mannerisms

I know I've said it before but seriously it's pretty amazing to watch a someone grow from this

To this:

In this process it's also interesting to see the different mannerisms that he picks up from the people he is around.  This past weekend everytime a question was asked to Ian and everytime and he responded with "no, I don't like it" he would shurg his shoulders.  Note we got this response when it came to swimming in the pool, eating, napping, etc. Marcus asked me where did he get that from and I responded with "hmmm...not sure" and shurgged my shoulders :)  I must now take credit for passing that mannerism onto my child.

cream to gray err...black and 3 trips to Michael's in one week

After lots of "we need too's, what about if we's" I decided to take the plunge. The plunge involved a trip(s) to Michael's, hot water, salt, gloves, and an under the bed tote container oh yeah and of course some patience (anyone know where I can buy that in bulk?).

The project was turning our cream roman shades into gray roman shades, easy enough right? Only easy of you have enough of all the supplies which is where the (s) in trip comes in.  Originally the goal was to dye them gray so 1st trip to Michael's I picked up 2 packages of gray dye and headed home.  I followed all instructions very carefully and when inserting the shade into the tote I found I needed more water (problem #1) well more water would then effect the strength of the dye so I used the 2nd package of dye. When I added the second package of dye and water I was unable to mix it very well due to the shade being in the tote already (problem #2) this resulted in a shade that was gray with darker gray spots very randomly throughout it.  I rinsed shade 1 and transported it very carefully down to the basement to hang dry (I could not get the shades off the rod and they do not fit in washer to properly rinse).  Since I had the tote out and I re-stirred the dye mixture I went ahead and inserted shade 2 and let it sit for the proper time that was on the package. Once time was up I took the shade out and rinsed it and took it down to dry.  Immediately I could tell my shades didn't match (problem #3) this was due to the dye mixture being a little weak for the 2nd round.  So in my 1st attempt I learned I need 2 packages of dye per shade. I let a day go by to re-evaluate and figure out a plan to correct this problem.  The only option I came up with was that they now just need to be dyed black it was the only way to garuntee they would match. So back to Michael's (trip 2), bought 4 packages of black dye 2 of one brand and 2 of another. Oh and I bought gloves this time as learned that slightly dyed finger tips are not all that attractive.

Round 2: I mix the dye packages of brand 1 and insert shade that was the lighter of the 2 grays.  After time was up I rinsed and hung to dry in basement and without it drying I knew that it was good.  Aahhh the feeling of relief knowing that one shade is DONE!! I dumped the tote and started all over again with brand 2 and shade 2, again followed all directions and when time was I up I rinsed and took it down to dry and I immediately noticed a small problem my blacks didn't match (problem #4).   Due to the different brands of black so back to Michael's we go (trip 3).  I don't waste anytime and start the process all over again for the second shade (I bought matching brands this time) Rite was the brand I went with.  So round 4 begins and finishes successfully. So about $20 and some time and we have new roman shades, I think I still saved some dough but might have lost some sanity and of course patience along the way but also learned some good lessons.

The before:

The during (round #1):

 The After:

The before and after:

The during




The after, after:

dresser project

Our bedroom is lacking storage we know what we want/need but we also know what our budget is small. We have a furniture piece in our garage from our bedroom at our old house but we painted it to fit the decor of that bedroom and it doesn't work with the decor in our forever bedroom. Now, yes we can sand it down and repaint it but finding the time and motivation at the same time is hard to come by and it's a little wider than we would like for the space we have. I've been stalking the Goodwills and St Vincent de Paul's this past winter and it's all about timing and my timing has been off.

Now, that the weather is improving garage sales are happening again those too are all about timing.  Well a couple weeks ago my timing was ON! There was one in our neighborhood so Ian and I stopped by and what do you know I found this guy:

Please disregard Ian's pose, he was apparently practicing his downward facing dog yoga pose.  Anyways back to the find, I picked this guy up for $20 talked them down due to the missing hardware.

After $57 and some circular elbow action we now have this:

The previous owner was a smoker and if you have never had to deal with furniture smelling of smoke I don't suggest you go out looking for a piece. We picked up a stripper product made by Zinsser to assist in not only removing the previous finish but also in hopes of removing the scent that came with it. It took approximately 4wks from its arrival to our house to finished product, the airing out time and the stripping product both assisted in removing the smell.  I wanted a dark finish so I went with Ebony and after what seems like 20 coats it was time for some polyurethane which would seal the stain.

Price breakdown:

Dresser: 20.00

Stripper: 14.00

Stain: 15.00

Hardware: 22.00

Polyurethane: 6.00

So here again is before and after:



who wears short shorts?

The answer to that question is ME!!  And thanks to  crowdtap and Old Navy  I was lucky to got to get a new pair for FREE.  Seriously if you want free and haven't tapped in you are missing out so click on the link above for Crowdtap and start!

I knew for one I needed new classic khaki/neutral shorts as mine were non-existent in a size that was flattering (they were too big). I first tried on these but they were a little too long for my liking the title of this post does contain the words short shorts:

5in inseam khaki shorts

So I knew the next pair would be these, classic but shorter.

Women's Perfect Khaki Shorts (3-1/2")



I went with the above but in the color of rifle gray (I must admit I'm slightly addicted to the color gray and not just in clothing but in wall colors and home decor. Problem? I say not), you can picture that color right? If you can't here's what it looks like:

Not only did I get my choice of a pair of Old Navy shorts but I also got to give a coupon to a friend of my choosing and I choose Lauren (fellow co-worker), just like me her shorts from last summer are a couple sizes too BIG!!  She ventured into our Old Navy and picked up these cute shorts (only in white):



women's cuffed tie-wasit twill shorts

We're both pretty excited to wear our shorts this summer, the temps are warming up!!