Thursday, August 28, 2008

What's a mom to do ...

when she has to teach this mumbo jumbo
to this Cutest Football Player in the World?
That paper means about as much to me as a sewing pattern means to Mr. Jones. I'm thinking the 6 year old was probably feeling about the same. So I looked and looked to find a game or something that might have some football guys that I could use to teach him the positions. Then I stopped by our neighborhood toy store, hoping they would have something, but thinking there was really no chance that they would. I went in, and I turned the corner on aisle 2, and there it was. Football Guys.
Just what we needed.

My kitchen table was transformed.
Football was played.
Positions learned.
Touchdown. (Sorry, I couldn't resist)

Sunday, August 24, 2008

"My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not slipped."

~Psalms 17:5

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The kids and I just got back from our trip to San Diego.
We had a blast.
Especially here.

I got down on my stomach to take some of the pictures.
I think it was worth the sandy front-side I got.

And when I got back, I finally discovered Bloglines. Yes, I'm that slow. It's amazing I even know what a blog is. But Annie left a sweet comment that she was subscribing to my blog (thanks girlfriend). What? Subscribing? I had to Google that, and I found Bloglines. Seriously, I'm such a dork. You all have probably been using Bloglines since day one. But I'm with the program now. No more checking each blog one at a time to see if it is updated. Bloglines tells me what's new. What other wonderful things am I missing?

Monday, August 18, 2008

Mistreatment Club

This morning, the Nester is having a Window Mistreatment party for all of us who abuse windows. I wanted to have a brand new mistreatment to share with you, but since we just flew in from our California vacation, I didn't have any time. So I will share some oldies but goodies with you.

Here is my favorite. I covered the ugly white blinds in my laundry room to make a fake roman shade. If you want to see how I did it, here is the original post.

And this is what I did to the windows in my bedroom, after I painted the walls Tobacco Road.

Sooooo much better than before!!
Now I'm going to head on over to the party and see what everyone else has cooked up!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Greatest Inventions

Well maybe not greatest, but here are 2 fabulous things people created that I Love ...

Hair color (yes, I already have gray hair)

Spray paint

When I posted about my little desk that I decided to paint and painted within 30 minutes start to finish, Jeannine asked me what type of paint I use and do I prime.

Well, I have learned that any project that stands a chance of getting done in my house must be done quickly. So on this particular project, I just spray painted the top layer of paint and didn't prime it at all. I don't even really know what the actual purpose of primer is, other than you should use it when you have a piece of wood that has never been painted. (According to Mr. Jones, the primer raises the wood and allows you to sand it down smoother with some steel wool. He worked for his father who was a professional painter so I'm going with him on that one). So if a piece already has been painted, I just paint over the paint. If the piece has shellac or a glossy finish and I want the paint to stick, I do a light sanding. Ditto if the previous paint job has too many lines and needs to be smoothed down a bit. That probably doesn't clear up much. I'm probably making it more confusing. Basically, I avoid work at all costs.

By the way, they do make spray primer too, which I love because it gets in all kinds of weird spots, doesn't leave paint lines and is fast. And you can use grey primer if you are going to paint the piece black.

Anyway, my hands-down favorite paint is Krylon Indoor/Outdoor paint. Have you seen the commercial for the little 360 degree nozzle on their bottles? Well, yes, I had to check that out and it is awesome!! I cannot tell you how much I love this little feature. Yes, folks, this is a paint manufacturer who understands their customers (Apparently my local Home Depot doesn't because they don't even stock this stuff). When I went to their website to steal one of their spray paint pictures, I found all kinds of really neat projects, like ...
A baby bootie mobile. I may not make this one, but I did save all of my kids' booties but they are all scuffed and dirty and bronzing them costs too much money. Wouldn't a coat of robin's egg blue look great on them?!!

And glue those stars right on the dresser ... hmmmmm, I'm going to have to glue some shells or something on one of mine.

Oh, oh, this one is my favorite. Did it ever occur to me to spray paint a shirt? Get out!!

Here's a cute Halloween project made from Dryer Hose!

You can make chalk boards out of those lunch boxes.

And here's a technique I have tried before. Use petroleum jelly between layers of paint to distress it. Be careful though. It REALLY works.

They even show you how to do aged looks like this one. Loooovee the patina.

I'm on vacation now, but I'm think when I get back I'm going to have a little get-together with all my bloggy friends and we can all share our favorite spray paint project.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

New Blog Background

I really loved the background I had before, but it was off center and I had no idea how to fix it. So I found The Cutest Blog on the Block this morning and got this FREE background. Yes, they have all kinds of cute backgrounds and they are free. And really easy to use. You have to use Blogger ... if you do, go to Edit Blog, change your blog format to Minima, add a page element (to HTML) and just plug in their HTML. I've probably missed something her, but it is basically that easy and they have instructions right on the blog.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.
-Deuteronomy 32:2