DIY... not so scary after all

Last week I had my first little DIY experiment and I am proud to say: I did it! While I consider myself creative and like a project here and there, I prefer a method known as BIY – Buy It Yourself. I feel like I can get a good idea but instead of crafting it, I usually find someone to do it for me. Fortunately, I have a wealth of helpful resources in that area; the husband has not only refinished but built furniture from scratch to match my hairbrained ideas (I usually provide him with very specific instructions, such as “I want it painted chocolate CHIP mint, not cucumber mint!”), my very talented friend has designed gorgeous Christmas cards, shower invitations and thank you notes (her Etsy shop is reopening next week here),  another is gifted at party prep and planning, and when I’m really desperate, I can find something pretty dang quick on Etsy. Or my other best friend comes in handy, Amazon Prime. So, DIY does not really have a place in my heart. Or home. However, Halloween reared it’s evil head, and I had no choice.

Of course, we already had Gavin’s Halloween costume planned. The husband, being the king of costumes, requested about 9 months ago that the baby be a bear for his first Halloween. (He has a weird obsession with bears right now that I don’t get or care to further investigate.) This was no problem, as one of Gavin’s older girlfriends had previously worn a bear costume, so we were set. (Here is a sweet non-Halloween edition if you just want something cute to keep baby warm with - love these things.)  Then comes the night of October 30^th.

“What are you going to wear?” asked the husband, accusingly, I might add. “What do you mean? Gavin is going to be a bear and I am going to be… me.” I actually (mistakenly) thought I would finally be off the hook for dressing up now that the husband has his own protégé – my dream come true! No more weird rainbow ballerina costumes for me! I was going to enjoy this Halloween costume-free. But no. He acted like I should have known all along I needed a costume too. For someone who has 21 tubs of dress-up clothes, it’s odd to me that this was never mentioned until the DAY BEFORE. I digress.

Anyways, if I HAD to dress up, at least maybe I could finally get my wish of dressing up 1) as something normal and 2) as a family. I have always wanted to be a cute couple dressing up, like Don and Betty Draper or something equally dapper. But no. I have had the pleasure of going to Halloween parties with the Chiquita Banana fruit-basket-on-her-head lady, a fairy, a rainbow DJ, and more. The closest I ever got to my cute couple costume was when we were the “Tequila Bandits” and that is a whole other blog post for a different trip down memory lane! (And that memory is a foggy one; the costume title alone can give you a hint.)

First, I thought we could be the 3 Bears. It took him about 2 seconds to shoot that idea down. Of course, it was way too NORMAL. Plus, I admit, I wasn’t thrilled with dressing up as a bear myself. Goldilocks was another option, but I really don’t have the hair for it. Terrified, I asked the husband what he might be dressing up as. “A bear hunter.” Um, excuse me? Your kid is a bear and so you are going to be a bear hunter? Great, you want CPS alerted on our first Halloween. No. His second costume choice (always gotta have a back up) was Timothy Treadwell. Typical. Another costume that no one will understand what/who he is. I explained that he would look like a blond guy with a black eye, which did not go with the bear theme. Had we planned this in advance, the aforementioned talent (or Etsy, or Amazon) could have helped produce something great for all of us. But time was not our friend.

So, inspired by none other than the famous Yogi Bear, I decided to be a honey pot and suggested the husband join us as the bee. If I was going to dress up, I was going to take charge! For the first time in 9 Halloweens together, I won. I practically ran a victory lap around the house! But it gets better. I could tell he didn’t have full confidence in this yet. Skepticism was oozing from the costume king. Especially when I called him at work to ask him if he thought it was a good idea to make my honeycomb hat out of the pasta strainer. (I had no time for the DIY ideas I frantically searched for online – sandwich boards and foam tubing? I don’t think so!) I had to act fast and make it legit. So, a quick trip to target and literally 10 minutes of crafting later, my strainer was transformed by a little gold wrapping paper and masking tape. I threw on my gold cardigan (with some gold necklaces of course) and turned a pencil into a honey wand/stick/thing. Boom! I was a honeypot and there was nothing he could do about it. When a stunned, “Wow, that actually worked,” came out of his mouth, I had made it. To be considered quality on Halloween by this man ranked right up there with my life’s crowning achievements! Truly, I usually don’t care how he feels about what I wear, but Halloween is his holiday, and I had finally risen to the occasion!

missing stripes + a martini = creepy bee

Then, there was him to worry about it. That bumble bee. While yellow painters tape on a black shirt was a good idea in theory, in practicality it was not. Unfortunately, the pencils did not serve his costume as well as mine, as his bee antennas were pitifully un-pointy. One beverage in and his stripes were peeling and his antennas were drooping. His DIY was kind of… a fail. But the husband was a good sport. I consider it payback for all the “joy” I have endured with him on Halloweens past. Moral of the story: when you need a DIY costume, be a honeypot, not a bumble bee. (And don't ever assume your Halloween can be costume-free... at least not in this house.)

PS Let me know if you need your own honey pot building instructions by commenting below and I'll give you the skinny!

PPS If you have better DIY costumes (and i'm sure you do) - share those too!

M stands for Mudroom

I know... I'm a terrible blogger! I've left you out of nearly two years of my oh-so-fascinating life and let me tell you - a lot has happened. New job, new car, obviously new clothes, shoes and handbags, but who's counting those? My fellow fashionistas, of course! Don't worry - photos of my favorites to come in future posts. (I can't wait to introduce you to some new delicious friends named Gucci, Fendi and Prada...) I will point out I do have the same husband, and we have recently worked on his wardrobe as well, so that's a win-win for everybody (alleluia that he is not so chummy with my friends mentioned above, or else we would really be in trouble).

But I'm back (for now) and am going to try harder to "commit" this time. If you're still here, thanks for reading and thanks for waiting for me. Sometimes sticking to something is hard to do... Like when remodeling the smallest room in your house turns into something much bigger. Bigger project, bigger budget, bigger marital dispute, or just all of the above!  Mini Mudroom definitely turned into major endeavor.

Yes, this near-clinical type A person recently allowed a DIY home improvement project to take place in her home. Actually, "DIY" is the wrong term; the husband is a general contractor, so this was hardly a little craft project from the Real Simple magazine I pretend to read each month. We took the tiny room off our kitchen door and frankly, made it a (teensy) masterpiece! But not without a pretty price (from both my checkbook and my sanity). I'll share my findings during this super special time in our marriage.

Here's what I learned:

• deadlines are my obsession. They are not, however, a friend of the husband's. Actually, I think until he married me, he maybe did had never heard the word.
• one more difference between us: I always thought "1 weekend" meant 2-3 days; he apparently interprets it as 4+ weeks. Is this kind of like a fortnight where no one really knows what that means?
• painting is way harder than it looks and makes my arms tired.
• if you paint while drinking wine, it just gets harder and looks worse. Dang.
• men should never select paint alone. This creates a mean(er) wife and multiple trips to home depot.
• I am always right. (Funny how this seems to be a recurring lesson in our marriage.) What color did we paint the tiniest room in the world? Creme brûlée. EXACTLY what I said from the beginning. Spotted it amongst a million little paint samples and it matched the kitchen perfectly.
• just because the room is literally 3x3 does not mean the mess can't spread across multiple floors and multiple rooms. This is simply torture for someone who can't sleep unless the house is dusted almost daily.

Take all of the above plus 5 weeks of my gentle "reminders" (aka psychotic ranting and nagging), and wa-lah! There is a darling little room that I come and go through every day. Yesterday, I learned how much the whole thing cost, and if there is such thing as "designer" mudrooms, I've got one! It's functional, and of course it's fashionable...

This handy set of hooks holds my my aprons (that I have never worn, but they look adorable, don't they?). They're  both from Anthropologie - check out the darling new ones here . (I must say - they are great gifts for brides-to-be who have aspirations to be great housewives - like I once did!)

The white hooks (steal of a deal at Target) also house my reusable totes. Yep, I am "green" now! (Don't even get me started on the annoying bag ban in Seattle though.) This is my favorite shopping bag, so I keep it on display and stuff the others inside. I found this one and a few others with fun prints at TJ Maxx - only $3 each and they hold a ton! (Just remember to tell your bag boy at Safeway not to FILL the bag - holy smokes - you could throw your back out when the bozo packs it full of bottled water.) It is so much more fun to be green when you can look good doing it (obvi). 

Last but not least - here is a great shot of the Creme Brûlée shade of paint! Isn't sweet? My vintage milk sign and bottles are from Cost Plus World Market (LOVE that place!), but I feel like they definitely look like an antique store find. I'm sharing my secret with you though, so you too can have cute accent pieces without spending your weekends trolling dusty, overpriced antique warehouses (that can be fun, but who has the time? Especially when World Market is right by the mall).