Remember when I refinished my buffet?  I ended up redoing the kitchen table and chairs to match!  This is a set we have had for quite a while now and has survived three moves and three children.

It was pretty beat up so I was really anxious to refinish it once we got settled here in Florida.

The chairs were the worst because they have spindles and took a lot of extra time to paint.  I am pretty sure I will never do chairs again!

 

Supplies:

Oil based primer (I recommend Zinsser)
Sand paper and electric sander (sanding between coats and parts your are staining)
latex paint (I used a satin finish)
water based poly (I recommend Minwax Polycrylic)
Elmer’s wood filler (to fill in any grooves or scrapes)
Wood stain (I used the darkest stain I could find, Kona)

1.  Start by repairing any major scrapes or dents with Elmer’s wood filler.  I used a lot of this to fill in the natural grooves the table came with.  I hated them… food was always getting stuck in them.

2.  Start sanding!  Use an electric sander to sand off the tops of the chairs and the top of the table.  Make sure you get all the finish off.  Do not over sand unless you are sure your table is solid wood.  I did this and could see part of the particle board show through in one part.

3.  Clean all the dust and start priming the table and chair legs.  I did two coats.  Lightly sand any drips between coats.

4.  Ready to paint!  It takes two coats of latex paint on the table and chair legs.  Work slowly and carefully on the spindles to avoid clumps and drips.  Sand any drips between coats.  I also like to add some floetrol to my paint.  This helps condition your wood and also slows down the drying time to minimize viewable brush marks.

5.  Stain the top of the table and chairs.  Use painters tape as needed.  I did three coats of stain to get the color as dark as I wanted.  I used a stain called Kona.

6.  After 24 hrs I started the poly coats.  Make sure the poly is completely dry between coats.  I did three coats of poly.  Sand between coats as needed with a very fine grit sandpaper.

Make sure you wait 24 to 48 hrs before putting your table and chairs into regular use.  It turned out great!  We have been using it for a few months now and love it!

I absolutely hate it when my husband picks up his phone while driving.  Even if it’s something that he’s doing quickly to update the GPS in the phone to help us get to our desired destination.  I’d much rather do it myself than take the risk of the driver being distracted.   It’s just not worth the risk.

Let’s face it, texting while driving is a problem.  Too many people do it.  We’re all attached to our phones and whether you’re stopped at stoplight or moving down the highway looking down at our phone instead of paying attention the extremely heavy vehicle we’re controlling is dangerous.   I’ve read recently a number of reports about how texting while driving has the same impact on a drivers skills as does driving while under the influence.    What amazes me though is that driving under the influence has significantly greater punishments than the punishments for people that text while driving.  The map below highlights the fines related to driving under the influence and driving while texting.

The difference in most states is huge.  Except for the people in Alaska, who have clearly identified the serious problem of texting while driving.  In many states the financial penalty for drinking while driving is almost 10x higher than if they texted while driving.  Some one needs to review these laws and get that fixed.

If you’re one of many people that text and drive every day, now is the time to stop.  Your message can wait.  And if it can’t, then pull over to focus on your important message.

Husband has always loved seven layer bars.  It’s kind of a bittersweet when we make delicious desserts (so good to the mouth, so bad to the hips).  His parents were coming into town so I thought it would be a perfect and delicious dessert that my four year old could help with.  Well, she ended up doing 90% of it and had so much fun!

I got the recipe here.

Here’s what ya need:

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips (I used white chocolate chips instead)
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/3 cups shredded coconut

All you do is:

•  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
• Place butter in 13 x 9 inch pan and melt in oven. Swirl to coat bottom and sides with butter.
• Spread graham cracker crumbs evenly over bottom of pan. Layer chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and nuts over crumbs. Pour condensed milk over nuts. Sprinkle coconut over condensed milk.
• Bake until edges are golden brown, about 25 minutes. Let cool before cutting into bars.

Try them with your kids, they will love feeling like they are a baker!  I had a lot of fun too!

I love brownies!  They are way yummier than cake!  I am always trying new recipes that use brownies instead of cake!

I was browsing one of my favorite food blogger sites, The Girl Who Ate Everything, and came across these delicious brownie cupcakes!   She might be a genius!  The brownies paired with peanut butter frosting sounded way to good not to try!

We are big brownie fans at my house, and if you can believe it, I didn’t even get one bite of these brownies!  My family gobbled them all up before I got one!  I am pretty sure my husband had three of them himself!

So yes, try these!

They are perfect!  Be careful with your cook time though.  If you over cook them they will harden and be difficult to get out of the cupcake wrappers.

 

 

Sorry I’ve been a little MIA. Three kids is no joke.  A fun no joke.

I have a quick post of an idea my husband had because my 2 and 4 year old ALWAYS leak popsicles all over themselves and their clothes AND they become a sticky mess.  Here’s his genius idea:

He took a cupcake wrapper and put it on the stick to help with the leaking everywhere!

Yeah, he’s kind of smart.

We decided to take the girls to build-a-bear.  We chose the Fair Oaks location in Fairfax, VA.  Husband went online and got a $5 off $30 coupon and we had part of a gift card leftover, so we left out of there pretty cheap.  However, this was mainly because we didn’t allow them to get all the extras.  This was a great experience and all the staff were so friendly!

First, they chose their unstuffed bears.  Anna’s pink bear was $16 and Ella’s black bear with stars was $20.  It was pretty easy to steer them away from the expensive bears (you can get one for $40 for the bear alone).

Next, they went to a computer, scanned their bear and put their bear’s hobbies in.  After this, they got to stuff their bear and kiss their bears heart and place it in the bear.

It was cool because they got to step on the machine so it let out the bears stuffing.

Then it was bath time!

A little more bath time fun!

Lastly, they named their bear and got a certificate as well.  We could have chosen clothes, shoes and even roller skates for them, but all of that was so expensive and we could have ended up spending way more than double our original cost.  They were happy with what they had.  The clerk boxed up their bears into a little house.  They loved them!

Even the baby loved them too!

It was a great and fun activity!  I think it would be a great idea for a reward.  A little advice is to spend a good amount of time at each station.  Let your kids make believe and pretend.  It makes great memories!

 

 

Again, with the beat up furniture from the move!  Ha.  I am slowly moving from project to project as I get settled in the new house.  I got this buffet about 6 years ago.  It was one of my first pieces of furniture I was able to buy after graduating from college and getting married.

I sold a lot of my stuff before the move, but I always loved this piece.  It got really beat up in the move… maybe because we pack all our stuff ourselves, or maybe because it drove from Virginia to Florida in an open trailer secured with ropes and bungee cords.  Oops.

Oh well… I actually LOVE the new look.  It fits in much better with the colors of my house.

 

I started out by sanding all of the little dings until they were nice and smooth.  After that I used Furniture Refinisher with steel wool to give me a good start on getting the top finish removed.  I wanted to stain the top so I really needed all the finish completely gone.

This had a really thick finish so I used the Furniture Refinisher to keep me from sanding my life away.  Make sure you use gloves if you decide to use this product for your project.

 

Then, I took an electric sander and used a medium grain sand paper to take off the rest of the finish.  After I dusted off the rest of the mess from sanding, I was ready to put on another coat of primer.

I like to use Zinsser Oil Based Primer from Lowes.  Sand lightly between all coats of primer and paint to remove any clumps or paint drips.

Next, I put on two coats of white latex paint in a satin finish.  I added a little floetrol to my latex paint.  This helps condition the wood and slows down the drying time so that there are less visible brush strokes.

I used a a dark stain called Kona on the top of the buffet.  I actually did 3 coats of this stain to get it as dark as I wanted it to be.  You can always get it a shade or two lighter using less coats.  I also sanded between coats to make sure it was extra smooth.

After 24 hrs of drying I started the poly coats.  I like to use a water based poly in the satin finish.  The oil based poly’s will yellow over time.  This might not show on a darker piece, but would be terrible on this white.  I recommend Minwax Polycrylic.  Again, make sure to sand between coats to make it extra smooth.

 

 

 

 

Check out my antique turquoise armoire I did as a recent guest post here.

 

We are finally settled into the house enough for me to start doing some crafts!  Yay!  I hope to never ever move again.  It is so much work and its seems that all my furniture gets a little bit more beat up with each move.

Anyway, you might have seen this project floating around pinterest from shopcraftwarehouse.blogspot.com.  I love it!  I love how easy it is to change out the pictures!  I have such a hard time choosing between pics anyway so this display makes it super easy to switch out picutres.

The original blogger used spray paint, magnets and metal sheets, but I didn’t want to deal with that so I used cork board under mine so that I could pin up the pictures instead of put them up with a magnet.  It just seemed a lot simpler.

SUPPLIES

• 3 Square frames (I used 10 x 10 with 8 x 8 photos, but 12 x 12 would look great too)
• Wood letter of your last name (found at any craft store)
• Acrylic paint color of your choice (I used beige)
• Cork board roll or squares (found at any craft store or on Amazon for $5.94)
• Burlap roll (found at any craft store)
• Hot glue gun

*** Paint your letter.  Carefully remove glass from all three frames.  Cut cork into squares to fit your frame and glue to inside cardboard backing of the frame.  Cut burlap to fit the frames you picked out and glue the corners unto the previously glued cork board squares.  Glue your wood letter to the middle of own of the cork squares.  Put your frames back together again and use any thumb tac to put up your square photos.

One of the many challenges of being a stay at home mom is balancing the home finances.   Each month we sit down as a couple to review the expenses and our income and determine what we need to do to make sure the house runs smoothly for the next 30 days.  This can be an adventure in itself.

The summer always seems to be the most challenging months.   Weekly summer camps for our children quickly add up and before you know it we’re in a situation where we’re looking for additional sources of income.   Luckily, there are always additional ways to make more money.

Part Time Work

I’ve been known to grab some part time work in the spring and early summer to help cover the costs of summer. Tutoring, being a waiter, and helping the local businesses balance their books have all been tasks that I’ve completed to make some extra income. Craigslist is often a great source for finding part time work opportunities near you.

Sell Your Stuff

Let’s face it, as Americans we have way to much stuff. I’m sure there is close to $1,000 dollars of goods in your home that aren’t being used and that you could sell for the summer. Put them up on ebay, have a garage sale, or just sell them to family members that would use them. This can quickly help you come up with the money needed for the summer.

Learn to Trade

This last item requires a bit more planning than the other two, but a great way to increase your income as a stay at home parent is to learn to trade stocks. With the internet allowing you to manage your own funds you can quickly make transactions and earn additional money throughout the year. If you’re looking for training or information about how to trade stocks, Online Trading Academy, looks like an organization with a solid history and positive reviews. In fact, favorable Online Trading Academy Reviews has helped the organization grow quickly and offer it’s services to people all around the world.

What ever way you do it, making a bit of extra income is something that will require planning and hard work but the benefits will be a health balance in your bank account through the expensive times of the year.

I am so excited about my newly redone dresser! It went from old and beat up to bright and beautiful!  I used a pre-tinted antiquing glaze to give it a really cool finished look.

Check out the tutorial on keepingitsimplecrafts.com where we featured as a guest blogger! Yay!