Airing My Dirty Laundry

I've done it in the guest bedroom.  In the laundry room.  At night.  Before I go to work.  And especially when I'm really nice and dirty.  What is it....my laundry of course!  My laundry has kicked my butt a million times.  I have used my garden tub for a dirty clothes basket before....for months.  I have piled all of the clean laundry in one room before and locked myself in until everything is folded.  I came out with about 11 dryer sheets representing, you count 'em, 11 loads of laundry...at once. 


People, I have NO shame!!!


I have come up with a trillion little gimmicks to try to keep it under control, but I always fail.  In fact, I would say that for the last 3 weeks, Rusty and I have been more successful than we have ever been about keeping our laundry under control!


What has worked for me?


I keep the lid to the washing machine open to dump in sweaty work out clothes and yard work clothes.  Yep, we strip right beside the washer!  On top of the dryer, I keep a laundry basket that we throw in the nicer, dryer clothes.  When the washer gets full, we start it. When the basket gets full we wash a load.  They normally get full around the same time.  Every three days maybe.  We wear nice work clothes and dirty up a pair of work out clothes each day.  I do a load of towels and sheets every two weeks, maybe.


Here is what I started doing:


I make one huge pile on the floor.  I even have to go through the bedroom and pick up all of the reject outfits that didn't look good that morning and rehang them.

I drape and tops that go on hangers over the back of a chair and all pants over the seat of the chair.  I have one chair for me and one chair for Rusty

I use my dining room table to make neat piles of folded clothes.  Again, my clothes go on the table on the side that my chair is on and Rusty's on the other side.

My little tip is to stack all clean socks in one big pile and match them up at the end.  I leave the extras loose to pair up in future piles.

Why fold at the table?  Because I get to watch the only TV in our house while doing it.  Who can turn down Nate?!  I fold during the shows and run around the house on the commercials.  Hey, it works for me.

It also helps to have your folded artwork on display when the hubs comes home.  He sees how hard you work and immediately feels like he needs to put this away.  It is an undeniable way to show the men they dirty up WAY more clothes than we do.  Plus, no one wants to eat dinner while staring your underwear and socks in the face!


What household chore KOs you every week?  Have you come up with any little gimmicks to show it who's boss?  If so, PLEASE SHARE!!!!  Happy folding :)


I'm linking to The Stories of A to Z.

May Mantlescape

This week, I decided it was finally time to rotate out the White Mantlescape in the living room to the mantle in my master bedroom.  This left me with an empty mantle that freaked me out every time I looked at it!  I didn't feel inspired at all and had no idea what the final product would end up looking like, but I knew I was going to place my newest Pottery Barn knock-off right in the middle.  Then I pulled lots of little things from around the house and stacked them all in one place, so I could start playing...

I came up with this:

A stack of hardback books from the thrift store with the covers ripped off.  I stack three and tied some twine around them.  A piece of driftwood from Lake Lanier that my friend gave me.  A white water pitcher from Ross with some left over flowers from a wreath project I did back last fall.  (I plan to fill this with my yard flowers as soon as I see blooms!)

A jar of lemons (fake) that I found at a yard sale for $2.50.  A finial from Homegoods, and an hourglass from the Kohl's clearance shelf.

I ended up with this, and stared at it for a whole week thinking something wasn't right.  It just didn't feel balanced.  I decided to trade out the glass hourglass for my ceramic rooster from Ross and felt it was just the right touch!

 The white rooster balanced the white water pitcher on the other side.

 Here is my final arrangement, and I love it.

Until I change it again!!  


What's on your mantle this month?

Vote For Me!!!!

Shut the front door and then shut the back door!!!

I made the top ten list for the Knock-It-Off Contest over at Seven-Thirty-Three Blog!!!  Here is the knock off project I entered:

What did I knock off?  These West Elm curtains! 

Here's how voting works:

• Click on the button to get to the contest page.
• Click the little star under the picture of my stenciled curtains.
• Sign onto every computer you have access to and vote again!
• Tweet and Facebook this to your Army!

Click this button to be directed to the contest for voting!

Voting runs through Friday, May 6th at Midnight!  There are Oh'Mazing prizes for the winner and 1st runner up.

Thanks for your support!  I actually won!!!

How To Stencil Curtains

I am SO excited because today, I am guest posting over at Little Blue Chairs.  Laurie runs this blog, and she is one of my Circle of Bliss BBFs (Best Blog Friends).  She has created some major projects over there!

She did a complete overhaul of her daughter's room.

She successfully slipcovered a chair.

Her striped living room floors are insane!

I love that I get to guest post for her for two reasons:  1) She is getting her see her hubby after 6 months of being apart.  He has been working overseas, so the last thing on her mind when he gets home is her blog!  2) I just finished a HUGE project/tutorial.

Here is my guest post:

Since Christmas, we have been redoing our breakfast nook.  We have painted, installed wainscoting and switched out the table.  I am now ready to begin layering on the accessories and accent colors.  After lusting after some Forsythia plants at the edge of the transportation department's driveway and stealthily snatching some for a centerpiece, I fell in love with the pop of yellow it gave the nook.  Since curtains are the next most dramatic thing you change in a room besides paint color, I set out to make some curtains inspired by this West Elm photo:

The wonderful folks over at Cutting Edge Stencils, sent me a wall stencil to test out.  I have wanted to stencil something so bad, and I started off with my curtains.


Supplies:

• Curtain panels (Ikea Vivan in white)
• Acrylic Paint (Craft Smart, Yellow)
• Fabric Medium (Delta Ceramcoat)
• Stencil (Zagora Allover Stencil)
• Foam Roller
• Brown Craft/Painter's Paper



Steps:
1.  Cover a large, flat working area with heavy paper to catch all paint that might bleed through.  I used my breakfast nook floor.

2.  Wash and dry curtains.  This will keep the curtains from drawing up later on when your basset hounds "hound" all up on it when you let them sleep inside....


3.  The directions say to iron the curtains, but mine were not wrinkled when they came out, so I just skipped this step and smoothed and tugged out the wrinkles.

4.  Mix your paint.  You can use fabric paint, but I found that it was too expensive.  I just bought acrylic paints and a product called Fabric Medium.  You just mix 2 parts paint to 1 part fabric medium, and you will have tons of fabric paint for next to nothing!  Play around with your shades by adding colors together until you get the color your want.  I took my yellow to a more muted yellow by adding some of my leftover wall color Pearly White by Sherwin Williams.

5.  Place your stencil in the upper left hand corner (if you are right handed like me) and add a few pieces of blue painter's tape to hold it down.

6.  Prepare your brush by rolling into paint and removing excess on a dry paper towel.  You could also roll right on for a faster, thicker coverage.

7.  Stencil your first section. 

8.  Repeat last two steps until your are done!



Now, here are all of the little helpful tips I learned along the way that I hope can help you out:

It is very possible for the fabric to misbehave and ripple under the stencil or behave perfectly.  Both are fine because you can't tell when you are done!

When you are done stenciling a row, pull the whole curtain up and lay it back down to keep the paper from drying to the curtain.  I wouldn't pull your curtain down after each square because it actually helps keep your fabric tight and makes it easier to align.

When stenciling fabric (especially curtains), you will NOT get the stencil to line up perfectly because the fabric will pull all different ways and stretch.  Stop stressing about this since they will hang and flow anyway!  It's just like not shaving your legs in the winter...no one has to know!

Once you have lined it up as much as possible, carefully stencil the pattern beside it without going over the pattern in the overlapped areas.

In tight corners or edges, you can turn your foam roller sideways and use a tapping motion.  This works well in the parts of the stencil beside where you have lined up with the last area you stenciled and you don't want to roll over any parts that are not matched up.

Drum roll please.....

BEFORE

AFTER

I really love how they turned out.  They look so much like my inspiration curtains from West Elm!  I can't wait to get into my guest bathroom and stencil away.  It will be a breeze after stenciling these slippery curtains!

If this project really matches your style, I have linked my top 3 blog posts to the images below.

Pottery Barn Hundi Knock Off Lantern

Pottery Barn Jewelry Holder

White Mantlescape

Linking to: The Shabby Nest, Spunky Junky, Funky Junk Interiors, The Stories of A to Z, My Repurposed Life, Seven Thirty Three, The Lettered Cottage, Favorite Post of 2011 Linky Party!

The project won the Knock-It-Off Contest over at Seven Thirty Three!!

Scribbling at Midnight

It's no secret; I have a slight infatuation with sketches of the female body.  I think they would look so perfect in a private master bathroom.  When I see one, I always consider buying it.  I found some here at Ikea and here at the Scott Antique Market. However, in the back of my mind, I always thought that I could do a simple sketch myself...even though I have NO artistic ability and even screw up drawing stick figures!!


Well, last night I decided to do it.  I bought a 16x20 canvas at Hobby Lobby for $3.50 and found a pencil in my office.  I practiced an idea of a sketch about four times until I felt comfortable drawing it out on the canvas (I know, big risk...$3.50.  Why is it we are so scared to even TRY some new idea?)


I laughed and laughed as I was drawing these.  

Here, let me write some captions:

1. After sitting on the couch for hours and hours watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta and eating cheese and crackers, I had to peel myself off of the couch to get a coke.
2. I got through horseback riding and my bottom half just stayed this way.
3. I played a rough game of all-girl soccer, and I was the goalie.
4. I am Kim Kardashian's body double for nude scenes (yeah right, lol!)

Here is what I ended up with.

I am trying to decide if she looks too well endowed, haha!  Since it is only pencil, I can just go back and redo any parts I don't like.

From here, I am trying to decide if I want to keep it as a pencil sketch, go over it with smoky charcoals, dry brush it black or dry brush it several different colors. 


What do you think?