Royal Blue Madness

So I painted my bathroom this past weekend. I am obsessed with the color and how vibrant and uplifting it is!!

Here is a quick picture of the before and after colors:



In the pictures, it looks like the color would be too dark for this room, but there is so much sunlight, its just right! I got my paint on sale at Lowe's. Its called "Magical Merlin" haha. I got the 2 in 1 Olympia Paint and Primer. I didn't want to fool with buying a seperate primer because I'm an instant gratification kind of girl. With the 2 in 1, they suggest two coats (the first one acts as the primer, the second acts as the actual paint). Also, instead of paying $24 for a can of paint plus the price of whatever primer is, I paid $26 for one can of the 2 in 1.

I washed the walls and woodwork with Mr. Clean. Then I edged out everything with this little tool from heaven:

That is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Before I found it, I trimmed out the edge of the bathroom door with a paint brush and it took me almost 25 minutes. Then I cracked open this bad boy and edged out the whole room in about 15 minutes. It has a felt pad on the back of it, and those little wheels allow you to keep a safe distance away from the woodwork while it glides like a fantastic magical painting tool. Then from there I just went to it with a roller.

After pictures!!!

Now I'm just working on spray painting the metal towel racks. Blog on that later!

Lets talk about Salt Water

Summer is coming! And me being the Pinterest addict I am, I keep seeing all kinds of tutorials about "Beach Hair" where they use the expensive Salt Spray. This stuff is great, I used to use it when I had long hair because it gives you volume and gives your hair that texture you need for a good style. You know how a lot of styles require that non washed hair? Not gross unwashed hair, but the day after you took a shower kind. If that made sense... ANYWAY. The Salt Spray product you buy at the store is about $8-$10. Thats expensive for something you can just make at home. I've found recipes to make your own. Its just a spray bottle filled with warm water, a tablespoon of sea salt, 5 sprays of spray gel and a little bit of perfume. From everything I've read it works really well. But I found an easier way.

Salt water can be used for EVERYTHING. I had a horrific case of poison ivy last summer. When I say horrific, I truly mean it. I had it for almost two months and it was honestly the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I had it all over my me. From my toes to my hands. I tried everything. I probably spent $75 on all kinds of different products to get rid of it. Finally, one of my mom's hippie friends gave me a bottle of sea water. She told me all about how she swears by it and uses it for everything. I've heard of people using it on tattoos/piercings after they get them and it cleans it out and helps it heal. I sprayed this salt water all over the poison ivy bumps on my hands before I went to bed and when I woke up in the morning it was almost all gone. I literally sprayed it all over my body to get rid of the rest of it and it worked like a charm. After about three days, I was poison ivy free!  Since then I am a hippie believer in the salt water cure all. I use it on my face when its breaking out, I put it on sun burns, scrapes/cuts. I  even spray it in my dogs mouth to help get ride of his garbage breath.

Getting back to the original point..An easier (and almost free) way to make beach hair - Grab a water bottle filled of salt water the next time you're at the beach. Before you go to bed French braid your  hair when its dry. I put mine in two, but its up to you how waivy you want your hair. Poke a hole in the cover of your water bottle so you make a little squirt bottle type deal (or you could buy an empty spray bottle, but I'm kindof a cheap skate). Squirt the salt water all over your hair. You don't have to soak it, but just make it damp enough so it will come out waivy when it dries. After you get it damp, spritz some hair spray over it. I used Aussie Flexible Hold (I swear by it). Go to sleep, when you wake up take out the braids. Voila! Waivy hair that has piecey texture and looks like you have gorgeous waivy summer hair!!

Then, after you've had it in for a while and it starts to lose its volume. You can throw in a poof and a side pony tail and it looks just as awesome!

Lighting Fixtures!

I went to Lowe's today just to look around. Is that normal for a 23 year old girl? Just to go to Lowe's so see whats going down in hardware this week? I don't care if its not. I LOVE hardware stores. You always need something. Turns out that today that was true. I went into the lighting section and found a really cute vanity light for $12. Say what? $12? Yes, please. Whose your bargain shopper?

Here is the old one in the bathroom above the medicine cabinet:

 

Ew. It was all rusted on the outside edges, and it was starting to gross me out. I've wanted to replace it for a while, but when I happened to remember to look for them online or at Walmart they were always so damn expensive. Also, I figured I would electrocute myself when I tried to put it up. 

Here is the new one!!!

 

 

Woop Woop! It looks awesome! It was also super easy to install. 

Step one: FLIP THE BREAKER TO YOUR WHOLE HOUSE!!!! I didn't know if I could just flip the switch to the bathroom and be safe, so I looked on the internet. When I couldn't find anything, I read the directions that came with the fixture. It said you MIGHT be safe if you flip the switch for the one room, but bad things can still happen. It suggested turning off the power to the whole house. So, I decided that having to reset all the digital clocks in the house was more fun than being fried by some wires. Safety first.

Step Two: Take down the old fixture. Mine was up there with just a few screws. I had to pry it off the wall a little because the edges were sealed on there from when the room was painted. 

Step Three: Follow the directions. Yep. Pretty simple. To put mine up, all I had to do was connect the black wire from the fixture to the black wire coming out of the wall. Then do the same with a white wire. It was like paint by numbers....except no paint...and more electricity.. It comes with those little caps to put over them so they stay together, you want to make sure those go on there nice and tight too.

Then you screw it to the wall. Then (if you have poor planning skills like I do) you walk around your house unscrewing light bulbs from lights you don't use because you forgot to buy the bulbs when you purchased said lighting fixture.

Then go flip the breaker back on and you are golden!!! This fixture is SO much better than the old one. Not only does it look better, but it is brighter than the sun. I wasn't expecting it when I flipped on the light switch and I was blind for about a minute.

Tiny Shelves

I don't think I am the first person to ever say this, but I have the dreaded Storage Blues. We have a pretty large bathroom, but there is no where to put anything new. There is a towel rack, a shelving unit next to the sink and a bunch of shelves behind the door. That's it. I suppose I could keep all my makeup and things on the shelf behind the door, but I hated having to turn around every 2 minutes to get something. Annoying, much? Yes. 

So yesterday while I was working I decided to put some very small shelves up. Then I remembered these tiny plant pots that have been laying around the house for years and years. They're too small to put an actual plant in so they were always just hanging out. One of them was a catch-all in the bathroom for earrings, tweezers, nail files, etc. I took that and ran with it. I found a board in the garage that looked like it had seen better days. I got Mr. Sandpaperandnailpolish to cut it into 4.5" squares.  I grabbed some brackets at the hardware store. It was something silly like $1.78 for two brackets and all the screws, so I grabbed three packages. So this project officially cost $5.34. Everything else was either found in the house or in the garage. 

Here is a quick picture of everything before it was painted and finished:

I sanded down the wood quite a bit. I think it was just some scrap left over from the porch that was just outside for what looked like a very long time, so it took some elbow grease to get it looking fresh. For this I had to don what Tim refers to as my "Gay Robber Look". (The elastics on all of my face masks broke so this is all I have!)

 Once I got the edges all smooth and the wood was looking good, I painted them the same color as the medicine cabinet. I went lighter on the ends so the wood grain would show through (you'll be able to see that later. I think it looks pretty cool). Please, please, please don't make the same mistake I did and leave things to dry on newspaper. What a nightmare! The newspaper was all stuck to the paint when I woke up this morning and it took about 20 minutes to pick and peel all the newspaper off. I felt like a big idiot. But they came out nicely. After I finished picking off all the newspaper (ugh) I attached the brackets. It was super simple. Put the bracket where you want it, put in a screw. Rinse. Repeat.

Then attach to the wall. I used sheet rock screws, to make sure they really stayed in there. The little plant pots are hand made from clay, so they're pretty heavy for their size. Where they were right over the toilet I wanted to make sure they weren't going to fall on anyone while they were..umm..using the bathroom..

Here is the final product!! I really like it!

 

Also, a handy storage tip for necklaces and rings that I did a few weeks ago. I found some little hooks. I don't know what their called, I think it something like "S hooks" or "Eye hooks". They look like this:

Typically you'll see these in peoples cabinets to hang coffee mugs. I found a few in the junk drawer in the kitchen and decided to plug them into the wall in the bathroom to hang my necklaces on. They never get all tangled up and knotted anymore! 

All in all, two insanely useful projects, that take no time at all. Happy  DIY'ing!

Valentine's Day Gift Extravaganza!!!

I LOVE making girfts for people! It's so much more fun than going from store to store for days trying to find something perfect. This year for Valentine's Day I sent my mom (who recently moved to North Carolina from Maine) a care package filled with all things Maine/New England. Fun Fact: Did you know they don't sell Marshmallow Fluff outside of New England? I did not know that untill about two weeks ago. I made sure to write things on the outside of the box like "WICKED FRAGILE, BUB" and "A WICKED GOOD MAINE CARE PACKAGE".

I also made my friend Amy a really cute framed print that I embelished a little bit. She sent me this from Pinterest:

Obviously thats the cutest thing ever. To be honest , I teared up a little when I read it because I miss her a shit ton.

So I had a stroke of brillance and Staples helped me out with it. They will let you email them any attachment and they will print if off for you. Seriously? Ahmazingly conveniant. I had them print the picture off on 8.5"x11" cardstock in color. It cost something like $1.98. I love me some cheap deals on some sweet stuff. I made my way over to AC Moore and bought a floater frame (one of the frames where you sandwich the picture in between two panes of glass and has a border of wood), some rhinestones, little pink scrapbooking flowers, pink glitter glue and the smallest paint brush I could find.

There is a quck picture (minus the frame). I forgot to take a picture of the supplies before it was all done and shipped out. I had used all the pink flowers so they aren't in that picture.

Seriously, folks, if you are going to do anythign with little tiny rhinestones, you NEED tweezers. These were so small I couldn't even use my fingers to pick them up from the sides. The tweezers also made it much easier to put them exactly where I wanted them without getting the glitter glue all over everything.

All I did was take the pink glitter glue and trace along the letters of some of the words to make it look a little more fun. Then I took the pink flowers and glued them onto the corners. I dotted all the I's with rhinestones, and also put them in the center of the flowers. All together this probably took about 15-20 minutes to do, and about an hour to dry. Then I just popped it into the frame. It came out so cute, honestly, I was proud of myself. Here are some pictures!

You can't see the glitter on the letters at all in these pictures, but its there. It was my favorite gift I've ever made so far and it cost all of $15 to make.

Open the pod bay door, Hal.

I got my Ipod touch! I'm like a giddy small child with this thing, I swear. This thing is frigging awesome. I am having so much fun figuring it out and using  it. I feel all high tech and futuristic. I have not stopped taking pictures and downloading apps since I got it on Friday. I have recommended it to almost everyone I have talked to in the last three days. I'm a little obsessed. I originally set out to get a refurbished one, but I stopped at Wal Mart first (even though I knew they don't have any refurbs in the store) and the guy said they only had one left so I snatched it up! I just couldn't wait. I wanted a white one, but they only had black.

I am SO on the weight loss band wagon now. Since last Sunday (when I had the plague and couldn't eat anything for two days) I have been taking it easy with food. I have lost 13 lbs! I'm setting my goal to lose no less than 2 lbs a week (more is obviously preferable). My favorite app so far that is helping me with this is called "MyFitnessPal". which is essentially a calorie counting app. Its pretty helpful. You put in how much you weigh and what your goal weight is and it tells you how many calories you need to eat daily to get to your goal weight. Then you chart your food/calorie intake for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. The good thing about this is you're not actually figuring out all the calories on your own. They have almost every food stored in a database .All you do is type in what you ate and 99.9% of the time it pulls it up and tells you how many calories are in it. I find it makes the whole calorie counting thing much easier. I just feel like a freak when I'm staring at the label on the side of the box trying to do math and writing it down, all that is annoying and frustrating. When I go on these counting binges I usually just end up eating the prepackaged 100 calorie snacks and those Weight Watchers frozen meals. Not fun. This tells you how many you are alloted for the day (Mine is 1200). As you add food it subtracts it from the total and lets you know how many you have left. It is incredibly handy. Also, there are charts and graphs to track your progress.

I have been annoyingly flitting around the house taking pictures with the ol' Ipod. If the dogs could talk they would be swearing at me. I got a sweet camera app called "Instant110". You can change the lense, developer and film. This is the.best.thing.ever. I am a huge fan of the way pictures looked on old cameras in the 60s and 70s. They are just more soulful than digital pictures. For example:

That is Mr. Sandpaperandnailpolish. This was the first night I had the gadget and, as you can see, he is already annoyed with the picture taking.

Other than taking pictures and dowloading things, I decided to paint all the woodwork in the house. The paint was just old and yellowing. Things that are meant to be white...should look white. When that is not the case it grosses me out. So I washed all the trim and baseboards really well. I was SO glad I didn't have to sand them down becaue that would have taken A LOT of work. After it dried I cracked open a gallon of primer I found in the basement and went. to. town.

This is the primer I used. I've never used it before, but it seemed to work fairly well.

I didn't think it looked all that bad before, it was just bugging me. Once I started and was able to compare the before and after colors I just couldn't stop.

So far I have the windows and doors done in the mudroom and one side of the bathroom door. I can't believe how much it brighter the rooms look, even with just the primer. I can't wait to actually put a top coat on.

And, yet again. We have our daily Pinterest gem. This is probably my favorite thing EVER.

Bow Tie -A- Rama!

I found this really cute idea on (you guess it!) Pinterest for making your own bow tie! They had so many super fancy ones they made for weddings and headbands. This is the page I liked the best. They were making a supah fly one for a little boy in a wedding. I wanted to try it and the only fabric I had laying around was one of those free handkerchiefs you can get at the pet store during some kind of promotion, so the dog got a new bow tie! She was pretty pumped.

You can really make this any way you want (I made it for a dog, people...so its pretty easily customizable). I decided to make a slightly bigger one because it was my first time, I figured I would leave as little room for error as possible.

You'll need a ruler, some fabric, scissors, a needle and some thread. I suppose you could use a sewing machine if you were striving for perfection, but honestly, its going to take you longer to set up the machine than to just sew it by hand. Ironing it after you're all done wouldn't be a bad idea either if you were looking to wear this out to a formal party or glue it to a headband.

This is my set up.

I chose to cut mine 5.5" x 4.5" to make a bigger bow tie.

Fold it in half width wise (iron if you would like to) and then sew up the sides. Make sure you leave an unsewn 1/2" - 1" gap on the longest side so you will be able to flip it right side out.

You can just barely see the pink thread on the left hand side, but you get the idea.

Flip it inside out through the gap you left in the longer side. Really make sure you push out the corners from the inside out, otherwise you'll have a weird oval shape. (You would iron after this step)

Next, you'll want to cut a strip of fabric you can use to keep the rectangle shaped like your bow tie. If you are making a fancier one than I am, take a 2" x 4" in strip. Fold it the long way and then sew it at the end. I simply cut out the border of the handkerchief like so:

Take the rectangular piece you sewed before and pucker it around the middle so it resembles a bow tie.

Take the strip of fabric and wrap it around the middle so it stays puckered. Pop a few stitches into the strip to keep it tight enough to hold the shape and you are done!! If you were going to make this into an actual bow tie, you would then stitch this onto a longer strip to go around the shirt collar. If you want to make it much fancier, add another smaller rectangle piece and layer the two. Where I made it for the dog, I just slipped it on over her collar.

This whole thing probably took about 10-15 minutes. That was honestly the easiest craft project I have ever done. I think I'm going to buy a little bit of fabric and make a really nice one to stick onto a headband. The great thing about this is it uses such a small amount of fabric.You could even buy the most expensive kind and it would cost no more than $5 to make the version pictured above.

Now Riley will model her new digs.

OH SNAP

I just got over a bout of the stomach flu. It lasted about two days. If you are friends with me on Facebook (which I am fairly certain all of you are) you are well aware of this because of my incessant bitching via status updates. Actually, the first day was the worst, the second day it just felt like my stomach was getting stabby. Between Sunday at 6am and today around Noon(when I was brave enough to eat some salad) all I had eaten was half a sleeve of Ritz crackers and a whole lot of water. I have lost just under 10 pounds according to my scale. Needless to say, I have not been on the DIY train for a few days.

But in other news, I am in the market for an IPod touch with a camera. Let me just preface all of this in saying that I am sortof an idiot when it comes to technology. It took me about 2 weeks to figure out this blogging deal and, to be honest, I'm surprised I know enough about Facebook to use it properly. I have never owned a techy gadget I didn't have to call the manufacturer to ask questions. I have never owned an Apple product (GASP!!!), so this is quite the step for me. I found a "Second Generation" Ipod touch on Craigslist and emailed the seller asking for pictures. I later remembered that I wanted one with a camera and knew from looking online that not all of them have one, so I emailed him asking this question. This is the response I got:

"It doesn't this is the 2nd Generation iPod, the ones with the cameras are the 4th generation. Duh."

 

First off: Are you fucking kidding me? You're serious right now? Really? Secondly: Are you trying to sell something or get beaten with a tube sock filled with oranges?

After running the response by Amy (my totes ferosh) to make sure it had the proper level of sass, this is what i responded with:

"I apologize. I wasn't aware that I worked at the Apple store and should have formal knowledge of all the specs of the Ipod "generations". If this had a camera and if you had a better attitude I would be interested, as neither of them appear to be here I am not interested in buying this from you. DUH"

Is this what owning an Apple product is going to turn me into? One of these douchey techy hipsters? I sure hope not, because I want me an Ipod touch real bad.

Sweet Baby Jesus!!!!

My e.l.f order FINALLY got here. It was like Christmas, I'm not going to lie. I was a little bummed out because the pink foundation brush and nail polish I ordered was out of stock by the time they went to ship my order, but I am still pretty thrilled with what I got. Naturally, half of it was out of the packaging and on my face within 5 minutes of coming out of the mail box. 

This is lip plumper on one end and lip primer on the other ($3.). Holy God, DO NOT go over your lips more than once with the plumper. It has cinnamon extract in it so it makes your lips "Seductively red and plump". I didn't know how strong it was when I first opened it and I thought my face was on fire. I used the primer part of it and then put my new lipstick on over it. I didn't see a change from when I had the lipstick on by itself, but the primer made my lips feel super smooth, so its a win in my book. Not the best picture, but you get the idea...maybe.

I also got this lip stick in "Fearless" ($1). I am not a huge lipstick fan, but this is a good shade of red for me! YES! It has finially happened!!! You have no idea how many shades of red lip gloss and lipstick I have owned, used once, and then promptly thrown out. This is a keeper. Also, it smells like Cherry Kool-Aid. 

This is the Tone Correcting Concealer ($1 each). I got it in a three different shades for when my skin tone changes. Right now I would describe my skin as "Albino-y". They didn't have that shade, so I opted for Ivory, Light Beige and Apricot Beige. 

 

Two different kinds of mascara($1 each). Volume Plumping and Last Extender. The lash extender works SO GOOD. You need to get this. It made my eyelashes look really long without getting all clumpy and gross.

Brush Shampoo ($3). This makes me sad because I didn't get the foundation brush I bought this for. I can use it on my other brushes, but it just won't be the same without the pink sequins and rhinestones.

Liquid Lipstick ($1 each). From left t right they are Baby Lips, Raspberry and Ruby Slipper. These are a mix between lipstick and lip gloss. As you can see, I already cracked open the Raspberry shade. Even after I had it on for 20 minutes or so, I kissed my nephew and it left big lip prints on his forehead, not a fan of that, but the color looks pretty good.

 Lastly, a three pack of Plumping Lip Gloss ($3). I love the packaging!!! I haven't used it yet, but they're all darker shades of pink/plum. 

Annndddd here is a cute picture of my nephew and I. This is about the 50th picture taken in 3 hours. Clearly, he had started to lose interest.