Tuesday, October 26, 2010

New Blogger Ketchup

or do I mean 'catch up'?

First let me just say that I have much love for all of you hardcore bloggers out there. I really thought I did my research before starting this blogette (that's what I call a baby blog) and I was fairly confident I had the right tools to facilitate all things bloggy.

wrong.

I had no idea about backgrounds or themes or dashboards.

Buttons? You mean the ones I pop off after a big dinner?

Linky Party? Seriously how do I get invited to one of these things!?

Features? Oh yeah, the Saturday night premiere movie on HBO. phew, knew that one.

Luckily, I'm a quick learner (and had a lot of time on my hands) and figured all those things out pretty quickly. In fact (speaking of features - toot toot), I've been featured two stinkin' times already. So awesome.

Bottle Cap Coasters




Book Page Wreath



At least I have the 'substance' part of this blog thing down. But there are still things I'm learning and, like usual, trying to do all on my own!

My blog header is one of those things. I've got it 'good enough' but that's just not good enough! It's pretty, but...well it's just pretty. It says nothing about this place. The wheels are still turnin'.

Another one of those things is my button. Even though I now know what a button is, I am still learning how to make one...that doesn't suck. I use the free program GIMP and for a n00b like me, it is totally not user friendly. I've come up with several buttons so far. One even ended up looking like someone else's out in blogland. A complete coincidence of course. I had never visited her site before, but that I definitely meant I had to fix mine, now!

So here's what I've come up with (for now):

Photobucket

It's still not good enough, but it's better than the last...ahem...four I've had. I know, four is a little crazy considering I haven't even been blogging for a month. But that just proves my point; my buttons are a little rough.

Slowly, but (almost) surely, I'm getting the hang of this. Bear with me, folks. Ima get this! (or Ima make one of my computer savvy friends do it for me!)

If you're a blogger, what were some of your unexpected issues when you first started blogging??

Coat Closet Clean Up

I like to think I'm a rather organized girl, but if I told you that standing in front of our coat closet you'd laugh -- at me, not with me. I realized this when I went for my gloves (yes, gloves. it's getting a little chilly in the midwest) and an avalanche of hats, scarves, purses, etcetera fell to the floor. Oops.

Here's how I made this:


Outta this:


As most of you know, my projects are always on an insanely low budget. And once again, here I am, trying to do an organization project on a budget of...wait for it...zero dollahs! Organizing caddies alone would send a better budget through the roof. But I came up with a free solution that proves (again) to the Hubs that I hold on to 'things' for a reason. What's the solution? you ask...Shoeboxes, of course. What?! Oh yeah.

True, initially they look a mess, but with a little help from some 'Oops Paint' and labels and those bad boys make a space like this:


Look like this:


What the!? Where the!? That's right, just one shelf folks. That heaping pile of hot mess condensed down to one, very organized shelf. Dang, it feels good to be [an organizing] ganster.

First, I threw everything on the floor. The Pup can't resist a pile of fluffy warm goodness.


Then I sorted it into piles and found homes for everything. My purses were taking up a lot of space that I needed on the lower shelf. So I made them a new home. For now, this is temporary. If I decide I love it, I'll get real hooks instead of nails.

I moved what I could of our seasonal items to the basement and purged the stuff we haven't used in over a year.

Not bad for free storage, right?!

So tell me, where does your organization fall a little short?

<3 dani

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Momma's Challenge: Cheap Ghost Wreath

The Momma bought some inexpensive ghost yard ornaments. They were inexpensive for a couple of reasons. Namely, when assembled they look like this:


Inexpensive or not, she couldn't put these up in her yard. She'd be laughed outta the neighborhood. So of course, she handed them off to me and said, "You want 'em? I mean, there's probably nothing you can do with them anyway. I'll just throw them out." Oh no she ditint! Reverse psychology definitely works on me. I took them and told her that comment was a challenge. I would definitely find something to do with these cheap ugly ghosts.

Here's what I came up with and what you'll need:

a few ghosts (you can use cheap ones from the store or make them from scratch)
black crepe paper
orange crepe paper
dollar store wreath
hot glue
black fabric scraps

I began by wrapping the DS wreath in black crepe paper. You could spray paint it black and skip this step, but I'm too cheap to buy more black spray paint.


I made up a few ugly ghosts and glued them on.

Wrapped it in scraps of black fabric.


Made and glued on some orange crepe paper flowers.


Better than the yard ornaments, yeah? High Five?!


So booyah, Momma! Challenge accepted! and won!

LINKIN' UP

Office Inspiration and Another 'Oops' Redesign

It's time to redesign our office. Not because it wasn't functional, but because I broke it. Yup, that's right. Tons of books scattered on the floor and a huge 'out-of-order' sign on the door. I'll get into details in just a sec, but first take a look at some of the photos that I'm using as inspiration for the redo.






Simple lines. Classic furniture. Clean, crisp colors. Loads of shelving. Now, I just have to figure out how to do this on a $30 budget...

On to the 'Oops' part of the story (I'm a good news first kinda girl).

Let me start by saying, I don't know what it is about cheap shelving and me, but we just don't get a long well. It's like, as soon as I get close to a cheap shelf, he freaks out, commits suicide and crumbles.

A few weeks ago, I demolished my craft area shelf by complete accident. If you missed that post, here it is. And Thursday, when I was still half-dying from my sinus infection, I got the urge to shift my bookshelf about four inches to center it on the wall. Guess what? I destroyed my bookshelf. Here's the carnage:


Note that I took all the books off the unit before attempting to move it and it stillll collapsed on me. Ugh.


Annnd left this nasty little hole in the wall.


It wasn't a total loss. Just as I did with the craft area cabinet, I took a hammer and made me some shelves. 

I wasn't really planning on redesigning the office, but I think the absence of a bookshelf certainly moved this project to the top of my list.

So, which inspiration photo do you love the most?


<3 dani