A few things in the Pool House

I finally had an ENTIRE day to craft for myself! Yay! This is what happens when an ADD girl with an entire day crafts! I needed to laminate some labels and had no more chairs to move to so that's when I organized my projects again! I got lots done! My poolhouse is NOT done but I wanted to show you a few things! I haven't printed the actual labels as I still need to sort into all my new bins but the pretty tags are ready for labels once I get to that part! The tags on the metal buckets are laminated so I can changes things around and put on a new label whenever I want.

Fun decor

More with some empty spots ready to fill.

I started sewing but have lots to finish. This is part of some small curtains covering lower parts of bookcases for hidden storage. I am making pillow shams with the print fabric and bed skirt with the green.

Here's my clock! The furniture is white so this is perfect right??? Ha! No way! This is my clock 'before' and I bought it at Walmart for a whole $4! This is my favorite type of decorating project!

Here it is after! The little sign says "it's 5 o'clock somewhere' in case you can't read it!

Not a good zoom quality but I had to make sure you saw all the fun bling on it--it's quite fun to do something girly since I'm a Mom of 2 boys!

Love my new stainless steel desk where I will do lots of sewing! Here's what I have on one corner.

Bedding isn't done but throw pillows are ready! Stein Mart has fabulous pillows!

I sure hope I can get the room done so I can show you the rest but had to share a few details since I finally got lots done!

Design & Cleaning Tip!

I know, that's awesome right? A design tip AND cleaning tip? It's all about my dining room table and things you should know. Ha! I fell in love with my dining room table in the store. I was building my farmhouse style home and thought it would be perfect!

Well, let me tell you how wrong I was. Here's your design tip. If you buy a dining room table, don't get one with pretty little grooves! The slats are gorgeous and fit into my style and match my wood floors that are in the room next to the dining room so aesthetically, LOVE IT! But crumbs and spills? Uggh! Seriously, how did it not occur to me that the bread crumbs from a Thanksgiving Dinner would be more work to clean than all the dishes? I do think that if the manufacture would fill the grooves with a sealer or lacquer that is used on the wood or something that it would be fine but my grooves are thin and DEEP!

So this weekend, I have been scrapbooking a lot! I had some girlfriends over and one of them, Lisa, made an awesome wall hanging for my pool house, that I am still working on! Someday hopefully soon I will share that with you! One of her cool techniques is to sand the edges of paper and boards! As she worked, I knew my pretty little table was going to annoy me the next day! We all made a mess and had bits of paper everywhere! Here is an area of my table this morning! Check out the pretty stuff in the grooves. I have used a steak knife to pop crumbs out of these grooves before.

So I was cleaning up today and the perfect solution occurred to me! My boys had so much fun helping me keep our automatic vacuum thingy in the area around the table. Then I thought, why not use it on the table? So that's my cleaning tip--use your automatic vacuum on your annoying slat table if I am too late to give you a design tip and you have one too-- it works perfectly! I am not freaked at what germs may be on my floor that I just put on my table because I just wiped it down with a lysol wipe after and I set my scrapbook stuff on the floor and then put it on the table so what's the difference? We don't really eat here much anyway--it's a clever cover up for my craft area as all my tools and such are in the next open area! I also love a good tablecloth so I would cover it for the random meal anyway! It worked great and my boys had so much fun watching it (there's a sensor so it won't even fall off, goes to the edge and spins!) that I thought I would share!

I'm going to scrapbook again in 45 minutes with a great friend so I may be doing this again tonight!

Altered window treatment

I am working in a home right now where we are making lots of changes! So many things that I haven't photographed but one big thing that has been happening is a new nursery for a sweet baby boy that will arrive in the next 2 months!

The homeowners knew someone who makes custom baby bedding. I sew but that seems like a LOT of work so I was thrilled they had someone who could design and complete this! I looked at fabric samples for them, gave my opinion (not only as a decorator but as a Mommy!), helped with accessories and they worked with the bedding designer. She did an amazing job! Here is the crib-

My client asked that she make a window treatment which is not something she normally does. There is one window and it is in the center of the main wall, so quite a focal point. She agreed to make one and described a balloon valance and made it and went above and beyond to complete the room for them. It was a great balloon valance but the homeowners just weren't so sure they loved it. This type of treatment is great in a bathroom or in a room where there are several windows that are higher off the ground with furniture under them. But one window that is the first thing you see when you walk into the room needs to be a focal point, not an accent. The husband knew it wasn't right but wasn't sure what he thought it should be and the wife liked it until he didn't but then also didn't know what to do so they asked that I 'figure it out'! My professional window treatment diagnosis? Whimpy. Yup, that was my answer. Not sure why that was my only word but once I said it, they both were like, yes, it's just to whimpy! This room is gorgeous and it needed a bit more "umph" to live up to the amazing bedding that she made! Remember, she doesn't make window treatments and did this as a bonus! She did a great job! We could have started from scratch but we decided to highlight her amazing bedding and build on what she started by altering her design to create the focal point it deserved! So, here is the before: And here is the after:

We found gorgeous trim to add to the bottom. I used the ties that she had used and trimmed the edges. The treatment wasn't much wider than the window and I didn't love seeing the brackets on the rod so the trim helped fix those issues as well. I hand stitched the pleating as the fabric wasn't long enough to function as a true shade anyway and think it turned out great!

Here is the lamp I found for the room! It was $48 but it was wobbly so it was on clearance for $10! So I bought it, spent a whopping 25 seconds tightening one bolt on the bottom and then used my hot glue gun to add the trim. Quite the gorgeous lamp isn't it?

Here is the expectant Daddy seeing the bedding for the first time!


Now all they need is a cute baby!

Teacher Appreciation Week--through a PTA Mommy's view

Wonder what I've been up to? Well I have been working lots first of all! Lots of decorating and 1-2 days a week helping a mortgage company organize and create new processes after a few years of neglected file and system management. But when I'm not working, I have spent lots of time this past month doing another 'job' I do--Hospitality for PTA at my children's elementary school!

I have held this position, co-chairing with my friend Kay, for 2 years and this was our last official event! We decided to do an Italian theme but dump the red and white checkered tablecloth and bring on a Tuscan bistro feel!

Here is the centerpiece on the drink table--tea, diet lemonade and raspberry lemonade were the options.

Focal point on the buffet table. I need to now refill these jars with my cotton, sea salt and sponges in my bathroom! The entree was lasagna made by an amazing local restaurant and salad with Olive Garden dressing. To my friend Kim if you read this, the sign in the middle says "Mangia, Mangia!" Thanks for the fast Italian help this morning!

Here's the start of the buffet-rolled silverware is just so much better than bins of silverware with napkins, don't you think?

The tables where our teachers and staff sat had fresh flowers and more food! Macaroni Grill bread, with pepper mills we bought from their local supplier and olive oil, was served hot to the table along with fresh grated parmesan.
When you were done with that, then you headed to the other side of the room where we had an ice cream buffet set up! Oh yes, how fun!!! I have done this for a couple birthday parties too and it's so fun and easy! I have lots of pieces from the Southern Living at Home, Gail Pittman Sienna collection and this is the first time I used this much of it and it worked so well!

Here is our president during the last week of her reign of two years! She was our hostess, handing out our gifts! She's off to middle school and we will miss her!

Here's the room (we took over the music room since there's no furniture in there!) with some of the staff on their break! No running lights were on--just lots of Christmas lights and it was a very nice atmosphere.


A few of us during a moment where we weren't running, enjoying ourselves as everyone on our board is awesome. Don't be crazy jealous, but we have lots of fun during our PTA event too! I know this isn't the case everywhere so had to tell you how lucky I am to be at this fab school! Oh and yes, we are crazy where we assign a dress code for our volunteers to fit our theme so the all black was on purpose. Don't they look great? Last holiday, we did a Christmas Morning Brunch and yup, we all wore our PJs! FUN!!!


Here is everyone, except Christine! Thanks for taking the picture!

Here are Kay and I, at our last event together as co-chairs! We work so well together as I just fret about all the decor and do nutty things like sew table runners and craft labels and fill all my jars with pasta and she works her tushy off pricing caterers and making schedules and lists and it was a perfect match! We will both be on the board next year but I'll be doing 1st VP (fundraising) with another friend and she will be doing newsletter! I have been asked to share pictures from our past events and I think instead of spending time emailing them, I'll spend time uploading them so I can share them with you all too! I know this isn't organizing but it is being creative so you'll deal with it right?

Oh, Kay got Macaroni Grill to give us tons of their paper! So we wrote a note to the teachers on each table, hoping they would scribble, play tic, tac, toe or do whatever and what did they do? Wrote us sweet Thank You notes! See why we do this?? I took lots of pictures but here are just a few examples of their notes to us!

We all read each one and many of us took pictures! Their sweet notes meant a lot to us!