Happy Easter!!!

I hope you all are having a fabulous Easter! There is a new post up on The Etc. Lists with photos from Easters past and a few from Cora's first Easter.
Also, I have a big surprise for you. I AM THE REAL EASTER BUNNY!

It is serious birthday season! Happy Birthday, Louise. I am super duper duper sad that I won't get to see you this summer.

It is not possible that your outfit could get any cooler!

A New Post Is Up On The Etc. Lists!

Welcome to the weekend! May it be sunny and fun and everything you want it to be!

Head on over to The Etc. Lists for a glimpse of dated old Cora photos!

The Living Room Chronicles: Step 5: The Fireplace

Yes, this is about to happen again. I am about to show you how I spent WAY too much time with the program Paint a few years ago. Pretty much anytime you notice that I have altered a photo in anyway it is through the super high-tech program, Microsoft Paint, that comes with every computer and most people don't even open.

This time, I was doctoring up photos of living room potential. I drew out a few floor plans and then I went crazy drawing different plans for our fireplace.

You had better believe that I am not going to let all of my hard work on Paint go to waste... no no no! I am going to share it with you fine folks.

Our living room is super duper long. So, trying to figure out a furniture arrangement was not the easiest thing in the world. I came up with a few choices that would work with the new fireplace situation. Do you want to take a look at a couple of them? 

I thought so!

Things are probably only going to get more interesting from here. So, buckle up!

Who likes that squirrel hanging out in my window?

Ohhhh I learned how to take the sea legs off my drawings and straighten things up.

And get ready for these... things get a little fancy!

It isn't over yet! I took a photo I found and stuck my fireplace idea in.

Which one did we choose?

None of them! We ended up taking so long with the master bathroom remodel that we just left the fireplace alone. Also, Scott and I were both somewhat indifferent about whether or not to change out the stone wall. Some people thought it would be a crime to get rid of it. Since we weren't 100% we just left it as is.

But things have definitely changed since the last time we took a look at this green machine. It turned cream! It has officially been de-funkyed. No more lovely Asparagus Green by Behr.

Now, it is "cut a chunk out from behind the refrigerator and have Home Depot paint match that color because I ran out of paint and like a dummy I didn't keep the paint can." Have you ever head of that color? It is a lovely one.

The blue stuff around the fireplace is painter's tape. And, the green patch will eventually become cream colored.

We are still trying to decide if the trim around the fireplace should be white or the color of the wall. What do you think?

Next time I have a completely fascinating post like this I will save it until the weekend, but give me a break- we have 3 days left until photos are taken for our house listing. 

Just 2 steps left until we can check this Chronicle off the list!

Step 1: Move in. Put in whatever furniture we had. Hang art.

Step 2: The Craigslist deal of a lifetime. New Sectional Sofa.

Step 3: New coffee table (Step 3 Introduction found here)

Step 4: DIY remote control holder. A tiny, tiny step, but we are still calling it one.

Step 5: Should we change out the fireplace?

Step 6: The plant table and the plants

Step 7: Finishing touches

In case you can't wait the 3 steps we have left to see the finished product. Here it is:

It is birthday season!!! Happy Birthday to my GRANDMA and to Suzan!

I hope you two have spectacular birthdays!!!

ps I was still learning how to dye my hair when this photo was taken... hence the reason for the orange hair.

Just A Quick Post & Some Birthday Shout-Outs

Things are still crazy-town over here as we put the finishing touches on our house before it goes on the market. It has definitely been de-funkyed and de-retroed. There are a few splashes of us left around, but not much. I will update you on all of the changes soon and I still owe you a post about our new house that I mentioned here.

I also wanted to wish a happy birthday to a wonderfully awesome person... the holiday queen herself!

And to one of my BFFs whose b-day was a couple days ago, but somehow I missed the blog b-day shout out!

Happy Birthday K-Ra!

19 Funky Ways To Decorate Easter Eggs

Get ready to be excited! I am about to give you the scoop on how to make funky and interesting Easter eggs. I know you may lose your mind with excitement, but try your best to play it cool.

1. Chalkboard Eggs! Chalkboard paint is all the rage right now. So, I know you have some extra paint laying around. Get it out and get to work. You can even make your own chalkboard paint by following these directions.

2. Scuba Eggs. So much fun to be had with eggs!

3. The Lovely Swirly Egg. These creative egg-makers used rubber cement to get this look, but I bet you could substitute hot glue to make the process a bit easier.

4. Do you all remember my friends who throw awesome super fun and creative parties? You can find them here along with some silly costumes. They also have a semi-annual tradition of Easter egg decorating. Here are some of the things that people came up with:

The Hula Girl

This one was mine. It is a super hero duck named Mr. Goggle Pants.

This is Scott's fuzzy sheep.

And someone else made a funky crab.

There were plenty of other great ones, but these are the only ones that I happened to take a photo of.

5. Sharpie Eggs. This looks very time consuming, but what a cool result!

6. Olympic Eggs.

7. Watercolor Eggs. oooooh la la! pretty!

8. Circle Art Eggs. Martha gives you a little how-to on these cool stenciled eggs.

9. Kiss. Am I getting a bit away from the true Easter spirit here?

10. Washi Tape. Washi tape is a fantastic way to decorate everything else. So, why not give it a whirl on your eggs.

11. Animals. Farm animal eggs. Fantastic!

11. More Animals. Animal eggs might be my favorite thing ever.

12. Ombre Eggs. Lovely shaded eggs!

13. String. A pretty one and an easy one! This eggos are right up my alley.

14. Humpty Dumpty Egg. A clever little 4th grader made this one.

15. Wax-Resist Eggs. Here is another idea from Martha the decorating machine. This one involves beeswax.

16. Basket Of Ideas. Rebecca from Three Points Kitchen used crayons, rubber bands, electrical tape, Q-tips, and some Easter egg dye to make these lovely eggs.

Easter is less than a week away! How are you going to decorate your eggs? I don't know if we will get a chance to decorate ours this year. Cora may eat them all first. That little babytoddler is C-R-A-Z-Y about eggs. 

ps I know it is Wednesday and that means Wednesday's Weekly Would You Rather Question. But, how about we take a little break from that? I don't think anyone will be too upset!

The Nursery Chronicles: Step 4b: Floating Shleves

Happy Monday! I'm sorry I didn't have any posts for you on The Etc. Lists or Never Listless this past weekend. Things have been crazy around here while we get our house ready to go on the market. Scott is pretty much painting 24 hours a day and I am having fun doing Cora-wrangling and whatever house-related stuff I can get done while wrangling. We also had a very fun time with some family in town! When things calm down (will they????) I will try to make those 2 missed posts up to you.

Let's get on with the show:
Last week, we took a look at The Nursery Chronicles. I went a bit bogus on you and sliced a full post into two posts. You saw Part A last week with the book slings. Now, it is time to jump into the world of floating shelves and a little more decorating.

I thought about making my own floating shelves until I found some very reasonably price ones from Lowes that fit the space well. The longer one was about $15 and the smaller one was a couple dollars less.

The directions were easy to follow and Scott did a fabulous job at it.

Once they were hung the fun part came: decorating them! I played around with them for a while and finally came up with this:

(sorry for the awful quality!)

I also taped some pictures that I copied out of books on the bottom of the shelves so Cora would have something entertaining to look at while she was getting her diaper changed. It worked! She loved them!

Since we are about to put the house on the market I have had to declutter a bit. The shelves now look like this:

Not a huge different, but hopefully enough that someone will say, "what awesomely decluttered shelves. I want to buy this house for $10,000 more than the asking price!" That is what you all are imagining will happen, right?

Would you like to hear a clever storage idea that I used for Cora's nursery? If so, read on. If not, click here to continue your adventure. (I really wanted to Rick-Roll you, but decided against it. If you don't know what that is and want to, click here and let Wikipedia explain it to you).
One of my favorite things in the room is Cora's stuffed animal holder. About a year after we moved into our current house we changed out our mailbox because it was really hard to open. For some reason, most of the houses in our neighborhood have enormous mailboxes. We opted to change it out to a regular sized one. If you want to get some more mailbox in your life, you can see where we prettied up the current mailbox here. This postal change-out left us with one unusually large and now useless mailbox. I am not one to waste things. So, I left that big postal paradise hang out in our garage for 3 years until I finally came up with its new purpose in life!

In case you haven't put two and two together yet the mailbox became a home for Cora's stuffed pals. My
 lovely husband painted it the same yellow that he painted the dresser. I bought a green laundry bag so the rusty bits of the mailbox didn't mess up Cora's friends and a new stuffed animal wrangler was born. (Who knew that a little talk about floating shelves would involve so much wrangling talk).

We have made it through 4 whole steps in this baby abode. 6 steps until the grand finale! 

Step 1: Get rid of the old furniture and try out some more baby-centric duds for the room. Crib, bookshelf, and daybed.

Step 2: Convince my husband to do more painting than anyone would ever want to do in their whole life. Start the painting spree by painting over the headboard on the wall. Get a dresser/ changing table and refinish it.

Step 3: Get some more furniture. Start the decorating: Wire display for pictures.

Step 4a: Put up the book slings.

We  made it 3 whole steps before I divided one up. Yes, I'm very sorry. I had to add a part a and part b to Step 4. It was getting a bit long. So, now you get to enjoy it in 2 parts.

Step 4b: More decorating: Floating shelves.

Step 5: Decorations, Part 3: Hang art above the crib and all around the room

Step 6: Refinish side table and get a few more pieces of furniture

Step 7: Paint the chalkboard and mirror and hang them.

Step 8: Put up the curtains. Line the inside of the dresser with some of my extra fabric

Step 9: Finishing touches.

Here are some photos of the rest of the nursery!