Family Friday with Scenic Sunday

Hey there Friends! I'm combining posts today since I didn't post on Family Friday. Here are some pictures of a little family trip the kids, my friend Devon and I took on Thursday.




You can find more pics over on my Facebook page if you care to check it out. Happy Sunday!

Thrifty Thursday

aI love colors! Bright colors make me happy and so I try to brighten my world with colors all the time. You'll usually see happy colors painted on my nails and if you come to my home you'll see my happy, colorful glass collection in my kitchen. Here it is on my microwave:The turquoise blue tall glass and the green jar are from a store called Mercatoni Uno and the blue scarab was a gift from Egypt that my friend Devon gave me. The lamp, yellow glass, and orange glass are all Thrift Store Finds! Speaking of the lamp, it may not look all that impressive without being lit but once it is lit....It is gorgeous. Oh, this pictures doesn't do it justice at all! This one shows the magnificence a little better:

In real life this lamp will take our breath away! I love it so much that I am going to have to get it rewired when we move back to the States and 110Voltage!

I hope you liked my Thrifty post for this week. See you Domani for Family Friday!

Tidy Tuesday

This is a new type of post that I'll be posting every once in awhile. Spring is in full bloom here in Bella Italia, and the fresh season is making me itch to clean and organize! I was reading on a blog (Simple Mom I think, but I can't find the post now) about storing medicines. SO, since my bathroom organization was getting a little out of hand, I decided to find a solution! The recommendation was to NOT store your medicines in your bathroom. The moisture and temperature changes that occur in your bathroom cause the medicines to lose their effectiveness. It was recommended that medicines should be stored in your kitchen, away from the refridgerator and stove (because of temps again). WELL, that's where I had the problem. My kitchen is VERY limited in space. To show you what I'm talking about, here is the refrigerator side of my kitchen:

And here is the stove/sink/cabinet side of my kitchen:And that's all. There is NO cabinet space away from the fridge or stove! So then I started thinking, what the heck should I do? Well, I came up with an idea, found 2 gorgeous little baskets in the exact sizes I wanted and got to work. First, collect and sort/purge all the medicines in my house:This was AFTER the sort/purge. Then I separated the medicines into an adult basket and a kids basket:
The first aid kit belongs in my truck. I have no idea WHY it's been in my house for so long! I restocked it, made sure nothing was expired, and put it back where it belonged. THEN, I put the new medicine baskets away in their new home:

Yup! The baskets look AWESOME in my entertainment center! You can't even tell what they are really for when you see them. They just look like 2 nice little decorative baskets! I love it. So, while I was doing my medicine sort/purge, I opened up my spice cabinet above my stove and found a couple more medicines! UGH. And then I realized how MESSY that cabinet was! At first, it looked like this:And that is just the left side... imagine a mess on the right side just like that. This is what it looked like after I reorganized and threw away ALOT of crap:
AH! That is so much better! I actually know what I have, and I can FIND it when I need it! Yes, I realize I have a lot of teas, but I love a cup of tea before bed.

So there is my first Tidy Tuesday post! I'm hoping to do more in the future. I know there is ALWAYS something to clean and organize in this house of mine, with our 3 mess monsters living here. What do you all think? Where do you keep your meds? How does your spice cabinet look? Any advice on my cabinet? And Mom, I know you're going to comment on my alcohol bottle collection..... lol!

You Totally Rock

Hey friends. If you're still around and reading this, then YOU TOTALLY ROCK. A lot of life has been going on over here, taking up all my blog time and blog energy, so I haven't been blogging. But that doesn't mean I don't have a lot of different things that I WANT to blog about. So, for today's "I Made it Monday" here is a card using Creeper Sasha:I played around with my watercolor marker and OMS to create this vintage black and white look. I really like this technique, but I need to work on it some more.

On a personal note, the kids are on Spring Break this week and I'm off work. We're going to enjoy the sunshine, sleeping in, and going on some day trip adventures. We've already planted a few flowers out front, and today we're going to try to walk around a few little Italian towns and explore. We need to keep BUSY or we'll all go insane. Also, David has been in Afghanistan for just over 2 weeks now. We're still adjusting to everything but I think we're doing ok so far.

I'll be back soon for another entry. I have lots to catch you all up on!

I Made It-Spaghetti Cupcakes

I love cupcakes. I love that they are individual-sized servings of deliciousness! And I love that you can make them into ANYTHING.... like this:I used the idea from my copy of Hello, Cupcake! I made these last September... but since my creativity mojo is still so low, I haven't made anything recently to show you all. The meatballs are Ferrero Rocher candies, covered in strawberry jelly. They were incredibly sweet, but yummy! I have been experimenting with my baking a little here and there so I will probably have more to show you in the future; if I remember to take pictures before my creations get all eaten up! See you all on Thrifty Thursday!

Scenic Sunday

SNOW IN DECEMBER

I'm hoping for one more snowfall before spring officially gets here...

Family Friday-Christmas

Happy Friday! Since I took a break from blogging and didn't put up any pictures of Christmas, I decided that today is a good day for it! Here is the BEFORE picture of our little tree and the gifts.

Here is the AFTER picture! It's Mayhem!
And here are a few pictures of the kids. Sorry about the bad lighting. It was still dark that morning! Andrew was in shock that he actually got a mini laptop:
Ashton was OVER joyed about his Nerf gun:
Angel loved her ponies and her Nerf gun too:I hope you all liked this quick recap of our Christmas morning. I'll see you all on Scenic Sunday!