Apothecary Jars

I love my apothecary jars!

To see Lindsay's turtorial for how to make them, click here. I like them so much, that I made 3 of them! And now I change them out for the holidays...

For Christmas, I'll use peppermints and spell out J O Y.

For Valentine's Day, maybe Hershey's kisses and I ♥ U.

You can get these wooden letters from Hobby Lobby.

So many possibilities!!

Alright Alright... I Caved!!

After seeing all these cute coffee filter wreaths on all sorts of blogs I decided to try it out for myself. It didn't take too long and I'm pretty happy to have it finished.

I had the perfect night to work on this project. My husband was out for a few hours and I had some Dancing with the Stars to catch up on.

I gathered my supplies... a straw wreath (with the plastic still on), natural colored coffee filters & my trusty glue gun.

At about this point I had throbbing fingers from the hot glue mishaps and was really regretting my decision to begin this project. I even thought of stopping and finishing it later. But since I know myself so well I realized that I may have a 1/2 finished wreath NEXT season so I pressed on through the pain!

I'm not sure where its final home will be. For now it is hanging on our back door to the garage. All in all I am pretty satisfied with it!

By the way... this project cost me $3.48!!! Wreath was $3.47 and on sale for 40% off. The coffee filters were $1.40. Not bad!

Linking Here:

Between U & Me

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Decoupaged Clothespins

If you have 5 seconds (literally, 5 seconds), grab some scrapbook paper and make your chip clips a little bit cuter. If you have another 5 seconds, add a button or an initial!

This card holder, which I picked up from Canton, & which happens to fit PERFECTLY between my desk & hutch, looks even better with my new clothespins. Can you tell I'm excited?? The quickest project EVER!

I was overzealous & decoupaged too many (an easy mistake), so the girls' art shutter got and upgrade too!

Even my chips in the panty are now adorned with colorful clothespins. But I'll save you the picture of my pantry!

Chalkboard Calendar

I'm so excited to share this post with you today!

It comes from my sweet friend Lisa...

I recently saw this dusty, ugly framed mirror on a routine trip to Goodwill, I instantly remembered Tiffany's chalkboard and knew the ugly thing had the potential to become the perfect weekly calendar for our kitchen. So I haggled on the price and got it down to $25. Not exactly cheap, but I thought it was worth it for the vision I had in my head.

I didn't think to take a photo of it before I sanded it and popped out the scratched mirror. You'll have to just use your imagination...

Then I took a trip to Lowe's and picked up a quart of chalkboard paint and some backer board. Since I had measured the frame before I left, I asked the nice old man that rubbed my son's head ;) to cut the backer board to fit the frame exactly.

I painted the smooth side of the backer board with the chalkboard paint using a sponge brush. It would have been nice to have a wider sponge brush, but I just used what I had on hand and a normal paint brush left brush strokes. I also used some glossy white interior paint that we had on hand to paint the frame.

Second coat:

Third Coat:

And....Ta Da! I think it fills the tall, awkward corner wall in our kitchen quite nicely.

I liked the weekly calender on Tiffany's board so much that I copied it. Straight up copied. It's the best form of flattery, right?

The color is off on this photo. I don't have yellow walls...but you get the idea. :)

I love it! It replaced our weekly dry erase board in the laundry room where I wrote dinners and commitments down and the grocery list that was on the fridge. My husband even uses it for his own lists and the ledges make the perfect "tray" for chalk. Now I'm just working on training my son not to grab for (and try to eat) the chalk. ;)

Thanks for sharing Lisa!!

Check out Lisa's Bible covers, personalized magnets, & more.

So, so cute!!

Navy Mango

I'm linking up here..

Finding Fabolous

The Shabby Nest

Home is Where My Story Begins

paper mache letters

I've come to LOVE things that are original.

Things that are unique and have meaning.

Things that you can't find at Target (not that I don't LOVE Target).

So I was recently inspired by my friend Whitney to make my very own paper mache letters. One for each of my girls. So while I can't say that this idea was totally mine, I will claim the blood, sweat and tears that went into making them. Just kidding. It was super easy!!

I painted the letter first, then decoupaged different scrapbook paper on, before adding the flowers. It took me less than an hour! If you're new to modge podge, get some helpful tips here. My friend Whitney, framed her letter & it looked SUPER cute, so of course I had to copy!

I made a second one for my younger daughter (because how fair would that be?) and plan on framing it too, once I move them into the same room.

Here's a close up. Not perfect at all, but no one seems to notice.

And here are some other letters that I came across.

Each with it's own personality & charm.

Creative Memories

Little Loveables

The Examiner

Have you painted or crafted any letters lately? Do share!!

Crafty Friday {Girlify your lamp}

This was my inspiration!

A sweet, perfectly pretty lamp shade for my girls' room.

Baby Making Machine

And this is my husband's old lamp from college.

It's been sitting in our guest room for years,

just depressing me...

...that is until TODAY!

With a little pink paint, silk flowers and my handy glue gun,

my ho-hum lamp now looks like THIS!!

It's SO delightful!! ~pun intended~

Here are some other inspiring shades that I've found.

Country Living

Sizzex

Layla Grayce

Have you girlified anything lately?

Crafty Friday {Making Life Fair}

I'll start by saying that this isn't very "crafty" but it's Friday...so bear with me!

Having three kids can be a lot of work. Gasp!! I know, it's a shocker, right! My husband and I really try hard to spend time with each of them individually when we can. We will take one or two with us when we run errands. My husband has one car seat in his car so if we're both headed the same place the kids fight over who gets to ride alone in that car. It's amazing how different the kids will act when they are by themselves and can get one-on-one attention.

Doing this sometimes causes problems though. "Who'd I take last time?" "Who gets to come this time?" This week I came up with an idea that will hopefully help with this. Believe me...it's easy to take child who is acting the nicest or is already dressed or hasn't been in trouble that day. Somehow a 4 year-old and two 2-two year olds remember who got to go the last time even if I don't! Maybe for this crazy family the chart will help us keep the peace.

I designed this on the computer using InDesign and had or local copy shop print it on cardstock and laminate it so I could hang it on the fridge.


{I digress...I hate how my fridge looks when seen through flash photography! The wear and tear is really evident}

For the marker I used a glass decorating bead and hot glued a leftover magnet to the back.

Any of you with multiple kids have good ideas of how to spend one-on-one attention with them? And how do you keep track?

Crafty Friday {Camera Strap Cover}

Have you seen those cute camera strap covers for Digital SLR cameras? I have wanted one for a while but just hadn't pulled the trigger yet. I was searching around some blogs and found some easy tutorials to make my own. I've seen some really cute fabric at Hobby Lobby lately and have always thought to myself "what could I do with that fabric??" Today you get to find out!! Let me begin by saying clearly...I AM NOT A SEAMSTRESS. I got my sewing machine by requests as a graduation present and in the 7 years since then I have probably used it less than 10 times. You'll notice in these photos that there are several fabrics shown... that's because I planned on making several because of how fun and easy they were going to be. However, due to human error & machine error (most likely caused by human error) something was wrong with just about all of them. Nevertheless...here it goes.

Choose your fabric. I made my straps to have a front and back with coordinating fabrics - so 1/4 yard of each fabric will produce two straps. If you go this route you could probably get away with 1/8 of each fabric.


Get yourself reaquainted with your old friend (and prepare for battle if you are a novice like me!)

Make your pattern by measuring your strap length & dividing in half. Add about 1/2" to each side to allow for seams. I used wrapping paper for my pattern.

Cut your fabric out. Mine were roughly 27" long when opened up.

Make sure you sew the sides RIGHT SIDES together (this was one of my human errors at one point). Press the seam down.

Prepare a strip of fuseable batting (if you choose to have a little padding in your strap). Mine was about 5" wide .

Fold the ends about one inch and again about another inch for the hem. I sewed three *straight* lines across.

Fold in half and sew RIGHT SIDES together again.

For the avid seamstress this part will be the hardest. Flip the strap inside out and VOILA... you're done. String your camera strap through and it's done!

I am determined to try again with the last of the fabric I bought because my sewing skills are finally warmed up. One of these days I'll be able to sew one from start to finish without a single problem! Stay tuned because one day when that happens I'll do a giveaway on here and you can have one without the work or the $$$.