First Snow of the year in Kentucky

So because of storm Sandy, we have gotten snow storm threats...I woke up this morning and what did I see??..Snow..SNOW! AHHH! The first snow of the season and it's not even Halloween yet, tonight was the trick or treating for my town, which will probably be cancelled (good thing I didn't plan on going.) but it sucks for the kids. But on the positive side I'm sure they are much more happy with the fact that school was cancelled today and they get to play in the snow.

 So I tried to take a picture of the snow and in the picture you cant see the snow falling but that's okay!!  I still can't believe its snowing already, last year it didn't even snow until after Christmas (which is only 56 days away!)  That's less than 2 months. eek!

& As you guys know the hubs gets sent out to work when bad storms and natural disasters happen, So right when he got back from his trip this past weekend he is leaving again. Darn you Storm Sandy!

{the view out my front door of the snowy mountains}

Halloween Candy Corn Nails

Happy {Early} Halloween!! 

Since I can't much decorate for the holidays where we are staying, The only real celebration I have done for Halloween is painting my nails...yeah I know, exciting right? So I am just going to show you a cute candy corn painting I done.

{Warning: I am no nail design artist, if anything I kind of suck. I am very shaky!! Also my nails are very short, (I have been painting them so I don't bite them, I've not bit them in like 2 or 3 weeks!) So this is more like a short nail version-but you can do this on short or long nails. Also consider yourself warned that I am being goofy modeling my nails in this, so you will see my funny looking mug! Haha!}

Now I painted a little spider web on my ring finger, I seen this done somewhere on Pinterest and I thought it was cute so I gave it a try.

This is super easy & remember it doesn't have to be perfect!

You need:
Base/top coat
White nail polish (i forgot to take a picture of but it was art decor brand from dollar store)
Black nail polish -art deco (dollar general $1)
Yellow nail polish-art deco (dollar general $1)
Orange nail polish (Maurices $5-not very good nail polish, it drys matte & see through)

Let's Get Started!

1. After your Base Coat, paint your nails white!

2. Take your Orange nail polish and just paint a straight line across the middle of your nail (as straight as you can, as you can see I can't even paint a straight line)

4. Use yellow paint and paint the tips that were left white after you painted your orange stripes.

you could just stop here and add a top coat and your done, but if you want the spider web, continue on!

5. Now take your black nail polish and thin paint brush (my black already had a black striping brush with it). Paint about 3 or 4 diagonal lines meeting at one corner!

6. Now use the black to draw stripes going across them. Add a top coat & your done!

Yes I know I have short gross looking nails! & I am horrible at painting my nails but I think its fun to have cute little designs on them.

Husband Free Weekend!

So this morning the husband left to go out of state on a business trip, and he will be gone until late Saturday night. Now I will definitely miss my husband (it sucks when he has to leave) But I am husband free for the weekend & I'm not sure why, but I feel like I can get sooo much done!

Projects & My P.H.D. ;)
This time alone is the perfect opportunity to stop, sit down, and spend all my time catching up on projects I should have had finished a long time ago!! I'm one of those people that starts like 10 projects at a time, yep that's me! Working on my PHD ;) and no I am not talking about a real PHD! Projects Half Done!

{source: Pinterest}

I will probably use the opportunity to work on my DIY Christmas presents, (like I said, Christmas will be cheap and homemade this year). & Yes I know I am a freak talking about Christmas before Halloween has even hit yet, and don't get me wrong, I love Halloween & Thanksgiving, but Christmas just has so much to be put into it that I like to start ahead of time. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate celebrating Halloween or Thanksgiving, I celebrate. {Music Breakdown: Cel-e-brate good times COME ON!..dun dun dun dun Let's Celebrate!}

That's only 2 months away!! 

Which seems like plenty of time, but if your making gifts like I am (and if you procrastinate and start 20 projects at a time like I do) then trust me, you will need every bit of that 2 months!

WOO HUSBAND FREE PROJECT WEEKEND!! (I really do love & miss my husband already) But I might as well make the best of it right? So hopefully I will get tons done this weekend...{or maybe I will end up not getting out of bed, and do nothing but wear sweats and watch Netflix} Gosh I hope not, but gosh that sounds wonderful! I guess we will see!! :)

DIY At Home Baby Photo Shoot

So the Hubs Aunt has a new baby, and every month when he gets one month older she takes a picture of him. Well on the day he turned 10 month old she put me responsible of taking his picture!! They usually just take a random picture, not dressing him up or anything, and I felt the need to overachieve so I set up a little photo shoot! This post is so late, that the baby turned 1 year old yesterday! HAHA!! But I'll show you how I took his pictures when he turned 10 months old!

This was my favorite shot I got of this gorgeous little man!  I did block out his middle and last name off the little sign I made for safety reasons.

{Now I'm no photographer and I don't have no big fancy dslr camera. I work with a GE brand point & shoot that the hubby got me for Christmas last year.}

I'm going to show you how I set up for my little photo shoot we done because the family all loved the pictures and asked how we managed to get such good pictures.


1. Most important thing that contributed to these pictures is lots of natural light. In hubs aunts room they have these big sliding doors that let in a lot of natural light, so I set up right in front of it!! (I did blur out the neighbors house. I didn't want to be rude and just post a picture of their house online LOL) But I would suggest setting up near a big door or window or maybe even outside as long as the sun isn't too strong that it will cause a lot of squinting. Because you have all this natural light make sure you turn your flash off, your pictures will look very natural and they will turn out much better.

2. Backdrop Setup! I moved the baby's crib into the bedroom and put it right in the middle of the floor. Then I took blanket that had a plain white side and draped it over the side of the crib and on the floor. the view from the window looked very clean and neat.

3. Props! You can pick and choose whichever props you want, I made a sign and gave the baby his new dog his mom had just bought him to keep him happy. (I did originally plan to have the baby hold the sign but he tried to crumble it up and then he tried to eat it, so I ended up just taping it to a box and letting him lean up on it. I even sit him on top of the box at one point or another. Play around with what you got and get all kinds of different angles and poses.) The more pics you take the better chance you'll get a few good pictures, so don't just take one or two, keep taking more and more so you have more to pick and choose from, I ended up with over 50.

Making the sign!

You can print out your sign (which would be much easier & quicker), or you can make it like I did. I just took some plain white computer paper, drew on the baby's age & full name, then I colored it with markers!!

(again for safety reasons his name is hidden)

Set up & take your pictures. It helps to have someone else there with you to talk to the baby to get them to laugh and smile, I had hubby's uncle helping me (the baby absolutely loves him). I did edit the picture a little but only by changing the exposure a little bit to make it a little bit brighter so the colors weren't so dull, that's the only editing I did. I done my editing on Picmonkey.com

But that is how I set up a backdrop & props to take some awesome pictures of this adorable little 10 month (now 12 month) old baby! Hopefully this helps you get ideas of ways to setup to take some adorable pics of the babies or even kids in your life!

Cheap & Easy Change Saving Bank!

So I know I know, It's like I've forgotten all about Halloween & Thanksgiving and went straight to preparing for Christmas..but Christmas is a big deal in my family so I have to prepare early in order to get everything done without having to stress all during the holiday season.  Christmas is a little over 2 months away!

My hubs inspired this project, If you've read my about me you know he's all "money money money" but is the absolute worst person for managing money I have EVER seen in MY ENTIRE LIFE!!! He loves to save change, but like I said he's the worst with money so it never stays saved long. 

I got an idea to keep from stressing, What if we started a change bank at the beginning of every year to save change all year long to pay for Christmas presents, but it's a little too late to be thinking of that now huh? So I am going to start a mini-version. Today I am showing you how I made a super simple (not sophisticated at all) bank to save change in over the next 2 months! The way the hubs brings change home and just throws a pile of change on the table, I should have a ton saved in no time!

Supplies:
Bottle
Spray Paint (or if you would rather decorate it with scrapbook paper)


The hubs is also a collector of bottles, yep you heard me right BOTTLES! Anything that he buys that comes in a bottle, you better believe the bottle will end up in a pile in my bedroom. He likes to reuse the bottles. It drives me crazy because it looks so messy, so every so often I go and throw a few of his bottles away (he never even notices) But i keep a few for him to keep reusing, but he doesn't need 50 bottles!!

These are the bottles I let him keep after my last clean-out!

1. Pick your Bottle! I just used a simple Powerade bottle, It kinda had a cool shape.

2. Remove Label & Clean your bottle out! This is as easy as it sounds, rip the label off & clean out the inside of your bottle. Let it dry completely (you don't want gross wet change) sorry no pics but honestly, do you need them? this step is super easy!

3. Spray Paint & Decorate your bottle! You can decorate it however you want, I really wanted to decorate mine with christmas-y scrapbook paper but I DID NOT decorate mine, I just spray painted it solid gold with some craft spray paint...I didnt decorate it only because I don't want hubby to actually know what I'm doing with it, if he knows I'm saving his change for him he will want to spend it on Red Bull (oh did I mention he's a Red Bull fanatic).  Which is why I spray painted it, so he couldn't see inside. Seeing the change and how much you have tempts you to want to get it out. (Maybe after Christmas though when I talk him into starting a big bank for next Christmas I can decorate it Christmas themed.)

4. Start saving your change in your new bank. Anytime you find a little change in the laundry, or on the floor while cleaning, or in the bottom of your purse just drop it in your handy little bank and the money will add up in no time!

Frankenstein Nail Fail

I was going to do this Halloween themed nail design, take pictures of how I done it & Show it to you, I used to always do killer nail designs on myself..but that was when I let my nails grow out & now they are short (in the process of stopping the biting habit)

So I was going to do a short-nail version, but it didn't turn out so hot, haha!

HAHAHAHA!!! Come back soon hopefully for some tutorials coming up in the near future!!

Secret Confession!

Okay so I have a secret. Well, it's kind of a secret and kind of not a secret, if that makes sense. It's a secret the hubs doesn't even know, well sort of. It's something I tend to be in denial about & I kindly under-exaggerate to the hubs when we talk about it.

I have a lot of...CLOTHES!

The hubs knows I have a lot of clothes, he talks about it when he sees me dig in the closet, but honestly he doesn't realize just how many clothes I really have. (which I realized today is ALOT.)

How Many Clothes??
 So as you guys might or might not know we are kinda living out of boxes since we were hoping to have our place done by now (which we are nowhere close.) So I went down into the basement today to dig for some clothes in our piles of boxes, my winter clothes to be more specific. Not only do I have plenty of clothes unpacked, but there are at least 3 BIG boxes, 2 medium boxes, and 3 dressers full of clothes...all mine & that's just whats in the basement. Up here unpacked I have an entire dresser full, plus there are clothes stacked ontop of the dresser, and a whole rack full of shirts. (I think I have a problem) The hubs has all his clothes in 2 dressers, but mine are crazy.



So I just brought up a few of my winter clothes, not all of them, just enough to last me the winter. Once I brought them up I realized that the hubs would kill me if he seen all the clothes I brought up, so I had to stealthily organize them and put them away where he wouldn't notice more clothes being added. Only issue is, we don't have a closet. Yep you heard me right, the room we are staying in doesn't have a closet, so I have a pole hanging across one corner for shirts and a dresser underneath it (which doesn't leave me a lot of hiding places) And believe me, sweaters & hoody's take up a lot of space, they aren't easily hidden.

Here's the pile of clothes I brought up

^You see that box right there in on the left side of the picture above?? yeah, inside that box is one of those vacuum bags that you can fit a lot of clothes in & vacuum it to be small.

This pic below is the clothes that were in that box!

Mwuhahaha! I can't stop myself, and I don't even buy clothes, but like once in a blue moon. I don't know how I managed to get them...But I thought it was funny & Just thought I would share with you all. 

Can you guys believe it's already that time of the year where we have to start pulling out the winter clothes? Here where I live its been getting as low as the 30s, brrr!

since its confession time,

Any dirty little secrets you guys would like to share??

Hand painted Sunflower Wine Glasses

Welcome back to my blog, Hillbilly Princess Diaries! This is my first post for my DIY Christmas! Find my first post Here where I explain what I'm doing! 

Technically I made this for a birthday present for my husbands cousin (who I love by the way, she is the best) but It would also make a great Christmas present for those wine lovers in your family. You can paint anything on them, not just sunflowers (Hub's cuz loves sunflowers & has been drinking wine a bit lately). These are however for decoration for her kitchen (I would imagine the paint would wash off & I haven't yet tried to figure out how to prevent that.) You do not have to be an artist to do this, trust me my sunflowers are not perfect AT ALL, but that's what makes them each different and unique.

SUPPLIES:

All you need is,

Wine Glass. (I used 4 different mix-matched glasses I got at a local thrift store for .50 cents a piece, but you can buy matching glasses if that's what you prefer at the dollar store for only a dollar a piece, I just liked the mix-matched look.)

Acrylic Paint (in colors of your choice)

Paint Brushes (I used all different sizes)

and inspiration!

COLORS:

Green- Folk Art Brand Paint. "Apple Orchard"

Yellow-Apple Barrel Brand Paint. "Dandelion Yellow"

Black- Apple Barrel Brand Paint. "Black"

This isnt the best picture because of the big window in the background, but this is the setup I used when I painted my glasses. Pretty easy peasey! I just got me a table with a lot of light (hence the big window) so I could see good, and got to painting.

Now I did not take pictures of the steps or anything because basically what I did was super simple & really doesn't even need explaining. But I will be specific with what I did.

1. First, Clean you wine glasses, you want them to be clean when you paint them.

2. Choose your paint brushes in the sizes you want and the colors you desire.

3. It helps to look at a picture of whatever it is your going to be painting, just to keep an idea of what it looks like fresh in your mind. I just Googled "Sunflowers" under images, to give me ideas & inspiration.

4. Paint your pictures on your wine glasses. (I done 4 different wine glasses, all different size glasses with different size sunflowers on them. It's like a whole collection.)

5. Let Dry & Gift!

The hubs cousin loved hers. I told her it was a one of a kind set called the Sunflower Collection! LOL. If you decide to make a hand painted wine glass set like I did, you know the person you are making it for will get a one of a kind set that is completely unique! Thank you guys for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this gift idea, It's super cheap & super easy to make.