Candlestick Makeover

The last time I went garage sailing, I spotted this great set of candlesticks. I loved their curvy shape, the fact that they were solid wood, and that each candlestick was unique yet coordinated. I am not a huge fan of taper candles, but knew I could give these babies a makeover to accommodate pillar candles. They were in pretty bad shape. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but they were really dirty and had lots of yellowed stains on them, like they had been in the attic for a while or something. They look nicely weathered in the pictures, but trust me, it was dirt. ;)

I found wooden plaques at Michael's for $.79 and thought they would be perfect to use as the top platform for pillar candles. Because the plaques were raw wood, I knew they would need priming. It took 4 coats of white spray paint to get good coverage--the wood was quite thirsty. :)

I used Elmer's wood glue to adhere the plaques to the top of the candlesticks, then filled in the seam with wood filler. After I sanded the dried wood filler, I was ready to paint! Oh and let me mention that wood putty is very different than wood filler. I originally bought wood putty, but then read that it does not dry and become hard. Not quite sure what the point of that would be??? Wood filler dries fairly quickly and then can be sanded down and stained or painted. I'm probably the only newb that didn't know this! :)

After getting a coat of white paint (I used a foam brush and the leftover paint from the dining room chairs), they were looking much better! See the difference between the dirty one and the freshly painted one? I'll admit, I really wanted to distress them, but my attempt failed miserably. I'm still stewing over a way to distress them without ruining them... Ideas?

One of my favorite places to get pillar candles is the Dollar Store! Pillar candles start at $3.50 each at the big box stores, but I scored these for $1 each! Woot!

I'm loving the new look! I'll be back soon with our finished Spring fireplace display!

Spring Time Pretties

I'm so happy it's finally spring! I usually love winter, but I was getting antsy to get outside and start walking again!

Our jasmine smells amazing right now!

One of my favorite things about spring is seeing all the tulips blooming around town. One of the main roads near our house has tulips on the corner of all the major intersections. Each intersection has a different color. It's gorgeous!  

I've been seeing a lot of posts like this one lately on forcing tulips to grow in just water. I've been wanting to try it, but let's face it, I kill every plant I touch. Imagine my excitement when I found already assembled vases of tulips growing in water at BJ's! I grabbed a pink one and dutifully followed the directions to keep the water fresh and at the correct water level. They bloomed beautifully and the blooms lasted for days! Check it out!

(Collage made using Fotor)

Now that I know they can be successful, I will definitely try doing them myself next time!

Saturday Finds

This is technically a couple Saturday's old, but had to share our recent find. :) In our previous home, we used our breakfast nook as a play area for Little One and our dining room as our main eating area. In our new home, we have a bedroom downstairs that we made into a playroom, so we kept our breakfast nook and dining room for their intended purposes. Hooray! We only owned one table, though, so we removed the leaf from our dining room table and put it in the breakfast nook and bought a new table for our dining room. Confused yet? Haha

Anyway, we have not been 100% satisfied with how the table looked or fit in our breakfast nook. Because of its oblong shape, the person sitting in the back always ended up slamming the chair into the plantation shutters when they got up. Not cool. And, let's be honest...I'm not a fan of the style of the table. Cute in the 90's, not my style now. Danny Tanner called and wants his table back.

Here's a phone shot of the old gal.

Our original plan was to save up and purchase a new, round table that fit the breakfast nook better. But, with our long home to-do list, the breakfast nook table kept getting pushed to the very bottom. We decided to try and find a table on Craigslist for the same price or less than what we could sell our existing table for to save money and get this item marked off our to-do list.

I'll admit, I HATE buying things on Craigslist. I have terrible, terrible luck. I contacted 2-3 sellers within a couple hours of their listing going up, and they would either not bother responding, or their table was already sold. Another seller went as far as scheduling a time for us to come get the table, then mysteriously wouldn't give us their address and then told us the table was sold. What happened to honesty? Rant over.

Thankfully, on attempt #5 or 6, we found a round table that was in perfect condition for $200 AND were able to purchase it from a really nice woman without any drama. Hooray!

Here's our new little table!

It fits the space SO much better than the other table did! We gained a ton of space in the breakfast nook and were able to position the chairs so that no one would back up into the shutters. LOVE IT!

We were able to sell our old table for $220 on Craigslist, so we ended up with a table that we loved and $20 in our pockets! Woot woot!

Have you swapped anything out recently that just wasn't working in your home? Do you have better Craigslist luck than I do?! Hope so!

Pintertest Kitchen: Easy Cheese Danish

Growing up, my grandparents used to take me to a sweet little bakery in Waynesville, NC called Whitman's Bakery. Everything there is amazing! My grandma and I almost always chose a cheese danish out of the donut case to share and Grandpa always opted for something with chocolate. :) After our treat, we'd walk up and down Main Street, browsing all the quaint little shops. Those are some of my very favorite memories!

When I saw this recipe for cheese danish on Pinterest, I knew I had to try it! It's easy and really yummy! Brings back lots of sweet memories from our trips to the bakery! Try it!

Ingredients:

2 cans ready to use refrigerated crescent rolls
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg

Glaze:

1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350* degrees and grease a 13X9-inch baking pan. Lay a pack of crescent rolls in the pan and pinch the openings together. Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and egg together until smooth. Spread the mixture over the crescent rolls evenly and then lay the second pack of crescent rolls on top of the cheese mixture. Bake for 35-45 minutes until the top is golden brown. Top with glaze after cooling for 20 minutes.

Notes: 

I used reduced fat cream cheese with great results! Original recipe found here. 

Linking up to the Pintertest Kitchen link party!

Playroom Progress: Closet Clean Up

I mentioned in a recent post that we have been juggling a bunch of projects right now, trying to work on them all at the same time. Let's all just laugh at that now, ok? Because everyone knows that working on multiple projects at once never happens quickly when you have a full work schedule and an energetic cutie pie running around. Haha! :)

Even though some of the projects are still sitting halfway finished, I'm happy to report that one of the biggest projects, the playroom closet, is complete! Woot!

Let me back up a minute and explain this redo. When we first moved in, we put all the toys in the playroom and extra toys in the playroom closet. Little One's clothes went in his closet, and random Christmas stuff and miscellaneous other things went in the guest room closet. But, over time we realized that Little One's closet was really under utilized while the playroom closet and guest room closets where packed and hard to organize. After trying different options, my genius hubby came up with the idea to put all of Little One's extra toys in his closet, then redistribute and reorganize the stuff from the guest room closet. Now why didn't I think of that?!

Here's a before of the playroom closet after I had emptied out most of the toys. Think it looks bad now? You should have seen it with all the toys precariously stacked in the bottom of the closet!

We emptied everything out into the guest room and sorted it all out, deciding where to put everything and getting rid of as much as we could. After everything was sorted, we looked at what needed to go in the playroom closet and made a shelving plan that would accomodate everything neatly.

As you can see, there is a lot of wasted space in the closet because of the lack of shelves. The only clothing items that needed to be stored in here were winter coats, so we really didn't need all this hanging space. We originally planned to add two shelves to the left side and another two to the top half of the right side, leaving space for my crafting cart. But, after realizing the coats needed to go in here, we decided to leave the entire right side open to accommodate the crafting cart on the bottom and the coats on the top.

Hubby measured the existing shelves and supporting boards, then we headed to Home Depot to grab plywood and boards in the same thickness as the existing shelves so everything would match. While he started working on the cutting and sanding, I gave the closet walls a fresh coat of paint. I just used the leftover paint from when we painted the playroom so everything would be cohesive and flow together well.

Here's Hubby's handiwork! I gave all the shelves and trim a coat of white paint, then Hubby caulked and we called it a day!

And here's the completed shelves! I may have forgotten to take pictures of every step of the building process. Just maybe. Blogger fail. But, I will take pictures of each step when Hubby builds the shelves in Little One's closet. I know you're sitting on the edge of your seat in anticipation, right? Ha! ;)

I re-purposed the woven baskets from a bookshelf we had in our living room in our old home. I bought the crafting cart at Michael's with a 50% off coupon a couple years ago. I think I paid $25 for it. The plastic drawers are really old and re-purposed from my classroom. They are perfect for holding all of Little One's art supplies. 

I was super excited to find the large, plastic totes on clearance at Target for $2.99...and in the playroom colors! They're really deep and perfect for holding decorations and toys!

Looking to the right, you can see our games on the top shelf, coats, crafting cart, and wrapping supplies. I used an old box to hold the wrapping supplies. I still need to either make the box prettier or find a storage container to hold it all. I'm thinking of wrapping the box in twine like this for an inexpensive solution. 

On the left side, we have decorations in the two large totes on the top shelf, various cords and electronic accessories in the woven baskets, the printer and file box for miscellaneous papers, Little One's art supplies, and a few toys on the very bottom. I was super excited the printer was able to fit on the shelf, too! No more bulky printer on the desk! Hooray!

I have to admit, I usually go for practical above pretty. I'm really cheap and always try to reuse things that we have on hand...or just do without. But, I'm so thankful we invested in the shelving and the large totes to keep everything organized. And I'm really excited that the walls are blue! It's so fun to open up the closet and see a pop of color! I understand now why so many organizing bloggers make it such a point to make things pretty! It sure makes me want to keep it organized!

Linking up with Thrifty Decor Chick!

For My Hubby

Today is a special day for my husband and I. Exactly 10 years ago today, my hubby asked me out. Two and a half years of dating, a year and eight month engagement, and almost six years of marriage later, here we are! I am so incredibly thankful for the gift of my husband and couldn't have imagined a better 10 years. I look at him and marvel that he married me...and he says he knew how crazy I am before we got married. Haha! I still get excited when he calls me and watch the clock waiting in anticipation of him getting home at night. I'm totally head over heels for that man! So, allow me to be super sappy and tell you 10 of the million reasons why I love that man.

Our first date was Jeremy's senior prom. 

He loves Jesus. I'm so thankful to have such a Godly man for a husband. Before we were even dating, he was pointing me to Jesus and helping me grow in understanding and knowledge of God. When we first got married, he diligently searched for a gospel centered church for us to be a part of and I'm so thankful for our amazing church family! He consistently leads our family in devotions. Through the years, God has used him in so many ways to grow my faith. I'm so thankful for his leadership and for the way he displays Christ through the every day.

This was a few months after we met. I had a huge crush on him, hence the gigantic smile. That is if you can even see my face past all that hair. Hey, we lived in Florida, land of humidity...and the hair straightener hadn't come out yet. Geesh.

He's willing to talk it out. We are both talkers and are known to stay up till all hours of the night just talking with each other. I love that when we have a disagreement, he doesn't grow quiet, but is willing to talk out the hard things with me. Of course, it means staying up even later at night (haha!), but I'm thankful that he is so willing to talk and work through things together.

Us in college hanging out between classes. 

He's just plain funny. I love how much he makes me laugh. I blame him for the crows feet around my eyes, because he keeps me laughing. He has such an unexpected, witty humor that he can whip out on a moment's notice. Even after ten years, his dry humor still catches me off guard and makes me laugh until my sides hurt.

See what I mean? At first glance, you think I'm the crazy one, but then you realize Jeremy is instigating it all!

He's Dr. Hunky. And yes, that was a Reba reference. I may be slightly obsessed with that show. Ha! Anyway, he is incredibly handsome! I love the masculine lines of his face and how when he's being mischievous, is about to win a game, or is trying to get out of trouble, a dimple emerges on his face. It's pretty much the cutest thing ever. Jeremy, please don't kill me for publicly talking about your adorable dimple. ;)

Newlyweds

Amazing daddy. He is an amazing daddy. He adores our little man and is such a thoughtful and fun daddy. My heart explodes with love when I watch him play with Little One and chase him around the house, making him laugh until he's cackling. He takes time to listen and really know and understand Little One and cares for him in such thoughtful ways.

Fall 2007

Faithful. He follows through on his word. He faithfully serves our family and our church. And he makes me feel like the only girl in the world. I so appreciate that every.single.time there is a scantily clad women on tv or ads, he is always looking away. I didn't ask him to do that! He's just always done that. Even when he thinks I'm not looking or that I can't see him, he's looking away. I love how much it displays his faithfulness to me.

For our first anniversary, he surprised me with a photo session by our friend, Kristin. I still LOVE these photos and have them plastered all around our house. :) 

Hard worker. There is not a lazy, procrastinating bone in his body. He is so good at planning how to use his time to get things done. He works like crazy at work, then works like crazy on school, and still makes it a point to have family time with us and keep our family a priority. He loves building things and working in the yard. He likes to be all hot and sweaty working outside in the summertime. I totally don't get that last one. ;)

Thanksgiving 2008

Thoughtful. He is incredibly thoughtful. He looks around for things to do to help me out like loading the dishwasher or throwing in a load of laundry. He makes me tea because he knows I hate doing it. He asks about my family. He takes time to listen about my day. He gives the most crazy thoughtful presents ever. Know what he gave me the first Christmas we were together? He wrote out a Bible verse for every single day of the year on index cards and put them all in a box for me to read throughout the next year. Seriously, 365 of them. Amazing.

Expecting our little man. Thanks for the photo, Charity!

Enjoys life. I tend to have a one track mind. If I'm in the middle of something, it's hard for me to stop the busy and take time to sniff the flowers, if you know what I mean. I love that Jeremy will stop me in the middle of my busiest moments just to give me a hug or a kiss. I love that he randomly puts on Truly, Madly, Deeply and dances with me in the living room. And I love all the random games he comes up with to make the mundane become completely fun...like having a contest to see who can make more sock balls into the laundry hamper from across the room. So fun and ridiculously simple. Try it peeps.

Fall 2011  Thanks for the photo, Adrienne! 

Opposites Attract. I really love that we are opposites. I'm uptight, he's more relaxed. I'm hyper, he's calm. I'm fiery, he's patient. I dive in head first, he's a thinker. He mellows me out so much.

February 2013--This was right after he passed his dissertation defense! 

I'm so thankful for you, Babe, and so glad you're mine! I love you!