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

The small things

Our kitchen is coming together but we've got a bunch of small things to finish.  I'm happy to say that yesterday while I had Molly at Grandma and Grandpa's Nels was able to start (and finish) the moulding in the kitchen.  Here's a few before and after pics

Before: it actually doesn't look that bad here but there is a space between the wall and the ceiling

After: a little moulding and things are looking a bit more finished:)

this is probably where the space between ceiling and wall was the worst, unfortunately I didn't take a before pic but I love how it looks now

this is looking into the living room where I think the moulding looks the greatest:)

lately I have been obsessing over throw pillows for the couch.  I've been pinning some inspiration on pinterest.  i love the look of this couch:

 Nels and I had a bit of a puky beginning to the week (stupid flu!) so I was happy to get into the city a few days ago to hunt for some pillows

I found these gems at Bed Bath and Beyond.  I LOVE the fabric detail and I think that would be pretty easy to do to a plain white pillow

I could not believe this $49.99 price tag.  Are you kidding me!?!?  This is the kind of thing I ran into all day.  The most I am EVER willing to spend on one pillow is 20.00 so I was getting just a little VERY frustrated.  

And then on a quick stop for groceries at Superstore I decided to take a quick look at their spring stuff (which is AWESOME by the way).  Low and behold, they had some really plain, awesome pillows in every colour I am looking for in my house.  I'm not sure who the designer is for the Everyday Essentials line but we should get together sometime because the stuff is so similar to the look I am going for in my house.  I've gotten quite a few things from superstore actually (maybe I'll post all of my superstore finds later).  I would say Superstore is the equivalent to Target  as far as the variety/quality of stuff and the prices are usually even better.

These pillows were $8.00!!!  Even as I say it now I feel like I should pick up a few more.  They had GREAT colours and even though they are plain, I love the look and you could spice them up with some cut out fabric pieces like on the rip off pillows from Bed Bath and Beyond. 

So here is the couch now... I am so happy.  For $32.00 I have a much friendlier looking couch that will be making its way to the living room (from the bonus room) very shortly.  

side note: the two pillows in the middle came with the couch originally.

Taste of Home Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

I often get asked if I miss working since Molly came along... People are often shocked to hear that I do (I'm a little shocked myself actually). Truth is, I had a pretty sweet job. Getting to cook with high school kids all day had its ups and downs but overall it was awesome and I really miss those little rascals. One of the great parts of the job was trying out countless recipes to see which ones fit best with the curriculum but also would taste really good.

I haven't made this in awhile but we would make it in foods 30 for the yeast bread module. It was a bit difficult to do in one class but we used a proofer to spead up the rising process and more often than not it turned out really well. I don't know what made me think about it today but I think I might hafta whip some up soon!

The recipe can be found here

Painting Mania

Alrighty, here are my newest painting adventures.  I am really poor on the before and after pics which sucks because I want to remember how everything looked before but I'm trying to get better.

First off our coffee table project.  I found a wood table stored away in Dads shed.  It had been there for about 2 or 3 years and had some bird poop and cob webs on it but after cleaning, sanding, priming and painting, here's what it looks like:

Colour: Benjamin Moore Blue Nose

I've never really been a fan of blue so I thought it was a pretty bold move for me.  After a tiny freak out after the first coat I've gotten used to it and I think it adds a lot of character to our fairly neutral living room.  

Next, we headed to the bathroom upstairs where I had picked out a reddish orange colour.  Again, really excited but i am a huge fan of neutrals so I was scared... especially because the wet paint looked a bit more bright orange than I hoped for.

Here's a few before shots of the bathroom colour (not the greatest pics, i know):

and here are some after shots... i LOVE this colour.  I'm trying to think of everything I could possibly paint this colour:)

Benjamin Moore "Rust"

I thought the colour matched the orangey red colour in the curtain so good which is what I wanted to happen.  The second pic you get a bit of an idea of how the colour looks with the countertop

and here's what these two were doing while I was taking pics of the finished projects... aren't they cute:)

Did it!

So, we got the door in the kitchen painted (Benjamin Moore, thicket).  It took me awhile to love it (as it does with anything i do) but now I'm all about it.  I'm even thinking of doing some stencilling with the rest of the green paint on the opposite wall in the kitchen

Here's a close-up

... and here it is from the other side of the room.  kinda hard to get a great pick with the sun but you get the idea

oh, and here are the colours we bought for a few new projects.  'Blue Nose' for the coffee table in the living room (which is done by the way but I just have to get around to taking some pics).  The other colour is 'Rust' by Benjamin Moore and it is going in Molly's bathroom tomorrow:)  We've also got a few random stepping stools that might get painted along with the bench in the pic below.  

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.

You know what is lovely?

... staying in a beach house in Hawaii with my family and dressing Molly up in cute sundresses in the middle of winter and playing paddle ball while Molly sleeps and going for day trips to the North shore and going back to our honeymoon spots at Waikiki.

we have a great life.

a shout out to Grandma Penner who has been with Jesus now for 1 year and 3 months and who made this trip possible because she is one of the most generous people i have ever known.  I am so grateful for her and that she met Nelson and that they had a liking for one another.  We will tell Molly all about her when she is old enough:)