The Great Closet Update.

When we expanded our family, we never took into account exactly how much crap was involved with it.  I'm not talking about the literal crap...there's that too.  I'm talking about all of the STUFF.  My kid has so many toys that they're everywhere.  We have a tent in the middle of our living room for crying out loud.

Anyway, I have had enough.  I decided we (read: I) are redoing the spare room.  We got rid of the bed that we had in there because in 4 years we've probably had 2 people sleep over.  I then realized I need a place to put all of my craft stuff because working out of tupperwares and leaving things all over the living room and dining room was starting to annoy my husband.  So then I did something terrible.  I went to Pinterest and looked up "Craft Rooms" and "Play Rooms."  And of course 18,000,000,000 results that came up of designer rooms in their own wing designed to inspire and create and blah blah blah.  I was totally inspired by the space saving normal ideas where people put all of their crafts into a closet, so that's what I decided to do.  But since the spare room is already white, I really wanted to do something cool in there.  I thought about wallpaper for roughly 3 minutes before realizing that was stupid and then started searching "paint treatments."

I knew I had to repaint the closet since it was dirty and sad looking, so I went to Menards to pick up some plain white paint.  While there, I came across the Pittsburgh paints inspiration cards and lost my mind.  Suddenly I'm checking out and I have quarts of lime green, aqua, raspberry and something called baby pink and no idea what I'm going to do with it.  Then I stumbled upon this: http://www.thecluelessgirl.com/2013/10/diy-geometric-paint-glitter-wall.html and I thought to myself, YES!  GLITTER!  GEOMETRIC!  WHOO-HOO!  So that's what I did. 

Here's the closet before cleaning it.  Notice the rogue cat toy that the little person keeps leaving everywhere.

I used Frog Tape for Textured Walls.  It came with a glue stick like product that you used to seal the edges of the tape to get perfect lines.

Of course I didn't take a forward facing picture after the paint was all on and the tape was removed.  Why would I have remembered that?!  All of the lime green sections are the ones that are glittered.

Putting all my shelving up...all of the new hardware including the desk is from Ikea.

Starting to organize everything....

Ta-Da!  The final product!  I wish my camera was good enough to show how awesome the green glittered parts of the wall are.  They're just so awesome.   You can also see the littles art smock hanging up on her own tiny hook, as well as my 2 flamingo accents and new valances my Mom was awesome enough to make.

The whole project itself was easy.  I painted the closet white one day, then the next day while the littles was napping, I taped it all off and did the treatment on the tape and painted 2 coats of both pinks.  After she went to bed I did the blue and the green.  The next day I did the glitter.  I made mine super glittery by not only blowing the glitter onto the pieces, but by mixing a little bit of glitter in with the mod podge.  I also sealed the glitter with a layer of mod podge after I pulled the tape off.

My next project is creat

ing a marquee letter light box to put up in there to make it more play area and less craft room.  Right now we put in a toy organizer but that's it.  I have grand plans to create a whole little girl wonderland in there but we'll see how it goes.  In the meantime, the littles thinks it's the absolute best to sit on top of the desk and take all the paints out of the holder on the wall and try to open them.  Clearly she wants to express her creativity at only 16mo old and I have a little art genius on my hands!

Products Used:

Frog Tape: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EVMYIC4/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Ikea Bygel rails: I used 1 of the super long ones, and 2 of the smaller ones and have 2 of the long ones left.  I have no concept of space. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30072646/

The baskets holding my paints/glitters/adhesives: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90072648/

Galvanized Tin storage bins (top of the closet) www.pickyourplum.com 

Paint Colors:

Precious Pink: light pink

Bleeding Heart: dark pink

Aqua Bay: aqua

Green Pear: lime green

Rimmel London Scandaleyes Retro Glam Mascara

Hi.  My name is Marisa and I am a mascara junkie.  I have around 8 tubes of mascara at any given time. Waterproof, colored, lengthening, curling, cheap-o, expensive, you name it.  I love mascara.  

This is just some of the makeup I sift through everyday.

Recently I was sent the new Rimmel London Scandaleyes Retro Glam Mascara from the folks over at Influenster.  It's pretty great.  It has a different brush than I've used before which helps your outer lashes really flare out.  

Check out that curved brush!!


I hate applying 2 coats of mascara...I feel like it always makes me look like a sticky mess, but sometimes you just need it, you know?  Not the case with the Retro Glam.  All it takes is one coat.  Not only that, but in the interest of time, I've quit curling my lashes for everyday wear.  Don't even need to with this stuff!  It must be something about the brush, because this is one coat with no curling:

Ignore the supreme paleness--
I can't figure out how to take non-blurry pictures 
without a flash.  

This stuff doesn't hit stores until November 2013, but if you happen to see it at the store, make sure you pick it up!  All of the Rimmel products I've used in the past are of good quality and this one is no exception.

Cozy Cushions Product Review.

OMG.  Have you tried the new Dr. Scholl's for Her Cozy Cushions?  I got mine free in my voxbox from Influenster a couple weeks ago and wasn't really sure what to make of them.  They're soft, they're fuzzy, they're super padded and they're supposed to go in your boots/shoes/whatever you want to provide extra cushioning.  My first thought was "Holy cow, aren't my feet going to sweat like crazy with these in my boots?!"  Then I remembered that I live in Wisconsin and it's cold here around 9 months out of the year so I wasn't going to worry about my feet actually being warm for a change.

So I cut them just a little so they'd fit in my giant size 11 new boots I'm in the process of breaking in and I have to admit, they're pretty fantastic.  They're cushy AND cozy.  So it's not just a clever name.  My feet never felt hot or yucky.  In fact, it was just the opposite.  They felt comfortable.  All day.  I did quite a bit more walking than I anticipated when I decided to wear new shoes to work and was surprised that by the end of the day, my feet didn't hurt nearly as much as I anticipated.  When I took them off at the end of the day, I was equally surprised that the insoles were still just as fluffy as they were when I put them in.  They didn't mat down and lose their shape and looked just as new.

Go get these.  They're pretty awesome.  I happened to be at Target last night making a diaper run and found them right away.  I actually picked up a 2nd pair to put into my everyday comfortable shoes!

The Necessary Pet Accessory.

I have no children.  I have cats.  It's not that we don't want kids, we do.  We just haven't been lucky enough to have any of them yet.  In the meantime, I have cats.  Don't get me wrong, if we do have any kids, we're still going to have the cats as well, but I imagine I won't focus as much energy on cat things as I do now.  Which brings me to my main point.

Cats aren't like dogs.  You can't take cats on long walks, you can't expect that a cat is going to enjoy riding in the car with her head out the window, and most importantly, cats could care less about what you want.  They're independent.  Sure, my cats like having me around to clean their box, feed and water them and let them snuggle on my lap, but recently we were away for 3 nights and our girls acted like they didn't even know we were gone when we returned home. 

In the constant struggle to annoy my husband with my asinine comments, songs and arm movements of our cats (yes, sometimes i hide behind a cat while holding her and make her arms dance around), I have stumbled upon a cat carrier for a motorcycle.  Yes, a pet side car like apparatus that secures to the back of your motorcycle.  This is my dream. And yea, I know that's a dog in the picture, but can you imagine how hilarious it would be having the cats wearing little aviator goggles and maybe even a tiny hat?  I'm laughing just thinking about it!!

Now, another thing about my husband.  He's great.  He's very understanding and does his best to indulge my more "outside the box" thinking.  When it comes to anything about his motorcycle, he's not so understanding.  You'd think this loud thing was made out of solid gold, I swear.  People ask me what kind of bike he has.  I don't know.  It's orange-ish red.  It's a Harley.  It's noisy and in my opinion is not only too small for us, but is lacking a great deal of personality in the form of fringe, sparkle paint, or some cool flames.  But he loves it.  And it's growing on me too.  I'm not quite as awful on it as I was last year, mainly due to the fact that since losing about 25lbs I feel more comfortable on it.  When I first brought up the idea of a sidecar for the cats, he completely stopped listening.  Like, walked in the opposite direction, stopped listening.  So the next time I brought it up, I made sure to do it while on the bike.  That way, I'm essentially strapped to his back and not only can he not escape me, I can get closer to his ear and talk about anything stupid I choose.  He just shook his head at me and in his side mirror I could see him looking sad.  I mean come on....he knew what he was getting into when he married me.

Perhaps the reason the cats howl like they're being killed when they're in the car is because they can't feel the wind in their fur.  It might be reminiscent of their ancestral roots--instead of running through the jungle like their ancestors did, they're strapped to the back of a Harley cruising along with nature.  They might love it!  There's only one way to find out if this would work, and I fear that I will never get my husband on board.  Perhaps I'm going to have to learn to ride my own motorcycle.  With the cats.

Summer = Bugs

You'd think it would be in feline DNA to want to attack and kill bugs, and perhaps it is.   My cats could care less about any bug like creature.  They're completely immune to their erratic flight patterns, their creepy crawliness, and totally oblivious to the shrieking I do when one comes near me.  There are only a few bugs I'm really afraid of.  Moths, earwigs, and bugs with a lot of legs like centipedes or silverfish.  I don't particularly like spiders, but they don't generally cause the anxiety and fear that the aforementioned ones do.

At night before we go to bed, my husband and I sit on our deck.  Wanda and Mavis usually sit in the kitchen and stare at us through the door.  Occasionally there will be some flying menace that will hit the door and send both cats into chaos mode.  But, get one of those suckers in the house, and they're completely oblivious.  On Sunday Wanda chased a beam of light on the living room floor for 2 hours.  2 H O U R S.  But a bug?  A creature that doesn't belong in her domain....that's creepy crawling all over the floor?  Nope, totally cool with Wanda.  Mavis on the other hand is quite concerned about bugs, probably because she's concerned about everything.  There was a big ant in the basement the other day while I was doing laundry and Mavis looked at it, looked at me, looked at the ant, looked at me.  Back and forth as if to say to me "aren't you going to do something about that?  you realize that's a bug right?"  From time to time if a flyer has invaded our home, she will be active and will try to catch it, but those instances have been few and far between.  I like to think that we have an impenetrable force field around our house that prevents from all types of bugs from invading, but of course that's stupid.  We got cats because we wanted entertainment, not protection.  But I guess with all of the love I give the cats--feeding them, watering them, cleaning cat box, giving them tons of toys to play with, not to mention endless hours of lap time and pets that they could do something when a bug breaches our home.

Catching the bugs is a different story entirely when it comes to our two beasts.  They don't eat the bugs.  They just want to stun them to death.  Or play with them until they're half dead and trying to drag their battered bug bodies to somewhere safe.  It's gross.  I love our cats, but I'm so thankful to have my husband around to finish the job they start.

Wanda Gets a Sweater

Against my better judgment I ran to Wal Mart on Saturday for Easter candy for the kids.  While there I discovered they had 3 aisles of clearance crap.  Among that crap I found a very pink dog sweater. 

Mavis particularly hated crab hat.

I'm guilty of dressing my cats up for various holidays or whenever I find a ridiculous hat.  Hats don't typically bother them...Mavis looks sad about it, and Wanda just accepts it and moves on.

Poor Cell Phone Quality Picture of Wanda's Pharaoh hat.

 

 

 

After removal, she bit the sweater. And me.

The cat sweater was another dilemma altogether.  First of all, like all sweaters, it came with a size.  I realize Wanda is of a portly stature, but figured that a sweater designed for a small dog would fit my husky cat.  Not so in fact.  The only reason I didn't try the sweater on Mavis first was because she took one look at my Mom walking in the house with me and ran to the basement to hide.  Wanda remained out after Mom left, so I subjected her to such nonsense.  The second problem was trying to get my very bossy cat into a sweater that had arm holes.  After pulling the sweater over her head and realizing that it was going to be a very tight fit, I realized I had to get her little cat arms in.  After that was complete, and the sweater was rolled down her bulky frame, she attempted to stand up with her legs straight out and promptly returned to laying down and glaring at me with her menacing stare.

I could tell you that I'll never dress up my cats again, but I'd be lying.  And one thing I'm not is a liar.  I will say that I will never buy another sweater for the cats.  Chances are I will buy more hats though.

Cat Bed....

Mavis has regressed into kitten-hood.  When Mavis was a baby, my husband was still in the military, stationed in Connecticut.  He came home the first time when Mavis was only a baby and rescued her from an escape attempt where she ended up in the scary apartment basement that could have been used to film 'Hostel'.  No, that's not the actual basement, but it's close.  It's equally scary.  Only, imagine there were no light fixtures, or railings to descend the stairs, and endless dust and scariness. 

Anyway, after Mavis's rescue, she's been my husband's cat.  From the moment his feet hit the floor in the morning, she follows him around and chatters at him and demands love, baby holding and pets.  When she was a kitten and husband (then boyfriend) would be home on leave, she'd cram herself between the two of us in bed and sleep right in the middle of us all night.  Essentially "cat blocking" any bedroom activity that could have taken place.  Keep in mind that we're both not small people who at that time were sharing a double bed.  An extra 10lb cat in the middle of that made for even more uncomfortable sleeping. 

Don't judge me.  I'm a terrible artist...

Last week Mavis started sleeping between us again.  Out of nowhere.  Our night time routine is the same EVERYDAY.  We go upstairs, I go into the bathroom and turn on the sink so I can wash my face and brush my teeth, the cats jump on the counter and fight with me for water.  I get out of the bathroom, husband takes a shower, cats stalk him in the bathroom while I read.  During the end of his shower, Wanda jumps up on the bed and snuggles with my feet, while Mavis waits for husband to come to bed.  Typically Wanda being the jerk she is either swats at Mavis or outright attacks her, scaring her and making her run away.  Sometimes she comes back, sometimes she doesn't.  It's a toss up.  But every couple of days now, Mavis climbs right into bed and lays right between us.  It's weird.  She just lays there and purrs her tiny purr until someone moves and she freaks out again. 

Sleeping with 2 cats and one snoring husband in my bed are not boding well for me and my quest for restful sleep.  On Saturday night my box fan took a turn for the worst and died a very quiet death.  It's been difficult, but I'm coping with the loss.  When the girls are good, they sleep in their little cat spots where there's no feet and sleep until husband gets up for work.  When they're annoying, Mavis sleeps between us, Wanda lays on my head and licks my hair and husband snores.  Typically all at the same time.  I know I could just go downstairs and sleep in the spare room, but it's not nearly as comfy as the regular bed.  And I feel if I leave that I'm giving in to the hostile take over.  So I'm taking back the bed.  No more cat concessions, no more in ear snoring, no more "cat blocking."  The bed will be mine again!