My new tv stand

A couple of weeks ago, we got a new tv stand. Our old one wasn't very tall and Alex kept climbing up on it, so it was time to get a different one. I originally wanted one that was taller and not so wide. I knew I would be getting a used one and painting it. I started checking craigslist every day, but didn't see anything. One day, I had to run some errands and ended up stopping by a Goodwill. I saw a dresser that would work as a tv stand. I really liked it, but it was longer than what I wanted. And I wanted to make the decision with Dan. So I didn't get it. I then went to Salvation Army, nothing. Then, I stopped at another thrift store, American Way, and lo and behold, there was the exact same dresser there! And it was half the price of the one at Goodwill. I figured it must be a sign! Lol. I mean, really, what are the chances you find the EXACT same dresser at two different thrift stores on the same day?

I took a picture of it and sent it to Dan's phone. He was working though. I knew he would be on his lunch break soon, but he never texted me back. So, I left. A few hours later, he texted me and said he liked it. So basically, he came home, I got the van all ready-took out the car seats, laid the seats down, put down a blanket, etc. I figured if it wasn't at American Way, it would probably be a Goodwill. So I drove to American Way, and it was gone! Bummer, because it was only $30.

I went to Goodwill and it was still there. I bought it, but it wouldn't fit in the van, so I took home the drawers and this one came with a really large mirror (the other one didn't). And the one at Goodwill was in a little better shape then the other one. Dan went back the next night with rope to close the back door of the van and got it home.

Here is the before.

It's not the best quality, sorry. And there is a board of some type on top of it.

It's just your typical, 70's kind of furniture. However, it's a solid piece of furniture. Not like the junk they make today. And it has a TON of storage, which is why I really wanted to get it. I got it for $60.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. My friend Tara, recently painted a dresser this really pretty blue color. So, I copied her and got the same paint color! *thanks Tara* :)

One of the blogs I follow, All Things Thrifty does A LOT of glazing furniture. I've always wanted to try it out. Here is an example of what she does and what glazing is. *click to enlarge, you can see so much more detail.

You buy mixing glaze and add paint to it. You paint it in the crevices of the furniture, then wipe it off and it stays in the nooks, crannies, ridges of the furniture and really makes the detail pop.

So that was my plan with this dresser. This dresser didn't have as many places for the glaze to stay, like the example, I showed you.

Here is the dresser, all primed and ready to be painted.

Here she is, all painted and purdy. :)

Here is a before picture one of the doors. This is pre-glaze.

And the color is off. I could never really get a picture of the dresser with the true blue that it is.

Here is the door, after the glaze.

Can you see the difference the glaze makes? See how you can see the detail better?

(Please say yes, or it was all in vain...)

I also added glaze on the top and bottom. Do you see the dark lines?

Here is another before

(along with the flash making the blue look off)

Here, the left door is glazed and the right one is not. Can you see the difference between the two doors? It's not the best picture, sorry.

Here is a shot of it all done. I used the original hardware and spray painted it black. I think it looks really nice.

Another shot of the glazed drawers.

It's one of those projects that looks so much better in person. I hope the picture enlarges, so you can see more of the detail.

I thought glazing was going to be really easy. And technically, it was, but it was just very time consuming. This seriously, took me hours and hours to do. I didn't want a messy glaze look, where it kind of looks dirty. In the example, I showed you, she did that and it looks great, but I didn't think it would go well with this project. So, it was hard to wipe the glaze clean. Plus, the crevices on this dresser weren't very deep, so I had to be careful not to wipe all the glaze off of the crevice, but still try and get it off, on the other parts where I didn't want it to be. I had to reglaze a lot of spots.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how it turned out and am looking forward to glazing more things. Now, I just have to redo the colors in my family room, since the blue doesn't match some of the stuff I have in there. Honestly, the arrangement of my family room bugs me a lot, but there's not a lot I can do about it. I am going to try and work on improving it and make it look nicer.

*the overall cost for this was about $100, after buying spray primer, paint and glaze. Not too shabby, considering something like this would be more than triple that amount in a store.

Catch up and handmade picture frame

So it's been about a 100 years since I last posted. Ooops! I really do enjoy blogging. Lately, life has been really busy and I've been doing a bajeelion home projects. I've been working a lot on our bathrooms, and as of recently, a TV stand. And honestly, after the kids go to bed, I just want to relax and use that time to get stuff done.

Some quick updates.

The bathrooms are ALMOST finished. I just need to prime some more boards to put up and fill in the nail holes and really that's it. It's been too cold lately to prime and when it was warm, I was priming the tv stand. And truthfully, I'm kind of burnt out on the bathrooms. But I can't wait to post pictures of them. They look soooo much better now.

Anna is potty trained! Has been for almost 3 months now. It's definitely had its ups and downs, but hallelujah, she's trained!

Alex is getting bigger and bigger and into more and more trouble every day. He's a climbing machine and seriously goes from getting into one thing to getting into the next thing. It's hard when she has to go to the bathroom during the day. I don't want to close the door on him, because I don't want him to cry/get into trouble while we're in there. However, when he's in there, he's trying to climb in the tub, stick his hand in the toilet, open all the drawers, get stuff out, etc. I'm just trying to rush Anna along, which rarely happens with a 3 year old. Lol.

Here's my little stinker in the bathtub.

(excuse the ugly bathtub, we're planning on redoing it)

He's so smart though. He can make about six animal sounds (moo, ruff, meow, bzzz, quack, baaa), says cracker, hi, nana (banana), car (gah), go, he said Jesus on Sunday at church. He said it almost perfectly three times and now will just say the first part. I think that's pretty good for an almost 15 month old. He can also blow kisses, by putting his hand over his mouth and removing it, like he's blowing a kiss. So cute...

So, I've been kind of working on a picture wall for above our piano. I got a deeply discounted vinyl sign that says, Families Are Forever. I'm working on putting frames in a rectangle shape and putting the vinyl in the middle. This project is sloooowly coming along. I had some frames already, bought two almost brand new ones at the thrift store and decided I didn't like two of the ones I already had. I've had some leftover trim for a couple of years now, that I've always wanted to make a picture frame out of. So I finally got around to it!

It was so easy to make. It took some time with the glueing, but other than that, it was easy peasy.

I forgot to take a before picture. But I basically had 4 pieces of trim, about 8-10 inches long. I wanted a rectangle shaped frame. I cut two pieces the same length and two other pieces the same length. I used what is called a miter saw. What's cool about this thing, is it lets you cut wood at an angle. All you do is lay your wood in the middle, and there are slits that your saw goes through, so you're automatically, cutting at a 45 degree angle. Make sense? If not, just know that it helps you cut wood at an angle.

I was then left with four pieces of wood with angles that would match up and make a frame.

I now needed to glue them together with wood glue. I talked to my father in law about the best way to go about doing this and he suggested laying the frame on the table, with wax paper underneath and pressing the corners as close together as possible and then clamping them down to let the glue dry. It worked. Since, the miter saw didn't make every angle, completely perfect, there were a few gaps between the corners. I just filled those in with putty and painted over them.

I then spray painted it black and there you go, a brand new frame, for practically free!

I don't think this is the picture that will go in it, I just put it in there to see how it would look with a picture. I need to make another one of these, but larger, to fit an 8x10 picture. That is what is holding me back on finishing this project. Hopefully, next week I can get around to it.

Hello there!

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted. Time has been flying by. Life is going well, just busy.

I'll talk about Alex first. He's now 13 months. I love this stage of life for him. He's starting to get out of the baby stage. He's really starting to understand things around him. The last month or so, he has started LOVING books. I'm so glad. I was a little worried, because he wasn't showing too much interest in them. Anna at his age loved books and they were very instrumental in her vocabulary and her enunciation of words. Currently, his favorite book is a animal board book. He carries it around with him and I've caught him many times just sitting on the carpet looking through the pages. It's so cute.

A few weeks ago, his shoes were on the carpet. He went over to them and started to step on one. He was trying to put it on! You could just see the wheels turning in his head. Another time, he got some cookbooks off a shelf. I told him no. Then a minute later, he picked one up and was trying to put it back on the shelf! It was so cute. This morning, I was taking the sheets off our bed to wash them. I put our extra pillows on the floor, on the side of our bed when we are sleeping. He picked up a small one and was trying to put it on the bed! He's just so smart, I love it. He knew that's where it needed to go.

He is also getting so good at understanding what I'm saying. I can tell him to put his shoes away in the shoe basket by the door, and he'll do it! I'll tell him to give me a kiss and he will. It's just so fun to see him develop.

He loves boxes and knows to just plop himself down in one. Dan loves to push the kids around in boxes we get from diapers or Costco. So he sees a box and thinks that's what he needs to do. He's also into climbing things. He loves to climb up on Anna's bed and is so proud of himself when he does.

Here he climbed up on Dan's work box. He also fell off this one time, so I promptly put it away!

This activity table was by our TV stand and Alex started climbing it and got on the TV stand. I moved the table to the middle of the family room, so he wouldn't climb on it. Well, that plan failed. He REALLY wanted to climb it. I was curious how far he would go, so I let him climb it.

And he made it to standing on top!

Here is a step stool we have in our bathroom. Alex loves to climb it. I had moved it to our bedroom while I was cleaning and turned it over, so he wouldn't climb it. He thought it was a chair and plopped himself down in it.

He's getting so big and is cute as ever!

Anna is doing well. Her vocabulary gets better and better each day. She still says funny things and is cute as ever. Our biggest accomplishment with her lately has been potty training! It really has been a roller coaster of a ride, with LOTS of ups and downs, but I think we've finally arrived. Peeing accidents only happened the first few days. However, poopoo incidents were many. She kept pooping in her underwear and it was nasty! However, this last week, she finally seems to be able to go on the potty, poo or pee, when she needs to. And it's about time! There were many times where she would seriously hold her pee for seven hours! It was amazing. She would be so uncomfortable and obviously need to go pee, but WOULD not. It really was a power struggle in her case. We just had to not push it and wait for her to come to us and tell us she needed to go. She has also gone on the potty at the gym and at church, as well as Logan's house. We're making progress here, people! :)

My precious little Anna outside, while we're raking leaves.

Alex's First Birthday!

I can't believe my little Alex is one! I can't believe a year ago, I had a little newborn, was sleep deprived and adjusting to two kids.

Well, we celebrated his party on Saturday. I've been looking forward to making his cake for a while. I decided on the pattern a few months ago. Here is the inspiration:

There were a few cake images I found, that helped me solidify the design. Thank goodness for the internet!

So here is Alex's cake!

This took me a long time to make, about three and a half hours. For most of it, I was watching three kids, so that may have hindered my time. But it was just time consuming, not very difficult.

I made the shapes a few days before, which was fine for the diamonds and circles, but not so much for the stripes. I had to make new ones for the white and blue because they would crack and break when I tried to bend them. Luckily, the yellow ones were fine.

I did have a problem when I started the second layer of the diamonds. They diamonds were not all the same, so some of the corners wouldn't match up. Plus, I was losing surface area with the curve of the cake, so they didn't match up because of that as well. I was just going to go with one row of diamonds, but Dan convinced me to just cut each diamond a little smaller and see if that would work. I'm glad he did and I'm glad I listened to him, because it really made the cake look better that way.

I was excited to a make a two tier cake. There were a few places where the base yellow fondant didn't quite work like I wanted it to, but those are just minor things.

I originally was going to put these letters on popsicle sticks and stick them on the top layer of the cake, but after three hours I was kind of done with the cake. I realized it was going to be really crowded on top and they weren't long enough to put on the bottom layer and stick out on top of the top layer (make sense?), so I just stuck them on the cupcakes.

In case you couldn't tell, the colors were yellow, white and blue. I did an initial themed party, with "A." I got the idea here, from the Martha Stewart website.

Party favors!

I made some popcorn and melted white chocolate and coated the popcorn with it and added mini M&M's. It was so good! And of course, I forgot to hand them out. Figures.

Water bottle labels.

Cute little name sign.

Thank goodness I have a cricut machine, otherwise I probably wouldn't have made all these decorations.

Hanging A's.

Dan was kind enough to hang these for me, while I was getting other stuff ready.

I started making the decor a few weeks before, in the evenings. Just doing a little at a time.

Our little family!

Alex getting ready to blow out his candle.

He was a little hesitant at first, not quite sure what I had put in front of him.

I ended up cutting a chunk of the cake off, and cutting it into little pieces.

Then he really dug into it.

Dirty cake hands!!!

Alex playing with some of his new toys.

Overall it was a fun party and I was very pleased with how the cake and decorations turned out. I think Alex had fun, even though he didn't know what was going on. He got some fun toys that he really likes (and Anna, I should add).

I'm off the hook until Dan's birthday. I told him to start thinking about what he wants and I'll make him a fun fondant cake!

A Halloween Miracle!

We decided to get very festive this year for Halloween. At the beginning of October, we started talking about what the kids should be for Halloween. Dan had already decided to be a sith, from Star Wars. Supposedly, his entire Art Department at school was going to dress in a Star Wars theme for a Halloween party of one of the teacher's house (turned out he was the only one to show up and the guy hosting it didn't even dress up). We decided Anna should be a bumblebee. Then, Dan suggested that Alex be one too. After a few days, I decided I would dress up as one too.

Me and my swarm of bees.

It's not easy getting a three year old and an almost one year old to look simultaneously at the camera.

It was fun to plan out their costumes and make them. I made our skirts from black and yellow tulle, and ribbon. Dan's mom gave Anna a similar skirt for Christmas a few years ago. I used that as my model and just copied the idea for our costume. They were pretty easy to make. Just cut tulle into 5-6 inch strips, about 24 inches long for her and I can't remember how long I made mine. Tie them around a band of elastic that will fit around the waist. Add ribbon every 4-5 strips and there you go!

I made the antenna head band from elastic, felt and fuzzy pom poms. I wanted to do yellow, but I had these leftover from when she was a lady bug two years ago.

I sewed strips of yellow felt on this black shirt. It has a logo on it, but I made sure the stripe covered it. The wings I found at the 99 cent store and they actually have a little bee on the back of it. I made the purse from felt as well. Overall, this was a very inexpensive costume. The shirt, leggings and shoes were given to me. The tulle was on sale for like 74 cents a yard, the wings were a dollar, and the felt was 25 cents a sheet. The ribbon was $2.

Alex's outfit on the other hand, wasn't as cheap. I actually splurged a bit and paid $10. I got it at a big consignment sale they have here, twice a year. I originally had sewn black stripes on a onesie and was just going to have him wear black pants. But this was so cute, I couldn't pass it up. I'm glad i did, because otherwise, his outfit would have been kind of lame, compared to ours.

He wasn't a big fan of the hat, but doesn't he look so cute in it?!

I don't normally dress up, but I'm glad I did this year. It was fun.

My outfit was easy to put together as well. I just had to pay for the tulle, ribbon, and wings.

Here is Dan's outfit. He made this cloak himself, without a pattern. It turned out pretty well! I won't say how much he spent on his. It was more than all of ours combined. I told him next year, no more cloaks! He made one two years ago. He needs to branch out. Lol.

His co-worker, the one who threw the Halloween party, had these light sabers. He let him borrow them. They're pretty cool. At our ward party, a few teenagers came up to Dan and asked if they could give him a hug, because his costume was so awesome. Haha.

We got to take Anna trick-0r-treating for the first time this year. I really enjoyed it. It was so cute to see her say trick or treat and get excited about her candy. We just went around the street behind ours. As soon as we came inside, she sat down and checked out her loot. We put Alex in the stroller and luckily, he was fine with that.

So I wanted to tell about the title of this, A Halloween Miracle!

So our ward party was on Saturday. I need to give a little background info first. I mentioned that I got him black pants at the consignment sale. Well, there was actually two pants pinned together. I only needed one pair, but for the price of one, I could get two, so I got both of them. Friday, before we went to Dan's co-worker's party, I went to the local consignment sale and got Alex black socks. They also had Halloween costumes on sale for $2. I briefly looked at them and saw some bee costumes. So Saturday, a half hour before the ward party, I go out to the car to get our costumes that I had left there from Friday's party. I had changed Alex into his sleeper before we left, so we could easily put him in bed, and put his costume in the diaper bag. Well, I quickly realize I left the diaper bag at Dan's co-worker's house, along with his costume.

I'm pretty bummed, that Alex won't be able to dress up and we won't all match. I tell Dan this and he suggests to go the consignment store and see if they have a bee costume for Alex. I had totally forgotten about that! I had 15 minutes before they closed, so I hurried over there and lo and behold, I find a cute bee costume that is just Alex's size! I get home and remember that his black pants were left at the other house. Then, I remember that I had bought TWO pairs of black pants. Whew!

So it all worked out, we had fun at the party, we all looked cute and it was a Halloween miracle! My main reason for sharing this, is really to show just how kind Heavenly Father was to me. When I think about how there was a costume just his size and that I had been led to buy two pairs of black pants, it's just worked too perfectly. It's amazing to me how He was able to micromanage the little details, so Alex could have his bee costume and we could all match. It's obviously not the end of the world if he didn't have one, I would have lived and gotten over it, but He knew it would make me happy. He knew it was important to me and He foresaw something I had no way of predicting. It really made me happy that He helped me out so much. There have been a few other things recently that have really helped me see Heavenly Father's hand in my life and His kindness and mercy to me. Elder Bednar gave a talk a few years ago about the tender mercies of the Lord. I'm so thankful for those and thankful for the little and big blessings I receive from Him.