Countdown to Halloween

I know two little ones who are ready.

Be back tomorrow with the rest of our decorations!

Halloween Decor

Have I mentioned before that I luh-uh-uh-ve Halloween? I love it. It's my most favorite Holiday ever! My favorite movie is Hocus Pocus. My favorite season is Autumn. When I was a little girl my grandparents always took me for the first weekend of October to this camp site that would host a huge Halloween weekend (weeks before hand so more people could join) Fridays would be a big dinner, Saturdays were trick or treating & hay rides and Sundays were the biggest/best pumpkin votes. I loved it. I looked forward to it every October. We even took LB1 last year, this year we aren't able to make it and it breaks my heart. :( I still can picture the princess costume I wore one year. Remember those creepy plastic masks with the eye cutouts. Haha, I looked pretty scary, but at the time I probably felt like the coolest kid in the trailer park camp ground. :)


Okay enough reminiscing. I love Halloween, you get that. This year while Mr. P was away I was able to decorate more. Basically when you let the dog off the leash they run.

I ran.

Love my spooky pictures? So easy to do, I googled vintage Halloween and so many cool photos came up! I printed them out on plain old white paper and slipped them in the frames. I love the black, whites, creams and the pop of the orange. Like the girls' silhouettes? Let me show you how to make them.

Grab these things.
Halloween scrapbook paper, I used Martha Stewart. 10.00 for the book at Meijer. Some scissors and tape.

Cut into a witches hat shape and two tiny little horns. I stuck it straight to the glass. A little 3D love goin' on.

It's that easy! Now quickly, go turn your pictures into spooky art!

Happy fall ya'll

Also linking up to Rhoda's fall party! Go check em out!

Check out the girls at The Shabby Nest for Frugal Friday!

Another PB inspired project.

Have you seen these lovelies over at potterybarn.com yet?

I tell you they're a beaut. I wanted them. Bad. I've even envisioned something HUGE like this one.

Photo from resolvedtoworship.xanga.com my newest addiction by the way.

Right, back to the giant cork board. I want one so bad. So so bad, like I looked all around my house for where one would fit. But of course we don't have it. So the Pottery Barn ones seemed like the perfect fit. Big, but not too big. Enough to make a statement. You know, "Hey I'm a huge cork board. Look at me." But let's be real. 149.00 for a strip of cork and a thin frame. Really? Riiight. I'll just make one. For free. Yes folks I said free.

I had a pretty big cork board from when I was younger that was in my garage hiding from all the possible owners walking through my house. It was in good shape just had a ugly frame on it. Too much honey color going on.

Oh..Okay well, apparently I didn't take a before picture. I'm lame like that. But I did take one in the middle of action.

She just got a quick coat of black paint and there you have it. The EXACT.SAME.THING. For 149.00 cheaper.

Even better, I had one of those completely amazing eye pictures framed up in my room from when I was like..11 or so, she hid in my garage too. Oh, and because your wondering -- The picture is of a whale. Keep the "I don't get it, I just see your reflection in the picture" Jokes to yourself. ;)

Couple sprays of chalk paint right on the glass and poof. Another 149.00 saved.

Don't judge my ugly basement. I know, it's THAT bad.

So, seriously. I just saved myself 300.00. Mr. P should give me an award. Something along the lines of "My wife is amazingly talented and can spray paint something ugly into something fabulous." You know, give or take.

Lets recap.

149.00

Free

149.00

Free

Have a fabulous week everyone! Don't forget to check out my "little cottage that could" feature from Friday! :)

Then hop back over to Kimba's and browse the other wonderful ideas going on for DIY day!

Also posting this to The Shabby Chic Cottage! Go check all the transformations out!

Giveaway

No, not mine.

But theres an AWESOME Giveaway going on!

Go over to Jannypie and sign up. Halloween stuff. Gotta love it!

But just to let you know, I'm planning on winning. Don't get your hopes up. ;)

The little cottage that could

Those stopping by from It's so very Cheri, Hi! C'mon over! Take your shoes off and look around. You know, go crazy. I'm more than okay with it. :)

Welcome to my humble abode.

I've shown you my kitchen about 1.4 billion times, but here she is again, in all of her glory! Being the biggest project that we took on, it's definitely the one I'm most proud of. You would be proud too if you lived through a week of drywall dust.all.over.everything.

Before

After

Two steps this-a-way, is the living/family/tv/rec room. Basically the room we do everything. It's my office. A nap room. And where we watch the wiggles-- over, and over, and over.



I love the simplicity of this room. It's too small to really clutter up, and when it does get a little messy.. Because lord knows I wouldn't let it look really messy... ;) It's an easy 3 minute tidy up. The room started out as a dark brown with horribly ruined hard wood floors and floral curtains. None of which are up my ally. We changed every nook and cranny, adding the carpet, paint and window treatments. Just little touches that changed this room dramatically. I so wish I would have taken pictures the day we moved in. Why didn't I see the future blogging potential?

Lets go down the hallway- My cabinets took an overhaul a while back, remember? Mr. P still hates them.
I love them more.

My teensie tiny bathroom. A main reason we NEED TO MOVE. I have barely enough room to brush my teeth let alone bathe two Little's in this room! But, for being pretty teeny tiny, she is a pretty little thang. What once was tile on the walls, which were painted none the less, with flat white. Eh.. okay? Is now beautiful bead board, easy to clean, easy to love. The floors got a overhaul and we covered up the pink and grey with the stick-ons from the rest of our house. Remember? Like, -.3 cents a tile or something of the sort. Can't beat that. We did all of the work ourselves and saved a million dollars, so even if it is a tiny bathroom..sometimes, just sometimes.. She makes me proud and happy.



The wanna be real room, closet, shoebox "master" bedroom is a hop skip and jump away from the bathroom. It just got a mini makeover for the open house, remember? It may be small but there's enough windows in the room to bring in so much natural light it's amazing! Not at dawn it's not amazing, but throughout the rest of the day? Lovely.



Wanna see the closet that matches the "master bedroom"? You know you do.

Yeah, it's really that.bad.

Go ahead, pick your jaw up.

Scroll back up.

Shake your head.

I know, right?

The only good part is you learn to live without 100 different blue shirts and 52 pairs of black shoes.

Upstairs we pass the Other Mothers door,

and we see the girls' rooms.



LB1 had a lot of input in her room. Pink. Uh, okay easy enough. So to break away from an ocean of pink we chose different shades of pink. To add some spunk we went with polka dots. So easy to do. These are what we used to outline them.





Then you grab your paint. I chose 4 different colors, I so smartly numbered #1,2,3,4. Then I numbered the dots on the wall so that no two colors were right next to each other. Wouldn't that bug you? Oh how it would bug me. Over and over. The one dot would taunt me.. The wall between the two dressers still hasn't gotten #4. I've learned to overlook the twitch it gives me when I'm in the room. Someday somehow I'll get to it. I pinky promise.



Oh, right anyways. Then you take a sponge brush and paint away. Two coats each and voila! In a day you can be done! A room fit for a polka dot queen!

LB2 had zero input in her room. We already had the moon bedding from her sister so we went with that and I truly wanted a pretty boarder or some chair rail and stripes. But for money saving purposes we went with paint. Easy to put up and easy to change when she gets older. I made my own "Border" by writing the words to twinkle twinkle little star around the room. And took the paint and re-wrote it. Easy peasy. So far little miss likes it, works for me! :)

The last part I would like to show you is the outside deck. I promised to show that forever ago, and well. Didn't.

The deck started out in really bad shape. Whoever built it decided to cut costs and only put one support throughout the whole thing. Needless to say the deck was dipping. It was only a matter of time till one sweet summer day BBQ party would go horribly wrong and end up with a pile of people on a crushed deck. Bummer. So, since LB1's birthday party was a week away, whats a momma to do? Nag and nag and nag some more and POOF. A new deck was built in a week. It's lovely. Sturdy. I don't have to have cold sweats in the middle of the night about people dying at our picnics. Wait what?

Note: we do not use the fire pit on the wood deck. I promise you, we didn't replace one hazard with another. :)

Well, that's my house everyone!

So again, thank you for stopping by! It may be a tiny ol' cottage. But she's loved!