Spring Loaded Cleaning

I know. It’s not spring yet.

I’m not loaded yet, either.

But I do have a lot of cleaning out to do. For years I have had all of my scrapbooking supplies in the storage closet upstairs. Also in that closet are the Christmas decorations. And last but not least, the many, many paperbacks I own.

Yes, I totally do this. And yes, I do look like Ginger Rogers, at least if you squint hard enough. And look straight into the Sun.

Anyway, today I am getting rid of a lot of stamps sets, scrapbooking papers, albums, and other what-nots. I’m sure there will be some kids toys and random crap I have shelved in there in a feeble attempt to “clean” before, but I am buckling down. No more Mrs. Nice Gal! If I don’t have a use for it, haven’t read it in a year, is out of style, or otherwise doesn’t contribute to the general well-being of the house, out it goes. I will endeavor to have before-and-after pics for y’all.

It will be like “Hoarders”, but on a very small scale. Miniscule scale. STOP JUDGING ME!!! 😀

Oops, I Did It Again…

Well, I started out to write today with good intentions.

Until I walked into the kids’ bathroom.

Three hours later…..

I must have removed eleven empty bottles, and for the life of me, I can’t understand how it is that they can’t throw away an empty bottle into the trashcan that is only two feet from the tub!!

Two. Feet.

Honestly, if I could adhere the trashcan to the tub, I would.

Hope y’all have a wonderful afternoon. I’m off to ventilate the toxic fumes 😀

Two Days Later

I know I am not getting off to a good start, keeping to my “one post a day” habit. But to be fair, I never made a resolution to do a post a day, so it’s not like I’m breaking one.

Today marks the Twelfth Day of Christmas, and Epiphany, which means it is now time to take down the Christmas decorations. But before I can do that,  have to filter out the unwanted decorations to toss out.

Along with the old lights that don’t work.

And the wrinkled wrapping paper saved through the years.

Oh, and who can forget the broken ornaments??

Normally this would be easy to do. However, the Christmas stuff is in the same storage area as my scrapbooking stuff, and of course, everything gets mixed up because that’s Newton’s Law at work with Murphy. No, I don’t know which Newton’s Law. I write for effect, not veracity. On top of that, I have not cleaned up after myself after the whirlwind craftmaking of the past few weeks. It looks like Archiver’s™ exploded.

So, today will be a very busy day. How do I know? I have been writing this post off and on for the past four hours.

Hope y’all’s Sunday is far less hectic!! 😀

Struck by Lighting

Sorry for my absence yesterday. I was busy playing chauffeur and had to go downtown to purchase myriad random stuff for the kidlets. And lack of sleep was sure not helping to motivate me.

Anyway, last week my friend Flower Girl and I went to a friend’s open house. I have to tell you, Flower Girl is obsessed with light fixtures. She went to Ikea waaaaaaaaaaay north of here JUST to get a light fixture for her bedroom.

I would be afraid to sneeze with that giant dandelion dangling over my head.

At the open house she fell in love with the drum-shaped fixture in the foyer. Unlike my foyer, my friend’s ceiling was at normal height, so the small fixture was just right for the space. Which then got me to thinking about my two-storey ceiling area in the foyer. It has a flush mount fixture the size of a salad plate, and with the lumens power of maybe two candles in a storm.

Seriously, it provides enough light to identify shapes. On the ceiling…

So now I have the lighting bug. And I thought that it would be easy to just find one and be done with it. But as usual, nothing that simple is ever easy. I had thought to get just a wrought iron looking pendant with maybe three bulbs. How hard could it be, right? OMG… There are different finishes, different metals, different lightbulbs, different cords, different everything! As the photos of fixtures swam across my eyes, I had a sudden thought: why not look for something more….Sithy?? And I found just the thing.

I can just see Hubby’s face when he walks through the door to that. After the “What the hell is that thing??” and before the “This is a joke, right?” he will just look at me and shake his head, wondering if it’s too early for a drink. Which is silly because he should know that a drink would be waiting for him on account of me getting a Sithy light fixture. I am that considerate. Besides, he would eventually realize it could be worse.

I could go out and acquire a giant metal chicken 😉

Because Stained Carpets Means Move Furniture, or Something.

Today I decided to tackle the stains in my carpeting. I have Berber carpet, so it’s maddening to get anything off, but I was willing to try some ammonia to it. Only I couldn’t find the ammonia, so I used Oxy-Clean™. Y’all know Billy Mays is smiling down at this very minute. Anyway, right beside Hubby’s nightstand is a stain from when he spilled water with lemon juice. It has always bugged me, and I decided that I was going to scrub it, as soon as I finished scrubbing the red wine stain that is right by the bathroom door, from when he spilled his glass a few nights ago.

He’s not clumsy. Considering these two spillages occurred five years apart, he has a pretty good track record.

So, I get down to treat it, only there are fifteen books that I have to move. So, I decide to move the books, only to find the rest of his medical papers and lectures, so those get moved, as well. Pretty soon, there are five big stacks of books and stuff out of the way. And then I remembered the books he has under the bed because he has no place to put them. I’m sorry, but  THIS WILL NOT STAND!!!

Up the stairs I have a tall bookcase that is just displaying some of my many, many lighthouses. Hm…. my little braincell decides to twitch its axon and bother the dormant braincell and an idea is born. And this is what transpired:

• Remove all lighthouses, then shelves.
• Bring down behemoth, taller-than-me bookcase to room.
• Find out it doesn’t fit.
• Cry.
• Braincell reminds me of Son’s smaller bookcase.
• Go to Son’s room, remove books, and move smaller bookcase to my room.
• Fits fine!
• Move taller-than-me behemoth bookcase to Son’s room.
• Find that it fits only if I move the chests of drawers and the treadmill, which outweighs me by 300 pounds (137 kilograms for my foreign readers).
• Cry.
• Begin to move treadmill. Curse the earth where it was made.
• Move chests of drawers. Think of an explanation for Son. Braincell not co-operating.
• Keep moving treadmill. Swear to all that is holy to set it on fire at the earliest opportunity.
• Keep moving treadmill.
• Keep moving treadmill.
• Cry.
• Finally finish moving stuff around, set up Son’s room to normality levels.
• Come back to my room, set books on shelf.
• Remember the lighthouses.
• Cry.
• Begin taking boxes down.
• Finish putting almost all of the lighthouses away.
• Begin putting boxes back up.
• Remember stain, the little thing that began the whole journey.
• Scrub a bit, stain still there.
• Scrub harder, stain remains.
• Places old book over stain.

Luckily, the red wine stain came off just fine. Otherwise I would have been forced to dye my carpet a nice maroon 😉

Out of My Gourd

I love pumpkins. As an Aggie, I had…. issues with their color for a long time, but once I had my first slice of pumpkin pie, my issues were over. Carrots weren’t such a big deal because Texas A&M figured out a way to make maroon ones. But not pumpkins, which is a real shame because I bet a maroon pie would look amazing.

Anyway, yesterday I showed y’all the paper mache, or if you are a stickler for correct terminology, papier-mâché pumpkins. I had waffled around trying to figure out what to do with them for months. But finally I managed to decorate them.

First, I applied a thin coat of medium and laid strips of Ideaology™ tissue as I went along, pressing it into the curves. Once it dried, I sprayed some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist™ in Tattered Leather, a dark brown, and then rubbed in Distress Ink™ in Spiced Marmalade, repeating the process twice. Once THAT was dried, I glued jute twine into the crevices for definition. I applied some Distress Ink™ in Peeled Paint to the stem, as well as to some Sticky Back Canvas™, also spraying it with the brown glimmer stuff. Then I cut out leaves from the canvas, peeled the backing off, and stuck it to some more tissue paper. I crumbled it, and then reformed the leaves to suit, gluing them to the stem. I curled some more twine and voìla! Rustic pumpkins for my Great Pumpkin Mantelscape of 2012!!

And yes, the big one in the middle is a mercury glass one that I purchased a while back. It is open in the bottom, so I placed some Christmas tree lights inside and light it during the holidays. I couldn’t light it for the pic because A) it would be too bright for my crappy phone camera, and 2) the extension cord was too short. After Thanksgiving it will be moved down to the hearth area so I can once again plug it in.

Oh, and I just remembered the rest of the pumpkins I have stashed away. I may or may not have enough room on the mantel, but hey, that’s what the fireplace is for 😉

Cut to the Quick

Yesterday afternoon, my friend Jennie told me of a scrapbooking class she will be teaching. Five minutes later, after a round of SQUEEEE!!!– I confirmed my spot to take her class. Five minutes after that, I was taking inventory of everything I would need for it.

This is where I noticed some of my stuff was *ahem* out of commission.

Apparently, one of my kids needed to use some of my paints and tools for a project. Normally that would be fine, since I am of the opinion that things are there to be used. But it hurt to see the sorry state of my scissors. My beautiful, magnetized, do-everything scissors, which someone thought meant “do-everything-including-use-as-pliers”. I am not at a loss for scissors, not by a long shot. But these are special!! They cut through chipboard and wire and short of doing dishes, they make me happy. Now I have to make do with regular, run-of-the-mill scissors, and that’s going to take a bit of adjusting to do.

But enough wailing about that. Some of y’all may remember this.

Well, I finally found some paper mache pumpkins!!

So today, I am working on altering these for the Great Pumpkin Mantlescape of 2012™, without my scissors. But no matter. I can do just fine with a knife and a ballpoint pen.

Trust me. I’m a professional 😉

The Big Reveal!!

FINALLY!!!!

Ok, so I am still not completely done. I’m working on a coggy collage that will go over the headboard. But I got tired of waiting. Anyway, y’all remember what it looked like, right? For those who don’t, here you go:

What a nightmare that was. There were days I wanted to take a rake to it. And a lighter.

And here is the after!!!

My 500th Post, a Birthday, and Update

And I really don’t know how that happened.

Today is my blogger friend XBradTC’s birthday!!! And like a good friend, I made him brownies. I say “good”, because if I were a great friend, I would have mailed them to him.

They were delicious. Take my word for it, Brad.

Also, an update on Eldest’s room. Yes, the big reveal was postponed forever due to school commitments, but here is a pic of the final big project I did for her room.

It’s a light fixture made from two hanging baskets, a lantern light kit and an Edison lightbulb. And as you can see, that is the cord cover I was sewing my fingers on that inspired me to ask for a sewing machine for my birthday, which I probably won’t get because I really have no room upstairs for it at this time.

Hope you like the sneak peek. I am counting on getting everything done today so that I can FINALLY do the Big Reveal™ tomorrow. If not, I’ll just make more brownies 🙂

Guest DIY Post!!!

My sister, Reno Queen, puts my DIY skills to shame. Actually, compared to her, I have no skills. I am a total and complete n00b. In my family, we all agree she is Bob Vila’s fraternal twin, only prettier and far younger. You need new screens? She builds them for you. New backsplash? She will cut tiles to fit and make a mosaic that would rival those of Pompeii. I’m telling y’all: the gal can do almost anything.

And I say “almost” because she never got around to working for SpaceX™.

Anyway, she was gracious enough to write a tutorial on making a beautiful work of art for your home. So without further ado, here you go!

***************

How I Planned to Paint Furniture and It Turned Into Some Other Craft 🙂

Supplies: Cabinet door, sander with 60 grit sand paper, Krylon™ Fusion paint in Satin Black, Paper towels, 180 Grit Sanding block, Stencil, Precious Metals liquid leafing, sponge paint applicator, E6000 and a Cross.

First you take your piece (in my case it was a sample cabinet door) and using 60 grit sand paper you sand off the original finish. (Image 1) I used my mouse because it is easier and faster, but if you don’t have one you can do it by hand (but it will take forever). Make sure you sand the grooves well. (Image 2) Make sure you do this in a well-ventilated area because dust will be everywhere!

Image 1

Image 2