Birthday Wreath

Look what I made! And, it didn't need a tool to finish it, well-- besides scissors and a glue gun I suppose.

 The birthday wreath.. On, uh..My fridge. Because I needed a white background.

It's best if you just ignore anything in the background of these pictures. Junk on the floor, stains on the couch, vanilla coke? No way I don't drink that stuff... Just um.. Block it out.

I'm kind of a hoarder, so I've been saving the girls' birthday cards since well, day one. And, it was time to cut down on that stash and make them into something that I can keep but also not just in a drawer where no one except me will look at them.

Take your cards and start o' cuttin' em. I got my paper cutters from Joannes @ 40% off, two sizes- Large and extra large. Make sure when you're cutting them you cut out "background" ones, these are the ones that don't neccesarily have faces or cute pictures on them. But you'll need them for the first layer of the wreath. Then, cut out more. And, more....And...more. It's okay if you have extras, you can get rid of the leftovers that aren't so pretty. Even if you shed a tear doing it.

Then cut your wreath form, the easiest way I could do this was to use some cardboard and trace one myself. It wasn't perfect and I'm cool with that.

 You can't really see my wicked good circles can you? Eh, here's a picture of some cardboard then.

To make it easy on yourself put them into piles of 1.)Little fillers 2.)Bigger fillers 3.)Small cute 4.) Bigger cute 5.) Biggest

So when you're trying to glue them on and you have a kid crawling all over you and the t.v is up as loud as it can be and you're ready to scream, you at least know which circle you need.

Start with the outer edges then the inside and then start with the second layer. To make it a little three dimensional I dotted some glue on it and let it dry, then added another dot on top of that so it was higher than the others, get it? Then just fill it up as you wish, adding more glue dots (or my cheap way and glue gun dots) to make it extra fantastic.

The best part is that you can keep filling it up year after year. Think of how excited the kids (and you) will be when it's birthday time and you get to break out the Birthday Wreath!? For THEIR special day.

Loves it.

Linking up to Tatertot and Jellos weekend party, yo! 

And...

And, Tip Junkie!

Feature yourself Friday!

Happy weekend friends! I'm knee deep in getting ready for my little lovies birthday party next week and I have some CA-UTE tutorials for you. Yay! But, I did stop for a moment to highlight some of the awesomesauce from last week. OVER 400 entries? Heck yeah. 

Sweet little mobile. :)

Just looking at this I think I gained 10 pounds. Whew!

This makes me hungry too! This would be a really cute idea for a party, simple- Just like I like it!

I squealed when I saw this pillow! I *love* it. Screams Valentine's day to me.

I actually just emailed this picture to my Mom! She's looking for the perfect gray/blue and this room has it! Gorgeous !

One more food feature, I swear I'm not pregnant (Bark, veggies and pizza? Okay..) Just starvin' marvin! :) Pizza+Crockpot sounds good to ME!

Your turn! Link link linky up.

Hallway doors

Remember these dark and dreary things?

Excuse the blurry phone picture, I had to quickly snap one before I forgot. :)

The black was nice, for a while but it really did make the hallway look smaller. It didn't help that the four doors made it look chopped up and closed in. Well that's all fixed now, long lean and bright. I swear it made the ceiling look 10 times higher and at least 5 feet longer. I love it.

It started with a large piece of MDF cut (at Lowes) into two 16x89 inch panels. We bought some plastic trim, Killz oil based primer and some eggshell white in Olympias premium paint with Low VOC.. I figured that if we were using the oil based primer that was MORE than enough VOCs for us to be smelling, and went with that and it was awesome! None of the icky paint smell!

And, I'm sure I'll get a few emails about how horrible oil based paint is and yes I know, I know. But since MDF is basically paper I needed something that would stick and help me avoid 12 coats of the latex paint. I also was covering black on the shelves in the closet and didn't want something that would peel off. In it to win it we were.

We bought black hinges and spray painted the handles with ORB paint. Love them. To make things a little more cohesive in the hall I painted the door handles too, which we decided we'll do to all of them now, slowly but surely. It's not fun taping off all the glass on the knobs. :)

My favorite part? These! Little number plates. I can't tell you how much I love them! It's like little vintage hotel room numbers, super sweet.

We're still going to paint the hallway but we decided to have an electritian come out and help us put in a switch for the light in here. Right now it's on a pull and it's not exactly fun to pull out a step ladder to grab the pull the string to turn on the light. I'm thinking something like this from Lowes.

But once they cut the holes and make room for a switch we'll be able to slap some paint on. Can't wait!

We also finished that nasty trim. It looks SO much better, who knew you could love trim so much?

Linking up to What I whipped up at Sugar and Dots

&

Thrifty's monthly part-ay!

Valentine's Day Mantel..er..fantel.

Can you guys believe it's almost February? Where the heck did January go, seriously? My littlest lovie turns three on the fourth so we don't go all out V-day too early because I don't want her growing up thinking we skip over her birthday decor but, something simple was definitely in the works. I was over the winter scene that was previously hangin' out. Plus! Beth decided to have a Valentine's day mantel party and I can't skip out on a good party. True story.

So, enjoy our so *SIMPLE* it's sick Valentines decor.

Annnddd...GO!

I used a free printable from the girls at Eighteen25, love their blog.

A photo of the hunny-bunches and I giving a little PDA, I think this is the only picture up of him and I together, how sad is that?

And, blue ball jars- LOVE these. Love love love.

Some simple cherry blossoms to add a little romance.. *Wink*

I love it. I love that it doesn't scream Valentine's day, but it does.

That all makes sense, I know.

Eighteen25 is having a party, check it out!

Feature yourself Friday!

Happy end of the week, homies! Hope your week so far has been fun and filled with warm unlike us here in the mitten. Brrr! We've been having lots of soup, and staying inside. Leaves lots of time for blog-hopping eh? 

Really liking these birds! The colors are awesome.

Awesome garland, and so easy!

If I thought Mr. Fingerprints could handle any new surprises around the house I'd totally make these. Poor guy is always coming home to a "new" house.. :)

How fun is this wall?

These would be a great V-day treat for your kids friends and such at school :) Adore that frame too!

Okay-dokay. Your turn!

Winner winner chicken dinner.

Just thought I'd climb out of my mountain of laundry to let ya'll know that the winner for the Significantly Simple give away was chosen..... Dun dun dun dun. Thanks to random.org we have... Number 17!

Lyndee @ A Recovering Craft Hoarder 

Yay! Don't forget you still have another chance to win if you are a fan of Significantly Simple on facebook, when they get to 100 *likes* they'll chose a second winner for another 25.00 Lush gift card.

Holla!

Thanks friends, you guys are the best. 

*Knuckle bump.*

Back to the laundry I go, 

hi-ho hi-ho.

Hallway extravaganza

So, we really started to buckle down on the hallway this weekend and I'm extreemely excited. It might be boring to you all but it's a project that had to be done and we walk in this area about 9.2 million times a day, give or take.

Remember the giant disgusting hole that was covered up by a vent? Well, we did some investigating and come to find out it's a return air vent, which just happens to be also on the otherside of the wall in our bedroom. Why they chose to bump out another hole I'll never know, but being that our house is so small and theirs a vent 2 feet over and one on the other side we made the executive decision to cover it up. Yeah I know. Oh well.. it was just too beat up to fix without just covering it.

So we did. And the trim was hella expensive but we only needed around 50 inches of it so it wasn't too bad. But this girl is used to using the plastic 2.00 trim, not 15.00.. Geesh! We still need to add some shoe to it so the bottom is covered up, and fix the chip in the trim above it from taking the old piece out, but to me it looks 100x better.

We picked up a few paint swatches too. Right now I'm leaning towards the Rice grain but the other ones that have a star are others I enjoy looking at. I know I want it to be lighter, brighter and cleaner looking. I'm sick of the fleshy dingy wanna-be-brown that is taunting me. I'm so technical I know.

The look similar on the computer but in real life they seem to be a lot lighter. 

We also built the doors for the built in, but those deserve a post of their own. It's coming together ya'll.. It's coming together.