Five Favorites for Friday

1. This adorable ruffled t-shirt tutorial at Dear Lizzy. Love the randomness of the ruffles. Also love that dusty pink color, although it's not great on me.

2. This tutorial for making colorful silhouettes at Tatertots and Jello. Cute! I love this different spin on the popularity of silhouettes. Love the different shapes and the bright colors used.

3. This ridiculously easy but really cute Button Art over at Mod Podge Rocks. Heck, the hardest thing about this craft would be choosing which buttons to use!  What a super way to show off some of your most precious vintage buttons. I'm definitely going to make one of these--I even have some of the vintage lined school paper like she used.

Button Art from Mod Podge Rocks

4. These cute little Palbums (although I keep staring at them and thinking pablums...not the same thing) I found the ad in this month's Family Fun magazine and they showed an album with a quarter next to it to show the size--they're teeny weeny! You download the software from the website, add in your photos, and choose an itty-bitty album to put them in. They're not terribly expensive and we all know that shrinking things down to miniature size inexplicably ups the cuteness quotient by a factor of 10. I haven't tried one myself, but it's on my list. I'd love to make a little album of family members for Maren.

5.These pretty new sugar pearls I bought from JoAnn's. They come in the beautiful soft colors pictured here and also in pale green and yellow. I think I feel a batch of cupcakes coming on...

Today we're having sod for the front yard delivered so our goal is to get it laid before the rain or snow falls (both are forecast for today). Laying sod in a parka (on the 30th of April, mind you) is not my idea of fun. Bad weather and weekend drill for The Mister = no garage sales tomorrow either, but I did some good thrifting yesterday to make up for it. What are your plans for the weekend?

Vintage love: faceted black glass buttons

I dumped out my jar of black buttons the other day and realized how many of these gorgeous black faceted glass buttons I've managed to collect.

I love all the different patterns of the facets.

They're just as pretty and stylish today as they were when they were made decades ago.

Bingo counter thumbtacks

One of the reasons I love reading blogs so much is the instant inspiration they provide! The other day I was reading The Felt Mouse and saw how Jennifer used a button to cover the end of a picture-hanging nail. Clever, right?

It was perfect timing for me, as I was in the middle of a picture-hanging dilemma of my own. Not actually a picture, if you want to get technical--more of a muffin-tin-hanging-dilemma, really. I needed a new way to hang my beloved Ovenex starburst muffin tin. My old method wasn't cutting it, so I attached a ribbon through the holes to act as a new hanger, but I didn't want to just pound a nail through it because it would be visible and U-G-L-Y.

Enter Jennifer's perfectly-timed blog post! I thought about using the same method of a nail & a button (I have plenty of cute vintage buttons) but I couldn't find a picture-hanging nail with a head big enough to attach a button. I did have a big box of thumbtacks, and a jar of old bingo pieces and a tube of E6000 glue, however, and about 30 minutes of drying time later, I had a cute new way to hang my muffin tin.

It's done, it's cute, it used what I had on hand and was virtually instant gratification. Hooray for Jennifer and hooray for Blogland! (and wouldn't these make the cutest thumbtacks for a bulletin board? Hmmmm...)

Weather, more about decorating above your kitchen cabinets, and thrifted vintage pottery

They say in Colorado if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes, an adage that has proved too true this week. Over the past 48 hours we've had sun, rain, warm, cold, fog, hail, a tornado warning, and even snow. No kidding! The tornado warning was exciting: we'd gone to visit The Mister at work for Take Your Kids To Work Day and were summarily ushered into the first floor hallways by uniformed men with guns...okay, the uniformed men with guns part was not all that scary, since The Mister works at the state National Guard HQ and such a sight is pretty commonplace. :) But the strangely colored clouds and downpour that accompanied the tornado warning were enough to scare Maren, who hasn't forgotten last year's tornadic experience.

The kitchen cabinets project from my previous post is still in the early stages. Right now is probably the hardest part for me--deciding what can stay and what has to go. Deciding which of my hard-won thrifted vintage treasures has to go is like deciding which children to give up! Okay, I'm being melodramatic, but really, I love all that *junque* and it's going to be a tough decision. Obviously the Jadeite stays, but the other items will be require more pondering. I do want to highlight Kayla's brilliant suggestion, in case you didn't see it in the comments: in our area, it seems we are getting new phone books delivered every few months, so Kayla uses those to elevate items atop her kitchen cabinets. I think that's such a great idea, and now I can't wait until we get phone books again, so I can go ask my neighbors if I can have their books!

And for pretty pictures today, how about some of my recent thrift finds?

Both of these items are from my small-town thrifting in February. There's a thrift store I frequent in Alamosa that skims any old or interesting donations so it can price them higher and place them in the "boutique" in the back of the store. I understand they're doing this to make money for their charity, but the result is that most of the dishware/knick knacks that actually make it to the "thrift" section of the store are pure junk.The old white flower pot was in the "boutique" portion of the store; it's got a lovely crazed finish and a great fluted pattern. It was originally marked $6.00--a price I would have willingly paid--but the cashier knocked it down to $4.00. That makes the price of the pink striped Pyrex bowl even more ridiculous--it was also $6.00, but it was in the "thrift" section of the store, and that price is downright astronomical for that area. Stupid, but I wanted it BAD--pink Pyrex, hello!--so I paid even though it was overpriced.

The next items I found last week when a kind friend arranged a playdate for Maren with her girls, a move that very possibly averted a domestic incident as it was Week 3 of off-track and following a weekend that The Mister had to work, so I hadn't had any kid-free time in days and days and days. I made a beeline to the thrift for some therapy and found this gem:

I've been looking for one of these beautifully-colored vintage pottery urns for ages, and I regularly covet them on blogs and in the pages of magazines. I was SO excited to find this one in a beautiful shade of blue! It's not the aqua blue that I usually look for, but it's a gorgeous color and will look pretty with the other pottery I have in shades of turquoise and pale green. There are a couple of large chips but I can just turn them towards the back. This has to be one of my favorite finds in a long, long time.

Also that day I found this sweet vintage handpainted Noritake sugar bowl (can't decide whether to keep or sell) and this fab pale green Bauer planter. It also has a large chip, but again I can turn it toward the back and no one will be the wiser. I've been looking for more green/aqua dishes for a future project in my master bath, so this fit the bill nicely.

The lousy weather & a traveling husband means there will be no garage or estate sale shopping for me this weekend. We'll likely stay inside where it's dry and cozy--goodness knows I have a million and one projects I can be working on around the house. What are your weekend plans?

Decorating Above Your Kitchen Cabinets

I've mentioned before that I love watching the online version of Studio 5, a lifestyle show produced by the local NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City. Almost every day I find inspiration there, whether it's crafting, decoration, or fashion. The other day, they showed this segment about decorating the space above your kitchen cabinets (I can't get it to embed, so just click the link).

I also have that dead space between my kitchen cabinets and the ceiling. Here's how the previous owner of my home had it decorated:

Lots and lots of fake ivy. It didn't necessarily look bad, it's just not my thing. I wasn't really sure what to do with the space so I started using it as a display area for some of my vintage kitchen finds. Here's what it looks like now:

Blech.While it's useful to have display space for my vintage finds (because really, I have no place to put them otherwise and I really don't want to just get rid of everything) but I kinda hate how it all looks just lined up like that.

There are a couple of other problems I've run into regarding using that space for display. The first is that the top of the cabinets is actually set quite a few inches below the top of the molding. This means that you can't see the bottom few inches of whatever you put there, unless you place something underneath to raise it up higher. I started out using a bunch of books we never read, but that has become an issue because of problem #2: everything I place up there gets coated with a layer of grease and dust. I truly don't cook a lot of greasy foods, so I'm not sure why things up on top of the cabinets get so very nasty, but they do. Perhaps I need to be using the vent hood on my stove more often?

At any rate, I need to make a change to that space. My kitchen always feels cluttered, mostly likely because it IS cluttered! I have a difficult enough time controlling the junk on the counters and table and front of the refrigerator. I know that I could make my kitchen less visually cluttered by reducing the amount of "stuff" that I display atop the shelves. It may be time for some tough decisions on how much I truly love and need to keep the items I currently have up there, and what I could ~ahem~ re-home. (somewhere, my husband just got happier, and he doesn't even know why. ;D)

Do you have anything displayed above your kitchen cabinets? Do you have any tips for me as I begin my makeover?

Random things I love this Tuesday:

• This darling crepe paper peony from Lisa at It's In The Details. I've made crepe paper flowers and rosettes before, but I think what really makes this one look like a flower is the scalloped edges she cut on the paper before gathering. SO pretty!

• This super cute cake carrier from Plasticland. I love vintage cake carriers (I have a collection of spun aluminum carriers myself) and the bright colors. On the lid it says, "Everything is better with cake and frosting"...I couldn't agree more! Check out the Closeout section at Plasticland--there are some darling clothes on clearance for really great prices! I may have to pick up a few cute jackets for next autumn.
• Loved finding a story about the resurgence of aprons on the front page of the newspaper! This article was in the center, above the fold on Saturday's Denver Post. The popularity of aprons is totally OLD news to us bloggers, but it's always fun when other people get it, right?
• This beautiful wreath at Crazy Daisy made out of brown paper lunch sacks! I love the colorful butterflies against the kraft brown of the lunch sacks. I have one more wreath form leftover from my Christmastime wreath spree, and I think I know how it's going to end up!
• The PS22 Chorus kids on YouTube. I'm the last person on earth to discover them, but these are the cutest kids and their teacher must be one amazing guy. The best argument I've seen yet for maintaining arts education funding in schools!

Porter at 7 months

Today Porter is 7 months old! Here are some things about Porter at 7 months:

• This kid is MOBILE. He has been crawling for a month now and he is FAST. As in, turn your back and he sneaks up on you like a ninja kind of fast.

• In addition to the crawling, he's climbing. He can easily climb atop Maren's trampoline (a small exercise version), where he likes to bounce on his hands and knees. He can get down by himself, but it's more of a tumble than a controlled dismount.
• He can also pull up on the stairs. Just last night, The Mister found Porter completely atop the first stair, wailing because he was stuck. It will be only a matter of time before he attempts the stairs again in earnest.

• Porter has started eating baby foods. He's getting better at actually keeping the food in his mouth instead of pushing it out with his tongue. Mommy & Daddy are happy because now it won't take 30 minutes to feed him 1/3 cup of food.
• Porter is in the 45th percentile for his weight and the 75th percentile for his height. We grow 'em tall and skinny around here! He is very strong, though.

•  Porter still wakes up once at night to eat, somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 am, which makes it really tough for Mommy to get up in the mornings after she goes back to sleep. The doctor said that Porter is big enough that we can try to break him of this habit but I'm not looking forward to letting him cry it out at 4:35 in the morning. Ugh.

• The majority of the time he wants to be down on the floor, exploring and crawling around. He's not a fan of being held or contained, unless he's tired or hungry.

•  Porter is still a happy, pleasant little boy. He smiles and laughs readily and is a joy!

Giveaway winner and Thrift Thursday finds

And the winner of the Everyday is a Holiday cupcake cards is...

Debby from The Gathering Nest! Yay Debby! Send me an email with your mailing address using the link over there to the left and I'll get your cute cards in the mail to you! Thank you all for your comments.

Today I also have a few recent *good junque* finds to share.

This cool vintage tinsel tree was from the awesome estate sale I blogged about a few weeks ago, but I forgot to include the photo then. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the tinsel is a mix of magenta and orange, and the branches are actually loops. It sits in a glittered white wooden stand and is marked Italy. It came with one lone glittery bird still wired to the branch--wish I could have found the rest of the flock! This will probably end up in my etsy shop around the holidays because it's neat, but doesn't match my decor.

This jewelry set was a find from a small-town thrifting trip back in January. I bought it right before I took my blogging break so I never got around to sharing it, but I LOVE it so much that I just had to show it off! The bracelet is one of those funky hinged cuffs, and is made of brown plastic and set with dozens of gorgeous aurora borealis crystals. All of the crystals in the cuff and the matching earrings are intact and have their iridescent finish, which is rare for a piece with that many stones. It's gorgeous and was a steal at $7!

This last item was actually gifted to me by a sweet friend. She was changing her decor and remembered that I love old stuff, so thought I might like it. She was right! It's now displayed in Porter's bedroom, where I think it works well with the other vintage space-themed items, and the bright primary colors are just perfect!

I was able to get out and do some thrifting yesterday, thanks to a kind friend who invited Maren over for the morning to play with her girls. Found some good stuff, and when it's all washed/ironed I'll be sure to post it!

Everyday CAN be a holiday with Jenny & Aaron & Michael's!

In 2007 I had the pleasure of attending Silver Bella, one of the best paper arts events in the country! While there, I got to take classes from the fabulous Jenny & Aaron, of Everyday is a Holiday. In fact, I hung up the darling cake plaque I made in one of their classes for Maren's birthday celebrations a few weeks ago. Jenny & Aaron are the nicest people, and I've long been a fan of their gorgeous pink & aqua blue, vintage-style cake art, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to find out that their work is available at Michael's craft stores RIGHT NOW!!

I was first tipped off by Natalea (a fellow '07 Bella who was in that cake plaque class with me) a few weeks ago and couldn't wait to go to Michael's to see the items for myself. They were even cuter in person, with pretty pastel colors and glitter and sprinkles all over. This (lousy) photo only shows a small portion of the line. There were more styles of journals, notecards, little enclosure cards, magnets, and rhinestone words--all in Jenny & Aaron's signature style! And guess what--they were only $1 each--can you believe it? I loaded up my cart because I think I could happily use these cards for all my mail correspondence for pretty much forever.

And guess what else--because I love Jenny & Aaron's art so much and because I just know that you'll love it too, I picked up an extra packet of notecards for one of you!

Aren't these cards just darling? Simply leave a comment on this post between now and noon MDT on Wednesday (that's tomorrow) and I'll pick someone to send a little bit of cupcake Happy Mail!

Art Therapy for a 5-year-old

Yesterday afternoon Maren got in trouble (an incident involving scissors and one of the throw pillows on the couch...I'll let you guess what happened) and was unhappy with her punishment, so she took out her frustration through the therapeutic medium of art. What resulted was this picture, which she intended to be titled, "NO Mommies Bossing Their Kids Around," but she didn't know how to spell the rest after NO.

When I saw what she was drawing I actually started laughing so hard that I had to leave the room. Heck, I'm laughing right now as I type this! Her depiction of me SLAYS me. Is that what I look like to her when I get mad? She got my curly hair, but I'm not so sure about the angry eyebrows and the mean monster mouth. It does remind me of someone else though...

Yup. That's it exactly.

A few days ago, we finally broke down and purchased something we should have bought five years ago:

This is a Vicks Forehead Thermometer. It's nifty--you just push the button, wait for the proper screen, run it across the forehead and instantly it gives you a temperature reading and a colored indicator light (green for normal, yellow for mild fever and red for high). It also has a memory function to recall previous readings, should you need to compare them. We bought ours from the local Walgreens and consequently paid a premium price (almost $50), but they can be purchased several places online for much, much cheaper. 

 

This (or any other similar instant-read thermometer) would be an EXCELLENT baby gift, because it's something new parents might not think they need and it's much more expensive than a traditional thermometer. Maren was hit with a nasty stomach bug last Thursday morning and spiked a fever that night. She may be five years old, but still fought us every time we tried to take her temperature with a regular oral thermometer and therefore I always doubted the accuracy of the reading.  Thursday night we finally wised up and bought this Vicks thermometer, and couldn't be happier with the results. (You might think we're slow learners but really, Maren has been so rarely ill that we thankfully haven't had to take her temperature much.)

The good news is that her temp wasn't anything to worry about and she was better by Saturday. The bad news is that Porter caught the stomach bug Saturday night in a spectacular showing of projectile vomiting, and Quin and I succumbed on Sunday morning. We still haven't had Easter dinner but I think tonight's the ticket. So, yeah, it was a pretty quiet weekend around here.

Easter egg swap & more estate sale goodies

This post comprises the extent of my Easter decorating this year. Pitiful, I know--especially since I adore my Easter decorations, so it's a shame not to be able to enjoy them. I'm going to blame the two weeks of chaos around Maren's birthday: by the time they were over, I was tired of messes and there was only a week left until Easter, which just wasn't enough time for me to get everything out.

Good thing I participated in Shara's Egg-stra Fun Swap, because they will have to stand in for the decorating I didn't do! I received my swap items yesterday and opening that box of goodies was most definitely the highlight of my day. Such lovely work from everyone! I'm just tickled. Now that boxes are being received, I think I can safely show my contribution to the swap:

I saw these beautiful golden eggs and remembered that I had some sheets of (imitation) gold leaf stashed away in my craft supplies. I covered papier mache eggs from Hobby Lobby with spray adhesive, then gently applied the gold leaf to each one. They're accented with a belt of white or cream velvet ribbon and one of my stash of pearly vintage earrings. The eggs turned out much simpler than I had initially envisioned them, but I think they're pretty. And using up the gold leaf that I've been toting around for oh, at least 10 years now yet again justified my tendencies toward pack-rattery.

I did manage to find two Easter decorations at the estate sale I posted about yesterday. I know there was more good stuff, but that's all I could manage to wrestle past Porter's grasping arms and get safely in my bag.

This basket came wrapped in its original cellophane wrapper with a tag from a place called Blum's in San Francisco. Googling (or Topeka-ing yesterday) turned up that Blum's was a bakery/restaurant in among the fancy department stores that closed in the mid-1970s.Why the owner never removed the cellophane (and petrified piece of candy I found inside) after 30+ years, we'll never know.

I bought this for the bunny pick that's tied to the basket. The basket itself is a bit much for my taste, so it may end up in the ol' etsy shop. Here's the bunny pick closer up:

What I will ever do with it, I have no idea. It's cute, though! The only other Easter item I bought at the sale was one lone pink Gurley bunny candle.

We're planning a low-key Easter weekend around here. Maren has been sick since early yesterday morning, The Mister has been late getting home every single night this week and I because Maren's off-track from school, I haven't had the opportunity to do any shopping or errands without the kids and I'm going a bit Mommy-crazy. The Easter Bunny visits our house tomorrow morning, the day before Easter, and I still need to find a basket for Maren and get the eggs filled. It may be a late night for this Bunny!

Thrift Thursday--JUNK HEAVEN estate sale edition

A couple of weeks ago I saw an estate sale listing that sounded like JUNK HEAVEN. The ladies running it said that the house was so packed it took them two weeks to go through it all (double the normal time) and posted teaser pictures on Facebook that had my mouth watering! Only problem--it was WAY across town (we're talking a 45 minute drive) and ran Wed-Fri 9-2 pm so there was little chance I could get a babysitter for the kids so that I could go alone. I was disappointed but pretty much resigned myself to not going.

(embossed aluminum Baby cup, vintage birthday candles, minty green velvet ribbon with beads and sequin stars)

Thursday morning I had to run an errand that took me halfway across town. I was already far from home, Maren had movies to watch and we'd all been fed, so I decided--what the heck--and we drove to the sale. Going estate sale shopping with my two children in tow is not my idea of JUNK HEAVEN. It's somewhere SOUTH of that, if you know what I mean. But sometimes, you have to do hard things to get the good junk, so I put Porter in the Snugli strapped to my chest, grabbed Maren's hand and a reusable shopping bag and headed into the fray.

(Ovenex starburst loaf pan, yummy vintage ornaments)

The organizers weren't exaggerating--it was JUNK HEAVEN. The house was packed to the gills, even towards the end of Day #2, and the prices were CHEAP! There was a ton of holiday stuff, vintage clothing, sewing junk, etc. And did I mention it was cheap? By the time I got there everything was 20% off of the already low prices (especially for a professionally-run estate sale).

 (Assorted vintage Christmas goodness)

Shopping with the kids--well, it was a pain. Porter was like an octopus, grabbing everything within reach of his chubby little arms. Maren complained and asked if it was time to go approximately every two minutes. I'm sure if I had been by myself I could have found a lot more goodies, but as it was I felt like my loot made the hassle worth it.

 (cute vintage pumpkin, handmade felt cowboy boot Christmas stocking with "Donny" in tiny silver rickrack, wide satin ribbons)

When I came home I stashed the bag under my desk and launched right into my weekend birthday-party-and -houseguest-marathon, so I didn't get to pull it all out and look at it until today. And these pictures don't show everything I picked up--one item is still at the dry cleaner, I have Easter stuff to post tomorrow and I still have to air out the mother lode of vintage Christmas wrapping paper I found, because it's so musty that the smell just about knocked me over when I opened the garbage bag I brought it all home in (if that gives you any clue to how much of it there is!) Finding all that good junk made me excited for yard sales season to begin!

Black and white and tan all over

I don't tend to gravitate towards neutrals in my decorating--my front room walls are deep red, the family room is navy--and although I love the serene visuals of all-white rooms I see in magazines, that's just not practical for my life (and to all those people who say all-white homes with kids and pets are just SO simple and livable and easy--I say, liar liar pants on fire).

So it's different territory for me to be in a black and white phase in my front room, the location of the hutch from yesterday's post. I was feeling it even before Christmas, when the lovely creamy package I received from Kelly in the Sparkling Winter White swap really spoke to me in the midst of the the colorful Shiny Brites that spell holiday decor in my home. Even though I decorated with traditional reds for Valentine's Day, I couldn't shake the neutral color scheme rolling around in the back of my head, so as soon as the hearts and cupids were put away, I broke out the beige.

I kept the mercury glass candlesticks and white pillars from Valentine's Day, but replaced the red ribbons and heart ornaments with strips of burlap (left over from my cork board makeover) and various black and white ribbons from my stash.

I filled one glass jar with old spools of brown and black thread, and a larger apothecary jar on the other side with Styrofoam balls that I wrapped with jute twine while I watched ice skating on the Olympics.

I saw that idea somewhere on a blog but I can't remember where to give credit, I'm afraid. They were easy enough (various-sized thrifted Styrofoam balls, a $1.99 ball of jute and a tube of special glue for Styrofoam) and kept my hands busy. I had planned to make more of the larger size, but once the twine was glued on they were too big to fit through the opening of the jar! The little white ceramic birdie was from JoAnn's before Christmas.

On my little white dresser I have a few more silvers and whites, nearly all thrifted. The silver bowl atop a silver tray is filled with dried white beans that support an antique photo of a baby in a white knitted snowsuit & hat, a card of vintage black buttons with the greatest "Paris" graphic, and an old silver baby cup.

The large jar holds a grouping of white balls of crochet thread, all of which I purchased for a dime or a quarter apiece at one of my favorite small-town thrifts in February.

Next to the jar are two thrifted, lidless silver sugar bowls. One holds a collection of silver spoons, and the other holds the one thread ball that wouldn't fit in the jar!

On my white bench I have a skinny metal basket filled with an antique ironstone pitcher (bought to sell someday, but I love it too much right now), my two silver trophies and a pair of candy apple-red frames that add a fun surprise of color in all the neutrals. I found the frames on clearance for $1.20 each at Hobby Lobby (cheaper than the thrift!) and they still lack photos in them more than a month later. Whoops.

The last bit of my neutral decor is on the round table in the room. I haven't had my beloved (thrifted for $9, and YES you may be jealous of me) cloche out for a while so it was high time I used it again. On the zinc platter is a crocheted doily The Mister brought back from Portugal, an old ironstone bowl filled with Scrabble tiles, and a nest containing a sweet silver mercury glass birdie. To dress up the cloche itself I used scraps of black and white ribbons (to mirror those on my candlesticks), jute (to mirror the jute balls), a tiny silver spoon, a chandelier crystal, and a curtain ring clip attached to a vintage-style flashcard that I bought from Andrea a few years ago.

The neutral thing won't last forever with me--I'll be back to my favorite bright reds and turquoise blues soon enough, but it's nice to try something new for a while, isn't it?

The $5 Hutch transformation

So, I have this china hutch. You've probably seen it before on my blog, as I use the top of it for my seasonal decorating. Here's the thing about the hutch:

I actually HATE this piece of furniture.

Oh, it's useful--it provides a lot of display/storage space inside, and the horizontal space up top is perfect for holiday displays and keeping items away from *little* hands. But I think it's just really, really ugly. It was a hand-me-down from some friends from before we got married eight years ago, and I think they probably owned it for at least that long before it came to us. When we got married I was happy to get it because I had no furniture and  it was FREE, and I really didn't have much of a decorating style anyway so it didn't matter to me what it looked like.

Over the last eight years I've finally developed a decorating style, and this hutch just doesn't fit into it. I've seen countless hutch transformations all over blogland, most of which involve taking a dated piece from a thrift store and transforming it with paint. Love the idea, but 1) I'm lazy and 2) my track record for getting pieces refinished within a three-year window of dragging them home is so far batting .000 and 3) I'm cheap. So, while I'm waiting to find the perfect, inexpensive vintage-style hutch to just fall into my lap, I found a way to make a quick fix for less than $5.

One of the (many) issues I have with the hutch is the mirrored interior. I use this piece to display mostly glass/crystal/silver items, and combined with the reflective mirrors, glass shelves and the abundant light that streams in from a south-facing window in the room, there was just WAY too much reflection going on. All of those shiny surfaces + light combined to make a whole lot of visual chaos, which wasn't helped by the fact that I probably had too much crammed in there in the first place.

See what I mean? Too much stuff to begin with, and the mirrors multiply everything anyway so there's no where for your eye to focus.

The fix was EASY. So easy, and required only four tools: decorative scrapbook paper, a tape measure, a paper cutter, and double-sided scrapbooking adhesive. I bought the paper from Hobby Lobby, but waited until it went 3/$1 (I'm cheap, remember?). I measured my mirrors ahead of time and did some quick math to estimate how many 12"x12" sheets I'd need to purchase. From there, it was simple: Apply tape to back of paper, adhere directly over mirror.

I had to do a tiny bit of trimming to make it fit, but I was lucky because the majority of the mirrors were just about 12" high to begin with. Where I needed to fit two sheets together, I just overlapped them slightly, and I didn't even try very hard to match up the pattern because no one will be looking that close and it will be covered up by the display items anyway (I'm lazy, remember?).

I LOVE the result! I think the non-reflective background is so much better and the neutral paper makes the items in front of it really stand out and be noticed, whereas before they just got lost in all the shine and reflection. I also removed some of the items I had in there to reduce the visual clutter even more. The black and white check goes with the decorating thing I have going on in that room right now (you can see a bit on the top of the hutch) but I think it's neutral and has enough vintage-style charm that it will go with my decor in the future as well. And hey--if I get tired of it, $5 more worth of paper will change the look again.

I like it even more at night, when there's no glare on the glass from the windows in the room and the lights inside the hutch cast a nice glow that makes the silver shine.

Is there a spot in your house where $5 worth of scrapbooking paper could make a decorating difference?

Two weeks.

I'm pooped.

The last two weeks have been busy for me. They were filled with fun and family but at the same time it's a relief to get back to the quiet and relative calm of my life. Here's what I've been doing over the past two weeks:

Made 14 eggs for Shara's Egg-stra Fun Easter Swap. Here's a teeny sneak peek:

Designed and oversaw the construction of 80 party favors for a church dinner on Wednesday night. Also helped set up for and clean up after said dinner. Here are a few of the favors:

The Mister's parents flew in on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend and we experienced Blizzard #1.

Planned and executed Maren's cupcake-themed birthday party on Saturday morning. I was not nearly as organized as usual and threw it all together in about 24 hours.

Hosted 8 party guests + Maren but it all went very smoothly. I was thrilled that I actually had more planned for the kids to do than I had time for (previous year they blew through all the planned activities in about 45 minutes, leaving me scrambling to fill the remaining half of the party with something other than running around and screaming)

Because one party in a day is just not enough, I hosted a Ziploc Home Organization House Party on Saturday evening, complete with Ziploc swag to give away and a build-your-own cupcake bar:

Hey, the house was already clean for the first party and I ended up with 3 dozen cupcakes by accident, so this one was easy!

On Monday, The Mister's parents flew out. Tuesday morning my parents flew in. Tuesday night we had Blizzard #2.

Wednesday was Maren's actual birthday. School was canceled because of the previous night's snow. We went out to lunch at Maren's favorite restaurant, Chick Fil A (after I told her that her first choice, 'Old' McDonald's, was NOT an option). That night we went to see Mary Poppins, which was fabulous! I'm a BIG MP fan--see my Halloween 2008 costume for proof.

The show was fun (although quite a bit different from the movie) and we had GREAT seats. It was a bit too long for Maren's five-year-old attention span, and she was pretty wiggly throughout the entire second half. Still, I think she enjoyed it and next time we'll go for the matinee. Didn't get home until 11:30 pm and we were wiped out by the time it was over.

Thursday morning Maren had school, so I was up early to take her. Spent the day enjoying time with my folks, then took them to the airport that afternoon. Attempted to catch up on 300+ entries in my Google Reader, helped The Mister proofread his homework for this weekend, went to bed far too late.

This morning (Friday), The Mister got up for a 7:30 am flight to Washington DC, leaving me and the kiddos alone for the weekend. I've been busy all day digging out from the festivities of the past two weeks, buying groceries to fill the empty fridge, washing loads of sheets & towels and going through the various piles of paper and mail that got shoved in the corners during quick cleaning sprees. It has rained and snowed on and off all evening, with more snow forecast for tomorrow. Two straight weeks of cleaning, planning, late bedtimes, bad weather, vacuuming multiple times a day in a vain attempt to control the dog hair situation, baking, and a baby who has hit some crazy growth spurt that has caused him to wake a minimum of 2x per night to eat and an additional 2x per night to merely whimper, and you might understand why...

I'm pooped.