How to Make An Easy Night Stand

While visiting a friend recently, I got the idea to make a simple night stand for my newly assembled guest bedroom. (Thank you, 19-year-old boy, for leaving your bedroom for me to girl up.) She used two piles of books and a TV-tray. When I expressed to her that I had lots of extra books I didn't know what to do with, but no extra TV-trays lying around at home, she dug into her storage and gave me one! What else are friends for? She blogged about her nightstand HERE, and now I'm blogging about mine....

This came together in about half an hour, was free, and it's cute and functional. Thanks, BJ!

P.S. My sister and I are finally getting skinnier!
See how we're doing it HERE! :)

How to Reupholster a Cushioned Chair

Have I told you recently how amazing my husband is? Among the many things he did for me on my birthday yesterday, including letting me sleep in, sweeping the kitchen floor, buying me a CD, a DVD, a fan duster (don't worry, it was upon request), a tres leches cake, and THIS floral arrangement...

...was to reupholster four bar stools! I love these bar stools, but after 4 years and 9 kids, the beige cloth coverings just got nasty and I couldn't handle it anymore..

Plus, as each day passed, they continued to get nastier and nastier as the 3-year-old boy has yet to learn that food should stay on the table, and not on chairs, his clothes, and the floor. Thus, I knew that recovering them in new fabric would be a feckless effort, as they would just become filthy again in a matter of days. My solution? To cover the chairs with a gorgeous fabric, then cover that with a thick, clear plastic. Here's how it went...

First John laid the cushion upside down on said fabric, then cut the fabric to size and pulled it tight to the back of the cushion...

He then stapled the fabric in place, first pulling the sides tight, then the corners...

Here are two of the four fabric-finished cushions...

He then performed the same process with the clear plastic...

...and here is the finished product...

Admittedly, it would look better without the shiny plastic, but that idea is an impossibility at my house, and I am just so thrilled with how they turned out and how easy they are to wipe down after a meal!

I totally love how the pink looks against the green island...

...and I am the luckiest girl to have such a multi-talented, considerate husband! Thank you, again, John, for a spectacular birthday! You are the best husband ever!

These are a few of my favorite things...

This set of bowls, given to me by my mother, as a gift to be used in our Mexican hacienda...



These salad servers, hand-made by my favorite aunt...



This talavera-style pear, purchased at Ross for $5.99...



This talavera pot, purchased by my husband at a fair in the Mexican border town where he works...



...and this wok, passed down to me after my father died. I'm sure he purchased it during one of his frequent trips to his favorite thrift store, where he loved to pick out and purchase brass knick knacks for my mother. My mother could never get him to understand that it was not brass she liked, but copper. You can read more about the issues that caused HERE.



Just thought you should know. Thanks for listening.

Homemaker Monday: A Super-Cool Way to Make Letters With Photos of Architecture!

Welcome to the 52nd weekly edition of...


Thank you for joining us! If you're new to this carnival and would like to enter your post, please check HERE for the rules and regs.

YOURS: This week's "YOURS" goes, again, to Homemaker Barbi for her post on Game Night Snacks! As you know, I usually don't choose non-vegan post for the "YOURS" feature, but as I'm not feeling all too vegan right now, due to my wildly raging early-pregnancy hormones, I thought I'd link up to Homemaker Barbi because she took such pretty pictures of her food and my mouth actually started watering as I lay my eyes on them. Here's one...


She says it was cheap, easy and her guests raved! What could be better? For her other snack plates and recipes, click HERE. Thank you, again, Homemaker Barbi, for being such a faithful Homemaker Monday participant! I appreciate you so much and I hope you have a great day!

MINE: As mentioned in previous posts, such as HERE and HERE, my trip to Utah was not my most favorite trip ever. However, while there, my mother and I came across an idea that I think is going to change my life. Well, just briefly, for short periods of time. While shopping in a Mormon book store called Deseret Book, my mother encountered a gorgeous wall plaque. It spelled out the word "FAMILY" with cropped photographs of sepia-toned architecture, photographed at various Mormon temples.

We marveled at the beauty of it, she purchased it and took it to FedEx to have it mailed home to her, paying $11 for just the box it was packaged in, not including the other packing material and the cost of shipping, but it was all worth it. (On a side note, she now refuses to throw away the box it was packaged in, because she had had to pay $11 for it. I wonder how long it will sit in her kitchen.)

As we pondered various deep thoughts during the 13 hours with the twins on our way home, I came up with an idea. "Mom," I said, "Why couldn't we take pictures of structures and come up with our own alphabet and make similar wall hangings?"

"That is a GREAT idea!" she exclaimed.

We then thought of all the places we could go to take photographs of architecture and how fun it would be, as long as we left the twins as home of course, and how we would begin planning our outings as soon as we arrived home.

When we did arrive home, my mind was alert and astute, and I began finding letters everywhere I turned. My mother's backyard happened to be a plethora of alphabet fodder and we began taking pictures. Here are four original, unedited and uncropped photos we took that day....





A few days later, when I was back home in Mexico, and we didn't have power, probably because some drunk fellow had run into a light post, thus leaving us without internet, I thought I would spend some insomniac time going through the photos. I cropped some of them and changed their attributes to all equal the same height, and here is the first word I came up with, and, I think, probably the most important word there is in the universe...


Now, I want you to know that I did not print out my photos, cut them neatly out of printer paper, then tack them, with matching blue tacks, to a perfectly rustified wall. I uploaded them to a website called ScrapBlog.com and used virtual walls and tacks. This is the website where I go to make all the buttons you see on my blog, including my header picture. It's too fun!

That being said, if you had time to do this in real life, which I don't, you would actually have to print the photos out and have them matted and framed. There are a number of ways you could do that.

First, you could line the photos up with no space between them and have one large mat made around them, like so...


...or second, you could have each photo matted individually, like this...


There are also different looks you could give your photos. In the following example I again went to ScrapBlog.com and used their photo editing tools to give my pictures a sepia tone. I really loved how this one turned out...


You could also print your photos out on iron-on transfer paper, then iron them on to linen or muslin, something with an obvious weave, as per THESE instructions.

Or you could steer away from architecture and get your alphabet from photos of nature or kitchen paraphenalia or food!

I'm am so full of amazing ideas, it is just unbelievable! Oh, and by the way, in case it didn't register what my word said, it was "LOVE". The 13-year-old boy saw it immediately, so if you didn't, well...then....I guess there's something wrong with you you don't think like a 13-year-old boy.

So let me know if you actually do one of these in real life. I would really like to see how it turns out! Have a great day!

OURS: Okay, I'm so excited to see what all of you awesome homemakers have for us today! Feel free to search through your archives for any tips, recipes or how-tos, especially if you'd like to join in for the first time. Thanks so much for joining us today and have a great Homemaker Monday!

I am pleased to list this post @...




If you liked this post and would like to join me here on a regular basis via email or other reader, please...
Subscribe

(You'll be helping to pay for at least one of the nine kid's college tuition.)
OR... bookmark or share this post by clicking the "Add This" button below... Thank you for your visit!

Homemaker Monday: Sprouting Beans and Antiquing Photos!

Welcome to the 52nd weekly edition of...


Thank you for joining us! If you're new to this carnival and would like to enter your post, please check HERE for the rules and regs.

YOURS: This week's "YOURS" goes to "The Prudent Pantry" for her post on sprouting beans! Eating sprouted beans and grains is a great way to add a punch of nutrition to your diet each day. I love to sprout wheat, and I have tried my hand at sprouting a variety of beans, but The Prudent Pantry did such a great tutorial on the subject, I thought I'd just send you on over to learn from her! Here's how her mung beans look after coming alive!


Thank you so much for linking up with us, Prudent Pantry, and we sure do look forward to future tutorials! For The Prudent Pantry's entire post, click HERE.

MINE: Recently I was introduced to an awesome Japanese website. No, it's not aname or tech-y type stuff, it is a photo editing website. And this website does one thing... makes "Photos like over 100 to 150 years old." I really get a kick out of how translators can sometimes word phrases or sentences. Then I begin to wonder what I must sound like to our workmen when I try to ask them if I can borrow a drill. They probably laugh about me with each other after I walk off the same way my mother and I laugh when we go to restaurants in Mexico where the someone has attempted to translate the menu into english for the benefit of us Americans with our deep pockets. Since I actually live in Mexico now and am forced to butcher the language every single day, I find I don't laugh as loud or hard..... but I still do laugh.

Anywho, back to my point, the website is called Bakumatsu Koshashin Generator and I've been having all kind of fun with it. There are so many cute things you could do with old-style photos of the kids or scenery. I'm thinking of makng a collection with old rustic frames and lining them up on one of the walls in my family room. It would fit my rustic Mexican decor perfectly. Here's how it turns out...

Original Photos...



Antiqued Photos...



Pretty awesome, right? Now I do realize that there are programs out there that have this capability, but since I haven't been willing to drop the cash for any of them, I'm grateful I've found one that's free. Click HERE to get there. Try it!

OURS: All right then, let's see what all of you fantastic homemakers have for us today! Feel free to dig into your archives if this is your first time participating and even if you're an old pro! Thanks so much for joining us and I hope you have a awesome Homemaker Monday!



If you liked this post and would like to join me here on a regular basis via email or other reader, please...
Subscribe

(You'll be helping to pay for at least one of the nine kid's college tuition.)
OR... bookmark or share this post by clicking the "Add This" button below... Thank you for your visit!

Homemaker Monday: Getting Kids to Work, Mealtime Ambience and Tear-Free Rinsing

Welcome to the 43rd weekly edition of...

Thank you for joining us! If you're new to this carnival and would like to enter your post, please check HERE for the rules and regs. (By the way, if you have been featured on Homemaker Monday in the past, your name is on my left sidebar. Check it out!)

YOURS: This week's "YOURS" goes to Lydia over at Babies and Bags! She's a military wife, a mom of six and she even has a home business making and selling purses. Her post is on getting kids to help at home. If you've read my blog for more than a week or so, you know that this topic is a HUGE deal for me. It is what I spend most of my spare time thinking about (yes, fun, I know). Lydia has some great ideas on getting kids to help that I use myself, plus she has some new things I would like to try and incorporate into my housework routines. One idea is to have an empty jar and every time one of the kids does assigned chores, or any chore for that matter, without being asked, a marble will be added to the jar...


When it is full, the kids can have an ice cream party with friends. I KNOW my kids would LOVE this, so I am going to be trying something similar this week. Wish us luck! For Lydia's entire post, click HERE. Thanks you for your inspiration, Lydia. There is nothing like teaching our kids the value of work.

And now, for the "how I applied it to my life" feature...

Last week, I introduced Jen over at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam. Her post was on creating ambience during mealtime with candlelight. I have done just that all week and it has been lovely. The kids and our company all commented on how cool it was to have candles lit during dinner. I did an entire post on my experience for "Tablescape Thursday" , plus a how-to on napkin/silverware rolling, if you'd like to check it out HERE , but if you'd just like a taste of how things turned out, here's a photo the 14-year-old girl took of our Sunday dinner...


Thank you so much, Jen, for your inspiration. You made my world a better place this week!

MINE: Credit for this week's tip goes to the 14-year-old girl. Once she realized how well it worked, she even suggested that I use it for "Homemaker Monday". How cute.

She was in charge of washing the three-year-old's hair. Even after three years, he still hasn't gotten used to the idea of having water poured over his head. He opens his eyes and gets burned by shampoo and cries and really does not look forward to washing-hair time. The 14-year-old girl, the genius that she is, decided to have him wear goggles during the washing and rinsing process. Here's how it went...








(I always seem to take things a little too far and don't know when to say when with the camera. He let me know.)

If you're in the same boat we are and would like to try this, let us know how it goes! Thanks for listening.

OURS: Okay, now it's your turn! Feel free to join us if your just visiting by searching through your archives and adding anything into Mr. Linky that has to do with homemaking. It's fun to get new visitors and comments to your blog and fun to visit everybody else's post! Have a great Homemaker Monday!



If you liked this post and would like to join me here on a regular basis via email or other reader, please...
Subscribe

(You'll be helping to pay for at least one of the nine kid's college tuition.)
OR... bookmark or share this post by clicking the "Add This" button below... Thank you for your visit!