Holy Crabtree.....I made a button.....a blog button that is!

So for months I've been trying to make a grab button for our blog. To tell you the truth all the HTML mumbo jumbo means absolutly nothing to me.  However, I decided to really take a stab at it the other day.  I wasn't gonna quit till I had a button!  So after about an hour of trying and going back and forth from the tutorial I found, which you can find here and back to our blog.  I finally did it!

Please feel free to grab our button and post on your blog, we would surely appreciate it!!!!

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.  ****Candie****

Before and After Dresser Redo

I inherited this dresser from my husband's grandmother. We actually had it as our dresser in our previous house before I bought my fab- 9 drawer dresser from Costco! So off to storage it went, till the yard sale.  At that point, I decided I was going to just redo the dresser for my middle son's new room.  So for a year now since we moved it's been sitting in the garage. Again, naughty mommy!

Before:

Barf! Right!?!?!

Well here is the after:

So here's the low down.  I removed the ugly wood pull knobs (if you call it that) I sanded the dresser enough to scuff it up.  Added a coat of Behr interior primer and sealer (purple can). I then used the same green paint (Disney Alien Green) I used on the walls to basically outline the dresser.  Used Rustoleaum Painter's Touch gloss white for the remainder of the dresser.

Knobs I found at Hobby Lobby for 50% off! YAY!!!

Lined the inside of the drawer with shelf liner contact paper. You can't really tell, but the contact paper is lime green, yellow and white.  Matches everything perfectly!

Anyway, it took me about a week to do, and my son was super excited to get it up in his room.  Stay tuned for the before and after of his room.  Just a few more finishing touches and I will post!
****Candie****

Letter "K"

It's been a year since we moved into our new house.  And all year my 4yr old has been asking "mommy when are you going to finish my room".  Poor guy! I did my oldest son's room a month or so after we moved in, sorry no pictures.  It was before we started blogging.  Anyway, I kept telling him, his was next, but I would start other projects. Naughty mommy!!!  So I have started his room, it is almost finished and I will be blogging about a few items that I made or redid.  So stay tuned for his dresser transformation and the big before and after room reveal.

But for now a little wall art I made out of a piece of scrap plywood that I had.

From this angle you really can't tell that it's a board, looks more like I painted a blue rectangle on the wall.  But I promise I did use a board.  FYI- My son picked out the colors of his room.  Will let you know the colors when I do the big reveal.

To cover the sides of the board, I found this Toy Story ribbon.  It matched perfectly!

So there you have it! Cheap, but not cheap looking wall art!  ****Candie****

Finally Friday!!

Heello there, hoping all is well with everyone.  It's been quite some time since I've posted, way beyond past due.....so here ya go.  I'm so glad it's finally Friday, unfortunately we have nothing planned for this glorious Friday night.  Maybe thats a good thing?! Here's a look (w/ my new little point & shoot) at what we've been doing.....

Isiah, my youngest son who turns 15 tomorrow, Happy Birthday kid, love you!! Can you tell how SUPER excited he is?! LOL, that's just Isiah being Isiah.

My husband and I were on the back deck enjoying an evening cocktail and the tranquil sounds of our pond while our dogs patrolled the place!! Gotta love the dogs : )

 Oh, and a quick lookie lou at a couple of flowers that have made it this far into the season, you see, I have a very brown thumb, sooooo I'm proud that these pretty babies are still alive!!

so the question of the hour is "do I love my new camera?"  At this point I'm still undecided, just can't tell if I will keep it or take it back.  I got the Nikon coolpix S4100, anybody else have one, and if so do you love it?  So my friend, I will try to stay in touch better but I just can't promise anything, haha!! No seriously, I'm finishing up a couple of projects this weekend and will be sure to fill you in next week.  There, I've posted it, so I will have to follow through with a post next week, tell then take care of yourselves!

~Renee~



Handmade Gift Exchange

So I signed up for a handmade gift exchange back in June.  Found out about it thru a friend.  You can read about it here.

I received an email on who my partner was and where she lived.  We contacted eachother via email, and got to know a little about eachother.  To my amazement we had a lot of things in common, but the most thing in common that we had, was we both like to travel.  Though my travels these days now that I'm married with 3 kids are limited, we still manage to take our yearly vacation to the Oregon Coast. My husband and I have been visiting the Oregon Coast since our first born was about 18 months, he is now 8.  Though we may not have gone every year, we did go an aweful lot.  For the past 4 years now we have been going to Lincoln City, Oregon.  We absoluty love it there.  Anyway, let me get back on track......

So for our gift exchange, Shawna likes to travel and loves all things water!  So this is what I made her, the 1st go around.  After I realized the little star fish were not going to mail well, a couple of the little arms broke off when I wrapped them in bubble wrap.  Darn it!

Picture is of the sunset over the Pacific Ocean

So, since that didn't work I needed to do something else, however.... I liked what I made, so I decided to replace the star fish with sea shells and change it up just a little.  This is what I ended up sending her.

I did add the sunset picture and sent that with the frames

Anywho, I thought it turned out pretty cute, I just kept the broken one for myself.

So being that my family travels to Lincoln City, she made me this wonderful memory book.  We just happen to be going to Lincoln City in August.  Can't wait to add my photos!  Thanks Shawna for putting so much time and thought in this project.

I loved being involved with this project and can't wait for the one in the fall to start! ****Candie****

Front cover is wrapped with a map of where we (myfamily) is from in Washington State

inside are blank pages to add all my Lincoln City memories

back cover is wrap with the map of Oregon, highlighting where we stay!

Navajo Tacos

Hey there! I must be in a cooking mood, cause I made another recipe from Chef in Training.  This time I made Navajo tacos.  When we have tacos, we normally don't get hard shell.  We usually just go for the flour tortillas.  But this recipe called for frying up the flour tortillas.  Man was it ever so good!

Here's the recipe:  (I doubled the recipe for my family)

4 flour tortillas 

1 lb ground beef

1 pkg taco seasoning

1 can re-fried beans

shredded lettuce

sour cream

salsa

avocados

shredded cheese

tomatoes (instead of salsa we used tomatoes)

1. Brown ground beef and drain.  Add 3/4 cup water and taco seasoning to ground beef.  Simmer for 10 minutes.

2. Fry tortillas until golden brown.

3. Top fried torilla with all your dressings

ENJOY! I sure did!  ****Candie****

No Bake Cookies

Hello all! We follow this amazing blog, that has amazing recipes!  Chef In Training has some pretty darn tasty recipes.  I have tried 2 myself and they both turned out fantastic.  The pot roast was super delish- sorry no picture, forgot to take a picture before we ate it, but it sure tasted good going down!  The other No Bake Cookies, well Nikki over at Chef In Training called them Gorilla Poop! Love it!

Anyway I would like to share this recipe with you.

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup margerine/butter
4 Tbs cocoa
2-1/2 cups quick oats
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter or nuttela

Cook sugar, milk, butter and cocoa over moderate heat until mixture come to a full rolling boil.  Once mixture is a full rolling boil, cook for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.  Add oats, canill, and peanut butter (nutella).  Mix untilo well blended.  Spoon onto waxed paper and let cool.

Hope you all enjoy!  ****Candie****