Thursday, October 28, 2010

Oh Happy Day...

So today might be one of the better days in my little three year old's life....My parents are coming home from North Carolina after being gone all month, she has missed them so much and asked everyday for nearly 3 weeks when Mimi and Poppy were coming home, they are even picking her up from school today because she just couldn't wait to see them!  On top of all that wonderfulness her school is having their Fall Party today, which means fun artwork and treats, she even wore her super cute Halloween shirt to school this morning!  And then probably best of all for her, she doesn't have school tomorrow because it is Conference Day so she gets to spend all day and tomorrow night at Mimi and Poppy's house, she has been looking forward to this the entire week!!  I am so happy for her to have a couple of days of nothing but fun, it just makes me smile to see her smile!!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Subway Art

So all over blog land I have seen the cutest Subway Art signs for Halloween.  I really wanted to make one but it seemed so complicated trying to find the words to put on it and the different fonts and all this kind of stuff.  However on Friday when I was at Big Lots getting stuff to put i Jolie's treat bags for school I ran across a super cute sheet of Halloween rub-offs for $1.50, as soon as I saw it I knew it was perfect for a subway art sign, so I bought the sheet and then on Saturday while at Micheal's for paint canvas for art work for Avery's room I found for $2.99 a plain piece of wood for a welcome sign, I just knew it would be perfect so I bought it too.  Knowing that at home I had plenty of paint I was ready.  So here is the how to....

1.  Here are my supplies, the rub off sheet, plain wood sign, white paint, brown paint, and clear coat (brown paint and clear coat are missing from the picture, I forgot to get them out before I started).  I also was out of way paper and had gotten rid of all the old newspaper so I found that you can just lay down old grocery store bags, thought that was a great way to reuse them!

2.  I then put two coats of white paint all over the whole thing.
3.  I cut out each of the words on the sheet of rub offs and arranged them on the sign.  I then got the stick that they came with and started rubbing them on the sign one by one and was super careful as I lifted it off, if any of the word wasn't completely rubbed off I pushed it back on and rubbed it off again.  This is what it looked like when I was done with that part. (Sorry the pictures are blurry I used the Blackberry and they didn't come out very good.)


4.  I then carefully painted the raised border in a good fall brown color, I really was going to make it black but realized I only had brown paint, it came out good though and since our house is all done in brown accents it actually matches better I think so no big deal...I love when things like that work out.

5.  Then I just put one coat of clear coat over top of the rub offs so they couldn't come off when it gets packed up with the rest of the Halloween decorations.

6.  And finally I put it up with the rest of the decorations....as Jolie would say ta da....(there are words down the whole thing but with the clear coat there is a glare from the flash on the Blackberry, it is cuter in person!)

Linking to:


Thursday, October 21, 2010

30 Week Update

So 30 weeks of pregnancy has been quite interesting.  I spent the first three mornings of this week at the OB's office and even worked from home on Tuesday.  The good news is Baby Avery is doing well and growing so big!  To summarize what is going on I spent last weekend in Gainesville for the First Annual Alpha Nu Hall of Fame Induction which I have to say was a great time, we placed our first class of outstanding Alumnae women into the Hall of Fame for all that they have contributed to our sorority chapter, I have to say that each women is truly an inspiration plus it was a great chance to show off the beautiful new chapter house, I have to say everyone loved it!!  But I digress, on to the 30 week update.  So over the weekend Avery quit moving around as much, I would lay down and have to find her which is unusual, normally she is constantly moving.  So when I say the doctor on Monday for my normal appointment I mention this.  He goes to listen to her heart beat and can't find it, looks and looks and finally finds it but it sounds faint.  So he decides to do a quick Non-Stress Test, we do that and have to give baby Avery sugar drink to get her moving but she does, and has just one of the heart accelerations that they wanted to see, they wanted two.  So they want me to come back on Tuesday just to check, oh I forgot to mention I was having off and on period like cramps.  So I go in Tuesday, they do an exam to check for dilation, I am not dilated but they decide to do an ultrasound on Wednesday morning and also discover I have an infection in my uterus so I am on antibiotic for that.  Wednesday I go in and we do ultrasound, Avery is beautiful, did a 3-D and let me just tell you she looks just like Jolie, it is almost scary.  But they discover she is laying right on my cervix and thus when she moves my cervix shorts and the top opens slightly.  Thus she is the reason that I am getting cramping and hinting at the fact that she might not last another 8 weeks and 2 days.  So the good news is she weights over 4 lbs. and is in there practicing breathing and for now all is good.  We will be going to the doctor every week just to watch her but I will be in full swing of getting her room ready because right now it is not.

I am feeling good now and have a lot going on with work and family so the plan is to just get through the next 8 weeks and see what is going on day by day. 

In other news Jolie is doing GREAT, she has been a true joy this week.  She has come home from school everyday very happy and we have even gotten a chance to hang out as a family this week.  I took her outside 2 evenings this week for her to color with chalk on the driveway, she loves that.  She also has decided on her own that she is too old and too big for night time pull ups so for the past two nights we have done no pull up and there has been no accidents, she is so proud of herself and I have so say Rich and I are very proud as well, it will be nice to only be buying one size of diaper for Baby Avery and nothing for Jolie.  She has also found a new obsession in maps...last night she even drew one on a piece of paper, folded it, like a real map and then slept with it all night and woke up talking about it, it was cute.  She is really doing great and growing so big!!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Out of Control Pantry

Why is it that my pantry forever looks like it is out of control, it seems everytime I come home from the grocery store and go to put things away there is no room in there yet at the same time we didn't have any food before I went.  Although I will say I like to keep a well stocked pantry full of essentials to make dinners on the fly or entertain on a moments notice.  I also like to keep supplies for a few quick treats in case I need to make something for Rich to take to work or have to take something for Jolie's school, it saves me a lot of aggervation in the end, trust me!  So as embrassing as it is the two pictures below are the before I cleaned it out this morning....

As you can see there is stuff just tossed everywhere and nothing is easy to find.  As I cleaned I took note to dates and threw away things that were out dated or for whatever reason were no good.  I can honestly say it feels great to know what we have and where things are.  We even recently added some command hooks to the inside of the pantry to hang up all of our Publix bags, that is really nice too.  Below are the finished pictures and there is so much more room and we know where things are....I love it!!!


I love that I made the bottom shelf a snack shelf of things that Jolie can have so so can actually go in there and get out her own snack, with us watching at least.  I also put her little snack cups on the floor part along with napkins and paper plates.  I don't know that the pictures make it look that much better but trust me it is.  I am totally excited to have an organized space, now I just have to get to the regular cleaning that has to get done today....


Saturday, October 9, 2010

Old Frame Project

So I have been working on items to hang on the walls since we painted the house and I have to say we finished the painting at the end of August and today we are finally going to start hanging things.  The good part to that is that I have gotten an opportunity to really think about what I wanted.  As you can tell from my blog lately I have gotten really into quick and easy crafts.  So this morning I decided to make a craft I have had in my head for a couple of weeks, in fact I bought my supplies last weekend but just didn't find the time to put it together until this morning when Jolie and Rich were at my mother in law's house.

So I took this broken frame that I have had since freshman year of college, the glass got broken in one of my many moves since then and hasn't actually hung on a wall in I can't even remember how many years.  There have been several times I have thought of throwing it away but now I am glad I didn't.  So here is a picture of the frame before I started.
You can't see the large crack in the glass in this picture but trust me it was there.  I also pulled off the Jen that was in wooden letters on the top and took the glass out along with everything else so I could paint it, some how my taste have changes and the pale pink just doesn't fit in with our house.  So I got out all of my supplies which consisted of:
Broken Frame
Brown Paint
Monogram Letters and Rich and I which is the P for Perillo, a small R and a small J
Tacky Glue
Hot Glue
4 tiny clothes pins
Fabric Remnant
Hemp String
2 pictures
Here is a picture of most the supplies.

The total cost of the supplies I bought was about $8.00 and I had the rest of it.  And I even have fabric leftover that I am dying to find something to do with, will have to figure that part out later.

So I got to painting the 3 wooden letters with the brown paint and the frame that was formerly pink, I always use wax paper under painting that way nothing sticks to it, sometimes I find that painted stuff sticks to newspaper if you use that and then I use small paper plates to put paint on, it makes for such an easy clean up.


So while the paint was drying I cut my fabric and glued it with tacky glue to what use to be the matte of the picture frame, I just left the old pictures in there since they were gllued on anyways.  I put the pictures on the back so they wouldn't show through the fabric.  I used an iron on low setting on the fabric so there were no wrinkles, then I glued it to the back as I folded the fabric around it.  Honestly, if I had spray adhesive I would have used it but I worked with what I had on hand.  Here is what it looked like.  By the way the crazy yellow and orange strips you see in the background is a beach towel that I was working on top of as I ironed and glued, I assure you that is not a part of the project.

Once I was done with the gluing of the fabric I put the fabric piece in the frame.  Then I took a small piece of hemp string and glued it on either side to hang the two pictures from using the small clothes pins.  In the picture below I had not yet picked out the two pictures so I just used any two I had laying around for measurement purposes, that is why one is going the wrong way.  I then used my hot glue gun to glue the letters on as our monogram.  Below is the final product minus the correct photos and not yet on the wall.  What do you think?  Do you craft to decorate your house?  Would love to see what other people have made for their homes.

Once I put it on the wall and put in the correct pictures I will share that as well.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Featured.....

I have to say I was totally excited when I got an e-mail last night telling me that my fall wreath I made a couple of weeks ago was going to be featured the diy fall festival at the diy showoff, the links are here but you can also find them on my sidebar in under the blogs I read.  Please check out my feature as well as some of the other amazing projects that can be found in the fall festival.  I think what is most exciting is that I get to have the "I was featured button" so you will see that on my side bar, I am putting it there now....look for it!!!