Scrapbook Expo

Sept 11-12 I went to the Scrapbook Expo at South Towne Expo Center with Mom, Aunt Brenda and Kellie. We spent all day, both days there and stayed the night in a hotel.

Kellie and Mom working on some projects

We each had to have our picture taken with 'Ribbon Girl'. She was a super cute girl from the booth for 'Mom & Me Scrapbooking'. She walked around giving out free ribbon to everyone. She had the most bubbly personality ever! She said her mom told her not to bug people or be obnoxious. So we told her mom how much we loved her!

We got some cute things made and came home with tons of ideas. We bought lots of fun stuff...hair bows, paper, purses, wallets, vinyl, wall hangings, Cricut Design Studio, Xyron etc. Lots of money spent but we had a blast doing it! Here we are each posing with our 'loot'

Haddie wanted to pose with Mommy. She was getting jealous that for once she wasn't in the spotlight.
I have only left Haddie overnight twice. Once when Mark and I went to Anniversary Inn (She stayed with my mom at 4 months 0ld) and then for the expo (Daddy watched her). I totally missed her and couldn't wait to get home to see her.

Dollar Store Wreath

Sarah over at Thrifty Decor Chick made a darling wreath after something that inspired HER. Well Sarah, you inspired my wreath. (Seriously, if you don't follow Sarah's blog, you should. She's quickly becoming my hero. She's a fantastic chick that is all about thrifty decor. I religiously stalk her blog.)
Anywho...I loved her wreath and wanted to try one of my own. The hubby, kiddo and I were at Dollar Tree (frugal is my first, middle and last name!) last week and these were my findings:

A wreath, 2 bags of artificial leaves, some glittery leaf plant poker thingies and an artificial green punkin. I actually ended up using some elongated gourds for my project, which I also got from the dollar store. Read on...you'll see :)

So I spray painted the wreath black because if my wreath showed through the leaves, I wanted it to look a little more 'finished'. I already had the spray paint, which I'd paid $1 for.

I then began hot gluing the individual leaves onto the wreath using a low-temp glue gun. I wrapped some ribbon around the wreath and tied a bow but it wasn't speaking to me.

So off came the ribbon and I finished gluing on the leaves. It was looking a little drab with just the leaves so I needed to spruce it up a bit! Which is where the gourds and glittery leaf thingies came along. I just hot-glued those on as well.
Ahhhh I love it!
In fact, I loved it so much, I made a 2nd one!

Remember this hurricane jar? I decided to spruce it up for Fall! It cost me $3 for this re-vamp. They're hard to see, but in the bottom there are different shaped green and orange pumpkins and gourds. I got all of it at the dollar store as well! I threw in a few leftover leaves from the wreaths for good measure. I'm loving it :)

Fall Trash-to-Treasure

I'm super excited for decorating my home for Fall! It's my favorite season. So I get giddy when the weather starts to cool down :)

On a trip to the thrift store, Haddie and I found some fun treasures to play with. I found this fancy-schmancy tin can thing.I walked past the tin can without a second look. Until I found this small bundle of straw stuff for a whopping fifty cents. (Are you loving my very technical terms for my goodies?) Pardon my cardboard here. It's my spray-painting box. The hubby didn't care for the time I spray-painted the patio on accident so I inherited my very own box!

So after I found the straw, I got an ingenious idea for a cheapo fall decoration. So I went back for the tin can thing, paying a sweet price of .75!
I stuffed a couple grocery bags in the bottom and then a block of floral styrofoam. I actually spray painted the styrofoam black, along with the tips of the straw.

I had some ribbon I tied on the can - I wish the tails on the bow were longer, but I ran out of that ribbon. I then put some moss on top of the styrofoam to disguise it and then stuck the straw in randomly to create this beauty.

She's nothing fancy, but I think it's cute to sit next to a block of wood I have that says 'Welcome To Our Patch' that has the same ribbon tied around it.
This project cost me $1.25, because I had everything else for it from previous projects. Haddie had fun helping Momma with a project so it was $ well spent.

Rainy Day Fun

Today started out being such a nice day. The temperature wasn't too warm, with a cool breeze. Then during nap time it started raining. Then it rained harder. Haddie ran to the sliding door when she heard the rain coming down so she could watch it.

Then she decided it looked like fun. So before Momma could stop her, she went out to the backyard and got all wet. She was having so much fun, I couldn't stop her. I did insist on her wearing a jacket though.

We decided to move the fun out in the front yard. You can see, the jacket didn't last for long.

She loved jumping in the puddles.

And splashing in them.

Oh yes, even sitting in them!

Our New Family Room

Finally, at long last, I am unveiling our family room that I've been working on for the last week. I just put the finishing touches on it this morning. Warning - tons of pictures :)

This is from the bottom of the stairs showing the length of the family room. Pardon the mess!

Here's after:

The open door in the center is where the bottom of the stairs is. The door on the right is the laundry/storage room. Before:
The stairs are to the right here. After:Laundry Room door after:
Air Hockey table wall before:
After:
Close-up of the shelf. I had the heart and star already and added raffia to them to make them cuter:
Bar before (some of these aren't good quality pics):
Bar after:
Wall next to the bar before. Notice the ugly thermostat and broken doorbell:
Wall next to bar after. We changed out the thermostat with the old white one from upstairs, took the doorbell down and hung the clock strategically over the gaping hole from the doorbell:
View of 2nd half of family room before:
View of 2nd half after:
Fireplace before:
Fireplace after:
Window and half of couch before:
Window and couch after:
I made this curtain! My friend Stephanie from digiscrapital taught me how to make it. It was so super easy, and it only cost me $3 to make! It's not as cute as hers, but I still love it!
2nd half of couch before:
Couch after:
This originally looked like this and I took the ribbon off and replaced it with raffia. Much cuter :)
Little hallway off left side of the room. (Bathroom straight ahead, Mark's video game room on the right, heater access on the left) Haddie was modeling the before:
Hallway after:
Ugly light in hallway before. It reminded me of a hotel hallway light:
New light fixture. Ya like Mark's Men's Room sign for his game room? He's so proud of that.
We also replaced all the electrical outlets and light switches with white ones.
This room was so much work but I love it now! Before I didn't like to spend a lot of time in it because it felt like a dungeon. But now it feels like a cozy family room that I want to hang out in. I love my decor, and am proud that I handmade some of it. It isn't anything fancy, and our couch isn't pretty but it's home to us. I am extremely proud of it, especially since I did more than half of it myself. Mark helped some, but with work he wasn't home enough to do more. Haddie was really cooperative and watched movies while I painted. She and I had fun hanging out together downstairs. Anyway, so here she is - all ready for us to enjoy as a family!