Attack of the DVD's

Our DVD collection has never been neat.  In our apartment my husband first had them in a rubbermaid drawer storage cart and then when I moved in, we bought a book case to store them.  Since we have so many movies neither of us was ever able to bring ourselves to put them in any kind of order.  What would be the point though? We're constantly adding new movies to our collection. 
When we moved into our current house, I had visions of alphabetizing the movies as we unloaded them, but in the chaos of moving, they were dumped on the floor and placed back into a bookcase quickly so we could move on to unload the next box.
In a year of yanking DVD's off the shelf to watch and haphazardly tossing them back on the shelves, and adding new DVD's of our favorite movies, this is what our shelf looks like.

Aren't you jealous of this beautiful mess?  And can I tell you that this bookshelf is out in the open.....for all to see....and faces our dining room....where our dinner guests have prime viewing of this. (sigh)
So, I finally decided, enough is enough.  I pulled out all the DVD's and organized them by genre and then alphabetized each genre. 
This was not an easy task.  My husband is more of a movie person than I am so about 75% of the movies we have are his and I had no clue what they were about.  I had to look up most of the movies on-line to see what genre they fit under.  What was supposed to be a quick project took a bit longer since I had to do some research on the movies.  But, it was worth it!
I assigned the bottom two shelves to hold our TV shows on DVD. I can't believe we have 12 seasons of the Simpsons, but we do!
So, without further ado, I bring you the organized movie shelf.

I was able to leave a little space in between each genre to allow for new DVD's that we add to our collection.  Although, I think we should hold off on some new movies since there were a few DVD's not even opened yet. 
Also, once I get the right sized tape for my label maker I hope to label each section.  There are about seven genre's total, so it is a little confusing.  On the up side, I hoping this will make us turn to our movie selection before running to the video store on rainy nights.

A little beauty in the kitchen

Our kitchen theme was based upon these potholders my mother-in-law got us when she went to Pennsylvania a year ago.

 I decided I wanted a country theme in the kitchen and pictured roosters, white painted cabinets, pink lace curtains and a country-looking table. 

What actually happened in the kitchen?  Well, after a year still haven't found curtains I like, realized our cabinets cannot be painted since they seem to be made out of formica or some other horrible 1970 product and I'm really not a fan of birds, and I couldn't see how a rooster would could win me over in the kitchen.

Soooooo, plan B needed to be thought up.  I went on to Behr's website and looked up our kitchen paint which is called Sage Tint.  I think looked to see what colors they said coordinated with it.  Well, I fell in love.  The colors Behr suggested were a light blue called Carribian Mist and a light pink called Delicate Blush.

Armed with this information I pondered how I could make the kitchen a room I could enjoy. I don't cook all too often so I'm not in the kitchen unless Dave asks me to taste something he's cooking or if I'm washing the dishes. Dave is the cook in our household.  I decided to incorporate the blue and the pink in little accents in the room. 

Here's my first little project.  We got these canisters for our shower and I looooove them! I love the sleek style and is timeless.

Now, with some hot glue and ribbon, they add a nice little pop of color to the kitchen.

I still haven't decided on a theme for the kitchen to tie in the blue and the pink, but I'm pleased to be able to start moving in some sort of direction color-wise. 

I have a microwave cart with a butcher block top which I may decide to paint the wood the light blue called Carribian Mist.  I can't wait!

Kitchen cabinet clean-up

One of my favorite blogs is Young House Love.  I love the ideas they come up with and sometimes, they even inspire a DIY project of my own. 
This week they shared how they organized their kitchen cabinets and I was inspired.  After seeing their beautiful makeover, I was quite bummed to be coming home to this:

Yeah, everything is just kind of tossed around. It was all nice and neat at one point....ok, so it was neat the week we moved in and then it became a mess.  I pondered over how to whip that cabinet into shape this week and even rounded up some empty containers to use for storage.

Well, after about 15 minutes, the above mess turned into this:

A place for everything and everything in its place.  I was even able to use two of the empty containers I kept.  One holds toothpicks and the other holds my cake & cupcake stuff.  I'm so relieved now to open that cabinet every day.

But, I didn't stop there.  Our utensil drawer was also a disaster. I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of the before, but here's all the stuff.... 

 that was crammed into this little drawer.

After Dave vacuumed out the drawer for me, I found left over scrapbooking paper which he cut down to size for me.  I glued it all down and then got ready to organize this disaster.

 I used left over drawer organizers to hold our pens and then our miscellaneous stuff like glue, chapstick, etc. and moved our take-out menus to a cabinet.  I also got rid of a lot of unsharpened pencils and a ton of markers that were rolling around in this drawer for months.

I think this could work for us.  I'm very happy with the results and I just love the pop of color in the drawer too!

Enjoy your weekend! I know we are.  We're busy little bees cleaning and organizing.  Stay tuned for more!

Waiting paid off

I've been drooling over these paper weights in Pier 1 since the winter. 

(Pier 1)

Beautiful, right?  I just wasn't loving the $14.95 price tag that came with it.  I know they're heavy items and they are from Pier 1, but I just couldn't justify spending that much on something that small that was literally going to just sit somewhere in my house. 

I checked the store religously to see if the paperweight went on sale or was moved to clearance. Every time I got an email from Pier 1 I searched their website to see there was a drop in price.

But, for months, my dream paperweight held steady at $14.95.

Well, the other day, Dave & I went into Pier 1 to kill time before we had to leave for a party.  My eye was immediately on this lovely piece that was marked down to $6 because there's a teeny tiny chip on the top.

I grabbed it up and continued to browse the store.  Dave laughed at me that I always seem to find great deals on items.  What can I say, I'm a sale & clearance kind of gal!

After not finding anything else that was reasonably priced or as lovely as this vase, I quickly checked out the price of the paperweights.  Yup. You guessed it. Still $14.95.

Dave asked which was my favorite and I pointed to the one that had a picture of a chandelier. He grabbed one and placed it on the counter explaining that I may as well get it now since I've been drooling over them for so long.

Can you guess what happened next?  IT WAS ON SALE!!  It was a surprise sale I guess because it rang up at $11 and change.  WOOHOO! I am one happy girl.

See, isn't beautiful?

And it soooooo belongs here, in my home, on my entryway table.  I love beautiful things and this little paperweight makes me so happy.

Please ignore my empty vases. I do plan on adding flowers to them, I just haven't had time.