Springtime and Birdcages!

As we are approaching March, I'm slowly but surely getting out my spring decorations. This past year we found a way to utilize the birdcage we had from our wedding in a very unique way!  It makes me happy that it's not in storage anymore…just sitting and collecting dust!

 

As you can see this is how we had it decorated for winter:

We like to keep things just a bit simple, just a snow covered wreath on the bottom of the cage with an antique jar holding flowers.

  

For springtime with Easter in mind, I decided to put our family nest into the birdcage, and add some eggs all around.  At the bottom of the cage is crafting moss!  

Such a quick and simple update for our sofa table!  Here is the before and after:

 

Hope you enjoy!!!

Exra Fun Weekend!

One can get really used to these extra-long weekends!  This weekend I didn’t have much time to get any of my personal crafting done.  We decided to take the kids to the local bounce place for a few hours, which helped them to expel their ‘bottled up energy’.  

I made a really long list of things that needed to be done and cleaned this weekend, and I’m proud to say that I’ve accomplished at least 70% of the tasks! I still need to give the counters in the kitchen a good cleaning, but the bathroom and the kids rooms are each cleaned to perfection!!!  

Part of my household resolution for this year was to cook more.  A few weeks ago I decided to make a Menu Board for on our refrigerator.  I have seen so many of them on Pinterest and they seemed like a great idea to get me to plan out exactly what I will be cooking for dinner each night.  Currently I don’t have anything in for Friday, but since it is Lent we go to the local Fish Fry.  I may make a tag for that to place on the board!

Hope you enjoy!!!

Wine Bottle Fun!

On Valentine’s Day my husband finally finished a bottle of his wine, so now I can do what I had anticipated on doing for months on end…decorate a wine bottle!!! 

 

The first step was to take the labels off of the bottle.  Thanks to my trusty ‘Goo Gone’ it didn’t take too much time.  I advise letting the bottle soak in hot water before trying to remove any of the labels to make it very easy. 

I know there is a cork rolling around in there but *sigh* I guess that happens sometimes…

I chose this aqua color because that is one of the colors we decorate heavily with in our kitchen!  I painted a decent first coat on just to make sure everything was covered, and then let it dry for the day.

Once I gave it the second coat, it really started to look nice!

To top it off I made a quick rosette burlap flower and tied it on with a ribbon!

I am still tossing the idea around to perhaps sand it in different areas to give it a rustic look.  We shall see!

 

This is going to look awesome on the window sill, especially if we stick a single flower in there.  Hopefully I can get my hands on some more wine bottles...I guess I will have to encourage my husband to have more wine (I don't drink since I'm not fond of the taste).  All in all this was a quick, fun, and inexpensive DIY craft!

Hope you enjoy!!!

A Window of Delight

We have been working real hard to finish up and get some photos of our redecorated office.  This office is now cheery and you have the vibe energy of wanting to get work done in it! ;)

Yesterday we decided to make a ‘new’ valance.  We have been seeing all different colors of this on Pinterest and decided to give it a shot, since it isn’t too hard.  You can use scraps of fabric or just go to the craft store and get one of those rolls of coordinating fabric (like we did since there was a 40% off one item coupon this week).  We then looped them around the rod and it looked like this:

A close up of the valance we made!

 

Quick, easy, and a fun new look for the window!

The whole window in the office

The jars next to the window were bought off of Etsy from Beach Blues.  These match our window valance and the wall color perfectly.  Amazing!

Jars from BeachBlues on Etsy

 

The floor in the office just ended up being painted a glossy floor paint.  The color was Cancun Sand, which appears to be a nice, warm cream color.  

  

The view into our office

We will probably be putting the foam mat that we had on the floor next to the train table for the kids to sit on while playing with it.  I also want to change what I currently have on the shelves…not quite sure exactly what I want but will figure it out!  At this moment I am very satisfied with our hard work and just in total bliss over the turnout of our redecorating of the office!

Hope you enjoy!!!

A Fresh, New Office to Work in

Here is a quick peek as to what we have been busy with lately...

A quick phone picture...

This photo was just taken on the phone and before we decided to put our new trim down.  Hopefully by the end of the week I will have finished photos of our newly redecorated and half reno’d office!

Hope you enjoy!!!

All of our Decorated Porch and Garden

Okay…I finally sat down and got a great roundup of our porch and garden photos for on here! While watching the Olympics I have been sitting on my computer getting some of the ‘best’ photos that showcase our hard work on the porch and outside the best! I hope everyone is enjoy the Olympics as much as we are!

Our flower garden mid-summer

Back in April, our family constructed another garden but this one is right below our porch.

Close up of some of our flowers

Now for the main showcase: our porch. We kept our bistro table a bit spaced from our new ottoman bench that we built, so we have 2 different ‘sections’ on the porch. Everything just seems to go together and compliment one another. As pictured is our painted rug.  Here is the DIY post for the painted rug that we did.

Ottoman that we built and our painted rug

Bistro table set and our 'Love' sign we made

As for our house door, we have our Moss Covered Letter, which ended up being added to an unused spray painted picture frame. Here is the post from when I made the Moss Covered Letter. The ‘welcome’ sign was one of our best purchases off of etsy! This sign is just so simple but neat looking that we just had to buy it.

Moss Covered Letter on our front door

Welcome sign we bought off Etsy

Now on to our collection of old looking things. Our Pepsi-Cola wooden crate was a yard sale find (my first yard sale experience I have ever been to). The silver star on the top is something my oldest daughter and I basically just threw together. We gathered some sticks up and hot glued them together, then spray painted them. The mason jars are still a work in progress but I am sure you get the picture.

Pepsi-Cola crate we got at yard sale, and the DIY star

Mason Jars that aren't quite done yet!

Finally we have our plants that sit on the porch. During cold months these plants do find a way into our home, but for now while it is really nice out they can stay there! The hats hanging on the wall were an cute idea that my mil told me to do a few weeks back.  The lights that we have strung all over the porch are my favorite outdoor lights ever.

Plants and the hanging hats

Outdoor lights that we l-o-v-e!

This week is flying on by and it is August already which means Back-2-School time is rapidly approaching. On the next post I will show off my Household Binder that for months I have been trying to get together and finally finished it! I will also little by little start to show off our office reno!

 

Just wanted to also include we were featured in a treasury on Etsy and just wanted to include the link to see our 'Teacups' Flower Girl Ivory Tutu Dress' in it!!!

To send this post off, here is a photo of our cat "Cupcake", while we were taking the photos of the porch!  

A sleeping "Cupcake"

Hope you enjoy!!!

The DIY Summer at our House

I am so thankful that this chaotic week is finally over.  I have been catching up on my orders while trying to piece my house and office back together!  And to top off this week, last night we got a massive storm so we are really thankful we had a generator to power our home!

The storm is coming!

The new floor came on Monday…preparing for that was far from fun!  Never again do my husband and I want to take staples out of the subfloor in over 600 sq. feet again!  Cramming all of our belongings into our office and each of our children’s rooms…priceless!  Needless to say everything in the end turned out picture perfect.  Now we are in the process of doing a quick floor change on our office.  Yay!  More staples to pull out of the subfloor but when the wood is down and finished we will be happy!  I cannot wait to jumpstart on the office.  We are keeping the wall color (peachy coral-ish) the same but lots of sweet touches to it after the floor is done.  This should make my “To Do List” for the summer completed!

One of the empty rooms with our new flooring!

The other week we painted a rug…well this past weekend we built an ottoman for the porch.  My oldest daughter and I also made matching throw pillows.  We absolutely love how everything turned out and how the colors all seem to go together.  My oldest daughter really enjoyed getting to learn how to use some basic tools, while having fun.  She also seemed to have a sense of pride after everything was finished and put in place on the porch!

All of our DIY projects together and looking great!

Last week we started to work on a mercury mirror glass jar.  Here is the one jar (not mercury-ized tho) finished.  My daughter and I both agreed for this one jar to do it in a metallic sort of way.  As we get more caught up around the house we will finish up the rest of the jars that we have. 

The metallic Ball Jar

 

In another week we are going to start getting ready for the big back-to-school prepping around the home.  Honestly I cannot wait for school to start and to get back into that routine of a super busy schedule!

The original jars that we found in the attic

 

 

Hope you enjoy!!!