ahhhh.

One day I will stop doing so many crafts.

Ok, thats a lie.

so today I randomly did a few things that I have been meaning to do.

First, this is my bedroom, its coming along!

This is part of my bathroom, its pretty much done. The white vase is something I did today.

I got the vase at a contemporary store that was going out of business so I got it for 2 bucks. I added the brown ribbon around it, added some sticks found at the park and there ya go!

This was my dresser before my project. oh and my unmade bed, eeks!

This is after! again those vases were 2 bucks, i may add some orange ribbon around them, or I may not. got some sticks from the local park, I already had the candle tray I just added the green ribbon around the candles.

I painted the tops of my dressers white because our nightstands are white and it ties them together.

one of these days I plan to spray paint the sticks I just dont know what color, I may do silver! OOOOOO!!

my purse did not go so well. eeks.

the body of it came together nicely, but I did one of the steps out of order on accident and I need to figure out how to fix it! wish me luck with that.

I have so many projects, crafts, sewing projects and whatelse saved on my Tumblr its ridiculous. I love it!

If you don't tumbl and you love crafts, you should start tumbling.

here is mine so you can see what it is.

It so nice to be able to save any website and picture with the click of a button and not have to write it down, or copy and paste it into a file.

my biggest long term project is to make a headboard.

one day!

cleaning

I haven't finished my purse, actually I havent even started.

BUT a friend asked me how I keep my apartment so clean.

So I thought I'd share my secret. sshhhh...

First of all, I clean as I go, most of the time. If I am cooking, I clean and put things away as I go so there isn't a mess. when I finish eating, I put my plate away in the sink and rinse it off. When I do laundry, I put it away, when I get undressed I put the clothes in the hamper etc.

But we all know sometimes this doesn't happen and now you find yourself in a messy, dirty, unwelcoming, overwhelming dwelling.

So now what?

here is how I have always thought about it. If you walk into your place, look at it, and think to yourself, I have to clean this whole place its so messy, then you might start to cry. Its so overwhelming!!! so I do it in 4 steps. 4 steps!!

Step 1. I gather all the dishes and put them in the sink. I go to every single room and ONLY LOOK AT THE DISHES. don't look at anything else in the room, just get all the dishes.

good job

Step 2. I gather all the clothes, dirty or clean. obviously dirty clothes go in the hamper, I put all the clean ones on the bed in a pile.

Step 3. I gather all the trash. papers, wrappers, mail , soda cans etc. obviously throw it all away.

now for Jason and I, clothes dishes and trash are the majority of our messiness. for you it might be different, toys, tools, dvds etc. substitute your own. so by this point my apartment is almost done.

Step 4, the finish. this is where I wrap it all up. I load the dish washer, hang up all the clean clothes, load the washing machine, put away anything that is left, take out the trash, and then get out the chemicals ( omg which is totally my favorite part) and CLEAN everything. I don't consider a place clean, till its been sanitized with chemicals. Jason's idea of cleaning does not include chemicals and to me that is just picking things up and putting them away, not cleaning. also in step 4 is vacuuming and sweeping if they are needed.

pretty much step 4 is my favorite because it is what makes your house clean and makes you feel tons better about it, and by that point all the hard, not fun stuff is done.

so basically the idea behind my strategy is to focus on one thing at a time, and seriously only focus on that. I am telling you, it works.

now here is a cleaning project I am continually doing.

you know those spots in your house that are so crammed full of stuff you have no idea what is in there but you know that you don't need half of it you just saved it cause you didnt think you should throw it away? yeah we all have them and I am tired of them.

so I have a list of all those spots.

Sock drawer-done

Hallway closet-done

Pantry

Fridge-done

Laundry Shelf

TV dresser

Junk drawer (duh)

above the sink

under the sink-done

so this is my list of areas in my apartment I want to go through, and purge all that I dont want, and then organize it. I am almost halfway done, when I have nothing to do or am feeling in a cleanie mood, I pick something from the list and get it done. It really helps to feel organized and clean when you open doors to clean closets that aren't busting at the hinges with junk.

good luck!

I hope to get my purse done today. ;-)

today...or tomorrow.

Today(or tomorrow) I will be making one of these.

I am quite excited.

I am practicing on practice fabric, but I like the fabric so if it turns out well I will just keep it!

wish me luck, it seems like a difficult pattern.

finished product

I finished my table!!

before I reveal my table I have 2 other projects to show.

I added barn stars to my wall of canvas, you can't really see the 3-Dness of the stars, but they are 3-D.

I love em.

This is a frame that I got from our wedding and decided to revamp it since it doesn't match our place.

so here it is!

I was about to take a picture of my table when Jason took my camera claiming I am never in pictures, so here I am! the skirt makes me look like I have love handles, I may be throwing that skirt out! lol

here is my table!

its exactly what I planned, it just took a while to get there. the blue paint isnt quite that bright, FYI.

I love my centerpiece. :-)

Bottom line, I heart crafts.

there seem to be a lot of craft days....

But thats OK.

I had another craft day.

and it was emotional.

My task at hand was to paint my table. I bought the paint, got the supplies and braced myself for an irreversible start.

Here is a before. Ugh.

The paint went on great! so great and it looked exactly how I pictured.

then came the clear coat.

UGH.

I bought a spray clear coat to put on the top to protect the paint. It did not go on even at all even though I sprayed it on even.

I am thinking its possible it looks so weird right now because the paint underneath it wasn't dry, so I am waiting for 48 hours to allow everything to completely dry. If it still looks bad, I will have to start over.

The after picture will come later.

:-(

Simple craft I also did was to our lamps in the bedroom.

I added some color to our lamp shades to keep them in line with our color scheme.

possibly in the future I may spray paint the base a different color because its a little too dark, I just don't know what color to do that wouldn't look tacky and will go with the cream colored shade.

Any ideas?

I will keep you posted.

I bought these plates at the DI for about .50$ each, for a special project that I have been waiting for the right idea to do.

So, Before....

AFTER!

I haven't quite figured out if I like the placement of them on the wall, but if you enlarge the picture you can read the scripture that I used.

I love it.

This one is another favorite Re-Use craft.

I got these 2 metal art hanging things from our wedding, and I felt obligated to hang them cause I didn't know where to return them, and I just thought they had potential. The original color was a teal, which is NOT in my color scheme at all.

so at first I just hung them in my bathroom and said oh well.

but today, I re-used them!!

Before.

After!!!

I painted them, used scrapbook paper, ribbon and whatever else I had laying around to revamp these lovely things. Do more expect less is something Bishop Packer told Jason and I when we got married and its a phrase that we love in our household. Do more for others, expect less for yourself.

my next project is a headboard that I am making from one of the decorations at our wedding reception. we will see if it works out or just looks weird.

Other than crafts, there isn't a lot going on with us. I quit that job I started I told you about, the lady I was working for was PHYSCO. Seriously, she was absolutely crazy. She never paid me, I had to file for unpaid wages to get her to finally give me the 3 checks she owed me. So I have spent my days being Jason's full time wife. :-) which I love. There is nothing better then taking care of our place, getting dinner ready for my husband and making sure his life is absolutely perfect when he comes home is just such a great reason to wake up in the morning. Love it.

Oh how I love craft days.

today was another craft day at the Powell house.

:-)

my lovely bestest friend, Bequi, came over and we had delicious home made pizza, along with her adorable baby Sarah.

then she watched me cover golf wiffle balls in fabric. :-)

This is my new table center piece.

The fabric will change based in the season or holiday coming up.

so I have started with Fall. :-)

Jason was kind enough(after 5 minutes of me begging him) to take a picture with my center piece. :-)

I heart him.

my dining room is the room I am currently working on revamping.

do you recognize the square holder?

hmm

from here possibly?

I originally bought the bamboo holder thing for my wheat grass plant. which, was SOO difficult to keep alive and looking pretty. so I am re-using it as my center piece with balls. :-) If at first you dont succeed , try try again!

next I am painting my table.

Wish me lots a luck!!

let me give you a piece of advice for crafts.

Never buy supplies for what they were intended for.

I needed balls. My first instinct was to go to hobby lobby or Michaels and buy Styraphome balls to cover in fabric. well, for about 12 balls it was going to be 4-5$. which, you think is reasonable right?

So I was at wal-mart when it dawned on me to try to find a substitute, because after all I was going to cover them in fabric anyway. It was between ping pong balls, or golf practice balls. I opted for the golf balls and got 15 for 1.83$ SCORE!

so, try to always think outside the box with crafts, and avoid buying supplies from crafts store because unless its an awesome clearance sale, it was always be more expensive.

Next I am also making Bequi and cute trash container for her car.

provide me supplies and I will make you something too!