Kids' art

I love the artwork my nephews & niece make for me.

It is so funny to see what their little minds are thinking (via crayons, paint, colored pencils, etc) and it absolutely warms my heart to hear my oldest nephew say "Aunt Lizzy, this one is for you to take home & show Uncle Chris". 

The little man loves the fingerpaints his "Bo Bo" (aka my mom, his Grandma) gave him & wants to play with them all the time. Now that he's in preschool he's been giving the paintings as gifts every now & again.

LizzardLoves.My nephew's fingerpainting

LizzardLoves.My niece's really funny drawing & explanation

Being an aunt is just awesome, I guess you could also say I love being an aunt.

In case you can't read the "explanation" page that came in the envelope from our niece (who lives on the east coast) here is what it says:

"Uncle Chris

Favorite Animal Moose

Favorite color green

Middle name Brian"

We assumed this was part of a school project or larger idea.........it wasn't! Our niece just got the idea to draw these pictures & send the details along with them. We have had this hanging on the fridge for months. Its awesome.

Happy Monday everyone, hope you have some kiddo art hanging on your fridge today!

PS- yes, I hung my nephew's painting on the fridge with magnets I made out of beer bottle caps I wanted to save........hm. Hope that isn't too much of a contrast!

Chalkboard paint

I love chalkboard paint. 

There is White Castle, my home for 2 years!

Who knew back in 2003 when I moved into a college house called "White Castle" (with 11 other people) that I would have my first experience with chalkboard paint? Some forward thinking college woman before me had painted a large portion of the living room wall with chalkboard paint & hung a frame around it. It was our house's place to track bills/expenses & it worked perfectly. You may wonder why it took me so long to try it out! I don't have a great excuse although since I own my home now; it is much easier to do painting projects of any kind. (I have owned my condo for 4 years.....so it still has taken me awhile to get going on this!)

Paint & primer are on!

Chalkboard paint drying

Fast forward 9.5 years to now & chalkboard paint is everywhere! My brother & sister in law painted 2 of the walls in my nephew's bedroom with the stuff and it provides him with some entertainment when he wants it. Pinterest is overflowing with chalkboard paint ideas, which is where I got the idea to paint the inside of my pantry cabinet doors with the stuff.

Almost out of list on the left

Ongoing projects on the right

A moment of love for my pantry cabinets; my Dad gave the cabinets to me, stained them to match my other kitchen cabinets & helped haul them up to the 2nd floor walk up I share with my husband. They give me so much additional storage in my kitchen, which I desperately needed (not to mentioned wanted.......because I love my kitchen and spend lots of time there; I want it to be orderly.)

Pretty colors of chalk

So over the course of a weekend, I taped, primed & painted the inside of my doors. I had the benefit of a recessed area in each door, which gave me a perfect outline of where to paint. I like the natural border or frame the door style gave me. Once I had painted the second coat of paint, I needed to wait 3 days for the paint to be ready for writing. All in all, the project took less than a week, including all of the drying/waiting time. In terms of supplies, I spent $20-$25 on 1 small roller brush set (which included a tray), 1 roll of painters tape, 1 small can of primer (only necessary if you plan to paint on unfinished wood; which the insides of my cabinet doors were), and 1 small can of chalkboard paint. I regret not asking for a paint stir stick at the hardware store........so do my wooden spoons :(

As you can see in the photos, I am using the left side of the pantry for a list of things I'm almost out of and the right side as a place to track ongoing cooking/baking projects. 'Tis the season for stocking up on cookie dough for my freezer and I like to have a list so I don't have to dig through the Ziploc bags in my freezer to remember which dough I've already made! The completed doughs have a check mark in the box (I don't want to erase them until I've finished them all; lest I end up with 4 batches of plain peanut butter cookie dough & no chocolate chocolate chip dough :)

Reused a preserves jar for my chalk!

Please let me know in the comments what you think & if you have any questions about how to do this relatively quick project at home.

I will have another post soon about the pantry reorganization (specifically baking supplies) that happened in the same weekend!

Mini kitchen makeover

I love my kitchen.

As you probably can tell, if you've been reading Lizzard Loves, I spend quite a bit of time in my kitchen. The kitchen is one of the things I fell in love with when I decided to buy our condo. It is big, plenty of room to move around, ample counter space, and the list goes on. 

 Before...BORING.

I have lived in my condo for 4 years & in that time my Dad & Chris have helped with some great kitchen improvements (a dishwasher was added, side by side 9 or 10 foot pantry cabinets came too, plus the fun island that I blogged about previously), but I was feeling like I hit a plateau & was growing antsy to make my kitchen look better. Most of my previous improvements focused on increasing functionality and help my kitchen work better for me; the time had come to give it a face lift!

It would make me feel better if I knew other people had trouble motivating to do home improvement projects......I find it is too easy to simply think about the improvements you want, but not to actually take the time & effort to make them happen. I can't honestly remember what sparked this project, but I am so pleased with it!

In progress- no knobs!

My mini kitchen makeover simply involved removing the boring knobs/drawer pulls that were on the cabinets when I moved in & adding colorful new ones! Little did I know I would require my Dad's help yet again......because the screws on the new knobs were approximately 1/2 an inch longer than the old ones. How do you cut a screw? Well, you can call my Dad- that's how. My parents came down to our condo over the weekend & my Dad brought a small power saw with him to finish this project. I am disappointed in myself for not photographing my Dad doing this, but I was truly concerned for my (& my condo's) safety! Every time my Dad cut into a screw- showers of sparks rained down in my kitchen- they were popping all the way to the ceiling; it was utterly insane! Chris, my Mom & my sister were as freaked out as I was.....my Dad on the other hand seemed completely unfazed. I love my Dad.

After! So much better!

So here are the new knobs, there are 15 in all. They freshen the whole room, make it much more interesting to look at. All told, this project took approximately 2 hours of work (most of the time was spent by Chris & I cranking the new screws into place- because the head of the screw shows through the front of the knob, we couldn't use a screwdriver to get them into place. Instead we used pliers- it was way less easy.....but the knobs sure are cute, right??).

Close up of the knob I chose

Does anyone have summertime home improvement projects going on? Any mini makeovers in other rooms? I would love to hear the ideas you have, please share in the comments!

Positive words cards

I love making cards.

It stems from the fact that I love paper mail. I love sending cards & I absolutely love recieving them. I've been having a really relaxed and happy weekend so when I sat down last night to make some cards, these are what I came up with.....using all of my "positive word" stamps!

Close up so you can see the words

Pictured below are the new ink colors I used on this project. I love the tiny little ink pads with the fleur de lis on the lids. It was a good weekend!

Our new (to us) kitchen island

I love to cook. I love it when my friends and family want to hang out in my kitchen when I cook. Alas, until this weekend, I couldn't offer them a place to sit down & have a cocktail (or a cup of coffee as the hour of the day may dictate).

I am SO thrilled to report; Chris & I are the proud owners of a kitchen island with stools! My Dad did 95% of the work on this project - he is the best! The cabinet was improved with the bead board sides and a fresh coat of paint. The top is bowling alley wood (long story where it came from :) and matches our kitchen so well! 

I love that we were able to use furniture we already had & modify it for our current needs. Here are some photos:

Making old stuff new again

I love making old (sometimes yucky) stuff new again. 

This often directly involves my Dad....because he is a lot more of a handyman than I ever will be. I also love spending time with my Dad. Here are the before (actually its in the middle- we had to take the stool apart to replace the seat) & after photos of a stool we worked on for my kitchen! I'll post with some photos of the whole set up (new kitchen island & 2 stools) when its all done!

This is the before....very rusty, some old green paint still there

This is the after!! I tried to get the blue as close to my KitchenAid mixer & Le Cruset pans as possible.

Thanks Daddy for doing the vast majority of the work on this, it looks awesome!