Good Company Always Welcome

My dad and I are participating (for the first time!) in a craft festival. We were just approved today to have our own craft booth. I’m so excited :)! Our main items for sale are upcycled windows and frames. So, my task this summer is to rummage for items we can use for crafting.

On my first major rummaging adventure last weekend, I found a gold mine of old windows. I bought 9 of them for $33.00 (that’s just $3.67 each).

Here is one window I created and plan to sell at the festival. The problem – I have no idea how much to ask  for it :/.

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Below are step-by-step instructions, along with pictures of the process. Continue reading »

DIY Fluffy Fabric Flowers

This post from Girl Loves Glam was a great step-by-step guide for making fabric flowers. You only need a few supplies, most of which you likely have on hand – fabric, a hot glue gun, some type of circle to trace, a pen or marker, scissors, and a straight pin (optional).

I made two sizes of flowers and used three different fabrics. For the bigger flower, I used a yellow fabric and burlap. For the smaller flowers, I used the same yellow fabric and a white fabric. These flowers were used to add a little interest to the chicken wire frame I made (post coming soon – UPDATE: Here it is.).

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These are two of the fabrics I used (burlap not pictured).

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Linen Organization

Our linen closet has been a mess for quite a while now. It houses all our extra sheets, pillow cases, blankets, towels, and random household items like pillows, light bulbs, toilet paper, paper towels, games, etc. The unorganized sheets were bothering me the most.

While trying to decide how to organize the closet, I remembered there was a box tucked away in our basement, labeled “plastic zipper bags.” This was just what I needed to organize our sheets (sometimes it pays to be a bit of a pack rat :)).

Now, every sheet set and pillow case has a labeled home. I also need to label the sides so I can easily see what’s in each bag without pulling it off the shelf. I’ll do that one of these days. I’d also like to make the labels a little more stylish – I’ll do that one of these days, too.

Oh, I also put a nail in the closet to hold our floor cleaner (you can see that in the first picture). That worked out well.

I didn’t think to take a before picture, but here’s the after:DSC01043

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How have you organized your closets?

Memory Jar

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Our Memory Jar
(It still needs a little pizzazz, I know. I’ll do that eventually.)

After seeing this on Pinterest, I decided to start my own memory jar. I’m really excited!

My husband and I plan to fill our jar with notes of events (happy, sad, big, small, funny, odd, significant, seemingly insignificant, etc.) that happen throughout this year. Two ‘memories’ are in the jar already – yay!

At the end of the year, after reading all the entries, I plan to put them in a scrapbook. I can’t wait! This will be a good way for us to recap the year and see how the Lord has blessed us, guided us, and strengthened us along the way.

It’s not too late to start your own memory jar, so get goin’ already :).

Family Tree

For 3 ½ years now, the large accent wall in our living room has been scantily decorated with our wedding picture. The wall needed something else (I’ve known that for 3 ½ years), but, until recently, I just wasn’t sure what.

I decided to put wedding photos of our parents and grandparents below ours. We couldn’t find wedding pictures for some of them, so we used what we could find. I was so pleased with the result – I love the history. It makes me smile :).

Here’s the before:

Before

Before
(I actually forgot to take a before picture, so I went digging through my computer for an old photo.)

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Deck the Halls!

Our Christmas tree has been up since just after Thanksgiving. Last year, my husband had the bright idea (seriously) of storing the tree, fully decorated and intact, in our basement. It took literally 3 minutes for us to ‘trim the tree’ this year – how convenient!

The rest of our house; however, was lacking the Christmas spirit. This weekend, my husband and I finally had time to do a little more decorating. Using sticks I spray painted from our yard, unused treasures in our basement, and some items from Wal-Mart, we decorated our mantel (all while listening to Christmas music). The hubby even helped! He’s such a wonderful husband :).

Though we enjoy Christmas lights, decorations, gifts, and time with family, this is not the TRUE reason for the season. Christmas is the celebration of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior’s birth. Let us not lose our focus – Jesus is the reason for the season!

(You’ll see a window picture frame in the pictures below. Click here to see the post about that project.)DSC00534 Continue reading »

DIY Bulletin Board #2

Today I finished the second bulletin board I began on the same day I completed this similar project.

My husband and I needed a place to put our lists – shopping lists, grocery lists, to-do lists, etc. Here was my solution:

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DIY Bulletin Board

I finally had some time to be creative today. I started a couple projects and actually finished one of them. Yay!

(UPDATE: I finished the second project as well! Check it out here.)

I recently revamped my office (see that whole process here, here, and here). I finished the accent wall, but had nothing on any of the other walls. Given this is an office, I thought a bulletin board would be practical. The ones you find at the store are usually plain and ugly, so I made my own!

Here are the supplies/before picture:

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Making Laundry More Bearable

Before I was married, doing laundry wasn’t fun, but it was bearable. However, after I was married, I began to DESPISE doing laundry! All of our clothes would be thrown in one, big, heaping pile or in the lone, much too small, laundry basket that would occasionally grace the laundry room floor. It was such a hassle and sooo time consuming to sort all the laundry before throwing it in the washing machine. I had to do something before I lost my mind! Continue reading »

Office Redo Part III-Accent Wall

Well, I’ve (almost) finished the accent wall of my office. I’ve been working on this redo project for months now. See Part I and II here and here. It’s taken me longer than I expected – finding time to complete all the finishing touches has been difficult.

All the décor on this accent wall, with the exception of the yellow leaves (which were originally white), was found at a thrift store/rummage sale, was given to me or was something I already had around the house. In other words, this project was cheap! Continue reading »