So what about the messed up canvas, you ask?  Well, I wasn't about to let the $5 that I spent on that canvas go to waste.  I painted the entire thing green and then my almost 3 year old son had a blast painting his own creation over the canvas.  I had him use colors that are in the kids' bathroom and we hung his "masterpiece" on the wall.  It is no Picasso, by any means, but my  little guy is so proud of that painting that he will go into the bathroom just to look at it.  And to all you moms out there that are or have ever potty trained a boy...anything that I can do to make him excited to go into the bathroom works for me!

By the way, my son says that his painting is a picture of me and him...hmm...I'll assume that I hadn't showered yet on the day that he painted his creation.

Some days I feel like I should be a walking advertisement for Pottery Barn Kids.  I get so excited when I get their magazines in my mailbox, somehow thinking that my kids' rooms will magically look like all the ideas that I love, without having to actually spend the money on the items that I see in the magazine.  Well, I'm currently working on getting a nursery ready for our 2nd little bundle that is supposed to arrive around April 30th.  We are having a girl, and of course I fell in love with a ton of ideas that I found in the Pottery Barn magazine, once again.   Being on a strict budget and being even further convicted about our finances, since we are going through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at the moment, I had to come up with cheap, easy ways that I could somehow re-create some of my favorite PBK ideas.  Here are pictures of a few of my attempts.  

If you have a girl or just like to look through the PBK magazine, like me, you may have seen the flower painted canvases that they sell for about $200.  I just loved them and they go perfectly with the nursery bedding that we purchased.  My first attempt to re-create the pictures failed miserably.  I cut my own stencil by tracing some of the flowers off the bedding that we got and then tried to paint over the stencil onto the canvas.  You can see from the pictures that it didn't work at all.  I think the stencil paper was either too thin or I somehow really messed up.  

Back to square one...I then traced lightly (using the stencil that I had made) onto the remaining canvases with pencil and ended up filling in the drawing with paint.  It took longer than it would have taken if my brilliant stencil idea would have worked, but I think it turned out cute.  Not perfect, by any means, but it looks great on the nursery wall and didn't cost me even close to $200.  

Another mistreatment

This is actually my third mistreatment.  I haven't actually finished my second one because I'm trying to figure out exactly how I want to finish it off.  I love the Nestor's suggestions of just pinning it up to give it a little flare, but one must actually have pins to be able to do that.  Looks like a run to the Hobby Lobby is in order.  (Love that place!)

I tried to make this one have the "roman shade" look by simply hot gluing the fabric so that it had pleats.  I got the fabric on clearance and then glued the cording at the bottom.  The only tricky part to this one was when I put it against the window, you could see the dark areas that were made from the pleats, which of course, weren't done evenly on the back side.  I only made them look even on the front.  That bothered me a bit, so I had an old cream sheet that I cut to use as a lining on the back.  Yep, just hot glued it right to the back.  Got a cheap rod at another place I love...Target and hung that baby up.  I love this fabric and I think my hubby was even a bit impressed with this one.  That is huge, because, like me, he's a major perfectionist.  I just reminded him "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful."  Thanks, Nestor for that great quote.  Seriously, if you have no idea what I'm talking about when I refer to the Nestor...you MUST check out her blog. Her ideas are great.  It pretty much puts this blog to shame, but I've had fun starting this one, so I don't mind.  

Nesting...maybe a little early

I'm not sure if it's because I'm about to enter the 3rd trimester of my pregnancy or because of inspiration from the real "Nestor" at nestingplacenc.blogspot.com, but I just can't seem to quite with my "projects" around the house.  I thought I'd share a few.  You can take it as inspiration that you too can tackle do-it-yourself projects around your house or you can humor me and just take a look at what's going on in my house. 

 I was inspired to "mistreat" several windows in our house over the past few weeks.  We are currently in a rental that is a lease-to-own type option so we don't want to make major structural changes until we actually purchase the home (and of course have the $ to actually do it).        I was tired of looking at several windows that desperately need to be replaced and hoping to help keep out some of the cold air that comes in several of the windows because the windows are anything but energy efficient.  The first mistreatment that I did was simple to make our back door look a bit nicer.  I didn't go crazy on this mistreatment, it being my first one and all.  It was so easy though, I kept going to other windows.  No, I didn't sew at all on any of these.  Just used hot glue, fabric, and some fringe.  I have now become a HUGE fan of my hot glue gun.  I need to upgrade to a larger one, because all I had was one of the mini-ones, but it did just fine.   

All About Me

For lack of a better phrase, this "All About Me" post attempts to explain the name for this blog.  You know the "wannabe" types...people who want to be something they're not.  That isn't really the reason I chose the name.  I mean there are days that I feel that way, but I love who I am.  I love being a wife to my best friend that makes me laugh hysterically and a mother to my toddler,  who is as funny as his daddy.  I love staying at home right now for the first time ever, even if there are days that I feel like adult conversations are things of the past and that I spend the majority of my time trying to remind my son to go to the bathroom in the potty instead of his pants.  No, right now I know I'm where God wants me to be, so enough already.  What's with the wannabe name? 

 Well, I'm the perfectionist type.  One of those souls that is constantly striving to be more and do more.  This can be a good thing, but it can also be quite a vice.  Never feeling as if you're quite good enough or doing enough...laying awake nights thinking of things you should have said or ways you should've dealt with your children.  It can be tiring.  So I've labeled myself a "wannabe" and will hopefully change the connotation of that label into a completely positive thing one day.  

There it is:  I'm a wannabe!  I'm a wife that wants to be more loving to her husband, even on the days when my hormones from being 6 months pregnant are raging and these weird veins that have appeared on the back of my left leg during this pregnancy make me never want to wear shorts again.  I'm a mom who wants to remain calm at all times, even when my toddler isn't being as obedient as usual or just dumped all his toys on the playroom floor after I just cleaned them up.  I'm a former teacher who wants to be at home right now, but still wonders where the years of schooling, not to mention the student loans from grad school fit into my new life.  I'm a woman who just relocated to another state that wants to find as good of friends as I left behind when we moved.  And last, but of course not least, I'm a Christian that wants an even deeper relationship with my Savior, but who gets frustrated  with my constant shortcomings and how there are times that I feel that God has to teach me the same lessons again and again.  Yep...a wannabe, that's me.  So there you have it.  A little about who I am and the purpose for this blog of mine.  Enjoy!