Before-The Teen Tornado

We have gotten to the point in my thirteen year old's life that she needs a change. I don't mean plastic surgery change, I mean room re-do change. Much less invasive.

Now, I'm putting it out there and showing you the before pictures as-is. My daughter is a typical 13 year old and her room is awful! So, try not to judge too much.

She hasn't had a room re-vamp since she was a young kid-probably 4-5 years ago. At that time, she wanted a jungle theme so we went all crazy with jungle. Doesn't look too great now but it was sooo cool in the eyes of an 8 year old.

Her room is really rather difficult to take pictures of. The bedrooms are small in our house and hers is a weird shape. It's not a typical square. Her bedroom door is on an angle and it makes it difficult to get a full pic with my crappy camera phone. Here's a basic mock-up of her room.

And her jungle theme is looking a little worse for wear. Plus, she added in all the One Direction posters (she's obsessed with that band) and it's official-she's outgrown her "kids" room.

So, we started hunting for a new look. Her favorite color is turquoise blue and it seemed a logical place to start. And since she only halfway cares about decorating I figured I could pretty much have free reign over it as long as I didn't make it too girly=aka PINK (Monkey's a bit of a tomboy).

Since summer I have been obsessed with turquoise and coral so that's what I decided to go with (not too pink!!!). And she okayed the color pallet. I started pulling pics for inspiration.

Here are the pinterest pics I found. Some have pink but can easily be adjusted:

via etsy

via simply-designgirl (for bedding)

via migonishome

VIA houseofturquoise

As you can see I started veering toward that light blue/green seafoam-y color. But my bedding choice brings back the true turquoise for her (which I've failed to take a pic of).

My plans are to paint her twin bed a color similar to the twin beds above and her dresser that awesome pop of coral. I hope to start her room re-do this weekend (but it won't be done for several weeks). I wanted to show you before pics and inspiration pics. Hopefully the final result will be awesome!

Cross your fingers for me! :)

Opinions on voting and whiskers on minions...

Lines at the polls and the lies of politicians...These are a few of my least favorite things.
::::sung to the tune of My Favorite Things from Sound of Music::::

Okay, well, Julie Andrews would be appalled by my rendition but it's all I've got.

I certainly wished that I was frolicking through the hills instead of waiting in line for an hour this morning. LOL!

Just wanted to put in a quick word to say I hope everyone voted today. I'm not the least bit political but I do my part when necessary. I got in line at 630 am and there was already a line out to the road (thank goodness I got a coffee and danish beforehand!).

And the line behind me got longer very quickly!

 

 



It was a pretty dreary day here as well. Which was no bueno when it came to waiting in a line without an umbrella.

The helper at the door passed out umbrellas though. He was very helpful.

Although it took me awhile I felt extraordinarily patriotic filling out my ballot. And luckily, I got the prize at the end of the rainbow:

It's really all about the sticker for me anyway.

Halloween...scare tactics 2012

This year for Halloween Luhvah decided to go scary. Our neighborhood kids are getting to the age where little scares them so he decided a creepy clown would be the ticket. We love making homemade costumes. Of course, for me, it's to see how cheap I can possibly make something. For Luhvah's costume we gathered everything from the dollar store and thrift stores. The most expensive thing we got was the bald cap at a Halloween store for 10.00 (ouch!). We made the hair with spider webbing and red spraypaint. His costume came in total to about 20.00. And most of that was the cap. Anyhow. After the whole night was over Luhvah realized he forgot his red nose! Oh NOES! It would have been so much better with it (we bought it but he forgot to put it on in the chaos of the night). Here are the results:

 I edited to show a red nose. Look how much better it woulda been!

I decided to scare it up a bit myself by painting my face. Also, I made a skeleton shirt copying one I found on Pinterest (what the heck did I ever do before pinterest?). Total was only 1.50 for the shirt to rip up (bought at thrift store).

What does it say that I no longer take pictures of my daughter in her costume for Halloween? That she's a teenager, that's what it says. She's too busy running out the door with her friends for me to grab a pic and by the time I remember she's long gone!
This year she was Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games). Easy and cheap. I only had to buy her a jacket (thrift store-7.00). She had everything else (including bow/arrow).



Oh, and on a side note...Pinterest fail=

Water balloons with glow stick inside hanging in a stocking. I only spent 4.50 on this project so luckily it wasn't a lot out of pocket. But the glow sticks weren't bright enough to see through the balloon (which were white). Maybe I need clear balloons-and more glow sticks in 'em. I still like the idea. Maybe I'll play with it next year.

Hope you had a Happy Halloween- I'm off to eat some candy!

Breast Cancer Awareness-Winner!!!!

We won! If ya don't know, we had a contest at work for decorating a pumpkin for Breast Cancer Awareness month.

Our lovely lady won the contest! What did we win? A pizza party for the whole dept. Which, of course, all the guys will love up here.

Now, time for my acceptance speech. ::::clearing throat:::: Ahem,

              "Thank you, Thank you. I would first like to say that this is not something that I could do on my own (oh yes I could). Many, many people contributed to the success of our hooker cop. I'd like to thank my wonderful friend Rachael, without which I could not have come up with such a great idea (heck, half the idea was hers peeps!). And my husband, who mostly always supports my cocamamie decisions even when they are insane a little out there. My boss, who did not dissuade us when we set her up at the front desk for all to see as they came into the station. And last, but certainly not least, our Chief of Police for not having a heart attack when he laid eyes on his "new employee" (Chief can be quite, ahem, conservative and a bit taciturn so the number one question each and every officer asked when they saw the pumpkin cop was, "Has Chief seen it yet?!!!"). But really, little people my lovelies, it was a pleasure just being nominated (no it wasn't, I was in it to win it!). I mean, you like me, you really like me!"

I promise this win will not go to my head. I am still the down-to-earth loveable (sorta) person I was yesterday. Now, excuse me while I go call my entourage. I need someone to pour me another drink.

Birthday Care package!

October is my birthday month and I love nothing better than getting a bunch of presents and attention! (What can I say? I'm a materialistic attentionwhore.)

After a hard days work it was an awesome surprise to come home to a great big box from my best friend who lives a bajillion miles away in Hawaii. Which totally blows but I guess she's living it up Hawaiian style so she sent me a little piece of her homeland.

First, i love a bunch of individual presents to open. Feels sooo special to find out whats in each and every package. She had them all wrapped with little notes attached.I can't tell you how fun it was to open them all and read the responding note.

 The first present I opened was a beautiful headband made out of swarovski jewels---soooo pretty. I forgot to take a pic of it but I plan to wear it soon so I'll take a pic when I do!

Then I opened these additional presents:
Home fragrance from a spa she works for-this stuff smells heavenly. Like, omgoshsoooogood. I won't use it until after the holidays but it will be the perfect spring smell to make my whole house smell divinely expensive and beautiful:

The note she attached with this present below says, "Ask me about this next time we talk!":

 I love it! I am blogging before I've even talked to her so I don't even know the backstory to tell you. LOL

These were a deck of cards...but of course I just had to get the attractive pic out there...How's about 52 copies of him? Le sigh:

 

Then:

 

 

Like my fat arse needs chocolate macadamia anything. But yum!!!!

I love this next gift...I don't even think she knows how much I have a thing for lil' turtles! Love. This is why my BFF's nickname is Kindred. We are Kindred Spirits-she gave me a turtle without even knowing I'm crazy about 'em. Kindred says they are called Honu's (turtles) and so his name will be Honu (oh and you can kinda see the headband she got behind him!) Plus, another cool thing-he glows in the dark!:

Some pretty nail art:

 

 

Last gift is a set of smelly goods from her spa--awesome stuff. All of it smells great! 

My favorite note was attached to this one. It pretty much is the epitamy of  how we are with each other:

I tell you this note almost made me tear up --I miss her sooooo much!!!!! How can a note like that make me teary-eyed? LOL. MISS YOU KINDRED!

She's an awesome friend and I hate that she's soooo far away. I loved all my presents and can't wait to use them all!

Happy Birthday to me!!!

Breast Cancer awareness

This month is Breast Cancer Awareness month and every Friday has been dedicated to wearing pink to celebrate (celebrate...is that the right term? Seems wrong). Anyhow.

Our admin asst. came to us and said they are having a contest to see which department can decorate a pumpkin the best for the event. They even gave us a "starter" kit with a pumpkin, some beads, glitter, glue, stickers, paint, etc. Here is what we came up with:

She's our police lady fighting for a cure. Of course, Luhvah and my friend's significant other says she looks like a hooker police cop (or sexy police woman).  She's still cute. Of course, we couldn't keep with the "starter" kit and had to go buy more stuff (25.00 worth of crap. OUCH!) But it was fun.    

Here is Rach with our lady friend. We really need a name for her. I'm thinking Bond Girl names---Officer Pinkchest?

I heard they are having prizes but I have no idea what they'll be. Cross our fingers we win!

Halloween mantle-2012

Halloween is right around the corner. October always seems to go by so quickly I never have enough time (probably because it's fall and I want to savour every last moment of everything autumn...so it rushes by too fast for me).

I had my fall mantle up a few weeks back:

But as I already said, I wasn't fully pleased with the results.

I told you I would get back with you on how I played with it. And I didn't. But I did play a little and left it all together dissatisfied again (first world problems, I know!).

Not really better. But then I left that a week and decided to come back and revamp for Halloween.

I went to the dollar store and bough the 3 birds and the netting/cloth. Everything else I already owner from previous years.  The picture is something I pinned from pinterest:

I love it for some reason (prob the black cat!) I distressed it with paint to give it an aged feel.
I also pinned this:

I replicated it by filling some dirt and glitter in a jar and making the distressed label:

Quick tutorial on how I "distress" this:
1) Print out in whatever font you prefer for the size you need. Tear off of paper for size. (more haphazard the better)

2) Take acryllic paint in brownish color and dilute greatly with water. (Note: people stain/distress/discolor things easily all the time with tea or coffee. But I wasn't gonna brew any just for these small projects)

3) Paint quickly on your paper and wipe away:

4). Burn edges. The best way I've found is using my burner on the stove. It gets the look I want better than using a cig lighter or match (which just burns the paper down rather than smoking the edges):

I adhered the label to the bottle with tape. Easy peasy.

So far, these are the only Halloween decorations I have up! Oh noes! I meant to do more on the outside but I was pretty busy this weekend and didn't get a chance.

I did a spooky look on my picture which makes it look pretty cool:

I will post more Halloween decor hopefully this weekend!