Thankful Thursday

Good Morning everyone!  Today was so hard to get out of bed, I had no motivation to get going just too early today.  Blah.  But on the bright side its Thursday so that means we are over the hump and well on our way to the weekend!  This weekend and next weekend are going to busy weekends for me but filled with fun stuff!  Saturday we are going on a double date to Fogo de Chao, I LOVE that place, but I always eat too much so I have to be careful, all you can eat meat is very dangerous :)  I hope to share with you a recipe for their amazing cheesy bread soon...its so good I want to try and make it at home.  We also have a crawfish boil at our neighborhood and I'm super excited about this.  I have only been to one crawfish boil and it was a lot of fun so I cant wait to hang with the awesome neighbors and eat some crawfish!

(these are still alive, they look nasty but taste really good)

I also hope to get some more yard work done since its going to be a beautiful weekend.  We did do some work last weekend, which I'm going to share with you next week, but there is still more that needs to be done.  With all the rain we have been having its a great opportunity to plant.

(this is from a few years ago, but the bluebonnets are out and they make me so happy)

Which brings me to Thankful Thursday...today I am thankful for all the rain we have been having.  My grass was dead and crunchy, now its (mostly) green and lush.  My poor pitiful pecan tree was all but dead and my husband ready to pull it out of the ground, but now it has green buds sprouting all over it.  I did have a few causalities of the drought last summer (one of the worst in Texas history) but we bought some new plants to replace them with that will hopefully last through the summer.  Perfect timing in getting all the planting done also because we had some great rain on Tuesday.  While I hate being out and driving in the rain, I love what its doing to the landscape all around.  In the winter I miss the green and cant WAIT for it to come back in the spring.

Its also why Im posting all these bluebonnet pics, because without the rain you cant have awesome patches of bluebonnets, which is the Texas state flower by the way.  I love bluebonnets, I tried to plant some in our yard last year but they died because of the drought, but Im trying again this year.  I want to do a professional photo shoot in the bluebonnets one of these days, I just love those pictures and cant wait to have a great one of my little family.   Even Oreo loves being outside, you cant see how pretty green it is because its in black and white but its his happy face so its all good!

HAPPY SPRING EVERYONE!  Project Housewife Out!

Glitter-tastic

Who watched the series premier of GCB on ABC?!?  I love Kristen Chenowith (is that how you spell her name) and knew this show would be funny because A)its set in Texas and we all know Texas is the best state :) and 2) it has a great looking cast.  Your probably wondering what does GCB stand for...well I was wondering through the whole show too until the very end when they threw a line out at you and you have to be stealthy to catch it "Good Christian B****es" and let me tell you the show was every bit about that.  I like to think I am a religious person but I have to laugh at the stereotype that southern women have about Christianity and this show plays up that stereotype and its hilarious.  If you didnt catch it Sunday night get your butt on Hulu and watch it, you'll thank me later.

Ironically I have a glitzy post for you today (GCB ladies are covered in sequins, hense the irony) and it cost me a whopping $15 yay!  Let me first start be reminding you of the horror that is the fish eggs/water beads that had formally inhabited my glass vases.  Check out my post here for the full story.  To remind you of the ugly here it is, oh and I was oh so fortunate to find nasty MOLD in one of the vases so GROSS on those nasty fish eggs and I will forever be calling them.

It looks so sad doesnt it?!  Well I thought of adding rocks to this to fill it back up but rocks are expensive and I was going to need a lot since these are larger vases.  Then I ran across this pin on pinterest.  Whoever pinned the project originally was not a good pinner, they pinned the main page so I had to go through each post to find where the post was, which thankfully an excerpt was posted in February which had a link to the original post so it didnt take too long to find the awesomeness that is the glitter project.  The original post was for ornaments but you can easily use it for anything glass.  To see the original post check it out here, also they have the original tutorial so I will let them show you how its done but I have some additions below that might help.  The site is Plum Adorable and the site is plum adorable (pun intended lol)

 The pledge cleaner is the one for title and vinyl floors not the hardwood one.  The original post shows the really fine glitter but I didnt want to spend $8 for one container of glitter so I went to the craft section (instead of the scrapbook section) and found this bigger sized glitter for $4/bottle, much better price and I got black and purple to make a pretty mix.  Confession, my eyes are always bigger than what I need and I have 80% of the glitter left, so even though you think you may need the giant bottles, you will probably only need the smaller ones.

 Be careful when you pour in the cleaner if you get it on the outside it gets really sticky and grimy so make sure and wipe it off asap...and if it gets on the counter same goes there this stuff isnt really meant to be on granite.

 Put the glitter in right away...I wasnt sure if you needed to let the cleaner dry or not, I assumed not and that seemed to work for me.  See my glitter mix isnt it pretty?!  I used only like 3 spoons of the glitter and it covered the whole vase, it was fun to swirl it around and watch it cover everything.

 Shot from the inside, I covered everything as much as I could, you cant really see here but on the inside it looks like from the outside you will be able to see right through the vase...

 But see here you cant it looks awesome!  For my glitter project this was for the flowers so from here is my own project spin off!  I had extra flower foam pieces from when I made the flower box so I cut those down to fit the vase.  Cutting foam is super easy you just need a regular knife and it cuts like butter...easy peasy.

 I hot glued this to the bottom of the vase but with all the glitter that really was useless since it just came off.

 I added all the flowers and now it looks awesome because they stay put, they look fuller and they are in a vase that sparkles...literally!

I think the black and purple glitter mix was great it gives the vase a little more dimension which I was looking for and it didnt cost very much and that is almost the best part.  The best part being I love glitter :)

 See how nice they look on our pretty dresser!  I am so happy with how this project turned out and it took less than 20 minutes to do both.  What do you have around your house that you can glitter-fy?!

Project Housewife Out!

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Come Sit by the Fire

You know when you stare at something long enough you start thinking what you can do to change it?  Well thats my fireplace mantle.  I have my awesome Thomas Kinkade painting that I love and was so excited to get and I keep trying to find ways to make it pop.  First I had just pictures up there, then added my "Dream" metal art, but still felt like something was missing.  Take a look at the before.

The "Dream" isnt there yet but I put it in the middle of the mantle.  Ok so see it looks like its missing something.  I thought to add flowers up there but hadnt found the right thing yet.  I needed to go check Marshalls Home Goods for some baking stuff but decided to check their vase and flower section to see if they had anything good.  Well apparently Marshalls is my new favorite store for home goods because I find some great stuff there.  I was looking around and found a great white vase for a little more than I wanted to spend at $20, but honestly $20 isnt that bad when you think about vases.  The flowers were 2 stems at $6 a piece which isnt bad either.  So take a look at the after, what do you think?

I still feel like it was missing something so I took my white bath and body works pineapple candle holder and put it in the place of the pictures on the other side.  I cant really decide which I like best, so what you think, pictures or candle...or neither?!   Here is the mantle with the pineapple.

Pretty cool vase right...it was a hidden treasure and Im super excited to find it.  I think the pineapple is too short but I cant think of something better to put there.  I love the flower addition though it seems to make the picture look brighter.  I know the picture doesnt do it justice but believe me in person it looks great.

What small additions have you dont lately that you love and didnt cost too much?  Those are the best kind to me :)

Project Housewife Out!

Product Update

Happy Monday everyone!  Well today is actually Sunday but seeing as I start my new job monday Im pretty sure Im not going to be able to write a post tomorrow so Im scheduling this one yay!

You may remember (ok probably not) one of my earlier posts about a floral arrangement (see that here).  In that I showed you what I THOUGHT was a great product...the water beads that expand to be like the glass beads for floral arrangements but were much cheaper.  So this is what it looked like to start with.  So pretty and big and shiny!

Well after 3 months they have wilted to pathetic-ness.

PATHETIC!  The package did say you COULD add water periodically but sheesh I didnt think it would wilt to this my goodness!  So I have decided to go back to the tride and true glass beads (with a 40% off coupon in hand of course) and make this floral arrangement beautiful once more!  So a cautionary tale to all of your, water beads for floral arrangements that you want to keep out all the time, no good.  They are probably a good idea for weddings though since they stay pretty and glossy for about 1 month.

Have you had any products that you thought were awesome to only turn out terrible?

Project Housewife Out!

Blooming Box

Today's project is a continuation of the pallet art I did last week.  I actually had 2 pallets and only used one for the project so I had a great idea to make a flower box.  I never really loved what I had for under the TV

And for a long time I have been thinking of doing flowers under the TV, I was just having a hard time finding the perfect container for the flowes.  I though of using a make travel trunk but they werent long enough, then I thought of using glass but that really wasnt the look I was going for and then the pallet art.  You can see the full article here.  Once the art was done I asked Joe my handy man husband to make me a flower box.  I wasnt thinking anything fancy, just four sides and a bottom but he decided to make it cute and give it an angle.  Now you have the back story, below is the finished project.  Ok to be honest, I have done MUCH more primping to this since I took this picture because lets be honest the green things are a little CRAZY but i was just so excited I had to share it with you!

Here is what you are going to need for this project:

• Wood (cut to your specifications, mine was 4" tall by 20" long)
• nails/hammer
• saw that can cut angles if you want the fancy box, otherwise just a regular saw
• paint, if you want
• flowers $30
• flower foam $5

Total cost for this project was $35 and that was just flowers and the flower foam, all the other items I had at the house!  How awesome, since this would cost over $100 at the store!!

First step is to cut the wood to your measurements.  Make sure you also cut a piece to fit into the bottom so you dont have the foam fall out if you pick up the box.  You can kinda see the angles here, but Joe actually had to redo this because the angles werent quite right, so not to preach to the choir or anything but measure twice, cut once.  Luckly we had plenty of wood to work with so no harm no foul.

Then nail all the pieces together.  I would nail the long pieces to the bottom piece first then close it off with the two smaller side pieces, but whatever you feel more comfortable with do that.  If you like the look of the wood and dont want to paint then skip this step, but if you want to whitewash your wood follow me to the next step :)

For this step you need your box, paint, water and a paint brush.  This is probably not the correct way to white wash but I like the way it turns out so this is the right way for us.  I had a gallon of white paint with about 1/4 left.  To get it the thin, whitw wash consistancy, we filled up the gallon with water about 3/4 full and then mixed the paint with the water. 

Now all you have to do is apply the paint to your project.  Easy peasy!  Let that sit overnight to make sure you dont get paint on anything then you can move on to the next step...adding the flowes!  Before you get started on the flowers, add the foam

Joe cut mine down a little so it fit perfectly in the box, if you did just a square box then you probably wont have to do this but with the angled box it does help to cut it do you have a perfect fit and it doesnt move around in the box. Once the foam is in start adding the flowers.  I bought bunches of blowers so I actually had to cut mine apart first into individual stems so if you bought bunches great, you probably saved money you just have to add one extra step.

 I added all my big flowers first then filled in the spaces with my smaller yellow fillers.

So what do you think, pretty easy right?!  Oh and I added a butterfly, because they are cute and I can so there!

I think it looks so much better than what I had before and it was pretty cheap too!  What do you think, is there somewhere you could put a cute little flower box?


**Update** I decided that I needed to show you the primped version of the box since the longer I look at the above picture the more I realize it doesnt do the box justice**

Much better right!
Project Housewife Out! 

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