Graham's Cracker Box

It doesn't take me long to find a project on a day off of work. My husband hates this about me! It was something like 112 degrees today, so we started swimming at 10am. We have a cool little covered cabana off of the pool. It needs a HUGE makeover, and we have big plans for it put it will probably be a year or two before we can do the plans we want to do. Sooooo, as most of you know, I do not sit well with undone projects. So I sat and looked at it for about 30 minutes and then I had a plan!.

So I started with the old metal countertops and covered them with woodlike contact paper....Oh yes I did! and it actually looks great! I would love to get solid stone countertops, but that is gonna take some saving...We also have a very tired and weathered wooden shelf, so I contact papered that too, and then stuck sticky vinyl tiles to the shelves. It really does look like I got a new outdoor kitchen! I spent $40 at Family Dollar on the contact paper and the tiles and I have tons left over. I am going to use the left over tiles for the tops of my little plastic end tables that I use outdoors. A little spray paint and tiles for the top and they will be good as new!

Anyway, back to the cabana, so I gathered up old chairs and an old picnic table and arranged them like a dining room. I got these perfect pictures at Interior Motives awhile back and the torch cintonella things are from Tuesday Morning during the winter 50% off.

The picnic table is in poor shape, and the wood is really bad, however I found out that it is not too bad of a thing. When you buy plastic outdoor table cloths, they have while cotton stuff on the back and it sticks great to "splintery" wood!!!!!! So well, that I cut up an old table cloth and put it on the benches as well.

A few months ago I went to a Mexican Import place that sold pottery, and asked them where all the damaged pots where, he showed me a huge pile and I bought I a ton of pots with small imperfections. It saved me a ton of money! The pots are going to be outside anyway, so they are going to weathered and probably kicked by a soccer ball.

Hope you like the redo, it was a fun project today and not it is clean and neat, this place is almost ready for company!!!!











This is the Cabana before

One of the reasons we fell in love with this house, was the huge den. We thought it had great potential and we loved the pull wall of windows and the two built ins that are the size of twin beds on the back wall. All the windows had pink verticals and the carpet was pink also. I am sure it was quite great back in it's day. But I wanted to warmify the whole space, so I painted the room a terra cota color and spent a lot of my budget on new carpet and custom wooden blinds from Ropers Drapery. The blinds are so pretty that I didn't even put curtains up. We found some great vases, candle holders, faux lemons, mirrors, greenery, bar high dining table, zebra otoman at Interior Motives in Carlsbad. The couch we have had for years. On the back wall I bought heavy weight fabric at Hobby Lobby on sale, and since I don't sew, I bought little clip rings and made a giant curtain out of it.It was much cheaper than custom curtains. I just turned the fabric under and clipped it. I huge them on a pretty rod and I love them!! We got the bar top redone and now everything is warm and a bit dark, like I wanted the den to be. Hope you like it:) Here are the before and after pics...

First Buy two bunches of flowers of your choice. I got these at Alberstons. I purchased a dozen red roses, and one bunch of purple sprays with smaller blooms. Then got 3 small glass bowls, and cut all the roses to fit, where they would rest agaist the side of the bowl. Then, I cut the sprays and placed them in next in between the roses. It is a splash of color on my kitchen island for Valentine's Day and I still had one left for the bathroom vanity. Instead of just one HUGE vase with flowers, I have a few to scatter around. After you have done the little arrangements add water and enjoy them. P.s. Mums are the cheapest and they last the longest. But roses are ohh sooo pretty! Try to choose a big bloom, and a small bloom.

Last cut the leaves off the roses stems and place them on the outter edges of the bowls. I love this idea, it took me 15 minutes and about $15 you can also use cerel bowls and do two bigger arrangements :)

Happy Valentines Day!

I rearrange my house all the time! Mainly, it is my special way of tricking myself to clean or straighten up the house. It make it feel fresh and clean. This is a giant sectional that we took out of the den and moved into the living room. I set it in the middle of the floor on the diagonal, and it works great! With the sectional right across from the fireplace. I love it this way!

Against the wall, I have a dresser in the living room. It may not be "the norm" but it works great to keep all my extra blankets, table cloths and place mats. Plus it is Zebra, which I adore! In the spirit of Valentines Day, I have a lovely man and woman dancing displayed in the art work and an oversized red vase. Just love it!

My boys are always digging my little "plate tent" out of my pantry. These are those little things you get at the dollar store for cook outs to keep the flies off the food. Well I had an idea to make their "healthy snack" fun by leaving it under the tent on the island everyday when they get home. I am at work most of the evening, so this also makes it easy and stress free for my hubby to give them a good snack.

I pick a cute plate, and then put an assortment of snacks on the plate each day. They are doing great with it. I think when kids have too many choices it can be stressful for everyone. So instead of asking them what they want to snack on, and pointing at 5 things in the pantry before they finally agree on the cookies, this is much easier. Try this, it works great for my two sons. They are almost 2 and 4 years old.

Okay, loved Christmas and all the festivities, but now I am ready for spring and flowers. So without redoing my entire table arrangement, I added a few snowball flowers (fake of course) to brightened it up a bit! Remember work in odd numbers, it always looks more balanced. The flowers are coming out in 3 places which works in my mind and seems balanced, (the odd number thing:)

I have made the centerpiece a little romantic, with an antique love note, framed in a old frame. And some love birds here and there. Sometimes you don't need to change the entire table just tweek it a little for each holiday or season :)

Designer looking Christmas Trees are not hard, you just need a few simple tips.
1. First buy either cream or gold tulle (what wedding veils are made of). It is cheap $1 yard, you need about 7 yards for a 7 ft tree. Then cut it into about 8in strips and fill in the tree horizonally. It will look like someone toilet papered your tree, but be patient with each step the tree looks better and better:)
2. Buy wire Ribbon in the color you want. Run the ribbon from top to bottom, kind of curling and crossing the tulle.
3. Buy floral sprays, poinsettas, and light sticks from your yard of from the store and start sticking them around. (buy odd numbers of things, it looks more balanced in the end)
4. Put unexpected things on the tree like birds, words, hats, old pictures etc.
5. I scrapbooked a few pictures of my kids and put them on my tree.
6. Make sure you are sticking with a simple color palette. The most beautiful trees are very monochromatic (one color) in my opinion.
Have fun, and rock out a designer tree :)