Closet Confessions

Confession #1:
As I mentioned in this post HERE, I made the Spencinator's closet into a reading/calming nook:

What I didn't tell you was where I put all his toys that used to be in his closet.....

Inspiration For The Weekend - 3

I love the look of a canvas print.
I have one as part of my living room gallery wall shown below and mentioned HERE.

I have the 8x10 size and would love to go bigger, much bigger but large canvas portraits can be quite expensive.  Tales from the crib and Sugar Bee crafts have figured out an inexpensive alternative and it looks great.  Click on the links below to find out how they made these beautifully large prints.

It would be neat to do a collage of huge prints such as THIS:

or THIS:

I'm already thinking of where I could put such a large portrait.

Furniture Rearranging (part 2)

I'm back to show you how I rearranged the Spencinator's room.
You can check out part 1 HERE.
I'm warning you, I took lots of pictures in trying to figure out the best arrangement.
Here is what the room looked like before:

I know, not a very good picture, but you can see that all the furniture is on the perimeter of the room.  

Furniture Rearranging (part 1)

I have a hobby, or maybe it is an obsession, but I just can't help myself.  I can't leave well enough alone when it comes to the furniture in my house.  I am constantly rearranging things.  It all started with the dresser in Sweetie Pie's room.  It is one of those low and  long dressers with the mirror above it.

Well, it just kept accumulating her treasures and other junk.  It is pictured above during a previous room rearranging session.  There isn't usually a toy box right in front of the dresser.

More Closet Organization

I'm on an organizing kick.  And this time I've been working on the closet in our laundry room.  This is the room we enter into from the garage, and the kids keep their shoes and coats in here.  Their hats, gloves and scarves are also stored here and with it being winter, those items are getting more use.
Here is the before:

Downton Abby

Anyone else watching Downton Abby?

Around here it comes on PBS 9pm Sunday nights.  The previous week's episode comes on Saturday at 9pm and Sunday at 8pm so you can get caught up.  Season 2 started three weeks ago, you can watch season 1 on Netflix.  I highly recommend it.  It is a British drama about high society and their servants.  I've been hooked since watching the first episode.

Inspiration For The Weekend - 2

OK, how cool is this:

This painting is going for $309.00 on etsy.
Painting Details:
Artist: Dan Lafferty
Title: "ILLUSIONS OF GOLD"
Media: Professional Grade Acrylics on Canvas (Stretched)
Size: 24" X 48" X 3/4" (depth)
Est. Gallery Price: $1499.00 - Certificate of Authenticity Included

Lauren and Hannah over at Young and Crafty, made a DIY version for around $60.00

Check out her blog HERE to see how she did it.
It doesn't seem that difficult, and maybe something you could get your kids to help out with too.

I could imagine this in silver instead of gold.  Or maybe even in a dark jewel tone.  You could hang this vertically too.  Or even make a smaller version.  Oh, the possibilities.  I'm thinking of where I could put it, then I can start narrowing down my color choices.  Whatever the color, it would certainly make a great statement.

A Reading Nook / Calming Closet

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I put the changing table back into The Babes closet to use as shelving.  It used to be in the Spencinator's closet which used to look like this:

I wanted to create a little quite, calming space where the Spencinator could go to relax and read.   Anyone who has a child with autism knows how important it is to have a calming space for them.
After a little rearranging, his closet now looks like this:

A Work In Progress

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the state of my house these last few days.  You know how one project leads to another to another.....  which has lead to about 5 areas I am trying to organize at the same time and none of them are done.  I have lost my motivation or don't have the right supplies.  I hope to finish something soon and share it with you.  Right now, I have one closet mostly done and it looks like this now:

Organizing My Dinner Plan

I'm not a very good cook.  I don't really enjoy cooking but mostly because I am not organized.   We usually have dinner around 6:30pm because that is what works for us with my husband's work schedule.  And there are plenty of nights at 6pm when I still don't know what to cook.  I want to make something but don't have all the ingredients, or the meat isn't thawed out.  I have plenty of recipes so that's not the problem, the problem was getting on a schedule and STAYING on that schedule.

Awesome Inspiration

Friday's post about this sign did inspire me.  I made one of my own.  A very simple version, but I completed a project none the less and that makes me feel awesome!

Here is my much smaller and simpler version for my daughter's room:

Inspiration For The Weekend - 1

I don't know how many people read this blog or if anyone even noticed, but in December I blogged every day.  Some of that was due to scheduling posts since we were out of town for Christmas.  However this year, I've decided not to worry about blogging on the weekends and to try to just blog on week days.  We'll see how it goes.

So on Fridays I am going to start a series of posts called "Inspiration for the weekend".  I'll be featuring ideas and cool projects that you (and I) might be inspired to do over the weekend.  There are so many wonderful ideas out there, I just thought I'd share some of the things I like.

Allison over at House of Hepworths made this awesome sign:

She blogged about it HERE and HERE.

She got the idea from someone over at Pinterest and loved it so much she made her own.
I am thinking of making one too, but on a smaller scale, and it wouldn't even have to be made of wood.  You could do vinyl or stencil this onto canvas.  What a cute little sign of encouragement it would be.

Mantel Display

So you know how one project leads to another which leads to another and so on....
Well, that is what happened with my dining room buffet.
Kevin has a small train collection and some of them had been sitting on this buffet along with some other decor.  But I wanted to decorate the buffet for Christmas and be able to use it as a buffet during out New Year's Eve party.   I took off the trains and decorated the buffet for Christmas
:

But now I had to find a place for the trains...

Living Room Gallery Wall

A while back, I talked about the little gallery wall in my laundry room (see THIS post).
Well I have a bigger gallery wall in my living room.
Our living room is huge and I've had trouble arranging furniture and decorating since day 1.

Here is what it looked like before we moved in (sorry these are the only pictures I have):

Organizing

With the start of a new year, so many people are trying to get organized.
John and Sherry over at Young House Love are having a give away to help you organize your stuff.
And if you are like me, you have lots of stuff.  Click HERE to enter their give away.

They are giving away a set of Rubbermaid's new Bento boxes.

I won again!

Let's start this week off on a positive note!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a Christmas ornament I had won (in this post HERE), and mentioned that it wasn't the first time I won something from another blog.  

About a month ago, I found out I was the lucky winner of this cute crocheted hat from Sweet Sister Stiches.

 

Trying To Get Back To Our Normal

I thought I would enjoy having the kids back to school, a quieter house, and time to get things cleaned up and organized again.  You know- get back to normal, at least what's normal for us anyways.   But the transition hasn't been going so well for the Spencinator who has Asperger's, a form of autism.   I've spent my days on the phone and going to appointments.  We've been thinking and planning and I still don't feel like we've come up with a solution, just a band-aid to deal with the latest problem.

Autism should come with a warning label, maybe something like THIS:

Holiday Totes

The other day I packed away all of our Christmas decor.

I store everything (except the trees) in Rubber-maid totes.  I have 3 of them and everything fits perfectly inside.  And by perfect, I mean there isn't room for anything else.  I used to have just 2 totes but I've slowly added a few more decorations so now I'm up to 3.

 Here is how I organize each tote:

Another Christmas Tree

The kids went back to school yesterday, Kevin went back to work on Monday.  Our vacation is over.  It was nice while it lasted.  The kids were wonderful, even The Babes, letting us all sleep in past 8 o'clock, sometimes past 9 o'clock.  But now it's back to reality - waking up to alarms and maintaining schedules.

And so the house must get back to its pre-Christmas state.
But not before putting up another Christmas tree.......

Go Go and Teta the Tetra

Meet the newest members of our family-

Go Go and Teta.

3 Kids and a Christmas Tree

Friday, I mentioned about the new mini van we bought.  I am still in love with it, I know it's only been a couple of days but I can see this being a long term relationship.

I also mentioned about a shopping trip we had planned....

The Start of a New Year 2012

Happy New Year!
I don't like to make New Year's resolutions.  I think if you want to resolve to do something, you can start whenever, you don't have to wait for a new year to begin.  With that being said, there are some things I would like to accomplish in 2012....