Area rug dilema

I'm in full on living room (Family room/t.v room/ great room) mode right now and I'm trying to cozy it up as cheaply and in the most effective and realistic way that will work for my family. Light carpets aren't the best choice we've ever made in our decorating decisions but at the time I was pregnant with my smallest love bug and the house had broken, falling apart wood flooring. I wanted to get rid of it, and do it fast. I also wanted it to be comfortable and lets be honest, pregnancy hormones make you do crazy things. Off white carpets it was, is.. well now they're more beige. ;) But I've browsed around and decided even though some might hate rugs on carpet, I think it'll help anchor our sectional area and make the coffee table "float" less. Right now area rugs are on sale like crazy! Pier 1 has some 4x6's for 59.00, Lowes has some that aren't as fabulous but are bigger at 5x7 for 25.00! A steal I'd say, when rugs can get pricey and pricey does not work in our house right now.

I'd love to get the prettier one, but it's smaller. So I needed to measure it and see if I could live with it. Want to see how?

Just like the genius women who paint a poster board and live with it on the wall for easy paint testing I just measured our carpet off with my handy tape measure and taped it off. Smaller 4x6, and a little larger 5x7.

This way I can live with it for a few days and see if the smaller one really will drive me bananas or if the large one really is too large for our teeny tiny living room.

Can't wait to show you what one we picked!

Coffee table

Isn't it funny when you feel like you have a small house you try extra hard to not "fill it up" with stuff so that you have more space? But then when you walk into an Ikea and they have those little mock-up rooms filled with big entertainment units, sectionals, coffee tables, thick drapes and pretty pictures it's cozy and lovely and you just want to snuggle up and watch the fake t.v?

You say to yourself, okay this 10x10 room looks better than my 12x16 and it's smaller-- but cozier and I'd much rather have a place to put my drink than more space on the floor to see the stains from spilled drinks that didn't have a real place to sit.

You do say all that to yourself too right? Me too.

So I hauled the table my dear Builder Dad gave me, yes the one his father built-- into our house, AGAIN. I painted it last year in chalkboard paint so the girls could write all over it. Then I decided I hated chalk dust and it went into the garage. :) Now it's back and since I'm going through a paint everything white phase I'll give you a hint on what color I painted it.

It's not yellow.

It got a nice coat of white with a hint of the Upward blue/gray from our bathroom redo. The white itself was too... Something. So I crispified (Yup.) it up with some gray. Now it's nice and cool and looks great with the little peeks of black coming through from the previous paint and just as great with the honey colored wood coming through.

This is why I love distressed furniture, so when my girls beat up on it I don't worry about a scratch, it just matches the rest of them. Right now it has a pretty blue ball jar filled with rocks shaped like hearts the girls found, a shell and a rope ball on the top.

Who knows if it will stay or what will come about when I can finally decorate for FALL.. let alone Halloween my favorite.


Here's to putting things we love in our house because we want to, even if it breaks the rules. ;) Cheers.

Feature Yourself Friday!

Happy Happy Friday! Another great week with some lovely features... 

This bookshelf makes me swoon! Look at all the pretty colors!

A great teacher gift for all those littles that are going back to school!

Daily Dover made me drool over this Monkey Bread. Yum. :)

Anyone who's been to my blog for a while knows I'm a sucker for anything Disney, so when I saw these birthday hats I fell in love! Added it to our next Disney vacay must do!

Look what my friend McKell did with a jute monogram-- You know I love me some jute!

Okay one more one more.. LOVING the colors on this anklet! Great work huh? They were on sale too, so go scoop one up--- and one for me! ;)

Keep it up girls! I'm off to work on a super special something in the living room. So excited for you to see!

Ready..
Set...
Go!!

Creative Chick Parade!

Hello friends! I wanted to pop in and let you know that FOTF is going to be joining in with some other amazin' blogging buddies to host an event called the Creative Chick Parade! It's going to be a ton'o fun with themed link ups daily! Come on over and link up! Get your projects ready too--

There's going to be giveaways going along with the party too, so if you'd like to sponsor a lil' something to get your name out there this is a great time to do it. A lot of traffic for you, and not to mention mucho inspiration floating around! Fun times for all. :)

If you're interested in doing a giveaway here during that week email me at FOTFBlog@aol.com

See you there!

Making it mine.

While on a recent antiquing trip with my Mom for her birthday (Happy Birthday Mom!) she bought me (yes I know, her birthday and she buys me crap.. Mothers *sigh*) a super old, super heavy, super delicious milk crate. I'm in.love.with.it.

Excuse the bad lighting, it's rainy and dark here but I'm too excited to show you to wait! :)

I wanted to add a touch of "me" to it. I had seen an idea just like this somewhere and now for the life of me I can't find it to link up-- if you did this or know who did email me! Credit given to credit due!

*My friend Sandra informed me that there's a similar post like this at Cap Creations! It's not the exact one I saw, but very close-- and super cute too! 

So, here's what I did. I looked up a font that was oldish--scriptish--and easy enough for me to free hand. It wasn't going to be perfect and I'm okay with that. Then I painted it on and scuffed it up. The number is our anniversary date by the way. I love it!

And, for the crate-- it's not deep enough to hold anything thick and lovely like a gorgeous cream blanket I had in mind but it's perfect for a healthy amount of magazines. I could fill it all the way up and it might just drive my husband crazy-- I'm a pottery barn magazine hoarder, I know this. :)

I have a little idea for the top shelf of the table too. Just you wait! 

*Nope, my walls aren't yellow-- There's that crappy lighting again!*

Anything you added your personal touch to? Even if it was an antique and took all the value away? But added infinite value in your home? :)

Frugal Friday

Saturday Sponsors & a California Giveaway

Want some fun blog reading this week? Feel the need to shop for some pretties? Looking for a photographer, blog designer? I have that for you! :)

Blog Design

Looking to tweak your blog a tad? Want to spruce it up and still have it be affordable? Well say hello to Tenille! Go check out her portfolio-- She has some serious talent, ladies!

 I love me some Halloween, so this is up my ally! 

Plus she's super nice and has free things for you to go ahead and use for yourself! Check her out, you wont be disappointed!

 Sugar pop Creations! 

They sell some super cute camera straps! Want a sampling? 

How cute! 

They have soft inside straps to be extra comfy on that photo-taking-neck of yours and great patterns to choose from! Go take a look, you wont be able to pick just one! Amazingly reasonable too, you could get one for each outfit!

Live fancy is full of funny posts, random thoughts, super cute crafts, awesome {cupcake} related things.. yum! And, other fancy living tid-bits. It helps that Kimmie is awesome, funny and down to earth. Check her out! Then while you're at it go look at her Etsy shop! Remember those princess clips from Disney week? All her, baby!

She also creates buttons on the cheap! Need a blog button? She's got it!

Erin Dietrich Photography. 

If you live in the Southern California area she is SERIOUSLY the person to go to. Yup, enough so that I had to use all caps. :) Her work is gorgeous!

I'm in the process of trying to get her to move to Michigan to shoot us. Think she'll give up the sunshine for snow? Okay, maybe not move but she does travel. So even if you aren't in a location close to her, she can come to you! Go check her work out, it's stunning. She also has a fun family blog worth checking out, if you're anything like me and love stalking reading about other peoples families. That's what blogging is about right? ;)

Speaking of Erin.. She'd like to give away something special to my California readers-- and I know you're out there. Google analytics tells me that California is #2 in my readership regions. So I know you're out there! 

Today she's offering up a 50% off package session! This includes 1 hour photo shoot, location on your choice (within 20 miles of San Clemente or small travel fee will apply) & 20-30 high resolution edited images on a CD for you to have the print rights too!

Want to know how you can win this lover-ly session? Easy!

Leave a comment! No jumping through hoops for this one, just leave a comment letting me know you're in California!

Have a second chance by signing up to follow her facebook fan page.. You get to check out all the cute pictures and super good specials she has going on! 

Aaaannd, we'll pick a random winner next Saturday! :) Good luck!

For all you non-California residents I have something special for you soon! Just you wait!

Thanks so much for these lovely sponsors who help this little place I call home-- up and running. You girls are seriously the best!

Interested in advertising on Fingerprints on the Fridge? Great! I'm still running the August special-- Sign up and any month you'd like to have your ad run is only 10.00 per month! Steal!
Email me at FOTFBlog@aol.com and we'll chat! 

Feature Yourself Friday!

Welcome, and..Happy Friday! Another great turn out, of course!  I wouldn't expect less of you girls! (We had the exact same number of turnouts this week as last.. Weird!)

This week I'm hungry for sweets, and there was PLENTY to share. Yum.

This cake is simply amazing.

So is the other one she made. Whew! Good work!

Yummy cupcakes and a little storie about England. So fun!

Sprinkles GIVEAWAY. But don't worry about not winning, those Sprinkles cupcakes have my name on them. 

Mini chocolate cakes.. Mmm!

Rocky road cupcakes.. Okay now, this is getting serious.

Not a real edible cake but it's filled with sweets, so it still counts to me. :)

Okay your turn! Time to Feature yourself and show us how awesome you are!

Simple fix

This is something so seriously simple you might not even need to read this post. I wont be offended. For the rest of you that didn't think of this, like me. You'll be knocking yourself in the head and saying "duh". So seriously. simple. it's. sick. :) Okay, here goes- Mistreating at it's finest.

See that little itty bitty window behind my couch?

It's just a single window but I hung the curtains a little wider so that it balanced out the room a bit more. But, with the sheers I only had one panel and it bugged me to no end that it covered all of the blinds. It's taking away some of the texture, and with a room so small-- it depends on texture to keep it fresh and clean and not a stuffy box. Not to mention LIGHT! Layers cover up much needed light in the room. So what did I do? Cut it in half.

Yup, just cut a perfectly good curtain sheer in half, and a little bit extra with each panel so they're skinnier. This helps it not be so bunched up, which would have been the problem with two full sized panels.

Anyway, after I cut them I just flipped them so that the raw edges were on the outside of the window, behind the drop cloth curtains, this way no one would see them. However I could have taken it a step further, just in case they frayed-- do sheers fray? Well I'll guess I'll find out, but if it bothers you grab some hemming tape  irorn it on to make a pretty little seem. No sewing included!

Unless you're my Mom reading this-- cussing me out for not breaking out my sewing machine. Hate me.

I'll go ahead and enjoy my lazy way of doing it.

Now they're semi- finished good enough and width appropriate to the window. Love it.

Goodness you'd think I'd iron them or at least clean up before I showed you this. Now my Mom is really going to let me hear it. 

See the difference? It's magical. So simple. Love it.

And, because I know you'd like to see the little girls behind the cute toes that cannot be cropped out:

Go ahead and try to tell them their feet need to be cropped out of a picture... Just try, dare you.

Frugal Friday