Im back!! Blogger finally fixed!

What a nightmare the last few weeks have been!  

I have not been able to post pictures.......internet explorer would shut down my blog every time I tried.  I have been trying to figure the problem out for what seems like forever.  I was even to the point of giving up in blogging.....it was just that aggravating!  Anyways, I had to get a new browser.....of which I am not very happy with.  It seems to run alot slower, but it fixed my issues so I will deal I suppose.

I had several posts that were supposed to go up and now are pretty much outdated so I went ahead and just deleted those.  Now its time to play catch up!

Im in the spotlight! Come join the hop!!!

Happy Hump Day!!

...and rest assured, because its all down hill from here. In a good way! Welcome Back to a Mid Week Link up where you can link up everything you got, including your giveaways. Make sure they go on the right linkies below.

 EVERYONE WHO LINKS UP WILL HAVE A CHANCE TO BE SPOTLIGHTED AND GET FOLLOWS ON MOHTH HOSTED GIVEAWAYS!

How does it work? 

Not only will everyone get a chance to get spotlighted. One or more of the spotlights will get a follow on the next MOHTH hosted giveaway on one of the social media accounts they have featured below. So this could be beneficial if you are trying to grow your audience!

Sign up here:

http://goo.gl/qTpmN

*Please go to the link above to sign up. Make sure it is an email address that you check often. *

1. Follow your host  Mommy Only Has Two Hands

2. Spotlight This Week: Unraveling Ends

3. Tweet This Hop: Tweet

4. It would be nice if you displayed the button in your post or blog sidebar to help spread the word.

But Most of All, have a Happy Hump Day!
<a href="http://mommyonlyhas2hands.org/search/label/Hump%20Day" target="_blank"><img src="http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll263/Lynhea/Humpdaybloghopbutton.jpg" border="0" alt="Its Hump Day!" /></a>

---

Once again Our Spotlight This Week Is:

Unraveling Ends

 

My Coupon Deals of the Week!!

All I can say is.......thank goodness for coupons!!!

Seriously, without them I wouldn't know what to do.  I have been able to save so much money while getting all the great brand name products.  With the high cost of food and other products these days....and tallying in the amount of everything my family uses......I would be flat broke if it wasn't for coupons.

I have watched the tv show Extreme Couponers.........and I don't see how they do it!!  Honestly because I follow all the coupon rules and have never walked out with $500.00 worth of merchandise for $5.00.  I have seen them use 20 of the same coupons before and we all know that the majority of the coupons limit you to 4 of the same one.  And now a days many stores have done away with doubling coupons (atleast inmy region).  So, while I still pay the hefty final bills, I still can not complain about my savings.  And if anyone can show me how to really extreme coupon as seen on tv......then I am ready to hear it because Im pretty it isn't going to happen!

Ok so here is what I was able to pick up and stock pile so far this week!

This is from my trip to Walgreens.  After coupons my total was $10.61 with a savings of $37.27.  I also earned 3000 rewards bonus points which equals $3.00 and received $5.00 back in Register Rewards.  Not too shabby, eh?

From shopping at CVS Pharmacy I was able to get this for a total of $6.83.  Total savings $34.99 and received $2.50 back in Extra Care bucks.

I got all of this at the Dollar General for a total of $13.35 and saved a total of $26.50. 

Now for the Dollar Tree!  Everything in this store is $1.00 so if you can save anything....even ten cents off a item here......it is worth doing!  My starting total was $30.96 and after my coupons.....$17.96.

I think these are some great savings!!



Problems loading pictures??

                  Is anyone having problems adding pictures in there posts???  Everytime for the past week that I have tried to upload a picture it shuts down my internet explorer?                   

Is it Friday yet?

I know it is only Monday........but I am already for Friday!   I feel exhausted just thinking about everything that I need to get done this week!!

 

Today worked my 8 hours at the 9-5.  Came home and made Chicken Parmesan for dinner and then proceeded to work on my chicklets Halloween costume some more.  Which, I will say, is coming along just fine so far.  I tried to take a few pictures of it......but the lighting in my house is so bad when it is dark outside.  So much for posting that for my WIP this week.  Maybe I will just try again tomorrow.  Once the crochet work is finished.......then it is time to complete the rest.  I feel so behind being that Im running out of time quickly, lol.

 

Also, coming up this weekend is one of my sons birthdays............the big 16!!!!!!  I am feeling pretty old right about now!!!  Crazy how fast they grow.  Saturday morning we will be heading to the BMV to take our written driving tests....oh joy!  And yes, I said we!  Why?  Well, because when I moved a few months back I neglected to get my drivers license switched to my new state.  Hey...don't judge......I had a pretty awesome picture on my old one and just wasn't ready to part with it yet.  We all know how horrible those pictures can be.

 

My son driving......ugh!  I don't want to think about it! 

 

Enough ranting and whining for the night.........

 



Patterns to Warm your Nubbins

Huddled up on the sofa this morning with my laptop, sipping a cup of coffee.....freezing my nubbins (fingers) off!  My hands are always like ice cubes when I am on the computer for awhile.....bad circulation maybe?  Right now.....its just from the chill of fall creeping in my house.  You know it is a cold morning when the kids haven't even attempted to get out of their beds!  Yes, I believe it is time to turn on the heat!

 

When it comes to turning on the heat for the first time...... my husband is the all time scrooge!!  He always insists that its not cold enough yet, put on some more clothes he says, get a blanket he says......trying to penny pinch while I sit here shivering, lol.  So, since I doubt we will be turning the heat on today, and yet I am still in need of some warm hands, I think it is time to get out the hook and make some fingerless gloves.

 

I have only made one pair of these before and they were for my chicklet about two years ago.  The pattern I no longer have, so I have had to compile a list ones to try. 

 

Fingerless with a bow by Samantha Foster

 

Ripple Lace Fingerless Gloves by Bethany Scofield

 

Callenge Mitts by Sharon Maher

 

Basic Fingerless Mittens by Julia Vaconsin

 

 

Now the only problem is deciding which ones to try first!

 

 

 

 

 



Ditching Carbs

Since the kids have been back to school they have really cut into my morning time.  I was doing so good on monthly workout challenges and even had results. Now.....I have put the weight back on due to lack of exercise. It is so hard to find the time while getting three kids ready for school and then muself for work. So I am trying a new approach....ditching the carbs!  Well...not completely...but im trying to cut out bread, pasta...and potatoes for the time being. Yesterday at dinner I did really good! We had hamburgers baked beans and pasta salad....atleast the family did anyways. I had a plain patty...and I sauteed up some mixed vegetables. This is going to be super challenging for me because I do love me some Italian food!!! Hoping to start rearranging some schedules so I can get back to exercising soon. Until then......dieting I go!!

WIP Wednesday 11

So......I have been busy!!!  With the cold weather, I had to take some time off from my ongoing projects to make everyone a new pair of slipper socks......hardwood floors are cold on the feet!  I did work some on my chicklets new sweater and it is looking amazing!

 

I got most of bodice done......though I had her try it on, and Im thinking shes wanting it a tad bit longer.  Im going to hold off though and see what she thinks once the sleeves are done.  Still need to add the button closures as well, and Im undecided on what to do with the neck line........hmmm......

 

Anyways, this project is back on hold because chicklet has decided that what she wants to be for Halloween........and guess who gets to make that???  Yep...me!  Im saving that WIP though to share when it gets closer to the holiday.



Our Fall Harvest: Pears

Ok, so harvest maybe a strong word to use in our case but.......it is what it is....just not a lot, lol!  We were unable to get a garden in this year, being that this is the first year in the house, but the property did come with a pear tree of its own.

 

 

And with that lovely Pear Tree........came .............yep...Pears!!

 

 

Some were small and others were miss sharpened.....and a lot.......just had too many bad spots.  We did manage to collect enough to do a little baking with though. 

 

 

We tried out hand at some crock pot pear butter.  It turned out great, my only regret is that I didn't buy a pressure cooker prior to making it.  I would have loved to store some up, but with all the kids around here, it will not go to waste.

 

 

Pear pie anyone??  Strange how it tastes just like Apple pie.

 

 

And my favorite thing that we made was this French Pear Cake!  Oh, it was the absolute best!  It has a hint of lemon and fresh pear chunks......I wish I had the recipe to share with you, silly me didn't save it to my computer.  I will have to do some searching for it.......it truly was amazing!!

 

I cant wait till next year when we put in our first garden....there is nothing better than growing your own food.....well, except maybe eating it.

 



The Sunday Social 5

 

 

 

 

 

1. What were you like in middle school and high school?

I loved middle school!  I was pretty much friends with everyone, never really got into the whole "click" thing.  We had some of the best teachers there too!  I did the school newspaper for 3 years.  Our highschool consolidated for towns, so it was a big change going there.  I never really enjoyed it as much as I should have.

 

2. What were your favorite pastimes?

Most of my after school days were spent hanging out at my friend Erins house.  She lived right down the road. 

 

3. What songs were you obsessed with?

I loved No Doubt!  I still listen to all the older stuff now, lol!

4. What fashion statement do you look backing and cringe? In middle school we were still rocking the 80's big hair.  Lots of hair spray and everyone had a perm! 

5. Who was your celeb crush? Hmmm.........long time ago.......I would have to think on that one!

6. What was your favorite movie?

My favorite movies then....which were older.....and they are still my favorite movies today, lol.  I don't seem to change much.  Grease, Dirty Dancing, Splash, Ghost, Pretty Woman....and others.



Diy: Turning Wood into Metal

Just a quick little tutorial in case you haven't figured this one out yet..........!!

 

If you seen my posts on my dresser redo over the last few weeks, then you would have seen that I bought a can of Rustoleum to repaint the dresser pulls with.  Well, I still had plenty of paint left in the can for another project.

 

 

I found these candlestick holders for a dollar at the thrift store.  I was happy with the wood, but was itching to use the spray paint again.....and thought that these may match up a little better if they were metal.

 

I laid down newspaper as to not make a mess of the stepping stones outside, and sprayed away!!!  It was like instant gold!  Well........pewter, but you get my point.  When you seen these, they appear to be super heavy duty metal but light as a feather!!

 

If you get close up, you can still see the wood grain, but I love them.......quick simple and cheap way t update your décor!



WIP Wednesday 10

Oh, I am excited to share my WIP this week!!!  I started working on this last week, and just hadn't had the time to load the pictures until last night.  With the cold weather fast approaching, I decided that it was time to start on some new gear for my chicklet.

 

I hit up a sale at Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago, and new when I picked up this yarn that I would put it to good use.  They only had two balls of it, so it was going to have to be a smaller project........welp, guess what.......my chicklet.....is one skinny little chick!!

 

I found a free pattern online for a cute little cardi.  Because my chicklet is very petite, I always have to tweak patterns a bit.  When I get this finished, I would post the pattern I based this off of.

 

Ok, so here is my work so far!!

 

 

 



The Sunday Social 4



  Another weekend is coming to an end........and I must admit, I had a fantastic one! Then there is back to the doom and gloom of working tomorrow, lol.   Which is kind of funny that I am feeling that way because todays questions from Ashley Lately are about jobs!   1. What is your dream job? My dream job of course, would be to not have to work a job at all!  Growing up I wanted to be an Oceanographer, which may have stemmed from the fact that I didn't live anywhere near an ocean.  I was 28 when I finally did make it there!  My last dream job though was to be a photographer.  I love to take pictures and do my own editing.  We have never had our pictures professionally done and we do not buy school pictures.  Gotta love photoshop!! I now work in the title (house) business, which is very mundane, and not for me at all.  But it pays the bills.  To be a stay at home mother to my three children (whom are growing up very quickly now) is the only job I am actually interested in having.

2. If you had just won the lottery and didn't need to work for money, what would you do with your time? Aside from doing a little bit of traveling,  I would be home....all the time!  I would have a huge garden (flowers and food).  I would constantly be redecorating my house.  Anything crafty, and tons and tons of picture taking!

3. What piece of career advice would you give to someone just starting out in your field? If you are a creative person, then this job is not for you!  Not to be negative, but it gets very boring, and someone can lose interest very quickly.  But it is rewarding, and plenty of room for advancement.

4. What would be your ideal "just for fun" job? Photographer.  I love the freedom it gives you to use your imagination and creativity.  Aside from the enjoyment that you would be giving people with your work.  Pictures are very important to me, and I would like to give that feeling to others.

5. What was your first "real" job? Define real, right?  To me, any job that you are providing a service for someone elses benefit and getting paid for, is a real job.  You don't have to have a fancy college degree, of have some high position for it to be  a real job.  There are people who go through life, working in fast food, or at gas stations.......and while some people might not consider those "real jobs" because those are typically considered lower class positions, that doesn't mean they are not "real' jobs.   Can you imagine not having the convenience that jobs such as those provide to you?  Ok, done ranting, I try not to let my political views show on my blog.    
   

Dresser Redo Reveal!!!!!

After the five part series of showing you all the steps I took to redo this dresser.....I am finally going to show you the finished piece!!

 

If you want to know how I did it, I check out the links below:



 

 Dresser Redo Part: 1
Dresser Redo Part: 2
Dresser Redo Part: 3
Dresser Redo Part: 4
Dresser Redo Part: 5

Here she is before.  Missing drawer pull, shredded corner drawer and scratches everywhere!

 

I am just totally in love with this!  More projects in the works!!!

 

 

 

 

WIP Wednesday 9

 

This is a project that I almost didn't post........why......because Im not quite sure yet if I plan on finishing it, lol.

 

I have had this yarn in my stash for about two years now.  I bought it on the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby.  The color combination I am not crazy about, but at the price I couldn't pass it up.  So, its just been hanging out in the stash pile waiting for its turn to get hooked.

 

Since it is a cotton I started this with the intention of just using it for an extra rag around the house, then I thought maybe I would just make a quick granny baby blanket for "just in case".  Who knows, I put it back in the closet today, we will see how long it takes me to get it back out again, lol!

Dresser Redo Part: 5 (drawer pulls)

 Well.....this is the last step in my dresser transformation and it was the easiest part of the whole thing!  Below are the links to the rest of the posts of this project.  Click on them to see how I got to where I am at now with this dresser.



 

 Dresser Redo Part: 1
Dresser Redo Part: 2
Dresser Redo Part: 3
Dresser Redo Part: 4

When we got the dresser the top drawer was missing a pull.  Some of the other pulls were kind of rusty and gritty.  I loved these pre existing handles though, and didn't want to replace them.  Since I was missing one, I did have to buy new ones for the top drawer, but seeing it all together now......the mismatched handles just add more flair to the piece.

 

I washed all the old handles with soap and water, and scrubbed them down with a wire brush to get the grit off.  Once they were thoroughly dry, I stuck them into a piece of Styrofoam so that they would be raised off the surface.  This was a very handy step being that I was getting ready to spray paint them.

 

 

To freshen up the older handles, and make the new ones match, I chose this!!!  I wanted that old aged bronze look and thought this would be perfect.  Silly me did not test spray this product before applying to my handles though......and I got an unexpected result.  The color that came out was not the same as what was on the can!!!  Instead of being bronze, it came out more of a dark pewter color.  I ended up liking the color so I stuck with it.  Plus, this stuff runs about 8 bucks a can.  Lesson learned.

 

 

After letting the handles dry over night I reattached them to the drawers.  I was totally in love with the finished look!

 

Come back Saturday for the big reveal!!!!!!  Woot!!

 

 

 

 



Dresser Redo Part: 4 (distressing paint)

Welcome back!

This is part four of my dresser redo project and I am going to show you how I gave this lovely dresser a simple distressed finish.  If you happened to miss the first three posts of this project you can find those by clicking the links below:
 

 Dresser Redo Part: 1
Dresser Redo Part: 2
Dresser Redo Part: 3
 

 

I knew from the start of this project that I was going to be giving this piece a distressed finish.  Its a sauder dresser with a veneer finish so there was going to be no way of staining it back to a wood finish. With the damage that it had, paint again was going to be the only option.  The style of the dresser also has an antique touch to it, so distressing it was going to really bring that look out.

I viewed many tutorials from blogland, pinterest and google before attempting this part of the process.  Some made it seem really difficult, while others turned a free item into something very costly and time consuming.....all of which I wanted no part of.  So, I took bits and pieces from here and there.......and just kind of winged it.  The ending result I will say turned out just as great, and I am very pleased.  I have money in my pocket and the whole project I completed in one weekend!

I bought this from Lowes......it is the cheapest brand they carry and ran me about 10 bucks for the quart.  Seemed expensive being that you can get a whole gallon of paint for that price, but I only used a bout 1/3 of the can for the whole dresser.  That left me with enough paint to do a couple more projects to match, which I will show you at a later date.  It is a paint and primer in one, with a satin finish, which helped cut down on the cost and time.

 The color  I chose was Antique Lace.....the name was very fitting! Ok, so I started out with applying a very thin coat over the whole dresser.  Being that I was using a paint and primer in one, I was expecting a more solid look, but to my surprise, this was not going to effect the outcome.

So I ended up doing a total of three very thin coats, just using a standard 3 inch angled brush.  I allowed about 2-4 hours inbetween for drying time.  With the layers being so thin, they seemed to dry pretty quickly.  I let the last layer dry for a complete 24 hours before I started to distress the finish.

For the distressing I used a very fine grit sand paper. I went along the edges of the dresser and drawers, just lightly.  I tried to hit all the others that you would typically see wear at.  Since the dresser already had some nicks and dings in it, I hit those areas too.  Once  I was satisfied with the look, I cleaned up all the dust again from the sanding.

On most tutorials that I came across they used a sealant such as a polyurethane.  I decided to not do this last step.  I didn't want it to cause any yellowing of the paint, or add any more glossy shine to it.  This is piece is going to be placed in my bedroom so I wasn't too concerned with adding the protective coating.  However, if it is going to be in an area of your home where there is children or high traffic, I would def. recommend adding a sealant.




FO Friday

Whew........... almost didn't make it!  not that I didn't finish the WIP from earlier this week........I just almost forgot to post it!!!

 

 

So here it is .....Baby Jemmas new cocoon!!

 

 

Isnt she just the cutest thing you have ever seen!  So sweet!!  Love her to pieces already!

 



WIP Wednesday 8

 

Another week........another Wednesday.......and another WIP!!!

 

Welp, yesterday baby Jemma turned a whole big two weeks old!!  She has already changed so much and is just the cutest little thing ever!  This weeks WIP is another little something just for her!  At the hospital she was given a hand knitted cocoon (sleep sack) and she just loves it.  So, her mother asked me if I would make her another one.......and of course I couldn't say no. 

 

 

I decided that I was going to go with crochet because honestly my knitting skills consist of your basic scarves only.  Crochet also works up super quick and I wanted to get this to her this week.....and before she grew too much more!

 

I chose two different shades of pink that coordinate with her crib bedding and went with a double crochet to speed things up even quicker.  I didn't use a "pattern" for this, just sort of started out like you would make your basic hat.  I had seen the one she received from the hospital so I just eyeballed the sizing from that one.

 

This one will definitely make to FO Friday!!

 



Amazon.com Gift Cards to Celebrate a New Baby