Spring/Summer decoration

Recently we went out to my parents house and had a little family reunion with all my siblings and their families. It was a wonderful time and we did a lot of fun things. For one afternoon while all the guys went out dirt biking my sister put together a craft for us girls to do. This cute deocration is pretty simple. We took a block of wood and sanded it down so that the edges were pretty smooth. Then we mod podged some scrapbook paper to the five sides that show. After that dried we applied the vinyl lettering. Then we drilled a hole in the top and put a flower garden decoration in. Lastly we tied a cute little ribbon around it. It can be used half of the year because one side says "Welcome Spring" and when you turn it the other side says "Lazy Summer Days." Super cute and fun to make!

Simple Birthday Pennants

Two of our kids have birthdays at the beginning of July, so 'tis the season to decorate. I made three of these simple pennant banner things. They liven up the place and make it feel festive. :)

I just cut a bunch of triangles out of construction paper and sewed them together in a rainbow pattern. I love all the bright colors.

Grocery Bag Holder/Dispenser

I'm one of those people who keeps a lot of their grocery bags to use later for garbage can liners and other things. They come in handy sometimes. But we had so many and they were just shoved in our cupboards and getting a little out of hand. So when I came across this tutorial- http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2009/01/grocery-bag-holder.html, I thought it was genius.

You can stuff the grocery bags in at the top and pull them out at the bottom because the opening is bigger on top.

Since I don't have a pantry to hide it in I wanted it to be cute and match my kitchen. My kitchen is decorated in cherries and you may even recognize this fabric because I used it before to make some hotpads and embellish a towel for my kitchen. The tutorial for this is very easy to follow and doesn't take much time to make. I added some rick rack and buttons for extra cuteness.

Picture Magnet Tiles

This photo is terrible. The glass tiles and flash didn't go well together and I only took one picture of them. Just take my word for it, they turned out really cute. Anyway, these are a few photo magnets that my 3 year old and I made together. We used glass tiles, mod podge, magnets, and pictures of the kids. We sized the pictures so that they were the size of the tiles and printed them. Then we cut them out and mod podged them to the tiles. Then we added little magnets to the back so we could put them on the fridge. Landon really enjoys helping me with projects and this was a fun one to do together.

Family Silhouette

Today I made this family silhouette to put in Thayne's room.

I looked at various silhouette images online and then combined, altered and adapted them to fit my idea for our family. Then I printed it out, taped it onto a piece of scrapbook paper and put it in a frame. I'm not crazy about the frame, but it was one that we had on hand. Overall, I really like it. Can you believe I almost have three kids?!

Tie Rack

After I moved a lot of things on the walls from the baby room into Lena's new room, there wasn't much left on the walls. So, now I need to prepare the room for Baby Thayne. One thing that I did for Landon a couple years ago was make a tie rack (linked here), so I did the same thing again, for Thayne.

I'm sorta loving the green and brown. :)

Butterfly Room Then and Now

This is what it looked like at the beginning of January:

This is what it looks like now:

Butterflies and such

I've been working on some things for Lena's new room. I am trying to get it ready so that I can move her a little before the baby comes. I don't want her to think the baby is stealing her room, so I want to give her about a month in her new room before Thayne comes. But the room is not quite ready and I am not quite ready for my little BabyNa to be in a big girl room. Anyway, here are a few of the things I've been doing. I will show pictures of the whole room when I get it done (or done enough).

Painted a hand-me-down bookcase pink and painted butterflies on the side of it

Box for on the bookcase (you can see it in the pic of the bookcase too)

Hairbow hangers (Lena is getting quite the collection of hair clips)

Painted butterflies on one wall

Butterfly mobile

So simple Valentine garland

This was so easy and very cute. I just used pinking shears to cut small hearts out of various valentine fabrics and then straight stitched through them one after another. It adds a little something to make your home feel Valentine's-y.

bathroom revisited

Do you remember this bathroom? I am still working on it. After painting this wall a few months ago, it is still not finished.

The other day I saw these free printables by Amy at http://www.livinglocurto.com/. I thought they were pretty cute so I decided to try them out in our bathroom.
I think I like it.
What do you think?

bathroom wall

Before

After

It is really difficult to take good pictures of the bathroom. Anyway, this has taken me months to do, not because it is particularly difficult or because I did a great job, but because it is hard to do with little kids around. Originally I was planning to do the entire wall but soon realized I only wanted to do partway up the wall. And its a good thing because the day after I finished this Landon dumped the entire can of paint. And there was a lot left. Now there is none left. I was planning on using it in the master bedroom. Oh well, no use crying over spilt paint I guess. I think I need a break from painting walls for a bit anyway. I am mostly pleased with how it turned out. It was definitely a good learning experience. So I will say it was a success.

We love FREE

We have been very lucky and only ever bought a very few pieces of furniture. We are not very picky and we are pretty patient, so when an opportunity for free furniture comes up we love it. We have been looking for a desk since we moved in (actually I wanted one before that), but we just weren't willing to pay much. So, when Aaron's dad said that his office was moving locations, getting rid of furniture, and were we interested- oh yeah! We got a desk, office chair and bookcase. Sweet! They are old and used, but hey - free is free! They are great pieces and work really well in our house. Here is a pic of the desk - it is really big (which I love).

But since we have it in our bedroom I wanted to paint it. What do you think? I also want to re-cover the chair, but have no idea how to do that or how difficult it would be, so we will see.

And I have also been wanting a big bookcase since we moved here. However, I thought that was going to be a while, so I hadn't been actively searching for one. So when this fell into our hands I was so happy!

I also pulled out the flowers from our wedding. They were just chillin' in boxes in a cupboard. And I revamped some of them to make the arrangement on top of the bookcase. I'm still not sure if I love the arrangement. I want one up there, I'm just not sure if I am happy with how it turned out. What do you think?

Thanks again, Twitchells for helping us get this furniture. We love them!

coloring

Landon likes drawing on our furniture...

...almost as much as I do.

The Jungle Room

I love having a house for so many reasons. One reason is that I can decorate it however I want. I have had so much fun doing Landon's room-to-be. Right now we just call it the jungle room. I have always thought coloring on the walls would be way fun. Actually I got a chance to do that a little when my parents let me redo my bedroom when I was sixteen, but now I have a whole house I can color on the walls in! Okay, I don't really color on the walls. But it has kind of felt like that as I have been painting the mural in Landon's new room. Now I just hope Landon doesn't get any ideas about adding to the picture, he did watch me do part of it.

The Mural:

The rest of the room:

This is just as you walk in.

This is the awesome quilt my mom made for him.

I love the bamboo and I made the curtains.

The bookcase with all his jungle stuffed animals.

Now I just have to get up the courage to let my little baby sleep in a big boy bed in a big boy bedroom. :( I just don't want him to grow up!