Coat Rack

A girl I knew in high school lived in Italy for a while. On her blog she posted about finding a house to rent and that this coat rack may have been a selling point. Beautiful, huh?

I was sold. I wanted to make one just like her coat rack.  As I've said, I love organization. The coat racks from Wal-Mart and like stores are dinky and unattractive. This is much, much better. Even though mine wasn't what I originally wanted, I love how it turned out and love that it's big enough to accommodated a lot of guests' stuff.

During the warm seasons it usually has hats and bags, but during the cold months it collects all of our coats and all of our guests' coats. My. Goodness. This was one of the easiest and best projects I have ever done. Sorry that I don't have step by step pictures but I did this a long time ago.

So, I searched Craigslist and the Goodwill in town for months trying to find a good deal on a headboard. This one came up on Craigslist for $40. Can you say awesome! I definitely did several times when I first got it. I squealed lots too.

So, then I had to find fabric. Joann's was closing one of their locations in our town and so I waited until the last week when basically everything was 70% off and bought my fabric. I originally wanted fabric more like the fabric the picture my high school mate posted on her blog but this is what I ended up with and I love it. Also, I bought batting at 70% off to go between the fabric and the wood.

Then we bought the hooks from Wal-mart. I bought my fabric first so that I could match the style and color of my hooks to my fabric. It was around $16 for 8 hooks.

So, then I used newspaper as my pattern. I laid it down inside of the molding and cut out the square or rectangle. Then I put the newspaper on the fabric and cut it with a 1/2 inch allowance. I cut the batting from the pattern with no allowance. I put the fabric face down and put the batting on the wrong side of the fabric.

I then used Gorilla Glue to adhere the batting to the fabric. I only put the glue on the edges of the batting and folded over the fabric to cover the batting. This was kind of like wrapping a gift with wrapping paper but not having enough wrapping paper to cover the bottom side.

Then I measured out and marked where I wanted my hooks and then drilled holes in those places. Then I screwed in the hooks.

We hung it on the wall with some heavy duty screw and Voila! We have the most fabulous coat rack ever. The total cost was around $80. I say that's a steal. And if you make one smaller than mine it would be less expensive.

Also, you can see that there is something on top of the coat rack/headboard. Those are my keys. I'm one of those people who always loses my keys and phone. Now that I have my fabulous headboard, I just put my keys and phone on the top ledge and they almost never get lost now.

Eeeewwww

I bite my nails. It's this horrible, unconcious, anxious habit I have. I hate it sooo much. When I was pregnant my body was so super efficient and my nails didn't chip and I only bit them to trim them. Now that I'm not pregnant or nursing my nails are weak. And they chip. And I bite them. Worst habit ever. So, I bought this stuff called Mavala Stop. It's nail polish that tastes horrible! I haven't bitten my nails in a week. This is huge for me. Every time I put my finger in my mouth I am disgusted by the taste and I am aware that I was trying to bite my nails. It really rocks. Hopefully, in a month my habit will be completely broken and I will have rockin hot nails.

Freezing things

I do freezer meals. I love them. It means I can buy bulk and then freeze it into several different meals. I don't have to cook every single day. All of this equals me less stressed, husband less stressed, kids paid more attention to  - because I can just put the meal straight into the oven and spend the used to be cooking time playing with them - and healthier eating.  Also, half the reason I started this blog is to share with friends and family who have requested freezer meal recipes and tips. So, this topic will come up frequently.

I freeze lots of things. But I NEVER freeze in bulk. Freezing in bulk means that you spend more time thawing and making and refreezing. And that is too much effort for me. So, I make things into meal sizes for family, meal sizes for family and company, and usable sizes.

For example, I freeze heavy cream.

I originally got the idea here. Who ever uses the whole jug of cream? I never do. But I don't freeze it in the jug. I freeze it in ice cube trays. I measure out 1 Tablespoon and put it in one portion of the tray and do this for the whole tray. Sometimes I do a tray with 1 teaspoon portions as well.

Then I freeze it. Then I "crack" the ice cube trays and the cubes of heavy cream come right out.

Then I put it in the freezer bag and write the date. I also write this on the freezer bag: 1 cup = 16 Tablespoon and 1 Tablespoon = 1 teaspoon. It helps when I pull it out to cook with.

 Sometimes I do this with buttermilk as well.

Awesome, huh?

Favorite Pictures

One of my best friends has introduced me to photo books. She documents her blog and life through these picture journals. Let's just say, I'm gonna follow in her footsteps. She recently gave me a code to get a free 8*8 20 page photo book from Shutterfly and I'm loving it so much!

I've decided that for every year of life we're going to make a family year book. Basically like high school year books but much, much, much more cool.

So, with my free photo book I'm making a Courtship book. It is a record of Nathan and I dating. Then I'm going to make a wedding book. Then I'm going to start on the year books. I haven't figured out how I'm going to document everything so that when me children are moving away they can have their own photo books to share memories with their spouses and kids. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon so that I can get a move on.

I'm really excited about this because we will remember events and be able to refresh our memories by just grabbing a book off of the shelf or coffee table. I love organization and photo books are the Perfect way to organize.

I'm thrilled beyond reason. Soon this picture will be the front cover of a book sitting on our coffee table.

Hot Friday Night Date!

This date wasn't actually so hot. Monsoon season has started here and so we've been nice and cool recently. This evening Nathan and I finished changing our driver side car seat belt. That's a mouth full. Our old seat belt looked like this. We needed a new one.

 The cheapest seat belt we could find online was $109 + shipping for two. That was the least inexpensive. Nathan did a bit more digging and found out that we have a UPullNPay car lot in town. Awesome. It was $2 to get in and $9 for our seat belt. We also had to buy some new ratchets for the process. Nathan about died of happiness buying new tools. This is what we did:

We took off the sides and this is what it looked like inside.  

We unscrewed these three bolts

 

 

Then the old one fell off and we put the new one on. 

Now we can feel safe driving. Future safe hot date night, here we come!

Bare Foot in the Park

I love being barefoot in the grass. I guess I just like being barefoot period. When I was younger - meaning 17 - I would walk across the street barefoot to get my little sisters when they were playing at friends' houses. But I love being barefoot in the grass most especially. It's so wonderful to feel the cool grass. It feels like goodness seeping into my soul.