I just feel that I need to blog so that I can get SOMETHING accomplished that I am happy with today!!  You may remember my excitement when I shared that Snail's bedding came for his super hero room (really, more of a Batman room).  We got it painted, got the bedding (Snail got it from Santa), and then things just seemed to come to a stop and have been at a stop.  I have been working on things here and there for his room, finding all of these wonderful ideas on Pintrest, spending money at Michaels, TJ Maxx, and the thrift store.  Buying spray paint, other paints, letters, fabric, and paper.  I am so beyond frustrated.  Almost nothing that I've worked on has turned out the way I pictured it in my mind.  I called my best friend yesterday to vent to her about how I think there is a conspiracy on Pinterest and how really, none of these people DYI this stuff...they BUY it, then they pretend to do the steps, take pictures, and make you think you could do it.  Just kidding...but these ladies who do this are just super, uber talented, and I, obviously, am not! I want to BE them!  But when I try it, I fail, and I hate everything because I wasted money buying the materials, time doing it, and now I have to turn around and spend MORE money buying the real thing which I should have just done in the first place!  So, while I was going to wait to blog out Snail's room when it was all done and perfect, instead, I will show you where we are now, and some things I'm working on.  And you'll maybe get a glimpse of why I'm so beyond frustrated!!!  Prepare for a photo bomb!!!  First, here are a few pics of Snail's room when it was a nursery.



And now his biggy boy room....




So, this is what Snail's room looked like once we had painted the Batman colors on.  I wanted to keep this room somewhat neutral because I know he isn't going to be obsessed with Batman forever.  Please ignore the "too small" pj's....he has this thing with clothes that he has to keep them and wear them (pj's) even when they are a size too small.  Greyhorse on the top, Old Navy on the bottom, and not sure the name of the chair rail color, it was left over from the Puppy's room.  I am really starting to wish I'd left it this way!   :)  But no, I had to be crazy and do this.....


And here are some pics of the process of this...

Don't you just love the Puppy's head in this one?  And please ignore the complete mess of this room....it's seriously driving me nuts, but it's just been a mess for a month.  Snail loved helping me out by drawing on the wall with pencil.  I used two more shades of gray to make "Gotham City".  I am still debating on whether or not to add a few yellow windows to the top left corners of a few of these buildings.  I wasn't going to because I didn't want too much busy-ness, but I am really starting to think that a few little yellow windows will tie everything together!  So here are some of the projects I am working on and why most of them just plain suck.  I really wish I had take some before pics of some of these things so you could see that they were probably much better before.


I painted this lamp shade (that used to be brown) with the light yellow that's on his chair rail.  Close up it looks horrible.  This probably has about 6 layers of paint on it.  Problem was, the shade itself was super porous.  It was like painting a pair of nylons that were stretched very tightly around the plastic of the shade.  The paint went right through the layer of "nylon" and onto the material (plastic?) under.  But in certain spots, the nylon stuck to the plastic, making the shade look like it has big bubbles on it. 


It doesn't look bad from far away.  Don't worry, the ugliest side is soooo in the corner.  Oh, I also painted the bottom of this lamp which many years ago was hunter green, then orange when it was in Snail's nursery, now it's grey.  Then there is this lamp.


I wanted to paint this one white and do a light blue shade (there's lots of light blue in his bedding).  As you can see, I wrapped foil around the socket and switch area, as well as the cord.  I primed it white first.
....and then spray painted, and spray painted, and spray painted....this pic is before I started painting.
...and after using an entire can of spray paint, it still looked just like this, maybe worse.  The spray pain actually seemed to push the primer OFF!!!  So, I waited a day and then went over it with regular paint and a brush.  It doesn't have that smooth, glossy look of spray painted.  Maybe I'll try another kind of spray paint and do another layer, but right now, I am sooooo very mad at this project!!!

However, I am kind of excited about the shade for this one.

I have a lot to do on this, but I saw on Pintrest where someone used Sharpies to do a similar city scape like I did on Snail's wall...and I didn't want to do that again, so I thought about the words that the superheroes use, and the little "explosions" and thought that would be cute.  So now I'm thinking I need to put a few rings of color on the lamp stand as well!!  So I guess that's an ongoing project and we shall see how that one turns out!

Next, we had another Princesses of Pintrest party last Friday night, and I completed a few projects!  Here's the first.
What I like:  the color in the letters.  I basically painted a psychadelic bullseye thing on the canvas using the Batman colors of blue, grey, yellow, white, black.  Then, I put down the letters, and spray painted over it with yellow.  So, when I pulled off the letters, you could see the other colors under.  I love the bright blue and the black.

What I don't like:  the color of spray paint that I chose.  It's way too boldly yellow.  I am going to attempt to try to recover the letters and go over it in the same light yellow from the chair rail and the lamp shade.  Other than that, I heart this.

Next, I wanted to make Snail's name for his wall.
I already had the A and the B because his nursery was the ABC's.  So I just bought the G and the E.  I traced the letters onto scrap paper that he picked out himself at Michael's.  My friend cut them out for me at our party, and then I used spray adhesive to adhere the paper to the letters.  I then modge-podged over them to get a bit of a glossy look.  If you look closely, on the letter A, some of the adhesive seeped through the paper, so I had to re-do it (another project gone wrong!) and I happened to have some grey/black scrap paper that I thought would be ok, even though I really wanted a navy.
This project in one that anyone can do easily and I think it's so much cuter than just a plain painted letter.  Plus, Snail had so much fun picking out his paper! (and two of the sheets were on sale for 25 cents, so of course, that was a bonus!!

Next, I got these frames at Michaels on clearance for $4 each!  I thought they were super, super cute.  I had a plan in mind to make little tiny paper bats and frame them, like this (NOT MINE, FOUND IT ON PINTEREST)....


...so this is how mine ended up.


I used the scraps left over from the paper I cut his big letters out of.  I am actually happy with how this project turned out, thought my "should-have-been-an-interior-designer-best-friend" said I might want to paint the mat or the frame to make the bats pop against the grey wall.  I think she might be right, so ideas are welcomed, because I don't know what to do!

I don't know if I am keeping these here.  There just happened to be 3 evenly-spaced nails already there from the ABC that used to be here, so for now, that's where they will stay.

SOOOOO....those are the projects I'm working on.  I can't wait to get everything DONE and on the walls.  My goal was this weekend, but I really don't know if that's going to happen as I have a million other things to do!


Valentine's Day is coming.  I don't really decorate for Valentine's Day, but of course I had to fill that "Family Frame" with something Valentine-related.  Got this very simple idea from Pinterest.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a 9-month-old to open his hand and make a hand print?!?


So this is the extent of my Valentine's Day decorating!  Just a few little red/pink things.



And now it's time for......THAT'S WHAT LITTLE BOYS ARE MADE OF!!!!

I had to have Snip start working on his Valentine's now, because it will take him a month to write his name on every one.  He has 20 kids in his class, and we have a severe nut allergy in his class, so instead of inspecting the ingredients on a million different kinds of candy, we decided to do "love bugs".  So simple and inexpensive!  Got the idea and mason jar print-outs from Pinterest, and bought four bags of bugs at the Dollar Tree (um, $4.)  I got the "paper bag" paper at Michaels for a few bucks.


Snail wanted to help!



I think they turned out wonderfully...although we still have about 8 more to do!  Oh, and I used glue dots to adhere the bugs just enough so that his classmates can easily pull them off.  That was his favorite part of making these!

OK, another reason that the title of this post is "let's get real here, sisters..." is that for REAL, I'm about to lose my mind with my kids!!!  I have got to be doing something wrong.  My Puppy, well, I won't even talk about him, because as I've said before, he's pretty much perfect, and I'm not kidding, he continues to be a perfect specimen of human baby.  BUT....Snip and Snail????  Seriously?  Here's a snippet of a conversation I had with Snip yesterday.

S:  What are we having for dinner? (he asked because he saw pots on the stove)
M:  We're having meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and cauliflower.
S: (insert squeaky, whiny voice here) WHAT?  Why can't we have macaroni and cheese and hot dogs?
****must inform you that Thursday nights have been macaroni and cheese and hot dog nights for almost 3 years in our house because the Snip and Snail spend every Thursday night at their grandparents' house and The Big Dog and I got out for date night.  Well....I didn't go grocery shopping on Monday as I usually do because the windchills were way below 0 and I didn't want to take Snail and Puppy out in that while Snip was at school.  We were OUT of hotdogs.  God forbid.  AND, we were not doing date night because The Big Dog wasn't feeling well and I have million things to do at home.  Back to conversation.
M:  Because I'm making dinner for our whole family tonight because Mumma and Da Da aren't going to dinner tonight.  So we're having meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and cauliflower.
S: Why can't I have macaroni and cheese and hot dogs?  It's Thursday.
M:  Because I'm making meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and cauliflower for our whole family.  By the way, we don't have any hot dogs.
S:  But we have macaroni and cheese.  See????  (dramatically opens pantry door and points to mac and cheese).
M: I said I'm making meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and cauliflower.  For our whole family. Don't argue with me.
S:  How could you let us run out of hot dogs?
M:  I didn't get to the store this week, Snip.
S: You are so selfish that you'd rather stay here and clean this house all day than go shopping.  You'd rather let your kids starve.

Um...he's 5.  For REAL?  I sent him to his room.  What do you do!?!?  And while Snip and Snail are getting better at wanting to play together, they can't do it without fighting.  I look in the living room and see two adorable sweet boys playing Chutes and Ladders....two minutes later, I hear screaming and crying because Snail keeps putting the spinner on 5.  Then, they play superheroes, capes, everything...nicely running around an playing, not even two minutes into it, SCREAMING because "I wanted to be Green Lantern this time!".  And this is all day...all day....all day.  Even when we are playing together or doing a craft, or cooking, it is constant.  I sometimes wonder if they will ever get along all day?!

I'll leave you with something I'm thankful for! The Big Dog and I got to have a little weekend getaway a few weekends ago at a ski resort about a half an hour from here.  We love it there and try to get up two weekends a year.  Funny part is that I don't ski, but Big Dog does so he enjoys the mountain and I enjoy the mountain air!  The weekend we went, it was 65 degrees (on the mountain!) on Saturday.  I sat out on my deck and read and listened to music.  I leave you with my view of the gorgeous sun on the mountain!

Bye for now ~