clocky's transformation

Didn't Pee Wee have a friend in the Playhouse named Clocky? Well, meet my Clocky. I think we got this clock as a wedding gift, so he's lived in our house for 5.25 years! I've always liked this little guy. But since day 1, I've wanted to paint him. He's cute, but his shabby chic finish doesn't really go with our aesthetic. I always thought he'd look great in a funky bright color. So why wait 5.25 years to paint him? Good question!! I have no idea, other than being gun-shy and/or lazy!

But I decided he MUST have a makeover if he was going to live in our newly remodeled, newly redecorated house. Before he underwent his makeover I had to cover his face. He didn't come apart (his back is stapled on) so I had to carefully slide a piece of paper over his face to protect it.


(I forgot to take a picture of him before I covered his face. Sorry!)

I picked up a little bottle of acrylic craft paint in a glossy finish (I was going for a lacquered look) at JoAnn's for somewhere around $1.25, a spongey craft brush, and went to town! I wasn't expecting it to take so many coats to cover it! I painted in between working and other projects so the coats were spread out over two days. I ended up having to do 6 coats and used my entire little bottle of paint.

But I have to say I'm in love with the new and improved Clocky.



New Clocky will live on our new mantle. I have a few more things to do to finish decorating the mantle, but once its done I'll show everyone. But now you know one color that's in our living room/dining room area. YELLOW. My second favorite color after pink. There are definitely yellow punches going into this room & I'm loving it.

Enjoy your Sunday everyone!! See ya later.

signature style

After many requests, I've finally taken the colors, style, and elements of the Britt-ish Designs site, added a few more punchy colors and lots more fun embellishments and patterns and created. . .

"Signature Style"



and this coordinating paper pack . . .

"Zebra Prints"



Here's what I scrapped:



and from the Britt Girls:



I have an add-on freebie for you guys at the end of this post too!

Isn't this kit fun?! It's full of all the colors, textures, patterns, and elements I love! Plus I LOVE how the Britt Girls used it from everything from tweens to skating birthday parties to baby showers. I'm so happy with how this kit turned out, and I know you guys will love it too!

Alrighty. On to this week's Show Offs. Enjoy:

This week all my Show Offs are getting my new "Zebra Prints" paper pack as their gift. Thanks to everyone who sent in their work this week. If you want to send in Show Offs and get gifts, learn all about how to do it HERE.

And last but not least, that add-on freebie I promised:


{download here}

Enjoy!!

Have a wonderful day and a fun weekend too! We've got big plans to . . . wait for it . . . work on the house!! I KNOW, you're totally shocked, right?

But I am going to book club tonight. I have been too busy renovating, decorating, and reading baby books to read the book this month, but I'm going to visit and socialize anyway.

ta ta!

wanna peek?

Hi guys! Thanks so much for your organization and baby sleep tips! Keep 'em coming!!

I'm so excited about my new release tomorrow. Wanna little peek?? Here you go . . .



I can't wait for tomorrow!!!! See you then!

on an organization kick

I don't know if its nesting or the new year or what, but lately I've been a little obsessed with plans to get organized before the baby comes. Unfortunately, there are no neat freaks living in this house, but I'm going to try my best to make sure everything has a place as we attempt to put our house back together after all this remodeling. Ask Josh, I've bought bins, plastic drawers, boxes, and dog-eared the organization stuff in the Ikea catalog that I plan to buy on our next trip out there.

So far I'm making good progress. Last week I totally de-junked, cleaned, and organized the fridge. Man did it need it!! Next I organized the pots and pans cabinet and an entire row of kitchen drawers.

Later in the week, I finally found the perfect drawers (from Wal Mart) that slid into my linen closet like a glove! (I've been on the hunt for a long time!) With my perfect drawers ready to go, it was time for a total overhaul on the linen closet. I can honestly say its now 100% junk free (maybe for the first time ever). It's so pretty and organized and everything has its place. I found myself opening the doors and just admiring it's loveliness.

(I probably should have taken a "before" photo so you know how ca-razy this closet looked before I whipped it into shape!)



PLUS, there's even extra room for baby stuff on that lower shelf (I'll probably put in a storage basket or some more smaller drawers) and an entire huge empty bin on bottom! I LOVE IT! It feels so good.

Anyway - so while I've been on this organizational kick, I got an email from one of my former Britt Girls, Paige. Paige is so talented (and writes an awesome blog BTW)! She created this weekly schedule with a bunch of Britt-ish Designs products and offered it to me & my blog readers as a Quick Page giveaway! Of course I said YES!!! I thought it was so cute and wanted to share it with everyone.

Here's Paige's completed Daily Life schedule (with all her personal info/schedule blurred).



Isn't this a great way to get organized!? Josh and I have been watching Supernanny lately (I've ALWAYS loved this show and watched it on my own for years, but I've been making Josh watch it with me lately as "training"! HAHA). In this week's episode Jo taught the parents how crucial a schedule is for a family with children. Josh & I talked about how kids thrive on a schedule, mom's happier and more 'together' and how we'll definitely want to do that with our babies.

Here's what the Quick Page looks like. All ready for you to pop in your own schedule and photos if you want!



[DOWNLOAD HERE]

Speaking of schedules, I'm reading "Baby Wise" right now. A friend recommended it, and I love it so far!! I'm only about 1/3 through it, so I'll give a full review when I'm done.

So that's how I've been getting my house organized lately. Simplify, simplify, simplify. That's my motto. Throw out the junk, put everything in its place.

Do you have any great organization tips? I've still got TONS of house to get organized. Right now in fact, I'm sitting at a very messy desk and work area. Maybe after I eat lunch I'll get some cleaning/organizing done in this area. Yes, I think I will!

mick's girl & valentine's goodies

Hi there everyone. I've got two new products to release today, so let's get right to it!

"Mick's Girl"



and . . .

"Valentine's Goodies"

Here's the page I scrapped:



and from the Britt Girls:



Aren't these fun new products?! I totally love what the Britt Girls created this week!

OK . . . on to this week's new Show Off Slide Show.

This week everyone who showed off is getting my new Valentine's Goodies as their gift this week. If you'd like to start Showing Off too, check out this blog post and learn all about it!

That wraps up our Friday post. I KNOW I keep promising pictures of our remodels, but it still isn't in a state where I want to share! Little things are getting completed here and there. But I promise as soon as its cute, I'll share pics!!! It's still a mess right now. *sigh*

Hope everyone has a great weekend! See ya!

registering for baby

With just 8 weeks to go, we are finally registered for baby gear. I've had a handful of people ask if and where we were registering, so I figured I'd share the info!

After doing our homework, research, decision making and with my baby shower invites going out sometime next week, we were finally ready to take the plunge. Last week, we carved out some time and set out (on a bitterly cold night) to REGISTER!

We'd read that everywhere you go, you'll be handed a list of "must-haves" that is very long and overwhelming. As you know, we have a small house, and we knew we needed to focus on the things we'd really need and use. So instead of registering for a lot of fun, cute, baby things (which everyone tells me I'll get plenty of with or without a registry), we registered for the essentials. The baby gear we, Josh & Britt, actually must-have in the sizes and styles and colors that we know will fit in our house (somehow).



I'm so glad we made that decision before we went. The list handed to us at Babies R Us was enormous, and if I hadn't planned things out ahead of time, I'd have been more stressed than I already was.


(PS Josh & I both agree that my belly looks much bigger in this photo than it does in real life. This is a bit of an illusion! Although somedays it FEELS this large & in charge!)

We registered at Babies R Us, Target, and on Amazon.com (the last from the comfort of our own home - in our PJs no less).

The cool thing about registering on Amazon is, if you can't find the item through Amazon directly or you find the same item at a better price somewhere else, you can install this little button in your bookmark bar that will let you add any item on ANY online store to your Amazon registry. It's called Universal Registry. So cool. And we figured, with so many people loving the ease & convenience of online shopping (and with so many online friends!) registering for items online was a no-brainer for this growing family.

Anyway - we're thrilled to finally have all our baby gear decided on! Even if we don't receive any of it as gifts (We KNOW there are items on the registry we'll need to buy ourselves. We're definitely not depending on everyone else to buy us all our stuff!), but at least we know exactly what we want now. The decisions, brands, price points, colors, customer reviews, ratings . . . there's just SO MUCH to figure out. But we made our way through the jungle of baby gear and came out the other end happy and confident with our choices. I couldn't be more excited!

friday once again

Another Friday, another fun new release. First up, I have this word art pack that was previously a participation prize over at MouseScrappers. But now it's in the shop:

"Our Happy Place Word Art"



Also new today . . .

"Mini Tab Alpha: White"



"Mini Tab Alpha: Blue"



"Mini Tab Alpha: Pink"



And they all come in a combo pack!

"Mini Tab Alpha: Combo Pack"



Here's what I scrapped with the new alpha and the word art . . .


And from the Britt Girls


Time to enjoy this week's Show Offs! We have a LOT of layouts today!!

If you'd like to Show Off too, check out this blog post and learn all about it!

All of this week's Show Offs are getting their choice of either my word art pack or one of my new alphas as their gift.

Well, that's it for today. Hope you guys like the new stuff. TTFN!

let down your hair!

I guess my lil' peek gave away my secret!! Here's the new kit:

"Let Down Your Hair"


and a bonus alpha too!!

"Let Down Your Hair Bonus Alpha"



And as always I have a freebie add-on for you all at the bottom of the post.

Now, before you write off this kit saying "I don't have any 'Tangled' photos", let me show you what the Britt Girls created!! This kit is seriously versatile! First up, here's my LO. It's from the Tangled Meet & Greet at Magic Kingdom.


and from the britt girls . . .


Can you believe the variety of pages they scrapped? We have birthdays, P365, even New Year's Eve! "Let Down Your Hair" has something for everyone!

Ok . . . on to this week's Show Offs:

Thanks to everyone who sent in their layouts this week. If you'd like to be a Show Off too, you can find out all about it HERE.

All of this week's Show Offs are getting my new "Let Your Hair Down Bonus Alpha" as their gift!!

Ok, and last but not least . . .

As promised, here's your add-on freebie!


[download here]

Have a magical weekend everyone!! I think by Monday I should finally have a few "after" photos of our living room & nursery. They won't be totally finished, but they'll at least be in a state I can show you!! (I hope I hope I hope I hope).

Ta ta for now!

peek!

Hi guys! Here's a lil' peek at what's coming tomorrow . . .


I can't WAIT to show you what I'm releasing. I think you guys are going to flip!

Well, life at the Leavitt house is slowly improving. We FINALLY finished installing the baseboards, getting them caulked, and then painting all the trim! It doesn't sound like a ginormous job, but it took us a long time. But we are now at the point where we can finally move furniture back in! Tonight's the night we clean up, and move our stuff back! No more eating, living, resting, EVERYTHING on our bed. My sore pregnant body could not be more excited to have a SOFA! I'm so excited. I can barely believe its actually happening. I know, who knew you could be that excited about getting your own sofa back!?

There's still quite a lot to do, to say the room is "finished", but at least it won't look like a construction site in here anymore.

There's still a ton to do in the nursery as well. I promise photos are coming.