Redoing the inside of you house on a budget.

Now I know that I personally take care of my kitchen the most. To me it is the heart of the home and every meal I make has a story or has a life to bring to whomever consumes it. I'm not very good at decorating the rest of my house though, but I am slowly coming around to it. I think my to biggest discoveries at the moment are jars and uses of magazines. Jars can be reused for everything from preserves to a plants new home. Magazines on the other hand have made me realize that there is a whole new other dimension on that one. I just made a few month back a mirror with rolled magazine sheets around it. It really brought life to our one lifeless living room. I got the idea from http://bluevelvetchair.blogspot.com/2011/11/tutorial-recycled-magazines-as-mirror.html. I didn't use quite as many as she did and mine were fatter, but I love it anyway. Another great blog that has wonderful ideas is http://bluevelvetchair.blogspot.com/2011/11/tutorial-recycled-magazines-as-mirror.html. This is where I got the idea to make frames out of magazines. It might not be every ones cup of tea, but I liked them. 

        We needed to get curtains and afters pricing how much everything would be I decided to get some bamboo sticks from Michael's and then we used what would of been the part to hold back the curtain to hold the sticks. I think it came out ok. Then I used pipe cleaners to tie back the curtains and tacked them.

          The next things that I wanted to conquer was a coffee table. I saw this table that you could make out of pallets and I decided that was something I was going to do. This blog gave me the idea http://www.thewonderforest.com/2011/09/diy-rustic-pallet-coffee-table.html. I only used one pallet though, which still came out fine. The worst part about this project was taking the pallet apart, but when all said in done it was worth it.
           Our bedroom still needs alot of work and so does the bathroom, but all in good time I guess. One thing  that I managed to do though was make a simple headboard  above our bed so it wasn't just plain wall anymore.  This blog http://theberry.com/2011/11/04/daily-awww-love-is-all-around-40-photos/ shows theirs in frames, but I didn't do mine that way. I printed all the pictures and then pasted them into a heart.
        Another thing that is developing more then the rest of our apartment is the outside. I just bought a lemon tree and in February I bought a cyclamen so I could put it in my childhood chair. So far the cyclamen is surviving, but I wasn't a green thumb when I started this journey and didn't know the specifics of such a plant. I also love hummingbird feeders and thought it would be cool to make my own. I made it out of an old hot sauce bottle. It would probably be fine without the feeding tube because it had a little lid with a hole that doesn't allow much out, but to be on the safe side I bought one just in case. Another weakness of ours is wind chime's. Mostly because of  the story behind it that makes them so special.
        

Links:

Another wedding brings on more crafting

 My youngest sister is getting married and I'm all a buzz with ideas of what to do for this or that. Well the other day I came across this idea for making a ornament that you put a wedding invitation into and give it the bride and groom as a gift. Of course I was all up for the task and thought it would something she could cherish forever. I of course was being lazy, but at the same time couldn't wait to do the project so I decided to do it in a lightbulb instead of a glass ornament. I like how it came out though. :) I got the idea for the ornament at this blog http://christyrobbins.blogspot.com/2011/07/wedding-invitation-ornament.html and I got help with the task of the light bulb from http://blog.freepeople.com/.

Springtime

I know its not spring yet but I couldn't help but pull out some decortions and make some of my own.

I don't have any picks of the unmade things and I've only just begun.  I got the idea of the cross from this site http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellypuffs/455871895/ and for the "Jesus" eggs http://www.jeannewinters.com/2011/04/jesus-easter-eggs.html. Except I want my eggs to last longer so I made my eggs like they do for cascarones. If you need help with that here is a link for that http://ohhappyday.com/?s=cascaron . One of many few next projects will be taking on the task of homemade easter candy. Yum! :) 

Valentines

   
  So I know that Valentines is over, but I just wanted to take the time to share what I did.
On Vday I made heart biscuits with gravy for breakfast.  I just used the biscuits from the can and cut them into hearts. Then for dinner I made chicken and waffles with maraschino cherry frosted chocolate cupcakes. Not your typical valentine's dinner, but so delicious! I got the cupcake, frosting and cookie pop recipe from Craftinit and Glorioustreats .  The chicken I got from AllRecipes . Then for the waffles AllRecipes. I put hot mustard, honey and syrup all over both and it tasted amazing.

      For my gift my amazing husband got me an artisan kitchen aid mixer and edible arrangements of chocolate covered strawberries. I made him a Drumset valentine out of our wedding cards. :D There was obviously other gifts, but those were my favorites.

      I also decided to do gifts for his and my family. The pink giraffe and soft cube were for my beautiful nieces. I got the template off of Craft In It  I made chocolate shaped tools for my father-in-law, which came out great and he loved. I just melted semi sweet chocolate chips, took a spoon to spread the chocolate in the mold and then put it in the freezer. For the women I made oven mits. I basically took one I already had and traced it a little bigger. Here is a template and instructions to help show how to make one at Cthuliz.  I also decided to do my own vintage valentines. Nothing too complicated. I just printed cards from Vintageholidaycrafts and pasted them to construction paper. I used my butterfly punch and ribbon to tie them to their gift. One of my favorite valentine's that I made was the gun valentine. My dad and soon to be brother and law love to go hunting and stuff like that and when I found this valentine at SherelleChristensen I just knew that this was the one for them. I made mine out of felt though and added ribbon with a heart that said "Bang".

            And what a perfect way to end a wonderful night by watching Breakfast at Tiffany's and being with the one you love. :D

      

The start of a crazy obssesion.

         It all started with my wedding. I needed to save money, but have the wedding of my dreams as well. My theme was Alice in Wonderland and it all kind of took off from there. Some of these pictures are off my wedding and some from my bridal shower. 

        The first picture is of a bridesmaid bouquet. I  bought 100 roses through Costo for 100.00 and painted the tips red.

         The next picture has the cake table. I just bought the tablecloths through Oriental Trading. I can't quite remember were I got the rose petals, but you could probably get then from Micheals. I got the crown and monogram letters from amazom.com. I recently saw on pinterest a cake like my wedding cake, but it had roses in between and a top hat on the top, which looked really awesome!

        I wanted the bridesmaids to represent the flowers so they were all different colors. My husband and I were the king and queen of hearts. While my maid of honor was alice.

        The eat me cookies and heart shaped sandwiches were done by my sister and her friends. Just your basic sugar cookie and frosting, but so good and very creative. She also did the bride teacup, which also had smaller ones for everyone who came to the bridal shower.