Decor Danger

I am going to have to reassess my previous notions of the most dangerous job in the world.  It may be decorating.  My mom and I embarked on a simple project this week.  We wanted to change this plain, blank wall into a decorated wall.  Easy enough huh?

First I spent a couple of hours going through old pictures on Snapfish and ordering 8x10s in black and white.  The next day I went and picked them up and then I visited three different Hobby Lobby stores to procure 14 frames.  I chose black "floating" ones.  Mom and I figured if we put some colored art paper behind the picture it would serve as a mat at half the cost.  Plus since the frames were on sale for half price they were only five dollars each.  What a bargain. Unfortunately every time I go into Hobby Lobby I find some other decor item that I NEED, so really no money was saved.

For example, isn't this pillow adorable?

Day three of this project we sent the kids for a  nap and assembled the pictures.  (After a fifth trip to the store to exchange the art paper for the correct color of art paper.)

When I snapped this picture my mom told me NOT to put her on my blog.

Sorry Mom.

Pictures matted.

Finally we got to actually hang a picture.

All was going well until we got to the part of the wall I couldn't reach.  How DO those decorators get so high?  Books?  They helped me reach to hang one or two pictures.

But this was a better solution.

 Yes.  This project involved hanging upside down from the second floor.  Professional decorators must be limber!!

I told my mom I could no longer feel my feet.  She said, "My Lord, Heather.  I didn't know your feet weren't on the floor!" This is the same woman who says, "My Lord, Heather why can't you work out at the gym like normal people?"  I love her.

We were in the home stretch when I decided I could put a ladder up on the books I had stacked to reach that empty space there that was too high from the stairs and too low from the upstairs.  The lladder balanced on books on the stairs didn't work. While I was retreating down the stairs with the ladder I knocked over the broom (I may have used that broom earlier to sweep up glass when I dropped a picture from upstairs and it shattered.  I had purchased an extra frame just for such a circumstance.)

Back to the broom.

It landed on the remaining two pictures and then I stepped on it.  Of course the glass on the pictures broke.  Ugh.

I didn't have two more extra frames.

So this is where we ended yesterday.  I will make yet a sixth trip to Hobby Lobby to get two more frames.

Tomorrow I will prevail.

What kind of projects do you have going on?  Do you have a picture wall, or do you think they are lame??  And finally the last question.  How long do you think it will take all the kids to realize Tanner got featured on the wall one more time than the rest of them?

Score!

This is Ty.

Do you notice a constant in these pictures?

You probably don't realize it, but that hoodie is not only an article of clothing.  It is also deodorant.

That's right.

With logic only a 15 year old boy can achieve my son (who asked me the other day what margarine was.) thinks if he wears this magical hoodie over his clean shirt every day it will block the BO that builds over the course of day.  No, the fact that he only washes it once a week doesn't seem to factor in.

Anyway.  He is a UT fan.

We decorated his room when we first moved in.  I painted this wrought iron bed frame black.  It used to be mine and it was white.  Before that it belonged to my granny.
Then my mom and I worked on his walls.  Pretty much she did the detailed stuff and I did the large spaces. We work best that way.
The bedding came from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

He was pretty pleased with the whole bargain set up except for the fact he had no dresser.

This gnome didn't make up for the lack of dresser.

Today when I picked the babies up from Tia, the sitter, I passed a lady sitting in her front yard with five or six items in her yard for sale.  I made a quick u-turn and hopped out to check out a black dresser.  It was sturdy and solid wood.  She wanted 25.00 for it, but I only had a 20 on me.  I talked her down.  We wrestled with it for a while before we managed to get it in the Armada.

Ty was excited when I told him I was late picking him up because I was buying him something.  Even though he has been asking about a dresser I think it was a let down.  He probably thought I bought him that 250.00 pair of Oakleys he has been whining about lobbying for.  He didn't seem to catch the excitement of paying twenty bucks for a solid wood dresser.

This is Ty trying to act unimpressed.  Ok. He isn't acting.

It has some dings on it I will eventually fix.  Plus my plan is to get these long horn drawer pulls too.  He may not be impressed, but  I am not going to let that diminish my excitement.

(Yes.  I do have a low entertainment threshold.)


Since no room is complete without weaponry this is also on Ty's wall!

Have your kids tried to rob you of excitement lately?  Or talk you into a 250.00 purchase?

Decorating My Way

My last post was all about decorating artistically like my mom.
You may remember I am NOT an artist.  Proof.
(Take that as a warning!)

Since we are in the new house I had to find new places for our decor items.  I so proudly thought hanging wreaths on the banister was clever and original until I saw it on a hardware store ad.  Also my falling down the stairs while hanging it distracted from the cleverness.  Before I was even done tumbling The Coach bellowed, "Were you doing something stupid on the stairs?"  I swear I was just standing there.  Luckily the baby gate broke my momentum before I hit the hardwood.  I still had fantastic bruise on my bootier (That's French.)  I offered to show my family and all of the participants of the Turkey Dash, but I had no takers.  Scrooges.

These used to sit on my mantel, but since we have a honking TV there now courtesy of the last decor fight The Coach will ever win, I had to put them somewhere else.  On top of the fridge.  Doesn't everyone decorate the top of their fridge?

 All the characters in this nativity scene are looking around like, "What?  It wasn't me.  I didn't see anything."  Nice try.  I know one of them knows what happened to the Shepard's lamb.  It didn't just walk away by itself. (Mom would probably rearrange this so all the figures are looking at Baby Jesus.  Duh.)

Here are all our stockings.  I had to have my mom help me make them because I can never find seven different, but similar stockings at the store.  I wish I could say I now know how to make stockings, but I don't.  Also why would I even need to remember how to make stockings when my mom already knows?

These fish are permanent decor, but I added the hats which I think are hilarious.  So does Tayte.  Wasn't it nice of The Coach to haul the ladder out and humor me with this?

I purchased this so it isn't exactly creative or crafty, but I like it.  As a bonus my mom had some of the same type stuff she bought last year and I stole it took her up on her offer to let me have it.  I really like the "Believe" piece, but it's not just because I believed in Santa forever and cried when my mom told me the truth.  (Ok.  That IS why I like it.)

So...to wrap up decorating my way includes:
1. Bodily injury
2. Lost livestock
3. Sharing a sense of humor with a three year old.
4. Possibly traumatic childhood memories.

Top that, Mom.

If you are following from the hops please let me know so I can visit you.   Don't let my disrespect to my mom scare you.  

Decorating Mom's Way

You may remember my mom is an artist.

She has a very specific list of rules to be followed when decorating for Christmas.  Some rules things she actually says and some things I have just noticed, cuz I am observant like that.  (I told my mom I was going to make fun of her on my blog today and she replied, "What is new about that?"  Sassy, isn't she?)

1. There must be at least half a million lights on the Christmas tree. They cannot be just on the tips either.  They have to be wound around each branch all the way to the center of the tree.  Half a million.
2. EDITED TO CORRECT! Big ornaments go on the bottom.  Little ornaments go on the top.  No exceptions. None.
3. All ornaments must be hung on a hangy hook regardless of whether or not the loop is big enough to hang directly to the tree. Under NO circumstances should an ornament lacking a hangy thing be attached to the tree.
4. Ugly ornaments which require hanging out of obligation to the kid who created them....go in the back.
5. Icicles must be placed on the tree ONE AT A TIME.  My mother is actually the only human on the face of the earth I know of who does it this way. 
6.  It is nice, but not necessary if there is a theme, or better yet a color scheme.  My mom's tree is decorated in all white ornaments and most of them are angels.
7.  Ornaments of the same color cannot be side by side.  Ornaments of the shape cannot be side by side.  


This doesn't mean kids can't help with the tree.  But after they are finished hanging ornaments at their eye level all on the same branch the children must be put to bed, and the ornaments must be redistributed.

This is my tree.  I was going to get a picture of my mom's, but she lives thirty minutes away and the kids were sick and I didn't want puke in the Womb on Wheels...it would ruin the nice smell of stale fries I have worked to cultivate in there.  So you will have to deal with it.  Looking at my tree now I realize it is too sparse on top.  I better fix that before my mom comes over.

I try to follow these rules to a point.  I will agree big ornaments go on the bottom and smaller ones at the top.
I do have a color scheme. I try not to put like ornaments side by side which usually means I am swapping them around the entire Christmas season.

I refuse to do her light distribution.  Christmas would be over.  If I plug in the tree and it doesn't magically light up I think buying a whole new pre-lit tree is a reasonable reaction.  This year I plugged in the tree and a whole section refused to light up.  So I just bought a strand and added it without taking off the screwy set.  That's dedication.

I am non committal on the hangy thing issue.  I gave up long ago on the icicles and now just forgo them completely claiming they are a choking hazard.

I guess I just explained to myself why my mom's tree always looks so much better than mine. Hmmm?  Her tree is always beautiful.  It is a work of art.  Better yet....it is a work of Mom.  

 This is Woofie, our Elf on a Shelf.  I didn't name him.  He agrees with my decorating and admires my tree.

How about you?  Do you have any strange, eccentric totally practical decorating guidelines?

Wackadoodle

I know you have been stuck to your computer waiting breathlessly for the pictures of my colorful house I promised. Well wait no more. Here they are. I had to get up before all the kids to take pictures of a clean house. Look quickly.

First though here is a picture of my colorful cat, Grizelda. We have been missing her while she stayed with my brother and his wife.


She really shouldn't be on the counter, and I tried to tell her that, but she seems to have more important things on her mind.

Ok. Moving on.




Here is the peach kitchen. I love that chair, but this picture makes me realize that pillow is too red.








Speaking of too red......Here is the entryway. I wish someone had told me before I hired the painters about tinted primer. It took SEVEN gallons of red paint to cover the entryway.


You can also see thedark blue living room and light blue dining room - where incidentally no kid is living. Woo hoo.

I added this picture because from this angle you can see all four colors at the same time.

Now I just have to work on bringing some red into the blue rooms and blue into the peach room and on and on and on. It is a work in progress. Right now I have to stop working on this part of the house and clear a path in my room from the door to the bed. That is where I have thrown all the boxes I don't feel like dealing with.

Any suggestions?

Can you believe it is time to head back to work on Monday? I can't!

Thanks for stopping by to see the house!

Closets

So what with unpacking the kitchen and escaping the smell of paints fumes I haven't had much time to actually unpack my own stuff. (I missed you shoes.)

When I got home the other day sweet The Coach had unpacked my clothes and hung them up neatly in the closet for me.

See?

Here are my shirts. (I am sorry I had to pack you away leopard print blouse.)

Here are the pants.

He even lined them up by color. What an idea. I usually line them up from skinniest to heaviest so I when I am having a "queso" day I don't have to make myself mad finding a roomy pair.

He did such a good job. Can you guess what I had to change immediately? I am NOT OCD. So, what do you think it was?

I couldn't live in a world where pants were hung on top of shirts. It gave me headache. The pants have to go below the shirts in my world. I am going to see if I don't have a nervous breakdown leaving my shoes on this shelf.

Here is an improvement that I will hang on to though. Ha. Pun intended. He hung up my camis. Great improvement. I just usually throw them into a drawer with various other undergarments which means I can't find anything when I want to wear it. Good job.

One day I will have to photograph his side of the closet. It is a lesson in OCD.

Saturday Update

We are IN!
After a six hour signing nightmare we finally closed on our new house.
We have all of our stuff here we just have no idea WHERE here.
The painters came and did their thing. Hopefully I can show you some pictures at some point.
So far I have only found one broken item, but I won't rest easy until we have the mirror to my dresser home safely. (One of the guys helping us move forgot it was in the back seat of his truck and took off with it. Oops.)
In the middle of the move Tayte injured his "little man parts" by slamming them in the toilet seat. We had to take a time out to take him to the doctor.
We went and got our dog from the super nice people who were watching her while we were homeless.
I just signed up for the lottery of the Aramco Half Marathon in January. I have never run a half marathon before so I guess we will see how it goes.
We are getting ready to take Tanner shopping for clothes as he has grown so much this summer he owns ONE pair of shorts he can zip.
Saige and I went to see Beezus and Ramona last night. It was so cute.
Well I guess that catches me up. Maybe later next week I can return to normal daily blogging. I know you are all just holding your breath.
:)

Future Home Decorating and Giveaway

I am not posting about the usual child antics, triathlon happenings, or strange, but true stories today. Instead Lucky Blog Reader you get the opportunity to weigh in on the color scheme of my future home. (Only 12 more days!!) I am already leaning towards one, but I wanted some opinions anyway. My last house leaned toward browns and bluish-greens. I want something different, but bright. Just so you know these are the schemes for my kitchen, living room, entryway, and dining room which are all sort of connected.





~ Choice 1

It's different. Bright. I don't know which of these colors would be a good color for living room walls.

~ Choice 2
My mom who is a great decorator says peach and red are going to popular soon. I think it may be popular, but not so popular everyone does it. What do you think?



~ Choice 3


I like this, but it isn't much different from my last house. I just don't know.



~ Choice 4


I like this. That first color is peachier than it shows here. It's more pastel than bright though. But I feel like rooms could painted these colors without being too garish.

~ Choice 5

This is the same as Choice 2 except the red-ish color is different. How would a bright red-ish entryway look?

I put up a poll at the top left of my blog. I thought I was so clever, but now I realize it is very hard to see. Oh...tough it out and vote anyway. I need help here.

If you are stopping by from the hops feel free to vote too. What the heck, huh?

I decided to give away something else since it was so fun last time. In the spirit of painting I am going to give away a $20.00 gift certificate to Home Depot.

To Enter:

*Be a follower.

*Tell me what colors you would want your house to be.

(You can stick both of these in one comment. )

- Comments must be in by Sunday at midnight.

- I will choose and post a winner on Monday.

Everyone have a great day and a great weekend.

Here's the hops!! (Excuse the lack of buttons, but they aren't saved on this computer.)

Toddler Awesome