Redoing the Guest Bedroom

Our old chest of drawers...circa 1980s

cute little teapot and granny lamps...

I always hated this room when we bought this house. It was an added on room and there were all these weird little bumpouts and wiring boxes up by the ceiling. I wondered why in the heck they did not try to make it a smoother room. It looked like a "me and my redneck brothers decided to build a bedroom" type job. So I decided to redecorate the room, thinking I could hide some of its flaws.

I love the little painted bench I got at a boutique when I remodeled this guest room...

finished guest bedroom redo...

It has this little white shelf all around it up by the ceiling. I used to think, "what in the world would ever fit up there, and how would you get to it?" It was only about 8 inches from the ceiling so knick knacks had to be really small to fit up there. Now, I actually think it was a good idea to add it to the wall because from a design standpoint, it hides a lot of those eyesore bumped out areas.  So even though the Guest Room hardly gets used, only when one of my brothers from California or my sister from Washington has come to visit, I decided to spruce it up a little anyway.

Here are kinda "Before" pictures..I'd already painted walls....John is laying the wood flooring in the hallway...

I painted everything green or white...and listened to talk radio all summer...

Here are the "After" pictures...with all the decorations in the guest bedroom redo...

Bird prints up on the left wall matted in white...and a cute dragonfly pillow...I loved the pastel green guest room

So I went to find paint colors that would brighten and freshen the room up a bit.  But I forgot how bad I am at picking paint shades. I should have gotten my husband to pick it. He really does a swell job on getting just the right shades. He's taken more art classes than me. :) So, it is a little "minty" but it is okay.

Pottery Barn pillows in the back...you can get pillow inserts from Target a lot cheaper than the Pottery Barn ones....and I found them on sale!  I think they were $9 instead of $24 from the Barn

I made a flower arrangement to match...

We got a new bedspread from Kohls (great place for nice linens) and curtains from T.J. Maxx. They have the metal grommets in the top, I LOVE those.  Then I looked around at how I could decorate it.  I had been collecting birdhouses over the years before I lost interest in that kind of "country" look. So I had probably a dozen birdhouses. Some of them were pretty cute still, so I got the idea to do a "birdhouse" themed room. It would go with green, right? Grass....trees.....birds?.....probably a stretch....

I love these faux silk curtains with metal grommets at the top...got them at T. J. Max, my fav store for decorating! 

Birdhouse collection...the rest are up on the shelves around the room....

I went over to Roberts Crafts and  last Spring they had all these birdy themed things going on. I bought this  light green, wrought iron shelf for $8 bucks on clearance, and put the birdhouses on it that wouldn't fit around the white ceiling shelf. Then I went looking for art and I found a few bird prints from T.J. Maxx with green & white mattes! Yipee! What a streak of luck!.

One of a dozen birdhouses I have collected and placed in this green, pastel bird-themed guestroom....

cute tapestry hangs on one wall....

  Then I did a few flower arrangements with containers I had around the house. The tin, welcome container I painted from blue to green.  I love doing silk flowers and fake plants. And do you know why? Oh yes.....you remember....me with the black thumb....anything living around here gets dead real soon....

You can see the white shelf all around the room...not much fits up in the tiny space....

My boys hate these old school pics...
I don't know why I torture them by placing them all over... snicker....

It was about this time that my daughter bought one of those cricut machines...you know the ones where you can cut out your own vinyl sayings and things? So she told me anything I wanted she would make me for my house. I really liked the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and I was trying to remember the bluebirds fly part...I thought that might be cute over the bed or somewhere...I haven't figured that part out completely yet.

Here's the finished wood floor and green patterned rug....I've since found a lighter shade pastel rug that was bigger for only $20 bucks at Lowes....love it when I find a deal...so this is in the hallway leading to the guest bedroom now.

We bought a few new light fixtures,  new faux wood, white blinds, and some throw pillows and a sage green floor rug. The best part was putting in new wood floors. John did those himself. I did all the painting and decorating.we are quite the tag team hehe...

New ceiling fixture...I liked this one...it looks antiqued....my husband called the old lamps "boob lamps" well, because they kind look like boobs up on the ceiling...you know the ones I'm talkin about! 

The new wood flooring looks real nice...

Our dog Bruce likes my mother's dolly.....sniff...sniff...

My mom's doll in an old wooden cradle...very sweet!

This antique dolly was my mother's play toy...

I have my mom's 70 year old porcelain dolly in a little wooden cradle by the bed. It's very precious to me.  And the furniture is all of our old stuff, circa 1980 something...I forget how old it is, but it was really  stylin' stuff when we first bought it as newlyweds.  :) So I think the guestroom was the easiest facelift in the house....It looks so fresh now! Anyway.... next...we did the grandkid's sleepover room.   It turned out REALLY cute!

Me with my mom's old porcelain face dollie circa 1940ish....

Volkswagen Super Bowl XLV Ad: The Force

Super Bowl Time! Let's Party!

Every year I have the kids do a class graph. And here is the question I ask.  Which team will win the Super Bowl on Sunday?  There are always some sports fans amongst the first graders who know the score. They know the players and the teams. This year it was Trace. He knows the teams and he was certain of the winner. 



We each cut out a football to "VOTE" for our Team! Go Team!

 Well, we shall see.   I have a fun little challenge for the kids.  Those who predict the winner correctly will win a football sweatband for their wrist.  Those that predict incorrectly get to do 12 pushups.  We decided on the number 12 because I told them I also have to do pushups if I lose.  And I have lost in years past. It wasn't pretty watching me trying to do more than 12. So we keep it at 12 pushups. (oh and all the kids will win the wristbands...they don't know that yet though...I like to keep the competition going...)

The Pittsburgh Steelers against the Green Bay Packers

Here is our graph.  Wish me luck. I'm rootin for the Steelers. Don't ask me why. I'm not even a football person. It's just because the kids made me choose.  Fair is fair in the game of life...or football!  

I'm looking more forward to my daughter's super bowl party. I'm going to make a baked brie with dried cherries and pecans and jam inside. I'm going to shape it like a football and cover it with puff pastry. The recipe for the Baked Brie is HERE.  At the Pepperidge Farm Website you can also watch a video on how to make the Baked Brie. It is to die for Yummy!

I shaped my brie cheese like a football

 I found the Roman Numerals on the website. I'm not sure if it is 45 or not, cuz I can't remember my Roman Numerals, but it sure looks cool! I put the letters on with the extra puff pastry. I filled it with raspberry jam, some brown sugar, pecans and dried cherries. I am waiting to bake it till just before the Super Bowl starts.  I have Triscuits, Pretzel Ritz and Wheat Thins to munch on it with. Ooh lala, can't wait.

Yummy baked brie with dried cranberries and pecans inside...I'm going to shape it like a football!

 I'm also making and some black bean and corn and avocado salsa. The recipe is HERE I always doctor it up a bit. I added some cucumber and avocado and Tuscan House Italian dressing and I always do fresh tomato not canned.  And I bought these new Pretzel style Ritz Crackers  to go with the salsa that are super crunchy and yummy. With Triscuits and Wheat Thins and Tostitos chips, we should be a happy bunch. It's a really fresh and kind of filling and really good! 


This yummy salsa is made from black eyed peas, black beans, corn, green pepper,
avocado, tomato, cilantro and purple onion, with a few dashes of lime and Italian Salad Dressing.

 


   Those will be good Super Bowl Party foods, won't they? They'll go nicely with pizza and chicken wings.
 I can't wait for the funny commercials. I've heard the Doritos ones are hysterical.....Happy Super Bowl Partying!

Making Valentine Cookies

On Saturday my 2 little granddaugters came over and we decided to make some Valentine treats. My little Marisa Belle LOVES to bake. So I had found this cute pan made by Wilton. I thought it might be fun to do some sugar cookies this way. So we mixed up some cookie dough and tried it out.

The girls...I LOVE them!

Marisa, my daughter Tiff, and Megan

Marisa liked actually dumping all the ingredients in herself, so I did the measuring......she did the dumping....and the mixmaster did the rest!

This is one of my fav appliances...does all the work for me!

We also made some with the Valentine Cookie cutters

You guys just keep bakin em and I'll keep eatin em!

Here's little 2 year old Megan getting in on the action. She just liked eating the dough, the candies, and the finished cookies. She is not looking like a future Betty Crocker.  But you never know for sure......

Mmmmmmmm GOOD!

The cute Wilton pan....



I read the directions afterwards....fill 3/4 full......OOPS! No wonder they were so puffy!

 I had these cute little sprinkles I had bought at Hobby Lobby along with the Wilton pan. Then I saw some even CUTER ones at Roberts Crafts.  These flat heart sprinkles will be so much fun!

I loved the flat heart sprinkles...so cute!



I'm really good at this grandma!

 We made up some pink icing and decorated the cookies. They really ballooned up like puff balls. I think I needed to use less batter.....sometimes don't ya just think.....MORE is BETTER?   I get carried away with that.  :)

Here they are enjoying their cookies.  I think I liked just the rolled out ones we made better.  Oh well, you never know until you try something new!  I wonder what Martha Stewart would say about these molded cookie pans......I should have asked the expert.  Sigh.....or maybe I should have just followed the directions. :)

Can I take all these home? Please?



Just gimme the candy on top...that's all I really want....

 Oh well.  It's the fun memories I'm making that count the most anyway.  I think the girls loved our finished products.  Yum!



And I made it all by myself!



Megan on her chair....kimme a kiss cutie!

Happy Groundhog's Day!

Nothing is more fun than telling the Legend of the Groundhog to a bunch of first graders. They are amazed that this little hairy rodent, correction......large hairy rodent is in charge of our weather! It's hysterical to hear their conversations to each other about if he did or didn't see his shadow and how that will affect the future.  I had to talk them down, reminding them that a legend is not equivalent to science. But they think it IS all very scientific. I don't know if they got it. At the very least they think groundhogs have some close family ties to  to Mother Nature!

Most of the kids predict an early Spring...I hope they're right!

We all started the day doing a groundhog play and making our "props" (i.e. cool, buck toothed rodent hats)
Everybody wanted to be the star of the show of course.  Luckily Addie's mom was my mother helper for the day and she had them just trade parts. Problem solved!  Then we made our predictions and wrote them down.  I told them the Groundhog is only accurate 80% of the time, he could still be wrong! So most of them went with his advice anyway.... You know kids and their animals.....:) Then we graphed our preditions on our giant class graph using little groundhog cutouts.  Yup, Spring won out.

Ricky the Rodent....I mean....Gregory the Groundhog!

Then we read all about the Legend of Groundhog's Day.  I forgot to show them the utube of Phil in Pennsylvania, but I'll do that tomorrow. It's fun to see the actual little guy popping out. I wonder how old that dude is by now... like 200?  He always looks very well fed, like a little portly for a rodent!

The Legend lives on.....



Today was a freezing day to go out and check out sun shadows! Ugh! But we did it anyways!

Then we made some cute little pop up groundhog puppets with the groundhog's "house" being a cut in half paper bag and the 2 predictions on either side. I found some cute songs that go along with spring is early, or 6 more weeks of winter so we attached those to the bag and got out our instruments and sang songs. Then I passed everybody out a tatoo for Groundhog's Day.  We just took those home to try them out.  

Groovy tatoos of the groundhog.

Then we wrote our predictions out. They were really cute.  We will have to wait and see who is right and who is wrong.  We talked about sun and shadows and how they are made.  We made little sunclocks and put a piece of red string around them. Then we made solar bracelets out of solar beads. We all went outside to check out the sun. It wasn't as cold as yesterday thanks goodness, it was only about 20 degrees though.
EEK! Super chilly. They also loved my little solar robot. We watched him walk around the playground. The kids would make a shadow over him and he would immediately stop. Then everybody would laugh. And they would hop out of the way so the sun could hit his solar cell and he'd start marching again.




I'm predicting I don't last much longer in these single digit temperatures! Ugh! Bring on the sun Mr. Groundhog!

 I found these very cute cupcakes in a magazine and I so wanted to bake some and make these too! But I was too lazy to do them. It is really the fault of my favorite show. It happened to be on last night and I get really glued to the t.v. when it comes on. (The Good Wife on CBS at 9:00). Oh well, maybe next year....

Aren't these just the cutest things?



Their hats turned out so cute too...


My kids really loved doing the fun Groundhog's Day activities.  I hope his prediction is right this year. I'm slowly beginning to tire of shoveling snow off my car. I'm missing the beaches of sunny California. And so I can hardly wait for an early Spring.  Happy Groundhog's Day!

Pop! Goes the Groundhog!