Yay! A break!

Yay! I am officially on Thanksgiving break! Things, as usual, have been crazy around here. My boys continue to be adorable but a full time job all on their own. I did get a Thanksgiving wreath made, but the house isn’t really clean. Oh well, that’s the trade off I guess.
Work has been crazy busy though. I have been spending bunches of time on things for my first grade kiddos and for my school in general. I don’t feel like I will ever get it all done! I don’t know how other people do it all-take care of the kids, work all day, make cute/fun/interesting for their classrooms, blog, craft, post things on Teachers Pay Teachers, whatever else. Maybe I can get some stuff done over the break. Right now a little blonde wants me to read him a book. That is going to be one of the highlights of my day!

Planes, trains, and automobiles

Okay so maybe just planes. But we have been working hard on getting my little pilot’s room finished during my latest blogging silence. I would say we are pretty close to being done for the time being. In the future I really want to build a desk that looks like an airplane wing. I have the vision in my head but just don’t have the time. I think the chair that I recovered will look great with this future desk.

Some other images from his room:

Hubby wanted to be involved and since I have no real drawing talent I thought that he should do the huge mural that I wanted. To make sure it was perfect, he drew an airplane on transparency film. I borrowed an overhead projector from school that was about to be sent to the warehouse and we blew it up. I am so in love with how it turned out!

We bought the plane propeller from amazon for about $80. What little boy wouldn’t want this!? If you don’t have access to an overhead there are some tutorials online that show you how to make your own with a lamp. Not sure how well this works, but give it a try and let me know. You never know when I might want to do something else like this and I don’t have an overhead anymore!

Happy Fall Ya’ll

Fall is here and the holiday seasons are starting up. I say seasons because we have Halloween, followed closely by Thanksgiving, and then you have to gear up for Christmas. I have gotten up most of my Halloween decorations. It may be all I get up this year, but every year it does get a little better. With three boys, a job teaching first graders, and a house to run, I can’t always get to all of the project that I have in mind. I did get my dining room table done and I planned ahead so I can use everything for Thanksgiving too!
I also got my wreath made for the front door.
I had seen so many versions of this type of wreath/decoration that I decided I should try my hand at it too. A ribbon wrapped wreath form from Micheal’s, a cut up pool noodle from the Dollar Store, tights, and various decorations from the Dollar Store made my wreath. Cute, silly, and appropriate at times :)!

Maybe next year I can get even more done. On to the Thanksgiving wreath!

If it’s not moving, paint it!

The running joke at my house right now is that if it isn’t moving, I’ll probably paint it. But why not? Painting can be such a cheap, easy way to give new life to a room or just an object. Depending on your project it can cost little to no money. If you are painting a whole room it will probably cost around $40-$50 in paint and supplies. But if you are just going to stencil, say a lamp, it could cost you nothing if you already have everything you need. In my little surfer boy’s room he needed some lamps. Dollar General was having a great deal a couple of weeks ago on lamps and shades. $5 for the lamps and $3 for the shades can’t be beat! I printed out a surf board stencil for my template and traced it on the shade with chalk. After that the hubby and I went back over it with paint to create different surf boards all the way around the shade. I decided to leave the base alone so that the shade would stand out more. But other than the cost of the lamp I spent nothing! If I had had an extra lamp to use I would not have had to spend anything, and my baby got this cute lamp for his room:

How easy was that?

It’s a plane

The school year has started for me and two of my boys. Wow, the summer went quick! And it’s hard to believe my little boys are starting school (sniffle sniffle). But as busy as things have gotten we are still working on each boys room and my little blonde wanted airplanes. So airplanes he’s a gonna get. What is more simple than printing off your own stencil? I got to find the airplane that I really wanted, draw it, and paint it. Super personal and fairly easy to paint over in the future. (just a heads up, we put those “removable” decals on some of our walls before and it wound up taking the paint and some of the drywall with them.)

I also found some cute fabric and within five minutes had a “new” chair for his room.

I’ll post more about our airplane room as it progresses, but for now it’s definitely an airplane room for my future pilot.

Goin’ to the beach

I know it’s crazy to put three little boys in a car and drive 6 plus hours just to get to the beach. But that is what we did. And you know what? Goin’ to the beach turned out to not be that bad. I went to the Dollar Store and got three plastic baskets (in three different colors, the boys can’t have the same color- insert eye roll here). I went through their books and toys and choose things that I knew or thought they might like, you know, things that made noise. My boys also like books and coloring, so I put in some books, a small magnetic writer, a coloring book, and washable crayons. Lastly, I put in a snack tub of goldfish (the preferred snack of Cam) and put the baskets beside their seats. The older boys especially did really well and played with their baskets the whole way to the beach. We did not have any videos for them, which is a feat in itself. My boys definitely like their television! Now, we did take breaks. A couple of quick ones and a long lunch on the way to the beach. On the way back we stopped for a good chunk of time in Camden, South Carolina (that is my baby’s name after all) and looked around at the historical area. The boys enjoyed that as well because they got to run around the battlefield and look at new things. They even made a vacation friend while they were there. We didn’t really make another stop after that, since it was so long. I guess you could say that I learned my lesson. With a little planning and thought, you can travel with children! It was a lot less painful than I thought it would be.
So, when you travel…have a container of toys and books, have snacks/drinks handy, make stops so kids can get out and move, and if all else fails there is always a video. 😀

Repurpose, reuse, recycle

Happy Friday! In my quest to redecorate my house, I have finally learned that repurposing things you already have really works. Who knew :)? In this day and time I don’t have the means to redo all three of my boys room from top to bottom so I have taken a lot of what they (or should I say I) have and made it work with the theme of their rooms. C’s room is vintage sports so I took his lamp (it was one we had just stuck in there anyway) spray painted it black and put clay around the glass ball. The glass part was round, the clay was white…hello baseball.

With a lamp shade that I got for $3 at Dollar General and some football ribbon I already had, I have a completely new lamp for maybe $4! He also had one of those decorator tables that you usually put a tablecloth on. Hold on! That table is round! Paint that sucker white and add some red “stitching”. Voila! Baseball! I eventually want to trade out the legs for wooden baseball bats but am waiting for a really fantastic price.

This one cost me nada because I already had the supplies. So far the cheapest bats I have found have been about $14 a piece, so you can see why I am waiting on that part. I still think it looks cute though. Here’s the last recycling/repurposing craft I have completed in C’s room:

Yep, I just took the letters from his name and painted them out to mimic different sports balls. How easy and cheap was that?! Have a great weekend!

It’s done and I’m back

So it’s been awhile, but I’m back and have tons of things to talk about! This first post is about my boys’ bathroom. I started working on painting back in April! But it is finally done and looks pretty good. At least until 3 boys get their hands on it. Yes, my redecoration blitz has continued during my blogging silence! Since their bathroom is in an ocean theme I went with a nice blue paint ( I do love my blues). And really other than a couple of minor accessory purchases that was it. Shouldn’t have taken me so long huh?

All of the shells that you see in the pictures my mother or I have collected over the years at beaches or shops in Georgia or Florida. The cute little sign in the bottom picture came from Target for only $1! The other lighthouses and lighthouse pictures I have collected from different trips so I already had them. I am still working on a picture from our trip to Myrtle Beach this summer, but altogether I only spent maybe $50 on the bathroom redo! Most if that would have been on paint and paint supplies! Not to shabby (pat on the back for self-hehehe). Oh and ignore the lovely trash can in the picture. I do have three boys still in pull ups and a cute little trash can just doesn’t cut it (although I do have one in the room). Have a great Monday everyone!

Craft palooza continued

It’s been awhile since I last posted, but with end of school fast approaching, testing, holidays, birthdays, and day to day life of a crazy mom of three; time becomes a short commodity. Last time I posted about some craft projects I had been working on. The jewelry organizers from “craft-palooza” are working out beautifully. I have more room in my jewelry cabinet so I am on the hunt for cute accessories! And then I started thinking…you know, this might work for my kitchen too. So craft-palooza continued. Out came my super cheap canvas from Walmart, my left over fabric, iron on appliqués, and resin fluer de lis (all from Hobby Lobby), my staple gun, hot glue gun, and iron. Viola! I have a place to hang aprons and pot holders. I just hung it up with some Command frame strips and personally, I think it looks super cute!

So easy and so cheap! Most of the materials were left overs from my other project (fabric, j-hooks, and canvas) and the irons were about $2 a piece. I got the resin fluer de lis on sale for $2, so all in all, I might have spent $10! Happy Friday and happy Mother’s Day to you all!

Craft-palooza

I have been channelling my inner Martha lately, so it has been craft time at our house. I saw this really cute idea for jewelry organizers on…you guessed it…Pinterest. I decided I needed to make my own version. I happened on some really cheap canvases at Walmart (we will see how they hold up) in two different sizes that I thought would be perfect. The only other things you have to have are fabric (I bought 2 yards of a nice linen, but you don’t need that much. I figured I could use it for other projects.) and J hooks found in the hardware section of most any store. What do you think?:

I did jazz them up of course. I found a really cute iron on at Hobby Lobby for one and the other I stenciled with paint that goes with my bedroom. These were really easy and only took about ten minutes (if that) of put together time. Adding extra things increases the time but it just depends on what you do.