I feel pretty

So, I have been going out on a limb and trying to dress "fashionable" lately. And, of course, I have to put my own spin on things as well as being artsy craftsy somehow. Well, this outfit (in my humble opinion) is all of the above. And at quite a bargain, too! The under teal tank top was $1 at Wet Seal, the flowy tank was one of those 5 for $20 at Wet Seal, the orange jeans were a regular pair of blue jeans I didn't wear much anymore, so I tried to bleach them the best I could then put them in a dye bath called "orange goldfish", and the cartigan was given to me as a white cardi, so I put it in a teal dye bath, and the teal flats were $3 at Gabes! Woot! THIS is my kind of outfit.... cheap, I had a creative hand in it, colorful, and I feel pretty!

(Please forgive the mess in the background.... it's my 4 year-old's room >.<)

the "NO" sign for children.. and your sanity

Sometimes, for parents, one of the most troubling thought is of your child getting into your medication. What's worse, is having a bowel problem (in my case IBS) and having to put Miralax in your drink and worrying if your kid is gonna drink it. Well, I came up with a simple solution... let me give a little back-story first.

Last week, while out eating, Chloe pointed to the three arrows making a triangle and stated that the symbol meant "recycle". I was impressed that my four-year-old knew that. So, upon making some tea this evening and pouring in my Miralax, I got the bright idea to use a symbol that she could recognize meant "no". This was when my "AH, HA" moment hit. The "NO" sign... ya know, the red circle with the slash through it. I drew it on my cup and showed her, then said "this is mommy's cup with medicine in it. This sign means "no"". After that short discussion, I took her to the computer and showed her some google images of the "no" sign. I knew she "got it" when she saw a picture and said "no puppy dogs"- she looked sad about it, too.

Because of this, we have accomplished two VERY good things: Chloe knows what the "no" sign means, and she knows mommy's medicine drink is a "no, no".

Necklace Fixer-Upper

So, I found this necklace that I'd been holding onto for a LONG time. I wanted to give it to Chloe, who loved it, but broke it. If you look closely in the picture, you can tell between the "I" and "N" I glued it together to fix it. But, not only does this old necklace look dirty and tarnished, but it don't look quite right.

Hmmm... how am I gonna fix this? Then I remembered seeing someone on Pinterest that covered brown bobby pins with nail polish to make them pretty. So, I thought I'd give it a go!

I chose Red, Chloe's favorite color, and a glitter polish that I had on hand and decided to use to cover up the  glue spots better... not to mention what little girl doesn't love something covered in glitter?!

So, after two coats of red polish and two coats of glitter, this is what we have!

YAY! Looks pretty good! If I were to do this again in the future, I'd use a brighter color. Looks pretty good, though. Can't wait to surprise Chloe with this in the morning; she's gonna LOVE it!

Boring Brown to Beautiful Blue

Well, I've decided to take my hand at refashioning a thing or two around here. So, I thought I'd share ! I went through hubby's closet and found this boring, plain brown t-shirt.

But, I didn't want a brown shirt.. So, I thought Bleach would change the color somehow! So, we shall experiment!

I tied some knots in the shirt so it would be different shades of whatever color it ended up being!

hmmmmm, interesting! It's turning blue! I thought it was about done and took the knots out to check it. YUCK! It's still VERY brown in there!

So, a little more bleach poured in, swished it around..... and..... lets see how it turned out!

Cool! The thread stayed brown! Now, there was a picture on Pinterest that inspired me to try a technique on this shirt. Here is a photo of my inspiration for the back of this shirt!

hmm... what shall I use to secure the middle of each strip?... I rummaged through some junk, and found some ugly pajama pants that were given to me. What a perfect ribbon these pants have for my project!

Ok, so, I cut the strips on the back of the shirt, hand sewed the ribbon on and tried it on. It fit pretty good, but was difficult to take a picture of my own back. I think I have some tweaking to do to this shirt and it doesn't quite look like the 'inspiration' photo. But, I have a new, comfy shirt that ISN'T boring brown!

The finished product is, in Hubby's words "VERY 80's" ... I'll take that as a compliment, that seems to be what's hip and 'in' now anyways! :)

My Life- An Intro

As my first post on my new blog, I would like to begin by saying THANK YOU for visiting this site and I hope you enjoy being here. The plan for this blog is to share my experiences, thoughts, and a few money saving tips. As a full-time college student, mother of a pre-schooler, and Army wife, we have to pinch pennies and, as Tim Gun would say "make it work"! I know there are PLENTY others out there in a similar situation that could benefit from what I have to share.

A little about me: my name is Lisa. At the age of 19, I married my soldier in 2004 who had just returned from a 13 month tour of Iraq.

About four years later, we welcomed a beautiful baby girl into our life: Chloe. I am proud to say that it was a 100% natural labor and delivery! Chloe had ten fingers, ten toes, perfect feet just like her Mamaw, and chubby fingers like her Mamma. My life couldn't get any better!

These days, hubby is still in the military, Chloe-Bug is a hyperactive, drama queen, and I spend my days being super-mom the best I can while continuing my education to become an elementary school teacher. Our little family consists of Hubby, Chloe-Bug, me, our three sugar gliders (Cocoa, Ziggy, and Gizmo), Buster (our 8-year old golden retriever) and Tigger the kitty.




I anticipate that this blog will be used as a place for "teacher talk", as well as artsy-craftsy talk, Mom talk, and maybe a little Sugar Glider talk. Expect to see a LOT of pictures here, too!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope this blog can really reach a lot of people!

- Lisa (AkA LuuLuu)