Amy

Shopping Cart Covers are the DEVIL, Bobby Boucher!

November 3, 2010 by Amy 8 Comments

I really do enjoy sewing. I usually go in our guest room, where my craft room is as well, plug in the iron, sit down and just sort of ease into crafting.

I’m still pretty new to sewing, however, and occassionally, a project will make me more stressed than happy. This project was seriously the devil. I am probably never making this again, unless I have my own kid to make this for (not anytime soon).

Here’s the project: McCalls M5721. Do not ever buy this pattern…ever.

What was the big issue? Well, McCalls instructions made little to no sense for a good portion of the project, especially when it came to sewing the pockets on. Also, the pattern asks you to make your own bias tape. Uh, no. I hate that…ended up buying my own. Saved me an ironing headache.

Also, this project ended up really messing up the timing on my machine, due to sewing the nylon webbing. My machine was not a fan. A $99 repair. Not happy.

In the end, though, I finished this cover. The friend I made this for took pictures of her little girl in the cover. I think she likes it.

I am usually not a watermarker for my photos, but my friend requested that I mark these pictures to avoid this picture of her daughter getting stolen and posted without permission.

A nifty thing about this ? The cover is reversible and folds into its own tote bag. That’s the only saving grace that this pattern has.

Rating out of 10: 2. If a pattern causes me to break my machine and sort of make up instructions for a good part of it, I’m bitter and it won’t get a high rating. 2 points for the reversible coolness and the fact that it goes into it’s own tote bag. I do NOT recommend this pattern for a beginner if they want to refrain from cussing and pulling their hair out.

A fun (hopeful) challenge ahead

November 2, 2010 by Amy 5 Comments

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I’m no stranger to a challenge. One of my favorite shows on Food Network is Chopped, because I enjoy watching chefs come up with ideas for random ingredients. Lately, I find myself brainstorming ideas with the ingredients as well. It’s just so fun to think up ideas.

Check out this challenge:

When I got the email from Foodie Blogroll about an Iron Foodie challenge, I was intrigued. 25 bloggers will get chosen to compete to come up with a recipe using a few random ingredients sent from Marx Foods. The winner will get a $200 credit to Marx Foods.

So y’all, I need you to cross your fingers for me again. This blog post counts as my official entry for the Iron Foodie challenge. I’m really hoping to get chosen, because Marx Foods has some really interesting ingredients that they offer, and I’d love the opportunity to come up with a dish for this contest!

Here’s the blog interview questions:

Why do you want to compete in this challenge?
Answered above
Limitations of time/space notwithstanding, whose kitchen would you like to spend the day in & why?
I’d have to say Julia Child. She changed her career so late in life, and I find that so inspiring! She was very driven and her food is just AMAZING. She’s got a great sense of humor and I imagine we’d get along awesomely.
What morsel are you most likely to swipe from family & friends’ plates when they aren’t looking?
Chocolate….don’t leave your chocolate sitting around unattended. I’m serious.
Sum your childhood up in one meal.
Mom’s Beef Enchilada Casserole. I requested this meal every year for my birthday after my Mom discovered this recipe for a potluck in my Spanish class one year. It’s delicious.
The one mainstream food you can’t stand?
Beans. It’s a texture thing. Totally gross to me. I might be from New Orleans, but you won’t see me eating a red beans and rice dish. Yuck!

If you like it, then you should put a STAMP on it!

November 2, 2010 by Amy 4 Comments

Is it a little too obvious that Beyonce is on my playlist right now? Man, her music makes me get up and dance around. The dog is usually scared at this point…she probably thinks I’m ill or something.

I still can’t believe how fast the holidays are approaching. I plan to send my holiday cards in less than a month…eek! I started sending Christmas cards to family in college. I propped my Canon SD200 on my chair, sat down next to my little 3 foot tree in my dorm room and smiled…alone.

The picture turned out super cute. In fact, the hubs still has that Christmas card in his cubicle. 🙂 I ordered the cards from Shutterfly, and everyone who received one thought it was a sweet gesture since I wasn’t really near my family in college. 🙁

This year, our card will have me, the hubs and sweet Millie in it. Not so alone anymore!! 🙂 Of course, Shutterfly came to mind when I started browsing for our Christmas cards. Boy, have the designs gotten awesome! I remember having about 40 choices 4 years ago….this year, they have HUNDREDS!

Here’s a few cute ones that caught my eye….

Images Source

As you can see, they cover religious, modern and traditional card types. 🙂 After a good bit of browsing, I am totally getting this. 🙂

Image Source

I just love how fun this card is…from the fonts to the colors. It’s classic, but fun and a bit modern, don’t you think?

These are very simple to make too. All you have to do is upload your picture(s) and place it in the card! Then, wait anxiously in the mail for your holiday goodies to arrive. 😀

Also, if I were hosting a Christmas party this year, I could see myself mailing these invitations out. Easy peasy and very cute…just sayin’. 🙂

Now, if you blog like me, Shutterfly is generously offering 50 free photo cards if you blog about what cards you would send this year! Just fill out this form and wait for the email confirmation about the details for what to include in your post!

If you don’t blog though, these cards are extremely affordable, and sometimes, Shutterfly even has coupon codes to make them even more affordable! 🙂

Do you send out holiday cards?

FTC Disclosure: This is a sponsored post, but opinions about the brand are my own. I will be receiving 50 free photo cards from writing this post. 🙂

I love blogging…

November 1, 2010 by Amy 6 Comments

You might already know this, but I enjoy blogging. I find it so neat that I can just write about random topics on my mind, and about 5 (or more) people are actually interested in what I have to say!

I also enjoy reading blogs. I find so many other bloggers to be the coolest people ever. In fact, as much as I’d love to go to get togethers or conferences to meet other bloggers, I have a feeling the introvert in me would show up and make me a quiet, starstruck weirdo. It happens. I sort of think of bloggers as mini celebs. Y’all are crazy cool!

Anywho, lately, I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten a bit of a stage fright in my blogging. I start writing and wonder if y’all will hate me or find me lame. After looking through old entries and thinking about the fundamentals, it made me remember that I blog because it gives ME the warm fuzzies. If people grow to hate me, they can simply unsubscribe, right? It’s not like y’all will throw my gym bag in dog poop…heh.

So, this month, I’m going back to the basics. I’m blogging everyday this month, since it’s NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). I hope my AP English IV teacher never finds my blog though. I think she enjoyed writing large “C”s or “D”s on my papers. Sorry Mrs. Thompson…my below average writing has made its way on the Internet. 😛

Hope y’all don’t hate me after this month. 🙂 I have quite a few great bloggity ideas in store!

Another reason I love blogging? The freebies/giveaways!

Y’all…before blogging, I never really won anything. Ok, I lie. I won a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant in 5th grade, because I made the winning poster for nutrition awareness month in elementary school……

Ok, ok.

And maybe I won kids bingo ONCE at my Dad’s company bingo day. $20 Walmart gift card…mmhmm! I bought some major Jane make-up with that…anyone remember that line?

Anyway, since I got into reading the 241 blogs that I read regularly, I’ve gotten hooked on entering giveaways. It’s free to enter, and EVERYONE has the same chances, so why not?!

October was a pretty lucky month for me! I won two pretty awesome things…Christmas in October, for sure!

Check this out…I won a RoadID bracelet from Krista of Commitment is Liberating. RoadID offers bracelets and other items to help ID you in case something bad happened while you were exercising outside. I like to always prepare for the worst…I’ve been known to pass out in high heat, so this was a wonderful prize to win. Thanks Krista for hosting!

You didn’t think I’d leave my information on the Internet, did ya? Ok, well I’ll away that I’m O neg….no worries, I donate this “universal donor” blood regularly. Good karma. 🙂

As you may know, I don’t necessarily run marathons, but I am getting back into an exercise routine and just having this on me will make me feel a little more safe while exercising in the great outdoors. 🙂

I won another giveaway too, though. Complete opposite of fitness…baking goodies! I read a blog called Baby Loving Mama. It’s a pretty huge blog, where she gives away items ALL.THE.TIME. I started reading when she gave away a Coach bag around last Christmas. I’m not into designers, but I figured I’d enter and just probably would have gifted this to my Coach obsessed sister had I won. (Sister of the Year award, anyone?)

Anyway, she had a LIVE giveaway last week. Neat idea…all the readers comment back and forth (this time it was about Halloween baking, since it was a Wilton giveaway) and you have to be a certain commenter, like commenter #100. I didn’t think I would win, but I thought I’d start commenting about royal icing and other fun cookie things. Lo and behold, I won the first prize! Look at all of this baking stuff! Most of it will have to wait until next year…sadly I was sick towards the end of last week. No baking for me.

Wilton Giveaway

Or maybe coworkers will get super late Halloween baked goodies…hmm.

What do y’all like about blogging? 🙂

“Fatties” are people too…

October 27, 2010 by Amy 33 Comments

I was a pretty skinny child. My passion for making my parents chase me around the house and yard contributed to my physique back then. Sometime around 3rd grade, though, I started to realize I wasn’t normal. I was getting fat.

I have no idea how it happened, but I look at my (now) size 24 self and realize that I am considered morbidly obese. I remember back in school, the kids would make my last name rhyme with fat. Fat A-(insert second syllable) was my name through most of school. I remember in middle school, this kid on the bus spit on my jacket, because he felt I was too fat to be on “his” bus.

Sounds insane, but it really happened.

Another big example I remember was waiting at the bus stop one morning, and one of the kids took my gym bag (actually ended up ripping it because I wouldn’t let it go), rubbed it in dog poop and told me that PE class wouldn’t help me so I shouldn’t bother bringing the bag to school. Bullying sucks…I don’t wish this type of bullying on anyone.

When I reached college age, bullying stopped. Everyone was magically more mature, but it was then that I realized maturity did not equal a fair society. The first time I went to the mall with my college friend, we were buying clothes. I remember going into Hollister and getting stares. I was a size 20 at the time. I could barely walk around the racks, since they kept them close together. I remember just looking at the regular sized clothes (helping my friend out), and when my friend went in the dressing room, an employee at the store told me they don’t carry my size, but Lane Bryant probably does. Rude, no?

When I worked at Lane Bryant through college, I realized that not all customers that shop there embrace the plus size. One lady came to my register to buy a gift card around the holidays, and while I was ringing her up, she told her husband if she ever fits in this store, she would just die.

I’ve seen it all…stares at the gym, stares eating out at a restaurant with my husband, even stares at the workplace…it’s everywhere. Society frowns upon the obese.

However, underneath my current size 24 body, I just wish I could wear a sign saying, I’m a person just like you. I have perfect blood pressure, good cholesterol, and while I eat ice cream from time to time, I’m making efforts to change for the better.

I’m sure most of you have read the Marie Claire article about the issues with an author accepting “fatties”. This article made me so sad. I actually was starting to love Marie Claire, because of their plus sized fashionista, who was starting to make me embrace the fact that I can still feel “cute” in clothes. However, since publishing this article, I feel like this was a huge slap in the face to the very readers that they have been trying to empower.

So, for the first time in a long time, I wrote to an editor. I had to. I couldn’t believe this article was published.

Ms. Schweitzer,

I recently came across an article titled “Overweight Couples on TV”, and would like to know why something of this nature was published. The author states that she finds it displeasing just for an obese person to walk across a room, and as an obese person, I find this saddening. I also find it saddening that she does not consider herself “size-ist”. If you think less of a person because of their weight, then that is a blatant discrimination.

I’ve been a Marie Claire subscriber on/off for quite a few years, and I’m just shocked that a magazine which writes about how a woman should feel more self-worth, is now publishing this. Do you not realize how many readers you may have just offended and brought down a few levels?

It’s hard enough to read magazines with size 0 women plastered across the pages, but now, to read this makes me feel like I am less of a person–compared to a stumbling drunk as she stated.

I really hope you will consider your audience when you publish articles of this nature. I’m fairly sure you’ve lost quite a few readers in the long run over this.

Sincerely,
::insert actual name::

That article brought back all of the bullying. It brought back the self-conscious feelings of “I wonder how many people find me gross”. It hurt, and it wasn’t fair.

The author tried to make up for it with an update (making excuses with her prior eating disorders and her perception of fat), but of course, you can’t take back how you really feel.

So, thank you Maura Kelly…thank you for making me feel equivalent to “a stumbling drunk” and a “heroin addict” (her words…not exaggerating). And thank you for making those hateful feelings against “fatties” seem OK to have by having them written in such a huge publication. You kind of suck.

How do you feel after reading this article?

Happy Howl-O-Ween

October 25, 2010 by Amy Leave a Comment

I’m starting a new little series on the blog about sewing patterns with my reviews on them. I’ve been learning new techniques with these patterns, and I thought it’d be fun to blog about these!

Earlier this month, I visited family while the hubs was away on a business trip. I knew there were going to be major Columbus Day sales at the local JoAnn’s, so my Mom and I went there for the sole purpose of making Millie into a sea monster. The reason? Well, PetSmart was having a costume contest and I thought she’d have a great time with the other dogs. 🙂

To note: Millie is about 40 lbs. now. Not a super large dog, but to Simplicity patterns, she was too big to get a costume pattern for. So, I had to get creative and base it off of a dog coat pattern (Simplicity 9520).

After that, I started looking in the cottons for something green that screamed “sea monster”. I couldn’t find a thing. However, in the specialty Halloween fabrics, I came across a polyester mermaid print. It was perfect, but I was intimidated, because this was a very shiny, slippery fabric that I’m not familiar with sewing.

I also bought blue felt with plans to add some spikes…it ended up being a really cute touch! I also originally wanted to add wings, but I was promptly reminded that sea monsters swim. She would need fins instead. 😛 Thank goodness for leftover quilt batting!

There was a HUGE pitfall to this pattern. When I originally started cutting and piecing this together, I realized that this pattern was way too large for my dog. It was a one size fits all thing…sort of lame, no? So, I ended up tailoring it to size, using lots of Beggin Strips and saying “don’t eat that” repeatedly. Apparently, polyester looks appetizing to my dog..sheesh!

Also, when I started sewing the polyester, it started to fray…a lot. So, for the polyester, I ended up lining it with some muslin. It helped a lot with the sewing, and also probably felt better on the dog.

After a good bit of thought, I ended up nixing the hood, as well as the sleeves. I know Millie, and she isn’t a fan of being clothed. She’d try to rip those off for sure!

When I finally tried the finished product on her, it was a pretty good fit! Thank goodness.

However, there was another pitfall. Those fins were her newest toy. She was literally trying to rip them off, unless I held up a treat (as I did to snap this picture. In the end, I pinned them back a bit, and it ended up being OK. After 5 minutes, she barely noticed her costume!!

Unfortunately, she didn’t win the contest at PetSmart. Dracula, a wagon full of yorkies dressed as Playgirls and Hannah Montana beat her out. I guess next year, I’ll try to go more trendy. 🙂

By the way, if you can take a second to vote for Millie in Blue Buffalo’s Halloween Costume Contest, I’d totally appreciate it. Just go to this site, search for “Millie”, click her picture and vote! No log-in needed!

Rating out of 10: 4. Dear Simplicity, dogs are NOT one size fits all, and the pattern writing/diagrams left me fairly confused. :

A bunch of randoms (4)

October 20, 2010 by Amy Leave a Comment

Whoa! I haven’t posted one of these in a while. Oops! I decided to add some cute doggie pictures in here, just for kicks.

I’m in week 2 of the 10 week weight loss challenge. I started up kickboxing again on Monday, and talk about a kick booty class! Whoa…my legs are still sore from the class! I have class again today too. The teacher warned us to get our abs ready. Ruh roh!

I’m already working on another group of items to bring into the Etsy shop. 🙂 I’m having so much fun working on this shop, and so far, I’m super excited to say that I have sold 1 bandanna and have 6 people who “heart” my shop! Thanks for the support y’all!

I won a Road ID bracelet on Krista’s blog: Commitment is Liberating. I’m really glad to get to have one of these since I do walk Millie often, and I’m hoping to get back into the C25K really soon as well. Better safe than sorry, right? Oh, and I ordered it in Pink….just because. 🙂

For some crazy reason, it’s less than 40 days until Thanksgiving! Can you believe this year is almost over? What the heck happened to the time? Ugh…

I ordered some new glasses this weekend. I haven’t owned a new pair of glasses in over two years. These are the frames…I’m such a dork, I know. 🙂

My Fantasy Football team this year stinks. I’ve won two matches total. Why can’t I ever make good picks…ugh! I feel like I have the most injuries ever, but I don’t want to let my players go. 🙁

I want to apologize to my food blog readers. I have been making the same things over and over, because it’s not quite cold enough to bring on the Fall/Winter recipes. Recipes will be coming soon. I just need the weather to decide if it’s still Summer or if it’s Fall yet. Gotta love Louisiana, right?

Bouncing Around

October 15, 2010 by Amy 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago, my dear sewing machine broke. I was working on a shopping cart cover (avoid this pattern for dear life…it’s written TERRIBLY and the steps just made no sense), and in the finishing steps, the nylon webbing decided that it didn’t like my needle and took it out on my beloved machine. According to the repair guy, the timing was off and some needle hook thing broke. Erg…never working with nylon webbing on a machine again….

This lovely repair costs $99. $99?! Totally not cool, but since I’ve been trying to open my Etsy shop a while, I really had no choice but to get this taken care of ASAP. 🙁 Good news: My machine will be back on the table tonight, sewing Etsy things like it’s nobody’s business.

Anyway, the past couple of weeks involved no sewing. It kind of blows, but stupid me realized that while my machine is out, I can still cut fabric, which is SO not fun, but needs to get done. 🙂

So, I cut patterns and fabrics for Christmas gifts.

Don’t you just LOVE this? It’s going to be made into a laptop bag (this pattern/this fabric). Delightful.

I also decided that my dog should dress up for Halloween. I’m that puppy mom, and I think she’d have a blast at the costume contest that Petsmart is hosting. She loves that store! So, she’s going to be a sea monster…check out the fabric to the left. It’s a shimmery looking fabric with fish scale print. 🙂 I’m sort of winging it with a simple dog jacket pattern, because they don’t make costume patterns for 40 lbs. dogs. Go figure.

To the right is a handbag that will be made with this fabric. The pattern looks simple enough, but we’ll see how this one goes. 🙂 My first lined handbag…whoa!

Oh, and packages have started to come in for the quilt block swap! From what I’ve looked at so far, the fabrics are awesome, but I’ve only received 2 packages. I’m hoping the other 3 come in soon! ::hint hint to the participants:: I can’t wait to bundle these up and send them out. Since my sewing machine broke, I didn’t get to finish all of my blocks, but I’m pretty sure I can hammer those out this weekend too. 🙂

And, new project, of course. Instead of trashing the pillows we have in the house, I’m pretty sure Millie is getting a new dog bed and our sofas will be adequately decorated as well. I want to reuse this crazy amount of pillow fluff…I’d feel terrible trashing it all now, and the gears in my head would never forgive me :). I think I have about 10 pillows total to tear into….whoa.

I’m sure most of you are thinking that I’m just plainly wacky for all of these projects looming around, but I told myself that I really need to use up some fabric. I really have too much in my basket, and don’t really have room to sprawl out with a huge stash, sadly.

Bananas Foster Milkshake

October 14, 2010 by Amy 5 Comments

I’m sure you can tell I’m sort of in love with bananas foster. I’m from New Orleans, so I guess you can say I’m pretty hooked to the stuff. I don’t really remember the first time I had it, but I know it was love at first bite!

I’m also greatly in love with ice cream…I gave it up for a month for a personal junk food detox to prepare me for the 10 week weight loss challenge I’m participating in. 🙂 Before my personal little detox, I used to have a bowl almost daily. It was low-fat ice cream, so no guilt right? Psh, unfortunately those 150 calories daily added up, and I blame the hot summer for the crazy weight gain I’ve experienced. Darn you hot summers and refreshing ice cream!! 🙂

So, naturally when I heard that Foodbuzz and Lactaid were hosting a smoothie/milkshake recipe contest, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to enter my idea: a bananas foster milkshake. I know milkshakes are a huge diet no-no, but hey, I can practice portion control here, right?

After submitting my idea to Foodbuzz, I found out that my idea was one of the 12 chosen to participate in this contest. 🙂 Wahoo!!

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what the prize for this fabulous contest is, right? It’s a trip to this year’s Foodbuzz Festival!! So, cross your fingers for me, y’all. This would be an amazing opportunity for me, and I think I would just go nuts if I won (in a good way, I promise).

Now, since this is a contest for Lactaid, I couldn’t just make any milkshake. Rather, this milkshake had to be lactose-free AND unique! Quite a challenge, no?

Now, I knew Lactaid made milk, because I was graciously given a coupon to get a Lactaid milk product for free to make this recipe happen. However, my two other worries were ice cream (of course, a milkshake staple) and butter (a main ingredient in authentic bananas foster).

After perusing Lactaid’s site, I found that Lactaid makes an ice cream product. Bonus? A store really close to my house carries all Lactaid products, so the products are easy to find. If it’s in my town, it’s probably in your town. Yay for availability! Also, Lactaid products are very reasonable in price. I know not everyone can pay mega bucks for groceries, so it’s wonderful that Lactaid keeps costs fairly low for their products. 🙂

Now, for the butter, I took a risk and used a little bit of oil with water rather than butter. I thought this would work well, because I interchange oil and butter in most of my cooking, so why not? Thankfully, the flavors worked out, the shake ended up not tasting oily, and it worked beautifully in making the infamous bananas foster sauce. 🙂

On a side note, I have to hand it to the folks at Lactaid. When I was a kid, I think I was a little lactose intolerant (never was diagnosed). I used to have major stomach pains after drinking milk, and the sad thing was, I used to drink chocolate milk anyway. I know…you think I must be crazy! To me, the pain was totally worth it. I was completely addicted to chocolate milk! And yes, while I had stomach cramps, I like to think my addiction to milk had to contribute to my 5’10” frame. Haha! Now, don’t worry…the good news for me is sometime in my teenage years, I grew out of the intolerance I had. Yay!

However, not everyone ends up so lucky. So, it’s good to know that those who are lactose intolerant can still enjoy cow’s milk now, get the same nutrients from regular milk, and hey, they can even make milkshakes, root beer floats, enjoy sundaes…the list is endless!

Lactaid has really taken it upon themselves to make lactose intolerance less daunting. They have a huge array of lactose-free products, and offer a new website, called MooVision, which is to bring awareness to lactose intolerance and to showcase their product line. They have some fun features on the site too, which include:

Moolah!, a trivia contest about lactose-free milk (you can win Amazon.com gift cards here!)
Gourmoo cookoff, which is a competition with recipes featuring lactose-free milk
Moo News, which is a mockumentary style news show for milk lovers

So, using Lactaid’s ice cream and milk products, I came up with this milkshake. I’m sure you’re wondering if there’s a difference in consistency or taste with these products. Good news peeps…I really didn’t notice a difference, which is awesome.

The verdict? The taste of this shake came out perfectly, as expected. 🙂 Heck, bananas foster is typically served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream anyway. Why not combine it into a tasty drink? You might noticed that I didn’t make traditional bananas foster with alcohol. I did this, because it’s not a huge flavor difference to me, and because of the lack of alcohol, this becomes a shake you can make for the kids, too! 🙂

And, in case you’re wondering, I only drank 12 oz. of the stuff. This shake made it really hard to practice portion control too…so tasty! I kind of don’t want to calculate the calories, but in hindsight, with a 48 oz. pitcher next to me, I could have done much worse damage.

Disclosure: I received a free sample of Lactaid milk for this recipe, and this recipe serves as my entry for a contest to attend the Foodbuzz Festival.

Bananas Foster Milkshake
Source: an original

Ingredients:

3 bananas, sliced

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

3 tbsp. oil

appx. 1/4 cup water

12 oz. Lactaid milk (we used 2% reduced fat)

1 quart Lactaid vanilla ice cream

Directions:

Place oil in a medium skillet and bring the heat to medium heat.

Add brown sugar and cinnamon. Stir and slowly add water until it forms a sauce. Lower the heat to medium-low heat.

Add the sliced bananas to the pan, stirring occasionally. Cook this down for about 5 minutes. You know it’s done when you can smell it and the bananas are really soft!

Remove the bananas and place them in a bowl in a larger bowl with an ice bath to cool down. Reserve the sauce in the skillet.

Once the bananas foster has cooled, blend the milk and ice cream together until well blended. Then add the bananas foster and blend. If you think the shake is too thick for your liking, you can add some milk, a little at a time.

To serve, drizzle bananas foster sauce in a glass, pour in the shake and drizzle more sauce on top. Enjoy!

Makes appx. 48 ounces

Thanks again to the folks at Foodbuzz and Lactaid for allowing me to participate in this contest. 🙂

Bye Bye 1980s

October 13, 2010 by Amy 9 Comments

So, our house is about 25 years old. When we moved in, there were a lot of things reminiscent of the 80s. Wood looking laminate floors, really old closet doors and well, in our bathrooms, super ugly pink formica countertops.

It was always something we wanted to change, but we knew it would be a fairly large financial change. We originally thought to do granite, but the quotes to do such small amount of work were just terribly nauseating. At that point, we knew we wanted to DIY, but heck, what a huge project to take on!

We actually thought about using a pre-cut piece of formica that looked like faux granite. However, the measurements were for kitchen counters…2 inches longer than needed to go over our cabinets. 🙁

So, we decided on tile. This was the most fun part for me. I love choosing things like this for our house, and after a couple of trips to Lowes and Home Depot, we ended up choosing this for our bathroom.

This ended up being quite a huge undertaking for us (mainly the hubs). We chose a porcelain tile, which is harder to cut than ceramic. The hubs is the power tool genius of the house, and worked HOURS on cutting this tile. He’s awesome.

Here’s how things looked during demolition. That stuff was glued on WELL! Eesh!

Like I said UGLY pink formica. 🙁

The hubs really made these counters happen. Not much credit for me, except I did occasionally vacuum up tile pieces and dust, and helped him position tiles as needed. 🙂 Please don’t flame me…our guest bathroom is fairly small, as is the countertop. Two people in there at once ALL THE TIME is a crowd.

The cost of this countertop makeover? Just over $300, including tools that we’re going to use for the master bath redo as well.

OK, I’ll stop rambling and just show you the after.

Isn’t it AMAZING? We’re going to eventually end up doing the master bath in the same tile too. Can’t wait…I’ll be able to help much more this time around too. 🙂

What house projects are you working on?

Amy

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