Marissa's Green Thumb

Now that the weather in Michigan has been consistently above freezing at night for about two weeks I've enjoyed doing some gardening the last few days.

Today I planted a few hostas that my mother gave me from her garden and, with the help of my husband, lined the front of the flower bed with small native stones.


Front of our apartment.

I planted the tulip bulbs below last fall and was very pleased to see such beautiful flowers with so little maintenance!

Tulips on the back side of our apartment.

And no flower bed would be complete without your favorite! Paul's favorite flowers are lily of the valley and today was the first time we saw our new lily of the valley blooms.

On the back side of our apartment.

Stripping For Fun: My Refinishing Project!

I love to find a great piece of inexpensive furniture that I know has potential. With a little effort and even less money you can have both classic and statement pieces before you know it.

I found this cute little side table at a garage sale last year for only $5. So far I have only invested $10 for paint stripper, $1 for a few sheets of sand paper and a few hours of time.

What you'll need for stripping:

• Paint stripper (I like Strip-ease or Zip Strip)
• Sand paper
• Steal wool
• Old paint brush (To apply the paint stripper)
• Rags

I began my project by disassembling the piece. Then I applied the paint stripper as directed and wiped the paint away. As you can see I will need to hit a few of the difficult spots a second time. After that I will lightly sand each piece and they will be ready for stain and a finish. The weather was so beautiful after work this week that I got excited and began stripping the paint off before I remembered to take a before picture!

Stay tuned for the next step.


Table top with stripper.

Paint on table top and middle bubbling.

Paint wiped away with one swipe!

Table top and middle without paint.

Table layout.

Fashion Fail!!

Please disregard the HORRIBLE photo quality. I didn't know how hard it is to take photos of yourself. I found this really beautiful all cotton, size XXL top at Goodwill. I just loved the soft green and blue colors. I thought that I could quickly and easily turn this beautiful piece of fabric into a tunic. I remembered that I had a tunic pattern from a LONG time ago that I had stored away. I thought it would be good to use this pattern as cutting guide.

Using a pattern helps to get a good idea of where the waist should be in relationship to the rest of the garment. I still needed to take another two inches off of the side seams get a little better fit.

I felt awkward wearing it and it still felt boxy. I think this is a fashion fail. I welcome any ideas from you, please feel free to comment.

Wedding Wishes !

Our family has quite a few weddings to attend this spring and summer. I thought that I should get started with the cards. I got my trusty Stampin Up catalog out and some of the pretty paper that I bought somewhere and can't begin to remember where. I also got my "go to" stamp set Baroque Motif out. I cut a standard A2 card, one half of a piece of 8.5 x 11 inch paper folded in half. Then I layered a beautiful glittery piece of velum on top.

I added a piece of silver ribbon across the center section and topped that with a layer of silver metallic paper and a sentiment on Whisper White card stock. It was a great time for me to try out those vellum photo splits. I was quite pleased with how invisible they were.

The inside greeting was the last detail.

I made two of these cards because I really liked the way they turned out. ( Don't forget to add the little hand stamped emblem on the back)

I hope both of these marriages will be life long treasures.

Garage Sale Wonders

It is safe to say that our family has turned summer garage sale-ing into an extreme sport! I love finding inexpensive furniture and decorations for my new place; what a rush! And now I can garage sale for all of the supplies I need for crafts found on pinterest.

For this craft I found a neat, good quality picture frame at a garage sale and purchased less than $5 of supplies at a local hardware.

Supplies needed:

• Picture Frame
• Mesh Screen the size of the frame
• 2 Eyelet Screws
• 24" or so of Wire
• Staples and Staple Gun or Nails and Hammer

After removing the old picture and glass cover the back of the frame with the mesh and staple in place. Next screw in the eyelet screws about 1/3 of the way down. Thread wire through the eyelets leaving a little bit of slack. Ta-da, thats it!

I hung the frame above my necklaces and am using it for my earrings.

Back of frame with mesh.

Mesh stapled to back of frame.

Eyelet screwed to back of frame.

Eyelet threaded with wire.

Finished project!

Money Saver

Other than crafting, which is both fun and a money saver, I recently learned to save money by coupon-ing with the help of a local coupon expert Stormie.

No, I'm not as extreme as the women on tv, but it is fun and rewarding for me. Want to know how you too can be a moderate coupon-er? I clip coupons from the Sunday paper and usually check a few blogs before I head out shopping. The best blog I've found for the Michigan area is Centsable Momma. Centsable Momma even pairs up sales with coupons you should have for all the best stores!

Check out my "haul" today from Rite Aid. I bought 2 Pantene Pro-V Curls to Straight shampoos, 3 Garnier Expert Exfoliator facial gels, and 1 Covergirl eyeliner all for only $10.12. I even earned $10 off of my next purchase!

Please comment if you need more tips, I'd be happy to share my knowledge.

My haul!

Wear It!

I used the "Go Try It On" app. Krista reviewed in January to see what people thought about the vest my mom and I made together. Turns out they like it!

Marissa wearing homemade vest.