Organized Earrings

So I know I have been majorly slacking when it comes to posting.  And I wish I had an excuse for it...but alas, my only excuse is that I've become super engrossed in my Harry Potter books during my free time!  I'm currently on book 6 and almost half way through with it.  So bare with me as I finish the series!

But for now, I do have a jewelry organization DIY project to share with you.  I've decided that keeping all my "fashion" earrings in a drawer is just not convenient at all.  I never remember what earrings I have, and they always get all tangled together.  And normally my mornings are one big rush so I don't have time to go rummaging to find earrings to go with my outfits.  So I've seen this simple idea floating around Pinterest lately and I really wanted to try it.

So I went to Home Depot and bought one long piece (96 inch) of moulding.  Hubby and I measured it out (ok so this was mostly him, but I watched and finally learned how to use the saw!) and cut the 96 inch piece in to 4 equal pieces.  We cut the ends at 45 degree angles.
NOTE: You could always just go buy a frame and take out the backing a glass. But I thought it would be fun to try totally from scratch.

The piece came unpainted, so I just slapped a couple coats of white spray paint on there.

Then using some Gorilla Wood glue

I glued the four pieces together.  I had to use some Irwin Quick Grips to hold the pieces together, otherwise I would have had to hold two pieces at a time together until they dried enough.

While at Home Depot, we also picked up some insect screen material

I unrolled that and hubby used a staple gun to tack it down to the frame.

Once it was pulled tight, and stapled all the way around, I cut off the excess

And voila, this is what I ended up with!

We attached a simple picture hanger to the back of it, and stuck it up on the wall.  And it soon became this beauty

Now all my "fashion" earrings are out on display in all of their loveliness!  I love being able to see them all so clearly.  And all of the pairs are not jumbled up together.  It ended up being a great way to spruce up a blank wall and organize my jewelry!  I have plans to add a shelf underneath with some knobs for necklaces.  I will *hopefully* be working on that this weekend.  So I should have another post for you quite soon!

Patio Update

Hello out there!  A while back I promised an update on our patio overhaul.  Well the patio is part of the reason that I've been so busy...ok, not really but its the reason the hubs has been so busy!  I've helped some. and so now I have some pictures.  So, last time you saw the patio it looked like this

Well there have been some updates since then.  First things first, we rented a plate compactor from Home Depot.  Hubby used that to compact down all that gravel that we spread around.  He ran some strings from one side to the other to make sure that things were all level with a slight slope away from the house.  

Next, we rented a hydraulic auger.  Also from Home Depot.  We ended up using an auger with a 12 inch bit. We had to use hydraulic because our soil is so clay-like, there is no way a regular one would've gotten through.  

 We drilled 6 holes total.  The holes ended up being 3 feet deep.  Two on the corners by the house, and 4 on the edge by the grass.  The holes looked like this

Finally, we purchased 6 large posts.  These were 6 inch by 6 inch by 12 foot douglas fir posts.  We purchased a boat load of concrete bags (mixed these up by hand - ughhh poor hubby!)  and set the posts into the holes.  My job was helping mix the concrete, and making sure the posts were level as he poured the concrete into the hole.  It's also good to note here, to make sure your posts are square with the house, as well as in line with each other.

Finally, it looks like this

The furbabies had to make an appearance!  So that's where we are now.  Next steps are to buy sand and spread that all around.  This will give the pavers something to sink into to help make sure they are level.  Then the pavers will go down.  Then we can fancy it up a bit, with some rock detail around the base of the posts, paint, and some sort of shade sale thingy-ma-bob.

I'll try to make sure I'm more on top of things as we progress.  But to be honest, it took a while to get from that last picture, to this picture mostly because of holiday traveling, and weather.  So I'm really not that far behind!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for another upcycle project.

Upcycle Crafts

I'm trying to catch up here, so yes, you get two posts in one day.  Another small project I worked on this weekend was upcycling some old wine bottles.  I have saved a few over the past few months and finally decided to get on it and actually use them.

Since I had already washed them out right after we finished the wine, that part was done.  I took the bottles upstairs and wrote on them with my hot glue gun.  I didn't remove any labels and I think they turned out fine.  I made sure that my words were within the label, so after it was spray painted, it somewhat looked like a little frame around the words.  Make sense?

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the bottle with just the glue and no paint.  But here is one of the bottles after one coat of white spray paint.

And here they are after they have been coated 3-4 times (sorry for the less than stellar pictures).

My plan for these beauties is to make a few more coffee filter flowers died with food coloring and use them as decoration on the dresser in our master bedroom.  I even like them so much, I might try to make a few more to go above the cabinets in the kitchen.  Maybe I'll even try something other than white :-)

Stay tuned for some other fun crafts I have in progress!

Recipe: Creamy Avocado Pasta

Hello there!  I know I have been completely slacking when it comes to updating the blog.  But, alas, I am back and I have a new recipe for you that I found on pinterest.  Hubby and I tried it last weekend and it was amazing!  Definitely is going on our list of "recipes to remember".  I'm trying to be better about trying new things, and not just pinning them!

So, first off, the things I love about this recipe:
It is super simple, only like 5 ingredients for the sauce
It uses avocado which I LOVE
The whole dish only takes 15 minutes to make!

Things I don't love...
I can't have it every night because the hubby likes variety in his meals.  :-)

Ok, so here we go.  This recipe originally comes from Oh She Glows.  So feel free to check out her blog if you want as well.

Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 1 medium sized ripe Avocado, pitted
• 1/2 lemon, juiced + lemon zest to garnish
• 2-3 garlic cloves, to taste
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
• ~1/4 cup Fresh Basil, (probably optional)
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 
• 2 servings/6 oz of your choice of pasta (I used Barilla Whole Grain Thin Spaghetti)
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Chicken cut in small pieces (optional)

We added chicken to our recipe to get some protein.  

First you can cut up the chicken and put the water on to boil for the pasta since this will take the longest.

Then mix the oil, garlic, lemon juice, avocado, basil (optional) and salt in a food processor.  Mix until creamy

Once the pasta is done and the chicken is cooked all the way through, mix it all up in a bowl!  You can garnish with lemon zest and pepper if you like.  We didn't have real lemons...hence no lemon zest.  But it still tasted pretty darn yummy to me!  

Simple and delicious!  I love it.