Fabric Covered Bulletin Board

Time for some Home Cleaning.

Let's get organized, shall we?

I finally got to this project yesterday, it's been on my to-do list for about a month. That's how my projects usually happen. I get very excited and buy all my supplies and then I can't find the time to do it. Plus I was on Day 2 of my detox and I needed to stay busy in order to ignore the hunger... 
I was also relying on my hubby to cut some wood...I really should learn how to use a saw.

When I was re-decorating my daughter's room, I found an old bulletin board that was mine from college. We didn't have a use for it in her room anymore so my instinct was to pitch it or throw it in the garage sale pile. But thanks to my friend, Michelle, I've been learning how to re-purpose things that I have but am not using. SO the new, crafty me remembered a blog that I saw a while back on www.annetheadventurer.com. She did hers on a much bigger scale. If you want to check out how she did her board, you can go HERE. 

This is how I did it:

I used:

• cork board
• plywood
• roofing nails
• fabric
• staple gun 

First I broke the old frame off of the cork board. Then I had my husband cut a piece of plywood to match the cork. He attached them by using roofing nails on the four corners, cutting off any excess nail. You could also use wood glue, it will just take a little longer to let it dry and set. 

I had him drill two holes in the plywood for hanging. Since this is a small piece to hang, the holes suited it just fine. If you have a bigger board then you could try other options for hanging.

Next I cut my fabric to cover the board and plywood. I had to make sure the fabric would fully cover the sides but that the top wouldn't cover up the holes.

Laying the cork side down, I folded the top fabric over the wood, pulling it tight. Now comes the fun part....

Staple down the fabric. I staggered the staples just so the fabric wouldn't pull at all the same areas. Staple the top and the bottom of the board, but not the sides yet. 

Once I had the top and bottom stapled, I flipped it over to make sure my pattern was straight. No one wants to look at crooked zig-zags! I'd probably get dizzy and fall over. (I have a slight vertigo issue...)

The nice thing about staples is that they are easily removed if you need to start over.

Next I stapled the sides. The best way that I could figure out to fold the sides over, was to fold them like you wrap a present. 

Once I folded them over, I stuck a staple right on the fold to make sure it would stay. Then I staggered the rest of the staples like I did on the top and bottom. 

Now we are all stapled and ready to hang!

Before:                                                                                After:

Ta-da!

I'm really good and having lots of random papers and no where to put them...so they get shoved into corners. And then it looks like the first picture.

Now at least my mess looks cute and somewhat organized!

This is my first tutorial, so go ahead and leave a comment if I missed anything or you have any questions.

Have fun!

A Day of Firsts

This was my lunch today. I bet you are jealous.

Today was a day of many "firsts". 

My first official shopping trip buying "clean" food and not buying chicken nuggets, my potty-training-3-year-old had her first trip out of the house without a diaper on, and I started the first day of a 3-day detox. Quite the day!

I have to say, the shopping trip wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be. It was very strange not going up and down every isle and filling the cart with boxed/canned food...but at the checkout I sure felt happy to have so many healthy things! This week we are going to give Quinoa (KEEN-wa) a try for the first time. I've heard many good things about it, but had yet to bite the bullet and try it. So that's on the menu this week. 

We are not jumping into this clean eating with both feet, however. We are going to work our way into it...which is part of the reason for this blog. As I learn more, I want to share it here. I'll admit...I do have two bags of breaded chicken strips, two bags of tater-tots, and way too many boxes of cereal in my pantry that need to be eaten (I've been couponing)...but once those are gone they will be replaced with "clean" food! (I'm not going lie...we are going to enjoy every last tater-tot.)

Jillian's diaper free shopping trip actually happened by accident. The weather was pretty bad this morning so I decided to cancel groceries for the day, but then it let up so I changed my mind. I honestly forgot to put Jillian back in a diaper and just threw her in the car with the Aldi bags and hit the road. About half way to town I heard, "Mom, go potty!". Uh oh.

Luckily we made it...whew! But every store we went in we hit the bathrooms first, just as a precaution. And I'm happy to report that we had a successful trip with no accidents! That is, until we got home. She made it in the door and preceded to pee on the door mat...So close and yet...

So now on to my goober-green smothie pictured above. I've been stuck at a plateau for a while, thanks to the holidays, and I needed a shove. So at first I was going to try The Master Cleanse - 10-13 days of nothing but a homemade lemonade-ish drink. I hear it works great and maybe someday I will give it a shot. But that day is not today. In my excessive Pinterest pinning, I stumbled upon a 3-day detox using fruit/veggie smoothies and vitamins from Dr. Oz. So far, so good...it's just making me pee...A LOT. That's good, right?

I'll post the recipe on my Recipe page, but you can find the Dr. Oz page here.

More on the detox tomorrow....I have to go pee....again.    

Here We Go...

Matthew 19:26 "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible"

I would say this verse is accurate for my first post because I never saw myself writing a blog. Quite an impossible thing in my eyes. And I'll admit my hypocrisy...I don't really even read blogs. Whoops.

So why write one now?

Well I'm still figuring that out. I have to say, God has a way of having you do something you didn't plan even before you realize what you are doing. I've experienced that on more than one occasion. Even as I'm typing, I'm thinking "What am I DOING? I'm writing a BLOG??"

Yes. I'm writing a blog. Ok, now that that's settled...What is the purpose of this blog?

Here's the short version:

In recent weeks my family's health has headed downhill. Nothing too serious, but enough to make me stop and wonder what is going on. So I've decided that before we get sent to another specialist that will just prescribe some medication for my daughters, we are going to try and fix it at home. 

I have been on a journey for my own health for the last year already. Last year I finally got angry at myself for being overweight. I started eating right and exercising and was able to lose 55lbs. (Yay!) I started cutting out sugar and adding more protein to my diet, building muscle, and in August I even started (Gasp!) RUNNING. Another thing I swore I'd never do.

So I've already been on the bandwagon for a year (minus the holidays...I mean, come on, who doesn't eat sugar at Christmas?) and now that I see my daughters having digestion problems, I think we need to take this thing a step further. 

We've always been a relatively healthy-eating family. I don't buy Twinkies and Coco Puffs and my kids eat their veggies every night. So that's why I got so frustrated! So we have decided to (drum roll please....) start eating CLEAN. 

The purpose of this blog is to share all of my first-time experiences with others out there that are just as clueless as I am. I don't know anything about eating clean, but I want to learn. I don't know much about running, but I'm learning as I go. I am continuing to find new ways of keeping my home a happy, clean, organized place to live. And most importantly, I'm ALWAYS learning how God wants me to keep my heart and my spirit clean. 

Home-Belly-Spirit Cleaning. 

There ya go.

I have to give a shout-out to my husband Chad, he thought of the name. It's a little weird, but it made me laugh.

Here is to another first - my first blog! And here is to not failing miserably at it!