Cynthia's Chili

It seems like I only ever plan to make chili when it is unseasonably warm outside. Since it was 71 degrees on December 1st I made chili last night.

  My friend Cynthia brought this to one of our work potlucks a year or so ago and I could have ate it all day long. Ok, I pretty much did. Anyway... here is the recipe. Make it. Eat it. Love it.

Cynthia's Chili
1 lb ground beef
1 pkg chili seasoning
1can Rotel (Chili fixins)
1 can chili beans
1 can red beans, drained and rinsed
1 can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

Brown hamburger and drain. Stir in seasoning, Rotel and beans. Heat until boiling. Eat.

Last night we had Frito Chili Pie. Today I had chili with tortilla chips because that bag of Fritos was long gone. :)

Hallway photo shelves and office area- Living room part two!

Hey everyone! I know I haven't posted in a while, but things are busy around here! I've signed up to do my FIRST EVER craft show in December, so pretty much every spare second I have is being spent working on products for the show. Cross your fingers for me... hopefully it will go well!

In the meantime we have managed to finish up a couple of fun projects for the living room area. I found this awesome project on Pinterest via this blog: http://ana-white.com/2010/10/plans/ten-dollar-ledges

The hubby just followed her AMAZING tutorial and I am soooo happy!

 

AND we started working on the office area.

 

(had to blotch out all the personal info on our papers.. lol )

 

 

 

I had a poster frame and no where to hang the poster itself so I repurposed it into a dry erase calendar. All I did was draw out the calendar grid on scrapbook paper and put it inside the frame with some decorative scrapbook paper. We used a dry erase maker to number the days of the month and to add on all of our to do's. Then, I modge-podged scrapbook paper onto clipboards and now we each have one for our random piles of paper that love to build up around the house.

 

Pssst... do you love the salmon wall next to the printer? Our craft room/office used to be the kitchen in this house before they remodeled in the 80's. We took down the peach wall paneling and discovered salmon walls! Under the salmon used to be pea green. Sexy.....

 

This weekend we painted over the salmon with Latte by Sherwin Williams. I can't wait to get some more done and show it off! :)

 

'Til then! <3 p="p"> 

Living Room Revamp Part 1

When we started working on the house, the husband and I came to an agreement. We would only paint every other weekend so we don't wear ourselves out. See how long that lasted?

 

Not long at all. But, the kids were on fall break this week so I took a three day weekend. And I couldn't stand to look at my living room any longer!

 

Over the past few weeks DH has been busy! He removed the drop ceiling in the living room and ripped down all of the lovely 80's wall paneling. The previous owners painted ALL the paneling peach. Lovely huh?

 

Here is the living room the weekend we moved in. Even our stuff couldn't camoflauge the peach!

 

 

We didn't finish EVERYTHING this weekend, but we did get quite a bit knocked out. We painted the walls with Sherwin Williams Svelte Sage (this may be my favorite sage color EVER). Then we just got to work on the decor.

 

We used an old barnwood frame I had from the apartment for the R.

 

I covered the backing of the frame in burlap. In order to hold the burlap down to the cardboard I just used some adhesive spray glue. Then, I hot glued the R to the top of the burlap. Easy Peasy.

 

 

The birds are stickers that we made! We used my Cricut and my Home Decor cartridge to cut them out with red vinyl and the hubby stuck them to the wall for me!

 

I can't wait to get some more done, but we've already made a lot of progress!

 

More to come! :)

Master Bedroom Redo!

It's been another busy weekend in this house! This time we attacked our bedroom. It doesn't even feel like the same room.

Here is the before we moved in photo:

Don't act like you aren't jealous of those sexy lace curtains. Too late, I've already donated them to the thrift store... sorry guys.

Anyway, here are the after photos!

Welcome to our room! We bedding is from Kirklands.com for $99.00! (I am totally in love and can't wait to sleep in it tonight!)

The X's and O's are 9.5 inch letters from Hobby Lobby that I painted black and the hubby hung up with double sided poster strips.

The paint color is Samovar Silver from Sherwin Williams. As far as I'm concerned it's the PERFECT silver/blue color.

Also, have I ever mentioned that my husband BUILT me this bed? Yep, ONE DAY while he was home on leave when I was at work. Amazing.



Here is the dresser we repainted black last weekend.

The branches on the wall are painted on. I cut the branches out with my Cricut. (Home Decor Cartridge) Then, I used my projector to project them on the wall. After they were in place I traced them with chalk and spent practically half of my life painting them by hand.

Ok, just kidding. It was only a couple of hours. And totally worth it.

We made the "God gave me you" sticker with my Cricut and some vinyl.

All in all, I'm very happy with our progress! The living room is next! :)

Girl Race Car Bedroom

First off, guess what is impossible to find on Pinterest? Girl Race Car Bedrooms..... and they aren't many race car room ideas anyway. So, this took a whole lot of planning on our part!

Here is Fish's room when it was on the MLS listing.

It amazes me that this is even the same room. Also, take a moment to notice the huge desk. This is already a pretty small room. Add a huge L Shaped desk and I almost felt bad for putting her in this bedroom.

You should have seen us move that thing. It was GLUED together. And I have zero upper arm strength so helping my hubby move the desk to our Office/Craft Room was like the most.fun.ever.

Anyway.... back to the bedroom!

Can you believe my little girl is telling me she wants to be a race car driver? When she decided she wanted a race car room my husband ran with it.

He found a template for a race car bed at WoodCraft.com for $15. Then, he spent two weeks putting it together.

Just another reason why I love that guy. :)

It's hard to believe that the pile of wood and hardware he started out with ended up as this....

Black comforter, pink sheets and pink curtains are from Walmart. I made the checkered curtain with fabric from Hobby Lobby.

The flags that are being held by the monkey were super easy to make. I cut up different bandannas that I picked up from Hobby Lobby and hot glued then onto wood dowels.

The stars on the wall were unfinished wood stars from Hobby Lobby.

I made the bow holder by painting a plaque and then adding ribbon and a race car... from Hobby Lobby...

Are you noticing a trend?

No, Hobby Lobby doesn't pay me to blog. And I don't work for them. I wish I could but my husband says I would spend my paycheck at work before I could even get it home. He's probably right.

I hate it when he's right.

While we are on the subject of Hobby Lobby they were having a 50% off sale on metal men's decor this week. The stop sign, Nascar sign the stoplight were a total of $15.00. Score!

Ohhh See that car on the race track?

Here are some more:

I attached velcro to the bottom of the cars and also to the painted on race track. I added hot glue to the velcro dots on the wall...

and I will just have to see if they are still on the wall tomorrow! They seem to be holding really well though.

Of course every good race needs to have a stadium full of fans!

We used 4 inch, 6 inch and 8 each shelves and attached them to the wall with brackets.

The wrestlers are quite rowdy though... so they had to sit on the other side. Can't have them mingling with the Barbies, babies and stuffed animals. That would get K-razy.

I mean, I was intimidated putting them on the shelf.

All in all I LOVE how the room turned out and so does Fish. Hopefully this will continue for at least 5 years!

Rae's Room Revealed!

After a very long, yet very productive weekend, the hubby and I got Rae's room painted and decorated!

Here is the before picture from the MLS listing:

And here is the after from about the same angle!

We painted 3 of the 4 walls gray. The color is Gray Granite from Colorplace (Wal-Mart)

I made the curtains, memo board and the pillow with fabric I picked up at a yard sale last weekend.

I made the coat rack by modge podging zebra paper to an unfinished wooden rack from Hobby Lobby.

I made the bow holder with a plaque from Hobby Lobby also! I modge podged zebra paper onto it and cut out the fleur de lis and letters with my Cricut! Then I just added ribbon to the bottom to hold the bows and ribbon to the top for hanging!

While at yard sales I also found this wood shelf for $2! We spray painted it black and now Rae has a place for all of her nail polish and head bands.

This is my one big accomplishment for the day! I found a projector at the thrift store a couple of months ago and knew I would need it for some projects in the new house. I borrowed a Cricut Cartridge called Rock Princess from my mom. I cut out the skull and cross bones shape onto paper and then projected it onto the wall.

Once we had it positioned where we wanted it, the hubby and I traced the outline with chalk onto the wall. I painted this wall pink on Friday night (the color is "Love St. Valentine's Day", by Colorplace at Walmart... who comes up with these colors, anyway?) so it was dry and ready to go today!

I just painted in the chalk outline with gray paint and let it dry. I painted two coats and it covered the crazy hot pink pretty well!

Rae came home this evening and she approves... thank goodness, because she's living with it for a while!

I found a lot of my inspiration from Pinterest... I'm not sure how I ever lived without that site. Check it out and follow my boards... I love followers! 

http://pinterest.com/dirtroaddamsel/

Sneak peek of rae's room!

I started painting rae's room tonight! Here is a sneak peek!

More pics to come after this weekend!