Featuring the Work of Mr. Wonderful

Several years ago there was an article in Real Simple magazine about turning your personal pictures into art for your home. It looked like a great way to personalize your home, and it stuck with me. After Mr. Wonderful and I got married, I loved the idea of using a picture from our honeymoon for art. Unfortunately, the cost of getting a canvas made of your pictures is prohibitive. It generally starts at around $100. So I sighed and tucked that idea away for another day....

Until Mr. Wonderful surprised me one day! He had the canvas printed for about $45 at the FedEx store, made his own frame and stapled it around the back. It is such a cheery memory and picture. (especially on gray, dreary, Februrary 22nd days. I mean, gray, dreary days.) Look at the color of that water! Here's a close-up of Mr. Wonderful's handiwork. You could also have the color strech around the sides if you choose. Doesn't that fold look great?

Mr. Wonderful customizes on the cheap! I'm so thankful for my creative and handy husband!

Clearing out "Valuable Real Estate" (Thx, Nester!)

For how much we have gone to being an "e" society, there sure is a ton of PAPER in our lives. I am amazed at the sheer quantity that enters our house on a day to day basis. Mr. Wonderful is an electronics-oriented person, and he helps bring me into the 20th century. So when we started combining our files (read: PAPER) he wanted to get a scanner/printer/copier, scan our old papers in, and recycle the documents. What I heard? DECLUTTER! Yay! I'm all in.

As you can see, it is kind of a messy process. It took some time to get them all in, decide what we needed to still keep a paper copy of, and shred the old ones. But all our documents now fit in half a file drawer. It doesn't take long to keep up with the new documents either. I have a "to scan" file on top of our desk. Handy dandy. We try to do a good job of going through our mail regularly, and recycling things we don't want right away. But we fail a lot more than we succeed at that! Who am I kidding? You've seen my desk.

Here's what we DID keep:

• receipts for major purchases
• pay stubs for the current year
• retirement documents
• tax documents for the past 7 years
• Investment documents
• Some important medical/dental/vision benefit statements

The rest is stored on our hard drive (and backed up). We ended up using the ABC method for organizing our paper documents.

A is for Action. Action documents are anything that we need to take action on. To pay, to mail, etc.

B is for Basic. These are our basic working documents that we will add to over time. Pay stubs, bills, receipts, etc.

C is for classic. Classic documents are those that we don't use on a monthly basis, but are very important. Birth certificates, wills, deeds, etc.

Action documents are generally stored on our desktop file for easy access. Basic and classic documents are stored in our file cabinet or on our computer.

I got most of these ideas from other websites, like Want What You Have and Flylady.

As promised, here are a few pictures of Ava and her tutu:

Sassy!

Her hairpiece was done by my friend Nicole. She does beautiful work! I'll be sure to post her website link when it is up and running.

Pictures were taken by our friend Rhonda who has a little studio in her basement. Thanks Rhonda! I got the photos taken for Mr. Wonderful's Valentine's Day gift. Plus a photo printed mouse pad so he can see his little ballerina while he is at work.

This is the photo that convinced me to chop off my hair. Plus the little fist that likes to pull on it.

This one is my favorite.

I have to say that we don't usually go this girly with Ava, but it was a lot of fun. I didn't think that we'd get good photos, because the first few times I put the tutu on her it went right into her mouth, but they are so cute!

Where I'm Coming From

I thought it would be fun to give you a bit of background info on our little home. I find that it helps me to know where other bloggers are coming from when I know something about their life and how they think about their home.


Our home is a recovering bachelor pad. Mr. Wonderful bought it about six years ago when he was a single guy and didn't like apartment living. He had anywhere from 2-4 people living here at any given time as roommates. It was the epitome of a bachelor pad. There was the free, incredibly uncomfortable couch. All the walls were white(ish). There was, we shall say, no cleaning routine. (You might be able to delete the word "routine" from that last sentence). This was the case for about four-and-a-half-years.


I didn't see my husband's bedroom until about halfway through our engagement. I thought he was being protective of my purity, but it turns out he was a little sheepish about the state of his room!


Housekeeping had the potential to be the most problematic area in our marriage. We are pretty compatible in most areas. (In fact, in our pre-marital counseling, our pastor told us that we are "disgustingly compatible.") But while Mr. W sees a house as a place to live, I obsess over houses. I have this deep desire to create order in them. I am thankful to be able to say that God was faithful to teach us how to come to a middle ground in this area. He gave me the patience to build a home slowly so I could do so without being overbearing. He gave Mr. W love for me, and a desire to serve me, even when he doesn't understand my obsession!

Here is a picture from our Valentine's Day date! Mr. W cooked me dinner (fettuccine alfredo with chicken and chocolate peanut butter cake for dessert!) and we watched the Olympics, while some friends offered to watch Ava. It was so relaxing! Thank you, Mr. Wonderful!

Things are finally coming together for old Liz Lemon

Maybe I should just call this blog "Quotes From 30 Rock." It's so addicting!

I am delving into the world of Mod Podge! I wanted to start small to practice, as I am craft challenged. I saw some Mod Podged binder clips somewhere in blogdom, and I had some binder clips I wanted to pretty up! Maybe my craftlessness is turning.(things are finally coming together for old Ally Lemon...) I just looked through a magazine, found some cute backgrounds and cut them to fit the black part of the binder clips. Then I applied Mod Podge to the binder clip, and the back of the magazine paper, and stuck it to the binder clip. I started on one end and tried to smooth the paper to the edges as I went to the other side to prevent bubbles. I put a layer of podge over the top and let it dry for about 15 minutes, added the word on top using the same steps. I let it dry again and did one more coat for good measure.

I'm using the binder clips in our laundry basket to keep the canvas bag from slipping down (over and over and over...) so I used "laundry" like words.

It was a fun project to practice Mod Podging. There will be more Mod Podging in my future. For more fun projects, check out modpodgerocks.blogspot.com. It's hardcore!

Five Minute Free Kitchen Makeover

I could not believe the difference this made in my kitchen. How it looks AND how it feels. Look at this fridge. Look at it! It's ridiculous. It does have some wonderful things displayed. In the upper right hand corner you can see the picture I was talking about in my last post. "Paid in full" document from one of Mr. Wonderful's school loans. Ava's ultrasound picture. But I was ready for a change. So I took it all off! It gives me some breathing room. Some blank space in our home. Makes it feel less cluttered. It made me more accountable for making sure I have a place for everything. And it prepares us for what I ultimately would love to do with the fridge. Looking for the fridge in the link? Why, it's underneath the beadboard of course! (dying, dying, dying, I love this so much. She did it herself. So genius.)

But for now, I'm loving THIS!

Oh Heavenly Day!

Most of the time I feel like I can't get going on a lot of projects. It feels like there is a roadblock at every turn. I'm just not a naturally crafty person. I'm not a cutthroat organizer like my mom (seriously, you should see her work. Its ridonkeykong.) But yesterday the heavens opened, the angels started singing and I actually accomplished something.

I've been working on getting some pictures on the wall in the living room and the master. In the living room we have kind of a fun vibe going on, so I wanted to hang some more pictures from our honeymoon and just some fun times. One of the roadblocks I encountered was that a couple of the frames I wanted to use only had easel backs and not hooks. Thanks to mom (see?) I had a tool kit that included hardware for frames. So I used some tiny nails and put a hook on this bamboo frame that we bought on our honeymoon. (Antigua. Heavenly!) Almost 2 years ago. I guess its about time I got around to using it! On Young House Love, I was reading about how they use strips from a photo booth they rented for their wedding as art. Well, it just so happens that we have one of those from a wedding we went to a couple of years ago, and I had just taken said photo off my fridge when I was cleaning it. (Can you hear the angels singing?) Isn't it cute and fun? We had such a good time at the wedding and I thought it would add to the fun factor in our living room. Roadblock! The couple's (though they are lovely) name and wedding date are on the picture!

Well, in the said tool kit, there happened to be a roll of electric tape (heavens opening...) I personally like to call it "custom matting." This frame only had an easel back as well. I ended up using a swiss army knife to cut a long horizontal rectangle in the top of the back (it is basically cardboard) and hung it on the nail from that.

Not bad, eh?