Our First Apartment!

I am so glad I found these pics!!

So this is where it all began....

Shaun and I got married in August 2007,

we rented this little

garden level gem for $350/month.

The carpet in the kitchen was probably 

45 years old, and I would have

trusted my bare butt cheeks to a Dairy Queen toilet seat

before I would have walked on that greasy

disease-infested carpet BAREFOOT

(We kept our flip flops close by at all times).

The back splash, counters, fridge, oven and carpet all 

coordinated in color!

the walls were a horrible dingy gray

color that made the apt 

very dark and sad feeling...

so we bought some cheap paint and

fixed that.

The bathroom was similar to

a Motel 6, where there is no door

between the living space and 

the vanity/sink.

And I am not 100% sure, but

I think the upstairs neighbor

sold drugs....I have never seen somebody

have over so many "friends"

that stayed for 30 seconds or less.

I had 6 months left of college and Shaun 

had just started college 

(no, I was not a cradle robber, he just started later than some)..

and we both had PT jobs that paid

Idaho wages,

So it was this or....use a credit card.

We chose this, and it worked just fine!

Luckily nobody got any diseases while living there!

Mello Yellow kitchen with CARPET...yay

That is one good looking guy...and paint job!

Nice looking tan from the honey moon!

The mudroom....from start to finish

We have lived in our home now for 15 months now...

and I finally decorated the mudroom!

We painted it....

and than it sat empty....

I couldn't figure out what to do with the space,

but after we got the desk for 

the computer,

my buffet was available again!

I tried many different things in that space,

but nothing ever seemed to "fit".....

Mudroom from start to finish!

BEFORE, I took this pic the night we first saw the home with our realtor!

We painted it Sherwin William's BLONDE

painting it made the large vintage trim more visible...love!

It then sat empty.....

The final product....

Shaun and I bought that framed pic at Ross when we lived at our

little apartment on Main St Rexburg, Idaho.

I think we paid $20 for it, which was a lot of money

for starving students.

the picture is a remake of the

famous Parapluie Revel ad that

was printed in 1929.

It was an advertisement for umbrellas....

Vintage Advertisement in a vintage home=perfection 

The Buffet was from an Estate Sale...my 2nd most expensive piece I have

ever bought at an Estate Sale.

The Lamp was my Great Grandpa's, my grandma estimated

that it was from the 1940s!

TOTAL COST:

Picture $20 (Ross)

Paint $35 (Sherwin William's)

Buffet $100 (Estate Sale)

Lamp (was my great Grandpa's 1940's ish)

$120

steep and cheap desk

I forgot I did not post pics of

of the desk we got for

Christmas...

It took me a long time to find a desk I wanted....

There was one at world market that I liked,

but I did not like the $170 price tag.

World Market desk $169...too rich for my blood

Home Depot desk $54

Luckily I found one on sale at Home depot for $54 !

we picked it up in store (to save shipping cost)

This is the beginning of the desk assembly.

YES, that is a bag of Chili Cheese Frito's among the mess

(a girls gotta eat)

 1.5 hours later, AKA 2 baby diaper changings, 1 bottle feeding, and 2 snacks made for the boys later.

Caden wanted to help me assemble this, and thus it took much longer than anticipated...

he was a good helper for the most part (minus the hunt I had to go on for all the screws)

The finished product!

My grandma gave me the chair in December...and it was perfect size and style.

(I remember her every time I look at the chair...)

The rug was given to us by one of Shaun's friends,

whose parents own a furniture store.

TOTAL COST

desk $54 (on sale)

chair $0

Rug $0

$54

The world market desk looks almost identical to the home depot desk...

just a $115 difference!

Here we go again.....

well as Spring time is quickly approaching,

we are trying to decide when to 

put our home back on the market....

Last year we missed the

huge sale wave as we listed at the beginning of August.

This year we want to be one of the first!

things we learned from buying
our first home:
I need a garage
I want a smaller yard
(1/3 acre is too much maintenance)
we need 3 rooms close to one another
1 bathroom is 1 short of what we need...

If this house had 3 bedrooms,
we probably wouldn't be selling yet

I have been closely

following the sale trends for the Denver suburbs.

We live in Wheat Ridge,

which is just west of Denver....

The prices are cheaper than living in the City,

but the taxes are twice as much as living in the city.

This are the sale trends for Wheat Ridge in the past 90 days:

• Median List Price $285K
• Median List $/Sq Ft $173.16
• Median Sale Price $247K
• Median Sale $/Sq Ft $166.67
• Median Sale / List 96.7%
• Number of Homes Sold 99

 If we were to price our house according to these stats,

we would list it at $298,735

(1725 square ft X 173.16)

I wish it could sell for that much!

We have a list price much lower than that,

that our realtor helped us decide on.

We have a couple things we wanna do

to the house

before it goes live....

If all goes as planned,

you can consider this our first flip!!

Envelope turned into bag

If you wanna spruce up

a little gift,

make super cute party favor bags

or don't have something 

to put those Valentine cookies

in to give to your

coworkers....

Welp,

look no further than your

desk drawer.

Turn any size envelope into

a little baggy

by following these instructions:

(the proportion of the finished product will depend on the sizes you bend the envelope into...)

Seal the envelop shut, and cut ONE end off..this will be the top of the bag

Decorate the envelopes with anything..stickers, colored tape, markers, news paper clippings

Fold the long edges about 1 inch

Fold up the bottom (the uncut edge)

After you fold all 3 edges, it will look kinda like this

(After the folding  process....)

Put your hand inside and "open up" the envelope...with other hand, push the bottom fold down

Fold down both triangles (at bottom) that form when you "open up" the envelope...& Tape those down

Maneuver the long edges inward....

TAADAA!

use a hole punch and add some ribbon

Do I even need to mention that this is SUPER cheap to do?

I love you S'more!

When we first moved back to Denver in 2010,

I applied for a baker position at a cute little 

bakery in Cherry Creek.

There were over 300 people that

applied for the position....

I was one of the top 3 picks!

The owner had the 3 of us come in

and bake anything we wanted....

Later that day, she offered me the job!

I won her over by baking these 

S'mores bars:

She added them to her menu

and we had a hard time keeping them stocked.

They are like the iconic 

s'more made with graham crackers,

chocolate and marshmallow...

just in a bar form.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 king-sized chocolate bars
• 1 1/2 cups marshmallow fluff

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F
2. Grease an 8X8 inch baking pan
3. cream together butter and sugar until light and then Beat in egg and vanilla. 
4. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. 
5. Add the dry mix to the butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined.
6. Divide dough in half and press 1/2 of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the baking pan. Place chocolate bars over dough. Spread fluff over the chocolate bars. Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the fluff(it may not cover the entire top, but it looks better with little holes into the chocolatey, marshmallowy abyss anyway!)
7. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool before cutting
8. They taste amazing warm, so after cutting them into squares heat it up IN THE OVEN (not a microwave...those make things soggy)

 

If you wanna spread the love to friends, family, coworkers, the dog groomer....etc

Make a little note that says 

"We love you S'more than you know"

Or just enjoy the love yourself...

Valentine's Day on the Cheap

 Do you have a gift for your

lover?

How much did you spend on it....

The average person that expects to recieve gifts this

Valentine's Day estimates that the worth of

the gifts will be about $210.

And people in relationships think they will

receive gifts worth $240.

When in reality

Men plan to spend around $98,

and women plan to spend about $71

25% of people in relationships dont think their 

significant other plans

to spend anything on gifts....

Valentine's day is about Love...

show that love however you wish,

I would rather receive NOTHING,

than know Shaun put an

expensive gift on the credit card.

Here are a few ideas if you wanna

celebrate Valentines day,

but dont wanna take out a second mortgage

to do so.

This is what we will be doing:

Every Valentines day, Qdoba has a BOGO deal

for those willing to kiss someone in the line....

well that's easy, just go with someone you dont mind (or love) locking lips

with and you got yourself a $3-$4 meal.

(we do this every year!)

Dessert will be strawberries and bananas dipped

in Hershey's chocolate spread.

(You can find this in the peanut butter aisle)

$3 Chocolate spread

$1.66/1lb Strawberry's (sale this week at Sprouts)

$.55/lb bananas

Movie from our collection $0

get out the Christmas lights,

that you put away last month...

and string them around whatever room

you plan to enjoy the evening in.

(when Shaun and I first got married, we

were both in college and had about 1 dime 

to our name...

we couldn't afford a lamp for our bedroom,

so we bought a string of 

Christmas lights and put them around

the ceiling!)

Shaun will be getting a SMASH book

from me with all sorts of memeories

from the past year!

I bought that at TJ Maxx for $5.99...

The pics below are a smashbook I

made for him in 2009.  I made that one from scratch

cuz I worked at a scrap book store and got all the 

goods for 50% off...I also had more time back then

to assemble something like that!

And I told him I want a new spatula for Valentine's Day....I wasn't kidding.

Valentines Day doesn't have to be expensive to be fun!

(PS- In case you missed the semi annual sale in stores, Victoria's Secret 

 now has their clearance up to 80% off online...WINK)

Smashbook layout based on the book: "Jolly Mr Postman"

Our first pic together in 2006

He met my fam in January '07

He proposed on April 28th 2007

Married in the Jordan River Temple Aug 10th

envelopes with letters to Shaun

This was the day he proposed at some natural hot springs in the mountains of Idaho

The week I met Shaun I got the stomach flu, he still came to visit wearing a mask. He brought me soup and Coke!

We can live like Jack and Sally if we want!