Luke did What!!!

So Luke decided to sit in a chair and play a vintage video game for almost 18 hours last weekend.  Sunday morning he woke up and couldn't walk... his back, hamstrings and calves were so tight.  This lasted until Thursday when he finally decided to go to urgent care and see if something was more seriously wrong (it wasn't getting better).  I was supposed to go with my mom to Vermont for our week off from school but decided not to go since Luke was in such rough shape.  Staying home to take care of Manfriend (who at this point became zonked out with the muscle relaxers they gave him) I decided to be productive.

 I hauled up some bins from my classroom last year that I never ended up using (they were too small for papers) and organized my laundry room cleaning rags and supplies.  Large "candy" bins house my running hats and mittens (I need a lot since they get laundered constantly and I run a lot).

 Under the sink in the master bath needed an make over.  Things just sort of got tossed in all willy nilly and most of it would be better stored in the guest bathroom linen closet.

 I swapped the cleaning bin for the one in the down stairs laundry room since it was smaller.  Voila, way nicer and easy to see everything in the cupboard.  At this point I am thinking, "what else can I organize?"

 I decided to hang up our Tinkerbell light switch plate in the kitchen... and proceed to organize the junk drawer.  I know, we all have one that seems to catch all our pens, pencils and other random stuff.

 More small baskets and such from my classroom last year.  The holes are large and pens/pencils were constantly falling out so I went with ice cream pints for materials (hot glue a few stones to the bottom to weight them).

 Lastly, I decided to tackle my clothes closet.  I've had most of my clothes organized into bins that I can pull out and pick a shirt to wear.  Unfortunately the shirts usually just get tossed into the bins or hap hazardly folded.  Thunder Paws decided to supervise.

 Apparently I took a long time since she fell asleep.  Folded and placed in the bins this way I can easily find what I am looking for and no shirt gets "lost" or forgotten in the bin. Yes, I love the color green and a few of my shirts are duplicates since they are "favorites."

Here is my clothes closest (I know, it is supposed to be the linen closet).  Love that all the clothes fit in their bins now and aren't over flowing every where.  I have the other half of the closet to work on, but love how it is looking so far.

Craftastic Weekend Success!

I've always wanted a "Disney" room in our house and there are touches of Disney in all rooms (a stuffed animal on the chair, photo from Disney...).  I found these blue and white lamps at Christmas Tree Shoppe that inspired me to create an Up room in our peach bedroom.  At first I wasn't sure how I would accomplish making balloons on the wall how I envisioned them.  Searching for artwork to make for my sister Jen for her nursery I came across iron fabric on your walls.  So I headed to the craft store and picked up the materials.

 Fusible interfacing (iron it on and then peel the paper backing and then iron a second time to make it stick to the wall...or other fabric), fun and light weight fabric in a pattern (or patterns if you want to mix/match).  I picked up 2 rolls of fat 3/8ths fabric plus 6 yards of interfacing (I did not use all the 3/8ths).  Then I traced a balloon shaped template on my interfacing and cut them out.
I grabbed a piece of wrapping paper and taped it on the wall so that I could draw a basic outline of my balloons and get an idea how much space I wanted them to take up.  Then I set to work laying out the balloons and arranging them to look good.

They of course all slid and moved when I went to move it.  **If you plan to do this I would suggest you lay it out upside down and have an additional piece of fabric and interfacing so that you can iron all the pieces together and then iron the whole piece on the wall**
After they all slide I laid them out on the floor for a second time.  I taped them together with clear mailing tape and attempted to pick it up and tape it to the wall.  Huge failure on my part and frustrated I leave the room for an hour after yelling at Luke (who isn't even in the room).  He tells me I'll figure it out and it will be awesome.  According to him I have good ideas.  This time I laid a piece of wax paper over them and traced the shapes/colors.  There is no attempt at moving the whole thing.

Loving that it looks more like a hot air balloon now.  I then taped the wax paper to the wall and traced the basic outline on the wall as a guide.  I taped the wax paper one on the nearby wall to reference and hold up as needed to help in placement/moving of the pieces.  I move the cutouts piece by piece and tape as I go.

I used painters tape to put it on the wall.  Then came the tricky part...ironing this to the wall.  I started at the top since I knew as I ironed they would "flatten" slightly from their current state.  I held a few pieces with their tape missing and just tapped the tip of the iron to get them "stuck enough" for me to remove some more tape from a nearby piece.  This is the part that took the longest, removing the tape and ironing.  It shifted slightly in shape as this happened, but overall I am happy with it.  The difficulty of moving the tape as you go is why I suggest an extra piece of fabric and fusible interfacing so you can move it as a solid unit.  Probably not necessary if your pieces aren't "linked."

Luke decided he liked it up and down instead of at a slight angle on the wall, so that's what we have.  Here is the finished product on the wall... and you can see my Up lamps that inspired this whole project.  Still deciding on if and how I want to do the strings for the balloons.

experimenting with the iron

While playing on pinterest to find ideas for things I could make for Jen's baby shower I came across this nursery with fabric letters on the wall (I was looking for a nice art project to make for her walls).  FYI I did find a project to make Jen but this isn't it.  I had an idea in my head (yup, that's where ideas happen) and figured this could work since I haven't been able to find anything else that will come close to what I am envisioning without a lot of artistic skills on my part.
I will say I was a little skeptical about this actually working but I figured I'd give it a try anyhow and went to the craft store.  I picked up some quilting fabric (it has to be thin/light) and some double sided fusible interfacing (like 2 sided tape for fabric).

 You iron on the interfacing, peel off the back and then iron the fabric to the wall.  I tested this out in the closet since I wouldn't notice the wall damage behind where I hang up our ironing board if it failed miserably.  So above is the heart I cut out and ironed on the wall.  But would it peel off without damaging the wall?

 It did!  I kind of had to pick a little spot quite a bit with my nails and then I could start "rolling" it off.  Easy to remove but not so easy that it is going to fall off at the slightest thing.  So excited about the project now and I will hopefully get to work on it over the weekend.  I could have probably ironed the fabric onto the wall a bit more but it stuck no problem.  I did put a washcloth over the shape so that the iron wouldn't directly touch the wall.  Here are the colors I have for my little project that is Manfriend approved :)

Craft Projects

While Luke was at work last week I worked on a few craft projects for Jen's baby shower.  It is nautical themed and I wanted to get a start on the decorations.  I've addressed all the invites and have them ready to mail at the proper time that etiquette dictates.  Here is a sneak peak at a few of the craft projects I made.  I've got a secret pinterest board with ideas for food and other decorations.

I started out by gluing the banner pieces together but then decided a better idea was to use two-sided sticky tape.  Way faster and worked better.  More craft projects are in the works and done but we will save those to share until after the shower!

Manfriend is Exercising

Luke has been exercising almost daily since his birthday.  He is elliptical-ing 20-40 minutes and trying to eat better.  After exercising for about 2 weeks I came home from subbing to a note on my laptop:

 He decided that I do a ton of stuff around the house and am always leaving him little love notes.  The weather was going to be gorgeous over the weekend so it worked out.  (This was in the beginning of March).  We did go out to dinner at Uno's with my mom for her birthday (his idea to call and ask her to dinner, promising me dinner with just us another time).  Such a thoughtful guy!

Moonlight Creamery was having a princess theme day and my mom, dad and I went after Mikee at my Bruegger's talked about it.  He made all the decorations for it.  It looked great in there, but I didn't want to be the creepy person taking a bagillion photos.  There was a "castle" near the front door and he had princess portraits all over the walls and ribbons/balloons scattered.  The employees were dressed up as well with Mikee as a prince from the Once upon a Time series.  All the ice cream flavors were re-named to be princess-y.  I brought Luke home a sucker:

Yes, that is called Man Bait... a maple bacon flavored lollipop.  It smelled like bacon and tasted like bacon.  It was gross though because it wasn't "bacon."

cleaning house

Luke was away the past week for work in D.C.  I was called to sub a few days and the days I was off I spent majorly cleaning out.  I have 2 bags of clothes and other miscellaneous items for donation (on top of 1 bag from January and 2 from February).  I went through a bunch of school items in the basement and recycle bin filling ensued!

 Here is the stack of papers on the counter... followed by the recycle bin in the garage.  Notice how half of the bin is almost filled to the top?  It weighed a lot so I left the recycle guy a coca-cola with a note that said, "weighs a lot.  thanks!"  We almost always have a lot of recycles too and he makes sure to toss our bin way up the driveway near the garage so it doesn't blow away.

I've also busted out the griddle we received as a wedding gift.  It was used at the cottage for a little bit but has been sitting in the basement.  I made pancakes with it the other day and they were amazing... crispy edges and I could make more than one at a time.  Made French toast as well and that was also amazing.

Happy Birthday Momma!

Happy Birthday to my amazing Momma!  (sing to the oscar mayer wiener song) My Mommy has a first name it's m-o-m-m-a. My mommy has a second name it's m-o-m-m-y.  I love to hug her everyday and if you ask me why I'll say....cause mommies have a special way with hugs and kisses everyday! You are loved xoxo

 and mommies can be silly bringing smiles and laughs to all of our faces.

Happy Birthday Momma!  You are the B-E-S-T best!

Cake Pops=FAIL!

My attempt at making cake pops and practicing making them for Jen's baby shower was a major fail.  We will be making cup cakes.  The cake part of the pops was delicious all mixed with the frosting after I let it sit in the fridge and get really cold.  I figured I could handle melting some chocolate in the microwave following the directions on the package.  It started to melt and needed a little more time to be "smooth."  I followed the directions for the time intervals between stirring and then we ended up from kind of smooth to chunky.  I had burnt the chocolate.  Luke and I have been eating the cake pops without the chocolate coating.  Fail in finishing the food as intended, but still edible so not complete loss... other than the burnt chocolate.

Attempting to Bake

So with my sister Jen expecting her sweet baby boy in July and me hosting the shower I figured I better start working on my baking skills for the desserts.  I am a pro at cup-cakes (well, I can basic frost them with the Wilton tips).  Making dinner so the oven was on anyways, great time to make a cake and give this cake pop thing a try.  It can't be that hard, make a cake, add can of frosting, roll into a ball, place on a stick, "frost" in melted chocolate. I figured I would need to practice so why not try to make cake pops today without looking them up first and here comes the practice:

 Dinner of cheese stuffed shells.  Cake cooling while eating dinner and then washing dishes.

 I scrape an entire can of frosting into the crumbled up, still somewhat warm cake that I put in a bowl.  I realize the bowl won't be big enough for "mixing" and dump the contents into a larger bowl.

 I have a very gooey mess and it isn't "dough-y" like I figure it should be.  I obviously did something quite wrong and call my sister.  Our phone conversations goes something like this:
"Jen, I am trying to make cake balls so I can practice for your shower.  If I don't practice your getting cupcakes.  I think I did something wrong.  I made the cake and added a can of frosting. That's all you have to do right?  I mean it's really gooey."
Jen: "oy, you're only supposed to use 3/4 of the can."
Me: "OK, I used a little the other day for cupcakes when Luke had his friends over so it was only 3/4 of the can. But it is still really runny."
Jen: "Are you crying?"
Me: "No. My nose is running from all the moisture in the kitchen from boiling water and doing dishes."
Jen: "Did you let the cake cool?"

Me:  "No.  Was I supposed to?  I mean I did a little, but it is still warm."
Jen:  "Put it in the fridge for a little bit and let it cool."

Me:  "Thanks."
So I put the mess in the fridge to cool.  I look up making cake pops online.  They take longer than I realized (seriously, let them chill for 2 hours between attaching the stick and chocolate coating...).  About 15 minutes, apparently not long enough, later it was still gooey.  It started out rolling into nice balls and then it got messy.

I picked up the cake balls and put them back in the bowl and covered with plastic wrap in the fridge.  They are going to sit overnight and I will try rolling and putting on a stick tomorrow.  We will see if all this work is worth it... I have patience for scissor and glue stick crafts, but food is another story.

Don't worry... if these don't come out nice you're getting cupcakes Jen!  On the plus side I've made some decorations for the shower and designed your invites.