I Might Have an Addiction

I've discovered the awesomeness of spray paint. In particular, a wonderful color called 'Heirloom White' by Rustoleum. I'm pretty new to this whole DIY thing and I recently stumbled upon a blog called 'Centsational Girl.' It's by a woman named Kate who lives in Northern California and is possibly one of the most creative people ever. Here's the website if you want to check it out: http://www.centsationalgirl.com/.

After finding her, I now have a list of a million things I want to make or refinish. It'll keep me busy when Tim deploys again next year. One of the projects she did was to refinish some ugly, brassy, crystal lamps; a little spray paint, a new lampshade and voila! A brand new beautiful lamp! So I started thinking, 'I can do that too!' I just needed to get some lamps in need of a new home and all the essential supplies and I would have some gorgeous lamps for my master bedroom. So I started looking on ebay to see what I could find and I came across three lamps that I had to have. Two were crystal and brass and the other was this awesome driftwood lamp: one crystal lamp for my nightstand, the driftwood lamp for hubby's nightstand and the other crystal lamp for my craft and sewing desk. And the best part was I got all three for under $100, including shipping! I actually think the shipping was the most expensive part of the whole project.

I just finished the two crystal lamps today and they look gorgeous! Here is a picture of one of them before:


Notice the rust on the bottom...classy.

I forgot to take a before picture of the other crystal lamp but it's basically the same idea, although the crystal design is a bit different. And no wonder the shipping was so expensive...those suckers were heavy!

During this project I discovered that I really like taking things apart and putting them back together. Here are the lamps after they were disassembled and before I started spray painting.



Gianna was NOT in the mood to have her picture taken.

Yesterday it was warm enough to start painting and since it was my first time spray painting anything, it took a little while. But the results made it all worth it and the 'Heirloom White' was the perfect color for this project.



Finally it was time to put them together, the moment I had been waiting for! I purchased some lamp re-wiring kits at Wal-mart because who knows how old the current wiring was. And the lamp shades were quite a find. The white shade to go with the lamp for my desk I found at TJ Maxx for $10. And the shade for the other lamp I got at Pottery Barn with a gift card so it was FREE. So, after all the scrounging for deals and elbow grease, I have a couple of (NEW!) gorgeous crystal lamps!




I paid 99 cents for the first lamp and 9.95 for the second lamp...for real! A crystal lamp can retail for hundreds so I'm pretty happy with what a steal these were. And now I have a lamp for my nightstand and it looks perfect.



I know I said I got a third lamp...a driftwood lamp...but I will have to save that one for later. It needs LOTS of tlc because it is the ugliest thing right now!



But just wait. When I'm done with it, this nasty, narly piece of driftwood is going to be the perfect masculine lamp for my hubby's side of the bed. But for right now I'm going to peek into my room to ooh and aah over my new feminine crystal reading lamp...again.

My First Quilt

I LOVE quilts. I think they are beautiful. I prefer sleeping under a beautiful, warm quilt to a traditional bedspread any day. Martha Stewart has some incredible ones at Macy's and I actually have one of hers on my bed that I got on sale. Here is a close-up of the embroidery.



Love it! I have lots of color in the rest of my house but in the bedroom I like to keep it warm and neutral and light. I find it more relaxing.

So I got it into my head a few weeks ago to make a quilt. I took some of the girls' old receiving blankets and made a small quilt. It was tough and it took a few weeks to get it done but I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

Here is the front, cut from receiving blankets.


The backing fabric I found on Amazon .


It was not an easy undertaking but I'm so proud of myself for finishing it and now the girls will have a comfy quilt to snuggle with that mommy made for them.

Naval Aviation Centennial

This past Saturday was the 100th birthday of Naval Aviation. North Island on Coronado hosted the event and had booths and military aircraft on display and had an air demonstration of all the different types of aircraft in today's military. Tim was lucky enough to be able to fly in the formation of 53's from his squadron, HMH-466, The Wolfpack. He told me how excited he was that he would get to be a part of history. After all, Naval Aviation only turns 100 once!

For about two seconds I considered going to the Centennial with the kids. By myself. In a huge crowd of thousands of people. With a 2-year old, 1-year old and 4-month old. Okay nevermind, bad idea. I mean, I wish I could have gone and gotten pictures of Tim flying and actually been able to SEE him fly (I still have never done this and he's had his wings for almost four year), but after hearing that some people were stuck in traffic downtown for FOUR hours, I'm so glad I did not. Can you say nervous breakdown?

Anyway, Tim took our camera with him and had his crew chief take pictures during the flight. They turned out so well.


You can see his name on the back of his helmet.




Look at all those people crammed onto the U.S.S. Midway

I'm so proud of my husband for what he has chosen to do with his life. And I'm so proud to be able to say that I'm a Marine Corps wife. Semper Fi.

Dirty Thirty

My birthday was such a great day this year! By far it was the best birthday I've ever had.

Tim made me gluten-free pancakes for breakfast. I finally like pancakes, now that I can't eat real ones. Kinda ironic. My birthday gift already came in the mail. I told Tim I wanted a brown tufted leather storage bench for our bedroom; he told me to get it, so I did. And I love it!! It looks gorgeous in our room, see...



Gor-ge-ous! I found it on Overstock. LOVE that place. If we ever built a house, we could decorate and furnish it entirely from overstock. Hmm...some day.

Anyway, back to reality...for lunch I wanted Zpizza so we went to the location we usually go to and they were OUT of gluten-free crust. Whatever. Carmel Mountain also was out of gluten-free crust. Okay now I'm a little panicky. We called over to the La Jolla Zpizza and thank goodness they came thru for me. I might have cried. Blood sugar back to normal. Mmmm...my thai gluten-free pizza was delicious! My hubby is wonderful for driving for an hour just to get me what I wanted on my birthday.

So, after the pilgrimage to find my pizza was over, I had to drop Tim off on base because he was leaving for two weeks for work. Yeah, it kinda sucks that he had to leave in the middle of my birthday but that's military life. You get used to it. After that it was just me and the kids at home. They played with their toys and I played with my sewing machine and finished my first before & after project. I made some curtain for the kitchen window.





I'm still not sure whether I like them or not. No, let me rephrase: I like them, I just don't like them there. I might move them into the laundry room, which also needs some curtains. I think I want something more colorful in the kitchen since it is completely white. Oh, the joys of living in military housing. This is the first time I have my kids all alone too so I was a little overwhelmed and wasn't able to go to the 466 Wives' Coffee because I needed to relax after all the driving and craziness of the day. BUT (this is the best part!) two of the wives, Kathryn and Jessica came to my house after the coffee and brought me a gluten-free chocolate cake with gluten-free chocolate icing! Can you say 'exactly what I needed after this crazy day?' I sure can. It was delicious and didn't taste like a gluten-free cake at all.



That was also my Valentine's Day dessert. Yummy! So that was my day. It was very eventful and in between everything that happened I got to skpe with family which made it just about perfect. Now I'm off to put the kids to bed so I can enjoy some peace and quiet and Glee.