A Neat idea for a Bloom

So there are these blooms at Walmart for cheap but they are in the little egg-crate planters all ready to be planted in your flower garden.  That doesn't help you too much for bringing them inside to decorate with though.  And since potting can get SOOOOO messy and cumbersome I came up with a cutie patootie idea.  Well actually it was a collaboration between an idea of my Mother In Laws (I have the BEST Mother in Law in the world for those of you who were wondering!!!) and the final product that I cam up with to showcase her awesome idea.

First you start by cutting apart the egg-crate container that the flowers cam in (not pictured..sorry)

Next you wrap a plastic sandwich bag around the individual, now cut apart, plant.

Next wrap either a piece of tissue paper or, like my MIL did, a paper napkin (shes a genius!). Use some string or a rubber band to make sure the tissue stays in place.

Finally pick up a cute container for a buck at Target or Dollar Tree and put the now prettily wrapped flower into it.  Oh did I mention that because of the plastic baggie you can now water the plant without fear of leaking???  Lu-AHH-Vv it!!!

Finally display your Spring handy work for your family and guests to enjoy.

Hopefully your shelf wont collect dust as quickly as mine does, the bane of having NO carpet in my home is constant dust.  I think I had dusted these shelves three days before this picture! Oh well you get what you get and you don't throw a fit (a rhyme I use on my kids when they don't think life is being fair). 

Oh and check out my little planter on the top shelf.  It was an old metal bucket I spray painted white.  Then I cut out the sweet "Simplify" on my cricket in the pretty bright yellow vinyl, applied to the front, and there I have a new spring planter that pops.

I hope you found some inspiration for simple and less messy plant potting to bring the outdoors inside your home.

Have a Great Day and God Bless

Touches of Spring

I love Springtime and since warmth has started creeping into the day with the sun shining bright and flowers blooming prettily I have been trying to bring it indoors with me. So I thought I would share some touches of spring that have sprung up in my den over the past couple of weeks.

First is a funky little vignette I set up on one side of my Mantle (or shelf over my Wood stove... yah whatever! I'm going to pretend its a mantle since its there is some semblance of a fire under it when it gets cold out)

I clipped a few flowering branches from a shrub in my side yard, placed them in a small canning jar, and then placed a painted wooden frame around the whole thing.  then,just to set off the yellow and white, I added that sweet little turquoise-ish blue bird.  I adore it!

Here is the rest of my Mantle just to show it to you in its entirety.

I know the Mantle clock front and center and isn't really spring-ish, but it was my grandmother and grandfathers and I absolutely adore it.  So whatever the season it will remain on my mantle (or until my mother gets completely moved into her house and decides it will once again look fabulous on her mantle).

I hope you enjoyed this small touch of spring and I have a few more touches to share in a post later this week.

I would love to hear how you have been bringing spring and sunshine into your home, so leave me a comment telling me all about it.

Have a great day and God bless!

A Whole New Beginning

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Not only are we at the beginning of a new year, but each day brings a  new beginning.  Will today be a day I procrastinate away and get not enough accomplished? Will today be a super productive day that I when my head hits the pillow it will be with a sigh of satisfaction that I squeezed every bit of my time and effort into accomplishing all that I intended?  For most of us the majority of our days are actually one where we go to be having accomplished some of our goals, but still have some undone.  Now here's truth time for me...Lately I think I have been in the procrastinating camp just a little too much.  It is time to get my rear in gear!  With this being the beginning of a new year and month I am setting goals for myself.  Some Daily, Monthly, and Yearly ones, but for now I am going to touch on one of my monthly goals.
This year I want a different room to be de-cluttered and organized each month.  Counting bathrooms, bedrooms, living, cooking, creating, and dining spaces that will be 10 rooms which equals 10 months.  I will take the month of June off since I am gone the majority of that month, and December because we all know re-organization will NEVER happen in that month (Well at least around here)!!!!
I think My first room will be my Master Bath.  It needs a good scrubbing/redecorating/painting.  It has multiple problems that need to be addressed.  As for the color scheme it is currently and interesting combination of mint green (tile the old kind that goes halfway up the wall and isn't going anywhere unfortunately),

(Sorry for the flash, but in order to see the true minty greenness it had to be used)

tan walls that have water lines from water dripping down them due to a combination of no venting in this old house and a hubby who likes to wake up by showering for at least an hour in a steaming (literally) hot shower, old gold hardware that I have been meaning to replace since we moved in a year and four months ago, cream trip, and bronze and chocolate accents.

I forgot to mention the ugly old (the silvering is starting to come away on the bottom of the mirror. Not bad, but enough to drive me crazy) contractors mirror and florescent bare bulb lighting fixture.

Since I am intending to turn my Master Bedroom into a cool welcoming oasis of gray, black, and white the Master Bath is going to be gray walls, mint green tile, and black and white accents. Other improvements are going to be a fan/vent to combat the whole steam issue, new towel racks and light-switch plates,  a new mirror or frame in the current one (I'm leaning toward framing the existing due to I'm cheap monetary issues), and a new lighting fixture (A MUST!!!).  Also going to improve storage issues with some additional shelving. I think it's going to look really great, and I cant wait to get started!

Oh yeah, I got an AWESOME Christmas present that my hubby was so excited that I asked for (its one he actually enjoyed shopping for).... drum roll please.... a Jigsaw!!

I cant wait to make so many things with it!  One of the first is going to be some decorative shelving for my reworked Master Bath!  This saw is AWESOME!  It will cut through just about anything, cuts angles, and decorative curves.  I cant wait to get started!

So with all this built up excitement and anticipation lets see how this month of organizing the Master Bath goes, and move on to the next room.

What are some of your Yearly, Monthly, and Daily goals for this new year? I would love to hear all about them!

Have a great day and God Bless!

Its Fall Ya'll

In case you don't live in North America I need to let you know...its FALL!  The leaves are brown, yellow, red, and orange, and that's just in my back yard!  I love the crispness of the cool wind, and the sound of the leaves blowing across my paved driveway.  I love the crunch they make underfoot, and how my kids love to pick out especially beautiful ones for us to examine a little closer.  I love boots, sweater, and hot cocoa, as well as all the soups that this time of year encourages making. Its just wonderful.  In case you havent figured it out yet...I LOVE FALL.
To capture just a little of that outdoor crisp feeling I decided to bring a little bit of nature indoors.  But, how could I possible display it so that the sentiment could be fully imparted?  Enter my on the cheap DIY Hurricane Globes/Apothecary Jars:

These are super cheap and SUPER simple to make.  I labeled them Apothecary/Hurricane simply because they are the Apothecary Jar style that is very popular right now, but I haven't made the lids to go on them yet since I wanted my fillers to be able to stick out of the top.  The Hurricane part comes in because they are straight up and down type containers with no curves and as mentioned have no lids.  So its my own hybrid version.  

First you start with these supplies that I picked up at the local Dollar Tree store for a grand total of $6:

I picked up two martini glasses, two tall glass vases, one short glass pillar candle holder (so similar to the vase which was totally awesome) and the more fanciful of all the holders the taper candle holder.

I spray painted the two martini glasses and the taper candle holder a flat black (I decided against the shine for this project) 

Next I applied glue to the top of my bases and set the jars on them. I like this glue for long lasting hold on a variety of surfaces, but it does take a while to dry with a good seal.  So don't rush this one.  It is worth the wait!

Here is what you have once the glue dries firm:

I liked them as they were, but I like to add flair with little detailed touches.  So I added the ribbon and the chalkboard vinyl cutout labels.  I also added my "fall". Which were the pine cones gathered from my yard and acorn gathered from my Aunts yard by my children.  Here is the finished product from a different angle: 

Every time I look at them I am reminded of the crispness of Fall.  I love them and the are a great compliment to my faux mantle.  

I hope you are having a wonderful fall or whatever season it is where you are.  Embrace it and bring it into your home with you (unless it is just the rainy season and in that case curl up with a good book and a hot cup of tea).

Let me know what you would do differently or if you have made something like this on the thrifty.  I love saving my pennies!

Hope you have a great day & God Bless!!

Bows coming out of my EARS!!

Hello my name is Chantelle and I am a Bow-a-holic.

Or rather, I love for my daughters to have every outfit topped off with a complimentary bow.  Since my girls have 1500 outfits each that means 1500 bows each for a grand total of 3000 bows (okay there is some slight exaggeration going on , but that is a close number).  I first tried an AWESOME idea that a friend of mine had come up with to re-purpose one of my husbands ugly old ties and clip them to either side.  It worked great until I ran out of room and had to start a second tie.  Then I had bows that had lost their clips (I could still use them by sticking a hairpin through them) but no where to put them or way to attach them when they weren't being pinned into their hair or until I could re-attach a clip to them.  Or bows would get knocked off onto the floor and forever jumbled with their shoes (the ties were hung in their closets).

OH the frustration of getting two girls dressed for school and not being able to track down a bow that they had worn just three days before because they didn't put it back on their bow tie. 

Enter a quick shopping trip to my local Dollar General where, SCORE, I bought this garbage can for $1.50!!

As you can see its hot pink which perfectly matches my girls crazy room and will perfectly match what I am slowly trying to remodel their room into

See some great examples of what I'm wanting to do here. 

You know something like this:

Anyway that is for a different post altogether.  Back to the mess of bows. This is about a 1/3rd of the bows:

So We started clipping all those bows onto the mesh. 

As you can see in the picture above the clips that have the pinchy release clasps (yes that is the technical name for them) and any barrette style we did clipped on the very top lip of the Bow-Can.  Simply because we were able to close the clips that way and they would stay attached.

And we clipped more

My daughter LOVED this project and I let her do the majority of the clipping.  Cause, hey why not, its keeping her happy and entertained! 

On top of that when we finished that 1/3rd she went in search of the other 2/3rds.  So we had a MAJOR hair bow round up in our house today with awesome results. 

Here's a close up of what the inside looks like with the bows clipped on.  The Bow-Can, as its now known, has most of the bows attached in an easy to see way and the ones that didn't have clips are inside rather than clipped to the outside.

The Bow-Can is sitting prettily on the top of their dresser and now, I can find the bow we need for the current outfit at a glance and a twirl of the Bow-Can.  I am considering turning it upside down, and putting it on a tall candle holder or de-commissioned lamp from the thrift store.  Making it look more like a bow light shade.  I would lose the storage capacity of the can, but it might be worth it for the cuteness factor.  Oh well, we shall see what I can come up with.

Hope you find something ordinary to re-purpose, and turn into an extraordinarily useful of beautiful part of your life.  Leave me a comment letting me know how your projects are turning out, or your thoughts and ideas on this one.  I would love to hear from you and will respond.

Have a great and Blessed day today!

where to start?

So,if you are anything like me you have that one room in your home that you just kinda live with it.  It doesn't inspire you, and you just live there you don't exactly love it.  Confession time!  For me its my bedroom!  We moved into this house a year ago and would you believe that the only thing hanging on the wall of my bedroom is the mirror over my dresser?!?!?  I do NOT like my bedroom! it is a place for me to sleep and that's IT.  I spend as little waking time in the room as possible.  Which is pretty sad, especially since the sleeping time I spend there isn't all that great either cause our bed isn't the most comfortable in the world house (I have literally woken up from being so uncomfortable and went to sleep in my old queen bed that my son inherited).  So I am about to embark upon a whole new journey of reclaiming what once used to be my favorite room, my oasis of calm in a crazy noisy house.  I am stumped though.  I am still working on choosing a color palette and style.  So lets put it to a vote and see what you guys think.

White with Yellow & Gray?

Brown & Blues/Turquoise?

Black & White

Or if you have any other idea, chime in, because I am really open to ANY suggestion here as it is pretty much a completely BLANK slate.

I will say the attached Master bath is in chocolate brown and sea foam green (thanks to the sea foam green tile on the walls). So that can be kept in mind, but as you can see I am open to going in a completely different direction than that

My plans for the room are new comforter/bedding (hopefully with a new mattress set!!!), curtains, wall/paint color (currently a drab tan), and accent wall decor.

Please please PLEASE leave me a comment and let me know what you are finding inspiring for room decorations now. 

There is also a very cool giveaway going on over at another blog, that I very much love to read, and it goes right along with this project so go give it a look. Enter the drawing if you are suffering a similar decorating crisis, and leave a comment saying you read about it on my blog please.  You might just help ME win it ;)

tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com <------- The give away you want to check out!!!

Thanks...oh and DON'T forget to comment on what you think I should do!!!