What's in my.... (Take 2)

Melanie at Mailbox Journey has invited us all to a little link party to find out:

I already shared some dirt on this topic a while back, here, but I figured a total purse cleaning was needed again. It's been just over 6 months and let's just say I haven't made any progress on keeping it clean.  And I may have discovered more weird items this go around (although no kitty).  Let's make this a bit more simple:

1: My point and shoot digital camera.  I never leave home without it, though I rarely use it anymore and instead choose to use my cell phone camera.
2: My work cell phone.  I hate iPhone by the way, but I didn't want to get a Droid and confuse it with my own phone.
3: Makeup bag.  We'll check that out a bit more below and see how I purged some items from it.
4: Bath and Body works Lotion.
5. Business Cards.  With my old position so I threw these out.
6. More lotion, uh WHY?!  Got rid of this one.
7. Gum.  I had thrown this in there for a meeting so it's now just back in my desk at work.
8. 3 flash drive.  Apparently these are still getting transferred when I change purses even though I have been out of school 3 years now and don't need them.  One has stuff for a big engineering test I'm studying for, so it stays.  The others were put away.
9: All camera disk, since I started using a digital camera.  I never until I got my DSLR took pictures off of these because I was afraid to lose them all.  I had to get an external harddrive for my pictures now since DLSR files are huge!  I apparently couldn't think of a place I won't lose them (i have a tendency to put things somewhere I won't forget....but then I forget....).  These are now in with all my DLSR camera stuff.
10: Tum, Tum, Tum, Tum, TUMS!  These were to bring to work, but apparently never got out of my purse.  Now in my desk.
11: 5 stray acetaminophen tablets.  I was getting some killer headaches for a while and these were everywhere!  Like I'd fold a pair of pants and they would fall out of the pockets.  Guess these guys never got thrown out (or used).  Had I known they were there....gah!
12: Plastic key identifier.  This has been hanging out in my purses for 5 years. Again I ask, WHY?!  It's now identifying my trash.
13: 3 bobby pins.  Usually I keep one in my purse and the other 2 were thrown in there to use the other day but I never did.
14: Wallet.  We'll look at it some more below.
15: My keys.  "R" key chain, house key for my Aunt's, house key for my Brother's and our own house key then my car key and fob.
16: Random catch all bag.  We'll clean it out below.
17: Entry/ID card for my building and office.  Also bathroom key.

Honorable Mention to the bag of mini sliders that I had just thrown in my purse to take to work for the next days lunch (as well as the Lowe's paint refunds and matches I just took out)

The Makeup Bag

This baby is quite a mess.  I was able to throw away the dried out deodorant, used with makeup tissues, 2 of 3 nail files, the old blush which was pretty much gone, a makeup brush I rarely used, a dried out mascara and a dried out foundation.

New and improved, smaller bag (in a more fun print too)

The new makeup bag fits inside the small one (smaller in all directions).  I added a new mascara but didn't have another small deodorant.  The new blush is much smaller and brand new (gotta love samples).  The dried out foundation was pointless because I had a perfectly good foundation in there already as well.  

Wall

I love this thing.  I got it from a Leather Factory in Florence, Italy.  I had WAAAYY to much stuff in there (like normal).  I got rid of more old business cards, put away some 3+ months old receipts, shredded credit cards that were expired and not used, threw out my health insurance cards which are inactive since I switched to my husbands when we got married (yes 2 years ago), and organized my gift card collection.  She closes just fine now.

Catch All Bag

Mostly this holds my little coupon folder, the key cards, check book and a pen.  I recently stashed a bunch of stray coupons in there so they got organized in the mini folder.  I also threw out all expired coupons (which I often forget to do).  I went threw my key cards and got rid of a bunch then put them in order by most used.  I can never find Giant Eagle but I use it weekly.  I got rid of a library card from the district I use to live in, the hair cut place card (because I rarely get a hair cut or do it myself), and the tanning salon card (which I got for free for a week before my wedding).

After this clean sweep I threw everything into the new purse and took it to where I keep my things for the morning and realized it was practically just as heavy, sigh.  Guess I didn't remove anything big (and I did have those buns in there...).

Any ideas on what I should remove to make it lighter?  What don't you think I need?

2 years

Happy 2 Year Anniversary to my husband!

Although he drives me crazy at times, I still love him.

He's taking me out to dinner tonight and given me my exact request for a "gift" each year so I'd say he's a keeper. Since I didn't blog when I got married let's look at a few other flashbacks, because who doesn't love wedding photography?!

Apparently I love black and white photography

We celebrated in a "castle" (aka fancy country club)

He let me do this at the reception and kindly followed my rule that if he did it to me I'd slap him, in front of our families.

I can't wait for what our future holds!

Saying Goodbye

2 months ago we said goodbye to our home of two years.  The house we first lived together in.  The place that we fixed up ourselves.  Put a lot of time, money and energy in to.  The home we created and styled and made ours.  The spot that became a gathering for all our friends.  We have lots of good memories there.

I spent our last day of home ownership working at home (not because I'm that sentimental but for other reasons) sitting on the hardwood floor on a single sofa cushion.  With no Internet at our temporary apartment yet this is where I camped out. 

That evening we cleaned and said our goodbyes.  I took pictures of an empty house (save for the items the buyer bought from us).  My husband told me I was crazy.  Although these are an after from what I originally showed in this post they aren't what I still want to show you.  I'm amazed at some of the things we managed to accomplish together and not kill each other.

Besides before and after's from the old house, I hope to get back to blogging soon once we get "organized" in the new house.  Who wants some styling posts?

Non the less, these are some really good "after" shots of how we transformed our foreclosure into our home. 

FIRST FLOOR

Living space (aka Family Room):  ripped up carpet and laid hardwood, new higher baseboard, painted walls, built shelves, installed light/fan unit, hung curtains at back slider

 

Kitchen: removed vinyl flooring and replaced with tile, new higher baseboard (to replace the grey plastic stuff), painted walls, installed light fixture, repaired ceiling (OK, we paid someone to do that)

Kitchen: replaced all appliances, new hardware, granite counter, installed backsplash, painted our orange accent wall here into Family Room

Half Bath: removed vinyl flooring and replaced with tile, new higher baseboard, painted walls, removed builder grade cabinet for stand alone sink unit, new mirror and light fixture, hung art.  This was probably our most "complete" room thanks to being so small!

UPSTAIRS

Master Bedroom:  removed ugly teal carpet and installed lush beige carpet, reinstalled baseboard, painted walls and all trim, repaired ceiling (paid someone), installed light/fax unit, hung curtains at window, painted door (minus sliding closet doors)

Missing this place already...

Upstairs Bath:  removed vinyl flooring and replaced with tile, added real baseboard (not the grey plastic crap), painted walls, installed new leak free toilet, built towel rack (see part of it in the mirror)

Upstairs Bath:  removed builder grade single sink unit for fancy double sinks (do NOT miss the black granite shows every water spot and dust particle counter top), installed mirrors and light fixtures after removing the large single mirror, new shower head and shower curtain bar

Guest Bedroom:  removed teal carpet for beige carpet, re-installed baseboard, painted all the trim and walls, installed light/fan unit, hung curtains and blinds

Note:  Walls were NOT this yellow.  They are same as the hallways and living area

BASEMENT (nothin' fancy)

This would have been the biggest change had we got to it.  It was in the plans but when we listed we knew it wouldn't help a lot with re-sale (based on the time/effort that needed to go in to it), so it was nixed unless we didn't sell and stayed here

I DON'T miss basement laundry.  Down here all we did was fix the pull string light fixtures

Basement Full Bath:  patched the walls (think previous owner kept a pet in here) and painted the walls.  Super nice to have this down here when we were re-doing the upstairs bath.

So that's it.  Nothing amazing to see as it is still an unfurnished yet much more finished canvas.  Can't wait to share the before and after renovations. 

Let's suffice it to say this place definitely brings back some good memories (and some not so pleasant ones).  You will be missed my first place!

What types of renovations did you do in your first place (could be house or apartment)?  Did you do them for future re-sale or just because.  We definitely have a mix of the two.



Mickey Mouse Cupcakes

Let me just start by saying I was PUMPED to show off the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Cake I was making for my friend's son's First Birthday.  I was so rushed to finish it on the day of (little new oven mishap the night before with cooking) that I forgot to take pictures.  Of course then it was crazy at the party and I never did there either.  Complete bummer.

Apparently the apartment oven was WAAAY off on its heat because this was 10 minutes under recommended baking time.

So instead I'll present you with my Mickey Mouse cupcakes.  If you want to check out ideas on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse cake, please feel free to browse my Cakes/Cupcakes Pinterest board.  The cake is similar to the one shown in there, except I used plastic characters I purchases on Amazon to add some more 3D elements to the cake.  I loved the free standing cookie clubhouse idea too.  The cake was a basic chocolate filled with a buttercream frosting mixed with oreo.  YUM!

I also got to make a simple smash cake for the birthday boy to enjoy.  For the smash cake I removed some batter from what I made for the cupcakes and baked a little cake using a Pyrex dish.  That way I didn't have to bake a full 8" round then cut it down.  The extra I would have ate, and my waist doesn't need that.  This size was perfect to get him, good and messy.  A yellow cake also allowed for a lot of colored icing to smear all over his face.

I think he liked it!

On to the cupcakes...

As soon as I saw this cupcake ideas I was sold.  Hook, Line, and Sinker I tell ya.  I knew they would be simple but perfect for the theme.  I was even excited to get to use my new food processor to make them.  I loved how these turned out and all the kids at the party got excited about them.  Apparently they were much cooler than the cake that took me forever.  Ya win some ya lose some.

I just used a yellow cake box mix (Pillsbury probably) and then my go-to Wilton Buttercream icing.  I tinted the icing a little brown so the white wouldn't stand out too much behind the oreo crumbs.  Then I smashed up some oreos.  It only took about 2 out of 3 rows of the oreo.  My husband was quite pleased with that since I yelled at him every time he looked at the oreos leading up to this.  It's important to ice the cupcake (no particular style since it got squished anyways) then immediately dip in the oreos.  Otherwise the icing will dry out some and be less sticky.

I added ears using mini oreos.  Just one bag was enough for all 48 ears.  Make sure you try to pull out the good ones.  If it's only half, eat.  If it's a little broken, shove that part in the cupcake.

I'm thinking this year I need a Micky Party

I used a hole punch to get 48+ little dots then glued them on the cupcake liner AFTER they were baked but before icing/etc.  Just a little dot will do ya!

If When I do it again, I'd add a bit more icing.  Some Mickey's were looking a little flat headed, no good.

Are you hungy?  What have you been baking or cooking?

Ikea is the BESTA

I happily lived within 30 minutes of Ikea for 18 years of my life and never purchased a thing.  Then I moved away to college and live 1.5 hours from Ikea or 3 hours from another and want items all the time.

Thankfully a recent visit to my parents (who live 15 minutes from the 3 hour Ikea) proved to be a successful trip, both in family time and purchases.  We went with the intent of getting a media unit for under our newly mounted TV.  Although spending a little more than originally planned on we know it was a good price and definitely cheaper than anything we'd looked at elsewhere.

After searching through the store, we decided on purchasing piece from the BESTA system.  This one to be exact.  We then added three drawers at the bottom and cabinets on the two sides opting to leave the middle as open shelving.  We added a glass topper to give it a finished look.  We chose to forgo hardware since the drawers can be easily pulled out from the bottom (and won't get major use anyways since they are more storage) and added the little door pop (totally technically term) on the cabinets.  You just push where the piece is installed and it pops open enough for you to grab it.  We grabbed some legs to give the unit a little more height because boy this thing is short.

 Boxes, boxes, boxes...

After walking away we realized that the unit we grabbed may not be as wide as our TV (which would look off), so we had to re-think the plan and almost decided to just leave and not pick up the pieces downstairs we had written out.  Yes, two engineers went to shop for furniture and didn't measure first.  But after look around the store and saying, "Yep our TV is that big or larger" we decided to add another unit (the "half" size) and go grab our purchases.  I think the most time spend was wandering around the warehouse looking for exactly what we needed.  With 4 color options and NUMEROUS ways to style and accessorize these, there were two rows of items, not even semi chronologically organized.  I think I found one piece while my husband searched out the rest.

Mid Mess

Oh and if you're curious, we went with the black-brown color.  Definitely more black than brown.  But it was perfect for our family room.

It looks oddly brown here but the darker pictures are much more true to the color

Although it looked short in the store, we are pleased with the final height too.  It was taller than the media unit the TV sat on before but about a foot below the bottom of the TV on the mount.

Do you always have left over pieces from Ikea?  Should I be concerned that this thing is going to fall apart?!

As I mentioned previously, the drawers are mostly storage.  Boxes for electronics, DVDs, VHS tapes (yes I still have some and a 10" TV I can watch them on), Wii Games, controllers, etc.  I just realized the 3rd drawer, currently empty will be perfect for our laptops. 

No idea what else is going in the cabinets right now.  We decided to put the cable box on the right because it is the most centered in the Family Room.  I suck at technology and get easily frustrated when something doesn't work so it needed to easily get the signal.  Also, I don't want to be even 30 seconds late in turning the TV on for my favorite shows!  We've also got the Wii box and docking station stored in there. 

I can't say that Ikea furniture is the easiest to put together, but for the price I can take a small inconvenience.  We spent 2 hours the first night getting 80% of it together then did the finishing touches in another hour the next night.  Of course we had to do a slight Ikea "hack" when they told us that putting two pieces together resulted in TWO legs at the spot they sit together which would of course look funny.  It would have been 1 leg, 2 legs, 1 leg, 1 leg.  Silly right?  Turns out we didn't purchase enough legs for this option anyways.  So while the back at the wall is funny (no one sees that), we used two sided foam tape strips (came with someone else in one of the boxes) to center the last leg we had between the two units.  We're confident this is enough support since the back is doubled up and the units are screwed together anyways.  So fingers crossed, please!

Have you made any Ikea purchases lately?  Do you take trips planned around a visit to Ikea?

Inspiration: Living Room Built-Ins

In case you haven't seen my Instagram feed (rebecca_l_williams), I am in LOVE with the built-in shelves/cabinets in the living room of our new house.  I think the kittens love them too, not cool kitties, you don't fit with my decorating style.

The first days of moving in I threw every item that I have used for decorating (even some seaonal items) into the living room.  I thought to myself, "Wow, this is going to be a horrible mess of items when I finally organize."  So I decided to go to my number one source of inspiration, Pinterest!  I typed in "Build In Shelves" and got an out-pouring of ideas.  I was well on my way to an orgaized set of shelves.  Or at least my "For the Home" board was.

listing photo

Let's not wait any longer, and enjoy some eye candy.

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Just kidding, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't at least CONSIDER filling those beautiful shelves with shoes.  If only our walk-in closet had this type of space.  Sigh....

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Of course my very first idea upon laying eye on these shelves in the house listing was BOOKS.  Loads and loads of books.  So many that I have to go to the store and buy more book, I'm gonna raid my parent's house and steal all their books.  If nothing else sold me on this house (in reality there were many things) this was IT!  No worries, books will be included, although they will be neatly styled with other items all around them.  I'm also dying to take the sleves off a lot of books to make them look extra pretty.

So now to some REAL inspiration:

Inspiration #1

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I am loving the idea of an open area in the shelves for a large piece of artwork.  This idea blew my mind!  How did I never consider it?  I already grabbed a piece of art we had and rearranged some shelves in our Built-Ins.  Inspiration #1: done.

Inspiration #2:

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I really like this split of colors.  Unfortunately I won't be cool with the fact that my books wouldn't be grouped by author anymore.  Maybe authors should do their books all in one color, that could help.  I'm also pretty sure I don't have enough variety in my book colors.  But this is beautiful.

Inspiration #3

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I really want to get some of these magazine holders that Amanda used in her guest room shelving update.  I'd love to make my husband's extensive Sports Illustrated collection a little more organized.  I'm thinking a bold color though, or maybe black for our shelves because the white blends too much, maybe that's a good thing...  We'll have to see how all my inspiration plays out.

Inspiration #4

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I can't pinpoint the exact feeling of these cabinet door, but they rock.  Modern, artsy, unique?  I'm thinking making the two sets of shelves on the sides of our built-ins have glass doors.  We don't have fancy china or serveware, but I think a closed place for various serveware, candle sticks not in use, and other "fancy" itesm would be nice.  And this criss-cross pattern is fantastic.

Inspiration #5

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Not just color BEHIND the shelves but ON the shelves themselve.  Why haven't we seen this everywhere yet?  I'm loving how the color on the back and shelves makes the cabinet structure itself pop more. 

Inspiration #6

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Nothing new here, just some color at the back of the shelves.  When we first looked at the house I told my husband the one color that must change is the red/maroon in the living room.  Then we went to Levin Furniture to find a couch and chairs for the room.  When I saw the grey couch it was love at first sight and I knew the red would stay.  We picked out a great patterned chair that is creme with grey and mustard yellow.  I love a good red and mustard yellow.  This is about the back of the shelves right?  Well my idea is to now pick out a moody grey for the built-ins or a pop of mustard yellow (see I brought it back on topic).  The husband is FAR from being sold on this idea, so we'll see.  Maybe something more neutral would win him over?

Inspiration #7

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We've all seen John and Sherry's built-ins with the teal backs, but that's not what this inspiration focuses on.  I remembered their post on how they organized decorating "things" like exsesive amount of candles so I jumped right in.  Since we have a little bit of closet cabinet space and 2 drawers with the built-ins (bottom L/R), I wanted to store decorating stuff there, otherwise it was to the basement.  Decor that can be used everyday, like candle sticks, candles, and frames are going in our cabinets.  Seasonal items are still banned to the basement where we have the storage space. 

 

Now if they just styled themselves we'd be golden....



Is that enough ideas?  Do you want to go build some Built-Ins now or just some awesome shelving in general?

Looking Ahead

I may be leaving this blog hanging and only posting where necessary (ie: the Pinterest challenge), but I had to stop in with an update.

This baby will soon be ours!!!!



We just heard that the title agency will be calling us soon and that papers will be signed by Friday so we can get the keys.  SUPER EXCITED!!!!

Want a few more sneak peaks??

Gorgeous built-ins.  I need to buy more books!!!  (Yes there are french doors)

Spacious basement!

Completely new and updated kitchen.

Hope you love it as much as we do. 

So who's ready to help me decorate?!?!