A Christmas Story

Many many years ago in a land far far away (aka ~25 years ago and when I lived in Florida) I asked Santa for the Barbie & The Rockers Hot Rockin' Stage after I saw this commercial:



Did you see those moves?!  Oh the colors!  Oh the fun!  My life would never be the same!  I couldn't live and my barbies certainly would be crushed if I didn't get that toy from Santa!!

Funny.  My little 4 or 5 year old brain didn't hear that very important phrase at the end...'Dolls each sold separately.'  And this is what I received:
 

Which, I mean, ooooooookay, not bad...that's a bunch of stuff in a box.  But I was expecting a PARTY IN A BOX!  Does that look like a party?  Not to me!  Where were all the barbies?  Where was the dancing??  Where was the music???  Where was the fun????  Oh, I'm supposed to supply that?  Well phooey. 

That said, I would give my right arm something important to be able to pull that out of a box right now, slip some barbie legs into those pink leg holders and then, with the slight movement of a nob, make those barbies turn first to the right and then to the left.  And then to the right again and then to the left.

P.S. In doing research for this post I also found video of another very influential barbie I had.  *Sigh* I so miss my friends.

To Brighten Your Week

Please enjoy this video of my dog snoring.  :)

The Power of Imagination

My sister and I did this whole back and forth thing the other day about the purpose and usefulness of Pinterest.  In a nutshell: I love Pinterest, she does not.  For me, it sparks my creativity...even if that creativity is me copying someone else's pin/project.

Here are some pictures of recent projects I've done--their inspirations immediately follow.

This was pretty time consuming, but worth it...just this once.  I probably wouldn't make it again.  My cousin's son (3 years?) loved it.  Though, he loved playing with it more than eating it.

(source)

I had this great idea to create more cabinet space by moving my spices to tins with magnets on my fridge.  Slight problem...the containers I bought online are WAY to small.  So now I have spices in two places.  :(  I will say, however, that doing it this way (diy) will save you TONS of money.

(source)

This also did not turn out as well as I had hoped, but all in all, I'm glad we did it.  As you can see, the hubs didn't take into consideration the lips on the black measuring cups, but I'm not going to complain...he did what I didn't want to do.  The woman who's website I visited mentioned in the post about her going out right away to buy plastic measuring cups and spoons because she couldn't handle the racket the metal ones made.  I am here to testify...it is incredibly loud and scares the bejeezus outta me most every time I open that cabinet!!  In that open space above her cups she put a really neat conversion graphic.  I'm not that fancy.

(source)

Oddly enough, I could not find cinnamon sticks in bulk in our sleepy town to do this project.  My sister was gracious enough to send me a bag and voila!  I have these beauties to show off.  So simple, festive, and CHEAP!

 

Source unknown

I might try twigs next.

This is something that I'd like to think I came up with on my own, but I probably saw it on tv or something.  I had a bunch of glass frames (from a project I was going to do and never started) so I just picked leaves from the yard, pressed them, and then framed them.  My husband was nice enough to hang them for me.  *Round of applause!*  Again, simple, festive, & cheap!!

This is one of the hurricanes we have left over from our wedding and I just poured hazelnuts from last year into it.  I previously had candy corn in it for Halloween.  (see below)

(source)

 That's it for now.  I hope you enjoyed this little walk through craftyland.

Cake Decorating

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for a cake decorating class at our local community college.  There were some things I didn't like about the class...like that we didn't practice on cakes (or I would've been happy with a cake-like object), just a flat practice board and also that the teacher didn't really explain things well--at least, not to my satisfaction.  But all-in-all I enjoyed the class.  For our last class we brought in a cake we made and decorated it.  I cheated a little bit and got my inspiration from a cake online.

This was the cake I found:

http://www.landolakes.com/recipe/1759/candy-corn-chocolate-cake

I made a vanilla cake since my husband doesn't like chocolate cake very much and also added a chocolate hazelnut filling.  Yum!  Unfortunately, I hadn't set my icing out that morning so my chocolate icing was rock hard and took forever to work to the right consistency.  My teacher ended up helping me out with this.  I think she realized if she didn't help we would be there all night!  I also made my decorating icing too thin and it started to melt.  But really, I'm pretty proud with how it came out!

This is mine:

Ace of Cakes, watch out, here I come!!

Cinnamon sticks anyone?

My friends and coworkers all know I'm a huge Pinterest fan.  While on Pinterest I saw a great idea to tie cinnamon sticks around candles (my hope is that it'd smell really yummy).  View Exhibit A.  Apparently no one in my town sells cinnamon sticks in bulk but I heard Dollar General might sell them.  Which brings me to the point of this post.

I'm messing around on the Dollar General website and look under Household, then Home Decor, then Home Accents.  Ya know what pops up??  I laughed.  An ashtray!!  And it's the only thing under Home Accents too.  I guess that is one kind of home accent.  I thought it was so funny.  Almost as funny as this.  

It's too much...just way too much

Have you heard of Pinterest? Well, I'm warning you, don't sign up. It sucks you in and doesn't let you go. BUT I LOVE IT! You create boards for topics such as 'Recipes', 'Design', whatever you want and then you "pin" pictures or videos from the vast Interwebs. So basically I'm now spending WAY more time online looking at random stuff that really play no major role in my life.

And this is the outcome: I feel (yet again) that my house and fashion sense are inadequate.  Although, the fashion thing is a new one...the house thing I've kinda always felt.  I don't really feel like I can help the fashion part right now:  1.  I have zero dollars left after paying bills.  2.  We have 1 "real" clothing store in my town & they sell grandma clothes (no offense) at ridiculous prices.  And by 'ridiculous' I mean >$10.

I stumbled across a blog (which shall remain nameless--mostly because I'm lazy and don't want to spend the time linking to it) where it seems like the woman either has or would like to start and organizing business.  So she has all the pictures of her fabulous organizing skills she's put to use in her house...inside cabinets, closets, and yes, even the refrigerator.

The office closet

And I'm sitting in an office with stuff pouring yes, pouring out of the closet and stuff piled up against every wall.  What brought me to this looooowly state??  *reference to A Christmas Story*  I sit here and think, "What would need to happen for me to love my space?  Do I need all of this stuff?  Do I really have too much stuff or just not have any kind of storage system?"  And what has now happened is that I am so totally overwhelmed and don't know how I'll ever get where I want to be or where I think I need to be to finally love my space.  I now understand why people tackle in stages.  If you think about organizing into bins from the get-go, I don't think you'll ever get anywhere.  I think it'll have to become a bigger mess before it's a manageable mess. 

*Disclaimer: I tend to obsess and focus my attention on things other than my thesis when my thesis stress gets high.  I might be making a bigger deal about this than needs be.  :)  *

My other thought is, I don't remember ever having this much stuff before.  What's the deal?  Is it because I was in college before & only moved what I could fit in my car?  Is it because before that we were moving every 3 years and had to get rid of stuff to fit everything into the moving truck?  Or do I have the same amount of stuff, it's just not well organized, & my brain thinks it's bigger than it really is.

Honestly, this sucks to say because I love them so much, but I think a lot of it has to do with the animals.  960 square feet.  That's how big my house is.  Two people.  1 rottweiler, 1 medium mutt, 1 cat.  Oh. My. Gosh.  And for whatever reason my mutt (Capone) has decided he's going to stick by my side everywhere I go in the house (which isn't very far).  From 1 room to the next.  Constantly.  And here's what he does...he walks in front of me and then stops to see if I'm still going in the direction he's going.  So then I run into the back of him and/or have to walk over him.  Think Leap Frog.  Except not fun & way more annoying.

I think my other issue is my eco-friendly stance.  I have tons of old t-shirts I'm holding onto.  They're too ratty for a thrift store & I think maybe I'll use them to make a t-shirt quilt or something.  Do I have a sewing machine?  Yes.  Do I sew?  No.  Toss 'em Nicole!  Tons of jeans...have you seen these websites with '25 Things to Do with Old Jeans'?  Have I done a single one?  No.  Toss 'em.  Part of me thinks I'll be able to fit in them again one day.  Mmhmm, right.

Let's look at the bright side:  I will regain some closet space since our movies (previously in the coat closet) now fit in the new entertainment center we bought; I can move the coats back into the coat closet.  I know without a shadow of a doubt that that woman's house did not transform overnight.  It's going to take time.  So I think I'll take one project at a time, celebrate the small victories, and cut myself some slack.  Happy organizing everyone!