Mini-Pantry Makeover

Pantry. Ugh. What an unpleasant word. Just thinking about the word brings up images of food piled high and plastic bags haphazardly thrown behind a door to hide them. At least that's what my pantry usually looks like. There's a movement going on in blogland to reorganize and since I'm apparently in my nesting phase, I decided to join in. Traci, over at Beneath My Heart is hosting an organization party thing every Monday in Jan, and today she discussed pantry organization. Interestingly, I happened to have that on my to do list today (handy how that worked out, isn't it?), so I thought I'd show you some before and afters. 
Traci will be hosting a link up party on Friday and I'll link to that, but since I've had precious little to blog about lately (that doesn't involve contractions of babies), I thought I'd go ahead and post this today.
Now, before we look at the photos, I should mention that we don't have a pretty pantry (we live in military housing, so having a pantry at all is a serious luxury) and I can't paint it and I don't have a Silhouette machine (yet) to make pretty tags or labels.  Also, last night, for whatever reason, James Bond decided to go through the top shelf of the pantry and make it neat (maybe he's nesting too?) and I didn't get a before photo.  Believe me, it was a hot mess and about 10 times worse than the before photo I took today.  It was embarrassingly bad and I probably wouldn't have wanted to show you what it looked like anyway.  This before photo makes me cringe as it is.  Ack!

 I spent about an hour going through stuff (and throwing much of it out), and putting it in containers and here it is now:

Isn't that better? I feel weird showing the foods and drinks we have with you guys.  Though I have to say, it's not that bad.  We have to buy our water so that's why there are so many water bottles.  The bottles have to go back to the store for a deposit refund, so it's easier to corral them in the white container.  We could get water delivered and have a big cooler, but I don't like the way it tastes.   The water that is delivered is filtered and I prefer spring.  When just about the only thing you drink is water, you get picky about it and learn the difference in tastes.  I have to say though, it is a pain lugging all those bottles up 3 flights of stairs. 
Oh, and in the first photo, you might notice that we have several large cans of  baked beans.  We are not baked beans junkies.  James Bond had to make some for a a company dinner a while back (I made them better by adding onions, garlic, maple syrup and other stuff) and for whatever reason felt the need to buy like 8 cans.  Do you know how much is in one can?  Good golly.  Also, you might notice that we have a lot of nuts.  Nuts are my current pregnancy drug of choice.  I eat a handful several times throughout the day and Han Solo is happy as a clam.  He gets very active after I eat nuts.  
OMG, why am I talking about food?   It makes me hungry.  I just ate some Greek yogurt (so good!) with granola and blueberries though, so maybe I should wait a while. 
I'm rambling.  Good heavens.  I'll shut up now.  I hope you enjoyed my little mini makeover. 

A How NOT To

One of the many, many, many things I love about bloggers is that they post so many awesome how to's. I learn so much and get so many amazing ideas. Today I'm going to go in a different direction. Oh, it started off as a how to, but so went the wrong way. I was going to scrap the post but decided I'd give you the benefit of my experience and create a how NOT to. This is long, but I think you'll learn a lesson. I know I sure did.
So, I'm sure by now you've all see those lovely Pottery Barn candles that are basically a tree trunk. No? Well, check it out:


Gorgeous, right? Also, crazy expensive. $69 for a candle? Are you kidding me? I love you PB, but come on.
I'm a member of our Spouses Club (wonderful people who do wonderful works and have a fun luncheon once a month!) and the Ways and Means committee found something similar in Poland for a fraction of the price. Fraction people. You might have caught a glimpse of mine in my Christmas decor.
Cute, huh? Yeah, and after the mark up for the Ways and Means committee it was $14. FOURTEEN! Oh, Pottery Barn. You have beautiful stuff but your prices suck.
Anyway, I brought it home and promptly burned out the very slim candle that was poured into what really is just a tree trunk. Who thought of that? Craziness. It came with a white candle that lasted a few hours, but when it was gone, I was left with a log with a hole in the top. I certainly wasn't going to throw it out (gasp!) but they don't exactly make log sized candles and tea lights (even the big ones) just looked silly. I thunk and I thunk and finally, like the Grinch up in his mountain lair an idea finally came to me! I smiled my sly Grinch-y smile and rubbed my hands together in glee. I would melt some candles I already had and pour them in the base! How hard could that be? Oh, how that thought came back to haunt me!
I jumped up from the sofa, giggling slightly and gathered my supplies, tea lights and the log and carried them off to the kitchen, still congratulating myself on my obviously superior intelligence, thriftiness and skills.


I pulled out a large deep frying pan and placed about a half inch of water in and set it on the stove. I'm a genius! Or not, whatever. Once the water warmed up, I carefully placed my many tea lights in and waited for them to melt. And waited, and waited. Hmmmm...you'd think this would be faster. I thought hey let's crank the heat up a bit, that should help. And it did! Except that the water got a little too hot and started boiling and the candles jumped a bit and wax got into the water. Drat. I was hoping to avoid wax in the frying pan, but no matter, I'd just clean it out. The large tea light was melting around the edges which is what I'd been waiting for as it would serve as the center of the candle. Of course it wouldn't just pop out of it's holder, so I needed it to melt a smidgeon. I picked it up carefully and it was HOT! Holy cow! I managed to get the metal holder out of the water without incident (if you don't care about not having fingerprints that is), picked up the candle by the wick and placed it in the center of the hole. The melted wax I poured around it and went back to waiting for the small tea lights to melt. How to get them out though? I didn't want to lose the rest of my identifying marks so I thought I'd use a pair of tongs to remove the metal casings from the water and pour it into my mold, then just pull out the extra wick I didn't need. Congratulating myself once again on my brilliance, I grabbed a pair of tongs and picked up the first tea light. It tilted a little and wax poured into the water. Darn it! No worries. Just a little wax. I managed to get the remainder into the mold, the extra wick out and grabbed for another. This time, more wax poured out and a little splashed across the stove. Grrrr. I'd have to clean the stove. There actually wasn't much wax left by the time I got it to the mold and I was getting a little frustrated. The 3rd tea light went even worse. It dropped completely out of the tongs and splashed everywhere, including all over my clothes. Nooooooooooooo!


At this point Mr. HH called to ask if I was okay, and I assured him I was and that no he did NOT need to come to the kitchen. All I needed was for him to see the counter, floor and me covered in red wax blobs. I would have NEVER heard the end of it. Ever. I quickly started cleaning up and cursing up a storm and gave up on my brilliant plan. My candle was half done, I was covered in wax and the kitchen was a mess. Great. I drug the iron out and threw some paper towels over the mess, hoping to warm it into the paper towels. It worked. I took off my shirt, and prayed Mr. HH would not decide to stroll into the kitchen. This would be hard to explain and at this point I was pretty sure I couldn't come up with anything that sounded even remotely plausible. Especially not the truth.
So my candle was still not finished, and the water on the stove obviously didn't work. I thunk and I thunk again (I might have fractured something up there, but I can't be sure) and an idea hit me while I stared down at my shirt that was not releasing the wax. I grabbed an old jar out of the glass recycling bin and tossed in some pieces of a red taper. Genius! Why hadn't I thought of this earlier? Mental high five! 3 minutes later though, and my taper had barely melted. Was this wax or kryptonite? Gah! 5 more minutes in the microwave and some of it was melted enough that I could pour it and I oh so stupidly reached in to pull it out. Bare handed. Let me tell you something. Eight minutes in a microwave makes glass HOT. Too hot to hold. I dropped the jar of hot wax and it shattered. In the microwave. Brilliant. This was clearly not my night. I cleaned the microwave and cursed my self and this stupid project to no end still determined to somehow make this work. The tea lights didn't do well in the water and the jar didn't do well in the microwave. Hmmmmm. What if I combined them though???? I grabbed another jar from the glass bin (thank goodness we hadn't taken it out!) and another taper. I used a knife to shave the taper into the jar. The solid candle took too long to melt, but I reasoned that shavings would melt pretty quickly. And you know what? I WAS RIGHT! I placed the jar in the pan of water and the shavings melted almost instantly! Clearly, I was a genius. Those first two attempts were merely experiments on the path to brilliance. When the wax was good and melted, I poured it into the mold, let it cool and voila! I had the perfect candle! Obviously I'd found my calling. Look how pretty it turned out:


So, to reiterate my findings: tea lights should not go in shallow boiling water because they will eventually move and get wax all in your pan (which is a PITA to clean afterward), glass gets really, really hot in the microwave (and it's hard to clean if it gets everywhere) and wax shavings actually melt fairly quickly. Oh, and sometimes you have to let go of your clothing even it was one of your favorites. This is why crafters and painters wear smocks. Take note. There you have it. My how not to.

Meta Monday: Great Room

It’s been a few weeks since I posted a metamorphosis. Susan hosts it every Monday and I love to see what others are up to. I’ve been planning this one for a long time, but haven’t because I didn’t feel it was finished/good enough/blah, blah, blah. I had a Nester inspired epiphany though and took her motto, It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful to heart and decided it will never really be done because I’m always changing something, and so what if it’s not perfect. I like it and feel comfortable, so that should be good enough. Right?

You may remember this photo. I showed it to way pack in Nov when we first moved in. It was a big, boring, messy room.

Oh, it hurts me just to look at it! The walls! The light fixture (which I showed you in a previous morph)! The…well, everything! Ack!

Have a look at it today:

Isn’t that better? We painted the walls a cappuccino brown, changed the light fixture, added rugs and art, oh, and furniture! I was so happy to have my furniture! Let’s take a look around, shall we?

This book case is just to left in the previous photo. It’s technically part of the dining area, but I like the book shelf there. If you look closely, on the top shelf, second cubby from the left, you can see the sign I won on Nester’s Small Words give-away. I love it! Notice Indy’s little violin case over in the corner? :) It’s so cute! The artwork on the top of the bookcase was done by Indy when he was 3. It’s a triceratops. He is so proud that we framed it and display it. He shows it to everyone. The door to the right, leads back to the bathroom, Indy’s room and the school room.

Here’s out entertainment center. We had to replace the two side pieces that the movers put the forklift through. You can tell what I was watching while I took the photos.

Here are some close ups of a few of the shelves. In order, we have stuff that was brought back (legally) from Iraq, a Paris photo I took with books and mini Eiffel towers, my cloche and another photo I took in Paris with various other chachkies.

This is the Living Room half of the room. I adore my sofa. It’s so comfy. We’re planning on getting an overstuffed leather chair to replace the small chair, but that will come later. I’m also going to recover the pillows, but another time. The cabinet in the back used to be in Indy’s nursery, but we’ve repurposed it to hold DVD’s.

This is the dining room half. Don’t look at my windows. They are filthy! Stupid pollen. The table is also a previous morph. The bench is one of my favorite pieces. When we have people over, we can pull it up to the table for lots of seating.

I would have turned on the overhead light, but just before I took the photos a bulb blew and I don’t have any replacements. D’oh!

So, that concludes this weeks meta. I hope you enjoyed having a look at where I spend much of my time.

Meta Monday: It's all about the lighting

It's Meta Monday again! Are you as excited as I am? You know how I love to see all the metamorphoses (metamorphi?). Mine is nothing spectacular, but it makes me ridiculously happy.

I'm sure you wonder where the gazillions of dollars in the military budget go each year. Let me assure you, it's not on decor for military housing. See our fancy light fixtures circa 1971?



Oh yeah, wouldn't you love to look at this every meal? Oh, it's so hideous. It pains me. Pains me. The light is glaring and hideous.


Well, look at it now! Isn't it beautiful?!?!?! It took M about 15 minutes to put it up.


So pretty, so whimsical. So much better!


I bought it at a local chain store called Poco for 68 Euro, which is about $85. It can be used back in the US too. All we have to do it put 110v bulbs in it (we use 230v bulbs). For less than $100 and 15 minutes of work the whole look of the room changed. And it makes me ridiculously happy.

Meta Monday: Indy's Room

Oh, that's right! Monday again! Monday is fast becoming one of my favorite days. Why? Cause it's Meta Monday and I get to look at all the cool things people do to change stuff up. Wooohooo! Also, today I'll be joining in on Blue Monday.

For my metamorphosis, we're going to look at Indy's room. I know you think it'll be all Incan ruins and temples and whatnot, but he decided he wanted a pirate themed room. Theme, not pattern. Darlene wrote a great post about theme v. patterns here. Don't check it out yet! I have to show you Indy's room first!


This is what it looked like when we moved in, and before we got our furniture. Large, but ridiculously dull. And WHITE. I hate white walls. They are the enemy.



Before our household goods arrived, we painted it Indy's favorite color: BLUE. The boy loves him some blue. Here's the same view as the first pic. Quite a difference, eh?



We left him a lot of open space for play. Play, play, play!


I still have a few things to do, but figured it was good enough to post. I plan on putting his monogram above the ragamuffin garland, but just haven't found the time yet.

Here's a closeup of two of the projects I found over at The Nester.

Ragamuffin Garland:



And the memo board (which now has way more stuff on it):


Indy is actually in the Master Bed, but the room we are in is slightly bigger (though with fewer closets). We chose to put him in the Master because the room we are in is right next to the front door (you've seen the door to it in my Entry Meta) and we just weren't comfortable with the thought of him being by the front door and us being at the back of the apartment. Plus, he doesn't hear the door open and close when M goes to PT at 6am. Thanks for stopping by and make sure you check out all the other metas.

PS. It's not blue, but PINK. Barbie turns 50 today! I so loved my Barbies as a little girl. Many an hour were spent imagining with Barbie, Ken, Skipper and all their friends. Barbie gets a lot of bad press, but she only brings up happy memories for me. Happy Birthday Barbie!

Meta Monday: Frame change

It's Meta Monday again! Unfortunately, we've all been sickies this week, so I don't have much to show. Actually I have a lot to show, but it's all covered in used tissues, bottles of medicine, juice and the general flotsam and jetsam of being sick. Blah. I decided that I would show you the frame I repainted for last weeks bathroom makeover.

I had this gold frame tucked away in a closet. It was....gold. Yuck. I'm not a fan of gold frames unless they are around an antique master and hung in a stately home or museum. Why I have this frame, I don't know. I needed a frame for a photo to go in the bath and this would be perfect. You know if it weren't gold.


What's a girl with a gold frame to do? Paint it of course! Since the bathroom is done in blue, I went an ice blue.


I then used a darker blue to pick out some of the details.


Unfortunately, it was too blue. I know, I'm as shocked as you are, but there you have it. I took the photo back out and pulled out a bottle of white. I did a light layer of white over all the blue.


And here it is in my bathroom. Much improved from the gold don't you think?

Meta Monday: Historic/Patriotic/Beachy Bathroom Edition!

It's META MONDAY!!!!! Sorry to yell at you, but I'm so excited! I should be homeschooling Indy right now, but I'm slacking and have given him worksheets to do so I can post (and look at all the other cool metas). Bad mommy!

This is our blah bathroom when we moved in back in Oct. It has a strange slatted brown ceiling, boring brown tiles and yucky brown fixtures. Yeah. Also, you may notice the "floating" toilet. Most toilets in Germany seem to just come out of the wall with nothing to hold them up. It's weird. But whatever.
Since I have all brown tile, I can't paint! You don't know how much this pains me. Paint is my favorite thing in the whole world. I had to tackle this from another angle.



Here is it today with a beachy theme. And lots of blue accessories.


I found the cabinet at my favorite place (IKEA!) in the Fundgrube section. It was in a display that they took apart and couldn't sell it for full price. Lucky me! It was originally 109 Euro (about $140) and was marked down to 69,90 Euro ($90). They were running a special (to empty out the Fundgrube) and had it marked down another 15 Euro. I have an IKEA Family card (of course I do!) and they were running another special and anyone with a card got an extra 25% off! It cost me 41 Euro (about $52). I was so excited! Isn't it lovely?


Now, for the historical/patriotic bit. We have these ugly brown shelves over the toilet (the silver thing at the bottom of the photo is the flushing mechanism, BTW) and I needed something for them. When M went to Normandy last month, he took a ton of amazing photos (with MY camera) and brought back sand from the beaches. I printed off the pics on a heavy weight paper and popped them into some frames. Put the sand in the some pretty little jars and tagged them with the beach they came from (Utah and Omaha beaches) and started layering. I learned about the layering from The Nester. The dark colored shells and rocks also came from Normandy. The others are just random shells we've colleceted here and there. The branches came from a tree outside.



This is the top of the IKEA cabinet.


And this is the top of medicine cabinet. The plate got broken in a move , so I put it on top of the cabinet (you can't see the break from below). The photo is of Indy at Dauphin Island when he was 3. It was the first time he'd ever been to the beach. The lifesaver came from Hobby Lobby (I miss you HL!) a few years ago on clearance. It was originally burgundy and cream, but I painted over the burgundy. The plants are actually P.O.O.P.I.E.S.



And that concludes this weeks metamorphosis. Now I have to get busy so I'll have something to show next week! The pressure!
Thanks for stopping by!

Many Mini-Metas

How's that for alliteration? It's Monday! That means it's time once again for Metamorphosis Monday! Yeah! I don't have any rooms to show you today (they all in various metamorphic phases at the moment), but I have several projects for you to take a peek at.

First up is the frame for one of our home school boards. I got this frame at HL (I miss you HL!) a while back in the clearance section. IIRC, it was originally in the $40-50 range, marked down to $17.50 and then another 75% off. What a bargain! I loved the frame and the detail of it, but not really the gold color. I mean, it's nice and all, you know if you live in Versailles, but it just didn't really go in my house. Here is is in AZ:


And here it is today with a nice coat of paint. Isn't that better? I think so. Obviously I have to put the board back in and hang it, but we'll get there. See that pretty yellow wall behind it? That's going to be our school room. That meta for another day though. (Check back!)



When my downstairs neighbors PCS'd (military speak for moving) last month they threw this sweet little chair out. I saw it, looking sad and forlorn just sitting by the garbage waiting for the bulk garbage truck to come take it away, and knew I needed it. It had beautiful bones, and just needed some love. And paint.


Here it is painted the same color as the frame above. Adorable, right?


Our dining chairs were looking sad. And dirty. This was Indy's chair (before he became a much less messy eater). The beige color didn't really work anyway, so I decided to recover them.


No spray paint, but prettier.


Finally, here we are with all the chairs around the table. The table was great when we bought it, but it's just too small for our purposes now. Look how close the chairs are when pushed under. Crowded!


Last week we went to IKEA (squeeeeee!) to get some furniture for the school room and went to check out the Fundgrube section. In America, we would call it scratch and dent (though much of the stuff in Fundgrube is just returned, overstock or items that were used in a display at one time), but they call it Fundgrube, which literally translates to "find pit." M found this gorgeous table top. It has one small dent on one edge. There were no legs, just the top. It was marked down from 60 Euro to 29 Euro. It is a gorgeous table top. We knew we had to have it and snapped it up. When we got it home, we just sat it on top of our existing small table! M has to secure it to the table, but it is so heavy it's almost impossible to move, so it'll be fine until he can get around to it. Isn't it gorgeous? Look how much bigger the table is! BTW, we had a dinner party on Valentine's and I did my very first table scape! That will be posted for Table Scape Thursday. We comfortably seated 6 adults at the "new" table. We could have seated 8, but we would have had to go buy more chairs.


And that concludes today's Meta. Hope you enjoyed it. I can't wait to see all the other Metas!