November Before and After: New Knobs

Hey there! It’s time to party down at this month’s Before and After Party! Whoo HOO!

This month I’m sharing a really simple update I’ve talked about a few times – but it makes such a BIG difference (I think anyway).

Earlier this year I showed you the Craigslist dresser I got for the office:

I’ve purchased a few things from this Craigslist seller, and she always uses those basic wood knobs on all of her pieces. They were on the buffet in the foyer as well (before on left, after right):

You can see more about those glass knobs here.

Because I love the look of those on the black furniture so much, I decided to check out Hob Lob during the half off knobs week (the most magical week of the month baby!) last month.

They didn’t have the look I was going for, but I LOVE what I ended up with! First, I had to get those dang wood jobbies off – which isn’t as easy as it sounds. These are always stuck on GOOD – I think she puts them on immediately after painting, so they stick and end up curing on there.

To get them off, I used a razor to score around the knob, then hit a putty knife with a hammer to get them to pop off:

Of course you’ll want to unscrew them first. Cause if you forget that step, you may keep banging on the knob wondering WHY IN THE WORLD IT WON’T COME OFF:

Yeah.

No fear – if the new hardware will cover your little freak out, you’re good. ;)

The middle of the top drawer had smaller knobs, and of course those left the biggest mess when I took them off:

Because I was installing smaller hardware there, I needed to fix them up a bit.

I just sanded them down and then used my own black paint to touch it all up. You can’t even tell:

You can close up, but like always…anyone that would notice that would get a cookie. And no one has gotten a cookie yet. Well…they have, but not for noticing my imperfect projects. :)

So here’s a couple before and afters -- the blah wood knobs on the left and the new-but-look-old on the right:

 

I LOVE them against the black! The white ceramic looks fantastic with the white board and batten behind it. And they make opening the drawers SO much easier – they are much deeper so it’s easier to get a hold of them. Bonus!

Here’s a before shot of the whole dresser:

And the after!:

Excuse the horrible night shot – the good photos may be lost forever because of daylight savings time. ;)

Alrighty – it’s time to see what you’ve been up to! I’m hoping to see some Christmas goodness here and there! I know you won’t disappoint! ;)

I would love it if you would link back to this post -- you’re welcome to include my beauty of a button as well:

Have fun and link it up baby!

A steamy giveaway!

Hello! I have some FUN for you today – this post is all about cleaning the floors!! WHOOOOO! I mean, really. Is there anything more exciting?

Just CALM DOWN. I know it’s awesome. (The real awesome comes later, hang in there.)

I’ve mentioned before that our previous floors were laminate. The fridge died, leaked water all over, and the laminate was toast. Fast forward a couple months later and a (very) helpful insurance check, and we ended up with hardwood floors.

Have I mentioned how much I love them? If I could hug floors, I would these. (I may have tried. It was not pretty.)

Our laminate floors were super shiny and IMPOSSIBLE to keep clean. I cannot express to you the agony of the cleaning (using a floor cleaner and one of those microfiber mops – which was not easy to push around) for a good hour, then not two minutes later someone would walk through in bare feet and I would be in a corner rocking and mumbling something about “floors…clean…help.”

It was intense. :)

After our new floors were installed I asked the Floor Guy how to clean them, and he recommended a steam mop. That made me giddy, cause the fine folks at Black and Decker had sent already me one to check out:

I actually got it before the floor debacle and tried it on the laminate and it cleaned them well, but did leave streaks. But ever.y.thing. I used left streaks – I found out later it was because of the build up of all of the cleaners I’ve used on them over the years. Nothing would clean them up.

I’m THRILLED to say the steam mop did stellar work on the new floors. I’m in heaven. No more mumbling.

I told you before that the new floors don’t show anything. We go in and out of this back door multiple times a day and bring in dirt, water and dust. I hadn’t cleaned our floors in over a week week, and this section is the worst it got:

Can’t see it? I know. Because they rock my world.

Here’s a closer look:

I know. Still not bad. Hate me.

One of the many things I love about this steam mop is that it’s ready to go in seconds – you just grab one of the (THREE!) pads they provide:

Just lay it face down on the floor and place the mop on top:

The steam mop has three different settings:

I of course picked the wood option, which I’ve noticed seems to “steam” the least of them – which is a good thing when dealing with wood.

I put water and just a bit of vinegar in the mop and then push it around a bit. It dries almost immediately – I mean supa fast:

OK, that may be the most underwhelming before and after of all time, cause the before looked pretty good.

 

I know. Rocks my world.

This is the area we walk through the most every day, and you can see there are NO STREAKS!:

Holy cats. Hallelujah.

Oh. happy. day.

Best part? It takes less than ten minutes to clean all of the floors in the family room and kitchen. That took at least an hour (and some sweat) before.

We get sun all day in the back of our house, and before it was like a big huge pointy finger, highlighting all of the smudges and dirt and footprints.

Now, it’s just…(pretty) floors:

I also use the steam mop on our vinyl, tile and the peel and stick floors in the laundry room – every type of flooring cleans up great!

The AWESOME folks at Black and Decker are offering one of these beauties to one of you as well!:

That would be a $120 value. Told ya – WHOOHOO!!

Here’s how to enter to win a Black and Decker steam mop:

1. Leave a comment here. Tell us the hardest spot to keep clean in your house.

2. “Like” the Black and Decker Facebook page here. Come back and let us know you did.

Remember if you comment anonymously or you have a private blog, please include your email address in each entry, and spell it out with “at” and “dot” to avoid any spammy emails coming your way.

This giveaway is only open to US residents only. It will be open till next Monday, November 7th at noon EST. (So you have plenty of time to enter!)

Happy cleaning! :)

53 Days

Hello and Happy Halloween! Hope you had a wonderful day and evening! :) We had a great time chasing a very excited pirate around the neighborhood. And I ate a LOT of food. I mean. Lots.

Well, it’s about that time folks. It’s now November…uhhh, well it will be when most of you read this…so I’m allowed to say the “Christmas” word. I’ve actually been talking and thinking about it for a good month now, but November 1st gives me the go ahead to hide it no longer!

I’m freeeee!!

I’m a Christmas fareeek, so bear with me. And yes, I know a little holiday called Thanksgiving comes first, but I’m thankful every day, so I don’t get as excited about that one. :)

This time of year I’m always thinking about the countdown -- I love checking out all of the advent ideas out there. Because many of us love to DIY, I thought I’d share a few of my favorites (old and new) now so you’ll have plenty of time to get crafty. (OR pull out the bank card and order one – I feel ya.)

Click the pics to see more about each one!

Pottery Barn never fails with the countdowns – this snowman advent is too cute!:

The price is not…but there’s gotta be some way to DIY this! I just can’t think of one right this second. My mind is a mush of Halloween candy. :)

This one is adorable and could be knocked off for sure:

Felt cut into stockings and glued on – love it!

This is an oldie but goodie, and SO doable. I searched for mini buckets last year to do this one and couldn’t find what I wanted (for cheap). I even asked the folks at Logan’s Roadhouse and they wouldn’t sell me some – boo!:

Anyone seen mini buckets at a good price?

I love this advent pillow at Ballard Designs:

And I know some of you crafty chicks could pull this one off! I on the other hand, am still working on the sewing a straight line thing.

I found this one at Meijer the other day:

It’s just a round metal sheet and there’s a magnetic glass piece that goes over the numbers and magnifies them. I think it was $10? Super cute!

I’m always blown away with the handmade ideas I see every year. I used cardboard boxes, paper and stickers from the craft store to make these years ago:

They have held up great! I used to fill each one with small toys or treats, but we need more itty bitty toys in this house like we need a poke in the eye.

So I loved these simple activity cards with holiday themes instead:

Sooo doing this! Along with a few treats and toys…just a few. ;)

I’ve found a few more ideas on Pinterest over the past few weeks – love these little felt envelopes!:

Oh, they are too precious!

These Christmas trees are something different, and would be SO easy (and cheap!):

Wouldn’t they be fun across a mantel, in all different sizes? They’d have to be up high in this house – little hands wouldn’t be able to resist peeking underneath. :)

This one is simple and lovely:

Just clothes pins glued to a board, decorated with a bit of ribbon. Clip the little treats up each day – too sweet! I may have to try this one.

But my favorite yet is this idea:

OH my…the cuteness!! This one WILL happen at our house. Just adorable. And it doesn’t involve treats or presents…just one-on-one crafting time with the kiddos for a few minutes a day. LOVE.

Do you have a favorite advent or Christmas countdown tradition? I’d love to hear! If you’ve blogged about about one, feel free to leave a link in your comment. And I promise not to mention the C-word again for at least 24 hours.

:)

Halloween up in here

Ummm…people. It will be NOVEMBER in a mere days. What in the world? Less than two months till Christmas! And I still had my beachy vignette up till today. ;)

The new floors kind of put a wrench in the Halloween decor – most of it has been outside till today. But I finally got a little spooky display going with just days to spare!

My Craigslist buffet in the foyer was such a great find – and it’s so fun to snazz it up every season. I love having this space to decorate!:

I threw this together today – and when I say threw it together I’m for real. I had about a one spare hour today and was determined to get some Halloween out!

The Bub and I started with the bats:

Aren’t they AWESOME?!

We sat at the Silhouette machine for a while the other night cutting out meeellions of bats. (OK, so that part was already done. The rest of the throwing together happened today.)

To keep them from getting too serious, we added some googly eyes to some, some red sticky stones to others:

I did something similar last year, but I wanted to go big this year! I just put them up with sticky tacky stuff and made them “fly” up the wall. 

The vignette was put together with (mostly) items we already had, and just a couple new ones:

We found the black Halloween house earlier this season at HomeGoods. Soooo spooky!

The only other new purchase was the sparkly skeleton that I picked up at Meijer a couple weeks ago (on clearance). I love his bling! And his cute little feet:

 

The BOO letters were a craft from a few years ago, and the “art” usually sits on our mantel this time of year:

And of course, I had to bring back the little surprise on the lampshade:

The spider webs and spiders are just black paper and I used little dabs of sticky tack to get them to stay up.

All of that adds up to one festive Halloween display!:

I smile every time I look at it, and the Bub is SO happy we finally got some Halloween inside the house. Just in the nick of time!

Do you decorate much for Halloween? Has the time gotten away from you like it has me?

Pumpkin Carving Party

Hey hey! I’m so glad you Squeezies are happy to see the mice again.

Well. Most of you. ;)

We hosted a little Halloween-themed shindig this weekend I wanted to tell you about in case you want to throw one together yourself this weekend!

I’ve wanted to have a Pumpkin Carving Party for years and always put it off because of the huge mess I imagined it would be. I didn’t really want to do it inside, and our back yard wasn’t really set up for it.

But with the addition of our our patio this summer we have such great entertaining space, so I wanted to take advantage of it! It was PERFECT for this little party!

I planned for this for months – I think I bought most of the stuff back in August. (Thank you, retailers, for bringing out the Halloween goodies so early!) I know myself and know I wanted to be as non-stressed as possible when it came to putting this together. I wanted it to be fun for the kids and the moms – including this one. ;)

So I planned early and made it VERY low-key.

The drinks were soda and water for the moms and Ghooooul-Aid for the kids. (How fun is that?) I added some Halloween ice cubes from Crate and Barrel:

I just served it as a punch in a bowl from Target:

The kids LOVED the black drink. OH so spooky. :)

The food was crazy easy – on purpose. I made my little cookie sandwiches with Halloween icing and ready to bake cookies:

You just sandwich two together with icing, then roll the sides in sprinkles:

They are SO yummy. I especially love these with the sugar sprinkles (for a little crunch), but I was using what I had.

The rest of the food was Halloween-themed snacks in individual bags:

I got two big boxes of these at Target and Walmart – I think they were $5 each? One box had cookie bags and one had chips and Cheetos.

This was not a healthy Halloween party. :)

The bowls, plates, napkins and cups were all from the Dollar Tree – can’t beat that!

It was all set up on the DIY potting bench Dad and I made this summer:

The table cover was a few yards of fabric from Hobby Lobby, on sale back in August. Score! (I even threw it in the wash after and it held up great!)

I didn’t plan any games or activities for the kids (other than the pumpkins). I was a little worried they would be bored.

But what am I, crazy?? They just…uh…played and had a blast!:

Imagine that. :)

We set up the pumpkin carving on the deck. I picked up carving tools here and there on sale over the past couple of months, but asked people to bring some if they had them:

Other than that, the only thing I had guests bring were their pumpkins.

I plan to do this again next year and may have smaller pumpkins for the kids to paint and decorate on their own, because of course the Mommas did most of the carving work:

Eww. :)

The hit of the party was this “gutter” I got at Walmart:

It attaches to the drill and makes quick work of getting the goo out of the pumpkin – it rocked! (Click the photo above to see it at Amazon.)

The party was low stress and BIG fun. :) We ended up with some cuties:

(Some of the pumpkins didn’t make it into the pic, but they were all super cute!)

We had such a great time and I can’t wait to do it again next year! I only invited a few close friends this year, but when we do it again I hope to invite even more and put up additional tables so everyone can spread out.

The best part was that I wasn’t running around like a crazy woman beforehand – I was (mostly) chill. ;)

Do you host a Halloween-themed party? Is it for the big kids or the little ones? What do you do to keep it low key and easy going (for YOU)?

 

**Don’t forget I am answering any and all DIY questions over at the True Value Facebook page this week!