Vintage Living...Is it "vintage" or just old and dirty?

I love me some vintage! When the chance for us to move to our favorite neighborhood in Chicago AND into a three bedroom two-flat that was built in 1923 came available...you can imagine we jumped!

Now...let's talk "vintage" for a minute. When I think of vintage I think of gleaming hardwoods, thick trim, crown molding, wood doors, brass handles--I could go on and on. After looking at a million apartments with Phil, I have determined that to some people vintage is another word for dirty, broken, cracked and dingy.

While our new apartment has all of the things I mentioned when I think of vintage, it also had its share of the dirty, dingy etc. We were lucky enough to find a place that had a brand new kitchen with white cabinets and faux granite black counters. When we were much younger--sans kids, we had a vintage apartment in Evanston and THAT was a vintage kitchen. It had an antique sink, no dishwasher, about a square foot of counter tops and no cupboards. Seriously...we had two built in glass cabinets that divided that room from the dining space and that is where we kept our food and cooking stuff. Such simpler times! Now with three children we have stuff. As much as Phil and I try to keep clutter out of our life, we still need a lot of stuff to care for the kids. So what is the dingy in the new place? The bathroom! It has beautiful (I think beautiful, Phil hates it) light green tile around the entire room, the small little white floor tiles that I love, a newer sink and toilet. Then there is the bath tub. WOW. It isn't claw foot. For some reason I think I could deal with the lack of finish if it was. It is a tall beast of a tub with all original fixtures. It also was dingy, dirty and stained. We asked the management company to re-enamel around the rim where someone had let the water drip and it rusted. They did but then it just brought home exactly how not clean the tub was.

This is where my pinterest obsession comes into play. I had pinned a few of the household cleaners that I am sure everyone has. Time to put them to the test. I first made the one with warm vinegar and dish soap. Hated it. Not even going to link back to it. You can find it if you want. It didn't clean any of the soap scum and it was sooooo hard to rinse off because of the dish soap. It was time for drastic measures. For me that means turning to the dreaded Martha Stewart. Hey, if anyone knows about old tubs it is probably her right? (Just joking Martha) One of my friends had pinned this "tub scrub" and said she had used it and it had worked. Took notorious bath tub crayon off her tub. (photo borrowed from Martha's page)

It was time to roll up my sleeves and start scrubbing. I will be honest that I didn't expect anything to clean this tub so I didn't bring my camera to the apartment while I cleaned. MAN I should have! I did half the tub to compare the results. It was so shocking that I called in Phil and Bailey and made them look at it. The baking soda and water tub scrub (Phil forgot to go to Whole Foods to get the essential oils so I left that out of the mix) worked wonders. I used a cleaning brush, a sponge and a paint scraper kind of tool very lightly to not ruin the rest of the finish and we now own a really, really white and clean tub! This is not for the quick clean. It took time and an entire box of baking soda. I bought the generic so for 56 cents it was more than worth it! I am so happy. Thank you Martha ;-)
Remember to follow me on Pinterest at pinterst.com/torrycorbett/

I'm on a roll...time to go solo

Not really. I am on a roll and every time I think of that line inevitably Vanilla Ice lyrics pop in my head and stay there for the remainder of the day. Let's talk M&M Valentine Buttons!

Bailey came home from school and said, "we can bring treats for Valentine's Day tomorrow...if we want." Translation: Bailey is still used to me working full time and I would have gone off on a rant to him about not having enough time, not enough notice and all the other reasons I couldn't possibly put together some kind of treat for 18 in the next few hours. Instead, I said, "let's head to the store. There is a very cute Pinterest snack we can make." Boy was that kid surprised! Dare I say thankful and appreciative.

Now I have been making a version of this snack for years. It goes to show that I was not creative enough to take it from Christmas to other holidays. I am used to taking a pretzel circle, a chocolate kiss and a mint M&M and making wreaths. I saw this pink and white version on Pinterest and thought it would be cute for Valentine's. (I also saw a St. Patty's version that I must make next month! Four Irish boys in the house NEED their shamrock treats!)

When I got to Target they were out of almost all Valentine's candy. I wasn't going to the craft store for melting  disk so we ended up getting the white/milk chocolate hugs and the chocolate cherry flavor M&M's. What a success! I love the zebra effect of the hugs and the chocolate cherry M&M's really made it "Valentine-y".

I had plastic candy bags and some light blue ribbon (he is a boy after all) at home for transporting them to school.

This was a fantastic last minute treat to make. It takes longer to take all the wrappers off the Hershey Kisses than it does to make the treats! (Thanks Bailey for unwrapping 138 kisses) I bought two bags of kisses and one bag of cherry M&M's and the family size pretzel squares. All the boys--even Phil really liked them and like I said, they looked fab with the zebra print and red M&M's! I would definitely do this combo again. A+ for being so easy, fast and allowing the kids to help. One quick note: use wax paper or parchment on the bottom of the cookie sheet to make it easier to pull them off after they cool!

I took the leap...and it went well!

My first Pinterest project completed! Well...technically my second. I made that vinegar and dish soap bath tub cleaner this weekend but I didn't measure and I didn't follow directions and it didn't work. I will revisit that one in the future and discuss it more then.

I realized that I hadn't done anything for Valentines Day. Nothing for my husband, my kids, grandparents, no one. Normally I would go out and buy gifts that no one really cares about but not this time. I left my career when our third son was born in October so now I am a girl trying to learn how to budget. Then I thought about Pinterest. I remember pinning some cute Valentines stuff but I wanted something I could do immediately. I didn't want to drag my 2 year old and 4 month old out on a cold day to find pipe cleaners or some other random crafty type item.  I looked at my board and found the perfect thing. Toilet paper roll stamper Valentines from a blog called Rust & Sunshine. I will lure Logan away from Nick Jr. for a few minutes with the promise of making a mess and make some Valentines that people are sure to love.

Let me tell you that this was such an easy project. I loved it. Of course, Monday is our trash day so I didn't have any empty toilet paper rolls handy. I had to unroll the last few feet off of a roll in order to use it. One thing I noticed is to get a full heart shape you really have to apply light pressure at the center peak of the heart or else it doesn't touch the paper enough to transfer the paint. I had to stop obsessing and enjoy the fact that Logan was having fun and the cards were coming out very cute.

I did go a step further and glue the finished cards to black construction paper just to frame it up and make it look more complete.  I would have loved to add a little ribbon bow to the top but I didn't have any colors on hand that matched. You could also fold the card stock in half and make a more traditional style card and write on the inside. I kept thinking some cute little poem would be great. I did write the artists information on the back. Logan's name and age :-)

I loved this project. First of all, I had all the supplies--card stock, red washable tempera paint, black construction paper and a glue stick. Second, it was quick. We could have mass produced these babies the way Logan was cranking them out! Third, relatively contained mess. The "stamper" holds the paint  so it is not everywhere. Granted I wouldn't have walked away or I would have a kitchen counter full of red hearts right now, but I knew what I was getting in to. Hence the washable paint from Elmers. I have all the colors in huge squeeze bottles that I bought at Sam's Club a few years ago. They last for-ev-er. I buy white card stock sheets there as well. They sell it by the ream and it is much less expensive than buying it in the crafting world.