The Barton Experience

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A Little DIY Magic

We reupholstered our dining room chairs a few years ago, the fabric was pretty...unfortunately we didn't realize that the pretty upholstery fabric we picked would turn into matted disgusting messy gross looking yuckiness thanks to our kiddos. *sigh* Wow, I knew they were in bad shape but after taking them apart and getting a good look at the fabric I was HORRIFIED!!! We have only ever had four dining room chairs, luckily our neighbor ~~chucked some in the trash~~ was getting rid of two chairs that are very similar in design to the ones we already have! They were a bit shaky so Josh took them apart and tightened them up so they are nice and sturdy now, he is SO useful sometimes! :D We also discovered the AWESOMENESS of the Home Fabrics store...SUCH great deals on all types of upholstery fabric. We found some great espresso colored naugahyde material for only $6 a yard. (all those poor little naugha's sacrificed for my chairs! LOL) While it is a bit disgusting and VERY embarrassing here is the before of how bad our chairs were:

GAK...so horrible!

QUITE the difference huh?

It is a DREAM how easy they are to clean now.

I can't believe that we waited this long to replace them

with something like this!

We just need to paint & seal the messed up tabletop

and the dining room will look SO much different! :D

I also got a couple of storage ottoman thingies last fall from Goodwill:

Yeah, doesn't look too impressive huh?

Well, for $5 I was happy to find it because

I was SO SICK of not having anyplace to

put the diapers, wipes, baggies, and changing pads.

They look cluttery if they are out, and I didn't have the $$$

to buy something 'fancy' and fashionable

that fit the 'decor' while it hid the mess!

While this has ugly fakey laminate wood on the outside,

and a truly horrible upholstered top...it is amazing what

a difference a little TLC makes:

Now I don't even notice the fakey wood pattern,

I was going to try to upholster the whole thing...

but the leftover piece from the dining room chairs was JUST big enough

to do this storage ottoman/seat = less $$$ spent.

With all the butts in this house we can ALWAYS

use another seat! ;)

I also found this "beauty":

Used to be white wicker, someone tried to paint it

this hideous peachy pink color!

//shudder//

I had looked all over at storage cubes/ottomans at different stores and online

and MAN are they expensive!

This beastie was $7, and I had just read an article about

how you can spray paint wicker really easily.

Plus, LOOK at the beautiful color of the metal on

the closure, so neato huh?

But OH so PINKish!

uck.

Eventually we went and got a couple of cans of

really dark brown spray paint and Josh and I

went to work on it.

Yeah...pretty freakin' amazing transformation huh?

It looks GREAT in our bedroom all full of blankets.

Of course you may see a few dings already

where the paint has chipped off.

Izzy aka The Destructor, decided to

try to learn mountain climbing or

tap dancing, or demolition or whatever on top of it

not long after it was all finished being painted.

Little wretch!

I need to do a little touch up work on it,

but I am SO happy with the result!!!

I still have a few projects on my list.

Next: The tabletop of the dining room table needs help,

and I think we will paint it a similar espresso brown

like the color of the dining chair seats,

and then seal it to protect the wood.

Then: we have a cute sofa table that came with two little bench seats that slide underneath it. (Once again it is always nice to have extra seats in this house!) The fabric had a HORRID white/peachy striped pattern w/big old flowers all over it...it was ugly when it was clean and then after my kids dribbled and globbed all over them it was HIDEOUS!!! Now it is also all ripped because Sam decided to pull sheets of the nasty fabric right off the seat! I swear, my kids are so wicked!

LOTS to do around my house! :)

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Sisterhood Ads

I just HAVE to say how much I LOVE my Church callings! I am SO blessed to be a part of an AMAZING ward family, and specifically our Relief Society group of ladies is OUT of this world AWESOME! Yes, that was a lot of caps...but I can't bring myself to change it! :)
While I wouldn't say no to working with in the Primary or in Nursery in our ward *cringe*, I was THRILLED when I was asked to serve on the Relief Society Activities Commitee a couple years ago. I love staying home with my kids, I wouldn't have it any other way, that being said, having my church work with GROWN UPS, and AWESOME WOMEN on top of that...well, it is JUST what I need in my life right now! My 'social' life revolves around facebook and Relief Society. I joke that that is sad...but I changed my mind just now! I love my life, I love my friends. I am so grateful to be a part of a Church that NO MATTER where you go in the 'verse you are part of a Ward Family. Last year I was asked to start teaching once a month on Sunday in Relief Society, I was FREAKED out, but also really excited to spend even more time with my wonderful friends! Luckily they also wanted me to keep my calling on the Activities Commitee, and I was so happy! I mean I only teach once a month, and we only have activities at MOST once a month...so not really as 'time consuming' as it seems.

Our next activity is the annual Relief Society Birthday Party, celebrating the foundation of Relief Society. The hard thing about planning this particular activity is that you can really only do a 'Birthday' theme so many times before it is BOOOORRRRRIIIINNNNGGGGG! ;) Well Diana, (our RS 2nd Counselor in charge of Activities Commitee, plus my AWESOME Zumba buddy and all around WONDERFUL friend! ;) got some great ideas from another RS's Bday party she went to, and we are tweaking it to make it our own! We are going with a Hollywood type theme, only the title is SISTERHOOD. We are going to try to get an actual Red Carpet for the ladies to 'walk' when they arrive, the colors are a glam and sophisticated Black, Red and Silver- plus we are putting up the SISTERHOOD individual letters/sign on the wall, in the same font as the Hollywood sign...so cool! We are also doing a 'Before they were Stars/Sisters' game with baby pics, should be fun. Since the next couple of weeks we won't meet as a ward I made the posters earlier than usual to get the word out! I love making the posters advertising our RS Activities, having an excuse to use my scrapbooking supplies is ALWAYS nice! This poster might be my fave so far! :)

I know, I rock.

The funny thing was it was SO EASY!

Gotta love that!

Sometimes the most simple thing looks best!

I really wanted to add that pop of red, without

taking away from the readability of the sign.

But just a red stripe on the bottom didn't look

like a red carpet...just a stupid floating red stripe.

So I put my crafty hat on, pulled out my oval cutter,

shiny silver paper, silver brads and some red 'rope'

aka embroidery floss.

Yeah...cuz I'm awesome like that. ;)

Saturday, March 19, 2011

How to Corral Thomas

We have SO many videos! Last year we finally found an inexpensive DVD shelf unit that would hold ALL of our movies with some room to grow. It isn't beautiful, but it works and we could afford it! :) Amazingly we are OUTGROWING IT! SHEESH!!! It has 18 cubbies that each hold about 21 regular-sized DVD cases = 504 total capacity. Sick, right? Well, we have a FULL cubby of Scooby-Doo movies/TV shows on DVD, one chock full of Barbie movies and one bursting with Thomas the Train videos! While I was perusing the Dollar Store I found a cheapie little CD case that holds 24 discs...PERFECT! I know you can buy a huge book to hold all the DVD's, but that would be unwieldy, expensive, and I want to keep them on this shelf for now. There are also cases specifically for DVD's- but they are expensive and I don't need the inserts for these sets of discs. We have seen them all a jillion times...we know ALL the details on each and every one of them! So I am chucking all the cases and using it to turn this:

Yes, they are OFTEN in a pile on the floor.

This was NOT staged at all...*sigh*

You see Sam also loves to use the Thomas DVD cases

to build bridges and tunnels for his train tracks....see:

Welcome to my life.

Anyhow, one measly little dollar turned that big mess into:

Ahhhh, isn't that nice?

Now we have room to grow!

I know this cheapy little case won't last forever,

but I also know that for the $1 it cost me

I could buy 15 of them for the price of a 'nicer'

one that would still eventually get ruined

by my destructive kiddos!

Genius...I know.

Now I just need to do this for the Scooby and Barbie collections!

THE shoe

I should have known that this was forshadowing,

or forewarning, or SOMETHING!

Izzy was INSISTANT that I take a picture

of this little Polly Pocket shoe on March 6, 2011...

...the SAME shoe she stuffed FAR up her nose on March 18, 2011.

It took Amanda, Emily AND me to hold her down long enough

to get the durn thing out of her nose.

I swear she is the STRONGEST 2year old on the planet!!!

Monday, March 7, 2011

Dirt

OH how my kids love diggin' in the dirt. When we moved into this place the WHOLE backyard was dirt and a little dead grass...we have really made it a GREAT backyard, plenty of green plants, new sod, and even groundcover rocks around the plantings. Of course when Josh dug the little hole for a teensy tiny pond insert, who knew he was actually making a Pit-o-FUN! We of course drained it over the 'winter' and when it rained awhile ago some water stayed inside it and so of course Sam & Izzy practically filled up the plastic liner with rocks. *sigh* So when spring cleaning the backyard (In Feb...LOL) we took out the liner and cleaned it out. Josh needs to fix the shape of the hole and build up around the pond again. Izzy and Sam just can't seem to stop playing in this silly DIRT HOLE! grrrrr...

Crazy kids!!!

Now whenever they go outside they come back

in covered in dirt and MORE dirt!

Maybe Josh should just build them a

sandbox...and then when they play outside in it

I will just require them to be hosed off before

stepping foot in my house! :)

SMILE!?!

THIS is what I get when I tell Sam to Smile:

Nice.

I blame his sisters.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Curly Sue

I LOOOOOVE it when Izzy lets me do her hair...which is almost never. I literally have to SIT on her Sunday morning to get her hair under control, and even then she will NOT tolerate ANY clips, ribbons, bows, or pretties in it. *sigh* She has her best 'hair moments' right after she gets out of the bathtub, it is all curly and soft. SO PRETTY! I just had to capture it on film...since in most of my pics she looks like a street child.