Recipes!

My friend Leann just redid her recipe site HERE - check it out!

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Sunset through my lens...

My favorite time of day is when the sun sets and makes the house glow...no photoshopping necessary when the light is like this:





I think I would love the sunrise too, but am never able to get out of bed early enough to see it...darn lazy nature...

Thanks to Jenny for this project!

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FREE Body and Soul

FREE subscription...click quick...these go FAST!

FREE subscription to Body and Soul

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Rose for the Poor (photo project)

Thanks for the project Jenny! What do I love through my lens?

Peonies, peonies, peonies! I LOVE them! I never knew what they were until we moved into our first house and they bloomed. I picked a few to take to a friend's house and she thanked me for the peonies. Now that I knew their name, I would never turn back. I love my "poor-person's rose" and hope to grow them forever and ever! I like this white (it looks yellow, but is more white in real life) so much, I tried transplanting it to our new place. I split it into 6 divisions, so hopefully at least one will be ok this spring!




Water...I love running water...I bought a pump from Lowe's on clearance this fall and am excited to get my first "water feature" going in the garden this spring. This photo is at the Sunken Gardens.




This crazy cat. I post so many pictures of the boys, that I feel Thor (the cat) deserves a turn...Here he is curling up in a mailing we were working on...




Here he is being rescued from the top of the cabinets where he was stuck...




Here he is guarding Stu...he guards baby T now sleeping outside his room whenever T is asleep and coming to get me if I don't hear T is awake.

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Something(s) CHEAP on my wall...

Here is Jenny's project...something on my wall...

Since we are new to this house, all the walls are still a bit bare, but I have a few things up. I was actually given a moratorium on pictures of the boys because there are way too many of them already :)

This is my paint project to cover up a bad paint job in the living room without painting the whole room. Alex says it looks like a pony, so I guess we will be painting the whole room!




My favorite $1.00 garage sale find...HERE is the project file (at the bottom)




My little collection of canvases and our "canopy" covering up the hole in the ceiling. If you look close you can see the water mark in the fabric from the still leaking hole...ugh...




Canvas of our favorite kitty Thor...anybody else's cat get grumpier with age?




...birdie on a branch...




...little collection of B/W stuff...




Another favorite garage sale find...50 cents...HERE is the project file

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Martha Stewart FREE!

Thanks to the thethriftymama.com....on a roll with amazing deals. Here's a Martha Stewart subscription for FREE!

This deal is dead...those went QUICK!

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More FREE stuff!

FREE DDP (otherwise known as Diet Dr. Pepper)

For the First 20,000 only! So hurry and get your coupon.

Go HERE and sign up.


Glade steal @ Walgreens HERE

THANKS TO THRIFTY MAMA for these deals!

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A New Favorite!

My FAVORITE new recipe blog...

365 Days of Crockpotting

amazing...AMAZING...there are literally 366 receipes for a crock pot...and they sound good...not boring old same old crock pot cooking cookbook material. Check it out!

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Deals! Free! Free! Free!

Free Ocean Spray at Target using this Target coupon and this manufacturer's coupon. Juice is 1.99 at Target, so with both coupons, you save $2.00 = FREE :)


Free Valentine's day cards using code "valentine" here (tip: I had to use firefox to get this to go through) This offer is for 6 free cards ($5.34 value) and automatically qualifies for free shipping. At the credit card input screen, just press "place order" and you do not need to give them a #.

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Senior Portraits

I did my first Senior shoot with Kyle this past weekend. Here is a favorite of Kyle and his Dad on the train platform. More photographs can be seen at allenaim. I am still looking for one more girl to do a free shoot, so if you are interested, please e-mail allenaimphotography@yahoo.com !



I also recently took some photos of the boys...more are posted here.

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Sites that inspire my nest...

I added some more of my favorites to the "sites that inspire my nest" links at the very bottom of the page. They range from design sites like styleberry and two straight lines, to photography sites and even a few gardening sites.


Check out a few and let me know what your favorites are by voting on the poll to your left under the photo of TRex and I! If I haven't listed your favorite, please leave a comment and let me know!

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Kitchen Makeover on a budget (plus other updates!)

Living room after getting some furniture, matchstick blinds, and paint touchups...



and in its previous condition...




The little hallway leading to the garage and basement...we just added paint, lighting and tile floor will be in the future...




The dining room was the nicest room in the house! We left the paint color, touched up the trim, added matchstick blinds and furniture and this room was good to go! (Those are my bulbs on the table being forced! They should be beautiful soon!)




Kitchen BEFORE...icky blue paint, no floor or ceiling...grossness everywhere...





The updated kitchen! Tile was $1 sq ft from Nebraska Furniture Mart...and everything else is mainly oops paint, craigslist finds (all appliances...including washer/dryer were $375) and lots of labor!

I shopped for about a month before we moved into the house for light fixtures. This particular light fixture above the sink was a special order item someone ordered and then returned. it retailed for $80, but was reduced to $10. The catch was that the metal parts were brass and quite ugly. I sprayed them black and then loved them! I found 2 on clearance and then an employee at the store told me he had two more he had purchased but they didn't work for him. So, he returned them and I purchased them!

The other lights in the house are all clearance items and the ceiling mount fixtures were only $5 on clearance. I searched several Home Depots to find matching lights and ended up with 8 of them. They also had a very ugly metal finish, but Kilz spray paint took care of it! In total, I spent $150 for lighting throughout the entire house....the lighting retailed at at least 6-700 dollars if not more!





My pretty $50 faucet and $35 sink! Thank you Lowe's!




Alex's amazing job on our Mondrian countertops!




My little computer area at the far end of the kitchen...




Media room BEFORE with a ton of work to be done....there had been a huge water leak...so we replaced the roof, ceiling floor, and painted it all. Window treatments and canvas photographs finish the room! A bit more work needs to be done here, but the bones are finished!




Media room AFTER with a floor and ceiling!





Downstairs bathroom that has mostly stayed the same. We added the medicine cabinet, new lighting, accessories and paint/hardware on the cabinet above the toilet. Tile will go on the floor in phase 2.

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Design on a Dime Makeovers...upstairs...

Here are some updated pictures of our new house. There are a few Before/After comparison shots.


The stairway up to the second floor with a Ventian plaster treatment, still waiting to be topcoated.




BEFORE upstairs bathroom with icky wallpaper...




This is out "until we redo the bathroom" redo for now...I painted over the wallpaper leaving an interesting texture without the horrible colors. My favorite thing in this room is the new faucet....$30 instead of $200....it was a clearance find. It's also a bar faucet instead of a bathroom faucet, but I like it much more than the other bathroom options!




The cabinet was primed and painted, given a light coat of poly and the hardware was sprayed with a normal black spray paint, and a hammered metal copper to get this look. All of the other metal items in the bathroom were painted to match.




The hallway upstairs which doesn't look too impressive, except that it was hideous blood red before...see the living room BEFORE for a taste of this wonderful color...The before and after of the frame/chalkboard is here.




The other end of the hallway with linen cabinet...





BEFORE master bedroom with peeling wallpaper and lead paint chips all over :)




Master Bedroom somewhat complete...at least the paint is finished!






Guest Room BEFORE




Guest Room After




The nursery stayed pretty much the same...all of the colors and decor are the same as in the old house here. One little change was in the wall display...this used to be a hideous spider web painting over the same blood red that was in the hallway. You could see it from the street at night...yuck!




BebeRed's room BEFORE...almost every room in the house had a bright color like this orange...this is the only one we left...at least for awhile...




Red's room for now...with most of the same stuff from our old house...

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