A $20 room makeover- the challenge

I am all about a challenge, a way to be creative and lately stretch a dollar as far as it can go! Enter in my personal challenge to spend $20 and decorate a room. I decided my boys room would be the best for this they had most of the furniture it would be mainly cosmetic I also decided I wasn't going to include the cost of paint in this challenge.

With visions of my Pinterest board floating in my mind ( See my board here )
I headed out this past weekend with my mom and a few of my aunts who came to visit, I left the kiddos with hubby and we hit the garage sales.

Only problem? What was suppose to be a few early morning showers turned into downpours at points until about four in the afternoon so I think many sales shutdown earlier than normal.

So needless to say my decorate a room in a weekend for $20 didn't happen....what did happen was some great deals including all three of these vintage books for $1 and a pretty solid elephant that my aunt picked up for the cause!





Am I defeated!?!? Heck no! I'm gonna shop the house find a few pieces and hit up a few more garage sales. It just means it will be a summer project versus the weekend project I was hoping for!

So with that friends, to be continued....

My Sunday

I love Sunday mornings! They always seem to be calm and relaxing and give my the optimistic view of, in the words of my daughter, " the best day ever!"

Slowly the day gets going but soon after morning the afternoons fly by and before I know it, it's dinner and I'm missing and longing for the feeling of a Sunday morning because I know the sun is setting and my rush/grind of a week begins again.

So for now I'm going to take an extra cup of coffee sit in the porch enjoy listening to the birds and my kiddos playing together sweetly and hope it lasts more than a few minutes. Happy Sundays my sweets, hope you get a Sunday morning feel all day!

Random Thoughts

Lots goes on around here on a daily basis, my random thoughts..... just a chance for me to dump out thoughts I have had:


{ I have a green thumb in weed growing *sigh* my cottage-esque garden with flowers all over did not happen this year so far.  I am finding this gardening thing is a process and will probably take years for me, living in Wisconsin has its drawbacks when it comes to gardening, too short of a season!}

{I love to bake and cook, I hate that it creates twice the amount dishes I want to deal with in a normal day!}

{I dont know why I thought it would be a good idea to cloth diaper all three boys, laundry, lots of laundry!}

{Potty training..... ugh}

{I had no idea radishes if left to grow will get really tall stalks with really pretty flowers, I have a new flower arrangement in the house, make lemonade out of lemons right?}

{If I do my hair or makeup my kids wonder where we are going, tells you I dont do my hair or makeup often if ever!}

{I love the summer nights, fireflies make such a dreamy ambiance in the backyard}

{the mantra in our house lately: talk in kindness}

{I love Cleo but boy is she like an old man when she is sleeping..... stinky toots}

And on that note..... I will call it a post!  :D

Our family just got a bit bigger

Everyone meet Cleo, our newest member a 7 years young rescue dog.  

I have had a lot of fun introducing her to friends and family via email and Facebook mainly because we were vague and made it sound like we were having another baby, when you have four kids people tend to get nervous thinking we announcing another baby.  And we may in the future but for right now we have a fur baby in our home and we couldn't be happier.

She is sweet calm and collected, until she sees a squirrel, chipmunk or other dog.  So we have obedience training in our future.  More to teach us how to deter her from some of her behaviors as well as get her a little bit more leash trained.  She is great with the kids though still a bit nervous around Valen, though I cant blame the gal, he is a ball full of energy and is as stable as a two year old can be *smile*  But Val has learned about gentle petting we are still working on him to stop following her everywhere, she isnt thrilled about having a two year old shadow but she tolerates him!

We have had her just under a week now but just like any new baby we can't imagine our life without her and it feels like she has always been part of our family!

  

What's this blog about?

When I first started this blog it was about my adventure into momma hood. My creative endeavors changed as time went on but a constant was life with the kiddos and apparently my complaining of vacuuming, dishes and laundry *smile*. A few nights ago I went through a few years of my blog. And what I realized was this was my "baby book" of sorts for my kids it documented their lives and lately that has pretty much stopped thanks to my updating on Facebook, only problem with that... I can't go back on my timeline and read all my posts. I want my kids to be able to read about their childhood easily so I made a decision my blog is still going to be about my art but its going to be much more about my adventures in momma hood again I hope you all stick around (you are still here right?) as I go back to my "roots" so to speak!

Around the art table

I took a quick video of my kiddos painting, holy cow does a mess ensue but they love it so much!  (baths were given after we finished up Valen had paint up all the way to his elbows) Hope you enjoy the video, can you believe how big the kids are getting?!?!!? I went through my blog and got all weepy seeing my kids basically grow up in blog posts!  Man these 7 years of being a momma have flown by!

The wedding gift

It started with this photo. A few months ago I asked a friend of mine to send me her favorite engagement photo. Her wedding was coming up and I had an idea for a gift.




First I blocked in the background




Then started working on the lovely couple.




Kept working on the sky.




Picked up a helper along the way (good thing I only one hand/arm to paint!)



Decided to add in the tree to ground the painting.




Foliage added.



The final painting (of course I left it to the last minute to wrap and forgot to get a decent natural light photo of the finished painting!)







Congrats you two hope nothing but love and happiness on your journey together!