Weekend recap

This weekend I....... 

 scored a pair of these vintage embroidered dish towels(?) for $1. They are huge, 20x20, and I'm planning on making them into a pair of euro shams for the boys bunk beds.

did some puzzles with these two cuties

let the boys play with their food, string cheese to be exact.

got inspired by blackberry juice. Watercolors here I come!

.....and made this ottoman out of a wood pallet. 

Hope you had a fabulous weekend!

Butterfly Art

(all images via my Pinterest)

Yep, we've all seen it. 

Faux or real.

Some hate it, some love it. 

I happen to love it. 

There are some great options out there (butterflyutopia.com!) but I am cheap budget friendly and wanted some bang for next to no buck. 

Enter my kids' bug sticker book. 

Ha ha, yep I am THAT cheap!

Some white card stock and a frame I had lying around, quickly turned into this:

Pretty cute for free huh!?

If you want to follow suit with the faux.....

Clockwise from top left: here, here and here.

Artificial, here and here (just pop them in a shadow box) and free images (blow them up big!) here.

If you're not a DIYer:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

Last but not least, here are some options for the real deal (all from butterflyutopia.com)

Budget finds

I've been sourcing some sofas for a friend, here are my picks under $1200.

1. $799 plus $145 for shipping
2. $899 Free shipping
3. $99 plus $185 for shipping
4. $1165 plus $49 for delivery
5. $899 plus $299 for shipping

Updating for spring and a curtain trick

FYI this is the post of stolen Facebook photos and crappy iphone pics, you've been warned.

Over the last few years I've been helping my parents update their house. They gave the exterior an overhaul before moving to the  inside. The kitchen and bathrooms were next, along with new flooring and paint for the whole house. (I swear I will have it properly photographed someday because it has turned out beautifully!!) 

Here is a before photo, that I stole off of Facebook. Cedar ceiling, blue carpet, blue paint, oh and blue furniture.

It's Christmas.....don't we look happy. 

 This was shortly after the painting was done and the new furniture was delivered but before the new carpet was installed. We also added that mantle/shelf because there was none. This is another stolen FB photo, sorry!

New flooring, new area rug (from Sam's Club!) and new curtains.

Congrats to my brother who graduated from college.....last year ;)

The pattern on those curtains is great but it's a little too dark for spring. 

 Much better!

My Mom also picked out a new lamp and throw pillows (these are all from Ross and Target- here, here and here.) 

Pouf from Target, here.

So pretty and so easy.

 The curtains (both the old and new ones) are not curtains. They are actually tablecloths from Target held up with drapery clips. When it comes to drapes (and most anything) look outside the box. It can pay off big time!

Updated nursery and a feature

First off, thank you all so much for the comments and emails about my last post. You guys are so sweet and made me feel so supported and loved! His new job is going really, really well and things at home are great. It was a little strange the first week getting used to his new hours but now I feel like everyone is on the same schedule.....and it's SO nice! He used to work from about five or six am until three or four pm, depending on what was going on that day. Now he's a eight to fiver, which means I can get up early, workout and then cook breakfast for all of us before he leaves in the morning. Hooray for family meals! :)

Anyway, this morning I was checking my news feed on Facebook and saw that I was featured over at Young House Love today. Total surprise and shock! I had actually forgotten about sending the email. So head on over and check it out if you haven't already and a big thanks to John and Sherry for featuring my ever-evolving living room!!

Speaking of ever-evolving, we rearranged Isaac's nursery while the hubby was off a few weeks ago. We were in the process of painting our master bedroom (I promise I'll have pics soon, I'm still working on reupholstering the headboard) and didn't want our little chunker breathing in paint fumes so he slept in his own room. Gasp! I know!! The best part? He slept great, it actually worked.

Once we figured that out and decided to keep him there we had some work to do.
Isaac just started crawling and can sit up great on his own but because he's so big  he ends up rolling over in his sleep and whacking his head into the crib sides all the time. The crib we have has closed ends on the sides. They're solid and not rails, which is a pretty popular style these days. The problem with that is that you can't use traditional crib bumpers because you don't have any rails to tie them too. On top of that, bumpers aren't very safe and almost no one makes cute ones them anymore. However, since he is completely able to get himself around and can crawl and sit up on his own I'm not worried about it.

I bought these bumpers from WalMart for $20. They come in four pieces, two long ones for the front and back and two short for the ends. I just recovered the long pieces and added new ties. The added bonus is that his binky's don't fall through the rails now. If you have a crib like ours with the solid sides and need a bumper alternative you should try this one, super easy and very cheap!

Ok, onto the pictures.

I would eventually like to add one or two of these acrylic shelves under the window and a mobile, but it'll do for now. :)

On my heart lately....

I'm still here believe it or not.

The past month has been a very difficult one. One that knocked me down and left me breathless at times.

A couple weeks ago my parents came over to watch the boys while I had a 7 am root canal. Which by the way was EXACTLY like the horror stories you hear about. I'm not sure how many shots I had, I lost count after the eleventh. I do know that three of them were directly into the root of my tooth. Oh and I had an ear infection at the time.

When I finally drug myself up our front stairs at almost 10 am I was shocked to see my husband inside. He was supposed to be working all day (which was why my parents were watching the boys). He was talking to my Mom, I could see her smiling through the window. I wondered why he was home but everything seemed fine. When I got inside though I could tell everything was not fine.

He had been suspended indefinitely, without pay. They would let him know within two weeks whether they were going to actually fire him or 'find something else' within the company for him. The last two or three managers in his position had the same thing happen and were eventually fired. It didn't look good. (*I don't want to get into details or bash the company at all but this was pretty unwarranted.)

At the time, for some reason I thought this was slightly humorous, comical even.

I blame the novocaine.

My hubby didn't think it was funny at all. I don't blame him. He is the sole source of income for our family but more than that he is a dedicated and extremely hard worker. His work ethic is one of the things I most admire and love about him. He would flip burgers and scrub toilets for 18 hours a day if that's what he had to do.....and he would do it with a smile on his face. He had worked his butt off, given more than I EVER would have to this job for almost three years. Worked almost every holiday and all of our birthdays, worked so many open to closes (12+ hours) when people would call in that I lost count. He was devastated.

He had almost a week 'off' before they fired him. We made the most of the time we had and it was actually a really nice vacation! We painted our bedroom finally, cleaned out the garage, set up the boys' new swing set.

He got a new (old-he worked there before) job and started this week. He'll have to work part time a few nights a week to make up for the pay cut but things are good, God is good! Looking back I'm amazed at how everything fell into place. We complained about getting our tax return a month later than expected but it got us through the four weeks of no paychecks. I had the bulk of my costly dental work done while we still had insurance. My husband and I had almost three weeks together, the most 'vacation' we've had in almost nine years of marriage. We stood and knelt together in faith, knowing that God had a plan for our family, that He would see us through and provide for us. There were days when I worried,  I mean if things got bad enough we could lose our house. I still worry some days but I know I don't need to.

 ^"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

I'll be back next week with some room tours!! :)