Too Lazy to Decorate for Valentines Day

Hi All! 

I hope you had a wonderful, chocolate eating, rose smelling, love filled day yesterday! 

I was a little bit lazy this year with my Valentine decor. (Ahem...every year, actually.)

I did manage to throw a few hearts up on the mantel, and I made some fun heart wreaths for the front entry, from things I had on hand. 

 My new-ish pup Romeo is peeking out the door at me. He's a rescue. Half German Shepard, half Yellow Lab. (My son tells people that he's half Lamb!) He's still in full on puppy mode. We call him the shredder. He can destroy a new toy in a day! He's totally frisky and adorable.

 I realize now that I am looking at these photos, that I am very lame indeed! Oh well. Life is for living, and I have vowed this year, to be less worried about perfection, and more focused on enjoying life.

My ivy topiaries are just barely hanging on. We've had some really cold nights this winter in SoCal.

Now, on to the mantel. I did warn you that is was LAZY decorating...so just keep that in mind! 

  I just threw up some greenery I had in a cabinet and a few cardboard hearts, and changed out the scrabble messages for Valentine's Day.

Then I decided to add a roll of burlap ribbon, since it looked a little bare. I can't believe I am even showing you this!  

I also helped with my son's school Valentine's Day party yesterday. It was so fun to see the kids so excited! (Sorry I can't show photos of their sweet faces!)

We had fun setting up while they were outside playing. When they came in we had food, games, crafts, and they passed out the Valentines they made for each other.

Then we cleaned up while the kids sat in closing circle with their teacher.

My son made me a GIANT Valentine. I love that boy!

And then, just to be on the safe side, to make sure I knew how much he loved his mama, he made me a small one too!

That is what life is all about, I tell ya!

Hope your Valentine's Day was just as sweet.

xo-Lisa

Re-Post: Be Mine Airplane Valentines

In honor of Valentines Day, and because I STILL can't seem to get my act together, I thought I would re-post what we did for my son's class last year. We are making them again this year (tonight) for my son's school party tomorrow.

Hope you like seeing them again! 

Happy Valentines Day 2013!

*(Feb 2012)*

Hello all! Today I am working on making Valentine airplanes with my son for his school Valentine's Day party next week. We made a few prototypes, and we are trying to decide which one to use.

We are an aviation family, as I was a flight attendant, and my husband, my father-in-law, and my husband's uncle are all pilots. My sister-in-law has been making these cute planes with her 3 kids every year. Now all of their friends have come to expect them, and my eldest niece (a high school senior) still makes them for her friends. There's something to be said for tradition!So, now it will be my son's tradition too! They really could not be more simple.

Here's what you'll need...

• Large white lifesavers. (The small ones won't work.)
• Smarties.
• 2 inch rubber bands.
• Old school individually foil wrapped gum. Like Double Mint, or Extra.
• Paper cutter and paper for wing or banner options. (You can pre-print your labels via your computer, or hand write them.)
• Optional foam hearts. These were found in the dollar bin at Tar-jay.
• Ribbon to tie banner on, if choosing the banner option. 

Here is how you construct them...

 Thread the rubber band through the lifesavers.

 Pull them apart and insert smartie roll in between the two lifesavers.

Put piece of gum on top, and pull rubber band over the "wing" one side at a time.

Here are the prototypes we came up with this morning...I may still tweak them a bit.

 Here is the banner option. I just used regular paper here, and hand written message, but it would be cute to make banners in a fun font on the computer. I punched a hole, and tied the banner on with skinny silver ribbon.

 This is the wing label option. My son's name is on the label, so I used a small strip of paper to block it out for this shot. (No offense, just don't his first and last name out there. Sadly, ya neva know...).

 I think I like the banners best. I was even thinking of using a dab of hot glue and gluing them to a "runway" made from black construction paper, and white lines, with maybe 3R on it, or something... (that means runway 3 right in the aviation world).

 Close ups.

 The label is not glued on yet. I know, it has a gap. 

Side view.

So that's it. We'll see what I wind up with. I just wanted to show you what we were working on. 

I will be back later today with my thrifty finds this week. I scored AGAIN! <3 Love that!!!

xo

-Lisa

Back From a LONG Break...

    ~Hello Friends!~

I can't tell you how excited I am to be sitting down to chat with you all once again! I will briefly fill you in on the reasons why I took a blogging break.

But first, you may have noticed that my blog name is now Nothing But Blue Skies, and the template is totally bare bones. I am going to be under construction for a while until the blog looks and feels the way I'd like it to. I hope you will excuse the dust.

Now, on to the reason for my extended absence...

I was in the middle of a very busy summer, a downstairs reno, and lots of company, and I was starting to feel more and more depleted. Something had to give, and I decided that it needed to be the blog. 

As the months went on, I started feeling worse instead of better. In November I wound up in the hospital. I had a lousy virus and had been sick for a week and a half with really high fever and lots of crazy symptoms. The day I went to the hospital I was feeing very strange, and they admitted me from the E.R. after taking my blood pressure (scary low) and running a few other tests.

Suffice it to say, my body went into some kind of crazy autoimmune melt down, and I stayed in the hospital for a few days while they tried to figure out what was wrong. 

After being released, I was sent to a Rheumatologist, who ran a battery of tests, and pronounced that I had Celiac disease, and another autoimmune disease that I was already aware of, but asymptomatic for.

Finally!! - a REAL reason for all of the crazy symptoms! It also was the missing link as to why I had developed colon cancer 3 1/2 years earlier, as untreated Celiac disease can lead to gastrointestinal cancers. 

It's been a couple of months since I have removed gluten from my diet, (no small feet, because it's in EVERYTHING, and there are like 50 different words to look for on labels) but I feel like a whole new person!! 

I have tons of energy now, and all it took was removing wheat from my diet! I love how I feel, and there are so many great gluten free alternatives, I am not suffering at all!

I am going to show you how my house looks after all of the work we had done this past year, but first, I will be taking a short trip to see some family and friends this week. 

Meanwhile, I am so happy to be back! Iv'e missed you all, and I hope you will like the new direction I have decided to take with the blog. 

Stay tuned! 

xo-Lisa

More Company This Week!!

~Hi Everyone!~

It has been such a busy summer so far, here at BDG! 

We took a few days and had a little family time in San Diego, where we stayed on Coronado Island, and in late June, I attended a blogging conference in Atlanta.  Just a couple weeks ago we went to La Jolla to meet a friend and her family,  and this past week my sister was here for 6 days. We saw her off yesterday, and now today we are welcoming my friend and her daughter for a visit. 

My son is in HEAVEN! He loves having lots of fun things to do, and all of our wonderful friends and family around, showering him with attention. 

So, my posting has not been stellar this summer so far, but I will try to be better about it very soon! 

We are going to be starting tear out of the entire downstairs flooring in a couple of weeks. 1200 square feet of new beautiful hardwood flooring is going to be installed after they jack hammer out my very despised  travertine floors. (For those of you who currently have, and like your travertine, I give you a medal!) I found it very difficult to keep my travertine looking as pristine as I liked, and was frankly tired of the battle. Thanks to the horrible kitchen leak, I am able to replace it all with something more agreeable to me. :-)

Here is what I am going to be putting in downstairs...

It is going to be the one on the left.

Should be pretty. Cross your fingers!
I will update you soon on my other selections for the kitchen.
Just got a new farmhouse table yesterday, and I am working on new appliances this week, along with paint color, and a final meeting with my cabinet maker for the pantry wall that has to be re-built because of the leak.

I will be posting about how I transformed my master bath shower trim and tub faucet with spray paint sometime this week too!

Off to get ready for my company!
Have a great week!

xo
-Lisa

Master Bath Before and After

It's been a while since I have done a post on my Master Bathroom.

I fact, I have just done one post on my Master Bath, prior to this one, and it was a month after I started blogging.

I did not have any of my before pics at that time, because my computer crashed and wiped out ALL of the pics on my hard drive, and then my external hard drive crashed, and I am STILL waiting to recover the photos from that.


 Just a few weeks ago, I stumbled on some photos of the MB from film I had developed when we first bought the house, and then after I made some initial changes to it in that first year.


Here is what the bathroom looks like now...

This room is INCREDIBLY hard to photograph, since it gets a TON of light, and has so many mirrors and glass.

Here are the BEFORE photos...this is what it looked like on the day we made an offer on it.

 Very gaudy wall paper, and lovely (*sarcasm*) shiny brass trim and fixtures everywhere. I have affectionately nick-named the shiny brass, Liberace Gold.

 I swear, it creates ACTUAL physical pain!!

Here are a few shots of the bathroom after I stripped the Vegas style wallpaper, and painted over the faux finish venetian plaster - looking paint job that was going on in here.
I chose to paint the room cream until I could decide what to do to pull it together.

It stayed this way until a few years ago when I finally got motivated enough to paint the cabinets myself. The walls were still creamy white until I finish up my YEARS long mini reno last fall.

Sorry about the picture quality, but who knew 10 years ago that I would be blogging today, and need better before pics? ;-)

Here's the rundown on what got done in here last fall to give my mater bath the facelift it deserved...
It was all done for under $1000.

- New faucets for the sinks in ORB, bought on sale at Home Depot.

- New Shower Kit and shower head in ORB, had to special order this, and it WAS NOT my first choice, but it had to be Delta, and it had to be one of only two others that would work with my existing pluming behind the granite.

- Painted the old orange oak cabinets a light tan color, and then applied a stain rub over them. 

- Painted the whole room and ceiling SW Bittersweet (Chocolate Brown).

-Spray painted the tub faucet and shower trim with Rustoleum Rustic Mist Metallic paint. (This was a HUGE money saver, and the BEST thing I have done so far!) Look for a post on this later this week.

-New cabinet hardware totally less than $140. 

-New switch plates and outlet covers in dark brown to blend in with the walls. 

-New rugs found at Home Goods.

-A few new accessories, mostly thrifted, or found at antique stores, or picked up on the beach.

-Painted doors Black.

-New ORB door knobs, that I went over with a mix of antique gold paint to get the exact finish I was looking for.

So that's it, and I think it made a huge impact in the look of the bathroom. 

I know that everyone else is going light on the walls, but here, in this room, there is so much light, and it really created just the drama and impact that I was looking for to use a very dark color on the walls.

One last look at the finished room...

We are very happy with how the room came out, for a FRACTION of what it would have cost to do a "REAL" renovation! 

Someday soon I promise to get this blog design handled by a professional. 

It's embarrassing, but it's on the revolving list, people! :-)

Hope you are having an awesome week! 

xo

-Lisa

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