Craigseasy!

I am sure The Hubs will be thrilled to find out it is even easier for me now to search through listings on Craigslist! Over at Three Men and a Lady she posted about this great new "easy button". I just recently really started to look through all of the antiques and furniture posts on Craigslist and it is a little difficult. With Craigseasy it posts large pics of all the listings at once so it is so much easier to browse. You have to check it out.

Mood Board

If you are like me..anything you can create on the computer you do. My handwriting is horrible so if I can type something up it always looks so much better. If the computer can touch up a photo... I let it. I have a bunch of cut outs from magazines that I pasted onto a board for particular rooms in my house. I love so many different designs..I found it best to always put together a mood board to keep me in one direction. I have found though, in my current home that I did not do that yet again and am not really in love with anything in my house.

We moved this year into a smaller home(1,000 sq ft smaller)!!! Most of our furniture fit except for a few pieces..but most of our bedroom furniture did not. We decided to sell it. So, now I have been in search for pieces that I really love. In one of my latest posts I told you about my Craigslist find! It is a Hollywood Regency style dresser. So that is my design direction. I wanted something modern for The Hubs and something Vintage for me. Your probably thinking Modern...Vintage...two total opposites. It really works though. I am taking vintage pieces and painting them with modern finishes to bring them up to date. Giving the furniture a face lift basically.

Anyways, back to the reason I mentioned using the computer to do your dirty work. I found a site that you can create a mood board using your own downloaded pictures or preset images that are from stores like Ikea and West Elm. It is sooooo awesome...however addicting. I already spend way too much time on the computer so I need to be careful. The site is http://www.olioboard.com/. Below is the Mood Board I did for my Master Bedroom. I was wavering on an accent color. At first, I was thinking red, then yellow...then even royal purple..but I really wanted the room to feel a bit brighter with all the gray that already existed. So yellow it is!

Craft Night

After a few friends had mentioned they wanted to get together for a Craft Night I decided to host a night of crafting:). It was so much fun. We made fabric pumpkins that I had seen on a blog I follow. They were a bit difficult but it was worth it. They all turned out so cute. It was fun to see each person's personality come out in their pumpkins. Next month we plan on starting our Christmas crafts and are going to do wreaths!!! So fun! Here are also a few recipes that I made for the night.

Pork Wontons
24 wontons
1 cup finely chopped Napa or Savoy cabbage
Coarse salt
6 ounces ground pork, not all lean
3 scallions, finely chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped, peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil ( I only had vegetable and it turned out fine).
Directions
In a medium bowl, toss cabbage with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Let stand 10 minutes. Wrap cabbage in a double layer of paper towels; firmly squeeze out excess liquid. Return cabbage to bowl. Add pork and oil to a pan and cook; add scallions, ginger, soy sauce and cabbage. Cook for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, lay out wonton wrappers and make an egg wash(1 egg with 1 TBS water). Apply egg wash with a pastry brush on two adjacent edges. Add about 1 tsp of pork filling to middle of each wrapper. then making a triangle press out any air around the filling. Heat a pan of oil and fry until crispy brown. Filling can be refrigerated up to two days. Martha Stewart recipe.

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread-allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Directions:
1.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2.
In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
3.
Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Craigslist Find!

You know when you are looking for a particular item and you finally find it on Craigslist. When you see it your heart races and then you find it for a great deal..and you start to sweat. Your mind starts racing..hoping no one else already called on it..you dream about redoing it and can't sleep at night. What...no..no one else does that??? Call me crazy but I just happened to be searching for night stands on Craigslist and then I came across a listing for a "Sexy Headboard"lol. It was not the sexy headboard that caught my eye but the dresser that was also pictured.

It was a faux bamboo dresser that I have seen redone and it is amazing. It is from the 70's from the Bali Hai Collection from Henry Link. I tried to rack my brain about where I had seen it online before. I go to so many sites that I knew it might be difficult to find. So I just Googled "faux bamboo dressers" and there it was. I had first seen it on Design*Sponge. They did a feature on High Street Market, who had redone the dresser I just bought. Their dresser was missing some hardware and so they put new gold hardware that is so stunning. I really love the original hardware and it is still in good condition so I am going to leave it. I am however going to spray it a glossy white.

I am redoing my Master Bedroom slowly...but I will post pics as soon as I get this piece painted and then in the room..yay for Craigslist!!!!

STOOOOPPPPP......

Growing sooooo faaaasssttt!!!! That is what I want to yell at my son. On the 16th he turned 1 1/2 years old:(. His little personality is really coming through. He is quite the character. He makes me laugh out loud daily. He has begun this thing where he tries to tell me something that just happened. Like when I get home from the store and he was at home with daddy..he will begin to mummble and and then say "where did momma go"? He then starts yelling "momma" "mommma"as if he is showing me how he was calling for me while I was gone...too cute! Oh and did I mention he is the smartest 18 month old on the planet..yep...it's true! He knows probably around 80 words..no joke..he definitely gets that from his father(the talking a lot part).

Well I guess this was just a post to brag about my little guy. Which is totally fine...right??? Everyday gets better and better. I am so blessed to be his momma!

Ugly Pics No More!

I was so excited to see a post on making your photos better without Photoshop. I would love to have Photoshop but I do not. So, when I saw that I could download Picasa for free I was so all over that! I even put together a little collage and edited one photo and put text on it...amazing. So hopefully I will not have to apologize for all of my ugly photos no more! Here is the link to Little Miss Momma'a post. Oh and it is so easy to post to blogger as well since they are owned by Google. This is going to allow me to post more!!!!

Target Clerance Tips

Target has to be one of every ones favorite places to shop. I call it my "Happiest Place on Earth" :). I came across some tips from a blog that I totally forgot the name of...I think Chicy Creations....anyways I did copy some Target Clearance Tips that she posted...in case you did not already know..so here it is:

Monday: Electronics, Kids clothing and Stationary
Tuesday: Domestics, Food Items, Pets, Women’s Clothing
Wednesday: Health and Beauty, Lawn & Garden, Men's Clothing, Toys
Thursday: Books, Decor, Housewares, Lingerie, Luggage, Music and Movies, Sporting Goods, Shoes
Friday: Auto, Cosmetics, Hardware and Jewelry

If the clearance price ends in a ‘4′ (i.e. $1.94) then it is at its lowest price!

I also think the clearance goes from 30% to 50% to 75% off..don't quote me on that though.

Will It Ever End!!!

I am sure most of you women can relate to the feeling of the never ending cycle of laundry, dishes, cooking and cleaning. I have been so overwhelmed with keeping my home clean that I end up just doing nothing (usually I end up posting a blog..instead of cleaning). Working Full Time and having a 1 1/2 year old are great excuses...but I want to be a better "house keeper". Keeping this house clean is a tough job. My last house was brand new. So it started off perfect. The house I am in now is 35 years old. Everything looks warn down and nothing ever looks clean no matter how much I scrub. Also, our home before this was 1,000 square feet larger. That means that I have 1,000 square feet of stuff that I need to find a home for. Needless to say our garage is filled to the brim. We recently had a yard sale and got rid of it..but the garage is still full of "stuff" and I look around and see so much more that I need to get rid of. I think too I am a minimalist..who has a shopping addiction. So, being in a cluttered home drives me crazy..but I can't stop buying cute little home decor items. I love home decor. The Hubs always jokes around when I say we can't afford such and such..he says well if you hadn't gone to Target twice already this week or Marshalls than we could!!! Sad... but probably true. I buy stuff also when I have no place for it. I can't imagine not getting it though...I rationalize in my brain that it is my little prize. I never get mani/pedis or buy clothes so this is my treat. I now realize with my smaller home though that I can't do this. Unless I have space for it...I must step away and run in the opposite direction(unless it is the purse section than I must keep running right past that as well).

Some how this turned into a confession of my shopping addiction. I had no intention of this being a therapy session with blogland and myself..but whew..I feel better now:). Soooo, the purpose of this post was to share some cleaning tips I have read. I realized that in order for me to function better that I need to have a clean and organized home. One that is not full of clutter and excess stuff. The first area I am trying to learn more about is laundry. Since having the little one..I can do laundry 3-4 times a week. I realized that I really have no idea how to properly wash different items...such as White, Colors, Towels, Sheets...etc. I just through everything in and then dry. I recently started using fabric softener in my loads of sheets and towels. They never seemed to smell clean. But now they are too strong smelling. I don't use dryer sheets. Never used bleach until recently. My laundry knowledge is very limited. I use liquid detergent..I know to separate whites from colors and that is it!!!!

I decided that the Internet would be the best place to start. I also have a few of those 1,001 household cleaning tips books. Wow...why have I not looked into this earlier??? Actually I know the answer. I never question what I am doing. I never think about if I am doing something the most efficient way or not. I just do. Ok that is another confession and needs to be saved for my next therapy session:). Here are a few tips I came across in case any of you out there have been doing laundry the same way since your mother taught you years ago(actually my mom uses dryer sheets and knows tricks...I just failed to listen) :

Whites- To get whites clean you can use 1/2 cup bleach and 1/2 baking soda mixed in the water before you throw in your laundry.

A full load is efficient but a load that is too full will not allow the laundry to clean properly. If you have a top loading large capacity like me 12-15# of laundry is a full load. Hold the laundry and weight yourself to find out how much 12-15# of laundry is.

Dryer Sheets- Help with static and soften clothes. Also used to clean stuff but that is a whole other post apparently.

Fabric Softener-used in place of dryer sheets in washer. Usually automatically dispersed in newer models. Reduces wrinkles. Downside- Makes towels less absorbent and flame retardant clothing less retardant:).

Black clothing-Add black Rit Dye every 8-10 loads into the water of washer.

Towels- If they are sour smelling-use bleach when possible or 1/4 cup of Febreeze or 1 cup vinegar in addition to your normal detergent.

Finally, don't forget to clean your washer and dryer. To clean your wash mix a paste of vinegar and baking soda. For your dryer, vacuum the lint catcher area to remove any excess lint left behind.

Hopefully this helps someone. I am sure most of you are pros by now. Learning from others is always a great way to know what works and what doesn't.

M.I.A.

I haven't posted in awhile because frankly I have been sooo tired and super busy at work. We have had such a backlog for the past few months. We are finally working normal 40 hour weeks instead of 72 hours!!!! I was so grateful for the work because The Hubs is working a lot but in Real Estate it can take months before you get paid. It was such a blessing...but very exhausting.

Now that I am back to normal I am getting caught up on house work and also starting to craft!

I am hosting a craft party this month. Hopefully we can get together each month and work on a craft together. It is always fun to get the girls together and do something girlie. We are going to be making fabric pumpkins for our first meeting.

I have a few other ideas for the next months as well. I love crafting. I love it so much I am thinking...no actually I am going to turn the guest/catchall room into a craft room. I know once we have another child I will have to remove it all but that wont be for another year or so. Here are a few inspirations:

I am also getting excited for my Christmas brunch at church. It is my favorite thing to do during the Christmas season. I dream about the Stuffed French Toast my Aunt makes each year. Mmmmm...that reminds me...I need to get that recipe from her. I also decorate and host a table each year. This year I got an early start. I had this idea in my head and could not stop thinking about it. I am crazy..I know. It has evolved from the original idea but it is going to be cute. Can't give away any details but once it comes around I will fill you in...:). Well hopefully I will start working on more projects and be able to post more. With this hot "Fall" weather we are having I haven't felt much motivation to cook any fall recipes. I am getting anxious though. I made a Apple Pie, Pumpkin Cupcakes and a Carrot Cake. Hopefully it will cool down and I can bake some more. I am making Corn Chowder and Gumbo this week no matter how hot it is. Happy Fall Y'All!