Problem fixed

Remember when we moved into our house a year and a half ago, and I posted this photo of our house...with the "lovely" hedges, and small dead tree over on the left.
We worked hard and transformed our front yard into something nice. Something that isn't painful to look at. The plants grew and flourished this summer.
We've even had about a dozen of beautiful flowers like this come out over the past few weeks.
And then something happened in our house. Ryan went down in the basement one evening and checked in our utility room to make sure everything was alright. This is what he found.
We called our home warranty company and they sent someone out the next morning. Two days later they came back to fix the problem. Here is the fine job they did to fix the leak.And the finished result has transformed our front yard. Here is the final result.My flower bed has been destroyed. My entire front yard has been destroyed. There is nothing we can do with it right now because the dirt has to settle back into the hole they covered up. So all I can do is go out and water the dirt to help it settle...I imagine it is a funny site to see a girl outside watering a mound of dirt. It makes me just laugh every time I'm out there.

A different kind of project

Ok so this week I'm taking on a new kind of AC project (just for one week!). Instead of attempting creativity this week, I'm going to be attempting cleanliness. My house is pretty clean most of the time. Everything that is except the basement. We don't go down there much, and especially since it is a disaster. So this week it is me VS. the basement. I hope I come out on top, but with them mess down there I just don't know. Here is what I have to tackle.

I cleaned the food storage room on Friday, and it only took me 2 hours! Basically everything that is in my craft room was in the food room (due to the leakage issue back in January...I never moved everything back to its place.). Here is the finished project though...ahhhh much better! I can actually walk into and around the room instead of tiptoeing over my scrapbook stuff.We had a fun Easter holiday this year. I kids really enjoyed dying the eggs, finding the eggs, and eating the eggs (the goodies inside the eggs that is, they didn't really like the hard boiled eggs). Here they are in action.

Look at this little miss sass!!!

This was at the city Easter Egg Hunt yesterday...more like an egg dash. It was hilarious to watch all the kids scrambling!

Last item on my list of things to blog about-my projects from the month of March. I'm such a slacker at posting. It just takes so much time with our computer being retarded loading photos. Don't even ask me how long it took me to get all these photos uploaded. Maybe I'll get faster at our "new" method of getting photos on here, then it won't be such a huge task. Anyways...here they are. First are the scrapbook pages AC#11. Then I finished another head wrap. I gave the first one I made to my sister Aubry, then I wanted one for myself so I had to do another one. I did the flower on them both too (the photo of the other wrap didn't show the cute flower). I had a friend come over and talk me through the crochet lingo to figure out what the flower pattern says, and it wasn't as hard as I thought! Anyways-headwrap #12I made some Thank You cards for project #13

And this week I tried something I have wanted to do for a couple years and did some egg blowing to decorate some eggs for Easter. It took me a couple eggs to figure out the right force to use when getting the egg out, but I got the hang of it and got to work. Here they are #14.

Playing Catch-up

Ok we are finally feeling better, and our house is being taken care of so I'm ready to get back into blogging again. I've given the blog a much needed facelift, and will keep up with posting now. First off, the house has been "drying out" for 2 weeks now. It usually only takes 3-5 days, but our hardwood floor isn't drying so the big fans have been going forever it seems like. They are now off, and will be picked up in an hour.

Good news about this whole leaking sink issue...we now get a new hardwood floor! Because it isn't drying properly we have to get a new one instead of just refinishing the current stuff. So I'm excited to have that done! It is going to make me want to change the whole kitchen though. I guess I'll have to hold off on that until we get the funds to do so. We want to do some major changes like paint the cabinets, change the backsplash and countertops, and paint the walls of course. I'm guessing maybe that will come this summer, or maybe next summer haha. Sometime, but not now...another project for another day. I'll also be getting a new ceiling in my craft room, and possibly a new wall. I believe I'll find out when the guy shows up in an hour.

Even though my craft room has a big hole in the ceiling I have been busy at work down there. I have been doing my projects and am happy to finally post some of my work. I'm going to be starting over with the numbering of my projects because my goal is to do 52 this year (avg. of one a week). So here are projects 1-4, and I'll have another one done Saturday.

First, my sisters and I made tutus for all my nieces (and Halli) while we were all together at Christmas. Here's a photo with all of them modeling them! AC#1

(this one is my favorite...loved the green, pink, and brown)

Here's a scrapbook page I did two weeks ago. (Yes, I'm two years behind on my scrapbooking!) AC#2

I've been wanting to make a little box for our treats and snacks we have to eat, so I used a tissue box and turned it into this. AC#3

I finally got to use my sewing machine I got for Christmas and made three bibs this week. Halli never have enough bibs so I will be making more and trying different things in the future. Not too bad for my first sewing experience without my mother! AC#4

I'm so excited to be going with my projects again! Just FYI, I am on top of all 6 goals I have made for myself in the new year. I've completed everything for January so far, and am beginning my Feb stuff. I'm looking for a good book to read for next month ANY SUGGESTIONS???

Not Happy

So this morning I was going to take a photo of my project for the week...which by the way isn't anything big. I was only home half the week, and was busy running around catching up on everything so I didn't have much time. I still haven't taken a photo of it. I went downstairs into my newly repainted/updated craft room to find a wet ceiling. I AM NOT HAPPY.

The pluming under our kitchen sink had been leaking for a day (I noticed a wet rug all day, but just thought Halli must have spilled something...never stopped to check it out-first mistake). So I went to church today, and left Ryan at home with a sick Halli to try to stop the leak. He wasn't able to stop it so we called a plumber. He came, and after he got here I thought oh I should have called our home warranty company. Yeah I called them...it would have been covered for only $60, but now I just paid him $235-second mistake. He also told us we need to have the ceiling and wall replaced downstairs in my craft room. So now we get to pay our insurance deductible (not cheap) to get that done, and possibly part of our kitchen floor replaced. Needless to say I'm not going to be blogging about my AC projects or great family vacation we just returned home from. That will have to come another day. We'll let you know what happens with the restoration.

FINALLY DONE!!!!

We have been working on Halli's room for at least 3 months. Actually it is probably 4 months. We had some problems with leaking in her room, but finally got it figured out so we could move forward with the work in there. The transformation is complete...kinda. I just need to get some decor for one wall, new blinds, and some curtains. But here it is in all it's glory!!! AC#12

Before pictures

And the FINISHED project!

Oh I still need do finish the closet doors!

Creative Corner

So...we have a basement. Our house is a split level so there are 3 levels to it, and then a basement. We spend all our time on the 3 levels. The basement has 4 "rooms". A utility room where the furnace, hot water heater, and whatever else in in there are. There is a small office I guess you could call it-it has no windows, and it is probably only 7' x 7' or so...we use it for our food storage area/tornado shelter :). The third "room" is unfinished and was used by the previous owners as a work shop area. Ryan is going to start work on it this winter and turn it into a "man cave" He's got some sweet ideas for it so I'm excited...as long as I'm allowed in! It is a pretty big room though and will make a nice bedroom if it is not being used as a man cave. The last room in there is MINE. A requirement when we were looking for houses was that it have at least 4 rooms so I could have somewhere to set up my scrapbook/craft room. So I have turned a dreary basement bedroom into a place I can go to do my projects and be alone. I just finished it tonight and am excited to show my transformation. Here is my AC project #6!

I don't know why it looks like the hallways is a different color. I didn't do any painting out there. It is really that ugly yellow color...I wish it were white.

Going Green

Here is the finished project! If you want to see the before photos...see the previous post. These photos are in the same sequence as the "before" pictures in the last post. So you can get an idea of how the room is set up. We took down all the nasty wallpaper, and painted everything. My favorite is the striped accent wall-it turned out better than I imagined!

I sanded and painted the dresser this weekend, and got some new sheets for the bed yesterday. Now all we need is a rug for the floor, and some decor on the walls...but here is the result of all our hard work! Oh and the front of the door isn't painted yet because we're going to do that when we paint the hallway.

Transformation almost complete

We decided to dive into redoing Carson's room during the holiday weekend at the beginning of the month. We have finished painting the room, and are now working on getting decor to match. Ryan is refinishing Carson's dresser, and after he does that I will post the photos of the completed project. We are REALLY happy with how it turned out. I wanted to provide pictures of what we started with though...it was fun to make the change!

view from the door

looking back at the door (window from above photo is to the right)

Shot from inside the room-closet is next to the window.

The corner of the room to the right when you walk in the door