My Little Vols

A "Normal Sunday"

Today I took the camera outside and took some snapshot of the kiddos in our normal insane day. And by insane I mean Josh was a crazy lunatic today and might have been in timeout 1,265 times. Whew. They sure are stinking sweet though.

My beautiful, special girl. 

This girl is obsessed with princesses. She sleeps in princess dresses, and puts one on when she gets home from school, and most weekend days now if we are hanging at home. Today she was Rapunzel.

"Here Mommy, I'll take your picture". Note the dirty, grubby toddler hands and bitten nails. I adore them. 

"Here you are Mommy". I am gorgeous!! Lol. 

Josh, kicking blocks in the driveway. Why do we have blocks in the driveway? Why, dont you? Thats completely normal right? 

Headed to the "restaurant". 

Bye Mommy. 

My heart. As evil as he was today he be stills my heart. 

Note the dirt on his cheeks and snot is his nose. All boy. ALL.BOY. 

If you are a regular reader of the blog or my Instagram I post alot of Josh and his piles of randomness he has with him at all times. He now carries an assortment of random in a Spiderman lunchbox. There might be cars characters (three maters, FYI, a couple of mismatched puzzle pieces, a train, stop signs from his train set, a couple of playing cards, a measuring tape, and a plastic hand - yup, you read that correctly. And the middle of the driveway was the perfect spot to lay down and try them out. 

Steppin Out Saturday - Martinis and Mehndi

My fabulous friend Sumita is getting married to her love in October. Those of you familiar with Indian customs as far as weddings go, know that they throw a huge hoopla of a party. But, Sumita decided not to do that, but do a smaller family wedding. So, in lieu of that, she threw a fabulous Martinis and Mehndi shower on Saturday where all us girls got to get together and experience such a fabulous part of her culture (and martinis yo!)

They are a little blurry. It's hard sometimes for normal peeps to use my camera. It's not very user friendly. Ashley, Marette, the bride-to-be, Moi, and Gina

Me getting my mehndi! For who don't know, its tradition. The brides get these huge elaborate designs for their wedding. Its kind of like puffy paint, but a temporary tattoo that lasts a couple of weeks. 

We are got some fab forehead art :) Or Bindi
On Moi: Dress off ebay (score!) Necklace J Crew

I asked my friend Gina to take a few pics of me getting it done, and in this pic Im cracking up, because she got all "paparazzi" on me. She might have taken a gazillion. 

Almost done! As elaborate as it is, it literally took her 3 minutes. insane. 

Tada! Yes, I realize my hands resemble that of a 10 year old. Its ridiculous, and embarrassing. This new biz is creating havoc on the old nails. 

Marette and Ashley

Marette Ashley and Gina

Marette, Ashley and My designs. They are all so different and so cool!!

All of our hands. Gina did the right thing by actually having pretty nails :)

All the girls with Sumita!

Steppin Out Saturday - Its that Time Again!!!

Is it really fall? No, it can't be!!! Did I just celebrate ANOTHER birthday? (Happy birthday to moi!) I am now in my mid 30ish years, whew.

If you do not live in the south and are not a football fan, but follow my blog, you will get bored quick during the fall. We go to a.lot. of football games around here and I'm a proud UT Vol fan. And all of a sudden in the blink of an eye football is upon us.

And due to my new little business venture, I have been super busy and forgot to post any pics from the first game, and now we're past game two (both wins by the way).

Go Vols! let the football season begin! Although I'm posting two games, I am going to pause here and tell you we reached a HUGE, SUPREME milestone in the Stribling household. The babes attended their FIRST Vols football game. Thats a big deal, ya'll.

Babes First Football Game

UT vs Western Kentucky University

September 7, 2013

Coached by Butch Jones

Vols win 52-20

They tailgated, loved the Vol Walk, loved the band, and loved the food. Football? Eh. We made it to the end of the first quarter. But that was pretty good for a super crowded game and 150 degrees. We got there about three hours before the game, so all in all I think they did well. If the stadium wasn't so crowded and I wasn't concerned every second on if they were bothering someone, they may could have stayed longer.

Me and my sister, Leslie, totally cheesing. 

On Moi:
Boutique dress/necklace. (hmm, wish I knew the rest, but was purchased from my little Instagram shop)

Part of our little tailgating crew. The first game wasn't as crowded. 

Second game. Sadly, as BIG as a photographer as I am, and as bothersome as I am that person with a camera at all times, I didn't take any of their first game!!!! WTH is wrong with me?? So, my sister took this one of them at the Vol Walk. 

Our only, measly family pic at the game. How sad is that? And yes, thats as big as it is. Dang phone pic.  

Our tailgate crew from the second game. My how times have changed from college parties to kiddos!! Two sets of twin kids in this pic too! 

Linking up with Monday Mingle

New Business Venture!

I decided to bite the bullet and open up a little shop selling my fabulous painted goodies and Diys. As much as I love painting and refinishing furniture, there is honestly nowhere else in my house to put it. Ha!! So since I still love it, I decided to start selling it. So yay! Come be a fan of my little Facebook page, mkay? 

Www.facebook.com/lepetitemaisonshop

Blonde Mom Blog

Today I am over at the fabulous Blonde Mom Blog guest posting on how to dress your kiddos in designer clothes on the cheap. Go check it out!  

Http://www.blondemomblog.com 

DIY Restoration Hardware Faux Zinc Finish

So, I love to paint and refinish furniture. It's hobby of mine and the jury's still out on how good I am at it. But I like to play around and try new things. (Oh, and I have recently started doing it on the side - go check it out!!)

One finish I have been dying to try is a metallic faux zinc finish. After doing some research, it seemed like there was 1000 tutorials on the web and every one of them was different. I kind of picked two and then did my own thing for various reasons. One was Freckled Laundry, and hers was awesome but I didn't follow all her steps, but I did take her idea of "ragging" on the paint.

The other, ChiChi Studio I found because I wanted to search ways of doing it with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. And it turns out she is a local gal who shops for ASCP at the same place. Small world!

Basically I just did it my own way, using some pointers. I wanted mine darker than Freckled Laundry, but more shiny and metallic that ChiChi. 

Here was my inspiration:

A zinc finish Restoration Hardware Piece. I love the shine and color, but I wanted darker hardware to make it look more industrial. 

So, here is what I did. 

Supplies:

Paint Brushes (duh)
DecoArt Metallic Finish in Silver and Black
White Paint (any)
Annie Sloan Graphite Chalk Paint
Gray Paint (any)
Glaze
Polyurethane
Rags (or old tshirts)
Gripper Primer

Wow, that sounds like alot of crap, but I had alot of it on hand. The only thing I purchased was the metallic paint. And again, I just mixed stuff because I had it. You don't have to.

First, the before. It was an Ethan Allen buffet I got for a steal off of Craigslist. So it had good bones and was very solid.

And the after:

1. First, I primed it with my Gripper Primer. You don't have to do that if you use Annie Sloan, but I wanted a really smooth surface, and plus I didn't use 100% ASCP as the base (WHAT???? You MIXED Annie Sloan with latex paint?? Can you DO THAT???) Yes, I did, and I broke the rules. Shame on me. But, hey, it worked. And I wanted it lighter than Graphite, so I mixed in a little bit of gray. Thats why its fun!

Primed and ready to go!

2. Next I put on one light coat of ASCP in Graphite, mixed with a little bit of gray. Again, no need for good coverage here, I just wanted a dark base. 

You can see the coverage isn't great, but thats ok.

3. Mix three piles of metallic sheens (this idea I got from Freckled Laundry). I say do this, but I only used the darker of the two. The lightest I used with a glaze at the end - here is where I went different than what she did. She used all three, I used two, then the lighter as a glaze. 

I used the original AS paint and mixed in the black metallic to it (left) then the black metallic with silver glaze (top right) them silver metallic with white paint (bottom)

4. Rag it on using a tshirt. I have never used this method before, but it was really easy! Almost better than using a paint brush. And because I had a dark base already, it covered beautifully. So, here is where the fun begins. You rag on the darker, then while it's wet throw some of the silver metallic on there as well and rag it on there together. It doesn't have to be perfect, just the mixture of silvers creates than zinc finish. But only work it small sections because it dries quickly

You can see the different shades of silver using this method. 

5. Glaze. I mixed the glaze with the lightest silver metallic (the one mixed with white) then I ragged it on, wiped it off. It left this really pretty silver shimmer. 

6. Poly it up! I used two coats of polyurethane. Again, I know this is a no-no with ASCP, but I only used it as a base, and I wanted the super shine of poly on this piece. 

So, there you go! What do you think?? It seems like a lot of steps, but it went pretty fast. it helps when you're allowed to be messy and not perfect, right?

Used the flash on this one so you could see the shimmer sheen. 

Close up of the silver - replaced knobs with some from Hobby Lobby

Close up of the finish