Turning a thrift store picture into a teen approved picture!

Let me get my craft on!!

Katie has a vision of what she wants in her room on the walls.  One wall is going to be covered in pictures shaped like a big heart.   Okay.

The other side will have different kinds of prints w/ cutesy sayings, different colored frames, etc.  Okay.

Let's start with this.... 

I bought this frame at Goodwill for $1.99 (seriously, I never find good frames for this cheap there!).  I removed the back that was wrapped in brown paper bag wrapping.  Took the picture out.

Took this cute picture I downloaded somewhere online (I'll try to remember where if anyone wants to know!), made a print of it in 8x10, and used scrapbook paper to incorporate some color into it.

Ta da!

Before & after of a few rooms....

So, we moved into a house a few weeks ago.  Mike pretty much remodeled the entire house in 10 days .... I have a new kitchen, Katie has a newly painted room, and Maddie has a new room completely .. and we can't forget the girls' new bathroom that has completely been remodeled.  My dad came out for a week to help (thanks Dad!) and we've had other helpers as well ... can't thank everyone enough!  More blog posts coming up about the entire journey in the near future! 

Just a side note that NOTHING is up on the walls yet .... it's not fully clean & it's cluttered (b/c I'm still trying to figure out what goes where .... ) -- but everyone's been begging for pictures, so here are a few rooms to satisfy some people!

Here are some before & after pictures!

Katie's Room

 

This room was a forest green color.  We had to primer it, paint it, add a new ceiling fan, new blinds.  To do still... decorate her walls, and paint her side table & bed black.

 

 

 

 

The Girls Bathroom

 

 

This bathroom was horrible.  Carpet in the bathroom?  Gag.  The sink was SUPER low, and a huge mirror covered the wall.  Mike tore everything out except the tub, and replaced the floor, toilet, vanity, wall stuff, repainted the bathroom and hung up the pictures.  This is the ONLY room in the house that is fully decorated!

 

 

(the mirror is dirty, not cracked!)

 

 

 

 

Maddie's Room

(formerly the formal dining room)

 

 

This was the formal dining room.... since the house had 2 bedrooms, and we needed three .. and since Mike loves buying homes cheaper and remodeling it... he changed this room into a bedroom for Maddie.  It has a super small closet, but apparently by the looks of her closet, she doesn't use it much for clothes anyways. 

 

 

He took those doors out, patched up the wall there since it led to the kitchen, boarded up a wall in the hallway, added a closet, ceiling fan, rearranged the electrical, my dad painted the room super bright pink, added a chair rail, and Maddie is super happy w/ her room!  We just shut her door when people come over since it's the first room they see when they walk in the door.  It's SUPER bright!

 

 

 

To do still: add closet doors, decorations, etc.

 

The Living Room

 

 

Mike took out the carpet, repainted the walls (actually, the entire HOUSE got repainted), and added new floors.

 

 



The Kitchen

 

Mike took out those hanging cabinets that are over the kitchen sink, carried them over to the other side of the dining room (which is no longer the dining room), added more cabinets, new countertops, new sink, faucet, closed up that doorway that led to Maddie's room, etc... new lights .... 

 

We are planning on tearing down the wall where that window on the right is (you can't really see it) .. it will lead to our dining room, which is in the sunroom. Still to do:  get a stove.  Trying to find the RIGHT stove ... so I'm stuck w/ that ancient 1980 stove.  Bleh.  Hopefully we'll find the right one soon!  He also needs to start on the tile work in the kitchen, add a bar (to the counter).  If I had my way in the beginning, those kitchen cabinets would be a different color, but they're not. Something about lack of time .... they're growing on me....

What has music come to these day?!!

It's not a new fact that I can't understand the words of music as I hear it on the radio.  Sometimes I can pick up phrases and I'll sing along to those... or I'll just make up what I think I'm hearing, even if it's all off the wall lyric singing.  :)

When I was 10 or 11, my grandma flew in from Florida, and the family took a trip to Walmart.  Yes, going to Walmart in those days was exciting!  TG&Y & KMart were no longer the exciting stores in town.. it was WALMART!  Well, my grandma worked at Walmart, and so she said she would buy something for my brother & I. 

At that time, Madonna was starting to come out on the radios in popularity.  I loved Madonna and her music.  I picked a cassette out (yes, we didn't have CD's yet), and it was Madonna's newest cassette titled "Like a Virgin."  My grandma said "WHAT?  You listen to THAT?!"  She wouldn't let me buy it.  I didn't understand what the big deal was.  She kept saying "do you even know what a virgin is?"  I said "no.."

Now that I think back on those days ... I wonder why my parents didn't make me turn the station when inappropriate songs came on.  Probably b/c they knew I was completely naive and would have NO clue what some of these words meant.  I was naive!  Just as clueless as I was about "Greased Lightning" on Grease ... it wasn't until I was in college that someone said "I can't believe my parents let me listen to that song!  It's SO inappropriate!"  I went 'huh?  what's so inappropriate about men fixing a car?' I finally, just a few weeks ago, watched a YouTube video showing the lyrics to the song.  Yeah... it's inappropriate.  Yeah.. my girls listen to it. 

Last week I read a Facebook status of a friend asking her friends if she should talk to her kids about the Whistle song.  I knew about the Whistle song... I heard it.  It's catchy.  I sing along.  Then I asked Katie about it.  She knew what it was about.  She told me.  My heart fell.  I went "WHAT?!  are you SERIOUS?"  So, I went to YouTube AGAIN to see what the lyrics were, and wow oh wow.  What has this world come to?  Why are our radio stations broadcasting these songs?  Why isn't there an XRated Radio station that people can listen to their expletive, racy songs?

Why do I have my 10 year old singing "Starships" and the singer is saying something like "effing mother" (or something like that ... it's 6 in the morning while I'm typing this).  Seriously?  I just want to tell the music industry to grow up .... that little kids love music, and really, we don't need them to grow up so fast at age 4, 8, or 10, or 14. 

My friend's friends were telling her that they let it slide... that their kids were just singing along to it, and most likely did not have a CLUE what it meant.  Just to let kids keep on being kids.  She finally admitted that when it comes on, she will change the station.

What has music come to these days??  What do you do in your family?  Let it slide... or change stations?

Painting parties

Lately I've been seeing a lot of my friends going to painting parties ... where everyone paints the exact same thing, and it's fun to see how everyone's painting turns out!

Well, Maddie was invited to a birthday painting party, and this is the picture of her & her friends' creations!  Looks like so much fun!

First day of school!

This year Katie started HIGH SCHOOL!!  Man alive!  I have a high schooler!  Makes me so sad and wish there was a way to reverse the growing process! 

These pictures were taken at 7 a.m. ... and already Katie was busy on her phone texting.  ::rolling eyes::

She & her BFF Madison are really into dressing like twins -- so they bought matching outfits.  This is one of them..

Maddie starts FIFTH grade this year!!  This is her last year in elementary school, and I'm not looking forward to the last day of school when she does her final walk through the school.  I'll be crying behind her.

I always try to do a full length picture, with an up close picture ..... and sibling pictures!

This picture just kills me.... can you see how much Maddie grew in a year?  According to the doctors office, Katie only grew 1/2 inch, so Maddie really grew leaps & bounds in one year!

This final collage just kills me ... these were all I could find on my blog & on Facebook, but see how much they have grown over the years?  I'll be off crying in the corner... wondering how in the world they were allowed to grow up before my eyes.   So proud of these blondies of mine!