Wednesday, December 28, 2011

lack of blogging

Wow,  I have been gone for awhile!

Life just got crazy.

So hopefully 2012 will bring lots of organization and lots of fun little projects around the house.  And maybe a little Christmas crafting in July for it just didn't happen before the holiday!

My friend dubbed it "the year of peace" and I'm hoping she's right.  The last few months have been stressful and 2012 just has to be better!  I need to get my "sparkle" back and I need a little crafting/scrapping/decorating mojo to help me along.

First up is to get this office in working order.  It's a mess.  I mean filthy, unorganized, over-crowded, filled with crap I wasn't sure where to put.  Time to purge, clean, paint and make it sparkle.  Literally!

Happy 2012!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Easy Faux Roman Shades

I have been trying to get my kitchen put back together the way I would like it since giving my cabinets a face lift.   One thing I have been putting off is window treatments for the one small window.  I have never had them for this window but since painting the cabinets white, I wanted to add just a hint of color!  I searched hi and low for some pre-made ones but nothing that I liked.  And then I saw this on Tatertots & Jello...



I thought to myself, I could totally do that!!!

But then saw the stencil price tag and decided I'm too cheap. But towards the end of her post, she mentioned this website, Imparting Grace.  So I clicked away and LOVED what I saw!



And so easy to do!  You can easily follow her steps or check out my pictures below.  I already had the fabric, I want to make some throw pillows from it.  I have plenty so I measured my window and went to work!

1.  Cut your fabric to fit your window, giving yourself about an inch extra on each side.  I purchased the tension rods from Target, Heat and Bond from Joanns.

2.  Place heat and bond about an inch below fabric. I first ironed about a one inch hem.  The directions on the back of the Heat and Bond are very easy to follow, this was my first time using it.

3. & 4.  Iron fabric down, gently folding a small piece in to create a nice clean edge. Sorry, this picture sucks...


5.  For the top edge, I wanted to have a space to slide the tension rod in.  So I made a hem about 2 inches (sorry, I was working upside down on my ironing board, this is the top part of the shade).

6.  I measured about an inch from where I ironed to figure out where I wanted the Heat & Bond to go.  Then I carefully ironed that seam, making sure I had at least an inch opening for my tension rod.

 Once all the seams were cooled, I hung my shade using 1 tension rod. 




I then placed another tension rod about 4 inches below the top one.  And then the last tension rod about 4 inches below that one.  I then "roman-ized" my shade to my liking, adjusting the distance between the tension rods until I liked what I saw (sorry, forgot to take a picture of that part). 

Voila!  Easy Faux Roman Shade!! In less than an hour!



And here's one with my lovely vintage light on!



Monday, November 7, 2011

Changes are happening!

Yea for fall!  And yea for crossing a few items off my long to-do list!


  • paint A's big girl room
  • organize kid's closet
  • organize pantry
  • paint mudroom/build lockers
  • add some bling and accessories to piano room
  • finish organizing master closet
  • paint vanity in kid's/guest bathroom
  • convince husband master bedroom needs a face lift
  • purge toys in playroom and organize
  • figure out what to put over the couch...the wall has been sitting empty for 9 months already.
  • office/craft room needs help. lots of it. might have to save that for 2012!


  • So I guess I really haven't done as much as I would like but that's a start!  I painted Ava's room but need to finish it, the ribbon stencil was a complete fail (I love how idea pamphlets seem so much easier than they really are!).

    Hopefully I can get a few more things done before Thanksgiving!  And then lots more as we enter 2012!!

    Monday, October 31, 2011

    Locks for Love!

    I have to say, my daughter has the most gorgeous hair you have ever seen.  It's long.  It's thick.  And it has the most beautiful natural curls.

    But she hates it.  Or I should say, she hates having it combed.  Which means we are pretty limited on what we can do with it for she freaks out when she sees a pick, a comb or brush.  We go through lots and lots of leave-in conditioner and she still cries every time we need to pick through it.

    She has been begging me to cut it off for months.  So I told her once it was long enough to donate (because how can you NOT donate this mane of gorgeousness!!), we'd get it cut.


    I might have shed a tear or 2 upon seeing her beautiful curls being cut......  But like my very smart 5 year old daughter told me, "it will grow back, mommy."


    She's still beautiful and so wise beyond her 5 years!!


    Monday, October 17, 2011

    Tissue Poms Tutorial

    I'm having so much fun getting my daughter's big girl room put together!  I have finished painting the walls, however, the ribbon stencil just didn't go as planned.  So I'm not sure what I'll do about that. :)

    I've seen adorable tissue poms all over the party planning blogs and thought, these would be so cute as bedroom decor!  Etsy is overflowing with premade ones but those were a little out of my budget.  So I enlisted in my trusty googling skills and found a great tutorial here.

    I went to a few stores to find the colors I wanted. I gathered up my supplies and went to work!



    For the first pom, I used all 9 sheets of the light green tissue.  And did not cut them down, I wanted a larger pom.  I started on one side and folded the sheets like an accordion, about an inch wide.  I secured it in the center with white covered floral wire that I picked up at Michael's.  Next, I rounded the ends of each side.  You could do a heart, triangle or whatever look you are going for.  I wanted something soft for these poms.



    I then started to slowly separate the tissue apart.  I had a few rips but you can't tell at all once they are hanging!  I carefully attached my choice of ribbon (you probably could hang them with the white covered floral wire too but I wanted a little bling).   I'm assuming there must be an easier way to do this which is why I didn't take a picture....  I made 2 smaller balls, I just trimmed the larger sheets to a size I wanted.  Hang and admire their prettiness!


    Sunday, October 9, 2011

    Easy Fall Wreath

    I have always wanted a fall wreath on my door but wasn't a fan of the fake-flower-over-the-top wreaths that I have stumbled upon at various stores.  There are a lot of yarn type ones all over blogland but those just looked like too much work. :)  I knew I wanted just a bit of fall foliage and some hand-made-goodness!

    So I found a pre-made twig wreath at Michaels (or Joanns...who can remember where one gets her crafty stuff these days?).  I gathered my supplies and went to work.



    I googled "felt rosettes" to get an idea on how I wanted my flowers to look.  I had bought a fabric rosette necklace on etsy for way too much money and it broke the first time I put it on.  Which is fine, I looked ridiculous in it....  But I thought the flowers were cute so I hung on to it, I knew I could eventually use it somehow!

    I first cute my felt into various sized squares.  And then into circles.  I gradually went around in a loop so I had almost a snake looking piece of felt which made a perfect circle if I put it back together.  I was going to attempt another type of felt rosette with the long strips of felt but I didn't like how they turned out so I scraped that idea!



    I then started wrapping the felt into a rosette and placing little dots of clear tacky glue along the way.  I then hot glued it on a small circle of felt.



    Once completely dry, I set up the rosettes and simple-but-sparkly fall foliage I found on sale at Michaels on the wreath.  Once I liked the layout, I tucked the foliage where I wanted it to stay and hot glued the rosettes on to the wreath!  Voila!  Fall Wreath is complete!





    Friday, September 30, 2011

    Little Blue Pumpkins

    I spotted these super cute pumpkins recently in blogland and knew I had to create my own!  I love the non-traditional color and these will work perfect for Halloween and fall.

    This was my first time using crackle medium and I loved how it all turned out (although I spotted Martha Stewart Crackle paint at Home Depot and am wondering if it would have the same effect?)

    The supplies are simple: $1 store pumpkins and squash (I also picked up a bag of small ones), black spray paint, crackle medium and acrylic paint. 
    
    Spray your pumpkins with a few light coats of black spray paint (I tried it on the sparkle pumpkins but they didn't turn out so well....I might use those for another project!)



    Once completely dry, apple your crackle medium (you can find it by the acrylic paints).  I let the pumpkins completely dry overnight.  I mixed up my blue paints to the perfect color and started painting away. Once dried, I sprayed them with a clear satin gloss spray paint I had on hand.
     


    One thing I did that I wouldn't recommend is not painting the entire pumpkin.  I did the tops of them and then let dry so I didn't have to hold them.  Well....I ended up mixing more paint and the color wasn't the same.  According to the tutorial I followed, you can speed up the process using a hair dryer.  I'll make better note of that point next time!

    Here they are on in my house.  I don't have a fun mantel to decorate each season but I do have a piano so that is their current resting spot! :)


    Tuesday, September 20, 2011

    Making a List, Checking it Twice

    I'm in overwhelmed mode here at the Sparkle house.  I had so many projects I wanted to slowly work on this summer and I got through number one (paint kitchen cabinets).  A mighty big project that ended in early July. 

    So I want to make a list of projects and start working through them (as long as they fit into my non-existant budget).  Maybe in order, maybe not.  That's how I roll.

    • paint A's big girl room
    • organize kid's closet
    • organize pantry
    • paint mudroom/build lockers
    • add some bling and accessories to piano room
    • finish organizing master closet
    • paint vanity in kid's/guest bathroom
    • convince husband master bedroom needs a face lift
    • purge toys in playroom and organize
    • figure out what to put over the couch...the wall has been sitting empty for 9 months already.
    • office/craft room needs help.  lots of it. might have to save that for 2012!

    EEK!

    I have lots I want to do/accomplish this fall!  Hopefully I can keep my head on straight and slowly add a little TLC to our spaces!! 

    Thursday, September 15, 2011

    Big Girl Room is Coming!!

    Right now, my oldest son and daughter share a room.  It's time to move my youngest son in with his brother and let my princess have her own room.

    We have been talking up this change for months (A is not ready to leave her brother....she thinks she will be sad and lonely).  Her new room will be right across the hall.  I let her browse 100's of new bedding sets and we found a super cute pink and lime one at Overstock.Com.  We looked and looked at tons of new bedroom sets for her and just couldn't find anything we liked in our price range (even the "nice stuff" at HOM and Slumberland seemed cheaply made).  So I went online and found a nice set at JCP of all places!  Here it is:

    McKenna Beds 

    We The Husband put together the nightstand and chest last night and were both so happy with our purchse, it really is nice stuff!!  I still need to paint her room first which I'm hoping to start today.  I'm feeling pretty adverturous and think I'm going to attempt a picture I saw at Home Depot on her wall (although I would need to actually make the stencil for the ribbon....).

    Royal Ribbon Wall

    We will see if I have the patience or skill to complete it! :)

    Tuesday, September 13, 2011

    Kid's Bathroom Closet Reveal

     I have put the final touches on my kid's bathroom closet.  I'm not sure I like the storage bins I found, those might have to be relocated to another part of the house.   Plus I need to buy new towels for my kids and will eventually need to put those in here too.   I hid extra cleaning supplies behind the turquoise bins.  I also used a bucket I had in the garage to hold toilet paper for now.  There is such a large space under the last shelf, I'm not sure how to effectively utilize this space yet. :)

    I painted all the shelves and put them back in.  MUCH better!



    This closet had nothing on the floor so I used some cheap peel & stick tiles from Home Depot to cover the stained mess that once was here.


    I found some cute buckets at IKEA to hide all of my daughter's hair accessories.  I also put extra cotton balls and q-tips in one as well.  I would like to find a few more storage options that add a little sparkle to the closet, of course! :)

                        

                  BEFORE                                        AFTER                         





    Wednesday, September 7, 2011

    Kids Bathroom Closet

    I decided that I needed to utilize all my closet space now that my kids are getting older and have more stuff to store.  Their bathroom closet was a complete mess and a place where I put things that didn't really have a home.


    Yuck, right?

    So I purged what I could, removed the 40 year old contact paper and started to see the light.  I had some left-over contact paper from Target so I started adding that to see if I liked it.


    Me likey!  And so the mini-makeover begins!

    Monday, August 29, 2011

    Vacation Happiness

    We are all recovering from a fantastic family vacation in Northern Minnesota at Fair Hills Resort!!  All 5 of us had a great time and are already looking forward to going back next summer!!



    Thursday, August 18, 2011

    Ava's 5th Birthday Party

    Ava turned 5 at the end of June.  We celebrated at Daddy's fire station (he's a volunteer fireman). Thanks to etsy, I found the cutest pink fireman printables for her party.  She and her friends had a great time knocking down a cone with the hose, playing around in the fire trucks and dressing up in fire gear.







    Tuesday, August 16, 2011

    Kitchen Metamorphosis

    We I recently took on transforming our kitchen from old, dingy, standard honey oak cabinets to something that would actually make me want to cook. 
    I got the idea for opening the cabinets and the 2 different paint colors from my fellow Minnesotan, Layla at The Lettered Cottage (this girl & her hubby are amazing DIY-ers!).  With 3 kids running around the house, this was no easy task. It was a painstakingly slow process but I am in love with how it is all coming together!!  I still need to come up with some sort of backsplash behind the stove (there used to be an old double oven here back in the day).
    Here's a sneak peak!
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    Sunday, August 14, 2011

    Birthday Party!

    I love a good party!

    Today is Charlie's 7th Birthday Party at the Bowling Alley! I love planning and creating great events for my kids (and I am always thinking about how it will look in their scrapbooks!). Pictures to come soon!

    Thursday, August 4, 2011

    A whole new world....

    I always wanted to write a blog, to have a place to put all my creative ideas and projects in one place.  Somewhere I can go to motivate myself and motivate others.  

    It took me awhile to come up with the name...there were a lot of names I liked and a lot of unused blogs attached to them.   With a little creative help from my friend Leah, "And She Sparkled" was born.  I attempted to design this blog myself but realized, I'm just not talented in that department!  Maybe some day...

    Welcome to my little corner of the world.  Here we go!!