Ornament Time!!!!

One of my dear friends from church and I wanted to get ready for the Christmas season a little early. Plus we just wanted a valid excuse for letting out kids play together while we did a craft. We decided to make ornaments together. Here is a sampling of our creations. It was so much fun! Next year we will have to start even earlier.

Baby Shower....

Recently I hosted a baby shower for a dear friend of mine from church. (She is having her first boy after 2 girls.) Thanks to my parents who let me use their house, and several other friends who brought lots of food and Pinterest:)...It turned out better than imagined. It was a fun evening.
Here are some pics from the event.

A Real Shower:)

I had to make BOTH Chocolate and Pumpkin Cupcakes...
topped with cream cheese frosting of course:)

Thanks to Mom for the fun Caramel Corn

I was so surprised at how easy these were to make!

It's Autumntime, It's Autumntime....

One of our little guy's new favorite songs from primary at church is "It's Autumn time, It's Autumn time, The leaves are falling down. It's Autumn time, It's Autumn time, they're all around the town."

It truly is Autumn time in our part of the country and we tried to kick it off  with a fun trip to Old Mcdonald's Farm, with animals, hayrides, pumpkin picking and more. We went this Saturday and had a blast! We are looking forward to going soon to the Ellijay Apple Festival in Georgia!

Bring on the apple picking and delicious fall desserts of the season!

Ask The Missionaries! They can help you!

As many of you know, both Bryan and I had the opportunity to serve as missionaries for our church: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you are curious to know a little bit about what missionaries for our church do and teach, this speech is a great resource.

It's that time of year again...

When I get to justify having this.....

Turn into this.....

Much better than a carriage like this....

Bring on the Pumpkins!!!!

The Kitchen....

So this post is mostly for my sisters, especially the 2 who are further away at the moment.
       But as for a background for anyone else who may be interested, we have lived in our current (old and rented) town home for 2+ years and I hadn't really done any real decorating in the kitchen- mostly because I really couldn't stand it. So it served it's limited functional purpose.
     I decided this year to finally get around to trying to decorate it. If I could do a complete demo I would have, but being renters, that is not really our option at the moment. But the one good thing is that since we are renting, I knew I could have some fun with the decorating of it, and truly make it my fun place (for cheap of course.) I wanted to be sure to put things in it that made me smile and that made it look brighter since it is small and has old cabinets. And I needed to find colors that would somewhat mask the random dirty cream counters and white fridge.
    In the past I have usually had kitchens with red and classic colors, but this time I wanted to live it up a little and choose colors that I have really started to love. It is definitely not done by a professional but I had fun with fabric and spray paint and it ended up not costing very much at all. And most of all, I actually love being in my kitchen now.:)
   Kristin and Katelyn...I can't wait for you to see it!

BEFORE...blah

AFTER.....

BEFORE...

AFTER...
I found these funky letters ( that I painted) at Hobby Lobby- on sale of course. And the
fabric for the curtains is made from a shower curtain I found for $20
at Kirklands.

I had to make something to remind me about the blessings of doing dishes.
And yes, dear sisters, I made it all ( flowers included) by myself.

They were just too cute to not include:) and less than $3 each.

I may not have been able to fix the ugliness of our
functional stove, but I feel like I did make it look better:)

I don't know if you remember but i used the old sign I had an redecorated it. I covered
the frame part with leftover fabric, painted the middle, and then I used chipboard letters
(that I painted white) and then glued them on. Great quote that I found on a
friend's blog...thanks Clare.

I thought I would bring in another bird...could have been better, but I
thought it looked cute on the coral/ white polka dot fabric.

I found this owl ( it was white) at Home Goods
 for $4 and spray painted it...also to cute to pass up:)

See the pen holder on the fridge? Spray painted that too...it was a garage sale find.

Re-did the magnet board. I first painted it coral, but it looked weird.
So then, I just mode-podged the coral/ white polka dot fabric
onto it.

BEFORE....bland.

AFTER...Hello it is time to eat!

I found an old vase at Goodwill  for $1 ( it was 80's blue) and spray painted
it. Then I wanted to have some texture in the room, so I added some rope
to it with a hot glue gun... still not sure if I like it...I'm going to give it some time.

Our old faithful (also flimsy with a toddler) table and chairs. I recovered  the
neutral tan seats with some outdoor fabric ( makes it easier to
wipe stains off.) I feel like it makes the table more appealing
if that is possible. I have to say I still look forward to the day when we live
somewhere with room for a bigger and sturdier table.)

The shelf is a Spice rack from Ikea

I used my old spice jars from a spice rack that we got when we got married see here.
And recovered the labels with Avery round labels I found at Staples ( less than $4 for the pack and now I can reuse these jars over and over again.
Now I have the spices I actually like to use. And I reused the beat up spice rack to hold all of
my acrylic craft paints. ( I obviously don't have as much as Mom..yet)

Wanted a cute clock that coordinated, bought this one here for $6 at Target.
Spray painted the rim and hand painted the numbers blue.

Overall I think it turned out pretty cute!