Bathroom Makeover

Here is what I'm working with for inspiration right now. My bathroom is currently white with little pink tile borders and accents in the cabinet, shower and around the floor. I'm hoping to update it to something more inviting that matches the theme of my living room. I can't redo the tub and shower right now or replace the vanity, so I'm hoping to hide the obnoxious pink tub and tiles and paint the vanity. The floor is in decent shape (neutral grey and cream linoleum tiles) and that will be easy to match.
I want the bathroom to be a peaceful green with a deep brown vanity. I'll attempt to remove the tiles around the floor. If that doesn't work they just might get painted. I'm going to paint the vanity and put new hardware on it. I have a large white-framed wall mirror that I will paint brown like the vanity. The sink in it is new and white without any chips or cracks. I may put in a new faucet to match the hardware. The current one is the cheap standard kind and is pretty icky.
To hide the tub, I will keep the current cloth shower curtain and hang two draped cream taffeta curtains with tie backs on either side of the tub (the same way you would adorn a window). I'll buy a thick medium beige rug and get a matching toilet lid cozy maybe.
Changing or replacing the fluorescent strip like will probably be more work than I want to get into, but maybe I could build a casing for the light out of brown wood and frosted plastic. We'll see!

Spring Cleaning!

I'm taking a little break from cleaning to eat lunch and play with Redding. This week has started my spring cleaning. We have been slowly moving things into the garage to get rid of, but we had to move the contents of one of our closets into the living room and since every available storage space has been filled I have to make room. I started with the laundry yesterday and finished that today. I have finally decided that I want to have more space than I want to keep all the stuff I never use. I also hope that we can make enough money at the yard sale to start some house remodeling. Alan is having commute to Orlando three days this week so I'm hoping to get most everything done while he is working the long days.

I'm a serious pack rat and I haven't ever done a serious purging of stuff I don't need. The hard part is going through my stuff from high school and getting rid of things that don't really fit my style now or that have sentimental value. But I reeeeeeeally want a clean and not cluttered house.

I was in a get things done kinda mood today so I hung up a shelf and my new IKEA spice rack. Not a big deal, but it involved measuring, drilling and using screw expanders and then hanging the stuff. I felt a bit accomplished :)

Back to work now, but first playtime with Redding!

Up and About

Today has been a very fun day that started early. I woke up with Alan this morning to help him get ready for work and he left the house at 7am. Much earlier than I'm used to getting up. The time change made it hard because it was so dark outside. But, It's kinda nice it being lighter out later in the day because Alan has another hour of daylight once he gets off work to get things done. Anyway, I am working on organizing my closet and getting rid of, or temporarily storing, the clothes that we don't wear. It's a big task lemme tell you, and one I have to work on in pieces while the little guy is asleep. Once Redding woke up this morning we had breakfast and I did devotions with a book I'm working through called "Created to Be his Help Meet" by Debi Pearl. It is very good and challenging. I'll do an in-depth review of it eventually, but for now if you want to know how to make your marriage amazing, buy this book.
After that Redding and I played and cleaned house, made lunch and had lunch with Alan which was very nice :)
We spent two hours shopping at Wal-Mart and stopped at the pet store on the way home so I could restock my fish tank which has been very lonely since my last set of fish passed.
I bought a jungle val plant, some sort of grass, and three little zebra danios which I have always wanted, but haven't owned until now.

I'm off now to make my first Rock Star Ambitions Outfit set for an Etsy Order! Yay!
And joy of joy's, I'll be making it on my very own Singer sewing machine which has been out of commission for the last year until three days ago when I fixed it! That's right. Alan didn't even have to help. I was very proud of myself :) Be looking for a tutorial on that soon.
Off to sewing!

Lots of Baby Hats!

I've recently been in touch with Tiffany Yates Photography on trading pics for some photo props. Her work is absolutely beautiful so I was very pleased to accept her offer. She requested a Brown Bear Hat, a Snuggly Sack and a few new (to me) types of hats. Thrilled with the challenge and the prospect of having professional photos for Etsy, I got to work right away. As I dislike buying patterns for things I should be able to figure out on my own, anything crochet really, I went with the good ole trial and error method. Severaly hours later, I had a pretty basic idea of how the pattern should go; I began working on different styles and colors. As it turned out, the hats were fairly simple to make and then I just couldn't stop. Six Stocking hats and three Pom-Pom hats later, I was so excited by my success that I tried out a pattern for a monkey hat that I found on a blog and was very pleased with the results. I was pleasantly surprised when the hat turned out quite a bit bigger than I initially expected and wound up with a hat that would fit 10-30mo.
I will post up the instructions for the pom-pom and stocking hats in a basic form soon. For now enjoy the few pics!

My First Clothing Line!

I am very excited to debut the first of my outfit lines and would like to introduce you to the Rock Star Ambitions Outfit Set!

The Red, White, and Grey Plaid fabric is a soft Cotton flannel that is so cozy for baby wear. The Tie is appliqued and stitched to the Super Soft Organic Gerber Onesie. The pants are stitched and have serged edges to prevent fraying. The Perfect-fit Robeez style Star Shoes are made with Sturdy Quality Felt and thin elastic to keep baby's feet warm. Each Star is unique as it is hand cut and sewn to each shoe.

The whole outfit is washable on gentle cycles.
The shoes should be lain flat to dry.
Dry Pants and Organic Onesie on a low setting.

The inspiration for this set came while I was making my son a pair of Robeez style shoes. I started layering several colors and fabrics and loved the Wool Grey and Rich Red of the felts I had. The fabric for the Onesie Tie and Pants found me while I was searching through a remnants bin. Everything just came together after that!

Because Boy's Need Rockin' Clothes Too!!!