Happy Opening Day!

Just wanted to give a shout out to my Giants on Opening Day!  

aka 

{DEFENDING WORLD CHAMPS}

It feels soooooo good to say that.  

I've got a couple of projects in the works in honor of baseball season & the hubs birthday coming up (so convenient that they are at the same time).  Stay tuned.

My FabuLESS Finds

I go to the local thrift store (it's called the DI here) once a week and since I simply have to brag about my FabuLESS finds to someone, I thought I'd share them every so often.  My sister will probably be happy to stop getting my braggy phone calls, although I have to say she deserves them because she ALWAYS finds the good stuff.

I actually found this one a couple of weeks ago and was seriously DYING!  It was $10.00!  No joke!  Wait until you see what it looks like now!  I'm just putting the finishing touches on it.

And this one I found yesterday for $15.00!  It was a Lenten miracle (which by the way is already killing me! I'm dying for a glass of wine. Do you think I need meetings?)  I've been looking for a solution to the tornado's--I mean adorable daughter's--toys all over my living room, and low and behold, here was this beauty at the DI for only $15.00.  I'm really in love with the knobs--these ones won't be getting changed out.

See how it opens?  

STORAGE DREAM! & perfect toy solution!!!!

But puh-lease let me show you my most FabuLESS find of all:

$2.00 people!  Doesn't this just ooze fabulous?!!!  I'm wearing it right now.  Ok, I didn't really even buy it, but only because it was a 2X and too big for me.  How often do you come across something this awesome?!  It had SEQUIN eyes!  So ferosh!  

Ballard Antique Book Knock-Off

For me and this tiny little Ballard accessory, it was love at first sight! Old paperback books with the covers removed and bound with twine. 

Of course, I'm not willing to pay $18.00 to $25.00 for a little stack of old books.  So, off to the thrift store I went to create my own.  And here's a word of fair warning: If you're a sucker for old books like I am, DO NOT GO INTO THE BOOK SECTION OF THE THRIFT STORE!  I came home with WAY more books than I needed--in fact, I only used like 2 books out of the roughly 15 I bought!  (It's things like this that foster my husband's belief that I'm quickly becoming a hoarder.)  I also had books on hand from my mom's addiction to library sales, books my mom somehow never returned to her high school library, and some of my books from college.  I paid $0.75-$1.00 for each book that I actually bought.   

This was SO easy that it probably doesn't even warrant a tutorial, but there were a couple of helpful tips I discovered that I'll pass along:

I bought mostly classics and then it occurred to me that only the book on top--and maybe the bottom if you're particular--actually need to be "of merit."  I actually had a hard time parting with some of the classics if they were never to be seen, so I found some old college books to put in between.

The more tattered the book, the better!   The more tattered ones had rattier looking glue on the binding and more tattered pages, so they ended up looking the best.

So here's how to assemble:

Simply gather an assortment of old books (I know they're hard to see in the mess that is my craft table), and start tearing off covers.  Tear off the front and back cover along with the cover on the spine--I had no problem getting the whole thing off in one piece.

Try to suppress the guilt that comes with tearing covers off of good books.  This was particularly difficult for me given my upbringing and my mother's love of books and a MIL who might die when she hears about this project!  I could hear them both weeping a little every time I started tearing, but I'm positive they would be as obsessed with the end result as I am.

On some of the books where I thought the glue on the spine needed to look a little older and more worn, I went at it with a razor blade and just started scraping.

Stack your books.

Wrap twine and tie.
(I wrapped twine around some of them individually like in the Ballard picture and then grouped them all together.)  

Display

.

That easy.  They're on my entertainment center and I find myself staring at them ALL THE TIME!  Love, love!

FabuLESS Lent

 "In a culture that wants everything now, it's hard for us to slow down, stop and not indulge in things we want to."

In the spirit of all things less is more {fabulous}, I thought I'd share what I'm giving up for Lent.  

{1.} Alcohol

 As a fairly new mom, a glass of wine has become my new BFF.  Ok, not in an alcoholic way, and not even every day, but I very much enjoy my glass or glasses (depending on the frazzle-factor of my day) of wine and maybe some days I start looking forward to "wine o'clock" at like 2:00 p.m.--mother of the year award right here!  Acceptable "wine o'clock" is 5:00 p.m.--just in case you're wondering.  And it's from a box people--CLASSY, I know!  Motherhood is MY CALLING IN LIFE and I couldn't love it more, but let's be realistic here and admit that it comes with it's stresses and wine is such a great medicine for those stresses-- and I'm not the only one in this boat.  I have plenty of friends who agree with me.  So I'll stop sounding like a total alcoholic now and just say that wine (and alcohol in general) and I have filed for temporary separation for the next 40 days.  Luckily for myself and my family, I will still have my Diet Coke!  Hopefully less wine will also lead to a more FabuLESS figure!

{2.} Reality TV

I am, embarrassingly, a Reality TV JUNKIE!  More specifically, a Real Housewives of fill in the blank JUNKIE!  Or, if I'm being totally honest, I'm pretty much addicted to the Bravo channel in general--the satellite package I have was specifically chosen by me because the lower plan didn't have Bravo.  So for Lent, I'm giving up Reality TV.  Trivial?  Maybe to some.  But while I always find myself so annoyed with how materialistic, out of touch with reality, and just generally morally corrupt these reality "stars" are (except Real Housewives of NJ{excluding Danielle}--I want to be friends with them!), I can't seem to quit watching.  And then I find myself wanting, wanting, wanting or thinking If I only had x amount of dollars, oh what I could do.  I have a generally GREAT life, with a great husband and ADORABLE (if I do say so myself) daughter, and amazing friends and family.  Bottom line, there's not a lot left to be desired in my life, so I'm going to take this time to step back from the ridiculousness of reality television and focus on the simple things in life that make me happy.  Like finding an awesome $10.00 table at the thrift store!

If you want to know more about Lent, specifically for the Roman Catholic Church, you can go here or here.

Happy Ash Wednesday and good luck on your Lenten-endeavors!

5 Ingredient Banana "Cup'ins"

I was watching Hungry Girl on The Cooking Channel the other day and she made "brownies" with only a brownie mix and pure pumpkin puree and an idea started brewing in my head.  I had a bunch of ripe bananas on hand and wanted to try somewhat healthy alternative to banana bread.  I had been unimpressed by the Weight Watchers recipe I had tried before, so with a little inspiration from Hungry Girl, my Banana Cup'ins were born--not quite a cup cake, not quite a muffin = cup'in.

In Fabuless fashion, this takes very few ingredients, very little time, and the best part: 1 dish to clean up!

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas

1 box yellow cake mix

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon (can add more to taste)

In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas until smooth (like you would for banana bread).  

Mix remaining ingredients.  Fill cupcake cups about half way and bake 18-20 minutes.  

It's that easy!  And they taste, what else?  FABULOUS!

Oh, and just for the record.  I tried the Hungry Girl pumpkin/brownie mix ones.  I thought they were pretty blah and the hubs HATED them.