the week?

Friday, duh!
5. Did you graduate high school from the town you grew up in?

No, I moved to the town I graduated in when I was 11 and in 6th grade.

 

 

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Day 10- Laundry Room

So today is officially the last day of the 21 Days to Organize Challenge.  And I'm just posting Day 10.  But it's ok.  I'm just glad to be doing it!  And I will finish!!!

So day 10 is the laundry room.  Ours is actually a laundry closet.

Here is the before

I had some messy messy shelves!

Taking all of it out to clean out and organize.

And then I put it back again.

All nice and pretty.

All my stuff is nicely organized according to bin.  

Top left- paper towels, middle- laundry detergant (I've stocked up with coupons when they were under $1! That's why I have so many.) and top right- spray paint.

Bottom left is dusting rags, left middle is filled with packets of single load laundry detergent (all which I got for free from either signing up for free samples or coupons), right middle is dryer sheets (again, alot from stocking up with coupons when they're dirt cheap), and bottom right is a cleaning towel and our current bottle of detergent.  

Here's a side by side before and after (my personal favorite!)

*Side note, the cute sign in the middle of the bottom shelf I made.  I got the 8x10 picture frame from a thrift store for $1 and spray painted it.  (It was a hideous gold color before, you know the kind!) And I printed the picture from here.

Here is a close up of the picture in the frame.

Cute, huh? :)

Motto for 2011

Simplify

I often need to remind myself to step back, take a breath, look at the big picutre, and simplify!

I'm constantly thinking I can do more than I can and over complicating things.  So when I saw this vinyl decal for a measly $6 (normally $16, on sale for $8 right now here) on a Groopdealz one day, I knew that was going to be my motto/goal for this year.  

On a side note, I totally decided I was going with gray before seeing this post on the website that sells the decals.  Just so you know.

So I finally got around to making the board to display it.  I bought a 2x4 at Lowes and had them cut it.

Then I sanded the boards and primed gave up trying to prime cause it wasn't working.

I used this beauteous gray paint.

And then painted a few coats on my boards.  Oh yeah, I made two.  One for me and one for a birthday present for someone else.  I don't think she reads my blog, but just in case, I won't say her name my sis-in-law Jen!

Finally, I applied the vinyl!

Here's how it turned out.

And I distressed it with some sandpaper too.  I really like how it turned out!

Here are a couple close-ups of the distressing.

What do you think?

Now all I need to do is to decide where to put it...  Wanna help?  Good!

Tell me which place you vote for!

On top of the fridge

 On the baker's rack

On bookshelf #1

On top of bookshelf #1

On bookshelf #2

 

On bookshelf #2 near the bottom

For real I need help, me and the hubby are sooo indecisive!  

{plus, he probably could care less where it goes}

So leave a comment and let me know. :)

Linking to these par-tays!

15 Things

Amy at Increasingly Domestic did a post with 15 random things about her and tagged 5 people.  Bet you can guess what I'm going to say next.  Yep.  She tagged me!  You should read her 15 things, it's hilarious.   Especially #14.  For reals.  Go read it!  

{It won't take long}

I love her and her blog.  She is just so nice!  

So here are 15 things you are dying to know about me.  {Yes, truly dying to know.  I swear.}

1. I  absolutely l.o.v.e. Disney princesses.  Ariel and Cinderella are my favorite.  I used to wish I could be a real Disney princess at Disney World.
2. I used to a be a teacher.  I taught 5th grade and loved it.  I love that age.  I stopped teaching when I had my baby this past August.
3. Sometimes I miss my pre-mommy days.  I miss being able to do whatever I wanted when I wanted.  Selfish, I know.  But I would never go back.  Ever.  I love being a mommy to the best baby in the world!
4.  Pink is my favorite color.  It's great.
5. I hate cooking.  And I hate fast food.  Except for Panda Express.  Love that place.  But we don't have a Panda in Kentucky.  Lame.
6. I love being organized.  But you wouldn't know from looking at most of my house.  The 21 Days to Getting Organized is helping though!  I love the results from her challenges.
7. I love looking at/buying clothes for my baby Gray.  I used to love buying clothes for me.  Not as much anymore.
8.  I like to imagine my future house with a big, organized craft room all to myself!
9. I'm a big time girly-girl.  When I went to Girl's Camp (a camp program at my church for girls 12-17) I would always bring my make-up and blow dryer.  I know.  I know.  Not a ton of make-up, just enough so it wasn't too obvious.  Go ahead and laugh.  I love camping though!  I'm not too girly to hate camping.  
10. FSU and BYU are my college teams!  I went to BYU and grew up in Florida and an FSU fan because my dad went there.  And now one of my sisters is at FSU too.  Go Seminoles and Cougars!
11. I used to think iPads were dumb.  Now I want one.  Ha!
12. I'm the oldest child of 4 girls.  No brothers.  Just 3 wonderful little sisters.
13. I'm 25 years old.  
14. I hate trying to buy jeans for myself.  It's the worst.  I have legs that are too long for regular size but not long enough for most long sizes.  Plus finding cute comfy jeans is just hard!  I wear 2 pairs of jeans all the time that are about 4 years old.  Not that I haven't gotten new ones since.  I just don't like them as much. 
15. My baby is 5 months old today!  He loves to look around at everything, try to sit up, stand up (with me holding him obviously), and doesn't want to cuddle anymore.  I kinda, a little bit, want another one so I can have a newborn to cuddle with.  Yes, I'm crazy.

Okay, I'm tagging these fabulous people to tell 15 things about themselves!

Nichelle at Vintage Wannabee

Kate at See Kate Blog

Elizabeth at Sew Chatty

Halsey at Spunky Junky

my good friend Emily


{linking this post here}


 

First Haircut

My precious, little, sweet, wonderful, angel baby boy is growing so fast I can hardly believe it.  He'll be 5 months on Saturday.  He had his first haircut a couple days ago.  Most babies don't need haircuts before 5 months... Some babies still don't have much hair at all by 5 months.

Gray has quite the head of hair though, even as a newborn!  

Here are some very recent pictures of him before the haircut.

{So you can see how shaggy it'd gotten}

And then a haircut.

 No more hair covering those ears.

What a big boy and such a cutie pie!

{BTW I did NOT cut his hair.  A fabulous girl from my church did.}

Organizing Challenge- Day 5,6, 7, & 9

So yeah.  I'm behind.  

BUT I'm more behind in posting than the actual challenges.  

{Even though I'm behind in those too}

So instead of doing super deatailed posts, like I'd like to do, I'm just giong show you a bunch of before and after pictures.  

{Otherwise I'll never get caught up on posting!}

Here goes!

Day 5- Under the kitchen sink

I almost skipped this one.  Under my sink is scary!  For real.  It doesn't have a bottom or sides.  It's unfinished.  {We're renting, can't do much about it}  So it's this massive, dark, dirty space and I'm sure it's infested with spiders and other yucky bugs. 

{Even though I don't see them, other than the occasional spider, I know there must be more.  It seems like a bug haven!}

  

And I HATE bugs. Loathe.  Despise. *shiver*

Anyways, I worked up my courage and tackled the space.

And I'm so glad I did.  This is one of my favorite transformations so far.  It's just, well... you'll see!

Before

{I put so much on that ledge in front cause I didn't want to have to reach into the scary cabinet}

All emptied out- scary looking, huh?! 

Containerizing everything. 

 I was able to get rid of some stuff in here that we NEVER use.

And...

After!

I love it now.  I'm less scared to reach in for things because they're all organized in bins and such and not touching the yucky floor. 

{I'm weird, I know}

And since this picture, I put a hook on the inside of the cabinet door to hang the dustpan on.  Then I put those 2 Lysol products that are on the ledge inside the bucket {since there was more space without the dust pan}.  So it's even better than this picture- which is already pretty great!

Once more, with a side by side before and after

Ok, so that wasn't as short as I'd like... but these next ones will be!  I have some organizing to go do.

Day 6- Dresser

Emptied out the drawers, got rid of stuff, and folded back nicely.  This one wasn't too hard.
{Note- I'm only showing one drawer of mine and one of Josh's.  But they were all done}

Before

After

 And a before and after of the top of the dresser

Day 7- The Pantry


This one took the longest so far, but has the BEST before and after.  Promise!


First off, this is to show you the size of our pantry.  See the fridge to the left?  See the pantry doors?  

Yeah.  It's small.  

You have to bend down reach in there.  But at least we have one!  I'm grateful for that. 

Before
{boy did we need this challenge!}

Left is the corner of the pantry and the right pic is the view straight on.

Yikes!


I got it all emptied out...

And then my kitchen/dining room looked like this... for a good day and a half!

After lots of organizing bins and trips to Wal-Mart it now looks like...


This!

Left- corner       Right- straight on 

Before and After

Pretty amazing, eh?
I think so.


Day 9- Toys


So We don't have lots of toys to organize.  Gray is only 4 months and has like one small basket in his room and that's it. 
So I chose a totally different space to organize.
My baker's rack!


Here's the before.

  And After

In that left basket I put Gray's bibs, the right is for magazines, and the top is just random.

 Here are the drawers.  Left- random.  Right- table linens. 

Before and After

It's doesn't look too different, but I'm super happy with it.  The bottom shelves drove me crazy with how ugly and unorganized they were.


Ok that's it for now. 
I have one more set of pictures for day 10, but I'll have to post it later.  



Did you notice I had no day 8? Anyone?
Good job if you did! You deserve a prize.
It was supposed to be the coat closet, but we don't have one. 
So I skipped it.  I didn't feel like choosing a different closet.  I have a feeling that will be a later challenge anyhow.