Toothpaste: For more than just your chompers!

My mom was cleaning out her kitchen gadget drawers today and pulled out these little butter or cheese knife things, I really don't know what they are.... Anyhoo, they were in desperate need of some shine.

I remembered reading that Tabasco sauce can polish silver. No Tabasco in house, so tried Frank's Red Hot -- FAIL. Then my mom mentioned that tooth paste works.. turns out she was right - it does!

Look at the difference using just a paper towel and toothpaste!

Who knew?!

Free free free!

Get a free sample of Valspar paint!

I picked "Sumac Berry" to try in the new guest room.

http://www.valsparpaint.com/en/index.html

curtains

Going to attempt to make my own dining room curtains! Intimidating to me... but if it works, I will be one proud momma!

Thinking of this fabric...

http://www.fabric.com/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=c24abde0-8aea-4ca9-a8fa-9ec0d15212b7&CategoryID=958bc077-c25d-4525-bbd0-6715352113d5&cm_vc=756b1813-cbc1-43b3-84bd-29889bf8fb7b

A Breakfast Vacation

A smoothie that tastes like it's straight from the tropics... light, delicious, and filling. Yum.

The ingredient head shots...
1 Pineapple Chobani Yogurt

Frozen mango

A bit of coconut milk.. I hear Silk Coconut Milk is much better, but I haven't been able to track it down yet.

1/2 of a banana. When I took this picture, it reminded me of a lonely high school boy leaning up against a building with a foot against the brick wall, a black leather jacket on, and a cigarette in his hand.... so I did a retake..

There we go! A smiley face banana! Much better.

Group shot!

All ready to go..

Hold on tight! Wheeeeeeee!

Yum......

Ahh.....

Cheers to Spring!

Le sigh

I have not posted in a while because I have done nothing creative. NOTHING! It's killing me.

:(

I need inspiration, pronto.

Look Ma, I'm Organized!

I recently started saving/printing/finding coupons for items that I usually buy or could use. The trick is not to just buy things because you have a coupon that you would never buy to begin with. Tricky, tricky.

Anyhoo, I found that I'd stick them in my wallet and then forget about them or have to ruffle through them at the store trying to see which ones I had. Then as I was cleaning out my daughter's closet I found a little album that I had gotten when I was pregnant with her.

Now it is my coupon book! I love it! It stays in my car in all its bright pink glory just waiting to save me 50 cents each shopping trip. Score.

I'm sure that this is not a new concept by any means to the majority of people in the world, but it's new to me and it's a lovely little discovery. :)

Hanna's New Rooom

Hanna's room now is a green that I LOVE - Benjamin Moore's "Rosemary Sprig." I was going to make the jump to pink for her in the new house, but I don't think I can do it. So I came up with a happy medium...

The yellow-ish stripes on the bottom are supposed to be the wood floor, not part of the wall... I am trying to decide if the diamonds are too preppy, especially with the green/pink combo. Maybe I can find a more nature-y stencil that I like better instead of diamonds. Where do you even look for stencils?!

Ladder Lanterns

I saw this in the most recent Pottery Barn catalog and LOVE the laddern/lanterns setup. Thinking of doing this in the new dining room, but.. that can't give you much light! Thinking maybe I can just put a regular plain light flush against the ceiling under the ladder for better lighting?

Here's a close up of it... You can buy the rope, lanterns, and ladder at PB, but only if you want to spend a million dollars.

I have been on the lookout for an antique wooden ladder for a few years now with no luck. I did find this one on Amazon though for a great price, and I love that it narrows towards the top. I also found these fun Moroccan lanterns on Amazon for a little bit of a different look.

If I end up doing this, and ever get tired of it (I clearly will, I have to change things every 5 minutes it seems)... I can take the lanterns off of the ladder, use them somewhere else in the house, and hang practically anything from the ladder! If I get sick of the ladder, I take it down and lean it against the wall and drape magazines, cloth napkins, or dish towels on it...

Now I am even more excited than before!

Getting ready!

I have been working on decluttering/packing/cleaning up our (old) house in preparation for the open houses and the big move. Here's the the progress so far on our kitchen and bathroom.

I love this color in this kitchen - Benjamin Moore's "Sedona Clay," but I'm thinking going for a cheery yellow for the new kitchen.

Don't you love my fern? She's so pretty.

Who wouldn't want to buy our little house?! C'mon buyers!!!

Welcome, flowers!

Sign of Spring #3!

See you soon, little flowers!! :)

This picture was one I took last minute with the camera on my phone as I was driving onto the Oceanic Bridge, so it's not the best picture, and you can't so much tell what it is.. but for the past week or two there have been literally thousands of ducks in the river - it looks like a big blanket of black over the water. This is only a small section of them that you can see this less-than-stellar photo...

I am hoping that I can catch them all flying at the same time again - it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen... looked like something out of a movie because there are so many of them.

Happy Hump Day!

Crocus!

Sign of Spring #2!!!

Every March-ish, the same house in my parent's neighborhood has the first crocuses that I spot, and every year I climb onto their front lawn and snap away at them with my camera.

Early Spring is one of my favorite times of year, watching the buds on trees get bigger and bigger, the willow branches starting to change colors, and surprise flowers starting to pop up. I feel like I get little fun surprises every day, and love to walk around with my camera finding signs of the new season.