Out of my Comfort Zone with Fashion {Wearing Patterned Florals}

Hey Lovies!

I ordered me some new clothes from Old Navy and Woman Within, I love the length of their tops.
I've tried Walmart but they just don't have the length and I am completely self conscious about my tummy hump.

The first post is some of the clothes from Old Navy. This outfit was COMPLETELY out of my comfort zone for many reasons. First, it's a tank top. Second, it's a patterned floral, well technically I think that's two things. Thirdly, the shorts are HOT PINK.

First, the no sleeves thing, I'm a big girl and with that comes big upper arms which I normally hide with sleeves.

Second, floral and patterned, reference the big girl thing above and you HAVE to be careful with florals. You don't want to look like you're wearing your grandma's moomoo. Depending on the type of pattern, the busyness of pattern and the amount of fabric needed for the size it can be overwhelming like your grandma's moomoo.

Thirdly, the HOT PINK shorts, enough said. I normally wear dark colored or neutral bottoms, helps camouflage the bum.

I love Cassie over at Hi Sugarplum, and her fashion sense, so I decided to take the plunge. I thought, 'what the heck? I can always return it.' So I ordered enough for free shipping, I mean seriously that's like an extra shirt on clearance, why wouldn't I order enough for free shipping.

I love it! I think the secret is to get medium sized florals with a neutral background, it's not too busy and isn't competing with itself. The hot pink shorts are really what surprised me. I really thought I'd be returning them, but it's almost a neutral in itself being one whole solid color!

I paired it with my Havianna's from Nordstrom, I love them!

I am so not a model, I don't know how to look and feel like a complete dork. Does anyone else feel like that?

Much Luv,
Michelle

Kitchen Spruce Up {or I FINALLY found my antique tins for the backsplash!!}

Hey Friends!

So to continue on with the Kitchen Spruce Up, I knew I wanted a back splash (other than the 3" lip of the formica counter tops). Andrea over at Queen B & Me gave me this idea many moons ago (this momma is a gem of shabby chic decorating you must check her out!). So for years now I've been on the look out for AFFORDABLE architectural salvage tin, umm, yea Shell I don't think those words go together  AT ALL. But I finally hit the jack pot at a shop in Galveston I always frequent when we are there, $3 per tin! I really wanted thirty six pieces for the future "big update" but they only had enough for twenty one, so I'll figure out something when that time comes.

All I'm going to do is wipe it down, clear coat it and then we'll attach them to the wall. As I posted on my Instagram I love the rust and patina #rusthasmyheart LOL!

I never really thought I would be able to find the tins without using majority of my budget for them. After the paint job, I knew something would have to be nixed as it was more expensive than I thought. But thanks to my new found patience and not jumping the gun for a "it'll work for now" back splash I was able to get these beautifies. I just wish I knew their stories.

Now how long will it take us to get them up? #procrastinators

Much Luv!
Michelle

Beautiful Mondays {Mani Monday}

Hello Luvies!

On Mondays I'm going to post about something that goes with beauty, hence the name Beautiful Mondays.

This week is manicures, Mani Monday! I do my own manicures, don't get me wrong, I would absolutely love to have professional manicures done. But two things always stop me, money and time. The money because around here it's a $20 bill for the very basic of any manicures. You can forget shellac for that, shellacs go for the same price as a set of acrylic nails. I just can't bring myself to pay that every week, and yes I am that hard on my nails. And time, we all run short on time, but it's the same reason I quit getting fake nails and my eyebrows waxed. It's never quick, there is the wait time at the salon and then the time to do it.

I pretty much just want color and I found an awesome set that takes about ten minutes to complete. I love love LOVE Fuse GelNamel, I believe that Sally Hansen, maker of SensatioNAIL makes it, but not positive. The whole starter kit, a color, cleaner, wipes AND light, is around $15 (Walmart is the cheapest but Walgreens is a close runner up). You can also get loads of different colors for around $10 per bottle. If you're a person that loves a color and will wear it until the bottle is empty than you could get away with a bottle per year. I'm also really lazy when it comes to application, my criteria, a few steps as possible, this fit the bill. There are three steps from beginning to end, while most others had three steps just for polish alone, naw, momma ain't down for that! You prep your nail bed, polish and light cure, bam done with that nail! I can seriously do my whole manicure in about ten minutes, I prep the next nail while the previous one is light curing allowing no down time.

These last me about a week maybe a little  less, but again I am VERY hard on my nails. I do computer work all day, come home and do more computer stuff personally, cook and clean dinner, all that good stuff. But in all actuality I've researched the other ones that are at a minimum more than double the price and the reviews all state they last about a week also. I've got six colors and just decided to play around a bit. Tell me what you think about my mani - usually I'm just a plain all nails one color gal.

So what do you think? I'm actually really digging it, which surprises me.

Next Monday will be waxing your own facial hair. Oh yea, I'm going there!

See you on Wednesday!

Much Luv,
Michelle

Thrifty Finds for the Holidays

Hey Friends,

I had been staying out of the thrift/vintage/antique stores lately because we've been remodeling a TON, and all funds have been going to that. Although it was tuff at times I look at my kitchen and entertainment center and it's totally worth it.

BBBBUUUUTTT, for Christmas I got some money so I decided to treat myself. I usually pay bills that come up or redo something else. Plus my aunts were in town and they love thrift stores as much as I do, so it didn't take much arm twisting. Here's what I found:

This is not all the finds but my most favorite ones.

 



And here they are staged

 

 

The top picture is probably 85% of what I found.

 

The frog is for the last stain glass I need for my kitchenette windows (which I changed the curtains for those again - more to come later). When I was preggers with Buckeroo he would sit like a frog facing out. Little dude did that for the last month of my pregnancy, so long that when he was born and we would put him to sleep his little legs would pull up just like a frog's legs would. Hence his nickname, Frogman, and my first (of eleven tattoos) is a frog (yes I was 29 before I got my first tat). It's actually plastic beads melted that one could do in their oven but I don't care, details smetails - it's a frog. It was a whopping $.50, lol!

 

The glass globey thingy (yea I'm pretty technical, ha!) I've always wanted one but when they first came out they were too expensive but this baby was $1. I've always wanted a terrium, I now have one, it is just lacking the baby dino that Cor is willing to part with for a little something extra.

 

The green bottle is just really a pretty cool bottle that I couldn't put back when she told me it was $3. It's from about the mid to late 70's (I'm thinking), one side says juice the other says water. I really think it will be an awesome flower vase, but until I get some flowers it looks pretty nice as is.

 

The celluloid grapes, of how I love thee, let me count thy ways. Yes, I know total 60-70's, I just need some shag carpet, velvet drapes and a swag light. ok, this baby was NO thrifty find it falls under the vintage category. I almost didn't get it due to the price BUT they had a 20% off sale so it ended up being $28. I picked it up and put it down, gosh a dozen times, but y'all it has all the colors of my fabric for the dining room roman shades (yeah, y'all don't know about those either, however I didn't take a picture of the fabric before giving it to my seamstress). Truly it's fabu y'all and I'm telling you it makes me smile every time I pass them, which is a lot since it's in the dining. Since I got rid of the eat in kitchenette it's the only eating place and I have to walk through there to go to the stairs to go to bed.

 

The little wine glasses are hard to see but they have the same gold wheat pattern that my dishes have that my mother in law gave me that was her wedding china (yes I use the 'good china' every day). It's hard to find that pattern so when I do find pieces I snatch them up, these were $2 for the pair.

 

The rest was some miniature ornaments for the Christmas tree in my office, some things for my parents that could host as Mr. & Mrs. Claus' house they decorate so amazingly (yes I am biased but everyone tells me that). A cute Avon cologne bottle that looks like a Christmas tree, a rose pattern ornament, and a BRAND NEW pair of Bob's iridescent sparkle shoes (so excited!). The total came to about $50, which is more than I would normally put in as thrifty but I found some great deals!

 

Dagmar over at Dagmar's Home is have a "Thrifty and Vintage Link up" party and I'm going over to party it up, you should come over and see some of the great stuff there!

 

Much Luv,

Michelle



some domestication going on up in here!

Hey friends

Every year our PTO has a cookie exchange. This will be my first year to participate in it and I took some liberty to stretch what "Cookie Exchange" meant. Cookie - Candy - they're both sweet and desserts so I decided to go with candy. I found an awesomely easy soft chew caramel candy recipe from Your Homebased Mom. It was wonderfully easy and people that don't even care for caramel said that it was awesome and delicious. I've never made any candy in my life, much less caramel. I will say patience, patience and more patience - oh! and definitely a heavy gauge pan, mine started to scorch before I could get to 243 degrees but it still set up wonderfully. Here is the finished product:

 

I doubled the recipe to make sure I had enough for the exchange for generous portions and my hubby is the "Caramel Monster". I ended up with 133 pieces, although if I had uniformly cut them I would have probably gotten at least 150. It was late and it hadn't cooled completely but it was midnight and this momma has to get up at 6am for work and Buckeroo for school, so I spooned them.

Hope everyone's holiday is going amazing, mine is and I'm so excited about getting back to blogging this year. I'm been declining volunteer requests, offers, etc to make sure that there is time for my family and myself. At first it felt weird and completely uncomfortable, but now that I'm starting to have some reward for that weirdness and uncomfortableness it's nice and I will continue to do it, more on that later.

Much Luv,
Michelle

Friday Fanatics {or i think I'm loosing my mind}

Good Morning Lovlies!

Thank Goodness it is Friday! Although I don't know why I say that because the weekends around here are just as crazy. I guess at least it's one less crazy (work) to deal with.

We had meet the teacher last night, and I just know that we are going to have a great year! I'm sad because I'm loosing my room-mom bestie  - we've been together since kinder! But we're great friends outside that and PTO Board Members so I'll get to see her a lot anyways :) Cor's teachers seem very sweet, down to earth and gentle. I know that's a strange description but he is really sensitive and shuts down with gruff people, so my heart is soothed.

We have our first scrimmage without coaches on the field football this weekend, so how I'm not sure that I will survive this weekend. We have to be at the field at 9:30am, the big opening day stuff from 10-12pm, game at 12:30pm and I then have concession duty at 2pm for a maximum of 2 hrs. If you're quick at math that equates to about a 7 hr day at the ball field, but I get my concessions over with.

Cub Scouts is been crazy with all the stuff I have to do this year, but at least I have about a one to two week reprieve until leaders meeting. Which I am so very thankful for since I need to get Cor ready for school MONDAY! My sweet boy is a THIRD grader and they are changing classes this year - say what?! yes my baby is a) in THIRD grade and b) CHANGING classes!

Operation  Birthday 9.0 has suffered greatly this year, I am just NOW getting the invites done! We have two weeks till his party! I've never been so far behind, thank you sweet baby Jesus, that he wants a party at the local Incredible Pizza (although my budget doesn't think so, my sanity does). I have to make the cake, as I have always made his birthday cakes. Although in all seriousness he doesn't care one way or another, so that baby night get bought this year. It was totally different when he wanted to make the cake with me and we picked out all the décor togather. He's not into that so much anymore. With the package we chose I'm not doing party bags (each kid gets a $5 game card, a game of lazer tag and 1 hr of unlimited video game play, buffet and drink) plus I would imagine the mommas would be grateful to not get a bunch little toys. I'll be sure to post pictures when it happens.

I've been so blessed with my PTO Board friends the end of last year and the beginnings so far this year. Things have been crazy and they love me anyways and let my craziness slide. I promise ladies I will get better and be there more often! Thank y'all from the bottom of my heart for being so understanding and loving.

Today is the last day of summer for us (besides the weekend but I don't count that because we would be off anyways) and I'm wishing I had taken the day off to do something extra fun with my Cor.

I hope everyone has a great day, weekend and beginning of school!

Much Luv,
Michelle

Monday Mania {or week recap of 08/11-16/14}

Hey Hey Hey Guys!!

How is everyone doing? Have your littles started back to school yet? My not-so-little little starts a week from TODAY! Say what?! When did summer even come much less go?!

We've had a really nice summer to be truthful. Although with football our summer really ends the beginning of August as camp and practices start the second week.

I meant to have this recap up Monday morning, but being the last week before school starts I have a dozen fires in the oven. I should be sewing hanger helpers, but I want to keep my streak going, lol!

Without any more yacking here's what filled our week!

 A huge, MEGA-HUGE, goodwill drop off.

#noshamesoproud

 

Rock out Job Momma!

 

 My car is usually too nasty (yes nasty) for me to every want to post a picture. BUT this weekend I actually vacuumed it after cleaning it out for the Goodwill trip. I have no shame in saying that I will gladly pay my $35 to the car cleaning place, but I have a patience problem so I grabbed the shop vacuum, rag and cleaner.

 

One of my BFF's, Jeri, she is my sister truly.

#solucky

 

We had a girls night out, I can think of two I've had in my entire life, this was the second. We had dinner and closed the mall down! I used to be the 'shop till you drop' gal of my friends - but I have met my match, lol! I got some really nice stuff, Jeri has an amazing eye for fashion, and what fashion that looks good on people. I walked blisters on my feet!

Photobomb Daddy!

We had our first real scrimmage against another league team this weekend. We had two actually, we won both. Cor plays both offense and defense, he's a beast, he got one sack on the quarterback, two recoveries and two stripping the ball. I don't know much about football to be honest, but I love our coaches. Yes, one I'm partial to, Jeff is the defense coach, but in all seriousness, our head coach has taught the boys how to play as a true team, to not compete with one another but to compete together against the opposing team.

 Complete total pinterest FAIL!

 

A partial pinterst fail.

 



The weekend was full of pinterest major fails and a partial fail. The partial fail wasn't too bad or even a fail per say, just not what I'm envisioning.




 

What were you up to this week and weekend?

 

Much Luv,

Michelle