Pinmimic: Owl Taggie Toy

For an explanation of my Pinterest series, click here.

So last year I pinned this adorable owl taggie one day, thinking it would be so much fun to make. Little did I know, it was a picture from Life in the Sass Lane, an Etsy Shop, and it cost $24 to buy! Uhhh... I don't know about you, but I don't have money to throw around like that. I wanted to make one for my new niece and I thought, "I can make my own pattern and figure it out."

**Note here: If you copy someone's idea to sell when they're already selling it, then you are breaking the law. If you're copying their idea to just make for someone you know, that's okay. Just so you're clear on that.

So I did. And I learned a few things:

1) Minky fabric hates my guts.
2) It's hard to make ribbons stay in place.
3) I forgot to put on the feet. Oops.

It doesn't look exactly the same, but pretty darn close. And really, in the end, I was just proud of myself for figuring it out without a pattern!

Planning Baby Girl's Room

I am currently sitting in our office-soon-to-become-baby's-room at a desk that's in the middle of the room, away from the walls which are half-taped and begging to be painted. And I'm itching to get there. But this 7-month-pregnancy bump and bad back are slowing me down so alas, here I am wondering why I didn't tackle the baby's room any sooner.

Not that I haven't been doing my research. And by research I mean spending hours on Pinterest, finding my inspiration for this room and pretty much mapping out every detail. In so doing, I created a billion projects for myself. Thankfully I have a totally-rad sister who loves doing room makeovers because she's coming to my rescue in a week to spend "as long as it takes" to get this nursery almost done. It also helps that she's bringing me all her baby girl clothes and accessories that her 10-month-old has outgrown.

So I'm planning that 4 weeks from now I will be totally ready for this baby and then just sit in the sun and rest until this baby makes her arrival. Okay so I'm being optimistic.

But that's totally besides the point of this post. When my sister offered to come, she asked me to make a montage that would show what I was thinking for Baby Girl's room so she could get a feel for it too. And thanks to Pinterest, it seemed like I could find a tutorial or at least a picture for everything I pictured in my mind. So here's what I came up with:

I wanted to keep the dominant colors in my room neutral so that next time around, if we're having a boy, I won't have to re-paint or take out furniture. Grey and off-white was the way to go for me. Then I loved the idea of adding pink and green. The green I could use in permanent pieces and I could switch out the pink accents for blue ones if again, we have another boy in the future. I found a good color scheme (that you can see above, although my off-white and grey are not the same colors as shown there).

Picking paint was a one-day nightmare for me. Why did I have to do it in one day? Because Ace Hardware was having an awesome deal on their paint and I found out about it one day before the sale ended. My first sample of grey turned out blue on my walls. Totally not what I was looking for. That's when I realized that I needed a grey with a warm undertone (and with 0 blue in it at all). My carpet is brown and so with a warm undertone, the grey wouldn't look so out of place.

My 2nd sample came out too brown, but I scored with my 3rd and 4th (some of these I got free at Lowe's with a coupon so I wasn't buying a ton of samples really). Either one would have worked, but I ended up going with Bleached Shadow. I bought one can of it in a darker shade and then asked them to mix me another can of the color, but mixed at only 60%. This is the way to do it if you want the same color but lighter. They can mix it at any percentage, you just have to ask!

The dark grey is for some of the furniture, the lighter grey is for the middle part of the wall (the green part in the picture above) and the off-white (I went with Bone White, but ended up mixing a little bit of brown with it because it was too white) will be for furniture and for the borders on top and bottom. The only paint I have left to get now is green for the dresser.

A word about chevron: I love it in small doses. The chevron fabric above is for the baby glider and I will mimic it on the love sign, but that's pretty much it. Which means I also still have another kind of fabric to find for my valance curtain and teething pads on the crib sides (neither of which are pictured above). Decisions, decisions.

In the end, the main theme of this room is: DIY cheap but cute. I'm using furniture I already have (with the exception of the dresser that I got from craigslist for $60) and my sister & I are doing/making everything ourselves. The paint is the most expensive part really and thanks to coupons and sales, I've bought that cheaper than usual (and I'm going to have leftover for sure! Anyone interested?). Keeping it frugal is how I balance my crazy-project-redo-everything side with my rational-we-should-not-be-spending-money side. And my husband basically tolerates it all (but I know he'll think it looks good when it's all done).

So in a few weeks I'll hopefully be posting a nursery reveal and praying that it looks just as good as everything pictured above or I totally blew previewing it all. :) I'm so excited to see it all done but tired at the thought of completing it all!

Table Makeover... Biggest Project of My Life.

First of all, so you can really appreciate how I badly I needed a table upgrade, here is exhibit A:

This is the table we got for free from Ryan's brother and sister-in-law when we got married. We were so grateful to have a table and chairs and it was nice that this table had 2 leaves with it. But... it squeaked. It didn't really bother me until Kaleb and all his friends/cousins/etc. were old enough to shake it and laugh at how much it squeaked. That just made it worse to the point where I couldn't cut my meat with a knife without hearing, "Squeak, squeak, squeak." Ahhh!

You really couldn't blame the table. It was my sister-in-law's parents' first table so it was easily 40 years old. And I think I was pretty good to be patient with the squeakiness for almost 7 years. I should deserve a tolerance award or something. :)

So I wanted a new table. But this table held up pretty well with kids and Ryan was concerned that if I bought a new one that our kids would just destroy it anyways. This concern was totally founded since my niece Rylee etched her name in their table... click here to see my sister's table redo (but not before you look at mine because hers will blow mine out of the water haha).

Anyways, so I was determined to find a used table for cheap that would go with chairs so that I could justify getting a wood table and risking my kids ruining it. And I found one that went PERFECTLY with my chairs for only $50 off craigslist. A wood table for $50 that was pretty well-taken care of. I was thrilled.

So here is Exhibit B, the new table with my chairs:

Oh it made me so happy to have a non-squeaky table that looked more up-to-date. :) But... now my table and chairs matched my floor and I needed 2 more chairs. So I decided to buy two more chairs from Walmart and then redo it all in a darker finish so it would stand out from my floor.

Now that it's all over with, I will fully admit that I was crazy. Delusional. Overly ambitious. Take any of the above. This project sounded way easier in my head, despite the fact that my sister had warned me that redoing chairs took forever.

It didn't just take forever, it was a beast. I seriously loathed those chairs at one point. It was completely unmotivating to get done sanding one chair and then look at the other FIVE I still had to do. We were able to sand some of each chair with our vibrator sander, but all those spindles and nooks and crannies had to be done by hand.

And to make matters worse, I totally messed up staining the first chair and had to re-sand it completely. I'm even including the picture so you can understand my horror at this first attempt:

 

Yes, I may have shed a few tears at this point. In case you're wondering why in the heavens this happened, it's because I sanded the darker parts more than the rest of the chair so it took the stain more. So I was back to 2.5 more hours of sanding. My hubby could see I was clearly in over my head and helped me sand the rest of everything. Bless that man for having faith in me that it would turn out okay in the end after my blunder.

So after the sanding was done, the next step was to stain again. In order to get the color I wanted, I had to mix 3 different colors of stain together. I wanted a darker color, but I also wanted a little red in it so that it would look warm, like my cabinets. The color didn't turn out to exactly match my cabinets, but it's similar and gives the same feel (and the dining set isn't right next to the cabinets anyways).

I put on to coats of stain, wiping off the first coat and then letting the second coat just dry. The reason I did this was because I felt like the color wasn't deep enough when I wiped off the stain. It's okay to not wipe off the stain like the stain can says, it just takes longer to dry and you have to make sure you evenly apply it before you let it dry.

After applying 2 coats of stain, I put 2 coats of semi-gloss polyurethane on. This was extra tricky with the spindles because if you didn't put it on well-enough, it would drip down. Have I mentioned yet how much I detested doing those chairs? Note of advice to anyone thinking of doing this: redo your table but buy new chairs. The table was easy-breezy compared to the chairs.

The table top is the exact same stain procedure, but I put 3 coats of polyurethane on it as it gets more of the hard use. Then my favorite part: spray-painting the bottom of the table black. Oh I'm so much better at spray-painting than staining. And I LOVE the contrast it gives my table, while totally going with my decor at the same time. I simply taped a dollar store table cloth to the top and sides of the table top to prevent from getting spray paint on it, then I went to town.

The trick that I have learned with spray paint is you can't try to cover it all in one coat. If you do that, you will end up getting it on too thick in some areas and you will have paint runs that look horrible. It takes patience. In this case, it took 3 coats of spray paint (which only took 2 cans by the way) to do it the right way. No runs and it still had good coverage. AND, spray paint takes a shorter amount of time to dry in between coats than stain or polyurethane. Another reason this was my favorite part.

Then I put 2 coats of polyurethane over the spray paint and I WAS DONE! Can't even describe how good that felt after working on this for almost 3 weeks (partially because there were days that were too cold here to do anything)! And, may I add, I did this while I was 6 months pregnant... I promise I wore a mask or it was well-ventilated.

So without further ado, here is the before (again) and the after:

Would I say it was worth it? Totally. Would I ever do it again? Heavens no. I will refinish a table again, but I will NEVER do chairs again. :)

Love this contrast!

The main reason I did this was to get what I wanted, but at a lower price than going and buying it in the store. So how much money did I spend in this upgrade, you ask? Well between buying the table, two more chairs, and all the materials (minus what I sold the old table for), I spent $150.

What would this table cost me if I bought it brand new (now remember this is all wood, not the cheap veneer tables you can get that look the same)? About $650 or maybe even more.

So my grand total savings for doing this myself: $500.  I'll take it!

Budgeting: Why and How

That dreaded word: budgeting. Or if you already do it, that dreaded time of the month when you "reconcile the budget." Or in my case, the one day every 3 months when your husband wants to look at the budget and then gets overwhelmed and says that we're spending too much money. It's not easy.

So then why do it? Here's the top 5 reasons I've discovered as I've budgeted for the last 4 years.

1) Just keeping track of how you spend your money will help you spend less of it.
     Years ago when we had TV, I watched a segment on Oprah where they took a couple of families who felt like they were struggling and had them sit down with a financial expert to help them learn how to manage their finances. I remember there was one family (of four or five) who spent well over $500 a month on eating out/convenience store foods. A MONTH! And the family had no clue. When they realized they were spending that much money in this area, they definitely saw it was a problem.

     So I promise you that just looking at HOW you spend your money will help you spend less of it in areas. You'll be more conscious of where your money is going instead of just whipping out the credit card and not giving it another thought.

2) Knowing how much money you MUST have to live on, as in your most basic needs and bills, is one of the most important things you can do for emergency preparedness.

http://lolitationgson.wordpress.com

      No one plans on losing a job, but for many Americans in the last 5 years, it has happened. If you don't have a financial reserve and don't even know how much money you need a month to keep your home, power, heat, etc., then you're taking away your peace of mind in a situation like that. It would inevitably take some time to find another job and you need to know exactly how much you need to survive on during that time frame.

       The best rule of thumb is to have enough financial reserve (that means savings in the bank) to last you through AT LEAST 4 months of no income. So if you know you need at least $1200 a month to cover your bills, mortgage payment, and groceries, you will need to have $4800 in the bank MINIMUM at all times. Having a food storage could help you decrease this amount since you'd be living off most of that (for my tips on food storage, click here).


3) It isn't always depressing; sometimes it's quite rewarding. It can help you reach your short-term and long-term goals, keeping you from spending your money on things that don't really make you happy.
       In our first few years of marriage, my hubby and I would get flack from family and friends that we were penny pinchers. For instance, we lived with hand-me-down furniture, we didn't travel very much, and we tried to be frugal in all areas. To some people, it looked like we were depriving ourselves. But to us, we knew that our first priority was to be out of debt and then save money to buy a house. We were very blessed that my hubby found a permanent job even before he graduated from college and we lived in our two-bedroom apartment for another two and a half years instead of rushing out to buy a house (when people were encouraging us to buy because interest rates and the housing market were dropping).

       Because of our patience, when we bought a house in June 2009, we not only were able to afford a nicer house than the year before but we also had a good down payment (and we were lucky that interest rates and the market had dropped even more). I cannot tell you how rewarding that has been. Because we had budgeted, scrimped, and saved, we were able to reach our long-term goal. Yes, budgeting can be very rewarding.


4) It can help you get out of debt faster, which only improves your credit score and sense of freedom.

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       I have a sister who can attest to this. For various reasons, they have been in and out of debt (and I'm talking about debt other than your mortgage and car debt) for many years. It wasn't until they created a budget and followed Dave Ramsey's snowball debt plan that they were able to get out of debt.

And those debts can feel like they're looming over you day in and out. Knowing that there are many debts to be paid if you lose your source of income is disconcerting. There is a definite sense of accomplishment and freedom that comes when you get out of unnecessary debt.


5) It is empowering to take charge of your money and change bad habits.
       It is empowering to know exactly how much money you spend and save each month. It is empowering to change bad habits and see your money increase in the areas you want. And it is empowering to reach financial goals. I wouldn't say that budgeting has made me some financial expert or even necessarily good at spending my money. But it gives me a sense of peace and comfort that I know the specifics of our finances. I know where my money is going. I am prepared financially in case of emergency. And I am reaching short-term and long-term financial goals.

 
The How of Budgeting
So now that I've hopefully convinced you why you should have a budget, the question is: how do I create a budget?

The answer to that is how it will work best for you personally. You can make it as easy or as hard as you want it to be. You can make it as detailed or general as you want it. Just know that however you do it, you want to have a way to be accountable to yourself.

You don't have to start from scratch either. Here are 2 budget templates that you can start from:

Family Budget
Monthly Household Budget

The reasons I like these budgets is because 1) They give you a place to estimate costs (we'll talk about that in a second) and 2) They give you a place to put actual costs and 3) Then they show you the difference. Not all of their categories might apply to you and you can simply delete them from your Excel spreadsheet.

Now how do you come up with those estimate costs the first time around? My advice would be to round up the last 2 months of bills/receipts and then use those to estimate. Granted, if you're not on a set payment plan for things such as power and gas bills, you may need to look over the last year and put varying amounts on each month. When it's a new month, you simply add another page to your spreadsheet with that month and year labeled.

If you've never saved bills/receipts then simply guess. BUT THEN start saving them the next couple of months. You'll need them for not only adding them up and putting them in your spreadsheet, but it will help you know how much to budget for in each area. If you hate saving little receipts, then pull out your credit card bills when they come and enter the amounts into your budget all at once.

My system to recording receipts

Since I am a little OCD, I save every little receipt and bill and faithfully enter it into my budget each month. I like to enter them in throughout the month so that I know if I'm running out of entertainment budget or grocery budget so that I've refrain from either until the next month. It helps keep me on track of where I want to be. The picture above shows my two drawers next to my computer monitor that I use for these receipts. "Need to be recorded" is where I put receipts until I have a chance to enter them into my budget. "Recorded" is where they go after I've entered them in. Then at the end of the month, I rubber band all the receipts and file them away for a couple of months just in case I need them for returns.

Where I put all my bills/other papers until I file them away.

Sometimes it's tricky to separate categories. For instance, I do most of my shopping at Wal-Mart since it's one of the only stores in my city. But the things I buy there could fall under multiple budgeting items (groceries and miscellaneous and gifts all on the same receipt). Again, since I'm a little OCD, I break them up on the receipt and put them under their respective areas. Or you can just limit your categories so you can put that receipt under one area.

Don't get frustrated or hung up on the logistics. The main point is that you're trying and you're keeping track of how much money is coming in and how much is going out.

In my budget, I also have our total savings broken up into different categories. So we might have $5000 in savings, but under the savings section of my budget, I have different categories for long-term goals or non-monthly purchases that don't really fit under my monthly budget. To give you a better idea, these are our categories:

Emergency fund (that we always keep a minimum amount in that we've decided upon),
Auto maintenance
Home improvement (someday we hope to have enough here to finish our basement)
Gardening (my husband is a big gardener)
Vacations (Glad I have this budget or we'd never go on vacations! My hubby isn't a huge traveler)
Clothing
Gifts (Birthday, Christmas, Baby showers, etc.)
Insurance
Preparedness
Service
Miscellaneous (AKA anything that doesn't fit in the monthly budget or the above listed categories)

So when we want to do home improvements, we look at our home improvement savings and see if we can afford what we want to do. I have our budget set up so that it will take our income, minus all our monthly expenses and then split the remaining amount (the money we put in our savings that month) into the different categories (you can do this either by percentage or set amount). Then I put in what we spent that month under these areas and carry each end-of-the-month total into the next month's budget of my spreadsheet.

The reason I do all of this is so we don't just blow all our savings at once, without thinking what we may need it for in the future. I want to make sure that when it comes time to pay insurance twice a year, we have enough for it. But I also want to make sure that I'm saving money to spend on my short-term and long-term goals as well.

Oh boy, I hope I haven't lost you all by now. If you're mind is swirling and you just want a copy of my spreadsheet (with all of our amounts deleted of course), just let me know. You can e-mail me at sweepsalot@gmail.com (for all those who know my personal e-mail address, you can send it there too).

I hope that these tips help you create your own budget and take control of your finances if you haven't already done so. I promise it's worth it!

Don't Forget What Easter is Really About!

Am I the only mom who realized on Friday that she hadn't really planned what the Easter Bunny was giving her child? Oops. To make it even worse, in our house we have the Easter Bunny come on Saturday so that we can focus on the true meaning of Easter on Sunday: Celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what it means for us.

So I wish I could say that I spaced the Easter basket all week because I was too focused on what Easter is really about, but that's not exactly true either. So Friday night, I decided to shape up, get that Easter basket in order, and then focus more on the Savior.

But no matter what day you ask me, I will bear testimony of this truth: Jesus Christ really did live and die for us. He atoned for our sins, died on the cross, and then was resurrected the 3rd day. And I will eternally be grateful for this. Not only can I be forgiven of my sins through the Atonement, but I can also be resurrected at the last day, along with every other being who has ever lived. Because of Jesus Christ, I have the knowledge that I will live again and the hope that I can live again forever with my family. I know this is true.

Pinmimic: Pillowcase Dress

This pillowcase dress came from LBG Studio and it has two different versions. Maybe I'm totally bias, but I think my version is better. Just because that flower print is my favorite fabric of all time. That I've found so far at least. :)

The funniest part is I made this over a year and a half ago, just because. I didn't have a girl and it turned out so darn cute that I couldn't bear to give it away. So I've saved it. Now that I know that I'm pregnant with a girl, I'm excited to know it will be used... in another 2 years when it fits her. Hopefully it will still be adorable then!

I made my own bias tape so it took a little more time, but if you don't, you can definitely sew this dress as a beginner. Believe me, it's actually not as hard as it looks. And it's worth it, don't you think?

For the original pin and instructions on how to make this cute little dress, click here (if you click on it in Pinterest, it will have a pop up that says there's inappropriate content on the website. That is untrue so click "continue to link").

My Design Work and My Talented Sis-In-Law

I was a busy woman the last couple of weeks. I've been working on a project that I've been excited to share with all of you!

If you don't know it already, my sister-in-law Deborah is a writer. And I'm her book designer and one of her editors. She published her first book, The Gifted, in March 2011. At the end of this month, she is publishing her sequel, The Betrayed. So without further ado, here are both book covers (and backs):

Two and a half years ago, Deborah entered The Gifted into the Amazon writing competition and made it as a finalist. She made it to the top 100 books! So you know it's good. And honestly, her sequel would have won if she had entered it into the contest this last year (but I'm pretty sure they don't accept sequels). I'm proud of her. Writing a novel is on my bucket list, but she has already written and published two!

I recommend both books to anyone who is interested in YA Fantasy. I really liked the sequel especially (which comes out in less than 2 weeks so you have time to read the first one before it does!).

To order books or to at least check out Deborah's author website, click here.

This is the kind of design I love doing. I wish that I could say I made the brushes used on the book cover, but I didn't. It's a goal of mine to learn how. But, I love designing and I enjoy editing so these two books were the projects for me! And now after who knows how many hours, I will have TWO books on my bookshelf that I have been a part of. Thank you Deborah for giving me the opportunity and for always telling me that I'm awesome. :)