Easter Egg BLING!

This could also have been called "Not Your Mother's Easter Eggs."  Nothing against YOUR mom, of course.  You know what I mean.  

I was in the grocery store and saw Family Fun magazine's Easy Crafts for Kids.  I thumbed through it for a minute and saw that they had a little section on different ways to decorate Easter eggs with your kids. You know... put rubberbands around them before dying them,  roll them across bubble wrap which has a layer of craft paint on it, etc.   One of the suggestions was to do this:

Put glue dots all over the egg and then douse in glitter.  It looked adorable!  And it got me thinking (p.s. I love my daughter's chipped fingernail polish and digging-for-rocks-dirt-under-nails look).

I then came home and got cracking on making some spiffier eggs.  Spiffy is my Dad's favorite word, and for good reason.  Say it out loud.  Spiffy.  SPIFFY.  SPIFFY!!  See?

So I had a TON of those dense styrofoam eggs I had gotten on clearance last year after Easter.

They are cute, traditional and look adorable in glass vases.  I decided I could sacrifice a few to give them new life and make them EGG-stra special (couldn't resist, sorry).  I'm sure any of these things could be done on actual hard-boiled eggs as well.

To begin with I painted the eggs some bolder/fresher colors.   

Sticking the wooden skewer in them was a life saver.    I also spray painted some to see how the shinier look would be.  Both ways worked great.  It all depends on the look you're going for.   The skewers were also nice for letting them dry.  I figured I'd either cover the holes later or no one would see them when they are nestled down in a basket anyway.  Doing this with hard-boiled eggs is not recommended. :)

When the paint dried, the bling-ing began....

Bling Treatment #1

Metallic Flower 

Need: metallic craft paint, wooden skewer, various craft/scrapbook gems (I'm sure you have some in your stash)

Dip the blunt end of your skewer in the paint and dot it on the egg 5 times to form a flower.  With the paint still wet, add a gem to the center.

Repeat until you get the look you want. Different paint and gem colors create totally different looks.

Bling Treatment #2

Metallic Paint Dots

Need: Metallic paint, wooden skewer

Same idea as the flowers but even easier & faster!  Just dip the blunt end of the skewer in the paint to make cute dots all over.  

Bling Treatment #3

Simple Vinyl Designs

Need: vinyl designs from Silhouette or other cutting device.

A simple monogram is classy.

Adorable bunny shape.  

Although, next time I would probably cut him a little smaller as it was tough smoothing him out around the curve of the egg.  It's still not totally smooth actually.

One of Silhouette's borders wrapped around the egg is TDF.

Bling Treatment #4

Vinyl plus Gems!

This was the obvious next step, right?  

 

And after a couple hours of really fun crafting you end up with this!

I love my new spiffy eggs.  

Will you be spiffy-fying or is traditional the way to go?  Any other ways to spiffify?  Please share!

Linking Up to:

Tatertots & Jello

Remodelaholic

Lovely Crafty Home

At the Picket Fence

Amaze Me August

The Shabby Nest

Tip Junkie

I Heart Naptime

Flamingo Toes

Craftomaniac

The Girl Creative

Made By You Monday

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Reasons To Skip the Housework

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner

Me + fetal position + corner of my bedroom = what I've been doing for the past few days.

You guys!! 

 I have been completely overwhelmed by the response I've gotten to my blog. I mean, COMPLETELY overwhelmed.

::pointing at my heart:: You all have a little piece of this.

Unreal.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I wish I could get the husband to fork over a Target gift card to each of you but since that would be $7200 I'm guessing he'd say no. Party pooper!

In the mean time ONE of you is about to become $50 Target Bucks richer...

That's Ashley who said "Oh this is like my favorite giveaway EVER! $50!!! WOW!! Thanks, 

exciting and go 100 followers!!

Ashley has an awesome blog herself... click here to peruse its delightful contents!  And I think she's even located here in the Denver area... what the?  ::giving her the secret Denver handshake that you outsiders wouldn't know::

So, Ashley, email me your home address so I can drive by your house send you your Target gift card!  Just promise me you won't spend it on groceries or tampons or anything like that.  It has to be on something you've had your eye on but could never justify it.  K?  K. 

landeeseelandeedo at gmail dot com

Thanks again everyone!  You're the best followers on the internet.  And for sure the smartest.  And I mean that.  

Wait...what??? [a.k.a.my 1st giveaway!]

****This giveaway is now closed.  Check back soon for another fabulous giveaway!****

100+ followers in just over a week???  Are you kidding me?

If this isn't a record don't tell me because that's what I've been telling all my friends and family.  Let me recreate the scene for you...

Me: Guess how many followers I have now?!?

Friends/family: Um, like, 40?  

Me: No,  over ONE HUNDRED!!!  I'm pretty sure it's some kind of record.

F/f:  Probably not.

Me: ::doing the mom face::  Sshhhh.  Just let me have this.

Aaaaand scene.

So, due to my extreme delight and elation I've talked my husband into sponsoring a giveaway for me to celebrate!  And, after some threats coercing, he lovingly obliged.

Who doesn't love Target, right? I have a personal goal of one day getting out of there under $100.  I'll let you know when that happens.

I'm sure you know how these things work by now!  To enter:

1. Become a public follower (and I, in return, vow to not make you regret it)
2. Leave a comment.  It doesn't even have to be a nice one although I'm starting to think crafty blogland is incapable of being anything but nice & supportive.
3. I'll announce the winner on Friday!!

Thank you so much to all my current followers & future ones.  Much like Edward (the movie one) said to Bella... you're like my own personal brand of heroin.

Ha!  I kid.  I kid.  Kind of.

The Kitchen Gets Some Love

It's hard to believe that just two weeks ago this was my kitchen.

Absolutely NOTHING was going on in there.  It was the same beige/taupe/boring as the rest of the house.  It's a nice functional kitchen, yes, but what was in there that made me want to hang out in there?  Oh, that's right.  Nothing.    And I also realize that a pristine white kitchen is all the rage right now but I don't have one so I needed to work with what I have.  Truth be told, I love my cabinets.  I don't for see ever switching them out, but don't hold me to that.

And here's what it looks like today!

Here's how it all went down...

So I wanted to add some pizzazz without having to do a ton of work or having to spend a lot of money.  What to do...what to do.....  I then ran across this post at House of Smith's (as I'm sure many of you have).  The quatrefoil caught my eye and got my wheels spinning.  I was thinking about painting the design but knew that it would be tough getting it right.  I thought about stenciling but all the quatrefoil stencils I've seen are HUGE and I wanted them to be quite small.    So I too decided to do it in vinyl.  Then I could do whatever size I wanted and it would be easy to put up.

Having an amazing SIL with a thriving vinyl business helped me decide to go this route as well.  She loves all my ideas even though sometimes she should probably go "Really?  You really want to do that?"  But she doesn't.  She's my biggest and most supportive fan, that one!    I'll tell the costs later but I think you'd be surprised how inexpensive this route can be.   ***EDIT*** It is now available for purchase in our new Etsy shop!  Find it HERE.  

First I painted the backsplash a nice gray (Valspar Montpeilier Ashlar Gray).  I thought it would tie in nicely with the gray in my countertops as well the appliances and hardware.

Side note (I'm a fan of side notes, btw): While I was laying on my back on my cooktop to tape off underneath the microwave I noticed this:

Um, what?  Those filters should be cleaned ONCE.  A.  MONTH??  Are you kidding?  I think I'm more on the once-every-five-years-filter-cleaning program so I have until ::checking calendar::  April 10th of this year to get it done!  Do any of you clean your fan/hood filters once a month?  Wait, maybe I don't want to know.

End side note.

After the paint was sufficiently dried & cured I then began applying the vinyl.

I used an exacto knife to cut around outlets and for the small amount of overhang at the bottom.  It cut it like buttah.

The one area I was a little worried about (for the vinyl's sake) was the area by the cooktop.  I've had some minor to extreme cases of tomato sauce splattering and other cooking disasters we won't get into here.  I was also worried about the heat.  My solution?  To hang a picture there.  I figured I could wipe that down fairly easily and it would protect the vinyl there in the hottest area.    I spray painted & glazed the frame to get just the look I wanted.  

And I put in a goofy picture of my kids that I absolutely love.  Looking at that picture makes stirring a pot much more enjoyable.  

And in the bloggyland way of full disclosure, here is my desk area right now...

Uh...yeah... tools still out, giant Sonic cup screaming that I have a slight addiction to Diet. Dr. Pepper, vinyl unfinished (my math skills once again proved unfavorable so I'm waiting for a bit more to arrive...oops), hair gel, garbage, etc.  It WILL get done but it's not quite yet.  Just thought you should know.

So that's it!  I am so so so pleased with how it turned out.  My kitchen actually has a little bit of a personality now and I have a "direction" to my decorating in there.  I have other projects in mind which will continue to customize the space to my liking.

Costs:  One pint of paint for about $15 (didn't even use half).  And the vinyl, without a family/biggest fan discount, would have been about $75 for all of that.  The frames were from Goodwill, totaling about $8.  $98 total!  

I really have a brand new feeling kitchen for under $100.  My husband was excited about that. :)

Here are the side by side before & after:

Thanks for looking!  

Look HERE to see where I'm LINKING up!

PS Enter my 1st Giveaway HERE!  

White Chocolate Orange Cookies

I'm a cookie girl.

If there is a table full of goodies-- cupcakes, brownies, cookies, candy, and whatever else someone can dream up-- I'll go cookie every time.  Probably several times.

Cookies are the perfect treat.  They don't require a fork or even a plate.  Definitely no napkin if you eat them right.  You can eat 3-4 cookies and no big deal.  Eat 3-4 cupcakes and what are you, some kind of pig??  Geez, Oinky.

So today I share with you one of my favorite cookie recipes.  It's like eating an orange roll in cookie form...with a little white chocolate thrown in.  Deeeeelish.  And borderline fancy.  People will be impressed, is what I'm saying.

Click HERE to download the PDF of this recipe if you wanna.

White Chocolate Orange Cookies
[makes 3 dozen]

1 C. butter (not margarine, never margarine)

½ C. white sugar

½ C. brown sugar

1 egg

2 ¼ C. flour

¾ t. baking soda

½ t. salt

2 T. grated orange peel*

2 C. white chocolate chips

Mix butter & sugars until creamy.  Beat in egg.  Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix in.  When you have a good dough consistency, add the orange peel and the white chocolate.  Bake 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.  Cool on wire racks.   

*I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to my Pampered Chef microplane tool here.  It makes grating orange peel a joy.  An honest-to-goodness joy.  And no, I don't sell the stuff but I do believe in praising a good product when I find one. So next time your sister-in-law is hosting a PC party and you can't figure out what to get to support her & help her get some free stuff, pick one of these bad boys up.  

Linking up to parties found here!

A Guest Room Spruce Up

I put a fairly high priority on having a guest room.  Whenever we've been house-hunting I'm always thinking "Ok, so we'll have this many bedrooms plus a guest room."  I don't know why I always need to have one... it's not like we even have that many guests!  I even make my boys, who have very different standards as to what a clean room is ::ahem::, share a room in order to keep my guest room.

Now that I think about it, it's probably so I can always count on having at least ONE clean room in the house at any given time since no one ever goes in there.   Yup, that's huge.

So yes, we have a dedicated guest room.  But how depressing was this?

Bedding which was bought for when our daughter was to move out of her crib into a big bed.  Our first little table we bought as newlyweds (so cute!) as the nightstand.  And a fabulous box of tissues.

Enjoy your stay!  Yikes.  No wonder we didn't have many visitors.

And of course it's all painted like every other "crisp khaki" wall in the house.  Neutral, neutral, neutral.

So my idea was to channel a little "hotel chic" into the room.  I wanted it clean.  Modern.  Bright.  And to not cost me a million dollars.

Here is the room today.

I based everything off of the curtains that I splurged on from Pottery Barn Kids which are no longer available.  They are that perfect spring green with white stripes and are dupioni silk.  Everything else was bought on the cheap. I promise.  I painted the white stripe around the room to play off the curtains as well.  

My next favorite thing was my Craig's List nightstand.  It was $30 (and was right here in my town which is a bonus considering the Denver area is HUGE) and I just painted it white and put new knobs on.  Remember when Target would do those World Market things in the back of the store?  Yeah, I scored that lamp at 75% off when they were taking one of those displays down.  I had to fight back tears of joy as I put it in my cart.

I also had built up a little collection of silver frames that I put on the nightstand.  For a little "personal touch" to my guests I will change out the pictures to photos I have of them.  Hopefully they are pictures of my family and their family together.   The grandparents love this, trust me.  And if I don't have any photos then they just get to enjoy the ones of the last people who stayed with us.  :)

And this is the part where I get sad that I had to move my chair from this corner down to the entry way.  Yes, it's perfect down there, but it was perfect up here too.  I'm now on the look out for another one that is similar.  The bummer is I found that back in the clearance section at Oak Express (totally random, I know).

So there is Landee's Guest room as it is today.  Some projects I want to do for it in the future are:

• Make some fun new pillow covers for the accent pillows on the bed.  For sure spruce up that bolster and maybe add some ruffles or something to the pillowcases.
• Find/refinish/customize a chair for that sad corner.
• Maybe build a headboard from some Ana White plans??
• Do something different for the decor above the bed.
• Find a cheap chandelier to paint and hang.

Easter Subway Art

What kind of copycat crafter would I be if I didn't try my hand at some subway art?

Confession:  I'm basically obsessed with it.

Here's what I love:

• It's easy.
• No messes.
• Completely customizable at the click of a mouse.
• Cheap.
• Did I mention no messes?

So here is my first attempt:

I slipped it in a spray painted Goodwill frame and boom! I suddenly have a hankering for a Cadbury egg.  

Click HERE if you want to download it (my first free printable!).  I did three sizes (16x20, 8x10 and 5x7) and two different color schemes.  They are basically the same but one is a bit deeper than your usual pastels.

 

If you decide to print it at Costco, make sure you click the "Auto Color Correct" function OFF.  It really does make a huge difference.  And, if you do end up using it I'd love a picture or a link back to see it!

Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Linking up to:

Blue Cricket Design