Crazy busy, but filled with excitement.

I have officially been called a slacker. To be honest though, I have been working and doing more things recently than I have in a while. Here is a list of some of the randomness that has been going on....

1. We have started to watch an amazing little 9 month old girl. The days that we have her, it is virtually impossible to do any big projects, because she's still a peanut and needs lots of attention.

2. We have been doing lots of brain storming, and paper work, because in two weeks we will be getting out of this little apartment, and into a three bedroom house. This is another reason why big projects are on hold. Once we get into our house, I will have a whole studio to work on stuff in, no matter the weather. I will be off of the tiny porch I work on now. I'm psyched.

3. We are now coaches for a 5-6 year old soccer team, and the season just started. This has been difficult, because my man works a weird schedule. It's hard to figure things out so that they work with everyone else' 'normal' schedules.

All this awesomeness (and I really do mean awesomeness) has been tacked on to our normal, busy life filled with speech therapy, random appointments, and whatnot. It's taking a while to try and change to a more 'normal' schedule with my crazy insomnia as well. Normally, I would blog crazy crazy late when everyone else is asleep, but lately I have been trying to force myself to go to bed at a decent hour.

Once we do get moved I am really REALLY hoping everything gets put in its place really fast. I am excited to decorate!!! My first big project I bought today!!!! I was sooo torn on if I should buy it or not. I have searched for MONTHS to find an awesome, intricately designed, credenza, and I finally found one! I went to Goodwill with the little ladies, and it was crazy busy. There was a lot of new furniture, and a lot of people looking at it all. I saw this piece and I wanted it but didnt like the price. I left, and came back a couple hours late. I spoke with the same lady, and was able to talk them down $80!!! Yes, you read that correctly. I dont know how I could have said no. It's going to be a big project, it definitely needs a lot of work done to it. But I'm psyched. It's my last big piece to my living room!

So, from the bottom of my heart I apologize for being a slacker. I'm not trying to be. Once we get into our house and settled it will be projects galore. Want to know why.... wait for it......

We can paint our walls! 

Oh yes. I am very VERY excited for that. Basically the fact that it's a brand new house, with a big backyard, crazy amounts of storage, a studio, and just basically a blank canvas to decorate REALLY excites me! I will definitely give an update soon, but for now, it is 'early' to bed for me. Goodnight!

Life.

To be honest with you, I dont think my head has spun in so many directions at once. There are so many decisions, so much planning, and things that need to be done in the next week. I might go a bit crazy. 

I have decided that I have to put all big projects off to the side right now.  I will have to see where things are going within the next week or so before anything new is started.  Starting this week there will be some changes in our daily routine. Also, there might be a move in the very near future for us. It would be crazy to start on anything to decorate this apartment with, when I may be packing everything up and moving into a new house. 

Please say some prayers for us, that everything goes according to plan, that we stay safe traveling, and I don't get too stressed. All other military spouses out there know the fun stress associated with a military move. I find it funny that I just recently opened our last box from moving here, and now it may all be packed up again very shortly. I'm really excited to see what these next few weeks have in store for us!

Anthropologie Centerpiece Project

Absolutely nothing was really accomplished today. All four of us have felt kind of off today. Sort of queazy, stomach kind of churning, and pretty lethargic. Overall, it wasnt the greatest day. It did give me a chance to work on some design, and browse around online for some new project ideas.

For a while now its been bothering me that I don't have a cool centerpiece for my dining room table. I figured I would search around a bit to see if I could find anything I liked. And I did! I had been checking out Anthropolgie, for some inspiration, and found something that I think is pretty cool. 

It just such a hodge podge of awesomeness. I love how there is a random fish in there. There is no way I could have something this white, and I am not a fan of gold either. I think it would be really cool to try something like this though, and its definitely a project that the little ladies would have fun helping me with. So our mission is over the next few days to go around and find some cool random things to paint and add to a centerpiece like this. I also think its CRAZY that this sells for $798. Ridiculousness. Just wait, give me a few days and I'll have something that looks equally awesome, if not better for wicked small fraction of the cost. I can't wait. 

Like I said though, I'm not feeling super great, so I just wanted to share this, and now I am off to bed. Hopefully tomorrow we can find some cool pieces and start putting it all together!

Stress and Blog Design.

For me today was one of those days where I want to rip out my hair a little bit. It was mildly stressful.

I said last night that my husband and I are now soccer coaches for Miss El's team. Well, since my man is at work for 12 hours out of the day and sleeps as much as he can (or as much as the ladies will let him), I have to figure everything out. I have to set up meet and greets for everyone, go through his schedule so I can figure out a practice schedule, make snack list forms, make contact sheets, figure out a place to practice, call everyone to introduce myself and set up a out first get together. The last women I spoke with was a huge help, actually everyone has offered to help in little ways, but I still feel I bit off a little more than I can chew. Oh and wait, have I told you I literally dont know a single thing about soccer! 

Then after all that was settled, I needed to do some laundry. I hate to say it but I wish I could throw it all in a big box and just take it to Goodwill! I LOATHE laundry, with all that I am. I dont mind washing and drying, but I would rather do any household chore than fold. Unfortunately, I have lots to do, so I couldnt put it off. I did a lot but there was no way I could finish it all today. 

Tonight I have been working on the new site design. Since I am ridiculously indecisive, I have been going back and forth on a few ideas, playing around and seeing how different things are looking. Sometimes I debate on if I would want someone else to design something for me because I get so frustrated designing for myself, but I think I would be too nit picky with someone else' design. Hopefully I will have it all figured out soon. It's great because my little ladies are such a big help to me. They throw their awesome little ideas at me all the time. Most of the time they are a little out there, but sometimes I just go with what they are thinking. I love their creative little minds!

 It's crazy late right now, and I really wanted to get a few more things done before I went to bed. So, I am off to keep working, even though I dont know how my brain functions at this hour. I will leave you with this....

My Miss El, totally passed out, upside-down in her bed, sleeping on a massive Stitch stuffed animal. I'm jealous.

Dining Room Awesomeness

I've been working pretty hard on my project but it's just not coming along as fast as I want it too. Which is normal for me with projects so I dont know why I would think I could do everything on it without updating at all. I wouldn't be blogging for a long time if I did that. So I am done with my blogging hiatus. 

The project I have been working on is my whole dining room! 

Yes, the whole thing. 

Once again, I never took a before picture of the whole dining room, because I was expecting to go project to project. Also, like I've said before, the fact that there was absolutely no color in this room drove me crazy. 

I first started with the little hutch I got and posted up a while ago. Then once that was done I moved onto my dining room table. We have had our table since we got married, and it's in pretty great condition. It's a beautiful wood, but I don't work well with things that aren't colorful! 

I decided to just start with the legs. My strongbad husband flipped the table for me, and I took off the legs. I was torn as to if I wanted to paint the top and little ledge thing on the table as well, but I will talk about that later. 

I decided to go with aqua for the legs. The same color I used on the hutch. I don't know if I would classify it as aqua, I think its more of like a robin's eggs blue, but I still like it. So I sprayed a few coats onto the legs.

Once they were dry, I went ahead and glazed them all. I really REALLY like how the glaze pops on the light color paints. It added so much texture and definition to the legs. After they dried, I assembled it all back together. Now that sounds like it was all really simple to do but it wasnt, I am a stickler for details, so the glaze had to be the exact way I wanted it (on all four separate legs). It took hours and hours. I have stated before that I am very impatient, and I didn't end up finishing this until crazy late one night, so my man was sleeping. I magically, yes magically, flipped the table to stand up tall, then slowly leaned it down onto my back.  Then I went up on my toes as high as I could so I wouldn't snap the legs off! I then very very slowly bent down at a 90 degree angle so it was totally on top of me. Then I crab walked to where it needed to be, and slowly lowered it. Craziness!

Sorry it's not the greatest picture. I'll get to that later. You can also see the little ledge that I was talking about too. I went back and forth a lot with 'do I paint it, or not'. Since I couldn't decide on that right away I went to the bench. I love this little bench, not only because it's cute, but it adds more seating at the table. So once again, flipped it and took the legs off. Then I went ahead and painted them. It was the exact same process for the legs on the bench, that I did for the table. Obviously.

There is such a difference with the glaze. Here is where I started to glaze one of the legs.

After everything was dried and done, and put together, I took a step back and realized I really like the wood on top, and I'm not going to mess with it. The legs just give the whole thing a little extra awesomeness.

So here it is, everything I have done so far in the room.

I have also done some random little projects, that I have added, and am continuing to add to the room. You can see that my dog Roxy, now has a bright orange bowl in the left corner of the room. Eventually in that corner, I am going to add a tree. I also found the cutest little tea set, so I had to add some of that. The other pieces that I havent used in the room yet, will be used later for another project for the room. How cute are these tea cups though!

You can't tell in the pictures, but there is a door on the right side of the room, which holds the air system whatnot. Its very white around that area, so clearly it needed something. I found a frame that I have had for year, thats been sitting around, and decided to fix it up. Once it's all finished it will go above the door.

I went with the orange for this as well. I was torn as to weather or not I should do the glaze. I decided I needed to, because there is so much detail around the edge, that if it was a flat orange you wouldn't notice. This isn't a great picture, and the glass is still messy. Sorry. I'm still deciding what I want to go in here. I have a feeling I am going to end up painting something! 

Other than all of this, life is going great. My man and I are now 5-6 year old soccer coaches, so we have been trying to figure out all that awesomeness. I have a feeling I will end up doing a project or two for the kids on the soccer teams. We have been busy though, with that, cleaning like CRAZY, doctors appointments, and on and on and on. So yea, sorry about my little hiatus, but I've been busy, and then it would get crazy late, and I would sit down finally and want to scream. Blogging is something I've really been enjoying, and I wont let it become a chore. So on the nights that the kids wont sleep, or I really want to spend some time with my man, or I literally cant keep my eyes open any longer to type, I'm not going to feel bad. I set out on this fun little blogging adventure to see where I would be in a year, and I am learning new things everyday. The newest thing I have learned is that I'm not going to feel horrible if I miss a blog here or there, because if it does become a chore, I will just stop. So here's to more fun projects, and hopefully soon I finish my new layout. The house is quiet, and I am officially done for the day, so it is time for me to pass out! Goodnight blogland!

Always working, but loving the outcome.

I have been working wicked hard on my newest project. It's actually several projects in one. You guys should see the furniture I am able to move. I impress myself!

I am a bit behind on it because I could only work on a couple of little things yesterday because of the weather once again. It drives me crazy when there is a gorgeous day, but I'm running around doing errands, then on the day I have 'nothing' to do it's all rainy and gross. It was really warm though, so it was extra frustrating. I learned though on past projects not to paint in high humidity. 

I am very excited, I know I will be able to get a lot more done tomorrow. Until then, I'm sorry the post have been so sort, and not filled with fantabulous pictures. I have taken lots of pictures, but I can't share them until everything is complete.

Other than that not too much is new in our house. Same old schedule of my man working, while the ladies and I work on school stuff, paint a lot, do random crafts and games, and just hang out. I do have to share though that our family has a fun new game that we all play. My mom got Little Miss this awesome One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish game for her birthday. We play it almost every day. If you have little ones I highly recommend it!

Anyway, I have been working hard the past couple of hours, and I am absolutely ready for bed! I'm really really hoping tomorrow I get a lot accomplished, so that I will know if I need any little things at the store for finishing touches. I know I will definitely be in search for a really awesome material. Cross your fingers for me that everything goes according to plan. 

Really quick before I go, I wanted to share a couple of really great paintings from the wicked awesome artist David Choe. His work is really inspiring to me right now. I love how they just seem smudged with paint, but you can clearly make out the face and normally they convey a good amount of emotion. Anyway, I really like them, and I think I will have to be doing something along the lines of this. My man always tells me how much of a dirty kid I am, because I am always covered in paint. So I really like the way these look.

I must say good night now, so I can just up bright and early (some of you who know me may laugh at that statement) and get to working! 

Small update, big project.

I apologize for sort of being MIA here. I have a very big project I am working on in bits and pieces, and I really dont want to talk about it until it's completely done. I'm really excited about it, and hope it's going to be as fantabulous finished as I think it will be.

Also, my man is on his 'weekend' so we try to get in a lot of family time when he is off. 

Other than this fantabulous project, not too much is going on here. It's hard to update when there isn't anything new, and the new big thing I dont really want to share. Tomorrow I will be able to get a good amount more accomplished so hopefully I will have a great post tomorrow with a lot of awesome pictures.

Until then, goodnight blogland.  

No paint, no fun.

Well there were no projects today! 

Sadness. I know. 

It was cold and gross out, so I figured it would be the perfect day to clean like crazy. I did a good amount, but there is still so much more. I wish I could just snap my fingers and have everything done, so I can just focus on the things I want to do, and not laundry (not to be specific or anything)!

 I have started to make a list of everything that I am planning on doing project wise. I'm thinking I need some kind of board, or book, to keep all my fantabulous ideas in. There has been lots of brainstorming on a few things I want to do and put in the dining room. I'm not really concrete on anything other than the furniture. I realized I have some great frames and canvases in my closet that I will be fixing up and changing around for this room. I just don't know exactly how I want them.

Also, I worked a good amount on a new blog design. Once again, nothing concrete, but I think I'm getting things the way I really want them. So stay turned for another new look.

That's it for today for me. I'm drained today. Too much cleaning, and no painting makes Katie a dull girl!   The weather looks promising for tomorrow though. Hopefully I will be able to get some things accomplished, and take a break from cleaning!

Until tomorrow....

Completed project, new inspiration.

Ok. So I'm super excited about posting today! 

I put in a lot of work, and I'm loving the outcome.

 I started to talk a bit about what I was going to do next. About all the fantabulous crap I got from Goodwill! Let me tell you, I am one happy lady.

I have decided to switch it up, and bounce back and forth between rooms in our house a bit. I was going to do my dresser next, but when I found all this stuff I couldn't help but start on something different. 

The dining room is my latest victim. 

I have one wall covered with some black and white pictures of our family, and another wall that has an iron design piece, and a random Hobby Lobby picture on each side. There is the table that has four chairs, and a bench, and that's it. There is no color whatsoever and it's been driving me CRAZY!

When I went to Goodwill I found this great little hutch. It was in pretty bad shape, but I loved how it looked and thought it had potential.  Plus it was a steal for only $14.

I really had to work a lot on the top. To put it frankly, it was really gross. I had to scrub down and disinfect the whole thing, really getting in the grooves. Then came the sanding. Whoever had this thing destroyed the wood on the top with some liquid. I sanded like crazy. Wherever you see the lighter wood, that was totally risen up. 

I never ended up taking a picture of it just painted. The wind was whipping like crazy, and the painting process took hours because of it. In the meantime, I worked on a few other things. I had a flower pot, tea pot, ice cream dish, candy dish, and owl to take care of. I didn't end up liking how the candy dish came out, so I will have to fix it tomorrow.

With the flower pot, I took two colors that I'm using in the room, and sprayed a little paint onto my brush. I flattened pinched squeezed the bristles of my paint brush, and lightly painted some texture onto the flower pot with those colors. 

I then painted the tea pot!

I am absolutely in love with this little tea pot. Miss El picked it out. I am not a fan of its paint job, but I love its cute shape. Plus it was also only $1.99! 

Then I moved on to the owl and ice cream dish, and I like how they both turned out as well. 

That candy dish was driving me crazy though, so I will deal with it tomorrow. 

Once I finished all of those, and the hutch was all dry, I got to glazing. With all the sanding that I did, and all the grooves I knew that the glaze was going to really stand out, and give it a more weathered feel to it. 

So before I do my big reveal, I want to share how cheap all this awesomeness was, because personally it makes my day! 

Hutch.... $14

Tea pot.... $1.99

Ice cream dish....$.99

Owl.... free! I had it, it just needed a makeover. 

Spray paint....$6

Flower pot...$6

Snake plant....$7

Total.... $35.98

Ok, now keep in mind, this area isn't finished. There's only so much I can do in a day. It has definitely inspired the rest of the dining room though. I have big plans for that room now! I can't wait to get started. I am also thinking of adding little details, like some sort of design to the tea pot and maybe the ice cream dish. What I love the most about doing all of this is when my man walks in the door, sees something I made, smiles, and his first words are "I really like this one, I think it's my favorite so far." Personally, it's not my favorite piece, but I do really like it. His favorite aspect of it is how weathered looking it came out, because "it gives it a beachy feel". So here it is...here is the start to my awesome dining room.

I actually think we are going to be storing our dog's food and water bowl in there. Right now they just sit in the corner of the dining room and I can't stand it. This way it will be totally out of the way, and she can still get to it. 

I'm really excited to get things going in this room. Like I said though, I know I will be mixing up projects and jumping between rooms. I still have a good amount of tidying from our trip to Florida as well. Primarily, laundry. Which is like my absolute enemy, so I have been putting it off a bit. 

Well that's it for today. My stress level is somewhat high right now, due to two little ladies who refuse to go to sleep. It was like one of those days where they should have had a wicked long nap, and tried to start the day over. Cranky, whiny kids = stressed mommy! 

Through all the whining though, I feel I accomplished a good amount! I haven't decided yet what I will be working on, so you will just have to check back here and find out! Night. 

Projects Galore.

Good news, and bad news tonight. 

Bad news first. There is something that is going on with my computer, and my pictures. It's really bothering me, and I have no idea whats wrong. Maybe it will all just magically working itself out. That's what I'm hoping for.

Good news. Lots of awesome project stuff going on. We made a wondering family trip to Goodwill, and I picked up some fantabulous junk! I am really excited about it. I don't really want to talk about what I have going on yet, hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get a good amount done! The weather has been perfect, I'm crossing my fingers that it will be tomorrow too. I took a few pictures of random things that are going into this project.

I know. Randomness. It's going to be awesome though! I'm really psyched. 

I also in the time being have been working on the blog once again. Now that I have the main idea of how to create one, I really want it to be the way I picture it. I also think I will be starting another one. It's too much work trying to separate projects and whatnot that I'm working on, and complete family life. So I think this will be my design/projects page, and I'll have my family one linked. Basically, because I know some people read for project ideas, and other read to check out what's going on with all of us now that we live far far away from almost everyone we love. I don't really know. Something I'm just throwing around in my head. I really want to work on this one though first. How could you not want to read about these beautiful babies though?

That's it for today. I need to wake up early to get things going! There was also a big playground that was just put in at our apartments, so we will be doing that for a while tomorrow too. Praying for great weather, because I have a feeling we are going to be outside all day! 

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures....and a Project!

Hello, hello....

So, I officially broke my promise to myself, to blog every day for one year. It was for a good cause though. Cause nothing is better than family, and Disney World! 

Our trip to Florida was beyond amazing. We got to the Orlando airport to pick up my sister and brother in law, and the little ladies had no idea what we were doing. They thought this whole thing was a 'daddy trip' for the Air Force, and we were on our way home after we 'picked something up'. So we picked up my sister and brother in law, and the ladies were ecstatic, they thought that they were coming to our house for Little Miss' birthday. They talked all about how excited they were to show them our house, and their room, all the while we all were trying to keep them distracted so they didnt see the millions of Disney signs.

We walked around Downtown Disney for a couple of hours, then we had a reservation at the awesome T-Rex restaurant. This is when I knew Miss El would piece together where we were. We had seen pictures of the restaurant in a Disney brochure the ladies picked up at base.

A little while after they realized where they were. We had the next awesome surprise. Gramma, Grampa, and their uncles!

Tears.

We spent a couple days at Universal's Islands of Adventure, which was amazing. It was so much fun to go on so many awesome rides and roller coasters  with my family. It was so good seeing everyone, we have missed them all so so much.

'Bobby' and I

Thomas and the little ladies in Harry Potter land.

Thomas and Mikey with Dr. Doom.

The ladies have now decided they want a Seuss Land bedroom! They loved this place.

Look at Little Miss eyeing that popcorn.

All of us!

We also went to the Magic Kingdom with all of our family for one day. 

I love all their facial expressions in this picture!

Our Little Miss is such a weirdo.

On the tea cups with Uncle Mike...

This was their favorite ride.

Then everyone went home but us :( it was nice to go to Disney for a few days though at our own pace.

More tea cups!

We ate so many of these amazing pineapple popsicles. 

love love love Stitch

They would constantly get cranky from the heat, so we would find different water things, and they would get soaked and be happy again!

Look at these beautiful ladies! That face paint took less than five minutes to do each.

Overall, we had an amazing time. I wish we could rewind and do it all over again! It was also really nice, to spend a week with my man, no work, no Air Force, no pt, just us!

Now that we are back to reality, it's time to get things in order, and start working on more projects! This past weekend was rough, our sleep schedules have been so off, all we did was sleep and clean pretty much. 

Last night I took a break from cleaning to work on my next furniture project!

My bedroom furniture is the same furniture that I have had since I was fifteen. I love it. Some of the varnish has been chipped off of both the nightstand and dresser. They really need to be fixed up a bit. I decided to start on the nightstand since it's smaller and if I didn't like it I would try something else before moving on to the big dresser.

I went with a bright lime green.

I started working with the glaze, and this was how it started to look. I really like the glaze on the lighter color paints. It really makes the accents and wood grains pop.

Here it is, all finished! I am absolutely in love with how it turned out! Soon I will be doing our dresser as well!

That is all for tonight. I have been having issues with my pictures, and I have to keep trying to figure that out. Tomorrow I think we might have to make a trip to Home Depot to get some more green paint. Also, I swung by Goodwill the other day, and I found an awesome little piece of furniture, that I think definitely has potential to be gorgeous. I might have to go get it. Until tomorrow...