Califor-ni-a, Here We Come!

Doug and I haven't been away from the kids, other than a few dates (way too few) since before Bonnie was born, twelve years ago. Okay, almost twelve years. I have been known to exaggerate.

This weekend, Doug has a family affair in CA, so we're ditching the kids, courtesy of a few relatives and friends who are kind enough to welcome an extra child or two for a few days, and driving away. Ten hours away, to be exact. Oh, my.

So it's out to Los Angeles on Friday, play on Saturday, and back home on Sunday. Should be a wild ride. But we'll never have to answer the question, "Are we there yet?" or hear, "Mom, I have to go now!" It's a stunning thought, really. 

Pinterest and Paper Scraps

Pinterest is truly the best time-waster out there. Love it.

I spend many hours pinning things I see on the internet, and enjoy being able to find those things quickly when I want to go back to them. Do I ever do anything real with them? Well, let's just say I finally have crossed the line from pinning to doing.

Happy dance.

This is what inspired me:

From http://indiefixx.com/

One day, after reading the blog Young House Love, which I thoroughly recommend, I decided to take their Pinterest Challenge. This challenge is designed to get you moving on creating, and it was time for me. After looking at the original picture, I decided to use magazines (books can also be used, but that feels like sacrilege) and cut 1-1/2 inch strips.

Super easy. I used my home magazines, since I have so many of them waiting to be read. What can I say, I've been trapped in a novel series for the past month, so they've been piling up.

Then I made different-sized loops with said magazine strips, using the kids' glue sticks that I stocked up on when school was starting. Amazingly, there are some of those glue sticks left.

I also printed out a copy of the original picture, and used a colored pencil to mark the loops I had completed. Once all the loops were glued together, I was at a new dilemma: how to actually mount this thing to the wall. It's pretty flimsy, being made out of magazine paper and all. Doug suggested some veneer that he had left over from the bookcase he made.

That looked okay, but I wasn't sure how to adhere it to the board. So we went to Michael's and found a spray adhesive, along with a matte sealer. The sealer is to finish the thing off. So, for a total of $11, I figured we were pretty close to being done.

Then I remembered a picture I had in the basement. It used to be on the walls that I am painting (yes, still working on the second coat), and it isn't my favorite. So I turned the print upside down, and viola! A frame with a white background.

With a little spray adhesive and the sealer, this is what I finally had:

And now it's on the wall (one that has two coats of paint on it):

It looks almost silver, and the glimpses of color help break up the monotony of my current monochromatic scheme. A finished project!!!

Now, that doesn't happen every day.

A Place for Everything

And Everything in its Place...and every time I hear that I want to smash something.

I read an article a while back that "15 minutes a day" could keep your home clutter-free. Once you get it perfect (the author declined to say how long that would take), only 15 minutes would keep it that way, if you "kept on top of it". I'm guessing the author doesn't have five kids and a husband who keeps everything in piles. Or maybe she's just more of a dictator than I am.

It would be nice to have everything in a place. My poor place doesn't have a home for everything, though. I know, whine, whine, whine. Someday it will, I swear.

Doug really wanted a bookcase for our bedroom. I wanted built-ins that have doors so that little hands do not continually take down books. Since Doug is the one actually making the bookcase, he won. Or at least, the newly-made bookcase is now in our room. It is still unpainted, therefore temporary, in my opinion.

A very impressive one-day project

And wouldn't you know, Sophia has applied herself diligently to the task of taking those books down. Every day. Sometimes more than once a day. So why didn't we just leave them on the floor? That's my question.

I tried to "catch" Sophie in the act, but this is what I got.
Sad that most of this mess cannot be attributed to Sophie.

Although we can always use a bookcase, so I'm not really complaining...this one will have a home. Just not always in my room, I'm thinking.