Bath Letters

Our bathroom is finally coming together!  I found these fun letters at Michaels for $3.99 each, and used a 25% off coupon, so they weren't too expensive.  Then I bought some spray adhesive to attach the letters to the wall.  I think I might reinforce them with wall mounting tabs.  They give a fun feeling to the "bath"room. 

Homemade Suet for Birds

My neighbor recently broke her ankle, and has asked the boys and I to feed her birds in her backyard everyday. Before I met our neighbor, I didn't know anyone who loved birds more than her. She has tons of birds who frequent her backyard for the plethora bird food she provides. These birds range from cardinals, to tiny baby birds (I'm not a bird person...yet!).

Anyway, we were talking one afternoon about the suet bird food that she puts out for the hummingbirds. She mentioned that I should try to make my own and see if the birds will come. I said that I usually have bacon and ground beef grease leftover whenever we cook, and sometimes I wish that we could reuse it. So, therefore, I am experimenting with that idea.

I've heated up the leftover bacon grease, combined some peanut butter, oatmeal, nuts, and cheap bird food to it. Then I froze it to make it solid. Then I cut it into fourths. I then hung up a netted bag in our tree, so that the birds can eat it (instead of the rats! Eww!)

So far, through my experimenting I have seen a couple of birds on our deck, but they weren't really interested in the suet. The squirrels are a different topic! They are sniffing around, and playing with the bag I hung in the tree. I think they're more interested in the peanuts and peanut butter than anything else.

Here's another blog I found that tried making suet as well:

Peanut Butter Suet

Our Garden Is Started!

I'm happy to say that our garden has been started, indoors, of course! This is my absolute favorite time of winter...when I get to start our seeds for Spring! Last year we started a few days earlier than this year, but I'm sure we'll be fine in the end.

We planted a ton of tomatoes, a ton of peppers, some peas in the baseball trading card holders, and some flowers.

I'm experimenting with the flower seeds that I collected last year, to see if they will actually grow. If so, I won't need to buy any annuals from garden stores this year!

I'm also experimenting on growing peas in baseball card holders. I found this idea in the recent Family Fun magazine that came in the mail. All you need are baseball card holders, some suction cups, and a hold puncher. We'll see if they grow! I'm just afraid that the window is too cold. That's why I put pea seeds in them, because I know that they like the colder weather.

I'm very excited about our garden this summer, because we're planning on having a few raised beds. So that means, there's going to be a lot more room for our veggies to grow!

Have you started digging in the dirt lately?

I.D.E.A. Store in Champaign

Last night was the first night that I entered the I.D.E.A. Store here in Champaign. My husband has always told me that I need to go there, and so last night, my husband, the boys and I ventured out. It is kinda in an odd location, and the door is on the side of the building, facing away from Springfield, but it's very earth-friendly inside! It's kinda like you're walking into a garage sale (in a good way!). There are so many random items that people donate, that you never know what you'll find in there.

Last night I found 8 red, glass bottles to go on my bottle tree in my garden. They were priced at $0.25/piece! Very reasonable!

I've accumulated 18 bottles now for my bottle tree that I will be making in the Spring. The volunteers at the I.D.E.A. Store were very helpful in giving me ideas and resources to make my bottle tree. They even said they'd like to see pictures whenever I finish my project!

This is what I'd like my bottle tree to look like eventually:

I got 4 (nearly new!) spools of thread for $1. I also got a garden book for $2, and a mesh bag to put my homemade suet in for the birds outside (post to come on that project as well). I also grabbed some used felt to make a pizza game for the boys to play.

So, if you have time, and are in the area, I highly recommend that you check out the I.D.E.A. Store to help you be creative!

Update on my garden

We have one roma tomato that is starting to turn red!! Hooray!!

These green pepper plants are doing so well in the part sun/part shade area we made for them. Lots of them have white flowers on them.

Here is a snapshot of a little cucumber, isn't it cute?

And I found another cucumber growing as well. If any of you love cucumbers, let me know. I have a feeling that we will have too many, considering we don't eat cucumbers very often.

These are our cherry tomatoes. Aren't they HUGE? We've had so much rain that they keep getting bigger before they are turning red. So we'll see if they taste the same if they're bigger.

Another side shot of our cherry tomato plants.

Here are our pumpkin plants that are taking over the back side of our shed. I had to trim them and help them grow back on our fence, because they were starting to over take our neighbors garden.

Close up of the zuchini's after I trimmed the leaves back a bit:

And a final view of what we get to see everyday...our little veggie garden!
Here's a couple pictures of our newly planted flower garden, in our backyard as well. The top right is "Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate" plant that my friend, Beth, gave to me as seeds. I feel very fortunate that they sprouted, because hers did not. So I'll be splitting that later to give some to her.

We also have Japanese lanterns, Tiger Lilies, Becky Coneflowers, Shasta Daisies (grown from seeds), Parsley, and Dill.

Here's a picture of my butterfly garden. Just planted this spring. I've seen only one butterfly so far.

These are my favorite day lilies by far! Aren't they gorgeous?

Baby Showers and Diaper Cakes

Yesterday I had the pleasure to driving 2 1/2 hours to enjoy my cousins 1st baby shower. She is due in April and we are so excited for her little girl to arrive. We had such a good time, and I wanted to share with you a fun idea that my aunt has made for the past couple of baby showers that I've been to. She makes this very cute and creative diaper cake!

Isn't that the most creative thing you've ever seen at a baby shower? I thought it was amazing! I found a couple of websites that would help you make one if you're interested, here and here. I'm pretty sure all that you need is:

• a box of diapers
• blankets (receiving and fleece)
• toys for decorations
• baby soap bottle to hold the cake up (for inside)
• bottle of goodies (for inside)
• spoons (for inside)
• ribbon

My New Curtains

I've noticed that I haven't posted any projects that I've been working on in our home lately. So I've decided to share these photos of my winter project: 4 sets of curtains. I ordered the fabric a long time ago with the intention to redo the curtains in our family room, and slowly but surely they are coming together. I have one set left to do and then I'm all finished.

Here is a look at the old curtains:

Sorry there's so much of a glare, with all the snow outside my camera wasn't taking a clear photo:

And here are the new ones that I made:

And here is a side view, with my handy dandy sewing machine in the photo. The machine was given to me by a friend in Rockford, and it's been going strong ever since. Good ol' Singer!

DIY: Clip Art Calendar

Thanks to Martha Stewart's Craft Dept., you can now make your own calendar for the year 2010. It's a pretty creative idea, if you are just in need of an actual calendar without all the pretty pictures. Just click on this link and it will give you the directions you need to make your own calendar.

Our New Laundry Room

Are you anxiously awaiting the photos of our new laundry room? Probably not, but I figured that I'd post some pictures just for folks who are curious as to what it looks like now.

For awhile there our new washer was making an awful screeching noise when filling up the machine with water. We contacted Home Depot, where we purchased the machines, and they recently sent out a handyman to check it out. It turns out that the noise was coming from the water hook up. The delivery men, who hooked up our machines, put the hot water hose on the cold water spout. And vice-versa. YIKES!

So he quickly fixed that, and then put a new valve in our washer, so that it won't make that noise anymore. I've been quite pleased with it now that it's fixed.

Before Photo:

We put in new vinyl floor, re-painted the cabinets, and painted the walls a different color.

After Photo:

I forgot to get a before photo of the adjacent wall, but here is an after photo:

I found those cute white shelves at our Salvation Army store for a couple bucks each. And then went back a few weeks later and found those cute birdhouses. They match the walls perfectly!

I still would like to put a nice lamp in there to soften the lighting. Here is the laundry room I'm aspiring to have: 320 Sycamore's Blog

DIY: Re-Upholster Bar Stools

Today I had the urge to use some of my leftover curtain material to use on the bar stools in our kitchen.  The material on those bar stools have gotten so gross because of our kids.  I'm serious, check them out here:

I know, they're so gross!  So we're having extended family stay with us this weekend, and what better time to be motivated to fix up the house.  Like I said earlier, I've been wanting to do this for a long time, so I've just let the kids be kids at the dinner table or whenever we're eating.  

I've heard that it's pretty simple to re-upholster chairs, so I've always kept that in the back of my mind.  Today I actually flipped over those chairs and saw that there were only 4 screws to undo.  Pretty simple!  As I was looking over the chairs I noticed how much gunk and crusted over milk was on the underside of the chairs.  So away I went to find my baby wipes and give those chairs a good "wash down" (as Zechariah and Thomas the Tank Engine would say!).  

It turns out that the whole project would've taken me 1 hour or less to finish re-upholstering 4 bar stool chairs!  Wow!  The only thing that is hindering me at the moment is my staple gun seems to be jammed.  So I'm going to see if my hubbie can take care of that when he gets home from work.  Other than that - I am SUPER pleased at the outcome of my 1 hour DIY project for today!

My Bathroom Curtains

Just wanted to share with you all my latest project - my (front) bathroom curtains.  They turned out okay, and I love it when they blow in the breeze!  I used the leftover material from my bedroom curtains to match our new green shower curtain that I got from Goodwill a month ago.  

I took down the pink blinds that my in-laws left here when they moved, and finally got around to updating the front bathroom.  So I just thought I'd share these with you.  :)