Rotary Cutter Tip

BFF and I were talking about how much we love rotary cutters as opposed to scissors. However, we both get frustrated because the ruler that you're using to cut a straight line tends to slip, and there goes your straight line.
BFF told be that her mom has a ruler with a non-slip grip. Then a light bulb went off. Hot glue tends to have the same effect. So I glued a thin layer of hot glue around the edge of my ruler and, voila! No more ruler slip!

I'm sure many other people have already thought of this, but I thought I'd throw it out there just in case.

Seth's Birthday Cake

My cousin called me last week and asked me to make a cake for her son's first birthday.
We decided on a dump truck. It was a little hard for me to switch to "baby boy" mode because I'm so used to all things "baby girl."
With DH's creative help, I was able to get the entire thing done in about 6 hours.
We decided to make it a whimsical since it is for a baby.
It still needs some finishing touches. I have to transport it 30 miles and I'm really nervous. I'll wait and add the last minute details when I get the cake safely my cousins house.

Bathroom on a Budget

I just realized that I forgot to talk about the cost of our bathroom makeover. It was very, very cheap.

Paint & supplies totaled about $40, which we were reimbursed for by our boss/landlord =$0
Fabric from JoAnn's = $9
4 Towels from Costco @ $6.99 each= $28
3 hand towels from Wal-mart @ $2.50 each= $7.50
4 washcloths from Wal-mart @ $1.50 each= $6
3 candles from Dollar Tree= $3
White shelf from DI= $3
Towel Hook from Wal-mart= $2
Shower curtain liner from Ross= $4
Shower curtain from Ross $7.99 but my parents found it and purchased it= $0


Grand total= $62.50

If we had not been reimbursed for the paint and supplies it would have been just over $100.
Not bad at all for a bathroom makeover!

Our Bathroom Revealed

The bathroom isn't 100% complete but we're almost finished and I'm dying to show it off.
Once again, here's the before:
And here's the after:
What's that in the left corner, you ask, well, here's a closer look:
My wonderful, talented hubby painted this silhouette. This is actually the one thing that isn't completely finished. He spent the last 2 hours meticulously going over the tree to give it a second coat and he was only able to get through half of it.

I found beautiful towels at Costco and those towels determined that the colors of the bathroom would be sage green and a very light baby blue. So, with towels in hand and my BFF alongside for opinions, I went to JoAnn's to find coordinating fabric. I found 3 fabrics that I fell in love with and I've been adding these fabrics to everything I can. (This is a really bad picture of the fabric.)Here's how I added color to the new shower curtain:
A closer look:

For the vanity I really wanted to show off the colors I chose. I went to walmart and to my surprise they had exact color green I wanted in the Mainstays brand. The blue was a little brighter than I wanted but it works. And the price was right.

See, I added fabric to anything I could!

The little white shelf was a DI find that has been sitting in DD's closet for months. I happened to look at the candles in Dollar Tree and voila! the perfect color candles for my bathroom.
There was one victim in our makeover and that is our vanity. It cracked and is now in 2 pieces. But, lucky for me DH is handy and he can fix it.
So there it is. 2 weeks of having the bathroom in a state of chaos. But it was definitely worth it!

Discovering New Products

We're in the finishing stages of the bathroom. I hate it because I just want it to be done but I love it because I get to decorate. I've been working on a lot of things but I don't want to reveal anything until it's completely done.

But in the process of making over our bathroom, I have discovered two new products that I have fallen in love with.

The first is Renuzit Crystal Elements. I saw a buy one get one free coupon in the P&G coupons that come in the mail. I have to be very careful when I'm going through those coupons because I tend to buy products that I wouldn't normally buy just because there's a coupon. So I thought about these Crystal Elements and tried to convince myself that it was just another coupon-induced impulse desire. But then I thought about how I hate having aerosol cans of air freshener in the bathroom and decided that this might be a good compromise.
I bought it and I LOVE it! I just got it today so I don't know how long it will last, but I'm very happy for now.

The second product is a solution to an infuriating problem we've had. Our tub is old and filthy. No matter how often I clean it, it is always filthy. Months ago I saw a commercial for Kaboom Foam-tastic and wanted to try it but I could not find it in any store. Months after giving up and becoming accepting my filthy tub, I saw kaboom sitting on a shelf at Wal-Mart. I tried it and Oh. My. Gosh! It works! It's fantastic! I told my parents about Kaboom and they tried it on a basement shower that they were about to give up on and...it Worked!!!! This stuff if amazing!!!

Just thought I'd share....

Sweet and Sour Chicken

I don't know about you, but every time I have had homemade Sweet and Sour Chicken, it never tastes as good as you get at a Chinese restaurant. The sweet and sour sauce is always too vinegary and if you buy the jarred sauce, well, that's just nasty.

Last night around one a.m., I told my hubby that I was craving Chinese food. Since there are no restaurants open that late, I looked at recipezaar and, like always, searched by rating. This is the first recipe that popped up. We were too tired to make it last night so I made it for dinner tonight.

It tastes exactly like you get at a GOOD Chinese restaurant! The sauce is sweet and the batter on the chicken is beautiful! Best of all, it's EASY.Go here for the recipe

Crochet Headband

Had to take a break from the bathroom makeover. We've had a couple setbacks and I was getting mad.

I logged onto The How-To Gal and saw her post for this crochet headband which I've been wanting to make for a while. Here's what I ended up with:

Bathroom Makeover

We've been working on our bathroom for 3 days now. It's almost done. I'm just waiting for DH to get home from with some tools and a ladder off his work truck so we can reach the top of the walls and fix a few things.

The before bathroom is so ugly that I feel it deserves an explanation.
Before we moved 6 months ago, the maintenance guy for the mortuary (did I ever mention that we live at a mortuary? Well, not IN the mortuary, in a duplex next door owned my the mortuary.) ripped off the wallpaper that was ALL OVER the house. Then he painted the entire house white. I had been in the house before they did any of this and believe me, I'd rather live in an all-white asylum then in a house with 70's wallpaper on every wall.

Anyway, the only room he didn't have time to get to was the bathroom. They installed a new toilet and a new vanity, which was slightly smaller than the previous one and left a hole in my wall for 3 months.

The bathroom wouldn't have been too bad if someone hadn't painted these hideous daisy's with neon yellow accents all over the walls.

So, in this picture you can see the neon flowers and in the bottom right corner you can see the raw drywall piece of wall that was finally installed to patch the big hole in the wall.

The bathroom (which I think is more like a closet) currently looks like this (sorry my camera takes such crappy pictures, when we're all done I'll get my MIL's fancy Nikon and take some pictures)

And I love it! Stay tuned...