A Project A Day

***Please pardon the wonky line spacing of late. Can't seem to fix it.***

I set a goal for myself to start (and finish!) one home project a day this week. Breaking it down to one project and one day really helped me from feeling overwhelmed by the LONG list of stuff I'd like to tackle this summer. So, without further ado, here's what I accomplished (and please forgive my poor photography skills)...

Monday: Turn these bifold closet doors in the craft/playroom...

...into this giant chalkboard!

Tuesday: {okay, I cheated a little bit here. I counted rehanging those doors as a project. I didn't feel too guilty about it as it was a far more daunting task than I had originally expected.}

Wednesday: I finally painted the cabinets in my laundry room. I had some paint leftover from painting my front door last summer. To make up for Tuesday's laziness, I actually rehung the doors before considering this project complete. Although if you want to get super technical about it, I need to drill holes for my new knobs (cute orange glass Anthropologie knobs via Wall's).

Thursday: The easiest project of all was to hang these cute handpainted vintage plates in my kitchen. I should have taken a closer shot of them. It's a couple named Charles and Betty. I found them at one of my favorite thrift stores in Tulsa for 79 cents each!

Friday: I have recently discovered the joys of Pinterest and repinned a fabulous pic of a magnetized board for displaying makeup and decided to tweak the general idea a bit by hanging the Ikea magnetic knife strip I've had for a few months now. My makeup routine is pretty basic so I just have a few compacts of powder, blush, and eye shadow but they just litter my teeny tiny vanity area. After hanging the knife strip vertically I glued magnets to the back of each compact, slapped them on the strip and voila! Genius...

With the relative success of this week's projects (and the satisfaction that comes with crossing stuff off my list) I think I may just continue this new not-so-procrastinating version of myself next week. Wish me luck!

Hot Wheels

Last Monday (Memorial Day) I headed out to Arbuckle Lake to celebrate Robin's birthday and Chris graciously offered to watch Little Miss M for the day. At 3:10 I got a picture text entitled "Wild Hog." When I opened it I discovered that he had stripped M's bike of its training wheels earlier in the day and she had mastered the art of riding sans training wheels! Woohoo!

Dance Fever

A couple of weeks ago my family (and Chris!) and I had the distinct pleasure of attending Little Miss M's very first dance recital. This first photo is from the dress rehearsal a few nights beforehand. We were supposed to cover her costume up and this is the best I could do:

It was at the dress rehearsal where I realized that updos, glitter hairspray, caked on makeup, and spray tans aren't just for the TLC show "Toddlers and Tiaras." So on Saturday we jazzed it up a bit with a little:

makeup

poufy hair

and a dash of diva attitude!

Their costumes were probably my second favorite. I like how classic they look. A bit of a Spanish vibe, no? My favorite, without a doubt, were these adorable sequined sailor outfits. Complete with little white hats! Wish I had snapped a pic of a cutie in that class...alas.

First up was her class's tap dance (she's in the back right corner):

After the intermission we waited for her ballet routine (same position. She's the one who takes a little tumble at the beginning. Gotta admire her for getting right back up!).

Afterwards she was showered with real flowers, candy flowers, and a tiara by all her adoring fans!

Then we all went to Pink Swirl where she indulged herself with her standard chocolate yogurt topped with Skittles, chocolate chips, marshmallows, and gummy bears! Errr....yum? It was so wonderful to enjoy an afternoon with my family (9 of them traveled from Stillwater, Tulsa, and Texas) and this "fablious" (in her own words) five year old!

Little Miss M-ese

I've been keeping a running list of her latest and greatest mispronounced words...

Oak mill - oatmeal
Patcherbob - Pastor Bob
Bullish dog - English Bulldog
Okiemogie - the place where Papa Gene lives (Okmulgee)
Hoka City - OKC
Swamp - Wasp
Weenie - Twinkie
Scare - Stare (as is in, "Don't scare at me. It's rude to scare at people.")

Old School

So I finally got a scanner and had some laughs adding these to my digital gallery. Here I am in all my glory dorky.

1st grade
2nd grade

(a cleavage problem even then...)
3rdgrade

4th grade

5th grade

(don't be jealous of my Tina Turner perm gone wrong)

6th grade

(can you say "Awkward?")

7th grade

8th grade

Happy Valentine's Day, Lovies!

Here's my funny Valentine:

For her gifties to her classmates we joined the "take-a-pic-and-shove-a-lollipop-in-it" movement of last year:

Hope you have a wonderful day

with your loved ones!

What M Wore

So there are tons of blogs out there that do a regular WIW ("What I Wore") post. I won't be modeling any of my outfits anytime soon but Little Miss M has taken to assembling her own outfits as of late. While I'm not brave enough to send her to school in some of her ensembles, I do enjoy snapping a pic of some of her more, er, interesting outfits. Here are some from the archives. Most people include the brands of clothing they wear and/or where they bought said items. Perhaps this will be a regular feature here at PCP (great, the initials of my blog are also a drug).

I asked M to describe each outfit and her quotes are below each photo.

"Fancy. Beautiful. Because I think it's so great and beautiful."

shirt - Old Navy (garage sale)

leopard print skirt - The Children's Place (thrifted)

knee high socks - Target

slouchy boots - Ross

"She's so Fancy Nancy and lovely and pretty and beautiful, like a sunshine."

striped cardigan - Cherokee (thrifted)

tank top - Mossimo (thrifted)

red polka dot skirt - gift from her grandparents

red Dorothy shoes - Target

"I love these shoes and skirt."

pink cardigan - Circo (thrifted)

froggie tank top - Sonoma (thrifted)

skirt - Janie and Jack (JBF consignment sale)

knee socks - Target

red shoes - Target

"I would wear this to church."

embroidered hoodie - Old Navy (thrifted)

gray/pink leggings - Faded Glory (thrifted)

rainbow knee socks - (thrifted)

deck shoes - Faded Glory (thrifted)

It seems kind of silly for me to write where I bought her clothes since about 85% of her wardrobe is obtained at thrift stores and garage sales. I rarely pay more than $3 for any particular piece of clothing unless it is super stinking cute (not to be confused with super stinky!) and usually keep it to less than $1.50 an item. The sad thing is that because I feel like I'm getting such a great bargain I tend to buy too much stuff. The other day I counted the clothing hanging in her closet and there were 104 items. And there's still all the stuff in her dresser! I know I need to pare down. The whole 80/20 rule applies to 5-year-olds too. She has her favorite pieces of clothing that she would wear every week if they were clean. I guess that's one good thing about the abundance of clothing in our house...we can stretch laundry day waaaaay out.

My name is Courtney and I'm a shopaholic.

Gettin' Our Christmas Craft On

Okay, so it's not technically a craft. But I made red and green play dough via Ashley Ann's cameo at eighteen25. Pretty easy and the colors turned out great! Two batches made enough for eight small gifts (16 balls total) that turned out like this:

Missed Him By That Much

We primped and we preened and we made our way to Santa's house only to find the door locked. He was probably already on his way to the reindeer stables. Yes, we put off the visit until Christmas Eve. As in evening. Darkness falling. I had checked and double checked the times online. Monday through Friday until 9 PM. And it said the times were good through December 24th. Argh! Oh well, she still had fun...

A Conversation with Little Miss M

This snippet of conversation occurred last night on our way home from daycare. There is a new house being built nearby and we talk about its progress most days.

Me: Hey, I think they're going to paint the front door soon. What color do you think they'll paint it?

M: I don't know.

Me: I'm going to guess dark blue.

M: I pick red.

Me: Yeah, red is a popular color for doors.

M: We're just gonna have to ask them.

Me: Ask who what?

M: Ask them what color they're going to paint.

Me: Who are we going to ask?

M: Those humans.

Those humans? Are you kidding me? Where does she come up with this stuff?!

Hark, the Herald Angel Sings

...and I finally posted again!

A couple of weeks ago a small group of friends gathered in the fellowship hall of our church and worked on advent calendars for our all our little ones (whose ages range from 2 to 20 years!). The others assembled calendars out of mini muffin tins and they turned out adorable! I, of course, couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted to do and finally settled on these little gift boxes from the dollar store. The idea was to string them on some twine and have M untie one each day. Well, six days into December I finally got my Christmas spirit on and hung up my advent garland.

Mind you, my windows have been naked since I painted in October so in order to hang my garland up I also had to hang my curtains. Which is a chore I'd rather not do. It's just so tedious. I tried to pass it off onto Chris but he was about as excited as that prospect as he was when I tried to get him to paint for me. Which means I had to suck it up and do it myself. Which is also why it was left undone for a month and a half.

So...notice please the wonderfully white walls. And the curtains (overlooking, of course, their {ahem} ever-so-slightly rumpled state). And then the garland. Inside the boxes are candies, stickers, and an assortment of ornaments for decorating the tree in her room. It still looks prety plain so I may tie colorful ribbons in between the boxes. And as Christmas cards begin to arrive my plan is to clip them in the empty spots.

I also have another idea for displaying cards. But more on that later...

I'll Get You My Pretty...

Oh, Halloween, how I love you and all your spookiness!

This year Little Miss M was a witch. I bought the costume at a thrift store for $1 earlier in the year and the hat was another dollar. The dress has a cute collar and apron/skirt with glittery purple spiderwebs on it. I tried to convince her she should call herself the Spider Queen (one of her earlier alter egos) and wear a tiara instead of a witch's hat but she wasn't interested so a plain ol' witch she was.

Excuse me, the cutest plain ol' witch there ever was!

I didn't take a great pic of her face (did I learn nothing from my SnapShop with Ashley?!), but she had purple swirls kind of swooping out from the corners of her eyes and a big spider hanging out on her cheek.

I, too, enjoy dressing up for Halloween and I went to a costume party on Friday night. I went as Bianca from Lars and the Real Girl, a movie which you all should see if you haven't already. It stars Ryan Gosling and is just a cute, funny, quirky movie. If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil it for you. I'll let the following photos peak your interest.

Here's a shot of Bianca from the movie:And here's my rendition of her:

...And Your Little Kitty Too!

So Little Miss M turned the big FIVE this past Monday. We celebrated her birthday last Saturday Hello Kitty style (Leslie T., can I get a what?what?!). We invited four of her little girlfriends from church.

We played Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty...

decorated Hello Kitty outfits for felt kitties I had cut out... had a makeshift photo booth with a special Hello Kitty disposable camera that will add a border to the photos, attempted a Hello Kitty puzzle for approximately 48 seconds,

ate cake...

and opened gifts...

Whew!

And let me just say that the party planning process and the party itself are much more fun than the party preparation. I was a nervous wreck the 24 hours leading up to this little shindig. I could hardly sleep the night before and ended up in my kitchen at 3:00 AM and 5:30 AM cutting cute shapes out of meats and cheeses, thawing out cupcakes my mom had made for my birthday several months ago after my attempt at these cake pops from Bakerella turned out like this...

Turns out I didn't even have time to frost the cupcakes so I ran to the store and bought a small cake and had them slap the number 5 on it.

Speaking of 5, I made M a little shirt with a freezer paper stencil but I didn't get a cute shot of her in it. This is as close as I got. Yes, the "hair" in one form or another is never too far... On Monday, her actual birthday, my fam came up from T-town and we ordered pizza from Giorgio's who graciously arranged the pepperonis on one of the pizza in the shape of a 5. Little Miss M kept changing outfits throughout the evening and finally settled on this leotard. With a pull up on underneath. Quite the fashionista, eh?

I did have time to frost the aforementioned cupcakes (or "cuckakes" as M likes to say) for this celebration and even though I had removed the candle stick this tray had been glued to at the Hello Kitty party I thought it would be okay to just balance it on the candlestick. I was wrong. The lid of one of the pizza boxes flopped over on the tray and the cuckakes took a nosedive onto the bench behind the table. Argh.

This picture, my friends, pretty accurately depicts the whole party-planning experience from start to finish! At least I have a year to recuperate!

It Is Finished

Not well. But it is finished. Sorry, Valerie, no giftie for you this time. I did discover that I hate painting even more than I thought. Definitely NO FUN when you do it by yourself. I needed my mommy or Kara to be here to help out. I'm pooped out and my eyes are playing tricks on me...can't even tell much of a color difference even though I know it went from a weird green to white. Hmmm.

But this whole money motivation worked well (for me at least!). I need to channel this into other areas: weight loss, other home improvement projects, credit card debt reduction, etc.

Thanks for all the encouragement/motivation/friendly competition.

If I Were a Betting Girl...

Okay, we all know I'm a bit of {which is a bit of an understatement} a procrastinator. I had planned to paint the entire interior of my home the week I closed on the house. Then I was going to paint certain rooms last Christmas break. Then it was pushed to the summer. And now I've set a goal of painting my living room prior to Little Miss M's birthday party. On Saturday. Yes, a mere three days away. So I've been "planning" on painting tomorrow on the first day of fall break so that I can reward myself on Friday with shopping and whatnot in the big city. But I fear that I will, once again, put it off. So...as an extra incentive I'm going to wager against myself. Sort of.

Here's my proposal:

If I don't paint my living room by midnight tomorrow night (Friday morning, technically) then I will purchase a $25 gift card to the establishment of choice for the first person to respond to this post. Which will be sad if nobody posts until after tomorrow...

So good luck to you! But more luck to me! Either way, someone will get something by the end of the day tomorrow!

Rock {'n Roll} A Bye Baby

I keep telling myself that my sewing machine is not something I should be afraid of. Last week there was a baby shower at work and I had psyched myself up to sew some burp cloths but then chickened out in the end and bought my gifts. Well, a friend is expecting a baby boy next month so I finally bit the bullet and conquered my fear.

I had purchased a two-pack of metallic iron-on transfers that said "My Dad Rocks" (because his dad does) and "My Mom Rocks" (with a rocking chair). I found this cute longsleeved onesie at Wal-Mart and slapped the daddy transfer on it.

Now I had to figure out what to do with the mommy transfer. I decided to make a burp cloth and while I was waiting for the lady at Hancock's to cut the flannel (black and white houndstooth on one side, solid red on the other) out I had the bright idea to make it in the shape of a guitar. Not necessarily the most practical burp cloth design, but I though the concept would be cute. I drew out the shape on a sheet of newspaper and then cut out the flannel. I wasn't sure to do with the tuner knobby things so I sewed some ribbons near the top to simulate them. And added the transfer near the bottom. The finished result:

I topstitched a zigzag stitch but wasn't very adept at sewing it in a relatively straight line near the edge and therefore didn't quite get the opening at the bottom sewn shut so I had to deviate a little and add a second wonky topstitch (see below) to correct it. I'm hoping that that houndstooth is busy enough that you don't really notice how poorly it was sewn. But, all in all, not too terribly bad for my first go at it.

Blast from the Past

I was just going through all the pictures on my computer trying to weed some out because my laptop is a little sluggish these days. I ran across a bunch my mom took a few years back and this one is my favorite so far:

My mom was watching her on this particular evening and had put her down to sleep in her (my mom's) room. Apparently Miss M (she had just turned 2) got off their big bed and found one a little more to her liking. I wonder where their dog Mattie slept that night...

My New Favorite and Best

Every once in awhile I stumble across a great find at a thrift store or a garage sale: my vintage O'Keefe and Merritt stove, my round blue coffee table, the set of Calphalon cookware, my awesomely funky headboard, that great dresser I scored a few months back...and for awhile that thing becomes my favorite item in my home.

Well, this morning Little Miss M and I got up early, hit the donut shop, and headed out to the garage sales awaiting us in our thriving metropolis. The first one I hit was for a local pet rescue organization. I was browsing the tables and bookshelves and as I was about to pay for my measly little purchase I saw this chair:

It was near the cash table so I assumed that it was for the volunteers but I asked anyway. I was wrong! For $12.50 it could be mine, all mine. Although a bit on the office-y side, I loved its Danish modern lines and it was in great condition. There was a great debate about whether or not it's upholstered in leather or vinyl but I'm confident I'm right and that it is vinyl. Obviously (for those of you clever enough to notice the chair is in my living room and not a garage) I made the purchase. Fitting it into the car was an adventure, especially in light of the cracked window incident last summer (trying to cram a desk into my compact car). Neither my mother or stepfather would be proud of my knot tying abilities, but I prevailed and it found its way into my house.

And now I get to figure out how to rearrange my living room to make space for them.

Say what?! That's right...

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I bought two of them! Not too shabby for $25, eh?