Nail Polish Strips

Okay. Do you love it or do you hate it?

Never mind. Don't tell me.- Unless- you love it.
By the looks of my parched and cracked hands, I should have invested in a tube of Vaseline and some moisturizing gloves instead of nail strips. Cameras can be rude.

Love!

They are by Sally Hansen and come in an array of colors but don't come cheap at $9.99 a box.

I justified that it's cheaper than a manicure and splurged. Plus! It's supposed to last 10 days which is way longer than any manicure I've ever had.
Once I put them on, I became an instant addict. Addicted, I tell you.
But then whistles started to blow in my head. '$10 dollars every 10 days is 30 bucks a month and 30 bucks a month is $360 a year and $360 a year....'
 After the intervention was over, I googled and discovered that at my local Walgreen's, I can get Incoco, Dry Nail Applique for $5.99. And. Incoco has French Manicure in their repertoire.
If they's whistles goin' off, it must be dag blame dog whistles, cuz I cain't hear nutin.


The downside is...

  I may have to fore go most prints for awhile- except for my pj's, that is!

Just Say No to Drugs

So while I was on my Tupperware tangent, my attention was drawn to another disaster zone in my kitchen.

                                                     And just to put it all in perspective....

We should call this NOT Rite Aid.

The hilarious part of it all is we very rarely take medication save the occasional Tylenol or antihistamine. Maybe sickness has seen our arsenal and is afraid to come here. (( :


We grouped and organized and may or may not have grabbed one of our previously discarded containers from the recycling bin.


   My lovely assistant shows off our progress.

We threw out a ton, I promise!

Thermometers, skin meds, allergy meds and cold items all have homes again.

                                                                   Before

                                                             After


 

Waging Tupper-War

See where this is going?

I've had visions dancing in my head for several weeks now of throwing out ALL the plastic storage containers and opting for all glass Pryex. I found a knock off brand at Big Lots. It was $20 for a 20 piece set and you can also buy them individually.

 So I commenced to tossing. It went really well until I ran across this little number.

Now who could part with that, never mind that it is completely useless.

And then this popped up...

That top pops out and is convenient for storing salad dressing even though the entire thing is shaped more like a hamburger and is not at all conducive to salad. But it is after all authentic Tupperware so I'll just keep this one too.

Resolve disengaged.

Ten minutes later my keep pile was way bigger than I imagined.

And it begged me to stay using lines like we're not stained and we have all our tops and what if one day you need us?

See.

This stuff really is evil.

Two weeks from now and only 5 of these guys will still have their lids.

So I put the glass storage on the top shelf. I don't know if they will be any more well-behaved but I'll let you know.

And here's the proof that my hoarding tendencies are only borderline!

I found this vase at Hancock Fabrics on sale for $11.  I hated the color but saw the potential.

Here she is in all her 70% off glory.

 A coat of white paint

Followed by silver

Love it! I love how the silver made the details pop.

I so wish that I could show you where this vase will live but I'm adding it to my "bedroom collection" in the closet which sadly will have to wait to debut until I get the walls painted.

                                          That's all I have. Carry on!

A Christmas Tree, I mean, Geometric Shape is Born

While doing Mammoth Basement Drudgery for a serious 6 hours yesterday and accomplishing only 1/3 of one of the 5 disaster rooms, I found this amongst the mountains of crafting crap.

                                                                   and this

Which reminded me that on a recent Ross trip I found this for $2.99

It's a candle holder. I whipped out the hot glue gun and nearly burned my fingerprints off but it was all worth it when it turned out like this...

It's a geometric shape on display for now but in December, I'll call it a Christmas tree. ( ;

I like how it breaks up all the deep reds which I think I've gone overboard with in this room. But I'll figure that out later. For now, it's back to the grind. )) :

I Have Been Piddling...

.... Piddlin as my Mom says which sounds more like what my dog does when we're not looking than it does domestics. Phillip calls it "loafering". I think I'll call it the serious creative blahs. Maybe it was the little boog we had for a guest and then maybe it was the little boog leaving-- but that's another blog--. Or maybe it's the disaster in the basement that after a full days work looks absolutely no different. I refuse to let myself tackle any of my burning projects until I've completed basement drudgery.
Anyway.. I did put this here...

 By the front door.

And I found this table at Ross and put it behind the couch.

I need a little plant poof to put there too. In time....

I got these lovely vase thingys which get totally lost amongst all the TV....

A "C" for the entrance from the garage which is very confusing and dark. Do you think the "C" stands for Colvard or Connie? (( o ;

Found this picture on canvas and hung it here, above the bath.

Made this square "wreath" out of coffee filters.

Phillip joked that it looked like emergency toilet paper so I hung it here.

...By the toilet until I decide that it was indeed a total failure and

nothing like what I had in mind.

And that's it. No WOW factor. I've lost my mojo and I'm putting that blame on the basement.

 So there's only one thing left to do.

Yep.

I'm going in. 

Curtain Call

Some time ago I eluded to a shop online failure aside from the bamboo place mats.  It was these curtains.

I bought them off of eBay for a cool $20 each. They are a discontinued Waverly from JcPenny. They were probably purchased from the clearance table by an eBay-selling guru for $5 a panel so that Guru could resale to some schmuck at 4 times what they paid.
And I would be that schmuck.
Admittedly, a willing one with psychedelic eyeballs for this fabric.

So these curtains were intended as plan B for the kitchen, back when I was convinced that plan A (Pier 1 Hard Pleated Bamboo Curtain Panels) wasn't going to work. (( ;

So they arrive and may I just give a shout out to my mailman? Every time I get a package too big for the mailbox, my ultra patient, amiable mailman, walks them to my front door, rings the doorbell and waits for me to answer; which doesn't seem like a big deal unless you've seen my dogs when the doorbell rings......
I should have named them Mayhem, Pandemonium and Havoc.

My darling mailman whom between the dogs and the package in his arm, I wouldn't recognize if I stood next to  in the grocery line, politely smiles even though he has admitted he is afraid of ankle biters dogs. He sweetly extends the package that he could have merely left by the garage, with a twinkle in his eye like Santa Claus in one of those Christmas Pepsi commercials. I, by this point am holding and scolding the most vicious looking dog of the 3, kicking at the other 2, wondering why I insist on doing so much online shopping and wrangling to get my hands on said package. 
Just setting the scene as to why the following would be so depressing.

So I get these 4 dazzling panels only to discover that 3 of them are 63" and one of them is 84". I needed all four of them to be 84".

Snivel.Whimper. Cry.

Fortunately, I contacted eBay Guru and she was very apologetic, gracious and honest. She credited me back the money and told me to keep the curtains for fabric. --"Thanks, but there's only one problem with that, Guru.-- This here is a NO SEW zone."
So I got to thinking... This was a few months ago so I've had ample pondering time.
And I ended up taking the panels to a jewel of a  little lady at the fabric store who offers sewing lessons and had her split the 84" and one of the 63" down the middle so that I could treat all three windows in my wanna-be master bath.

There's clapping, two fingered whistles and "Bravo" tracks playing in my head this very moment.

Bliss.

I bought the rods on Rollback at Walmart. The short rods were $8 each and $12 for the longer one. Sew Lady charged $20 for alterations. So for $40 my spa wanna-be is getting just a little more bearable.

There's this window...a big one right by the shower...and it has this vinyl blind...well, just look...

HATE these things!

Check out the tie wraps and packing tape at the top.

It's even hanging wrong side out, which is in and of itself debatable.

There just is no right side.

Desperate.

So this is the after shot.

I put on these pinch clips so that the curtains can easily slide open and closed. (Hopefully we will remember to close when it's shower time!)

I really wasn't sure what to do about toilet's window but I like how it turned out.

The males in this house had better aim right.

And look! I  even found the perfect place for the vinyl, tie wrapped, packing taped shade....