Frosty Potter - The Snowman Who Lived

Y'all.

Things went crazy today in Alabama. It snowed! It's snowed here a couple of times before {less than once a year} but you Northerners would probably call it frost or a dusting of snow.

No, today was serious snow. When it snows down here everything shuts down completely. No one dares to drive because there are so many hills and no one knows what to do. So Southerners do what we always do when "severe weather" strikes - stock up on bread and milk and hole up in our homes until it goes away and gets warm again.

But I was brave and I tried to find winter clothes for us {I ended up in canvas shoes with no socks} and Maggie and I got creative and built the world's greatest snowman.

So without further ado, I'd like to offer you greetings from Alabama, The Cutts Family and Frosty Potter - The Snowman Who Lived!!

The Mustache Bandana

Happy New Year!

It's been a while. Hope you had an excellent holiday season. Despite being sick for a month we still managed good times. Santa didn't bring me a new computer (so I'm still blogging from my iPod) but I'm working on it. So many things to show you!

In the mean time, I thought I'd share the gift I made for my little brother. He rides a Harley so I thought a nice bandana would help keep the bugs out of his teeth when he rides. It's a bit of a gag gift but I figured every rider needs a nice full mustache.

To make your own simply fold a bandana in half (I bought mine at Hobby Lobby) and make a stencil of a mustache from freezer paper. Iron it on about an inch below the fold so that it sits right where your upper lip is. Paint inside the stencil and then peel off. Easy peasy!

It almost makes me want to take up bike riding. Too bad I'm a total chicken. I think I'll just stick to arts and crafts.

Garden Fails and Hope for the Future

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Miracle-Gro. All opinions are 100% mine.


Ever since we bought our house in 2007 my husband has taken great care of our yard.  He's created a small little garden that he works on with the kids and has been in charge of keeping things pretty.  Except for this year.  He's trying to graduate with his PhD this year and has been at work non-stop.  So that leaves me to pick up the pieces.  The horrible, ugly, weedy, overgrown pieces of our once beautiful yard.
Keeping up with my yard is no easy task and let me tell you - I.  Am.  Terrible.

 

EXHIBIT A

 

Clearly I cannot be trusted with hedge clippers.

 

The saddest part is I tried.  I really tried.

 

I can't even look my neighbors in the eye.  It's too humiliating.

 

 

I think my biggest problem, besides chasing two kids while gardening, was that I had no idea what I was doing.  Gardening isn't particularly hard to do but you really need some knowledge to make things work.  So I was really excited to recently learn about Gardenieres.

 

 

Gardenieres is a really cool website where professional gardeners from different regions give you tips and show you instructional videos on basically every gardening topic.  Clearly from my *ahem* gorgeous shrub pruning job, I need to be spending a lot of time over there.

 

I've officially decided that my husband has to fix the shrub that I hacked to death because I just can't look at it anymore, but I haven't given up on gardening yet.  My grandmother used to have the most gorgeous rose garden in Berkeley, California and people would drive past her house on Hopkins Street just to see it.  I have one rose bush that gives me beautiful flowers randomly but lately it is a mess.  The bush is being choked out by Poison Ivy and I have never once pruned it for fear of destroying it like I did my shrub.  So my first gardening project form Gardenieres is to learn how to fix my poor rose bush and make my Nonie proud. 

 

Gardenier, Gina Ilipoulous has a great video detailing just what I need to do to get started. 

 

It looks like all I really need are leather gloves, pruners and Miracle-Gro LiquaFeed to help revitalize the poor sad bush.  Luckily it is still very warm here in Alabama so this will be a good Fall outdoor project for me.  Hopefully implementing these few tips will encourage my roses to bloom bigger and better than they ever have before.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll have a famous front yard like my Nonie did.  Baby steps...
Are any of you working on any fall garden projects?  If so be sure to check out Gardenieres for tips and follow the Miracle-Gro Facebook page where you can chat with other home gardeners from your region and around the world.
I'll be back in a few weeks to show you what I accomplish with my new knowledge!  In the mean time I must know, have any of you ever had any epic gardening fails like my shrub pruning?  Do tell.  I need to feel less sad and reading other horror stories will definitely put a smile on my face.

 

Plants vs Zombies Completed Zen Gardens (PvZ)

First of all I'd like to start off by acknowledging the randomness of this post.  No, my blog did not get hacked by a teenage boy.  I really am a grown woman who plays video games.  Let me explain - I have the game Plants vs. Zombies on my iPod touch.  It's my go to boredom buster game.  Also, it's super addicting.  Just play it.  You'll see.  It's fun puzzles with zombies and dancing sunflowers.  It's great.

For a while now, I've been trying to get the achievement on the Zen Garden portion by getting one of each plant.  The only problem is I've been driven to near insanity trying to figure out exactly which plants I needed for complete gardens because there are more spots than plants and not all plants are part of the Zen Garden portion. 

Long story short - This is the one time Google has failed me because NO WHERE have I been able to find screen shots of completed garden for the iPod and iPhone version of this game.  The interwebs needed this post that apparently only I can provide.

So for all those teenage boys and 30 year old moms like me out there who have been searching and searching I can finally say I've achieved a full Zen Garden and here my dears are your screen shots!!!

 

 

You're Welcome.

 

 

Now, for you non PvZ people, I hope we can still be friends now that you know I'm a nerd.



Vintage Revivals Room Makeover Submission

Okay, before we get started with this post I need to clarify one thing -

 

SOURCE

 

It's true, I promise.  I SWEAR! 

 

See my For the Home Pinterest board?  Awesome right?

 

Before I cause you to doubt it let me explain a few things.  John and I got married our senior year of college and we just needed to live on love so we didn't have much more furniture than a few dumpster dive finds and hand me down junk.  We graduated and moved across the country to Alabama where John went to graduate school and we bought our first house and had two great kids.  But it turns out that houses and kids are expensive and we never got around to buying real furniture.  My decorating budget is $0 annually and my house reflects it.

 

Mandi from Vintage Revivals is doing the most incredible giveaway in the history of blog world and I am here to beg for her to come to my place and wave her Mandilicious wand, and magically transform my living room.  So today I show you my shame in the hopes of a grand reward.  Don't judge me when you see it.  Okay, you can totally judge.

 

So let's rip off the band aid and get on with the embarrassment, shall we?

 

When you get to my front door you see my herringbone door mat and think, "Oh, that's a bright fun little mat.  The inside must be cute and crafty too."

 

 

And then you step in and see this...

 

 

And think this...

 

I know!  It's terrible!

 

But imagine how I feel!!

 

This is probably the saddest first world problem there is...

 

{yeah.  i totally made my own meme's.  i want this that bad}

 

 

 

"Wait... was that a BED in your living room?"

 

 

 

Uh.... yeah... let me explain...

 

When Jackson was born {2 years ago} we brought the mattress up from the basement for Grandma Cutts to sleep on.  We realized how nice it was to have an extra "couch" to sit on and it stayed.  For two years!  It's so hard to let go of extra seating even if it looks like an eternal slumber party and since I have no $$ I haven't even been able to try and disguise it as a day bed.  So instead everyone who visits says with squinty suspicious eyes, "A bed... who sleeps there?"  And then I have to explain the whole second "couch" thing so they don't think that we aren't in love or something because we totally are, we just love our couch/bed.  So embarrassing.

 

 

This is our kid corner.  The kids have completely taken this space over and while it's nice to have toys downstairs for when friends play I would love to have adult space that doesn't include a million Polly Pocket parts and dinosaur figurines.  Of at least not have it all on display.

Here's the view looking back at the front door.  The skinny door is a small coat closet that is jam packed with games and puzzles.  And there is Maggie deciding whether she wants to scatter Littlest Pet Shops or dominoes all over the floor.

There is this random part of the ceiling that I think holds an air duct.  It's covered in popcorn texture and for the life of me I cannot figure out what to do with it so I leave it alone in the hopes that it will blend in.

Here is our glorious entertainment area.  The Huggies box is acting as a secondary toy box. 

Take a good look at this vintage coffee table.  And by vintage I mean, fake wood laminate, smokey glass topped, gold trimmed giant piece of crap from 1985.

And check out this classy leaning tower of DVD's.  It's the 8th wonder of the world.

Now, let's get onto the decor...

 

Here is my little shrine to Maggie for her birthday.  Pictures are stacked on top of each other because she likes to take them down and look at herself.  You may think this is sweet that I decorated a little shrine for her but not when you realize that her birthday is Leap Day.  In February.  Over 6 months ago.  I just had nothing better to put there so it stayed.

Get your "pin it" buttons ready because you've never seen a gallery wall like this before!  It's basically the saddest gallery wall in the world.  Four pictures?  Wah wah...

Oh and look at my amazing ability to put appropriately sized pictures on the wall.  Those proportions are spot on right?   Gah!  And if you're wondering, yes, the heart garland IS from Valentines Day.  It was Maggie's first sewing project and again I haven't taken it down because I needed something to distract from the world's smallest picture frame.

 

To illustrate the proportion of the wall better here's a view from the kitchen.  And trust me when I tell you that I am sparing you're innocent eyes by not showing a better picture of our hideous green couch.  And I won't force you to look at my disgusting carpet either.  Is it sad that I've always dreamed of someday owning a rug?  The thought of it makes me feel super fancy.

So there you have it.  My shame out for the whole world to see.  On the bright side, at least I make cute kids even if I can't make a cute house.

 

So here is the part where I beg -

 

Dear Mandi and Hailee,

 

You've seen the sadness which is my living room.  This is only the tip of the iceburg in this house.  {My clothes are kept in plastic storage bins, but that's another makeover for another room.}  Clearly you can see that I am in desperate need of your genius.  Someday soon my husband will be graduating and getting a job and my budget will go from $0 to more than $0 and I need not only your makeover but your knowledge for when the day comes that I am left to my own decorating devices. 

 

Please come fix my house and show me the light that only you can.

 

You won't just be giving a girl a fish, you'll be teaching her how to fish and she'll be able to decorate for a lifetime.  {Okay that sounded weird but you get the point.}

 

Just think of how satisfying it will be to usher us into this new adult phase in our lives by teaching us how to use grown up furniture.

So please, please, PLEASE come to Alabama and fix this disaster so I no longer have to hang my head in shame.  Oh yeah, and if you come I have at least 5 thrift stores by my house and I'll totally take you to get real Southern BBQ, fried green tomatoes, fried pickles, banana pudding, the whole works.  No one can resist southern food!  I'm not bribing or anything I'm just sayin'.  Okay, yeah, I'm bribing.  Can you blame me?  I'm desperate!  And the beach is pretty close by too.  Okay!  Sorry!  I had to sweeten the deal a little.  I'm done now.  I promise.

Thanks Vintage Revivals and their sponsors for such a great opportunity!

Next week the general voting starts.  I hope you, my readers, will feel moved to pick me as saddest room so I can win.  I have a bed in my living room afterall! 

Wish me luck!!!  I need it!

 

The Eternal Family Fight

I've been wanting to share more about me and my family and thought I'd share an oldie but a goodie from my personal family blog.  Hopefully you can relate to our little mini me's and it will give you a smile.  Enjoy this exclusive look into the crazy which is us.  :)

________________________________

John and I get along pretty well most of the time.  We're best friends forever afterall.  But there is one thing that will always cause an argument.  Driving somewhere new.

I would like to think that getting a GPS would save us from arguments but it doesn't.  We used the GPS on my ipod to go to a wedding.  We ended up lost for 2 hours in the ghetto,  and by ghetto I mean we are lucky to not have been murdered because I'm sure no police would even set foot in these neighborhoods.

John has no pet names for me except for Chewbaca.  (I know, so romantic)  He says I'm his navigator.  Which I guess would be cute except I hate being the navigator.  For one, I suck at it and for two, he never listens to his Chewy.  We are both terrible at directions and that spells out disaster every time.

Once we get to our destination we're usually BFF's again but let me tell you, there is no joy in the journey.

I snapped these pictures of Jack and Mags at the grocery store.  Though they were being really good to each other I had to laugh and the resulting pictures.  I showed these to John and said, "Look it's us!"

So here are some captions of us.

"Where are we going again?  Are you reading the directions?"
"Yes!  I'm reading the directions.  I have them right here."

"I don't see this turn we're supposed to take.  I thought you said you knew where we were going?"
"No, I said 'I don't know where we are going.' "

"Ugh.  Chewbaca!"

"Look again.  What does it say?  Do you see road 41?"
"No there is no road 41 on here it just is a blank road.  I have no idea what this means.  I don't want to be Chewbaca anymore!"

"Unbelievable.  How can I trust you to be Chewbaca?"
"I told you a million times.  I'm not Chewbaca.  Here.  Look for yourself - blank road."

Uggghhh..... I'm never driving with this woman again.

And there it is.  An exclusive look at our life {lost} in the fast lane.

Craft Fail: How not to dye a paper lantern

I had this nice paper lantern left over from our wedding.  Over the years, it had yellowed and wasn't so nice. Of course being the DIY genius that I am I knew just what to do!

I decided that I should dye it to update its look and breathe new life into it!  Perfect!

I prepared some fabric dye and while holding the lantern over a bowl and slowly and carefully began to pour the dye over the lantern.  It worked!  It created a beautiful shade of grey which would go so well in my living room.

Okay, now here's the part where the word genius beings to get air quotes.  SO...  being the "DIY genius" that I am I took the lantern outside and opened it up so it could dry quickly and evenly.  Opening it up tore that wet delicate tissue and the entire lantern exploded {literally} onto a mess of little wire coils.  It was like opening up a can of trick peanuts and having springy snakes pop in your face.  

There may have been screaming.

And that my friends is How NOT to Dye a Paper Lantern.

Face it pretty girl, you're CRAFTASTIC!

Hey all!  You sure lookin' crafty today.  I have a treat for you.   I have found the world's greatest music video about crafts, in the world! {You need to watch the video}

Some of you may think I've lost my mind, particularly my mother who I know will be calling me to say, "I don't get it."  But I'm telling you, this little gem sweater of a video will make your day.  In fact, I predict you'll be humming this tune and dancing in your tightest pants the next time you craft.


 


And just like the lyrics of the song say, I always want you to remember that -

If you're ever feeling like your in a crafting slump, just work through the paaain and know that you can do anything because you're 

CRAFTASTIC!

If you don't know Leslie Hall the comedian behind this video be sure to check out her other videos.  Tight Pants Body Rolls will have you high kicking and saying "Dance with me Woman!" in no time.