Oh Happy Day.

My little boy and I had some Cricut fun last night. He is VERY into gadgets and anything electrical. Anything with "cause and effect" really. I decided I needed to refresh my chalkboard area now that Vday is over and my love banner has fulfilled it's decorating destiny (have you seen the FRIENDS episode where Phoebe wants to save all the dead Xmas trees from the chipper so that they can fulfill their Christmas destiny? It's a classic!).

I decided to add some "chalkboard motivation" to my kitchen. Something to remind me starting at breakfast that today is a happy day that needs to "count."

Noah and I cut 2" circles and all the letters out on the Cricut. I realize that both of these steps could be done without the Cricut, but we have one so we used it (so there, ha).

I cut out 3" circles on glittery silver card stock, and I layered them with mini white cupcake liners. I like the 3D ruffly look it gives. I used a glue stick to stick on the letters, and then I used a hot glue gun to stick the rest of it together. Then I added twine for hanging and wallah!

And one of my dreams came true today. Just look at those little pink piggies. {DREAMY!} I hope you all have a "Oh Happy Day" too!

My VERY first sign...

There are SO many great sign-makers out there in blogland providing oodles of inspiration. I decided to give it a try myself (like any DIY'er would do). I got a scrap board from Home Depot for $.55 - awesome. As the ideas were swirling around in my head, I knew I definitely wanted the sign to have some personal meaning. Then, I remembered I had this soap dish. Ok. Let me back up a bit. Before the hubby and I were even engaged, we both graduated from college and went to Europe. We spent about five and a half weeks cruising around France, Italy, & Switzerland. It was A-mazing!! Major understatement. MAJOR. Anyway, We started our trip in Paris, and ended it in Paris. Both of us fell in love with that beautiful city, and 10 days (five on the front end and five on the back) really wasn't even enough to soak in all the beauty. So, back to the soap dish. I've had this for a while and I love the look of it. I decided I wanted my sign to have this look, but with the name of the hotel where we stayed in Paris.

I grabbed my photo album to get all the info (& of course I got sidetracked for about 30 minutes flipping through the pages). Hotel de Suez. A magical place (at least to us it is). Absolutely PERFECT for my little sign! I painted the wood board white and got right to work.

(that's me in the bottom left corner holding some ice cream that we got from a cart).

The hubby grew a beard while we were traveling so he didn't have to worry about shaver adapters, etc. Ha ha, classic).

I printed out some letters using my trusty Cricut (love this thing).

It would have looked cool if I mod podged the paper letters on, but I decided to paint them to give it a more authentic look.

Here is the sign before I took it outside and distressed the heck out of it. I was a bit nervous at first, but I just went for it and I'm happy I did.

Ta-daa!!!!

I rubbed some stain over the whole thing and wiped it off with a rag (just so the wood spots weren't so light). Subtle, but antique-ish looking.

Here's the view from my bed. I get to see it every morning when I wake up and it triggers such happy memories. What a way to start each day, huh!?

Just look at all that shabby goodness!!

I love it, love it, love it! This project only cost me $.55 for the wood board. I had all of the other supplies on hand. Yay! Pretty good for a beginner I think :)

Getting Organized - first post of MANY!

Baby Hayden's closet - UGH! She's almost 2 years old now, so I guess technically she's not a "baby" baby, but she'll always be MY baby. *Sigh* Ok, back to the organizing.
Here is the right side of Hayden's closet BEFORE (I'll admit, this is one of my better before shots, it gets MUCH worse than this around here people).

The left side BEFORE:

AFTER: I moved the double hanging rod (purchased at Bed Bath & Beyond) to the left side of her closet and organized the clothes according to style. Shirts, dresses, & shoes on top (& random Hello Kitty tote??). Sweaters, pants, skirts, & coats on the bottom.

That left me with plenty of room on the right side for the new (& fabulous) girly bookcase! A little reading nook for my teeny tiny little girl (although her silly big brother keeps dragging his pillow in there and is now calling it his fort). Classic.

Just look at all of that girly goodness. YUM!

The wall above it was lookin' a bit bare, so I whipped up some cute "shabby" wall art. I had a random canvas laying around so I coated it with spray glue, slapped on a scrap of cream burlap, added a heart and some curly brackets that I cut out using my cricut (oh yeah baby), trimmed it in pink grosgrain ribbon and wallah! Wall art!

It's not perfect by any means, but still girly & adorable (if I do say so myself, ha ha!)

And here's my cutie patootie popping on the scene to give her adorable version of a thumbs up (& to show you how this bookcase is the perfect size for her). First organizing project of the year down, MANY more to go! Ugh!

Vintage tool box makeover + Cricut fun

This is the large-and-in-charge vintage tool box I got at the flea market last weekend. It was the end of the day and before I could even haggle, the lady dropped the price from $15 to $8 and said, "Take it. I want it gone." SOLD! I liked the raw wood look a bit, but for some reason I always think of tool boxes being red. I sprayed it with Krylon cherry red spray paint (about 3 coats), then used the sander to give it that "old thing I found in a barn look." I wanted to use this in my kitchen, so I thought it needed a little more pizazz....enter my new Cricut machine! Oh yeah :)

I printed out the word "Bonjour" because it made me feel happy. Hello! Good day! French is such a pretty language. Anyway, I printed it out using the basic font that came with my Cricut (which for some reason doesn't have lower case letters, but oh well).

I traced around the paper letters with a pencil.

Then I used some black craft paint to paint on the word. I made a few adjustments to the font (that ninja sword looking "J" was yucky), but other than that it was pretty simple.

I sanded the letters a bit so they didn't stand out too much. I definitely wanted to be able to read it, but I didn't want it to look like it didn't belong there.

And here she is folks!!! In all her old red tool box glory!

She lives on top of my kitchen cabinets in a place I like to call WAY TOO MUCH RANDOM EMPTY SPACE! Ha ha. What the heck is supposed to go up there anyway!? Geez.

I think she looks pretty sitting up there, greeting us from above, don't you!? Bonjour, hello, good day! See, HAPPY!

Linking this bad boy up to Sew Chatty :)

Linking up at Embelishing Life too :)