How are those resolutions coming along?

Today seems like a good day to revist my resolutions.  I'm hanging out at my Moms while Nelson works a day shift and Molly is watching her bake buns:)

So here was my first list of resolutions:

1. paint door in kitchen
2. paint outside door (perhaps both sides)
3. spray paint mirror for guest bedroom
4. spray paint magazine rack for office
5. refinish old coffee table
6. hang photo collage
7. sew valances
8. sew curtains for playroom
9. finish painting chairs for kitchen

The great part is that i wasn't even trying to cross anything off the list yet and without knowing I'm almost 30% done.  Yah!!!

Today I've been thinking lots about the tile for our backsplash in the kitchen. I'm super stoked about it. I think it will be our March project and considering I thought it was going to be WAY in the future i couldn't be more happy. I was scoping some tile out at Home Depot the other day and they have exactly what we need for a pretty reasonable price. Here's a few pics to add to fuel the subway tile flame

Just to keep up with my New Years resolutions I thought I'd post some stuff we've been doing on the house

I love our little "labour of love home".  We have so much fun dreaming up things to do to it and I am so lucky to have a husband who encourages and helps me paint and decorate and organize and re-purpose old crappy furniture over and over again.  

Mason jar candle holder


We decided to have a bit of a "do it yourself" Christmas decoration year.  Basically we weren't aloud to spend any money on Christmas decorations.  I have a rule that I'm only aloud to buy Christmas decorations AFTER Christmas when they're 75% off so that kinda puts a bit of a damper on the Christmas decorating but it makes you get creative

Here are our Mason Jars that we decorated with some ribbon I got from Costco last year.  Just glued the ribbon with a glue gun and threw a tea light inside and that was that

Christmas paper creation

I'm actually not even sure what to call this but Nelson took some strips of leftover wrapping paper once a few gifts were were wrapped and he rolled them up and stuck them in this glass jar and there you have it... a "wrapping paper jar thingy"

Decorative Clothespins

First of all I did these a long time ago after finding the idea on Young House Love.  They're sweet to hang pics from and I plan on doing them in Molly's play room with letters from the alphabet once I get around to decorating it.  These are currently hanging in my office/sewing room and if the room was even somewhat tidy there would be a better view of where they are but a closeup was the safest thing to do.  

The paper and yellow ribbon are from Michaels.  Clothespins from the dollar store and a regular ol' gluestick was used to paste paper onto the clothespins

Framing the thermostat

I got this idea from Pinterest and it was the sweetest thing ever to jazz up our thermostat.  The frame is from here.  All we had to do was cut out the back with an exacto-knife and throw it on the wall... awesome!

Here's a little perspective of what it looks like in the house.

Wall Gallery

I finally got around to putting up my very first wall gallery.  We love it:)

Here are the 3 lonely frames I had in this space originally:

Here are the frames we added.  The original 3 frames were from Homesense and the black frames are from Ikea.  The extra white frame is also Ikea

Here's a different angle

close-up shot of a few pics developed from Hawaii and some free printables I  developed at Costco

Printables

I've been quite a regular user of the Costco photo centre lately.  I printed out these prints and framed them for the kitchen.  Frames are from Ikea and prints were found on a lengthly "free printable" search on the web and unfortunately I have no idea where the tree came from now but the Subway art is from here

Fabric

Last but not least I picked up this super awesome Amy Butler shower curtain from Bed Bath and Beyond.  It was regular 50$ but on sale for 13$... yeah!!   I LOVE the pattern and I'm going to make it into two small curtains for the openings to the tunnel in the playroom.  

Yesterday I finally got around to painting our door in the kitchen and Nels is at the paint store right now getting some paint for the upstairs bathroom and the coffee table in the living room... Hopefully I'll have time to post pics of those things in a few days.

money management resolutions

Ok... its New Years Eve and I'm all packed and ready for our trip tomorrow and Nels has Molly at my parents for probably another 1/2 hour:)

So here's my second (and probably not my last) set of resolutions for this year.

First of all I'd like to start out by saying that I think Nels and I have done fairly well this year as far as money goes.  Building a house is EXPENSIVE and its hard not to want to furnish and decorate right away.  To start out I'd like to list the ways we have saved money.  We can pat ourselves on the back for the following:

1. We are not in debt trouble whatsoever and I even managed to finish paying off my student loan this year... Wahoo!!

2. The only new piece of furniture we bought for our house was the kitchen table which we got for a fairly decent deal from Home Furnishings in Olds (same place we got our cabinets which we are SUPER happy with).  

notice the 3 chairs... thats why painting the rest of our chairs is on my DIY resolution list:)

3. Along with building a house, having a baby is NOT CHEAP but we got all of our baby furniture, stroller etc... off of kijiji for a fraction of the price new stuff would cost.  Thanks to great family and friends as well who showered us with gifts (video monitor from Nels' family and the most comfy rocker you ever will sit in from my mom just to name a few) we really didn't have to shell out a load of dough.  

beginning stages of decorating Molly's room

4. Most of the art I have in our house was FREE or super cheap.  Thanks to a bunch of free printables I found on the internet like the one below as well as Costco for their SUPER inexpensive developing for a few family pics I developed.

5. I have even tried my hand at DIYing with this mobile I made for Molly's room (out of paper from Michaels and some sort of twine wire stuff.  Speaking of DIYing, Nels contracted all of the trades out for our house which saved some money b/c we could shop around, he's also currently working on completing the finishing work on the house.  He's done the hardwood floor, tile, kitchen ceiling, railings, hung doors, built the deck, and (mostly) finished the soffits himself.  We also painted the majority of the house ourselves (thanks to Dad and Frank for helping with the tricky parts).   

Ok, now for the things we could do better.  Upon reading this post from Young House Love I would like to keep MUCH closer track of our spending.  I"m talking put cash in envelopes for groceries, spending, household items etc... and when the cash is gone thats it for the month.  

To be more specific I'd like to:

1. Keep closer track of food bills and add of receipts all month to see how much we really spent. 

2.  Make cheap meatless dinners at least once a week.  Plan meals in advance so we know what we need for groceries

3.  Put NOTHING on credit cards... if we don't have cash for it, we don't buy it.  

4.  Finish projects I already have the materials for instead of starting new stuff

5.  Be patient and enjoy the wonderful PROCESS that building our house has been.  Look back at the progress we have made often and pat ourselves on the back

6. Go to Calgary LESS.  

7. Grocery shop locally and stay the heck out of the mall:) (not too hard seeing as how I seem to hate the mall after having a baby anyway!)

8. Enjoy our awesome little family and friends every moment we can by entertaining in our house instead of going out

Is it too early for resolutions?!?

So I tend to get very inspired when I see peoples' houses (like Lori and Tims) or spend hours on pinterest, or just look around our awesome home and dream about things I'd like to do.  The problem is I don't always follow through with my inspirations so I am going to commit to a few things right here and I will also document them on my blog and heck, maybe even start a board and pin them onto pinterest.

1. paint door in kitchen
2. paint door in living room
3. paint outside door (perhaps both sides)
4. spray paint mirror for guest bedroom
5. spray paint magazine rack for office
6. refinish old coffee table
7. hang photo collage
8. sew valances
9. sew curtains for playroom
10. finish painting chairs for kitchen

So there we go, 10 resolutions already.  Can't wait to make the rest of them:)

oh, and here's a pic of my best buddy and I on Christmas day.  he is working very hard to put baseboards and trim up in the house and he lets me dream up all kinds of crazy and awesome things to do to the house.

It's a New Year

Year Recap: got married to amazing boy. got two new nieces. went on fabulous vacation. moved to tiny apartment. continued to teach. nels got on with fire department. sister got married. began to contemplate next step in life. decided to build house and move to farm :)



Resolutions:
1. Read more
2. Go to church every Sunday
3. Cook more interesting things and eat out less
4. Use sewing machine more often
5. Research kitchens bathrooms etc... for new house
6. Start blogging (check!)
7. try to not get lonely when nels is on night shift
8. Think of more interesting lessons for school
9. Make more of an effort to keep in touch with family and friends