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I have 5 followers!!!! Yippee! Okay fine, I have 4 since I am my own follower. I don't count, but you guys do! Now that I have "followers", I feel I must leave a note telling you I'm going on vacation for the rest of the summer. *cricket cricket* AHEM, for those of you that give a hootnanny....I'll be back to the blog world in August. My vacation destination doesn't have internet or reliable cell service. No, it's not a padded room at the loony bin, although I might enjoy that peace and quiet. I'll be in the wonderful mountains of Virginia visiting my family. My hubby will be right here at home working diligently on his honey-do list. Or he dang well better be if he knows what is good for him. :) So Tata for now!!

i. love. coupons.

I'm that annoying person in front of you in the checkout line with 50 coupons that won't scan correctly. It never fails when I'm going on a big couponing day, something will go wrong. It took me 45 minutes to check out at Walgreens yesterday. We had a really bad storm and it had scrambled their computers. Manufacturer coupons were scanning correctly but not their own Walgreens coupons. Usually Walgreens coupons aren't cents off but more of price adjusters. Poor cashier had to void the entire thing and start over, manually overriding each Walgreen coupon. I felt like one of those crazy coupon people, but knowing in my mind I was doing everything by the book and not at all shady. Just normal use of coupons but you second guess yourself. I hit Kmart as well since they were doubling manufacturer's coupons up to 99 cents. A serious couponer's dream! So here is my haul for the day-

Here is what I ended up getting-
4 boxes of cookies (travel size, we are road tripping soon!)
2 containers of raisins
9 rolls of aluminum foil (never expires, cost only 18 cents total!)
4 bottles of body wash
12 small cans of tomato sauce (we make our own pizza sauce with this as a base)
4 rolls of paper towels
2 packs of paper plates
6 hamburger helpers
2 cake mixes (Tiny Skinny Man's birthday is next week)
2 cake frostings
8 cans of chili (I'll share my Superbowl Dip recipe with you in the fall)
12 chocolate bars

total-
67 items
retail cost $98.64
I paid $32.98 after tax :)
66% savings

happy father's day!!!

Yep, as usual I'm late. Better late than never? Maybe I'm reeeeally early for next Father's Day....yes that's it! Anyhoo....my handsome husband woke up to this-

I love, love, love the pictures that Tonya at A Moment In Time Photography did, they turned out beautifully!! The kiddos weren't terribly cooperative, she was so patient! The boys made the "DAD ROCKS" paperweight. I found the tutorial for that here, super easy!

The jar you see is filled with Reese's Pieces. "Big Guy" wrote the label- "We love you to pieces." :)

I traced the kids hands and stacked them on construction paper to cover a Valentine's Day Scrabble box. The bottom of the inside is a heart shaped Scrabble board so we picked out letters to spell each kid's name and attached them with booger glue. What is booger glue? I'll pretend you didn't ask that. I honestly have no idea of it's proper name but it's like a gelatin-y thin glue that you can stick and unstick, kind of like gel clings. Sorry, got sidetracked there. Carry on. Inside the box was this-

and these (filled in of course)-

I found those here. Some of the answers from my kids were pretty funny. My six-year-old "Big Guy" says his Dad weighs 99 pounds "because that's a lot", my three-year-old "Tiny Skinny Man" says it makes Dad happy when he drinks water. I dunno, weirdos.

out of necessity

Yeah, I love being crafty. I have to admit it usually comes out of necessity. Three kids, three cats (one with diabetes), a toad, a house, two cars, and husband and me on one income? It means I have to figure out a solution on the cheap!

So here was the scenario- where is the stinking remote control??? I often wonder if it grew legs. It has no dedicated home, just somewhere high enough so the one-year-old "pretty girl" can't reach it but low enough that six-year-old "big guy" and three-year-old "tiny skinny man" can reach it.

Enter my Mommy brain. What do I have? This-

Sweet, I can turn it into this-

Here is how I did it. I started with a long skinny box and cut it to the desired height. I ripped (yes, literally) a page from an old atlas and mod podged it to the box. Then I hand stamped "CLICK" onto a washer and tied it to the box with cotton twine. I attached it to the wall next to the recliner (at perfect height) using two nails. Easy peasy.



http://www.lovemiabow.com/

let's save some money or something

I'm always looking for ways to save money. I'll try most anything once. I found a great tutorial for making your own baby wipes here. I couldn't figure out what to put them in since I hate to buy new things when I know darn good and well I can repurpose something else. I'm looking all around my house when, duh, it dawns on me. I have tons of these hanging around:

I break out the Modge Podge, some leftover fabric and ribbon from the nursery makeover and tada!

coolest. dad. ever.

This Dad has got to be the most hysterical guy to be around! Have you heard about him? He & his wife thought it would be nice to wave at the bus as their son set off for his sophomore year of high school. It embarrassed the poor kid to death. So the next day Dad upped the ante and everyday thereafter until the last day of school. Check out his blog with daily pictures, ahahahaha!

http://waveatthebus.blogspot.com/

I thought I was the coolest Mom ever when the neighbors and I did this to my son for his 6th birthday-

Here is "Big Guy" getting off the bus proudly wearing his 6th birthday crown from school-

He has no idea we are about to do this to him-

The entire bus watched and he thought it was the most awesome birthday!

lovemiabow.com

nursery makeover

Another late post...the nursery makeover. We were on the fence as to whether this house was for us....to buy or not to buy....that was the question. We had a nine month old baby boy, we were renting a duplex that we were quickly outgrowing, we were ready to spread our wings and fly. We saw tons of houses (pretty sure we toured Freddy Krueger's), nothing jumped at us (except that frog in the one with the wet basement). We found our home when we saw the 2nd bedroom had an airplane theme, it was a sign. Airplanes were the theme for our life (that's a story for another day). I knew before we even got pregnant the first time our nursery would be airplane themed. And so it was. Then we found the house with the airplane bedroom. SOLD.

Fast forward 5 years...two boys had been in that airplane nursery and we were expecting baby #3. I said from day one it would be a girl. No one believed me since I thought boy #2 was a girl too, heehee. But, our oldest son agreed with me from day one. We were right :). The second I found out we were having a girl I was decorating in my mind. I wanted super girly. I wanted frill and foo foo and lace. I wanted pink and fluff and tulle and roses. My poor husband.

So that wonderful airplane room had to be *gasp* painted. Pink. I made covers for the rocking chair, a cornice, tie backs for the curtains, a lampshade, a bolster pillow. My husband and our neighbor laid new carpet, painted the room pink and white, added a chair rail, replaced the closet doors and considered strangling a bossy pregnant lady (at least I'm pretty sure they wanted to by the look on their faces).

It turned out so beautiful. Here is the before with some spackle-

Here is the after in all its glorious pink-ness-

The canopy over the crib was a pottery barn knockoff made by a friend of mine, love it!!

supah simple

I love boxes and containers of any sort really, and maps, I loooove maps. You see where I'm headed?? Maybe not, but here is where I started-



Here is what I came up with after a map & jute treatment on a simple cardboard box-


If I had been braver at the time I'd have used Mod Podge. Now I love that stuff! It was just intimidating. I may redo the boxes....:)

it just needs a ruffle

This before and after is a bit behind. But hey, I just started this new DIY blog and you can forgive me, right? When we found out baby #3 was a girl, it was decorating time!!! The nursery had been an airplane theme for 2 boys, now I was planning a major overhaul into the land of pink, ruffles, and foo foo. I started with the rocking chair. Here is the airplane theme, very cute, but I couldn't just add a ruffle....
I left the fabric and pad as is and just covered it with the slipcover I made. I'm not the best seamstress ever, my apologies, but I try! And yes, I am aware that my photography skills need some work. Recognize the fabric from the toy box redo?

just my style

I love "upcycling" things! This project was easy peasy and I think it is super duper cute! I have tons of baby food jars hanging around (if it is glass you must save it, right?), I've been trolling the DIY blogs for something to do with them. I combined a few different ideas and here is the outcome!



The washers are hand stamped by me and tied with jute. A yummy smelly votive is nestled inside. I <3 this!

before & after

My baby is growing up, the older she gets the more stuff she has. Soooo, she needed a toy box. We had one collecting dust in the garage, I just hadn't gotten around to sprucing it up. It started out in an airplane themed room, red. It got shifted to a Nemo themed room, aqua. So there it was all ugly and lonesome in the dusty garage after the boys got stuffed into a room together with no theme (just yet, don't tell my husband). After sanding and multiple coats of bright white paint it looked pretty good but needed a lil something. I decided to add a padded top, so I cut up a perfectly good retired changing pad, covered it in fabric leftover from the girly room makeover, added a ruffle, aaaaaand....it still needed something. Sooooo, fabric rosettes c'mon down!!! What do you think???

stuff I make my husband do....

Sooooo, we inherited this awesome antique ladder with our house. I'm sure the previous owner left it here after much eye rolling at his wife. My husband rolled his eyes too. It started as a towel rack in the bathroom. My husband decided he would build shelves where it stood instead. Convenient, no? So it had been in the garage until a few weeks ago when I finally convinced him how fabulous it would be as a pot rack in my kitchen!! Tada!!

LoveMiaBow

My first creative love....lovemiabow.com

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

As you can see, old blog gone! I'm going in a different direction, you will still hear the daily shenanigans of my life, but I'm going to lean into my creative side. I have been so inspired by other DIY blogs, here is my shot at it. It won't hurt to shamelessly self promote my business as well, right? So while I work on organizing this place, you just mosey on over to LoveMiaBow.com, okie doke?