Home Goods Eye Candy

Hello again!  I'm still working on those lovely french doors of mine (it's gonna take awhile!), but in the meantime, I wanted to share a couple of things I found at Home Goods over the weekend.

A quick side story:  Home Goods/TJ Maxx opened up over the summer in the city next to mine -  I cannot tell you how ECSTATIC I was about that because before, the closest one to me was about an hour away.  It took me a few months to finally make a trip to the store - I originally had heard that it was a TJ Maxx, but while driving on the freeway, I saw a sign that said TJ Maxx and Home Goods.  What the what?!?!  So, I finally cruised on over there last weekend and a couple of things caught my eye.

Driftwood Tree - $49.99.  I loved this, but didn't want to shell out the money for it.  (It was very tempting though).

Driftwood wreaths - $19.99 and $39.99.  I debated on buying the small one, but told myself that I didn't really need another wreath.  But, the whole time that I was walking around the store,  I kept thinking about it.  If I think about it long enough, I can justify buying it, so I ended up scooping it up.  :)  Instead of putting it outside on my front door, I'm going to hang it up inside the house.  I just need to find the right spot.

I also finally bought a set of sheets for my bed that I like!  I've had so much trouble finding a set that fit correctly (I have a California King, so sometimes the pockets on the fitted sheets aren't deep enough, even though it's labeled for a California King), feels good, doesn't rip (ugh - the last set I bought at Home Goods was Cynthia Rowley brand and they ripped after a few months because they didn't fit the mattress properly).  So, I'm really, really pleased with my new sheets.  And they're Calvin Klein - $59.99 for the set.  Woo hoo!

They had lots of cute Christmas stuff too, but in my shopping frenzy, I didn't get any more pictures.  I'm just glad that there is a Home Goods nearby now so I can pop on over whenever I please and not spend tons of money there on one big shopping trip.   Now, I can spend a little bit of money there lots of times.  :)

Adventures in Painting French Doors

So, this is why I've been in a bit of a DIY slump.  I have officially started painting my french doors.  I actually started them awhile ago - just to test it out and see what I was dealing with (I had to actually think about my strategy and how I was going to deal with the issues below).  But, I had been avoiding doing this project and figured that I just needed to finally dive in and just get on it already.

But here is just a taste of what I'm dealing with and why I was avoiding this project.

As you can see in the picture above, my french door set also includes two sidelites that open up to allow more airflow without keeping the main doors open.  Each sidelite has 5 windows and each door has 10.  That's a total of 30 little windows.  Taping them off is a pain in the booty, but I think I've got a system down now (it's still a pain though).

And the latches on the sidelites look like this...

Um, how in the heck am I supposed to tape that off?  They aren't very big and are flush with the surface, but there are 3 per sidelite.  So, I'm having to hand-paint around these with a small artist brush.

And!!, the hinges?!

See those little tiny tabs?  Yep - having to hand-paint around those also with the artist brush.  I thought about just taking the doors down and the hinges off, but for several reasons, it's just not an option.

I didn't even get to the edges of the doors yet.  I don't even know if I'm going to attempt that (I'll have to snap a picture later).  The edges of the sidelites include the hardware for the latch & locking mechanism and the french doors also include the hardware for the locking latches also.

So, these are my issues with painting the french doors and why I've been lagging.    Since the holiday season has just begun, I will probably have to take a break to work on some Christmas gifts, but the doors - they will get done.  I am determined!  Oh, and did I mention that I still have a brand new front door that needs to be painted too?  (save me)

Thanksgiving Fail

It's not even Thanksgiving yet and I've already had a screw-up in the kitchen.

This year, so I wouldn't have to make more than one trip to the grocery store, I wrote up my shopping list and checked several times to make sure I wasn't missing anything.  Off to the store I went and got all my supplies. 

A few days later, I decided to bake something in the oven and pre-heated it.  After about 10 minutes, it started smelling like burning paper.  I ran over to the oven and right before I opened the oven door, I realized what it was.  See, when I was putting the groceries away a few days prior, I had decided to put the foil baking pan in the oven with the oven bags in it because I didn't have any room in the pantry and didn't want to leave them on the kitchen counter.  Yep - I had forgotten to take them out of the oven before I pre-heated it.  I had a feeling that might happen.  Hmmph.

At first, I wasn't sure if the bags were affected.   I mean, they had only been pre-heated for about 10 minutes.   I couldn't remember what they looked like.  As you can see in the picture below, the non-baked bags on the left are still clear.  And the baked oven bags on the right had a brown-ish tint.  

So, off to the store I had to go.  Again.  Thanksgiving can only get better from here, right?  :)

House Binders

Hello there!  I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things as far as craft and home projects go.   My Italian vacation sidelined any projects for awhile - between prepping for my trip, being away on my trip, dealing with jet-lag after returning, and getting ready for Halloween, it's taking me awhile to get back into it all.  My DIY mojo is slowly returning, though!  One thing that doesn't help is that we were still having summer-like weather here in Southern California - earlier this week it was 90+ degrees, but today it rained to dropped down to about 60 degrees.  I'm SO READY for the fall weather!

Today, I have a project I had been meaning to do for quite some time.  I have a few binders in the house to keep some papers organized:  #1)  recipes, #2) house stuff (helpful tips, maintenance help, garden tips, etc), #3) an idea book (projects that I want to try out).  I subscribe to a few magazines and even with my love for Pinterest, I still manage to dog-ear pages of the magazines that hold my interest.  Once I'm done reading the magazine, I go back to the dog-eared pages and tear them out.  I then file them in page protectors in the appropriate binder.  I find it's a good system for me, so I'm sticking with it, at least for now.

This is what I started with.

I really wanted cute binders, but that usually means more dollar$$$$$.   So, I had the idea in my head for awhile to cover the binders in fabric or maybe some nice, thick wrapping paper.  I never really found a fabric or paper that I really liked for a good price, so I decided to use painter's dropcloth like my bff did (as you can see on her Neutral Territory's post).  I already had leftovers, so I didn't have to spend a dime and the dropcloth really goes with anything.  I figured that I can always jazz it up with ribbon and tags, also.

Here's a quick tutorial on how I did it.
Supplies needed:
*  Spray adhesive
*  Painter's dropcloth (mine was from Home Depot)
*  Scrapbook paper
*  Plastic page protectors
*  Label maker

1)  Open your binder and lay it out fat like the picture below.

You'll then cut a piece of fabric out with an extra edge.

2)  I then took some spray adhesive and sprayed it onto the front, back, and spine of the binder.

3)  Carefully smooth the fabric on the front, back, and spine of the binder that you just sprayed with adhesive.  Make sure to smooth it all out so there's no air pockets under the fabric.

4)  I then cut some thick scrapbook paper to cover the insides of the front and back cover so you don't really see the scraggly edges of the fabric. 

Instead of choosing some super nice paper, I decided to use some that was decent but that I wouldn't be using for any other projects (in other words, I didn't want to use the "good stuff" since I'll be the only one that will be using the binders).

5)  I then reorganized inside all of the binders by making my own dividers.  Again, I didn't want to waste my good paper, so I just used plain colored paper for the dividers, then cut up the leftover paper from step 4 to make the tabs. 

6)  Using my Dymo label maker, I made labels for the tabs.  Then, I just stapled the tabs onto the dividers.  Super easy!

All of the pages in the binders are slipped into plastic page protectors.  It makes it easier to add new pages and also makes all of the pages the same size.

I haven't figured out exactly how I want to label the spines, so they got a temporary label using my old-school Dymo label maker.  The binders look waaaay better than before though. 

Here's a quick before & after....

BEFORE

AFTER

I'm planning to cover my mis-matched photo albums with the canvas dropcloth also.  The nice thing is that I can always jazz up the covers by ironing on a graphic, or using ribbon, or any other kind of embellishment.  And it's a really quick, easy & cheap way to make a binder a lot nicer. 

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Linked up to:
The DIY Dreamer's From Dream to Reality link party

Lil Luna's link party

The NY Melrose Family's and Smart School House's Whimsy Wednesdays link party

Homework's The Inspiration Board link party

House on the Way's Twirl & Take a Bow link party

Live Laugh Rowe's Live Laugh Linky link party

House of Hepworth's Hookin Up With HOH link party

Delightful Order's Delightfully Inspiring Thursday link party

The 36th Avenue's Link Party

One Artsy Mama's Shine On Fridays link party

Too Much Time's Get Schooled Saturday link party

Tater Tots and Jello Weekend Wrap Up link party

Delightful Order's Paper Organization link party

Happy Halloween!!

Yes, yes - I know Halloween is officially over, but I wanted to share a few pictures from last night (yep - trying to drag out my favorite holiday as long as I can).

Here is the newer version of my Cleopatra costume...I got extra accessories at the last minute (gold coin necklace, armband, snake ring) and a new haircut!  Side note:  I love my new haircut, but it takes me such a long time to do my hair when it's short, which is why I rarely have it short.  But, I've been wanting a change and I donated to Locks of Love while I was at it.  :)

Here's a close up of my updated Cleopatra eye makeup - much better than the other night at the party.  And seriously, how freakin' cute is my niece?!  She was Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" - our costumes sort of match! 

My nephew decided to skip on the trick-or-treating.  He just wanted to pass out candy and socialize with the trick-or-treaters.   Party pooper.

And my two cutie-pie nephews who live out of town - we have Batman and a zookeeper here!  I love those little guys - wish we lived closer so I could do the trick-or-treating with them too. 

And a BIIIIIIIIIIG happy birthday to the zookeeper!  He turns 2 today!