Framed Jewelry Orgainizer

So I've been addicted to Pinterest (again) and set my mind on finally making a framed jewelry organizer to hang in our master bath since I can never seem to get my earrings back to my jewelry box in the bedroom. I've read countless tutorials and I set my mind on buying a (nice) cheap frame from a thrift store, throwing some paint on it and calling it a day. Unfortunately, I searched many stores and was unable to find the awesome cheap frame like others did, so I sucked it up and went to Hobby Lobby armed with a 40% off coupon and found a frame that I love! I had a friend ask how I did it (Lauren this is for you!) so here goes.

First, the wire you use is extremely important, I read on a few blogs that the wire mesh you buy at craft stores (like the volcanoes you made in grade school) doesn't hold up that well to heavy jewelry, so I opted for chicken wire that you can buy at Lowe's/Home Depot. It was around $10, but there is enough wire left over that I can make five or six more frames. Everything else that I needed I had laying around the house. I'll apologize now for the pictures, I took them with my phone and didn't realize the quality/lighting wasn't the greatest until after I was finished.

• wire cutters or very very durable scissors
• tape measure
• staple gun,other tutorials call for a hot glue gun, but I thought staples would work better with the heavy wire.
• fabric cut in the dimensions of your frame (optional)
• frame (of course)
• paper clips, S clips, or ceiling screw hooks

Loved this frame!



Chicken wire

Measure the the wire to fit your frame and then carefully cut with the wire clippers. Be sure to give yourself about another half inch wiggle room to staple your wire to the frame.


Not super pretty, but it's going against the wall so I'm okay with it.

Staple all around the frame. Again, a lot of instructions that I read suggested the use of hot glue, but once I felt the heaviness of the chicken wire I didn't think the glue would hold as well as I needed it to. If you don't have a staple gun, get one, they come in handy very often!



 Next, do the same thing as the wire for your fabric. Be sure to pull your fabric tight so it doesn't wrinkle and look sloppy once it's hanging.




Ready to hang!

This is the part where I had to change things up a bit. My original plan was to use ceiling hooks (the screw with a 'C' end) to screw into the bottom of the frame to hold necklaces, but since I paid more than $3 for the frame I really did't want to mess on the pretty molding. I looked for S hooks at a few stores, but couldn't find any that were small enough to blend nicely with the frame so I cut a few paper clips and bent them into (kind of ) a C shape to hold my necklaces.



FINISHED!!

Now to find all my lost earrings so they can finally have a home out of reach of my four year old.

Hello PreK!

This Wednesday will be the one week mark that Ella has been in school an I still cannot believe it. Honestly, i'm not quite sure where the last 4 years have gone. The Prek program Ella is enrolled in meets every weekday for 3 hours a day, not horrible, but also not a ton of time to get much done sans child either. Being in school is a huge adjustment for her. Her entire life she has been able to pretty much do whatever she wanted (when to play, what to play, when to rest, etc), which is a huge change to having to sit down and do what your told to do - even though there is a very tempting basket of markers at arms length.




Ready to meet her teacher!



She wouldn't sit still long enough to let me get any pictures of her at her desk as evidenced by the picture above, it was the best I could get. The only problem that came out of open house was wondering about a uniform. We received a letter a few weeks ago requesting the only 'uniform,' they required was tennis shoes, so we decided to just have Ella wear normal clothes to school since she is only there 15hrs a week and she grows like a weed. At open house we were told the school really "would appreciate" all students in the Prek program to wear the school uniform, so afterwards Ella and I ran around like crazy trying to find pieces at multiple stores and finally found her size in two outfits. Prek shouldn't be this stressful. After picking Ella up the first day I noticed most kids weren't wearing the uniform, so we're sticking to the normal everyday clothes from now on.

First Day!!

She wakes up in the morning ready to go and excited about going to school, so it seems so far so good. Here's to hoping the rest of the school year goes just as well!

Desk Restoration Fun

We've been searching for a desk that would fit into the office or the nook upstairs for months. Everything we found that we liked had horrible reviews-mainly cheap construction- and we didn't want to spend the $$$ on a nice solid wood desk that we'd have to move in a year an a half. One day while searching Craigslist for something I stumbled upon a free desk that was located in our small little town (yippee for not having to drive 30min +) an I jumped at  it. I forward the link to Ian and we both agreed it needed work, but we were up for the challenge.

Ain't she a beauty? My first thought was that it would make a great sewing table, but the need for a office desk comes before my side hobby. We both agreed that if we could make the desk over for less than $50 we had made a good decision. Needless to say the first trip to Lowe's was a bit of a shock since we didn't have ANYTHING to start the project with, our ideal budget went out the window. I had been looking at photos online to get an idea on what to do and fell in love with a turquoise desk and surprisingly didn't have to talk Ian into doing it in that color. With our color picked, primer, brushes, sand paper, and tarps purchased we were ready to begin!

The desk was obviously old when we picked it up, but I didn't notice the little things that were wrong with it until we got it into the garage. The side panels were splitting and there were a few more cracks then we had thought. So another trip to Lowe's for wood glue, putty, and tools was in our future.

Finally everything was dry and we were able to prime the desk. Honestly, I thought this would be a weekend project, I was definitely wrong. Everything is a learning experience, right?




Oh, no!

 Clearly, this wasn't the beautiful color we had in mind. Although it screams South Florida, we didn't necessarily think it would work in our house. In our defense when I took the paint back to Lowe's to return it, the sales guy agreed that the paint didn't really match the sample, so I don't feel bad about hating it so much. We had to brainstorm what color to chose next since there was no going back to refinishing the natural wood, and decided on a washed grey and love it!

During the week while we were re priming the desk I noticed a neglected bookcase Ian has had for years that wasn't being used for much in our dining room, so since we had enough paint and primer we decided to have a matching office set. You can see a small part of the bookcase in the picture above, I didn't think about taking pictures of the before and after, but it was a mossy green color.




Finished!!

 So with some new polished silver drawer pulls, the desk is complete! I absolutely love it and it fits perfectly upstairs in the nook. The grand total for what we ended up putting into the desk was far more then we wanted, but still below what we would've spent getting one from a big box store. Plus, we get the satisfaction of knowing 'we did this!'






Can We Buy a Bird?

     These are our neighbors. Any any given day, you can walk down to the beach and see 10-20 pelicans flying over or even sitting by the shore line waiting for a stray fish or crab to jump out of the crashing waves. Ella has become fascinated with these birds, she'll walk behind them on the beach while trying to coax them to come home with her by offering to give them a cracker. Needless to say, none of them have taken her up on this request. We've debated buying her a beta fish since she has shown such an interest in marine life, but every time we suggest going to the pet store she always states she'd rather have a pelican. "One bird please, or two, ok, pleaaassseee??" I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't highly illegal for us to own one, Ian would have gotten Ella the one or two birds she desperately wants to call her own.



A fly over. They typically fly in a single file line, it's pretty cool.

 Mom came to visit!! This should probably be a separate post all together to celebrate the fact I never thought she'd come down, but I haven't been the best at updating, so I've gotta get everything in this one while I have a chance to sit down at the computer.




Ella and Mom at the beach

 With mom in town, we gave her the grand tour of our little town, which included the Loggerhead Turtle Rehabilitation Center, Blowing Rocks, Tiger Wood's House and Ian's workplace. Those pictures are on my camera an I currently can't find my fire wire to get them off so that's where they have to stay for now... gotta love technology.



See the speck of pink? Ella kept yelling at her to come back and to be careful. At least I know she listens to me.

We still pretty much spend most of our time at the beach, Ella has met some little kids around her age, which has been nice. Still hoping to get her into a Mother's Day Out program, but I'm just not sure we've found the right one quite yet. Some of our furniture finally gets delivered Saturday afternoon, so I'll hopefully have some new pictures of the house up soon. Hope everyone is having a great March!

Enjoying the Salt Life.

We Are Floridians!

     We have officially lived in Florida for three weeks. Time seems to fly and yet at the same time some days just drag by. We live in a little unincorporated area called Hobe Sound, which is very quite and laid back, especially by Florida standards. To the West of us is a state park and to the north and south is the Hobe Sound Wild Life Refuge, which means there is little to no development around. There are two small shopping centers housing a Publix,Winn-Dixie, Ace Hardware, Subway, a pizza place and a Chinese restaurant. That's it. The main road that runs to the beach has little shops, selling typical beach stuff and souvenirs. It's nice, but unfortunately we were a little spoiled by how close we were to EVERYTHING we wanted in Chattanooga. Just an idea of how spread out things are, I had to make a run to our bank and the closest location is about 25 minutes south from the house, so that day I planned to shop at the Lake Park Target since it was close to the bank. I left the house at 10:30 and only went to the bank and Target, then came home around 1... The time it takes to do anything definitely helps to pass the day.

     Ian loves his job, everyone at NextEra have been very welcoming to him and he has jumped right in with the work load. The only downside so far is that he has had to bring work home with him, which hasn't been the easiest thing for Ella who wants all his attention all the time when he is here. Ella is her typical rambunctious self. All she wants to do is spend time at the beach building sand castles and trying to catch the seagulls. We're hoping to get her into a local pre-k program in the next few weeks, and hopefully she adjusts quickly to it.  Finally feel like we're getting into a routine with day to day activities and it feels great. I'm trying a ton of new recipes, some are turning out better than others and my hope is to eventually get the better ones on here.

     Absolutely love the house. It's about double the space that we had in Chattanooga which is great, but it also mean more rooms to clean and more furniture we need to buy, so it still isn't exactly how we want it. There are still a handful of boxes upstairs that I promise, one day, to go through and put away.