OMG. I had no idea.

Source: lemontreecreations.blogspot.com via Colourful on Pinterest

When Cassie over at Hi Sugarplum offered to "INVITE" me into Pinterest, I thought...."Self, you have avoided this bullet for a while now, you're a big, grownup gal in charge of herself. You can handle Pinterest." I thought it would be fun to surf, find a project and participate in this...

I was so wrong......so, so wrong. Send the Marines, throw me a preserver. Anything. How? Why? Lord have mercy. The images, the inspiration, the crap!
I'll be back in about 7 weeks. Unless I can find something really cool to bust out for the Pinterest Challenge.

Hey, I have till Wednesday you know.

To all my SISTAs!

Happy International Woman's Day! To all my ladies, reading around the world.

(This makes me sound important, right?)

DIY from the Heart ART

 

We all have them, those posters, pictures, framed “Olde Masters” that hide in crannies around our homes. We outgrew the funky college art, the Marilyn Monroe poster, the sunset. Feast your eyes on the sunset masterpiece below baby, not only not my colour or style any longer but ripped in the middle for good measure. What to do? What to do?

You know you had one. If you are over 35, you had one. This was mine.

Hey! I need wall art for the Master Sweet….

So break out the paint from projects gone by. Rustoleum’s ‘Heirloom White” and BM’s Aura in Dill Pickle.

See you, canoe. Water down the paint a bit, otherwise the paper canvas will get so heavy, it will tear.

I ended up not using painters tape and being more “rustic” and “freeform”

Enter wallpaper leftovers from these little beauties….

This is going into the boudoir so I opted for hearts. Kinga 12 year-old but I’m like that.

Here we are at this stage…. I want to spray paint a saying on it in Aqua but I was actually thinking of spraying a graffiti heart with a big G + C. Cornball or what?

Technorati Tags: art projects

Any inspiring quotes or words you think I could spray paint on here? Like with less than 6 letters? LOL

Getting closer to a Master SWEET

 

You may or may not remember the matchy-matchy bedroom “set” that I have had to deal with/ decorate around in my master bedroom….but just in case you forgot, I present….

THE LARGEST DRESSER ON EARTH

Seriously now, 8 years ago I walked into one of the big furniture stores with one purpose. A king size bed with something in a dresser that matched. I ended up with the Godzilla of dresser sets. Oh yeah, I went whole hog. The bedframe, lowboy, highboy and matching nightstand. Oh, how I wish I could talk to that Dharma now….*sob*

So when we created the master bedroom from 2 bedrooms, I thought we’d have a football field of room to house these badboys. Not so much. In fact the lowboy just ate up the entire midsection of the room. I started thinking about smaller dressers, then I remembered my lingerie addiction and my 147 tanktops. So I sucked it up and continued to bang my leg every morning on the corner of the dresser. Every morning.

Last December I walked into a local thrift and consignment store and there HE was. A deep walnut hued, gorgeous hunk of wood. He had large expansive drawers, a bow front and the most impressive hardware I’ve ever seen. The tag on his front said “$375.00”. I wept a little. I could not bring myself to pay that so I walked away, only turning back once….to remember him. I left my card with the owner, asking that she keep her eye out for something similar but not as pricey. I have thought about him since.

Flash forward to 2 weeks ago and I get a call. The dresser was still there, no one had claimed him and the owners did not want to take it back. Would I pay $150.00? Now, this is where the true “rubber hits the road” in thrifting. I tried to quit jumping up and down so that I didn’t sound out of breath and said “Would you take $100.00?”

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Eduardo…..

Slight dings, some water damage at the back but nothing that couldn’t be LOVED out, right?

Gaze upon his hardware.

Oh Eduardo. Your patina. I got straight to work. Picking up a few supplies and getting that elbow ready for some serious buffing.

His façade was scratched, someone had been unkind. But I knew I could change him. I was sure.

So, after much rubbing, buffing and staining I started to see Eduardo’s true shine come to life.

Darling. Isn’t that better?

Here he is, not staged but so much more loved. Appreciated. Adored.

Mi amore, Eduardo.

To Die for or Tie Dye For?

Busy morning today. Up at 7:30 a.m. to go to the Zumba class at the YMCA, Quinn was leading a set today and he was pretty stoked. The class was all ages so I got to "rumba and zumba" next to Grammas and 2 year olds :) It was an awesome way to start my day. Not to mention, the Class Instructor was sooooo cute doing his choreography to "Dynamite"....



After that, Mr and I headed out in driving snow to retrieve a little something that I thought had been sold out from under me, but NO! It was mine today :) All mine. More on that to come.

Here's a hint....

I found this version online HERE and no I did not pay over $3000 for it!!!

This afternoon, I rearranged my master bedroom to make some room for the new find, but as many times as I made the bed I just couldn't stop staring at the fugly cream coloured bedskirt I have been stuck with cause I am cheap using. It just didn't sing with the new comforter set I scored at Marshalls last fall :( All that lime, olive and teal....gone to waste because of a cream bedskirt.....

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....I know!

Walmart = $4.99

Now before you start laughing, my inspiration was Anthropologie-esque in that I knew if I could pull off the same tones and colours, this would be genius....but that's the trick isn't it? I love this bedding from the Anthropologie site and was thinking of this for inspiration.

So, what to do when your project could possibly be a disaster and you don't want to shoulder all the blame? Enlist minions, then you can share the shame.

I am pretty pleased with our results, the colours are muddier than the crisp pattern on the quilt but I kinda like the contrast. If you peek to the left you can see my new find.....a little teaser :)

So, thoughts and opinions.....do I keep it or start shopping now? Truthfully, it was a fun project for Q and I and we only ended up with blue and green hands for the trouble.

Showing off:

L-O-V-E in our house is a 4-letter word!

And y'all can spell that word M-E-A-T.

Seriously, I spend a lot of time, energy, shopping and money on flesh. Now, for those of you not at the meat counter (religious, moral issues or otherwise), you may want to skip this post. That being said, I cook for "guys". Not just my guys either. At any given meal I can have between 3 and 7 men/boys at the table. This requires an inordinate amount of potatoes and/or rice and bread but for the main course, these guys expect DEAD STUFF.

So by way of showing my love to you on Valentine Day 2012, I am about to share an *old family recipe* for Pot Roast. Nope, this is not your Mom's pot roast this is my Mom's pot roast recipe ripped off lovingly from Australian Women's Weekly. Do not ask me why my Mom (a Canadian prairie girl got hooked on AWW). You can link to the recipe here or you can follow the directions below:

Beef Pot Roast

A good pot roast makes an ideal family meal. Meat, vegetables and sauce cook together in one saucepan. Corner of topside, bolar blade or fresh (ie uncorned) silverside can be used. A whole chicken can also be pot-roasted in exactly the same way, but needs only 1 hour's cooking time, instead of the 2 hours for the meat, plus a further 30 minutes when the vegetables are added. The meat pot roast in our recipe will serve six; the chicken serves four.

INGREDIENTS

90g butter
2kg piece of corner topside
3 large carrots
3 medium parsnips
8 small onions
4 medium potatoes
50g (1/3 cup) plain flour
750ml (3 cups) beef stock
500ml (2 cups) water
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
pinch mixed herbs
1 teaspoon sugar
saltpepper

METHOD

1. Heat 30g butter in large frying pan, add meat, brown well on all sides. Remove meat from pan.
2. Add to pan scraped carrots cut into large pieces, scraped parsnips cut into large pieces, peeled whole onions, and peeled potatoes, cut in half. Saute gently until vegetables are golden brown. Remove from pan.
3. Melt remaining butter in pan. Add flour, stir over high heat until flour is dark golden brown; do not allow to brown. Remove pan from heat, add water and stock, stir until combined. Add tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, mixed herbs, salt, pepper and sugar. Return pan to heat, stir until sauce boils and thickens. Put meat into large saucepan, pour sauce over, bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover, simmer gently 2 hours. Add prepared vegetables, simmer further 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Keep meat and vegetables warm on serving plate. Bring sauce in pan to boil, boil uncovered 10 minutes or until of good gravy consistency.

Your men will think your alter ego is this lady!

...and if your really ambitious you can make my FAMOUS F'en POTATOES (Backstory here includes cussing - be warned)

The men/guys/boyos in your life will thank you.

Happy Valentines Day!

The Q-Lounge

So after much digging, relocating and general bailing out of Q's room, we have a new look.

To refresh your memory....we started with this.

Then it all started to degenerate, downward, spiralling into madness:

....cue the operatic crescendo....cause here is the fruits of all our labours! We like to decorate together :) Well, I like to watch the boys build what I bring home, the littles can sort and clean and I get to decorate. It is a system that has stood the test of time :)

C'mon guys.....how long does this take? I mean really a second hand IKEA bed, with a baggie full of parts and assembly instructions off the Internet. How hard can it be? Actually they rocked it out (pardon the pun).

Someone couldn't wait to get up there! Get down here boy! There are clothes to sort!

The final product. The outdoor lanterns were a summer score from the Dollar Store, the IKEA rug I've had since Liam was tiny. The chair was a curbside rescue years ago, the "side table" is a recycled set of childrens drums. I like the loungey feel in here......we need a disco ball to replace that BOOB light :)

The "cloffice" got a clean up too, still awaiting that lime-green paintjob on the tabletop I see...

Paint and drapes are all that's left. Whew, what a fruitful afternoon!