Fourth of July fun and more Silhouette projects

Hello out there!!  I've been a busy little crafter lately.  I have a few things I wanted to share today - with a few more coming later in the week!!

First, I've been wanting to make some subway art with all our 'home' addresses listed.  When Cole was going through his surgery/radiation/chemo - he always whined that he just wanted to go home - to the REAL home sweet home.  So we started referring to everything as a different home.  The 'hospital home sweet home' was the hospital in Mobile.  The 'Ronald McDonald House home sweet home' was in Memphis, as well as the 'Target home sweet home'.  It helped Cole a little I think to know that every where we had to stay was really HOME if we were all together.  So, on our subway art I included the street for the Ronald McDonald House (Alabama Avenue) and Target House (Poplar Avenue).  So here's the finished project:

This is propped up on the end of the bar separating the kitchen from the den.  The kitchen has that terrible pink formica - so I'm trying to overpower it with lots of pops of red. You can see more red here:

I love my serving tray - just added our name to it last week.  And that clock - oh I love my clock!! I found this at a thrift store years ago for fifty cents.  It was a Hello Kitty clock.  I had decorated it and had it on display at Scrap Etc. for a while, then it came home to sit in my window sill.  It was right in the sun and had started to fade.  I got out the black spray paint, took it all apart and painted it, added houndstooth paper to the inside and there you have it! I love it!!

Ok - on the the fourth!!  We had all of my mom's family over and cooked out.  I wanted a few things outside to welcome our guests - so this is what I did:

I added ribbon to my wreath to dress it up for the holiday - I love the look of corker bows but have never needed them since Cole isn't much of a hair bow wearer and I'm a bit too old for them! I saw something similar to this and just thought it was a great use of ribbon!

I saw this done on Pinterest and thought it would be cute.  I used poster board, cut out a star and the filled my sifter with flower.  The only bad thing is the poster board isn't quite sturdy enough - I would just use cardboard next time.  It was really too hot to do more than this, but I had planned on lining the entire sidewalk and driveway - but it was hot!!! 

Jason has some scrap wood for a few different projects, so I added some paint and paper and made some firecrackers!! I just thought this urn would be the perfect place to toss them - it's right next to the front door.  Sadly, right before placing these in the pot - Jason removed the giant Easter Egg that had been sitting there since early April - pathetic huh?  I just kept forgetting to take it in!!

Now, the fourth of July decorations are still out and probably will be for a few more days at least.  We have family coming in this weekend, so why not leave it up??

Hope you had a fun filled fourth (say that five times fast) and enjoyed some time with friends and family, as well!

We've been keeping pretty busy this summer - so hopefully I'll be back soon with more tales of craftiness!!
I'm linking up here:




Lisa

Oh my Pinterest

I know I'm late to the show and tons of people have been pinning for a while - but better late than never.  I love it!  Currently, I have 26 boards and 501 pins.  I can see this getting out of hand.

Here's my favorite pins:

Love this look - the shoes, the shirt - all of it!

Making this soon - very soon!

Need to do this too, have to dig through my playing card stash!

Bought the knit fabric for this today!!!

And I'm so making this on a tshirt for Cole - too stinking funny!!!

ok - no more time to blog - must pin more!!

and if you want to follow me - http://pinterest.com/itsjustlisa/

later!!

Another Silhouette project

I made this tshirt last week and love it - haven't worn it yet, but I will wear it soon!!

And today I'm going to tackle labeling my canisters.  I've had the same canisters for 11 years now.  They are classic - just white and silver.  I love them.  A few years ago I added a strip of red ribbon around each one with sticky dots and I'm just tired of looking at them that way.  I'm going to add a label to each one and I think that will look much better in my kitchen.  Now, I just have to remember to actually keep sugar in the sugar and flour in the flour!!

I'll post them as soon as I'm done.  Can't wait to see what else I can make.  I have a million other ideas!!  Here's a few:

Can't wait to make all of that fun stuff!

Lisa

Meal Planning Monday

I'm not really one to plan a menu for the week, but after spending some time at Food Gawker I've been wanting to kick it up a notch and make some different dishes.  I have a little more time now that schools out and I'm not subbing (or working part time) so dinner prep isn't as terrible of a task!!

This is what's planned for this week:

Monday - Chicken tenders, creamy chicken rice and lima beans with crescent rolls (this sounds like I'll be slaving away all day, but the chicken is Tyson, the rice is Knorr and the beans come out of a can!

Tuesday - Buffalo Chicken Sliders with potato wedges.  We had a friend in Mobile who made potato wedges that were so good.  You bake a potato in the microwave for about 5 minutes, then slice them, like potato chips, but 1/2 an inch thick.  You lay them on a cookie sheet, top with a pat of butter and some shredded cheese and bacon bits (which I just realized I forgot at the store!).

Wednesday - Chicken Parmesan and garlic bread - don't get excited - it's just a frozen meal you toss in a skillet.

Thursday - Santa Fe chicken wraps with mexican rice.  I take chicken strips (you know the kind for fajitas) and cook them with Philidelphia Cooking Cream Santa Fe mix - it's so good!! 

Friday - Ham and cheese loaf with pasta salad.  The ham and cheese loaf is crazy good.  You take a pizza dough (I usually use thick crust, but I'm trying thin this time) smooth it out on a cookie sheet and layer ham across the whole crust, top with shredded cheese that you mix with a little mayo.  You sort of split the dough into thirds long ways, fold one third over the middle, then fold the other third over.  Flip it over so the seam is on the bottom, and coat with a slightly beaten egg, sprinkle with parmesan cheese and cut a few slits into the top.  Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.  It's so yummy.  I also add feta cheese and pepperoni to the pasta salad - yum!!

So, now I'm hungry!!!  I made these last week and the week before - so yummy!! And these Saturday - wowsers they were so good!! So, go check out that site - amazing recipes - pages of pretty pictures of food - click on a picture to find the recipe and be prepared to spend a few hours!!

And now I wonder if my menu with stick!!

I'll let you know!
Lisa

Busy little bee

So, I finally got a Silhouette.  And nothing in my home is safe from it's craftiness!!  NOTHING!! :D

My first project was simple:

I took a canvas, painted it a pale pink, cut out Birthday Girl, the butterfly and cake and Mod-Podged it to the canvas.  Added some photo corners and it's done.  The purpose was to give my sister-in-law something she could display at each of Ashlyn's birthday parties, and in her bedroom with her birthday picture. 

Then I did this for the birthday girl:

Terribly blurry picture - she is a little cupcake!! 

Next, I moved on to this:

This the my bathroom wall - the wall behind the door, so you only see it when you go in and shut the door - but it was so blank and lonely.  I added these and just need a word to go in that blank space.  Any suggestions?

Now, I needed a little Roll Tide in my dining room so I came up with this:

We recently moved dining room furniture around, again.  Our main living area is two huge rooms - both long and not too wide.  When you walk in the front door, there's a living room and what appears to be a dining room.  Then straight ahead you walk into the den area, with a kitchen.  So the kitchen is sort of open into the den.  Before Christmas last year we decided we needed to rearrange to have room for Christmas trees.  Yes, I said trees - we had three!  Anyway, I really like the new arrangement, Jason and Cole did not.  First it meant Cole lost his den, or play area.  Second, the dining room table was right in the same room with the kitchen - which made sense to me, but only to me!  We decided to move it all back recently, but by doing that, it threw off all my decor that was on the bakers rack in the new dining room/old den.  Oh the stress!!!  So, in an attempt to make it all work out - I bought new valances for the dining area and kept the decor.  We're big Bama fans here so we had all our cool Bama collectibles/memorabilia on the bakers rack.  Now, with the change of a few accessories, we are good to go.  I felt the need to switch some things up and add to a few other things.  I really wanted something cute to set on my cedar chest in that area and this is what I ended up with:

And then I took down a few things off the wall, painted them black and hung them back up.  This got a makeover, too - thanks to the Silhouette!

My plate rack was green with green plates, after a coat or twelve of spray paint and new plates from Target, we had a fresh new look.  I loved the doily banner and the home sweet home was perfect.  I'm still learning with the Silhouette - learning I need to be more patient and I really need transfer paper, too!!  That middle plate took two tries to get it right!!  Crazy stuff!

Anyway, that's what I've been doing lately - what about you?

linking up here: