Art

So, before I start on this post I'm going to set a goal.  My goal is to blog every day this week.  Hoping this will get me in the right mind to write more!

I've been a little obsessed with pictures for the past year.  I think you can guess why.

Because of this I want to put them up all over my house.  I already did a picture wall in my dining room and now that we are making our downstairs into a nice family room I'm aching to do something similar, but different.

I found a whole bunch of frames at Porters (a craft store) for 40% off, so they were only a few bucks a frame.  I bought black, white, blue and pink.  Weird colors?  I don't know, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them, but now I'm seeing a theme come together with some fabric I had on hand.  I put them into a few of the frames.

And then I have this amazing picture of Naomi I had blown up and framed.  The best frame to match it was a bright pink and blue one.  Coincidence?  I think not.  I think it will match the other frames and such beautifully.

And then I came across a girl who is doing water color paintings to raise money to take her sister to Disney Land or World.... one of the two.  Send her your photo and she will paint it and take whatever you choose to donate.  I had her paint two.  One of Nae and one of myself.  I think it will make a good picture for our bathroom - where I get ready.  It's not often that I find a picture where I think I look pretty, but with these I do.

I sent the money and as soon as I get them I'm going to frame them and then I'll share them and the pictures they were painted after.

I'll definitely have her do more for me in the future.  I think they could make a beautiful present.

If anyone knows of any artists who will paint/draw/anything like that to one of my photo's let me know.   I'm looking to fill my home with more than just photos - I want paintings of photos :) 

New Bedding

I have been on the hunt for new bedding for a while.  Like a few years. 

We have quite a bit of left over paint from our accent wall in the basement and we like it so much we want to paint our bedroom that color.  And I found the perfect bedding to match.  And it will go especially well with the upholstered headboard I am going to attempt to make sometime soon. 

Beautiful?  Yes. 

Thank you West Elm.

What I Need To Be Better Oganized

A super fantastic friend of mine sent me a link to a blog post that made me feel better about cleaning.  Then I realized this blog had tons of posts like this.  And other stuff, too.  For the last two days I have been reading and reading her stuff.

I really like the way she talks about things and tackles problems.  And I like her solutions to problems. 

I've come to realize a few things.  I don't have a lot of clutter in my home.  Everything has a place.  When my house is totally picked up and clean the only eye sore/thing that bugs me is this bin that has all of the bills/important things that need to be filed away.

Why can't I file them away as I get them?  I don't know....  I guess the first time I put the bills or receipts in the bin was due to laziness.  Didn't want to walk over to the cupboard, grab the filing folder dealy and put them in their respective folders.  The next time and so on when one came I didn't put it in it's folder because it would have been out of order!  And from then it has piled up.  It's so easy to put it in the bin, it's out of the way and we are so used to it being there that it doesn't look out of place to us.

But it really is.

We have too many for one of my little mini filing folders.  I need a filing cabinet.  Jaren mentioned getting one.  We have one down in the basement but it's locked and there isn't a key or something like that.  I'm going to try to find something that will work and will look good out in the open.  Lately I've really wanted design to my home.  Jaren doesn't quite get it... but he will when he see's the finished product.

Besides, they make much better toy's than a filing thingy.

So, I'm file cute file cabinet hunting.  And thank you thank you to my dear friend, Ali for thinking of me. 

Upstairs, Downstairs, Family Room, Living Room?

I wrote this post on Sunday and had planned to post it on Monday, but then thing's came up - I had my crown prep and didn't feel much in the mood for anything.  Then Tuesday happened and I vented about something else.

Anyway - sorry about hearing about my giant to-do list again, but this was written before Tuesdays or Thursdays or Friday - whenever I wrote that last one's post. 

10-31-2010

Lately I've been going nuts.  Nuts with how I feel like I don't have a handle on anything.  My house seems to constantly be a mess.  I am behind on balancing my checkbook.  Laundry, editing, taking pictures, videoing, blogging, reading blogs, phone calls, cards, exercising, projects, dinners.... ect...  How do you just get a grip!

One thing at a time... I know....

Jaren has brought up making our upstairs family room into a living room for a while now.  I'm always hesitant because upstairs is where I've decorated, painted and made into a nice homey warm home.  Downstairs is cold - figuratively - it's white, not really decorated.  Basically it's where we stick stuff.  But since I've started my photography business my computer is set up down here.  And so we've put half of Nae's toys down here and I'm down here every day.  It's become more familiar and not so cold.

And because I feel like there isn't a room in the house that is in order - except Nae's room - I'm all for roping off the upstairs and wrangling the circus to downstairs.  First thing on the list is to paint.  Painting the downstairs will give it the finished warm homey feeling that I need.  We will move some of the furniture from upstairs downstairs - bookshelf and T.V. stand.  That will help.  I'm going to decorate downstairs.  And over time it will feel more like the upstairs.

What we are most looking forward to is after Nae is put to bed we can walk upstairs and sit in a nice, clean space.  And the mess is all in one place.  And when people decide to drop by I wont feel like the worlds most horrible house wife because my house looks like it was ransacked.

I'm hoping this will help me to not feel like a housewife failure.  Which happens quite often....

Project Clean House

Is underway.  Since I've been done with my race I've not ran more than a mile and a half....  I feel a little guilty, but I'm getting so much done around my house!

My sister has come out and helped me a bit and I am so grateful.  I'm planning on totally ransacking the entire thing then putting it back together again room by room.

First up is the kitchen.  That has been cleaned, but just needs to be maintained.  Oh man how I hate unloading the dishwasher.  Only takes 5 minutes, but for some reason drives me crazy.  But I don't mind loading?  So weird.

Next is the family room.  Lindsey dusted and wiped down all of my shelves.  Just need to fluff cushions, switch cushions, vacuum couch, vacuum floor, clean windows, clean blinds, scrub floorboards and...  umm.. re-decorate.  But that wont happen for a while.

Thursday I cleaned out my closet.  Something I had been needing to do since I could fit back into my old wardrobe.  I have quite the give-away pile.  I still need to organize and dust.  And re-decorate.  Which is something that may happen in the near future! Wahoo!

Bathrooms.  Basic cleaning and need re-decorating.  Cleaning will get done this week, re-decorating may take a few months.  If only money grew on tree's.....

Naomi's room.  STILL have not hung her stuff.  I'm annoyed every time I walk in there because of that.  But I need 2 people!  It's a problem because either she is sleeping or Jaren isn't home.

Dining room.  A work in progress.  Needs picked up and a rug and the hutch sanded and re-painted.  Oh, and new chairs for our table.

Should I post before and afters of everything?  I plan on doing it with the decorating thing.  But maybe not the cleaning thing.  Cause that would show just how messy I've let things get in my quest to run really far really fast consecutively.