Good morning! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Ours was productive. But before I get to that I have to tell you that my guest post for Elizabeth at the Chasin' Mason Blog on being a mom to boys is up on her site! Here's the link. Go check it out. ;) On Saturday Daniel and I (I was mostly his gofer) installed new laminate flooring at my mom's house. My grandparents are coming down for Christmas so she wanted to cover up the concrete that was left after she pulled up her nasty carpet. We installed the darker stuff. Eventually she'll do that throughout the house but it's better than what was there, for now. Only took us 6 hours to do but man were we exhausted afterwards. If that weren't productive enough, yesterday we finished painting all our kitchen cabinets!!! Hooray! Just need to touch up a couple spots by hand and attach the pulls on the pantry doors and we'll be done done. After Christmas we'll tackle the back splash which should only cost us about $40 and should be able to be finished in one day... That's the plan anyway. LOL You know what they say about "best laid plans" though. We're making headway on our kitchen remodel on a dime, thank Gawd. I'm taking till after the new year to relax and enjoy the fruits of our labor. I think we've earned it. Anyway, that's about it for now. Probably won't hear from me till after my "vacation". Until then, have a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! With love, Holly

Howdy!

My husband is finally home, hooray!  Three weeks he's been gone.  THREE WEEKS!  It was awful. LOL  I planned to be productive this weekend, really.  BUT our house had different ideas.  An idea like a busted pipe which soaked through the drywall on the stairs and soaked the carpet too.  Yay! Not.  Here's the area that was sopping wet.  See the paint bubbling up?  Yeah, awesome.


Luckily I'm married to Superman and he happened to arrive home in the nick.  Wait, you wanna take off the cabinets I just lovingly painted and caulked?   Noooo! 

Waaaa! :'(

I was so scared but in the end there wasn't much damage done.

Found the leak!

Fun with soldering

My poor kitchen

The worst part of this whole fiasco was the dust created by cutting drywall.  Yuck!  Looked like it snowed in my kitchen.  No bueno. 


Got it all patched up after we let it dry for awhile.  I left a handy note on the first hole we cut which wasn't in the correct place.  Now it's a drywall time capsule. ;) That was our fun this weekend.  After cleaning the kitchen up I was drained so we did a lot of vegging out the rest of the time.  Walking Dead marathon, that sort of thing. 

In other news, I called to order a medium pizza and 24 piece wings yesterday and it was 40 bucks!  I said never mind and headed to Stater Brothers instead.  Got 2 pizzas and a bag of wings for $17.  Much better.  $40 is insane.  Just insane.  Couldn't do it.

I got a happy surprise yesterday when I got an email notifying me that someone left a comment on my blog.  Turns out Miss Elizabeth over at www.chasinmasonblog.com (wife to my friend Seth from high school) wondered if I'd like to guest blog on hers next month!  She does a segment on Mondays, #boymoms where guests write about being a mommy to boys.  Seth told her that I had a blog and boys, maybe I'd be interested...  And boy am I!  I'm so excited, I can't tell you.  Fun stuff!  I'll be doing that on December 15th so be sure to check it out.  Of course I'll remind everyone (all 3 of you) when it happens.  ;)

It has prompted me to analyze my blog though and I've come to realize that it's quite unprofessional looking.  She couldn't even email me because I don't have a link to it on here.  Der.  Lucky for me my friend Tracy who is my partner in Pinterest crime just happens to have a degree in marketing and is really great at html and whatnot.  She's agreed to class this joint up soon so be on the lookout for my blog makeover. 

Next weekend the fam and I will be heading to Lake Silverwood to camp and fish.  Super excited for that too.  Been a long time since we've gone camping.  The boys are at a better age than they were last time we went camping in Pismo Beach. 

Anyhoo, that's all for now. 
Peace!

♥ Holly ♥

Hi there!

I was very busy this weekend, playing hand-ball with the boys, crafting, painting cabinetry, painting our mantle, cutting in the paint on the ceiling...  So much painting.  *sigh*  My wrist hurts.  But all the kitchen cabinets are done!!! With the exception of some doors/drawer faces.







Such a relief!  Once the ceiling and the rest of the cabinet doors are done I'll be a seriously happy lady.  I'm putting Daniel right to work when he gets home this weekend. ;)  That'll teach him to leave me for 3 weeks to rear our children and fix up the money pit house.  Ha Ha

Saturday night my pal Tracy came over for some wine crafting and musical watching.  First, we made giant letters, inspired by this Pinterest post:

 Here's my version:


I cut out the letters in cardboard and spray glued glitter to them.  We ran out of glitter. LOL Also I finished them with lacquer to make the glitter stay better and it didn't dry clear. :(  So they look unintentionally "frosted".  I'll pick up some more glitter and touch them up.  I'm gonna try them on a burlap ribbon.  Hopefully they'll look as classy as the Pinspiration when I'm done.

We watched Gypsy (the one with Bette Midler) and made coffee filter wreaths as well.  Once again, Pinspired.  The link I pinned didn't have great directions but I knew she used coffee filters and hot glue so we winged it.  I'm really happy with how ours came out!  Here's mine:


I got really big filters from Staples (of all places) and just folded them into triangles and hot glued the bottom to a cardboard ring that I cut out.  Easy peasy, except for the burns sustained to my fingertips.  That comes with the hot gluing territory though.  Gonna hit the dollar store for some sort of glitzy ornament to adorn this with.  Tracy suggested spray glitter but I think I like the clean look of the white.

I attempted to hang the wall art I made too buuuut I'm gonna have to wait for Daniel on this too.


Turns out that sign is very heavy.  Need his man-muscles to hoist that baby up.  Twas a bit scary up there. LOL I think it'll look great once it is up, can't wait.

This week I'll be in cleaning mode.  The house looks like a bomb dropped on it.  At least it was because I was getting stuff done, so I guess it was worth it.

Have a great week!
♥ Holly ♥

Hello y'all!
     I was a busy little beaver this weekend!  Halloween was easy peasy this year.  We went to our church which had a Trunk-or-Treat festival, complete with free  bouncers, cotton candy, kettle corn and beverages.  Didn't have to pass out candy, yay for me!  The kids had a blast too, they were Wolverine and Spider Man.

Jack (left) and Dylan (right)

At the last minute I was inspired by my holey jeans and went as Garth from Wayne's World.

Scarily close... LOL

Good times!  Love it when I can whip up a free costume.  The boys were only like $15 each at Costco so we got off pretty easy this year.

In other news, I was inspired last week by a sign I saw on Pinterest:

I had just the leftover piece of plywood for the job too!


I slapped some white paint on the board, not too perfect for a more "white washed" or distressed look.  I traced the lettering onto a piece of brown paper which I measured to be the same size as the board, used clamps to attach the paper to the board and cut out the letters with a box cutter.  Then I used paint that my mom had leftover from a bench she fixed up and a toll painting brush to fill in the letters.  Voila!


I changed "WATER" to "LAKE" since we live by the lake.  Now that it's dry I'll be sanding it a bit to distress it further and hanging it in a big bare spot above the stairs.  I'll be sure to post a pic once it's up.  I love the way it came out!  And I love FREE home decor, don't you?

Saturday night I had craft night with my mom and mother in law.  Inspired by another Pin, we made these:
It's not too early for Christmas ornaments, right??  I didn't think so. ;)  Foam balls, a little bit of ribbon to hang them, buttons and pins.  Super easy craft.  The boys each made one too.  As soon as they went to bed Friday night, I was watching cheesy Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel. LOL  Can you tell Christmas is my favorite holiday?? 

Saturday afternoon I also painted more kitchen boxes.  Only two small sections left and a few doors/drawers!  It's really coming along.  Can't wait till the hubby gets home from his work trip to see what I've done.  That's the only thing I like about him being away is the surprises I get to share when he returns.  Hoping to have all the boxes done by the time he gets back.

TaTa for now!
♥ Holly ♥

Hey guys!
   I've been pretty quiet this month, mostly because I haven't gotten much accomplished.  I didn't want to write a bunch of posts about nothing and waste your time. ;)

This past weekend we actually finished a whole section of cabinetry!

Really need to paint that ceiling... Sheesh.

I love the way this picture shows the "before" and "after".  Really quite a dramatic effect, if I do say so myself. ;)  I am so in love with them!!!   Seriously, look at the "before", basically anything is an improvement.

"before" caulking the seams

"after" caulking.

 A little bit of caulk goes a long way to improving the finished look.  So much better after.

Closeup

I like the way you can still see the wood grain.  Got new hardware too.  Just the cheap stuff that comes in 10 packs for contractors at Home Depot.  I forgot to take a pic but the old hinges were nasty.  I cleaned them and they were 10 times better but still ugly old brass.  Yuck. 

Just imagine how much better it'll look when they're all done, plus the backsplash and countertops.  I can see a light at the end of the kitchen makeover tunnel!  Haha  Every time I look at these cabinets it brings a big smile to my face.

Couple of notes:  I had to hand brush a few cabinets to touch up and they came out just dandy.  So don't be afraid to hand brush your cabinets.  Don't put polycrylic or anything on them.  Just leave it at 3 coats of paint.  You can always touch up.  The poly stuff I put on a few of these turned yellow right away.  Hence the touching up.  I also hand brushed the boxes and they came out perfectly.

Yahoo for progress!
Have a great week, y'all!
☺Holly☺

I hate, hate  to say this but my husband was right... and I was wrong.  Also, I'm sorry Daniel.  *smh*

Daniel hates Pinterest.  Hates it.  With a passion.  Sooo much.  LOL

The chalk paint is fine, there's nothing wrong with it, perfect recipe, go ahead and use it.  But  if you change your mind about using that technique because it's not the look you want after all, there are consequences.

First of all, it is not, I repeat not  to be used like a primer.  Regular paint does not adhere to it.  At all.  So if you choose to scrap the chalk paint, learn from my mistakes, and sand it or strip it all the way gone.  Here's a reminder of what that technique looked like.

First (and only) coat of chalk paint

It's great if you're going to use a wax finish and are going for that Shabby Chic look.  After I did the first coat, I thought, "Hmmm, why don't I just use regular paint now and roll it over the chalk paint?"  Terrible idea.  Luckily I only tried this on one section of the headboard.  Unfortunately it took me an hour of peeling and sanding to get it off of said section.  I would recommend having paint stripper on hand.  I did not, hence the hour of tedious work.  Daniel had a few choice words for me and Pinterest before I took over fixing my problem.


Like I said, if you're going to see it through, this technique is great.  If it weren't for the problems I created we had, this would have taken a couple hours to finish.  As it was, it took us all day.  We ended up spraying everything with the spray gun, which is so much easier than hand painting.  By the way, when I say "we", I mean Daniel.  Of course I forgot to take a "before" picture of the bedroom, but here's the final result. 

Need to move that picture now...

I love it!  It's way bigger than I expected but that's good.  We finally have grown up furniture.  Hurray!  Now we need to install our baseboards and hang things on the walls and we'll be done with the bedroom.  Oh, and still need to re-finish the nightstand.  Not 100% sure what I'm going to do with it but I'll tell Daniel I came up with the idea and not Pinterest. Shh, don't tell.  ;)

This was all on Saturday and Daniel also cut a piece of plywood for the kitchen counter which was a gaping whole for a few weeks.

On Sunday, Daniel sprayed the second coat on our first batch of kitchen cabinets.  Now they just need a coat of Polycrylic and new hardware and they're good to go!  Only a million more and the boxes to go.  Haha

Hope you had a great weekend, we were busy little beavers.  If we can keep up the pace, we'll have a bright white kitchen in no time.

♥ Holly ♥

Happy Thursday!  We made it over the hump, yahoo!

I had never had a fish taco until this year.  Crazy, but true.  A couple weeks ago Daniel decided to try to make some at home.  He got the recipe for the white sauce from our friend Michelle who works with him.  We made two tweaks, but first, here's the original recipe:

• fresh lime juice to taste (around 2 Tbs)
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 Tbs Sriracha or equivalent hot sauce
• 1/2 tsp crushed oregano
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp dried, crushed dill
• 1/2 tsp ground cayenne chile 
• ground white pepper to taste

All you have to do is mix the ingredients together in a bowl.  As for the tweaks, we don't have white pepper so he used regular old pepper and instead of sour cream he used plain Greek yogurt because that's what we had on hand.   Bonus!  Greek yogurt is fat free as apposed to sour cream which is not great for you. 

And the easiest part of all, the fish.  We just used Van de Kamp's Beer Battered Fish Fillet's.  Cook according to instructions and pop those babies in a fresh corn tortilla smothered with white sauce.  You can chop the fish up if you want, but we left them whole.  Add cabbage or salsa if you want, we used cabbage when we had these last night.  Sooo darn good.  Seriously, you have to try it.


Aren't I a great, professional photographer??

Okay, fine!  I stole this picture from Sunset Magazine...  Jeez.  This is basically what they looked like though. 

In other news, I went home at lunch and painted the other side of the headboard.  I had just enough paint to finish it, so the first coat is done.  The paint was pretty hard due to the fact that there's plaster in it and all, so I added a splash of water and stirred it up.  It was fine.  So it'll be ready to sand as soon as I get the opportunity.  Then I'll tackle the second coat and finish the thing.  I'm pretty sure I'm just going to spray it with the clear gloss I have after it's painted.  Basically because I'm lazy and I don't want to try other options.  Truth!  LOL

That's all she wrote!  For now.
♥ Holly ♥

Howdy!

So, I went home and didn't get all lazy yesterday!  Progress.  I bit the bullet and tried this awesome  Chalk Paint Recipe from Virginia over at Live Love DIY  using the following supplies:

• Plaster of Paris, which they have a our Home Depot but only in the 15 lb bags so I got this 4 lb container at Lowes.  
• Flat paint in color of your choice, I used white.
• water
• something to mix it all in 

 
The recipe is just 2 cups of paint, 2 tablespoons of water and 5 tablespoons of Plaster of Paris.  Then mix mix mix.  I used an oh-so-professional empty tub from Broccoli Cheddar Soup a la' Costco to mix mine in.  Worked like a charm, the tub and the recipe. ;) 

I just wanted to test it out so I used a brush.  Next coat I'll do a roller for the big sections and use the brush for the detail spots.

Here's a "before" pic

 Isn't it inspiring sitting there wedged between the weight bench and the boat?  I don't think so either.

 As you can see, there are a lot of brush strokes so I'll do a light sand with a fine grit sand paper before I tackle the second coat.


And yes, I wedged myself in between the headboard and the boat because, like I said, I just wanted to see how it worked.  I didn't have much time either because I did this before Back to School Night. 

Luckily I tried this really great crock pot roast beef recipe from Pinterest (natch) so I didn't have to make dinner.  Dinner was delish!  I highly recommend that recipe.  We put it over mashed potatoes.  Can't wait to eat my leftovers at lunch!  But I digress... I digress a lot. 

Anyhoo, the great thing about this chalk paint is that there is no prep to the surface involved.  I mean, I dusted the headboard off but that's all!  The paint dried really fast too.  I could have sanded it after dinner if we didn't have Back to School Night.  I plan on working on it some more tonight. 

Thoughts on the paint:  It's really thick and goopy so I wouldn't dare try it in my handy dandy sprayer.  Just in case.  Virgina at Live Love DIY doesn't even have a sprayer and she has done some really beautiful work, so I knew I could do it.  I have to play with the finish though.  With chalk paint you're really supposed to put soft wax on it afterwards but I heard that melts easily and our bedroom gets hot during the day so I'm afraid it would make a mess.  I have spray gloss but I dunno if that will look right with the finish of the chalk paint.  I don't want to lose the charm, you know?  So I'll be testing some spots, probably on the side of the nightstand, to see what looks and feels best.  Here is said nightstand:


Sorry about the crappy photos.  I took them before I left for work so I didn't have much time.  It's pretty good size and has 3 drawers.  The bottom "2" are actually one big drawer.  I plan on making chalk paint for this as well but in a different color.  Not 100% decided on the color yet.  Gonna change out the knobs too.

I'm really excited about this project because it's so simple and I think I'm gonna be able to have my headboard in the house by this weekend!   Yay!  *fingers crossed* 

Can't wait to finish so I can share the "after" pics!

Happy Hump Day y'all!

♥ Holly ♥

Hello all you cheerful Monday-ers!  Right??  Not so much, I know.  ;)

I promise I meant  to work on the kitchen this weekend... I swear.  We even went to Home Depot after church yesterday, so, see?  We got another can of paint for the cabinets and a sheet of plywood to fix the counter top that didn't work out.  Still so sad about that. *sigh* Our latest plan on that is to get wood looking tiles so the counter tops still look  like wood.  Those tiles are almost half the price of the granite tiles that I had my eye on.  Always looking to save some moolah, you know.

I finally uploaded the pictures from my good camera.  Here's the end result of the counter top.

Look at that crevasse!

We desperately tried to save her.

In the end she wouldn't be saved.  Oh well, I'm actually excited for the "wood look" tiles.  Better for food prep and cleaning. 

Current state of undress.

I had found a back splash that I loved a few months ago, seen here, but then I found this on Pinterest and fell in real  love. LOL  Daniel was like, "Oh helllll nah." at first cuz it's gonna be a pain in the you-know-what, but now he's just so over my going back and forth that he's finally said, "Whatever you want, but I'm only doing it ONCE."  Heehee, I'll take it!  I really wanted a back splash that went from counter top to cabinet bottom but the mosaic tiles would have been too expensive.  This way I get the farm-y look that I love and the full back splash for a lot less dinero.  I'm so excited, I can't tell you.  I just hope I don't get another wave of laziness crashing over me this weekend.  Imagine what we could do if we had the energy! Haha

Wish us luck... again.

♥Holly♥

Hello all!  We made it back in one piece!  Well two pieces since there's two of us but... you get the idea. ;)

New Orleans was cray cray.  Bourbon Street was like Vegas with terrible sidewalks.  Very treacherous.  Even if one wasn't drinking it's dangerous.  I have my fair share of bruises from tripping and falling.  Sidebar: for some reason whenever I fall people tend to reach out and grab the fleshy part of my arm between my shoulder and elbow (where a bicep should be) and I bruise like a peach!  I swear I don't get abused. LOL  Anyway, I digress.

Bourbon Street

I was surprised at how many people there were, considering it's the "off season".  Apparently during Mardi Gras it's shoulder to shoulder.  No thanks!  It was quite busy enough for me.

I'd have to say the best part of the trip was the food.

Crayfish

Crayfish for lunch one day, yum!  Spicy little suckers (the way they prepare them anyway).  We had these at Saints and Sinners which just happens  to be the restaurant owned by Channing Tatum...  Unfortunately he wasn't there. *sobs*  We also tried Gumbo, Jambalaya, Seafood Etouffee, oysters, Po Boys, shrimp remoulade, Muffaletta's, etc. while we were in town.  De-lish.  The remoulade sauce is made with German mustard which tastes a lot like horseradish.  I love me some spicy food (hello, I live near the Mexican border...) so if you're into that, I highly suggest a trip to NOLA.

We went on a plantation and a swamp tour one day near the end of our trip and it was a lot of fun.  Sorry about the crappy iPhone pics...

Oak Alley Plantation

I'm on a boat! An air-boat that is.

Isn't the swamp gorgeous?!

Gator alert

I must admit, when the gators started lazily swimming over to the boat I had my reservations. LOL  Until the guide explained just how lazy they are and that if you're bigger than them, they'll leave you be.  About 4 or 5 came up at our first stop, "begging" for food.  It's illegal to feed them though.  Obviously people still do or they wouldn't bother with us at all, according to our guide.

I don't have pictures but we also went on the Lord Chaz tour, which is a "haunted/vampire" tour.  I felt so bad for our guide, there were only 4 of us (on a Tuesday night) which included a teenaged boy with his grandmother.  And  none of us was drinking.  I imagine the tour is better for drunk people.  Being sober, it's just a lot of walking and hearing historical facts along with personal political opinions some alleged ghost stories.  If you're with a large group on a Saturday or something it may be worth it.  Not trying to diss it at all, understand me, but it just wasn't our cup of tea.

Overall I'd say I'd go back but maybe in a few years.  Six days is a long time to visit anywhere.  Luckily we took the day after off of work as well.  We didn't get home until 1am.  It was very nice to just cuddle with our boys and spend a lazy day with them.

Needless to say, this trip wiped us out so we haven't made any progress on our kitchen cabinets.  Hopefully this weekend.  I'll be sure to keep you posted!

I guess that's all, TTFN!

♥Holly♥

P.S. Here are two pics I uploaded from my good camera.

The Manning house!  We are huge Bronco fans so seeing Peyton's parents place is a big thrill. LOL

Anne Rice's digs.  Not too shabby.

Hola!  Happy Friday!

In exactly a week from today I will be on a plane to New Orleans!!!  Can't wait to post a blog entry on that  adventure.  And less than a week from today, next Thursday to be exact, Daniel and I will have been married for 10, count them, 10  years!!!!  I can't believe it's been that long.  It's surreal.  I swear I'm still 18. ;) 

Real talk, I was kind of depressed when I failed that test on Wednesday.  Mostly because that means I'm stuck where I am. *Le sigh*  BUT I bounced back pretty quickly.  I began writing a story yesterday, in fact.  I'm calling it a story because I don't want to say a book and end up doing nothing with it.  So far I have 4 pages, in one day!  *hugs self*  I'm excited about it.
  
I am biased think it's pretty good already.  I've re-read it a million times and it reads like any other book I've read before.  Meaning it seems like a real  book, written by a pro. LOL  So wish me luck and divine inspiration with that.  Could you imagine me, Holly Atwood from teeny tiny Brea actually getting a book published??  That  would be so cool.  Imagine me right now with my elbow on my desk and hand propping my chin up, dreamily gazing out the window at work. Haha

But I'm torn between doing house projects and writing!  Both feed my soul. Cheesy, but accurate.  Maybe I'll do a quick project when I get home and write this evening.  There ya go!  ;)

Hopefully I'll have some cool update on Monday for y'all.  Meanwhile, have a wonderful weekend!

♥Holly♥