I’m priming.  I’m painting.  (I know priming IS painting, but I mean a different room.)  I’m a busy girl.  But I had to stop and take a moment to share something with you.

I know I’ve shared this fact before, but Jude is obsessed with toys.  Like, walk through every toy aisle in the store to tinker and test all of them out.

He loves sweets!

If his milk get a smidge warm, (and when I say smidge I mean anything but ice cold) he thinks its yucky.

This morning as I was adding ice cubes to his milk, something dawned on me…

I think I’m raising the future Santa Clause!

Because you absolutely cannot have a Leap Grand Prix party without a Leap Grand Prix… and you can’t have a Leap Grand Prix without Leap Grand Prix racers… we made racers.  Or leap-cers.  <- I just made that up!  :)

Let me introduce you to the line-up.

In numerical order…

#1 Francesco Bernoulli.

#2 Lewis Hamilton

#4  Max Schnell

#5 Miguel Camino

#6 Raoul CaRoule

#7 Shu Todoroki

#8 Carla Veloso

#9 Nigel Gearsley

#24 Jeff Gorvette

and… the winner of three Piston Cups, the best race car ever known to a 4 year old… #95 Lightning McQueen!

My original plan was to buy pillow cases at Walmart.. they have packs of 2 for $5 and I thought that would be the easiest way to go.  I wouldn’t have to sew them, just paint them.  BUT… I saw this at JoAnn’s..

Of course I’m gonna go for the option to color match!  And I only needed a yard per color, and because I had a coupon for 20% off my entire order, it was a bit cheaper.  More work, yes.  But that’s okay.  I didn’t even cut them.. just folded the fabric in half and sewed right up the fold. I didn’t pin anything during the making of these sacks.  I think because the flannel sticks together so well, it held it in place and allowed me to just sew.  :)  And I used white thread for every one of them.

For the designs, I pulled a feature off of each car and created it on the sack.  Because I was trying to get this done as fast as I could, I didn’t take many pictures of the process.  This is the only one.

When the cabinet guys came to “sand” the cabinets, they brought tons of plastic with them.  I asked if I could keep it… and that is what I used to put inside the sacks as I painted them.  I used my marking pencil to make the design, and then used acrylic paint to fill it all in.  And that’s it!

Jude was soooo excited watching me do this… he could not stop jumping up and down.  And when he wasn’t by my side, he was in my bedroom (I laid all the sacks on the floor in there) doing nothing but watching paint dry.  Just sat there and watched it dry.  :)  He did touch one, juuuust to check if it was ready… and so on Max Schnell, you can see his hand prints where he touched to get back up.  Once they were dry.. he tried every single one of them on.  Or however you’d say that.  He tested them out.  Made sure their leaping ability was intact.  :)  AND… he said, the Leap Grand Prix was his favorite part of his WHOLE party!  :)

The race took place throughout the bottom floor of the house.  I bought two rolls of black duct tape to make the track.. and ended up needing more.  It was too late to run out to the store, so I used masking tape.  I think it worked out well, because I just called it a terrain change.. which actually happens in the Cars World Grand Prix, so yay for Mom!  Here is what I can show you of the track.. (I have more pics, but other kids are in them.. and I don’t want to post their photos w/out permission, soo..)

The track starts in the dining area and goes behind and around the sofa, (pic is of this part ->) through the family room, past the steps and around the corner.  The terrain change happens right as you’re rounding the corner (we called it the off-road section), and goes into the living room, turns again to go around the coffee table, turns again & past the side of the sofa, (terrain change, back to road) turn again, around the back of it, past the game table and ends at the front door!

This was him two nights ago.  Right before we took the coloring pages off the wall.  They were up for the party, too.  I bought one of those packs of big coloring pages and taped them up on the wall for the kids to color.  We plan on painting, so I didn’t mind if marker got on the wall.  I think the kids enjoyed this.. although it doesn’t send a very good message does it?  :/  The Leap Grand Prix sign was a last, last, an hour before guests arrived, hang on the wall wet kind of thing.  It was theeee laaaast thing on my list.  As silly as it seems, I would have felt like I didn’t succeed had that not been done.  It was higher on the wall during the party…  so the kids couldn’t touch it, and parents couldn’t lean against it… but it was there.  :)

Allinol, I think it was a good party.  The kids seemed to have a blast… and that’s all that matters.

And If I could have done anything differently… I wouldn’t have used the masking tape.  It was dreadful trying to get it off the carpet.  I was worried about the duct tape; I thought it might make the carpet sticky, but it didn’t, and came off like a dream!  I did leave the track down for about a week and a half.. and the masking tape starting cracking and ripping where it was stepped on (mostly by the dog).  When I tried to get it off, it seemed like it was glued to the carpet and kept breaking when I tried to pull it.  It didn’t leave behind any residue, it was just incredibly hard to get up!  I’d go duct tape all the way!

And even though we tried to escape the frog on this day of leaping, one refused to be ignored.   There was a teeny tiny one hopping around on the front porch during the party.  :)  I joked about it on facebook, and said.. you have to be careful what you hang on your front door…  :)

And there ya have it.. our 1 @ 4 LEAP Grand Prix.  :)

I’m so thankful Damon and Jude went out birthday cake shopping without me knowing about it, because I would have tried to stop them, even though I had no time to do what I planned.  I wanted to make cupcakes with cute toppers, and a cool Cars cupcake stand.  I would have been super stressed out trying to get it all done, because games is where most of my energy was put.

Let’s start with the easiest.  Checkers.

This was totally Jude’s idea.  He found a Cars checkers game at Party City for $0.75 and asked if he could get it for his party.  Ummm… yes!  What says leap better than checkers?  The whole purpose of the game is to leap and conquer!  I started thinking… it would be fun to have a human checkers game.  If you had enough space, and enough kids (although you could get the parents involved in this one!), each game could have two designated ‘players’ and the other kids would be the ‘pieces’.  You could tape off the game board (or if you’re outside, you could use that field marking paint)  and then have the ‘player’ tell the ‘pieces’ which ‘piece’ to leap over and squares to leap to.  Could be fun!  We didn’t have enough room for that though, and it wasn’t warm enough (or bright enough, it was a night time party) to be outside.

The second game is what I named, Leaping Light Toss.  :)  And for this game, we needed bean bags.

And then something to toss them at…

How this games works…

One person (or up to 4, that’s why there are holes on all sides) tosses and one person flips the cards.

As the ‘flipper’ flips the cards, the light leaps (or changes) colors.  You have to toss your bean bag into the circle of the same color as the card.  The colors can leap slowly or super fast, to get the kids panicking and laughing!  And that’s it.  Leaping Light Toss.

Things I would have done differently had I not been rushing through this…

- I would have painted the entire plant stand black before wrapping it with cardboard.

- I would have painted or taped the inside of the cardboard BEFORE wrapping it around the stand.

- I would have cut the circles out BEFORE wrapping it around the stand.

I share that because reading other people’s “I should have done it this way” makes me really…

Tomorrow I will share the Main Event!  Stay tuned!  :)

Before I begin, I have to tell you that I got these ideas from Oh Happy Day! Super fun blog; so many cute ideas!  So I will not be sharing how to make them, but will provide the links so you can go check them out yourselves.  However, I did tweak them a bit, so I will share what I did differently.

Onward we go..

“That’s taking a long time” is what I heard throughout this entire project. I agree. It took a loooong time. But like I explained to Damon, it’s because I made it more intricate than it had to be. I didn’t sit and do it all at once- I took breaks, did some other things, and then came back to it. And.. I loved making it!  AND… Jude was there every step of the way, watching it come to life.  And when I wasn’t working on it.. he was sitting by it or wanting to carry it around.  Soo… it was time well spent!  Click here for instructions.

Okay, the player didn’t work, but it went like this… wa wa wa waaahh.  You know, the sound of something failing.

I cannot believe this, but I don’t have a pic of the bottom finished.  It’s all black, just like the top.

I know this is already quite lengthy, but because I also got this idea from Oh Happy Day, I wanted to share it in the same post.  I thought these were soooo adorable!  Jude laughed at them, but as the day went on, he wanted his toys back to normal.  And let me say… these were extremely easy and fast to make!  I made them for all of his Cars and set them around the house as decorations (and because they were guests, too!)  I whipped them up in less than a half hour, during Jude’s nap.  (they were a birthday surprise!)

I have to say, I loved how these hats brought out personalities!  I mean, look at Red.  He’s cute as button and that hat only makes him cuter!  And Philmore.. can you hear him saying… “It’s a party, maaan.”  And Sarge… so mad and unhappy to be wearing it!  haha!  Oh!  And the bad guys…

Unhappy, indeed.  P.S. I think I loved these more than Jude.  :D

Oh, and I realize that leap day is behind us.. and that I’m super late in posting these.. but I guess that’s what happens when one waits until the last minute to get stuff done.  But I’m tellin’ ya… in 2016, someone is gonna be all over this!!  :)

Happy Monday!

Last week, I took a trip to Home Depot.  I needed to pick up some paint chips, but like always… I looked around at everything.  I love it!  Aisle by aisle, I see things and my brain tries to invent new uses for them.  It’s a fun little game!

As I was roaming, I spotted this…

.. and images of outdoor light fixtures flickered in my mind.  It’s such a pretty shape.  It’s already meant to be outside and to take a harsh beating from water.  It can be spray painted any color.  I think it could be fabulous!  (Most of my ideas never come to be, but it’s always fun to dream!)

And then I shuffled down a bit more and I was at the rebar.  I grabbed a few triple wire rebar chairs because I think they could make awesome somethings!  (I’ll share that later.)  But I stopped to check this out..

As I was looking at it, I started talking to myself (as I always do)… “Now, what is this?”  At that moment two ladies walked by and went around the corner, and I heard them giggle and say… “She doesn’t even know what that is!”  in a way that suggested I could only be looking at it if I knew what it was.  I could have gotten upset.  I mean, I could have peeked around the corner and yelled, “you need to broaden your mind!”  or asked… “hey ladies… can you come tell me what this is and how to use it?”  (After reading the label, I knew what it was.  I can figure things out!)  But ya know what?  I’ve really learned to brush that stuff off.  It didn’t matter.  Don’t let petty things like that ruin your day, okay?  Besides,  I know I don’t need to know what something is used for, to know what I want to use it for.  So I laughed and kept exploring.

This morning one of my facebook friends shared this and I thought it was a perfect fit for this post.  Let’s all strive to Think.  :)

Aaah! So I haven’t primed yet.  I feel like such a slacker.  Well not really, but I sure thought I’d be further along.  Here’s what happened.  I scoped out all the doors and drawers and realized that they weren’t sanded to where they needed to be.  Boo.  They aren’t supposed to have any shine left on the finish and they were still pretty glossy.  

So a-sandin’ I be.  And like I said before, sanding is my least favorite part, so it’s slow going.

The plan was always to leave a few doors off to have open shelves, so those cabinets had to be sanded inside so they could be painted.  That was never part of the deal with the cabinet people, so I always knew I had that sanding ahead of me.

THEN.. Damon suggested it might be a good idea to paint the inside of ALL the cabinets because it would look better.  I agree, but aahhhhh! More sanding.  And more other things too.

All of these had to come off…

And all of the shelves had to come out, which means I had to mess with all these little buggers..

It got kind of tricky trying to maneuver that in tight spaces.  I had to pop the top part in with a screwdriver like this…

and then kind of hold the shelf up so that it didn’t slide back down while I popped the one holding the back of the shelf.  I couldn’t take a pic of that… both hands busy at the moment.  And then I had to hit the bottom of the shelf to pop it up out of place.  I don’t know who invented these little buggers, but man… they made sure they were superb at their job.

As you can see… our cabinets are made out of pressed board, (the only real wood on them is the cabinet fronts, drawer fronts and doors) so priming them with a good primer is important.  This primer was highly recommended.  And it says that it works…

but I don’t exactly trust that.

I did try to get the Smart Prime (it’s the low VOC form) but when I say nobody in this area carried it… I mean at least the seven places I called.  :)  The application instructions for the Cover Stain weren’t on the can, so I hunted them down online and they say to scuff up the finish to give the primer something to adhere to.  So even though the front of the can says that, and even though everything in me is screaming “just skip it, just skip it”.. I know that sometimes you just have to mosey on through those tedious steps to get a great result.

Thankfully my cabinets did not need a ton of prep, but if yours do, this is a great reference.

I’m hoping to be done with all this mess making dusty dust by the end of the week.  Wish me luck!

BTW.. all this talk of white… we got snow!!  Just a teeny little bit on Sunday, but snow nonetheless.

Happy Monday!

Today I would like to share with you a bit about our Buggy-Bug and what he’s doing for his birthday this year.  As some of you already know, Jude is our little leapling.  Yup, he’s our…

And this year, as we prepare to celebrate his 1st and 4th birthday, we have decided to…

You can click here or on any of the images above to be taken to Jude’s virtual Lemonade Stand and read more about what we’re doing.

While setting this up, I couldn’t stop thinking about Diego, a boy from La Limonada. He was three, (with an April birthday, so he was right around the same age as Jude) and lost his precious little life at the end of January because of a tragic event.  It truly makes my heart weep.  Sometimes I’m paralyzed with fear when I think about how this world is.  But God says, “fear not, for I am with you.”  And I cling to that.  And God says to.. “love one another.”  And I try my hardest to abide by that.  At church we’re in the middle of a series called…

We’re talking about Changing the World through love!  This Lemonade Stand is one of the ways we can change the world through love.

If you can help in any way, it would be so greatly appreciated.

Lighting.  Let’s talk lighting.  If you saw my post from yesterday, that means you saw the gorgeous empire chandelier.  Yep, this one..

I’ve been drooling.  Drooling I tell you.  And by the way… do you see that runner there?  I never noticed it before, but… eh-hem!  :)

I also really like this chandelier..

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So I’m on the hunt.  The question is… to bling or not to bling?

Then. Then….

My eyes flittered across this while doing research for another project and my heart just swooooooned!  Oh, how I think it would be fabulous with all that white!

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I’m in love with it!  Truly, I am!  I want one.  I want to make my own right now using the patina rubb n buff!  I think it’s just gorgeous!  You?  What do you think?

Because this is gorgeous too!  It really makes that turquoise stand out, huh?

(via)

What do you think?  Tell me. Tell me!   And have a happy weekend!

I know I said I’d talk about my cabinet painting research today, but while I’m waiting for the temps to come up so I can start priming, I find myself day dreaming!  What do I want this kitchen to really look like?  I know this isn’t all going to happen right now and by the time it does it’s possible that I change my mind, but for now…  while I sit and eat the rest of my valentine’s day chocolates, I’ll share with you some pictures that I’ve been sighing over for a long while now.

Let’s start with my favorite.  (<- You can click on that to take you to the post to see more pics.)

I love everything about this kitchen.  I’m not trying to be a copy cat, but I’m kind of hoping that after painting the cabinets, our kitchen will have a similar look since our countertops are almost the same colors.  And the subway tiles.  Love them!  I always thought that I would go with a turquoise color tile, but even in our last house, I picked up a white subway tile to bring home and feel out.  I like all the white with pops of color.  Having the ability to trade different colors in and out when I want to really appeals to me.

I also thought I would want to have black countertops, like this…

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But lately my eye has been drifting towards a lighter countertop…

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And I love this…  Cookbook editor and former Food & Wine editor-in-chief Carole Lalli said she chose a crisp white kitchen because “I didn’t want to get caught up in something trendy. I was drawn back to simplicity, classicism, and my own craving for everything to be open, clean, airy, and light.” Featured in January 2008 issue.

That is how I feel, too.  Open, clean, airy, and light.  In our house it will probably be more light on the clean than actual light or clean, but I’ll take what I can get.  :)

What do you think?  Do you like an all white kitchen?