Mojo

Darling daughters bedroom is nearly done. Closet wall is installed and awaiting some finishing touches.  I'll take pictures and be back later this week to post them.

In the meantime, I realize that I have not been taking as many photos as I would like. I really need to start packing my camera around more. Anyhoo....

Here's a layout I created recently. Thank you for looking!

Randomness

I LOVE this girl.

I don't usually dress her. But in the winter she is always cold. I picked this up a few months before Christmas and she loves it because its fleece. Wilma Sue is our baby.

Speaking of cold, I also love these as of late.

I bought a pair this fall and they keep my toosties toasty!

Posted this layout today that I made with Val and Jenn's new kit Toothless Grin.

And...yesterday I finished reading The Hunger Games and I'm downloading Mockingjay to the kindle for the weekend. Good easy read. Have a fabulous Friday and wonderful weekend!

Room redo - part 1

Yes. McKena is soon to be sixteen. With that she really wanted to have an updated room, one in a more mature style, one that fit her interests and growing collection of clothing & make-up. McKena is really into clothing and make-up. Her room was decorated in the shabby chic look that was ever so popular several years ago. She is ready to let the lace, froo-froo, and flowers go. Here's a pic of McKena with her make-up as you would see her everyday though she's started wearing the mod eyelashes now too.

So a couple of months ago, we bagan this process with her searching Pinterest for ideas. To find her likes and dislikes, to define her style. She made a mood board with all the elements she would like to see in her room.

May I remind you, we recently relocated 2,000 miles and are currently living in a lovely rental house here in Oklahoma, so there are limits to some extent of what we can do. The paint and carpet in her room are a tan color with and ecru color paint on the doors and trim. Nice and neutral. The closet however is awful. It is in sad shape. Here's what it looked like when we moved in.

You can see here that there are holes all over in the walls and the closet organizer is hung poor rendering some of it useless.

After viewing all her ideas for the room redo, we decided to make this closet a dedicated make-up area. It's one of her hobbies and she spends quite a bit of time with it each day.

We also decided to give her a "closet" that runs along one of her walls out in her room. But we will come back to that in another post.

She wished for more of a french feel to her room. So we set off to sand and repaint her worn, weathered, and wonderfully shabby chic furniture (it was white) all black. We thought it would be a nice contrast to the tan and ecru in the room.

The closet breakdown- We removed the closet organizer and all its hardware from the closet leaving us even more holes to deal with. Without being able to paint, we had to get a little creative here. So off to the fabric store we went.

There we found a satin fabric we liked and it was only $2.99 a yard. We bought 9 yards and took it home to hang. The tools required were a drill and molly based hook, staple gun, hammer, 1" trim and some finishing nails. The entire closet turn make-up area cost under $40.00. The fabric was just under $30, the trim was $6, and the hook (came 2 in a package) was $3. We already owned all the furniture, tools, and had nearly a gallon of black paint left from another project.

Here's what we did-

We emptied the space.

We hung the hook for the lighting first so that the dust from drilling a small hole in the ceiling wouldn't make a mess and settle on the hung fabric.

Using a staple gun, we attached the fabric and chose to create pleats by simply overlapping the fabric from time to time. This is the look we got.

This fabric was three panels of 3 yards.Then we used finishing nails and the 1" trim to give it a polished look at the ceiling. Super easy! Using that much fabric also created enough extra at the floor to "pool" rather nicely.

Next I hung the light and mirror that we already had. The mirror was in her shabby chic room. The light was stored away. We had used it in our old apartment but had yet to find a use for it here. I'm happy she did. Then we placed the freshly painted desk into the closet and she loaded it up with all her schtuff. It is now home to all her make-up, lotions, perfume, polishes, ect.

It may need a few more touches to personalize it, but for the most part, its done and oh so pretty. We'll be back to document more of the room redo in the weeks to come. Thanks for stopping by!

Brace yourself

I'm back and hope to begin blogging regularly again. With the relocation and getting everything in order, the blog took backseat. I haven't blogged for most of the last three months. So from here, smaller more frequent posts may be better to help "catch up" with you all. What have we been up to? Well, earlier this month, darling daughter got braces. Here's a before and after pic at the office.

And I am still scrapbooking. This was may lastest layout created and I was told yesterday it will be published in the January edition of the DST Insider. Pretty cool, huh?

I love Oklahoma. The weather here overall suits me much better. Of course, this summer when its 150 degrees out, I'll whine and tell you differently. But for now, I can get up and do my hair everyday without consideration of it being ruined in the rain from my front door to my car. (Remember I moved from Washington state where I was born and raised.) I have even learned how to put those big loose curls in my hair. Love!

We made it to Oklahoma!

The very evening we drove (yes we drove the 2,000 miles) into Oklahoma, this was the beautiful sunset that greeted us. Darling daughter and I were in awe of its beauty and she couldn't resist snapping a picture from the moving vehicle.

Once we got here, we stayed with my husbands family while we house hunted. They all showed us such hospitality and we are so very grateful. A week later we were moving into our home, getting the kiddos back in school, and doing all those crazy we've relocated type of things. It all really went pretty smoothly until a week or so after we were settling into the new place. Then one of our two fur babies became ill.

It was terrible and awful. She became ill on Friday, Saturday we tried getting her into a vet, however, because we were new to the area and weren't established with one yet no one would see her until Monday. The nearest pet hospital was just short of two hours away. Sunday she had really taken a turn for the worse so we decided not to wait until Monday and made the drive to OKC. Lucy didn't make it there though. She had a seizure and passed just before we arrived. To say we are deeply saddened is an understatement. We miss her and her spunky personality very much.

So we moved into this house three weeks ago today. It's been a whirlwind. Oklahoma is beautiful, the weather has been fabulous, and we really love the house we found, The kids are doing well in school, teachers only have nice things to say, and they are now on fall break. They have the rest of the week off from school. Darling daughter is spending her break taking traffic safety school. She is stoked to go get her permit next week. I'll leave you with a picture of darling daughter and some of her new friends who went to Homecoming dance together the first weekend we were here. McKena towards the front in the silver dress.

Randomness

I was forced the other day to transfer photos from my phone to my computer because I had used up every bit of space that was available on my 16gig sd card. In my defence, my phone has a great camera with 8mp so they do take up a little space. While watching them upload I had to giggle at some of the recent moments captured.

Here's darling daughter and I at HP in 3D-



Here's my sweet little pup, Wilma Sue,looking all angelic.



And here they both are wanting you to think that they've got a rough life.



At the county fair the girls decided to get feather extentions in their hair-







And here's darling daughter just being silly with a hat we found in Forever 21 whilst back to school shopping.



And on to some layouts. Everything by Val and available at the Lily Pad. Linky in the sidebar. :)





Thanks for looking back over the last few weeks with me.

Oops, I did it again!

Here's another digital layout created with all of Valorie Wibbens goodies! Actually the kit I used here was a collab with Honey Designs. All can be found for sale at TLP- Must Love Dogs.



This week we are getting ready for a garage sale. I'm purging years and years worth of stuff that I've been keeping. Keeping but stored away. It really wasn't until we moved to our new place, and had to make three trips with the U-Haul, that I realized it was time to get rid of much of it. It will also make our move to Oklahoma easier when the time (finally) comes.

What's on your schedule this week?

I scrapbooked!

The bad news is in fact that we learned we must stay here in Washington a bit longer than we expected, likely another 4 or 5 months. The good news, it will be easier to do in our new apartment. We found a townhouse and it is heavenly and spacious compared to our old place.

We are nearly all settled in and as unpacked as we are going to get here so today I sat down and scrapped! Wahoo! I haven't scrapbooked since February I think. That is an incredibly long time for me.

Everything in this layout from TLP.



I hope to scrapbook and blog more regularly again.

With our recent move I have to say I am lovin' once again my SPOT BOT carpet cleaner. It is perfect of small jobs and I have used it a lot in the last few weeks since our new place has a tan colored carpet. I've posted before that this is one of my favorite things and I must admit I've found a renewed appreciation for it recently.



Another favorite is the Yankee candles. I don't normally burn them as much this time of the year but I have to share that I found these today $10.00 off at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Plus I had a 20% OFF coupon in my purse for that store so - SCORE. They smell YUMMY!



Here's one more current fave as three seem like a good number. Kids, me, and the movie theater tonight. We went to a 3 am showing last time. We're nuts!



Are you an HP fan? I've read all the books and am a fan of the movies. I'd like to hear from you.

We are all moved and settled in to our new place!

Want to see? Here's a pic the kiddos took of me, while I was taking a short break on the couch from all the unpacking. What a job!



Okay... none of that is really true.

We had hoped and planned to have moved by now but things don't always go as we plan. We are still waiting for the green light to GO! In the meantime, we need to move from our apartment no later than the middle of next week. The middle of next week! I of course have been freaking out just a bit this week. Never in my life have I been in this position. Will we be in Oklahoma next week? Still in Washington? Somewhere in between, living under a bridge?

At least I still have my good sense and humor. To be continued......

KABOOM

Last Friday it was beautiful out so we loaded up the kids and the racecar and headed towards Portland International Raceway. You see, dear hubby has a hobby of drag racing. He has an old '85 Cutlass which he has lovingly named Hell Bitch. Don't ask... its a guy thing. Lol! So here he and HB are in the Pits waiting inspection.

And after being cleared, here HB is getting ready for her first run in the Pacific Northwest... She's from Oklahoma originally. She likes it best there truth be told.

Heating up the tires....

On your Mark, Get Set, GO!

And here in this picture, at the finish line, we heard a ear peircing KABOOM!

Here's a closer look-

And here's the reason why- The drive line gave out and blew out the transmission in the process.

This was HB one and only run while here in Washington. What a way to go. Now, back to Oklahoma to rebuild. Husband says she runs better there. I sure hope he's right. Lol!