Pretty Kitchen Windows.

Oh boy it feels good to finish a project! I got my kitchen window curtains finished last week and I LOVE them!! At first, I didn't really think they looked nice, but now that they've been up for a few days, I think they look pretty good for my first set of curtains! Yay!

Without further ado, photographic evidence :

(Pardon the food in the photo , Thomas was lovingly assembling our dinner when I took this shot). 

Ooooooooooo it feels so good to have gotten those done! Now I'm hungry for the next project -- recovering our dining chairs! And then I'd better get started in making the capes for Thomas' super hero birthday party in November (can never plan too far ahead!!) Oh, and I can't forget that I have duvet covers to make for the boys for Christmas! Weeeeeeew! It's gonna be crafty around here!!

What's on your "project list"? Do you sew? Or scrapbook? Or paint? Let me know what you've got planned in the comments :)

And have a great week!! 

Xoxo Beth

Projects

As some of you may know, I'm not exactly a "tread lightly" kind of person. I don't usually hold my tongue (though I'm learning) or go slowly into new things (i.e. moving and getting a puppy in the same week).

Well, I was actually a pretty slow start getting into sewing. Josh got me a sewing machine at Christmas, and while I did a few small projects a few months later, my poor machine has sat unused since March. Until about a week ago. Josh asked if I would sew up some blackout curtains for our bedroom. I don't really enjoy hanging curtains, the process of installing curtain rods is just about the worst thing I can imagine, so I put up a tension rod, instead. Truly, it's a good thing people don't typically see inside our bedroom, because I really did a poor job on those curtains. The tension in my machine was all wrong, so the seams on the blackout curtains were rough, to say the least. Oh well, they serve their purpose, our room is delightfully light free all night long, and very dark through the day.

I've figured out my machines tension issue, and haven't been able to stop sewing since. I just finished making up few (WARNING TO MUCH INFO) mama cloth menstral pads. I still did a sloppy job, but I probably won't be showing those off to my friends, haha. 

My current project is sewing curtains for the kitchen window. I was pursuing ValueVillage about a week ago, and found a huge bolt of (what I think is) satin, with beautiful yellow stripes. I have enough fabric that if I botch the curtains, I'll just try again. And, if I don't botch the curtains, I'll have enough fabric to recover the dining chairs, yay! More projects! Although, recovering the chairs won't require any sewing. 

Back to the kitchen curtains. Want to see what the fabric looks like? 

Mmmmm isn't that gorgeous?! It's going to fit so well with the decor I've for going in our living areas. 

I can't wait to show you the finished product! (And maybe a "tutorial", if I don't make a total mess of it!) 

Hope you're having a great weekend!!

ImPressManicure by Broadway Nails

So, awhile back I subscribed to a website called Influenster. They basically find makeup/nail/hair brands who would like to have their newest products tested and reviewed by the masses, and those of us subscribed get the opportunity to be selected to review said products based on a little quiz of our style/interests. Pretty neat, and who doesn't love to get their hands on some free stuff at the cost of writing a review and tweeting/instagramming about it!?

You know in the nail polish isle/section of a store, they've got stick on manicures now? They're hard, inflexible pieces that poorly fit your finger nails, and the glue fails within a day or two? I only tried those once before I decided that they weren't for me. I'd much rather paint my nails. Only problem with that is I don't have an artsy bone in my body, so if I want a fancy flower or swirl, I'm basically stuck paying for a manicure at a salon, and let's face it, I'm way too cheap for that!

So imagine my surprise when my Voxbox from Influenster arrived with stick on manicures inside.

 I'll be honest, I was very skeptical, and I put off using them for awhile. But, after having applied a fresh coat of nail polish only 2 days ago to find it all chipping and peeling off, I decided I'd give this ImPressManicure a shot.

The instructions were easy to go through and I followed them to the letter. The packaging says "Lasts Up to a Week" *when applied properly* -- I took that very literally and made sure I did just as the instructions said!

The manicure set includes 24 nail covers, in 12 different sizes. I was able to find close matches for each of my nails. My pinky fingers were the only real trouble, and that's because they were in between the 2 smallest sizes. No biggy though, I chose the smallest I could and while there is some of my bare nail peeking out at the sides, I'm not upset by it. All the other finger nails covered almost perfectly.

The first thing I was surprised by was the flexibility of the nail covers. I anticipated hard and unbendable, but these flexed out to cover my nails seamlessly. And when I accidentally put one on crooked, I was able to carefully peel it off, it wasn't brittle or painful, and it sort of stretched and went right back to it's shape. It also went right back on, straight this time, and feels just as secure to the nail as the ones I didn't have to reposition.

My only qualm with the manicure is that it feels a little too long for me. I don't particularly like to have long nails, but that's a matter of personal preference, not product quality. I have trimmed them down to suite my preference, and they look just as good a little shorter. :)

I've had the nails on for almost 5 days now, and I'm impressed that they haven't fallen off yet! I'm not particularly easy on my nails, and packing moving boxes certainly doesn't lend any more care to my hands, but these nails have stayed on strong! Only one nails feels a little loose, and it's the nail I put on crooked and had to correct.

I love how shiny and smooth the nail covers are, and I really like that they aren't too thick. Sometimes gel nails (from the salon) can be put on way too thick, and these are just right. I've gotten a lot of compliments on them, and I have to say I really really like the design I'm wearing.

Overall, I'm extremely ImPressed by the ImPressManicure by Broadway Nails. They've come out with a brilliant new concept to the dated, hard, stick on manicure!

*Disclaimer* I received two sets of ImPressManicure by Broadway Nails to facilitate this review, care of Influenster. The opinions are completely my own.

**I'm not sure if this reviewing products thing will be a regular feature on the blog, but I'm interested in your opinion on if you liked this review, or if you aren't a fan of the reviews you've seen on blogs. Thanks for your input ;)**

Maybe I should change the name of my blog...

To something like "I only write on Thursdays so I'm thankful"...

I really need to start planning out at least 1 more post a week. Even I'm boring myself these days. Though, if I have nothing else to say except what I'm thankful for, life can't be that boring. I am at the very least keeping things in perspective.

And honestly, life is far from boring. Taking care of 3+ kids really keeps me on my toes. And getting the house ready to move. And attempting to keep it clean/deep clean it for the move. All very time consuming.

I've started planning out what the boys new bedroom will look like. I picked up some bunk beds (with the help of my big brother) over the weekend, and I'm pretty excited for the boys to get into them. We took them straight over to the new place, so it'll still be 2 months before the boys get to use them, but I'm working on bedding now for them. Below are some screenshots of the fabrics I'm going to use to sew duvet covers for the boys. The Car one will be for Elliott, the Planes for Thomas, and the Zig Zag I'm going to put as the reversible side for both duvets. I've picked out some matching accent colors for pillow covers and curtains. I'm pretty excited. It's going to look pretty cool once it's all put together. :)

Thomas had made specific requests that there be orange in his new bedroom. So this is how I plan to add orange without it being overwhelming. I don't remember what colour their room is at this current moment, but I think I'd like to paint it a nice beige like the background of the cars fabric has. And possibly do some accent stripes in the teal and orange. We'll see.

I'm really enjoying planning this all out. We know that for a minimum we'll be at this place for 5 years, so I can make things fairly permanent. I've got lots of ideas for the master bedroom too. We want to get a new bed (the one we've had has been around for a good 20 years), and we're hoping it'll be a King size. I've got designs for how we want to do the bed frame all ready to go. We're going to make a base out of Ikea shelving units laid on their sides. That we we'll have under the bed storage. I'd like to make a "headboard" out of the same idea too. We both have some nick-nacks we'd like on display, and I think this is the best way to get them all up where we can enjoy them. :) 

I really have to stop looking at puppies. I keep finding puppies I want really badly, but we can't get one until we've moved, and realistically, we should probably get settled before we get a puppy. Haha. :) I found one little girl pup that wouldn't be ready to be adopted for another few weeks, but she sadly passed away, and all of her siblings are spoken for. Ah well. All in good time. I'm really just so thrilled to add a fur baby to our family!

Naps are wrapping up here, and I'd better take advantage of the quiet and unload that dishwasher before I've got 2 more sets of hands trying to "help"!

Spring Fever

I couldn't help myself any longer and started my spring decorating. I saw the most adorable spring "wreath" on Pinterest, and decided that's what I wanted for my front door.

So off I went to the dollar store to get my supplies. I couldn't have been more excited when I found this super adorable umbrella, isn't it just the perfect color?!?! Love it! Then all I needed was an assortment of fake flowers, and I was off the the races. It was really easy. The hardest part was probably taking the tags off of the flowers. Haha! Then it was a matter of arranging the flowers how I wanted in the umbrella and securing it closed. Easy peasy! I'm so happy with it, I might leave it up til Fall. :)

I think I will probably add some more flowers, to fill it out a bit more, but other than that, I'm super happy with it!

Do you decorate for the seasons? My house felt so bare between Christmas and now, winter is so hard to decorate for without it looking Christmas-y. Yay for Spring, and bright colors!