DIY Super Easy Basket Tags

We have all seen them on blogs across the net-- beautiful basket tags to label your storage. There are so many cute ideas out there such as....

The Chalkboard Tag
(So great to re-label quickly!)

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The Crafty Tag

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The Uber Creative Tag

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and the 

Kind Of Expensive But Super Convenient For You Non-Crafter Tags 

(from Pottery Barn)

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Today I am going to show you the 

SUPER EASY Basket Tags!

Now you will need a few things to get started:

Scrap Fabric- Enough for a 2.5"x3.5" square of fabric for however many labels you want to make

Pinking Shears

Scissors

Corner Rounder (optional)

Computer (unless you have great handwriting)

Scotch Self-Sealing Laminating Pouches with Loops, Glossy, 5 Pack

and

Avery Sticker Project Paper, White, 8.5 x 11 Inches

Here are the easy directions:

First, start with your paper and computer. Create a document (in word) with text boxes that are about 2"x3". Type your desired labels into the boxes, format them as needed and print them on the sticker paper: 

Cut the labels out. You can use a corner cutter like I did to create a more finished look or use your pinking shears for a cute zig-zag line.  

Next, open your self laminating pouches.

Turning your scrap fabric over, trace around the tag with a pen. 

If you are making more then one, I found it was easier to butt them up next to each other to minimize cuts. 

Cut out your squares on the inside of the inked line. You want the material to be smaller then the pouches.  

Center your printed label on the fabric, peal off the back and adhere it to the fabric.  

Open you laminated pouches and center you fabric/label in the middle of it.  

Slowly peal off the label protecting the adhesive front and smoothing it out along the fabric as you go.  

You should end up with a cute finished product such as this: 

Using the loops, attach your tag to your desired basket. 

If you can't tell by the color of these tags, this is another project I have done for the nursery decoration. (See all nursery posts here.) I am using these baskets to sort our little girls things. Here's a little sneak peak of the finished tags and the closet for the nursery. 

These tags were so easy to make and they add a little cute organization to her closet!

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Paint Only Remodel: The Main Bathroom

One year ago we purchased our "new" house (see post here). This house is not our ideal house and to say it's very dated is such an understatement. We fell in love with the 5 acres of land this house sits on and we were able to purchase this house/land at a very good price but our overall goal is to build a different house on this same lot and knock this one down. (As recommended by the two contractors we brought out to bid for remodeling it.) Until then, we are living in a house that looks like it could be right out of the Brady Bunch tv show!

When we moved into this house, my husband made the rule that I could only use paint to remodel any of the rooms, just because it would be a waste of money to put anything more into this house. Really I didn't have plans to do much remodeling/painting, but the more I live in this house the more I realize and crave a fresh coat of paint on the walls. I love painting and it is amazing what a coat of paint can do to transform a room, plus add some color to these plain white walls! I started with the kitchen (Kitchen Redo), created my son a fire truck room out of the small office room, and I am almost finished with creating the room for the nursery.

In the last week I decided to remodel our master bathroom, the only full bathroom on the main floor. I know I am not quite finished with the nursery, but I am giving myself time to hunt for good deals on little decorative features in the room.  So while I garage sale shop on the weekends for the nursery, I have been working on this bathroom on the weekdays. I thought it would be nice to share with you what the bathroom looks like. Be prepared...it's U-G-L-Y! This whole bathroom is pretty bad. Brown tub, toilet, brown wallpaper, 70s lighting...it looks like a dark cave. 

The first picture is of the toilet/shower area of the bathroom. When we first purchase the house, there were doors on the shower. They weighed about 30 pounds each door and were always are going off track. I decided to remove the doors so this is what it first looked like when we purchased the house:

And here is the bathroom now:

The main sink area looks like this. (Sorry about the terrible lighting in the pics, like I said....it looks like a cave.)

Here is the up-close of the sink. I have to keep the sinks and counter tops, as paint is only allowed. I am going to try to spray paint these faucets....we will see how that works out! 

We have these awesome shag lights. Now I am only allowed to paint, however I did try to convince my husband to let me purchase new lights for this bathroom. They were only $19, but he still said "no." However, I have an idea to give these shag lights a little modern look to them...

  And the up-close of the cupboard hardware, which of course I will be painting! 

I am pretty sure this project might not get all the way finished before the second kiddo comes along. My goal is to get the wallpaper removed, walls, cupboards, and hardware painted and then work on my little "decorating" projects when I have time after the new baby comes. Who knows, maybe I will be able to get it all done for her arrival, but I am not going to push it. Until then, HAPPY PAINTING!

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Fiber One Chocolate Pancakes

The other morning I was wanting something with chocolate so bad! I decided to try to make up my own chocolate pancake recipe using some Fiber One cereal I had in my cupboard. I love adding this cereal to pancakes and muffins as it really adds a large amount of fiber and still tastes great! Here's the recipe and I hope you enjoy!

1 cup Fiber One bran cereal, original
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk or milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup flour
3 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup chocolate pieces

1. Crush cereal in plastic bag with rolling pin.
2. In medium bowl, beat egg, buttermilk, oil and cereal. Let it stand for a few minutes so cereal can soften. 
3. In sifter, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. Sift into liquid mixture.
5. Stir in cocoa powder and chocolate pieces. 
6. Spray skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium heat until oil is hot.
7. For each pancake, pour 1/4 cup batter into skillet and cook until puffed and full of bubble. Turn over once the first side has many bubbles. Cook until second side is done. 
8. Serve dusted with powdered sugar and enjoy these chocolaty treats that add some great fiber into you diet!

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Baby 2.0: 28 Weeks Pregnant

Well, I am officially 28 weeks along in our second pregnancy and I thought I should write a little blog about how the pregnancy is going. (Plus Christi keeps harassing me that I wrote way more about my pregnancy with Aiden then this one.)

Here is what I started out looking like at 9 weeks:

And after a weight gain of 35 pounds so far, I have ended up looking like this:

That's me at the Heart concert with a friend from high school...it was a very hot day out! (Notice the dark circles under my eyes and read below.)

With those belly pictures comes a little update on how things are going so far in my pregnancy:

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1. Sleep- I haven't been able to sleep more than about 6 hours at a time now for about 3 weeks. (Hence, the dark circles in the above picture.) I remember this with the first pregnancy. At about 2-4am the baby decides to wake up, jump on my bladder, and then head-bang in my belly for a few hours. Once I am woken up, I realize I am starving and have to eat a bowl of cereal. After I eat my cereal I usually will fall back asleep about 5:30am, just in time for my son to wake up an hour later.

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2. Hunger- The hunger has been pretty steady but has honestly gotten a little less in the last few weeks...which I like! If you can't tell by my gaining almost 35 pounds already, I am not starving! I seem to be on track to gaining 50 pounds like the last pregnancy, which is such a bummer!

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3. Energy- Awesome! I really think the picture above should have a very pregnant lady in the mix! The nesting has officially kicked in. I love the increased energy that comes with this time! I have already mostly finished the nursery. (However still lacking a few small details or else there would be a blog about it.) On top of that I have almost organized the shop, started landscaping around our 300 feet of shrubs we had installed, and taken on a new room in the house...the master bathroom. It's amazing how much energy I have, despite the lack of sleep!

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4. Hopes: I am hoping for a happy, healthy, little girl to be born without any complications. I pray for it every night. We have already some health concerns with this little girl, as she is just at 10% for size and they are pretty sure she has sandal gap toes (which is a genetic marker for a few problems.) So far, she appears very healthy and moves around in my belly like a crazy women, so let's just hope she is just small and that's all! I also hope that Aiden will be a good older brother. He has become quite the little helper as of late, so I just hope it will continue when she is born. 

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5. Fears: Obviously with the concerns above I have some fears in those areas too, but I think the thing I am most fearing now is the c-section and a toddler at the same time! Don't get me wrong, I LOVED my c-section. I know there are few women who say that, but I really didn't think it was so bad the first time. I already had surgery on my abdomen as a child, so they just used the same scar to do the c-section, which I think made the healing process easier. I am scared of the not being able to pick up my almost 30 pound toddler and how bad that is going to make me feel. Also, I am scared I will workout too hard or do something I shouldn't and open the incision back up. My friend had this happen to her and she said it was very painful and just lengthens your recovery time. My goal is to keep my motivated self, unmotivated...at least until the Dr. approves my physical activities.

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6. To Dos: Of course, I had a small to-do list at the beginning of the summer (see Countdown of Summer Projects) which basically was finishing the fire truck room, nursery, building the sandbox, organizing the shop, and building the open toy box. I am happy to say that I have pretty much finished the list, other than the organizing the shop, but I have added more projects to the list. My to-do list before the baby arrives now is:
- Re-build the fishing bench
- Landscape around the bushes out front (no small task, we have 300 ft of bushes)
- Remove wallpaper/paint the master bathroom
- Organize the shop
- Sort through baby items!

I keep putting off the shop because I know I will just keep messing it up until I finish all my other projects and honestly if that doesn't get finished before our little girl arrives it's no big deal.  Hopefully, I won't add anymore projects to my list!

Well, that's my 28 weeks! I have 11 weeks to go and that is only if she decides to let me do the c-section at 39 weeks. When I say "she" I not only mean the baby, but my OB as well. When the babies are small like ours is, there is a good chance they might take her out at 37 weeks...which is what happened with our last child. We will see!

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DIY: Easy Way To Cover Lamp Shades

I have written several posts on the process of creating a my little girl's nursery (see posts here) and I am down to the very small details of the room. I was really wanting lamp shades to match the curtains in the room, but honestly I have covered lampshades in the past and they are such a pain to do! The most annoying part of covering a lampshade is adhering the fabric to the shade and not making a huge mess. 

The other day I was shopping at Hobby Lobby and found these self-adhesive lampshades. I thought I would give them a try and they ended up being THE BEST idea ever! I covered two lampshades in about 15 minutes with a toddler running around! 

This is what you will need for this project:

Self Adhesive Lampshade

Fabric

Fabric Pins

Scissors

5/8" White Stitch Witchery, Regular Weight

Iron

Ribbon (if you want a trim around it)

Fabric Glue

Pinking Shears

To start out, remove the outside label of the lampshade and pin it to your fabric of choice. 

Cut out the fabric about 5/8" outside of the label. This extra amount will be for your Stitch Witchery. Also,  leave a little extra fabric on one end to overlap...just a little...I think this is about 1 inch. 

If you have never used Stitch Witchery, it's an awesome product. It basically glues fabric together to make a nice edge on it. Lay out your  Stitch Witchery on each side of the fabric.

Use your iron to press the fabric and Stitch Witchery together. You should get a finished edge like below. Leave the one end without the Stitch Witchery, as this end will be overlapped with the finished edge. 

Now you are ready to cover your lampshade! Lay out your fabric and place the self adhesive lampshade on top of it. 

Starting with the unfinished edge of the fabric, slowly peal back the adhesive covering on the lampshade and start laying down your fabric. As you peel it back, smooth out the fabric. 

Eventually you will make it all the way around your lampshade. 

At the end of your fabric, you will want to have it finished to look like it's one continual piece. This is where the fabric glue comes in.

On the seam of the fabric, make a small line of glue and press the fabric together. Let this dry.

You will end up with a cute covered lampshade that was EASY!!

Now if you are like me and want a more finished look-- I decided to add ribbon to the top and bottom of the shade.

I made a small line of fabric glue around the top edge of the lampshade and placed the ribbon around it.

To prevent the ribbon from fraying on the end, I used pinking shears to cut the ribbon. Don't worry, no one will look that close at your ribbon to see the jagged edge. Glue the two ends of the ribbons together.

Repeat the process with the bottom ribbon.

And you are FINISHED!! A super cute covered lampshade that was so easy to do! I absolutely LOVE this self-adhesive lampshade and will buy them again hands down!

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