Complete (And Genius Lunchbox Tip)

School year complete!  Check!  Check! And check!

Paul had his 8th grade completion ceremony.  My handsome boy/man.

Lan Lan had her end of grade school festivities.  First a luau,

Then the "clap-out" which is the perfect end for 6th grade--no over-the-top-graduation-ceremony, just 5th graders lining the halls while the 6th graders run through the school, then outside to their clapping families.  

Oh my goodness, this girl is such a fashion queen!  Like me!  NOT!!!!  Love her style!
 

Here's a picture of Mei Mei's end of the year class play.  

Today, her teacher had them all sit in a circle and called each one out individually, then told them everything she loved about them.  And then other children in the class were able to add what they appreciated about that classmate.  Mrs. V. is an amazing teacher who has been teaching for 40 years! She has been such a blessing for Mei Mei (and truly, I have an update about Mei Mei coming soon--pinky swear!).  

When the kids got home they unpacked backpacks.  I am sorry to say how many trees were killed because of my children (and even sorrier to say that I have to sort through all those papers).  I was very impressed with Patrick's use of pencils!  Ben Franklin would be so proud!  

And Vu unpacked this wig that I made for his Frannie K. Stein costume (basically a giant yarn tassel sewn onto the top of a winter hat).  He then told me he forgot to wear the wig!  After all my labor! So, I will force you all to oooooo  and awwwww over it.  Ready?

Ooooooooo!  Awwwwwww!

We are down two lunchboxes--not bad since the kids take them almost every day.  And here is a great tip I learned from a teacher.  Lunchboxes can go in the washer!  

Turn them inside-out, place them with a couple towels to help them move around, put in some baking soda and vinegar, then wash on warm.  Air dry.  Good as new and ready for next year!  Let the summer begin!

Pure copper Beer Mug set 300ml 10oz jug S-2505SA

Features

• It is a pure copper Beer Mug set.
• Size: 76x H112(mm), Capacity : 300ml (10.15ozl)
• 2pcs, Wooden box case
• Material Pure copper,(Handle brass)
• country of manufacture: Japan.

List Price:
Special Offer: check this out!

Product Description
It is a beautiful and brilliant Beer Mug.Copper is proud of the excellent thermal conductivity among metals.Copper tableware that can not be stopped if I use it once. Surely you will also be captivated.

milk glass eBay - Electronics, Cars, Fashion, Collectibles ... Find great deals on eBay for milk glass and milk glass hobnail. Shop with confidence. 13600 eBay - Electronics, Cars, Fashion, Collectibles, Coupons ... Find great deals on eBay for 13600 and coca cola collectibles. Shop with confidence. www.libertymountain.com lm_map_pricing 114214 zany zinc spf50 white .4oz jar 114215 zany zinc spf50 yell .4oz jar solarbag 115800 solarbag water purifier 529240 super fine pad 6x3/4 blue Christopher Weide's ACL Soda Pop Bottle Want List Christopher Weide's ACL Soda Pop Bottle Want List Spreadsheet: (WANTLIST.WK3 Issa catalog - Subir y compartir presentaciones en Powerpoint y ... ISSA CATALOGUE 1998 Contents Search ... Issa catalog Presentation Transcript. ISSA CATALOGUE 1998 Contents ... noun-cluster-file - School of Computer Science the 118307 , 109881 . 92186 of 61398 to 52892 and 51425 a 43178 in ... ... 973 local 963 here 961 What 951 out of 943 part 941 public 939 always 928 long 926 found 905 again 903 week 902 home 900 set ... beer 298 Her 298 whom ... copper ... IMPA CODE - ESS - Docstoc We Make Every Small Business Better views: 8448 posted: 4/4/2011 language: English pages: 702

Best sangria ever

Welcome to Friday, whoot! Hope your week was great and you have an even better weekend planned!

First up, I’m over at SAS Interiors today sharing how I strive to create a meaningful home:

It’s a great series with some fabulous bloggers contributing – check it out! Thanks for having me Jenna!

So today I’m sharing one of my very favorite recipes…of the liquid kind. :) I figured I’d post it today so maybe you can make it yourselves and toast to the weekend, yes?

Aw yeah.

So a lovely reader shared this sangria with me years ago – I needed a good one for an event coming up and sent out the call on Twitter. I’ve tried a lot of sangria in my day (well not a LOT, but a few…you know. Whatever.) and it’s hard to find one that has the right amount of sweet and fruitiness.

Here’s the thing – the initial cost of the ingredients is a little expensive. The liquor needed is about 20 bucks and then you’ll need to buy a few things to make it each time (most of which we already have). But the expensive stuff will last you a really really long time – so over time it’s not too crazy bad.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 1/2 cup orange juice
2 tbsp triple sec
1/2 cup brandy
1 bottle (750 ml) fruity red wine (the cheaper, the sweeter, the better) :)
3 tbsp sugar
2-3 cinnamon sticks
lemon/orange/lime or even strawberry, pineapple, whatever!
1 1/2 cup chilled lemon/lime sparkling water

You’ll want to mix the first six ingredients (hold off on the lemon/lime water) and stir. Next up, cut the fruit into slices:

One of the reasons I love this drink is because it’s such a pretty one to serve. :)

Just make sure to clean the fruit well before slicing since you will be adding it to the drink:

Side note – we like our orange juice with pulp. Usually I make this with OJ without it (it’s clearer) but I was using what we had this time.

This is where I like to let it steep in the fridge for a while – preferably over night. But it is still super delicious right away too. My sister-in-law had some right after I mixed it last night and it was yummy, but letting it sit really deepens the flavor.

Right before you serve it (after letting it steep for awhile or right after mixing everything), add the lemon lime sparkling water – this is what gives it a slight fizz. So good!

I make this for every party or girl’s night and it’s always a hit. My SIL and I were reminiscing tonight how my father-in-law loved sangria and would always order it when we went out to new restaurants. Thing is he would always turn up his nose after trying it and it made us laugh every time – he could never find one that was just right.

But I’m proud to say he LOVED my sangria. ;)

Hope you’ll try it and love it too!:

Have a great weekend, cheers!   

Pinterest fail (curls)

OK peeps, this may be my one and only hair post here at TDC. Well, there is one other tip I found that actually works great on my hair, so maybe there will be two…someday.

Don’t worry, it won’t become a thing. You’ll see from my photos that I’m meant to photograph house stuff, not myself.

Anyway, I actually found this hair trick at Pinstrosity – it’s a fun little site that you must check out! (I like that they don’t tear the original post apart – they often share how it could have been done better to fix the outcome.) The original post was from PaperMama and her hair turns out gorgeous!!

I’ve been wanting to try this out for a while now – usually when I do my Zumba class at night I take a shower after and let my hair just naturally dry. Thing is, it’s a disaster in the morning. And I’m so not taking a shower all over again in the morning -- so it’s a pain.

I thought it would be LOVELY if I could find an easy way to make my hair look presentable the next day, so I decided to finally try this out last night. The great part – you only need a headband, that’s it!

You can visit the PaperMama site for a great video on how to do it – she shows you every step. I let my hair air dry for about 30 minutes and then started -- it actually was much easier than I thought it would be and took no time at all – maybe two minutes for my whole head:

(This is me this morning. These are all awful cell pics cause I was too lazy to get my camera.)

You sleep with it like that overnight. I thought for sure the headband would come off at some point but I woke up with it exactly how I left it.

You can see here how my hair is pulled through and around the headband:

I woke with my hair completely dry and had high hopes.

They were soon dashed. DASHED people. Were there curls? Yeah! Did I look like Shirley Temple? Heck yeah!!:

Um…not what I expected. I’ve been growing out my hair for awhile now, but it’s obviously not nearly long enough for this trick. It worked…it just didn’t work like I wanted.

I expected those loose, flowing curls, but I didn’t get them. ;) I tried to calm my head down by putting my fingers through my hair, a little water, and then even a brush. It helped…a little. But not enough:

There were also random pieces of hair in the back that were just frizzy and looked like I hadn’t done a thing to them, and I know they were wrapped around like the others. Who knows what happened there.

I’ve learned one thing with this little project though – I was considering growing out my bangs and now that’s so not gonna happen. I, uh…need them.

Here’s the thing – if you have long hair this may work great for you. And I am definitely going to try it again as my hair gets longer and I may try wrapping my hair less tightly. It felt pretty loose in there but it was obviously wrapped too tight.

It worked, that’s for sure! Too well?

I ended up just throwing my hair up into a loose pony for the day, and I love how full it is:

This would be a GREAT base for an updo for a fancy occasion – it gives tons of body and fullness to your hair.

So. That’s my experience with this hair trick. Have you tried any you’ve found on Pinterest? Have they worked? (Feel free to share links in the comments if you’ve posted about them. I love reading those!) I did find a way to curl my hair on Pinterest that I LOVE – it just takes forever. Maybe someday I’ll post about that…after a few more DIY projects of course. ;)

No. 5

Well today is the day…five years of blogging as of May 20th. Absolutely CRAZY!!

This is the longest I’ve stayed at one job – which is hilarious to me. I mean, back in the day I was at one company for longer than five years, but I moved around to different locations.

For the first time in my adult life, I am perfectly, completely happy where I’m at and have no desire to do anything else.

Contentedness in a career is a wonderful feeling and so highly underrated.

It all started with this post back on May 20th, 2008:

I started this DIY blog back in the day of (mostly) only family blogs, as far as I knew. Many of my friends were starting them up to keep friends and family up-to-date on their kids. One day I got a wild idea – why not make a blog showing my friends and family how I do what I do?

That’s what it was for initially, just friends and family. I had NO clue there were other DIY/decorating blogs out there. I’d even get an occasional comment from a blogger but still didn’t really put it together.

Smarty, I am. I still marvel that I’m able to write a blog, seriously.

Funny that five years seems SOOOO much longer than that. When you’re documenting so very much of what you do it seems more like ten years. Five years sounds like yesterday!

In honor of my anniversary I figured I’d to a top five post – a few of my favorites and my best advice of course, after doing it this long.

My house has changed SO MUCH in five years. More than the average house I’m sure, but as I say, this is my gig folks. The best gig ever, so change is kind of expected up in here.

Here are my five all time favorite projects we’ve done to our house, in no particular order:

1. The stairs:

I recapped that project recently here – and you can see how they’ve transformed bit by bit over the years here. BIG impact for very little money!

2. The Book Nook:

I still absolutely adore it!! We have plenty of storage space so making what had become an unused closet into something fun and quirky just makes me happy.

You can see more pics here and the how-to here.

3. My office:

You have to see the before and afters to get the full effect here. What’s funny is when I finished the room I wasn’t using it a ton – and then the Bub went off to kindergarten this year and now I use it every day. (Before I blogged at night and would sit on the couch.) I love being in this bright, happy room. LOVE. It is so calming, so me and I am surrounded by so many faces and things I love.

4. The basement:

It’s been about a year now since the basement was (mostly) finished. It took about six months to take it from all cement to a really livable space because we hired out most of it and did it with cash, so we just did what we could as we could afford it.

At least once a week my husband and I will look at each other while we’re down there, sigh and say, “I love our basement.” Still…a year after being done. We spend so much time down there and truly enjoy it.

You can see more about those cubbies here and the whole basement transformation here. (And how we used to use it before it was finished!)

5. The patio: 

It was our first real, BIG project and yes, we hired out. (Lordy!) This is another one of those things that we’ve done that we are truly humbled by. Every night we are out there we talk about how blessed we are to have been able to do something like this. Our backyard is an oasis for us and it’s because of this addition.

You can see more of this area and our deck here and other outdoor spaces here.

Every few months I’ll freak out a little because I wonder if I’ll have enough “content” in this house. Like, is there enough to do to keep blogging about it? What I if I run out of projects? What will I do??

And then I LAUGH.

Blogging has been a blessing, and I don’t say that lightly. TRULY. I have met some of my closest friends through blogging, been on some amazing trips, met so many cool people – it is overwhelming and makes me emotional when I think about it.

Here are the top five COOLEST things that have happened since I’ve started blogging, again in no order cause they’re all just that cool:

1. Being on the Nate Berkus Show:

OK, I never actually got on the show in person (I did get a chance to go see him live!), but he did highlight my blog. I know many of you found me that way. :) He did such a great service to so many bloggers, it was such a thrill.

I was supposed to be on the show numerous times – I think I was contacted about ten times. Once I got everything ready, they got my travel booked, and then Nate had appendicitis and it was cancelled.

It was fine with me though – it was an honor to just be highlighted. :) You can see the segment here.

2. Paying off our debt:

Other than the kids, this is the best thing, hands down, that we’ve done in our lives. My husband and I paid off $125,000 worth of debt years ago and haven’t looked back once.

I’ve been completely and totally thrilled to have worked with the Dave Ramsey folks a few times since then, it’s been an honor.

You can read more about our debt story here.

3. Being published:

I didn’t talk about it much (I mentioned it here), but it was SO cool! One of my outdoor projects was in the April issue of Cottages and Bungalows this year.

Thing is, I didn’t think my stuff would ever be in a magazine, and I’m not being aloof or just saying that. I know mags are including bloggers more and more and I am SO happy about that. I just think my house is too “normal” for a magazine. Does that make any sense? I mean, I think it’s beautiful and I’m so proud of it, but I don’t see it being different enough to be in one.

So that’s why that spread was really special to me – so exciting!

4. The Haven Conference:

I partner with some lovely, amazing ladies to put on this conference (coming up in August). It is a lot of work but being there last year was one of the highlights of my life – overwhelming and humbling and so. much. fun. It was hard to put into words and still is. :)

5. Working with dream brands:

The first time a “big” name contacted me I thought it was a joke, or spam, or anything other than them being serious. ME? Part of me still feels that way every time I get an email.

I often think about what my resume would look like now, after blogging for five years. If I put it down on paper it would be pretty awesome, you know? Like all, yeah, I’ve worked with Home Depot and Target and cutie Nate kind of liked my projects and blah blah…holy CATS.

WEIRD people. Totally weird!!

And finally, I’ve covered lots of blogging advice before, but as a little recap, here’s my top five nuggets of blogging tips – take them or leave them:

1. Don’t do things for free.

Unless you’re just starting out. Early on, do it for free and show how well you can represent. After that, if you are established, you blog regularly, you work every day at it – it becomes a job (a fun job, no doubt). You are representing a brand and should be paid for it.

2. Don’t take every paid offer that comes to you.

Write your blog as you like to read others – you don’t have to take every opportunity if it’s not a good fit. (If you need the money to make ends meet, this does not apply to you.) I turn down partnerships often because I don’t think it works for my blog or my readers.

3. Make friends.

I covered this more in depth here. I would not be where I am today without blog friends to go to for advice, partnering with bloggers and sharing the love. You can’t blog in a vacuum peeps.

Well you can, but it would get awfully lonely in there. And dirty.

4. Keep some of your life for you.

I’ve talked about this a few times too but I am SO passionate about this. It’s OK if you don’t share every aspect of your life on your blog. Keep some stuff just for you and your family. Otherwise it’s easy to live your life as you would blog about it. Does that make sense? Early on in blogging I’d be doing random things with my family and the “this would make a great post” thought would come into my head ALL the time. I was obsessed.

Share your family, of course!! Your trips, your big events, your proud moments. It’s just OK if you keep some of it just for you. Really! It is!

5. Turn it off.

Four and half years ago if someone said that to me I would have looked them with crazy bloggy eyes and cackled at them all freaky-like.

Take a break. The more you blog, the more you take on, the more it will feel like work. And it is. So now I turn off emails on the weekends, I shut down the computer Friday afternoon. (I still surf and do fun stuff on it on the weekends.)

The longer I do this the more I’ve realized I HAVE to disconnect. It’s good for the soul. At least mine. ;)

Well there you go. Now here I am getting all teary eyed. And I said I wouldn’t cry. ;)

It’s been an amazing journey and I have all of you to thank. Some of you have been here for years, some for just a few days. I’m so grateful you come back. :) I’m looking forward to the future to find out what else is in store and so hope you will come along for the ride!

From the bottom of my heart – THANK YOU!!

DIY (hideaway) Lego tray

Hey all! Whooee, that was a jam-packed weekend! I shopped (at the vintage mart, twice!) and met up some awesome readers and fellow bloggers, went to a party, attended a school event for the kiddo, had a girl’s night with one of the BFFS, went to a Lego event at the fairgrounds and hung with my stepdaughter and her boyfriend who were home on spring break. It was a whirlwind but fun!!

We surprised the Bub with a trip to the Lego event yesterday – to say he’s a a fan would be a huge understatement. He got started on Legos when he was only four (he could never be bothered with the bigger, toddler ones – he only wanted the smaller, big boy sets), and from that very young age was putting together sets with 600+ pieces by himself. It blew our minds but he’s been hooked ever since.

Which for use means a LOT of Legos. I mean…people. They are everywhere. I’m working on getting them corralled to the basement and succeeding…it’s slow but sure. And I think I finally found a storage method that works for us – I’ll show you soon. (It’s not what you think either.) ;)

Anyhoo, a couple years ago I got this Pottery Barn table off of Craigslist for the playroom:

My goal for two years now was to paint it and then cover the top with Lego sheets so it would be a big huge table for him to play on. Well, it moved downstairs about a year ago, into the almost-finished basement, and I swear to you I haven’t seen the top of it since.

We (he and I) were always throwing stuff on it and even when it was kinda cleared off he rarely sat at it and used it. He’d much rather be on the floor doing Legos (or games/toys), or at a higher table, like in the kitchen.

What’s funny is we gained all this additional square footage with the basement, but all I’ve done is get rid of stuff that was down there. I want the basement family room to be open and non-cluttered but when that’s the goal there’s less room down there than we thought there would be.

So a few weeks ago I came up with a plan. First part was to get rid of the table – it was a clutter-catcher and a beast. Huge. To set things up the way we wanted there was just not a spot for it so thankfully a friend took it off my hands.

The second part of the plan is this tray I came up with. I’ve made wood trays before – you just start with a base:

I got a piece of wood from the hardware store and had them cut it down to 30 inches – I wanted it that size for a number of reasons. First, I wanted it HUGE so the Bub had a ton of room to play on it. I also needed the Lego tiles to fit just right and they were ten inches wide.

I didn’t take pics of putting it together, but you can see how I made the tray in our family room here:

It was the same exact process for this one.

Initially I was just going to stain the sides of this one because I knew the bottom would be covered with Lego sheets. But at the last second I had an idea and stained the whole thing. I used the dark Kona stain I used for the top of the basement cubbies and then added hardware:

I got these from Lowe’s – they were inexpensive and simple but I wanted the handle to be really easy to grab.

We laid out the Lego mats and immediately the kiddo was playing:

He loved it! When this idea came to me I planned on gluing the tiles down, but later decided not to (more on that in second). They stay in there just fine. And at one point the width was just slightly under 30 inches so I had to cut down a couple of the Lego mats just a tad – but I just did it with regular scissors, so easy!

My boy was in heaven – the first set up was a basketball game because he’s absolutely obsessed with it right now (thanks to Daddy and the Big Ten Champs IU! Whoot!):

Legos are not cheap but we are happy to encourage his love for them (well, I’m not happy when I step on pointy ones in the dark, but whatever) – I love how his creativity comes out – he found pieces to make basketball “hoops”:

 

Did you know Harry Potter was a basketball player? Me neither.

So here’s the thing – I made this tray so it did something extra special:

 

Awww yeah bay-bee! It hides perfectly away under the sectional. Ours is really low to the ground and it still clears it just fine (I was prepared to raise up the sectional ever so slightly if I needed to). That is why I wanted the handles to be easy to grab.

It’s accessible from both sides of the sofa but he likes to pull it out in the open space behind. WE LOVE IT.

Another reason I made this so big was so we could use it for other reasons too – we can easily carry it over to the top of the ottoman down there so he can put sets together up higher. But we also use it to play games:

At first I thought we would remove the mats but there’s no need at all. They are a great surface for the game boards:

And I’m so glad at the last second I decided to stain the bottom too – because now we use it for movie nights, pizza dinners, snacks:

Again, we could just leave the mats on (it takes 30 seconds to take them off or put them back on) and most of the time we probably will. (With them removable that means I can wash them too!)

I love how big it is because it fits over the ottoman perfectly – it’s like it was made for it. ;) And it’s sturdy enough we can put our feet up on it and it’s not going anywhere.

So I was able to get rid of a big table that was taking up tons of space and not being used and replace it with a multi-functional one that we can hide away when we’re done:

Love!!

The cost to make the tray itself wasn’t too bad – I think about $20 for the base and $4 for the handles (I had the trim pieces for the sides), which I didn’t think was too bad for that size. The Lego mats were the cost here – but we will use this and the mats for years to come so it was a worthwhile investment for me.

I love figuring out a way to make things work better for everyone in the family, but I’m most thrilled that the Bub loves it so much. He uses it every day.

So do you have a Lego-obsessed kiddo (or adult??) in your house? I gotta admit, even though they drive me bonkers some days they are fun to do – almost cathartic in a way. And I love seeing what my son comes up with!

Linking up at Traci’s Best of March party!

Our kitchen, then and now

Hey all! I’ve mentioned a few times lately that this time of year makes me nostalgic about our house. We moved in (after having it built) almost exactly nine years ago and my blogging anniversary was in May, so it’s been fun to see our house transform in real life and on the blog throughout the years. :)

One of my favorite transformations in our house is in our kitchen. Years ago I did a few projects that really made a big difference in there, and none of them were hard or expensive. Of course more has changed since then -- it looks SO different to me now!

I thought it would be fun to go back in time and then take a look at how it looks now too. I LOVE before and afters, oh yes!!

I hand picked everything in this room (well, every room) when we built – I stressed about every aspect of the room, and years later I still like the basics. The problem was it was just SO dark and heavy feeling:

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it was bad – my tastes just changed. I needed to brighten things up in there! The biggest culprit when it came to the dark feeling was the black tiled backsplash.

I tried taking it off, but that was a MESS. So I went to plan B and just covered it all with beadboard. ;)

I think it was maybe $60 or something like that? I just glued it on top and it made SUCH a huge difference in there!:

The walls are the same color, obviously the cabinets are too – but that white backsplash really makes a big impact!

Here’s another shot of the old backsplash on the other side of the room:

By the way, yes the afters are taken with a better camera and the operator (me)knows a little more about photography now, but still – check it out!:

Years ago when I did the backsplash we also changed out the faucet and sink. Little things when you think about a whole kitchen for sure, but they made a big impact.

I love my sink area. It’s nothing fancy, but I have a window and lots of natural light and it makes me happy:

You can read about installing the sink (it was a REALLY FUN TIME) and the name of the sink and faucet in this post.

Here’s another before shot from about three years ago – and seriously, it feels like it’s been ten since the room looked like this. For real, crazy:

Excuse my notes, I was explaining my changes. ;)

Now that same view looks like this:

Have I mentioned I luuuurve my new table? Maybe.

Another little project that made a big impact was the kitchen island. OK, well it wasn’t little – I think it got four redos? Five? Here it is in its builder basic glory:

Awww yeah. Everything matched.

By the way, so many of you ask me about my granite countertops. They’re actually laminate. ;) I may write a whole blog post just about them because I love them that much.

Yes. You heard me.

I love laminate.

Ours is a granite look – you can find similar counters at the Wilsonart site here. Now they make them in a high definition version too and those look even more like granite than ours do. We got an edge on ours that makes them look more like a solid surface too.

But back to the island – as I said, it got a few redos, but after the last one, this is how it ended up and has stayed:

Butcher block on top, beadboard and board and batten on the sides and a lighter color made a huge difference! I love our island and I’ve promised to leave it alone for a while. :)

A few months ago I decided to change up a weird little wall we have in the kitchen and I think it adds a bit of fun and whimsy to the room:

I always say most rooms should have something in black – I think it just grounds a space. A chalkboard wall is the perfect way to accomplish that!

My most recent change in here is in the nook area – here’s how it looked a few years ago:

Again, I’m not going to dog my “old” look and act like I didn’t love it – I did. But it changed with time like the rest of the room (and we took the big blow up pool off the deck too, gah).

Just noticed the high chair too. Sniff. ;)

Here it is now with the new light fixture and the DIY farmhouse table:

Oh yeah, and the chairs I had been drooling over for months (just a less expensive version):

 

So there it is in a nutshell – years of changes in one compact little blog post. ;)

I have been planning BIG changes in here for about two years now, but have wanted to get other projects done first. (Ahem, cough, bathrooms.) I could easily see this kitchen becoming my dream kitchen -- I just need to get a final word on some of the ideas I have (if they are possible), and then I’ll be diving in. I’m still not sure if it will be this year though.

Have you been along for the changes in here all these years? Have your tastes changed a lot over the past five years or so? Blogging kind of encourages mine to happen more than the average person I’m sure, but I do love watching the transformation!

If you have any questions on anything I didn’t mention, ask in the comments! Have a lovely weekend!