Wordless Wednesday: Dog Reincarnated as a Kitty???

A Fiestaware Christmas

We were amazingly lucky this Christmas and received EIGHT place settings of Fiestaware! We now have place settings for twelve people...wow! Since we ended up with twelve place settings we decided to go back to our original six different colors and get 2 of each color : )

Look at all the pretty colors!

Our cupboard isn't even big enough for all of the dishes, haha.

Wordless Wednesday: New meaning of "cat tree"

The beginning of a beautiful love affair...

(Okay, colors are a bit off cause I had to use the flash. It was dark and I just couldn't wait to share! But, you get the idea! I will try to get a better, more accurate picture later)

I had only purchased three sets because Bob's mom is possibly going to give me another set for Christmas, so we'll have a normal four sets then! The goal is to get 8 total, but that will be a while...

Do you remember a few days ago when I said I dream of Fiestaware in these colors in my kitchen?

I finally ordered our first few sets last night!

3 sets and a butter dish to be exact.

We only ordered 3 because we're hoping to get one from Bob's mom for Christmas and we also realize we can't afford to buy a ton all at once.

It will be a long process of collecting everything we want : )

I changed my mind a bit on the colors I wanted.

This is what we're going to go with

So that way we can have four colors with two of each color!

The butter dish is going to be the blue color.

I cannot tell you how excited I am for them to arrive!

That project...

You know which one I'm talking about.

The one you are all excited about, you buy it and then...

it just sits there.

Forever.

Nothing gets done.

Yep, this is that project.

I found this cute little hutch on Craigslist for $50.

I asked my aunt if she could pick it up and bring it up with her next time she came up to visit.

(It was in the area she lives in, which is 3 hours from me.)

Her husband was kind enough to pick it up and throw it in his truck the next time they came up.

After it was dropped off at my parents house, it just sat there.

And sat there.

And sat there.

And sat there.

It has about 25 layers of paint that need to come off before it can be turned into anything pretty.

Now, the weather is too cold to work on it outside and my apartment isn't big enough to work on it inside. Since it was in my parents' garage I decided I had better take it home as is because my mom will soon need to be parking in there (thank you snow, ugh.)

Even though it's not pretty I figured I should use it rather than having it sitting there just taking up space. I definitely need the storage since my craft "room" is our dining room, haha.

Looking at it now makes me even more excited for spring so I can get to work on it and make it beautiful!

I dream of having fiestaware in these colors.

Tada!!!

The big reveal!!!

...okay, so not that exciting.

Buuuut, here she is!

The small table I redid the other day.

The green didn't work out quite the way I had hoped for.

I used the wrong kind of paint and a too harsh of a sandpaper.

I've lived and learned now though, so next time it will work wonderfully!

I am sure I will be refinishing it again soon. I really want to change the handles.

On the *fake* drawers I might add...

Please pretend you don't see that pile of clothes in the background there : ) I should have picked up the laundry room before snapping the photos.

Fun little table.

I bought this cute table from Craigslist the other day...

I decided I wanted to change it up a bit so I painted to edges green

and painted it Heirloom White.

I will show the final product tomorrow : )

Breakfast bar

Remember the weird table that was in our apartment...

Well, I finally got an okay picture to show you what we did with it!

We used the same table top, got longer legs (some simple 4x4s worked perfect), painted it and reattached it to the wall.

Then, added a few bar stools and *poof* we have an adorable breakfast bar!

I love it!

I can't even begin to tell you how much I love it!

It is so much more functional and now we actually use it!

I end up using it for the laptop and magazine reading just about every morning after work.

Its perfect because its far enough away from the bedroom that if I want to listen to music or watch something online, I won't wake Bob up.

(I work midnights and Bob gets a little cranky when I wake him up when I come home.)

I also use it to hang out and chat with Bob while he's cooking! He really enjoys cooking so I get to enjoy not cooking a lot : ) It also extends our counter space...as you can tell the kitchen is really tiny and this is nice to have so I can help out with some prep stuff, yet not get in his way.

New Lovelies

My latest purchases from Target...

They're for our WONDERFUL new furniture!

I bought the napkins to make covers for the square pillows that came with the couches.

I chose the pillow because it matches perfectly (!) with the tablecloths I turned into curtains in the living room...

The curtains aren't finished yet.

Right now they're up, but need a little more work.

I'll share those when I'm done!

FINALLY!!!

So, today is the day we officially get our new furniture...

I thought it was going to be last week, but it wasn't. *sad face* The sofa came in last Wednesday, but the loveseat, not-so-much. We decided to wait to pick them both up today since Bob has the day off and his brother could help move it up all the stairs. I am so grateful that his brother is guilted into helping happy to help! My dad is getting too old and shouldn't be doing those kinds of things anymore. That doesn't stop him from wanting to help and being willing to do them, but he just shouldn't have to do those kinds of things anymore! He's done enough of that kind of stuff in his lifetime!

Sooo...I am SO EXCITED! No more empty living room! No more sitting separate from Bob to watch tv/movies!

I'm also excited because I have a table makeover to share with you! ...but, the sunlight and my camera are not getting along. I need to wait until I can get a photo that actually works! I can show you the before picture though!

This picture is from when we were first moving in and a friend wanted me to text her photos of the apt...so its not really a good photo of the table, but its all I have!

If you look in front you can see the three chairs...well, behind those chairs is a "table." Its actually HALF a table that someone decided would be a good idea to attach to a wall. It was a very strange set up, half a table attached to the wall a normal table height *WEIRD*

It wasn't very accessible and made the whole area look cluttered and much smaller than it actually is. I always knew I wanted to change it and we finally did! : ) Hopefully later today I will be able to share the end result AND new furniture with you!

NEW FURNITURE!

Okay, well...we haven't physically gotten it yet, but we ordered it!

I am so excited!

(Seriously, you can't even imagine excited I am...)

We're living in a world of hand-me-downs right now and soon we will be able to throw some new in there! I mean, I am totally cool with my hand-me-down bed frame, my hand-me-down craft table, my hand-me-down spare bedroom bed, but I am also totally cool and really excited to say that Bob and I will be the owners of a...

NEW COUCH

and a

NEW LOVESEAT

Our living room will look a little something like this!

Okay, realistically it will look NOTHING like that!

But its fun to pretend it would! Haha.

It will still look cute in our little world of rented apartment paneling!

The sad thing is, it won't be here until next Wednesday!

My Pampered Chef party is next TUESDAY!

So...camping chairs and kitchen chairs it is for our guests I guess.

Once we tell them that its out of our control that our NEW furniture won't get here until Wednesday, I'm sure they'll understand though.

If not, too bad! ; )

From milk box to beautiful box.

In our laundry room we have a small shelving unit of three shelves. Its where I keep the soap, borax, dryer sheets, etc.

Bob tends to get dressed for work in that room because working in a kitchen he has to wash his limited supply of work clothes like every other day.

He also tends to just throw his clean clothes on the bottom shelf. This bugs the heck out of me, because it looks like a messy pile of clothes just sitting there!

(not that the room is ever actually clean, haha)

The other day I was trying to find a bin we could put on the shelf for him to put his clothes in...

I then thought of a box I had in my car from work. It is the box that our milk comes in. I measured it.

It was the PERFECT size!

I grabbed some fabric and a glue gun and went to work!

I just roughly cut the fabric and wrapped the box like a pretty little present.

Didn't she turn out wonderful?!

It's not completely done yet, though. I plan to line it with a plain black fabric to hide the rough edges of the fabric. But i was just so excited about how cute it turned out I couldn't wait to share!I am actually going to make a matching second one to put on the second shelf as well.

Not Tested on Animals

I stopped buying products that could have potentially been tested on animals a few years ago.

I also started buying more all natural organic products at that time. I'm usually not a pusher, but with my mom, I'm a complete pusher...I'm try to convince her to switch to do the same.

She texted me one day telling me about a new shampoo she tried.

Renpure Organics

I love my hair!

body and shine shampoo

When my mom texted me she mentioned what the back of the bottle said...

"These products are not tested on animals. Tested on the Redmonds."

How cute is that?!

I actually ran out of shampoo just a few days later and asked my mom how she liked the Renpure, she said she loved it! So, I went and bought some of my own. I agree, LOVE IT!

It's not only a good shampoo organic shampoo that is not tested on animals...its also made locally in Minnesota! Gotta love supporting the locals! : )

*WARNING* This post is not pretty...

The new apartment has paneling

E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E

(ugh!)

So this post is not a pretty post...

you've been warned!

Our bedroom doesn't have a real built in closet.

What they did was build one out of wood and attached it to the wall.

The cats like to sleep on top of the 'closet'.

This is totally fine, except the only way they can get down is to jump onto the bed where Bob's face is when he's sleeping!

We built a shelf to go from the top of the 'closet' with steps attached that lead to the top of the ugly dresser! (Which is on the to-do list of things to repaint.)

The shelf and steps will be getting a nice paint job at the same time that we paint right over the ugly paneling!

Once that finally happens I will post more photos to show the update : )

tiny apartment living @ its best

Okay, we rent a small two bedroom apartment and the living room sucks, there are doors everywhere! It doesn't leave many options for rearranging...ever.

I still love my apartment though! ...Well, mostly.

Anyway, to those of you who are blessed and live in wonderful houses with all kinds of space this just looks like a plan old, dark and dingy doorway. Buuuuut, to those of us who do not, this is the perfect 37" x 9" x 7'

...craft storage area!

A bin (mostly for height, I can't really easily access it), a few sets of drawers, a tray (yep, the project I talked about here, that I never finished), a bulletin board, a small flower pot (just emptied because the plant died) and a few random paintings I made, but never had anywhere to hang.

In addition, a bag I purchased and never used and a few organizers from my luggage. Because lets face it...I can't afford to go anywhere, so you know they'll never be used!

All that = the best poor (wo)man's craft "room" ever! I LOOOOVE it! It makes doing things so much easier! My craft table is about 5 feet from here in the living room, so it's perfect!

P.S....I decided, after my struggle with the modge podge and the tray didn't work out, to just double stick tape some paper onto the bottom for now. Haha.

P.P.S....I would also like to add, that this is not a fire hazard or anything! The doorway is wide open so exiting is possible. The bins/drawers only overhang on the door a few inches and are not in the way at all : )

Simple artwork

Bob's mom gave us some vinyl words a while ago.

I was feeling really down one night a few weeks ago and

was looking for a project to do to make me feel better.

I stumbled on the words and some fabric.

I rummaged through the closet and found a frame

that had been sitting there empty for years.

I grabbed scissors and a glue gun and this is the result : )

Old picture re-do

I had a set of pictures that went with the old decor of our living room, but not the new...I wanted to breath some new life into them to match the new look : )

I had purchased yards and yards of fabric that was originally going to go on the walls. It never made it up, of course. Then I was going to make curtains with it...that didn't happen either, haha.

So...new living room decor it is!

I just quickly cut a piece of fabric off that was large enough to cover the picture.

Then, lined it up on the canvas where I wanted it, and glued my heart out! Only on the back so no lumps and bumps would be seen.

Trim off the excess fabric in the back!

(yea, it doesn't looks so pretty, but no one will see it)


And voila two matching pieces!

Now, I just need to find the perfect place for them.
I thought I had a spot in mind, but tried it and didn't like it.

Fake Bake!

If you're like me and never bake, but want your home to smell delicious I highly recommend this!

I got this Scentsy warmer from Bob's mom for Christmas and I LOVE it! It warms the wax up with a light bulb instead of a candle...less risk of fire! : ) There are many different styles of warmers and even ones you can decorate yourself!

They have so many different kinds of scent it's amazing! From their Bakery collection to their Romance collection to their Scentsy Man collection...yum!

The front two are actual Scentsy products, but shhh....don't tell I actually found a few at Walmart today that are the same idea. So, I thought I'd check them out! I thought it was kind of funny that on the front of the package they even say "Not a Scentsy product"

And in case you can't tell from all my hyperlinks...you should go here or here to purchase them ; )