My Jolly Little Life: Projects

Friday, April 11, 2014

Food, Weather, and Chaos

It has been a long time since I have participated with Darcy and the other ladies for Five on Friday. I thought today was a good day to talk about a few things that I have been loving lately (and one that I kinda am hating on... not gonna lie). My first thought of what I am loving always goes to food without fail. I do really enjoy food. Someday I will do one solely devoted to food...sounds fun.

But anyway, today I will just stick with the stuff going on this week.

One

Eggs. I have never really loved eggs. But I have been reading about how good they are for you and sometimes it’s hard to find things to eat that make me feel good and fill me up. It is weird, I know, but so it goes. And so these days something strange happened and I am weirdly into eggs. Not just any eggs though… I have been making them so delicious. Make it just like this and you will love them too:

2 scrambled eggs

A little salt and as much Cayenne as you can handle (so good for your brain!)

Some marinated artichoke hearts

Sundried tomatoes soaked in oil

A little heap of goat cheese on top.

Trust me, this is a delicious concoction.

Two

Photography. I was so blessed this last week to have a little instructional session with an amazing photographer. Rebecca from Fresh From God Photography is a kindred spirit who has done three shoots for Cory and me and I love every photo! It was such a pleasure to get some pointers and critique from someone with such talent and such a creative eye.

Three

Spring! Yay! I love spring. I have a view of the ski slopes from my deck and I love to see the snow slowly melting away every week. Spring is just such a motivating time for me. I feel like I want to organize my house and throw stuff away. I feel inspired to work on my beach body. I get to run outside. I have the whole wonderful summer to look forward to. It just the best time of the year!

Four

Photoshop. Yeah…. So if I had been consistent with this since I first determined to work on it months ago (when I first went the library and procured this heap of books), I would probably be a pro editor by now! But I am making progress slowly. I have been working on it, studying, and getting advice.. And I have been having such fun with it!

Five
My Fridge. This is not actually something that I am loving at the moment. This is more a cry for help. It is a constant source of frustration because my fridge is mostly packed full of produce and so it never looks neat and organized. I have green things and carrots and beats sticking out of every end. I feel like I am (for the most part) a neat person. But the minute I organize my fridge something happens (I don’t even know what, I go shopping, or we can’t find something) and it is chaos again. My big weekend task will be to turn the whole fridge situation around. Help!

Have a happy Friday everyone!

Monday, March 3, 2014

Cheap and Easy Complete Bathroom Makeover

I realized today that I have been doing a lot of deep life and relationship posts. Not that those aren't cool... but I thought maybe I would lighten it up a bit today with another fun topic: a DIY project.

So once upon a time I decided I wanted to do something with my bathroom. It was boring and white and…well ugly. This is how I have been with every room in my house at some point. But the issue is…. We rent this house. I don’t want to drop a bunch of money on a house that we might move out of next month or year, or whatever.

But I didn't want to live in a house with an ugly bathroom! So clearly the answer was to do something cute without spending a bunch of money.

I happened upon this girl’s blog who made shower curtains for her bathroom that went all the way from the ceiling to the floor. She said it was super easy and it looked great! I was like, “yeah, I can totally do that! I have never sewn in my life, I get impatient and therefore do a bunk job at measuring and cutting and such, but I can totally do it!!!”

Yeah, so that lasted for about one trip to Joann’s Fabric in which the colors, the sizes, the options, the spools and spools of fabric were just overwhelming. I am a fairly crafty person… but that store is intense, I am just saying. (I see that my little blog about how I made my bathroom look cute has definitely become more like story telling hour. Oh well).

Despite the whole, “make your own shower curtain thing” I still wanted my curtain to go all the way to the floor. It just gave such a pretty, classy look to the bathroom. And so I had another idea, I would just buy some regular curtains and keep the water-proof shower curtain inside. Brilliant!

And that is what I did.

Because the rest of my house is all earth tones, I wanted to go a little crazy in the bathroom. So I picked this beautiful dark teal blue that was so much fun. I happen to love teal blue and orange together (in fact I realize I am on a weird kick with these colors and my clothes too) and so I accessorized with my burnt orange towels as opposed to my brown ones.

So, in addition to this issue of white and boring, my bathroom is tiny with limited counter and storage space. I found this little rack in front of someone's house that they were throwing away. It was really ugly and the bars were loose. I bought some metallic spray paint, tightened the screws and voila, extra storage space. I bought a couple little baskets to organize my various bathroom products.

So not only is my bathroom way cuter, it is way more functional. I still want to find something cute with orange accents to hang on the wall, but I have found nothing that I love yet. Any ideas or creative suggestions are more than welcome :)