It’s Ten on the 10th! Every month, on the 10th, ten – sometimes more or less – fun and talented bloggers get together and share fun ideas for under $10.00. It’s truly one of my favorites. This months theme is Warm up your home. Not gonna lie, this threw me for a little bit of a loop. How could I buy, make or share something that makes for a warm and cozy home for under $10?

So I started thinking. What makes me feel like my home is warm and cozy?What makes me feel warm?
Obviously, physically it would be a nice warm, cozy throw blanket.
Visually it might be a warm and toasty fire or a nice textured pillow.
For me, color can play a huge part for making me feel all warm and fuzzy too.Warm, rich color tones in the winter. Lighter, brighter ones for Spring and Summer.

As I was thinking all of these warm and cozy things, it hit me. Smell plays a  HUGE roll in what makes me feel warm too!

For instance, at Christmas I love the smell of cinnamon and cookies? The fresh scent of evergreens and crisp cold air.

Are you with me?

I have a confession to make. I’m a scented wax melt Junkie! In my home I have 4 wax burners burning 24/7. My powder bathroom has drawers dedicated to the storage of my melts, sprays, car scented tags and lights for the warmers. And don’t get me started on the warmers! 4 throughout the house, plus seasonal ones that I rotate…

I don’t discriminate in the brand of wax melts either. If I love the smell it’s coming home with me!

When I think about it, my addiction to the scent game is only rivaled by my throw pillow addiction!

My favorite scents are usually light clean scents. Like fresh linen, crisp cotton and silver bells. However, recently I discovered a new scent. Vanilla Pound Cake. I smell this and become a great big puddle and want to eat cookies all day! So. Good.

And the best part? There is one big rule for the wax melts. They must be under $10! My latest scent, Vanilla Pound Cake cost $7.89. 

One last thing, another of my favorites in winter is a big cup of International Coffee French Vanilla Cafe. I get the sugar free version which only has 60 calories. Of course the cookie that I want to eat with it kind of blows that out of the water! But, this coffee is another treat for right at $2.99 a container and is guaranteed to warm you up.

A cup of something good and wonderful, a delicious treat and the wonderful scent of your favorite thing – all are sure to make for a warm and cozy home.

Now I hope that you will join me and visit my blogger friends to see what fun ways that they warm up their homes!

Decorate and More With Tip
Blue Sky At Home
The Applestreet Cottage
Let’s Add Sprinkles
Patina and Paint

Our February DIY Challenge is all about hearts this month. As it should be!

Today I’m going to share with you how to make this cute Valentine’s door hanger. But, before I go any further, I would like to thank Terrie from Decorate With Tip and More. She is our hostess and I love that she always issues the most interesting challenges to us monthly.

Thank you Terrie!

When  the challenge was issued, I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to make. I don’t do a lot of Valentine decor here at the castle and I knew that it not only had to be simple and economical, but had to be cute too. I was at Hobby Lobby and saw these two wooden heart pieces. I knew it was meant to be when the lacy heart fit perfectly inside of the solid wooden heart. Not only were they perfect for each other, combined they were both under $10!

Supplies:
Solid wooden heart
Fancy wooden heart cutout
Pencil
Craft paints
Brushes
Ribbon
Raffia
E6000 Glue

Step 1:

Remove the red ribbon on the solid heart, making sure to keep it for later. Cut off the twine string at the top of the fancy cutout heart. You can throw the twine away, or keep it for another project, as we won’t need it for this craft. Lay your heart with the cutouts on top of the solid heart.
Using a pencil, trace around the fancy heart.

Step 2:

Paint inside of the traced heart white. This acts as a primer for the red paint that we will be painting this heart later. Painting the brown heart white first will make the red paint look nice and bright!

Step 3: 

Once  your white paint has dried, paint the outside edge of your solid wooden heart black. Be sure to paint the outside edges as well. Let dry.

Step 4:

While you are waiting on the paint to dry, paint your fancy cutout heart white. The edges on this heart are a dark stain already, which I liked. So I didn’t bother to paint the edges.

Step 5:

Once your black paint has dried, paint your white center heart red. This may require two coats to achieve even coverage. Be sure to let it dry between coats. Once your red heart is finished, outline the red in gold. Paint the gold on the outside edge of the red.

Step 6:

Using E6000 glue, I brushed the glue onto the back of the fancy cutout heart and then carefully lined it up with the red heart and firmly pressed down. Remember the gold outline I painted? The gold outline should be on the outside of the fancy cutout heart. I placed several large, heavy books on top of the cutout heart and left it over night to dry.

Step 7:

I’m not sure why, but I didn’t get a picture of the next step.
Thank goodness it is super easy and simple. This step requires a pencil with an eraser that you haven’t used.

You will use the eraser tip as a stamp to create the red and white dots on the painted black heart. Just dip the eraser end in paint and apply the paint covered tip randomly to the black painted area. Once that has dried, retie your red ribbon to the heart.

Step 8:

Make a simple bow and add it to the upper left hand side of the heart.
Ta da! It’s finished!
I love how this heart turned out. It checks all the boxes for me. I really do think that it would be cute both on your front door or inside your home. And best of all, I made this entire door hanger for under $12.00. Cute and economical. It’s a win for sure!

Now I hope that you will join me in visiting the other talented bloggers that are participating in this months DIY Challenge! 

     DIY Vibes/ Cloches and Lavender/Jessica B Simmons /Blessings By Me/Blue Sky at Home

Just Another Farmhouse /CD Country Living /Sew Sassy by Paula /Sweet Southern Grace / Decorate and More with Tip

Through A Vintage Door /The House House / Patina and Paint

I don’t know about you, but we don’t spend a lot of time or money on Valentine’s Day. It’s not that I don’t like Valentine’s Day. I mean, what’s not to like? Cards, candy, hearts from your loved ones. That’s a good day to me. I think that the biggest reason we don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day in a big way is that we are just coming off Christmas and in January we celebrate 8 birthdays of family and friends. It’s a lot! However, while I don’t go all out for Valentine’s Day, I do want to give it a nod even if I don’t always have a ton of time. Today I’m sharing how to set a Valentine’s Table in 15 minutes or less!

Okay, set your timer and let’s go! First, start with a clean table. If you are like me and you don’t have a red table cloth or table runner a cute alternative is wrapping paper. The great thing about wrapping paper is that when you are done, you can simply throw it away or if your family is way neater than mine, you can use it to wrap a gift at a later date!

Next, I perused my placemats and found these red ones that I used at Christmas. I love their texture against the smooth wrapping paper.

After the placemat, it was charger time. I admit to a ten second debate with myself to use either the bright red one you see here, or a gold one. As you can see, the red won.

Since I had a lot of red going on, I used white hob nail dinner and salad plates. I use these a lot because they are so versatile. In this case I used two different patterns to give my place setting a little interest.

Next up, napkins. I chose to use a white linen napkin that has the cutest teeny tiny pom pom trim. Instead of a traditional napkin ring, I used red ribbon with tiny white poms on it. Just tie it in a bow and you are all set. I had a few sticky backed felt hearts left over from another project and knew that they would be a perfect embellishment for the ribbon napkin rings.

A red water glass and silverware complete the place settings for my Valentine’s table.

We are not done yet! I still have about 6 minutes left.
Every table needs a cute centerpiece. Don’t have time to go buy fresh flowers? I used a white stoneware pitcher and filled it with red napkins. Popped it onto a wooden tray and filled in the open spots with greenery and red hearts. The centerpiece was finished! Simple, fast and easy.

My Valentine’s table is finished with plenty of time to spare. And it was done in under 15 minutes. I love that it’s cute, but more importantly I love that everything that I used, I already had.

Now if you wanted to, you could always add a few extra touches to glam it up a bit more. Wouldn’t vintage valentines be cute to lay around the table?Or if you have extra chocolate candy pieces, it would be super cute to put a piece at each place setting for dessert. Maybe some conversation hearts? Although at our house there are no extra pieces of candy laying around, trust me!

What better way to show your loved ones that you love them than making dinner just a little extra special. And the best part is that you used what you had on hand and that it took very little time to put it all together!

I hope that you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day celebration.

Until next time…

I’ve got a new table in the dining room! Well, it’s not really a new table. Because it’s old, but it is new to me. And I’m not sure if you would call this a dining room. It’s off our kitchen, so maybe it’s an eating area in the kitchen?Except it’s not in the kitchen. Are you as confused as I am? For now, I’m calling it the dining room because, well it’s where we dine.

When we moved last October I knew our former kitchen table and chairs had seen better days. So, I decided to use our formal dining room table and chairs in this area since we don’t have a formal dining room. Fast forward to the holidays and I knew that we needed to replace it sooner, rather than later as it was way to big for that space.

The plan was for The Hubs to build me one out of some old barn wood of my dads. However, The Hubs shop isn’t up and running yet. We decided to buy an older sturdy table and fix it up until The Hubs could make me a table. Shortly after Christmas I found this sad little table. She’s super sturdy, she just needed a little love.

Along with the table came these french styled cane back chairs. I loved them! They were also sturdy and I was super excited because all of the cane backs were in perfect shape!

We loaded them up, tied them down with a “spider” bungee cord thingy and headed for home. We were excited because it had been raining earlier and we were worried about the furniture getting wet. When we set out for home there was not a cloud in the sky and not a hint of wind. Perfect for transporting furniture. And then the unthinkable happened. A huge gust of wind came out of nowhere and blew not one, but two, chairs into the table legs. This was the result. At this point I was resigned to just upholster the backs and call it done. However, The Hubs had a different idea.

He decided to repair the cane backs. I have to say that he did a wonderful job! Now the sad little chairs with the holes in them are the belle of the ball. The cane matches perfectly, it’s nice and super tight. They look brand new!

Once The Hubs work was done, it was my turn. At first, I wanted to stain the top and paint the apron and legs of the table. However, I quickly realized that the table needed so much work that staining it wouldn’t be possible. 

Y’all have seen my blue desk, if not your can see it here. I painted it with General Finishes Milk Paint in Klien Blue. I loved how the paint glided on, had great coverage and had no brush lines. So I decided to use the same paint in Snow White.

Now here’s where it all gets crazy. I sanded, applied putty, and painted and painted and painted! This is a chair which has three coats on it. It’s streaky and still shows the original finish through it. To make matters worse, because I was starting to put so much paint on it, it was quickly becoming a hot mess. It just wasn’t working as well on these pieces as it did on my blue desk.

I finally waved the white flag and pulled out my cabinet and trim paint. This paint is from Ace Hardware and I’ve used it for my trim paint in my last house and in the new one. I figured if it were good enough for the trim, it would work on the table! I gave all six chairs and the table a couple of quick coats and called it good.

Now that all the painting was done, it was time to reupholster the chair seats. I have been going back and forth on what colors I want to use in the kitchen/dining rooms. Do I want to use black with pops of bright colors like I have in my last couple of houses? OR do I want to go with blues to match my living area? The struggle is real my friends. Since I couldn’t wait until I made up my mind to reupholster the chairs, I decided to go with a neutral. I love the look of this faux linen material and knew it would be perfect for the new chair seats.

I love how it all turned out! The size of the table and chairs is perfect for the space. The only down side? Now the rest of the room is screaming for a little face lift too. If you give a mouse a cookie…

Until next time…..

I can’t believe that it is the $100 Room Challenge art studio reveal day! Let me just give a great big thank you to Erin from Lemons, Lavender and Laundry for hosting this challenge. I honestly am not sure I would have gotten this room done without this challenge! Now, let’s get this party started.

First, let me recap where I started. We moved into this house at the end of last October. Because the holidays were fast approaching I basically put everything away, threw together the main living areas and bedrooms then called it good until after the holidays.

Which made for a very boring, not to mention chaotic art studio/office for me.It just wasn’t working.

My plan was to:     
* Sew and hang a relaxed roman shade     
* Paint my desk top and white workstation     
* Update my bulletin board     
* Recover my stool     
* Paint accessories and the 4 tiered tray     
* Make a window seat cushion     
* Paint a wall mural     
* Clean out closet and organize storage     
* Put together my wrapping cart     
* Organize my vinyl cart     
* Declutter everything     
* If I had enough in the budget install a chandelier and work on art pieces.

I am happy to say that I got it all done!

If you missed any of the previous weeks, you can see those here:
Week 1 |  Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Reveal

This room is by far the most colorful room I have ever had in my home. If I’m honest, I will say that this made me a little nervous. But, I love it! This is my view every morning. It makes me happy every time I walk in.

It is bright and happy. And makes my creativity flow. Seriously, I could kick myself for not doing it sooner. Especially since about 90% of it was paint or updating items I already had.

While not perfect, my supplies closet is organized, clean and clearly labeled. This was my first project in the room and it is amazing how great it felt when everything was clean!

My vinyl cart was cleaned, organized, labeled and moved to a more efficient place.

I think this may be the first time I’ve shared a picture behind the curtains of my work station. It’s all bins. All are now clearly labeled and cleaned out.

Although the inside of the desk drawer isn’t as pretty as I’d like it to be, it is organized and ready for work. Hopefully, sometime in the future, I will find pretty organizers that I like.

And last, but certainly not least, I’ve had time to get my calendar updated and decorated. I work so much better when it’s pretty!

Right inside of the office door is a small cabinet that houses a lot of art supplies. I haven’t shared this earlier because I didn’t do anything but clean this one out.

So how did my $100 budget come out?

* Fabric                                    $ 19.99     
*Fabric liner                            $   7.18     
*Cording                                  $    .99     
*L brackets                              $  2.28     
*Navy Paint, roller head       $ 28.10     
* Acrylic Paint                         $   1.72     
*Drawer Pulls                          $  8.66     
* Foam                                      $ 23.99     
* Cording                                  $  4.48
                                                   _________
For a grand total of:                   $ 97.39

Just under my $100 budget.

To finish this project and stay within my $100 budget, I dug deep and used paint, accessories and other items that I already had on hand. I can happily say that my art studio/ office is finished!

Now, I hope that you will join me in visiting my fellow bloggers to see their room reveals. I can’ wait!

When we moved into our new house at the end of October of last year, one of the first projects on our list was to give to do a fireplace remodel. Before we had even moved in I had drawn designs and had it all planned out as it was one of the big things about the house that I didn’t like. 

This is what it looked like the day we moved in.There were things that I loved about the mantle. I knew it had great potential, I loved the Austin stone, the brick, the size and the fact that it had a gas starter. I didn’t love the color of the mantle or the book cases beside it. Also, the previous owner had the Fruits of the Spirit painted on tiles and inset into the the fireplace wall. Now, I love the Fruits of the Spirit as much as the next girl, just not on my fireplace. Also, there was this weird row of Austin stone that stuck out above the the FOS tiles that made it feel like a second mantle. Definitely time for a remodel.

We decided that before we did anything in the house that we would replace all of the flooring. This house is 17 years old and had all of the original carpet and tile. While I am so glad that we did this, it put back our projects a few weeks. Now we were into November and only had a couple of weeks to get unpacked and to get a few projects done before all of the holiday rush began. It was my turn to host Pokeeno, also my turn to host my families Thanksgiving and to host The Queen’s annual Christmas party. The pressure was on!

I give The Hubs all of the credit for this project!I gave him a picture of what I wanted and he went to town. While I was unpacking, he was demolishing the fireplace and rebuilding it! I came home one afternoon to find a huge hole in the wall where the weird Austin stones protruded.(See red arrow.) Yikes! Once he had done that, he framed the wall above the fireplace in order to wrap the wall in wood. ( blue arrow)

Once the framing was complete, The Hubs nailed sheets of wood to the frames.Then added a raised panel design to the facade. After adding the raised panels, he gave the entire wood wall 3 coats of white paint. At this point, we had planned to go ahead and paint the mantle and the bookshelves beside the fireplace but ran out of time!

This is what the fireplace looked like 3 days before Thanksgiving. Didn’t The Hubs do a fantastic job? I love it! We decided to hold off on painting the shelving until after the holidays!

Fast forward to today. After I took down all of the Christmas decor, I slapped this picture and artichoke pottery up on the mantle until I could find something I loved.

On a recent trip to Hobby Lobby I found this sweet white mirror. Honestly, I wasn’t sure about putting a white mirror on a white mantle, but at 50% off it was worth giving it a try. If I didn’t like it I could always return it or put it in my entry. Once I got it up in place, I knew it was meant to be!

I added a few accessories and I have to say that I love it. I really, really love it. Now I have got to get busy painting those shelves besides the fireplace! Along with painting the walls, making curtains, painting the TV stand…The list is long my friends!

Until next time….

It’s week 4 of the $100 Room Challenge. I am so happy to report that I’m almost done! But first, let me remind you that I’m redecorating my art studio/office in 4 weeks for under $100. This challenge is hosted by Erin over at Lemons, Lavender and Laundry.

If you missed any of the previous weeks, you can get caught up here:
                 Week 1 | Week 2| Week 3 | Week 4 | Reveal

This week was spent making decisions about the rooms chandelier and accessories. I am so excited to say that I did get a chandelier and a BIG accessory that I had not planned on.

The beginning of the week found me digging out the accessories that I wanted to use. I cleaned, painted, hung and fluffed all of those. Unfortunately, I was still no closer to finding a light fixture that fit my budget. Which was super disappointing because this is what was hanging over my desk. It was huge and oversized for the space. The previous owner painted the fan with same flat wall paint that was on the walls and it had marks all over it from who knows what. And every time I looked up I felt like it was looming over me. 

I was just about to wave the white flag when I got a call from my BFF Roxanne. She’s moving in the late spring or early summer and wondered if I would like an old chandy that she had been planning to redo? Oh, and also, would I like to have her office chair? In her new house she didn’t have room for either. YES! YES, I would love both! I can not tell you how excited I was.

When  went to pick my goodies up, she had also found these crystals that she had purchased to hang on the chandelier. Did I want those too? Yes, ma’am!

Because unbeknownst to her, I had already dug out these crystals that I’ve been hoarding for years. My plan was to give this chandy some serious bling!

Once I got it home, I couldn’t wait to get started. I cleaned it thoroughly, then determined where I wanted my crystals to hang. With that decision made, I drilled holes in the chandy to hang the crystals from.

The chandelier was in good working order, it just needed a little face lift in addition to the bling. I decided to paint it with the left over milk paint that I used on my desk.

I left a little of the gold showing and gave the rest 3 good coats of the milk paint, followed by a spray topcoat to seal it and give it a little patina. Note: When cleaning it I used a deglosser that had TSP in it. This cleans it really well and helps the paint to adhere.

Because all the metal on the crystals was silver, I hand painted each tiny piece gold to match the gold on the chandelier. Can you say time consuming? But so worth it once it was hung.

After I added all the bling, The Hubs was kind enough to hang the chandy for me. I LOVE it! So much better than the dated ceiling fan. And because the chandy was free and I had everything else on hand – leftovers from previous projects – this chandelier makeover was free!

Remember that I said my BFF asked me if I wanted her office chair? Well, this is it. So. dang. excited! I’ve been drooling over this chairs for years. Not only is it beautiful, but is is super comfy.

So what did I do with my old office chair? I moved it to my workstation. If I raised all the way up, it was the same height of the stool I had recovered. I’d say both of these go in the win column.

Next week is the big reveal and I am so excited to share it with you, so please plan on coming back next Wednesday.

Now I hope that you will join me in visiting all of the other challenge participants. They are so talented and I am so honored to be a part of this group!

Welcome to my Art Studio/office Week 3 $100 Room Challenge! Week 3 found me doing a lot of little projects along with one big one. Not as much done this week as last, but definitely projects that needed to be done before I could finish up my room. Just in case you missed them, click on the links and you can catch up on Week 1 and Week 2.

The $100 Room Challenge was created by Erin from Lemons, lavender and Laundry. Erin invites several bloggers to participate in renovating a room in their homes, in 4 weeks on a $100 budget.

As I mentioned earlier, this week found me getting a lot of little projects done. I hung my bulletin board that I finished last week. Only to realize that the buffalo check was crooked… ugh. So, I’ll be rehanging that for sure!

Last week I made the pink and white buffalo relaxed roman shade. This week I got them hung! Yay!

Last week I painted my window seat. This week I found the cutest glass drawer knobs and added them to the window seat. I LOVE them! They are so shiny and sparkly. I smile every time the light hits them. At $1.00 for each pull, they were a steal!

I painted my desk top. The movers scratched the top of the desk in the move so it needed a good coat of paint and top coat. Luckily I had just enough leftover from painting it the first time to get the entire top painted.

I also gave my big white workstation top a coat of paint. Honestly, I get this area to so messy that about once or twice a year I sand it down and repaint it. I used paint that was leftover from our fireplace makeover.

I went through all of my bins and made sure that all were labeled. On most of them I could use my trusty label maker, for those that the labels would not adhere to, I made paper labels clipped on with fun clothes pins.

I rummaged through my stash of old jewelry and found some fun gems, then simply glued them to clothes pins that I painted gold.

And now for the BIG project. The window seat cushion. This by far has been the hardest project as I am no seamstress, that’s for sure! There are a couple of things that I would have done differently, however for the most part I like how it turned out.

That pretty much sums up week 3!
Goals for the challenge:
Clean out office and declutter 
Organize closet
Make a relaxed roman shade
Paint desk top
Paint white workstation
Reno white bulletin board
Recover Stool
Paint 4 tiered tray
Paint a wall mural
Paint window seat
Make window seat cushion
Tag and organize bins and baskets
Load and organize wrapping cart
Organize vinyl cart
Change out ceiling fan for a chandelier
Replace or make accessories

So far I’ve completed all but the last two! However, those may be the most challenging of all since I have no idea at this point what I want to do!

Cost (Here’s the breakdown so far):
Fabric for Window and window seat:   $19.99
Liner for window shade                               7.18
Cord for window shade                                 .99
brackets for the shade                              2.28
Paint for mural wall                                     28.10
Acrylic paint for mural                                  1.72
Drawer Pulls                                                   8.66
Total                                                         $68.92 

That’s it for now! See you next week for week 4. Hopefully I will have all my accessories and chandelier pinned down!

Lately I’ve seen wooden bead napkin rings every where on Pinterest. So cute! Once in awhile I get the urge to be crafty and look for something that I can actually use and something that hopefully isn’t too challenging. These fit the bill. After I made a few, I thought that I would share just how easy it is to make them! Just in case you would want to make a few for yourself.

Here’s what you will need to make them:
A ruler
a 4 inch piece of cardboard
An upholstery needle – or a piece of tape
Twine
Wooden beads (7 or more for each ring depending on the size of beads)
Scissors

The first thing that you will do is cut a piece of twine 20 inches long.

Using your 20 inch piece of twine, thread your twine through the upholstery needle. My needle was too big to fit through the holes in the beads, so I simply covered one end of the twine with scotch tape. It worked like a charm! Thread 7 beads onto your twine. For a little variety, I used 2 different sizes of beads.

Once you have your beads threaded onto the twine, take both ends of twine and tie a double knot.

Next, take your 4″ piece of cardboard and wrap twine around it until you get the size of tassel that you want. I think that I wrapped mine 10 times.
Be sure to start at the top of the cardboard and end at the top. This ensures that you have no cut ends at the top of the tassel.

Carefully slid your twine off of the cardboard and cut the “top” of the bundle.

Grab your bead circle and  lay it out with the ends of the twine laying horizontally. Lay the bundle of twine that you just cut for your tassel across the horizontal twine attached to the beads. Make sure that the bundle is centered. Tie a double knot.

Next, grab the cut ends of the bundle and bring them together, leaving your original twine that is attached to the beads horizontal.

Holding onto the cut ends, grab the twine on your right and wrap it around the tassel a few times at the top of the tassel, leaving enough of a tail to tie a knot. Then grab the twine on your left and wrap it around the tassel several times going in the opposite direction from the first tail. Tie the two ends together using a double knot. Cut the ends off close to the double knot. Now trim the ends of your tassel so that they are all the same length. Your wooden bead napkin ring is finished!

So how did they turn out? I think they are super cute! Definitely an easy and fun craft that both young and old would enjoy. It’s just a bonus that not only do they look good, but they are useful too!

Happy Crafting!

Until next time…

Welcome to week 2 of the $100 Room Challenge. If you are new here, the room I chose to work on is my Art Studio/office.

If you missed week 1, you can see that here.

The $100 Room Challenge is issued by Erin from Lemons, Lavender and Laundry. She has given the challenge to several bloggers to renovate a room in 4 weeks with a budget of $100. I’ve chosen my office because it was such a hot mess and there was absolutely NO creativity going on in there!

Week 1 was super productive. I can’t tell you how happy I am with all the small, and big, projects that I’ve gotten done. Most were just cleaning out the knick Knacks and organizing! Here’s the before and after of my closet shelving. I can not even begin to tell you how free I feel having gotten rid of and organizing all the stuff! Also, and this is a big one, these shelves came with the house and were installed at an angle. I took them apart, drilled new holes and re-screwed them back together so that the shelves were flat! Game changer!

I finally got around to putting all the wrapping papers, bows, tape, sacks etc. on to the wrapping cart. And since I’ve cleaned out the closet, I have plenty of room to roll it in and out when needed.

Unfortunately, in my excitement I forgot to take a before of this 4 tiered stand. It was a pretty turquoise that looked great in my last studio, but no so much in the new one. A quick coat of left over white spray paint fixed that!

Same with the stool! It’s not the best picture, but I found an old photo of my old office. The stool is sitting in front of the workstation in all it’s black, white and gold glory.

This was a simple upgrade. I spray painted the legs navy. Since the seat was a little short on padding, I added some left over foam to the top and covered it with extra material that was left over from the curtains.

Speaking of curtains. I made a lined relaxed roman shade to go over the window behind my desk. I fell in love with this material and ordered it as soon as we moved in last October. As of today, I haven’t hung the shade yet, but plan to as soon as possible!

For some reason I didn’t include this in my to do list last week. In fact, I didn’t even think about it until I was fitting the window seat with foam to sew a seat cushion. Nothing wrong with golden oak except it matched nothing in my room. I gave it 3 coats of white cabinet and trim paint that I had left over from the fireplace remodel. Now I just need to find, or make, some awesome pulls!

The bulletin board makeover was on my list. Thankfully, between paint projects, I was able to get it done.

I took the right two panels off of the board. I kept the white panel background and replaced the black ribbon with this raspberry and white ribbon. To replace the buttons in the center of the ribbons, I raided my stash of old jewelry. These old “ear bobs” as my Granny used to call them, worked perfectly and added a little bling for fun. On the fabric square I simple used left over fabric from the curtains to recover it. It was easily attached using spray adhesive. Again a quick coat of left over white spray paint was used on the black frame.

And now for my favorite new addition to the room, the floral wall mural. I’m in love! And it adds a huge punch of color that this bland room desperately needed.
That’s it for this week! A little organization, sewing and a lot of paint. I’m happy to say that I’ve knocked out a huge chunk of projects, however in the coming weeks the projects are sure to be a little harder and a little longer!
Make a window seat cushion. Paint the desk top. Paint the white workstation top. Work on a lamp. Make a decision about a chandelier or a reno of the current ceiling fan. Accessories. Drawer pulls.
So far I’ve used a lot of left over paint from my furniture and mural painting business so my grand total for expenditures is $60.26. A huge chunk of that was for the fabric and a gallon of SW Indigo paint.

Please come back next week for week 3, but in the mean time I hope that you will join me in visiting the other bloggers on the $100 Room Challenge!

It’s Ten on the 10th! In case you’ve forgotten we have ten or more – or sometimes less – fun bloggers sharing ideas with you for under $10 on the tenth of the month. Our Ten on the 10th theme for January is Organization and Home Hacks! Perfect for this time of year when we all seem to want to clean out and freshen up our home a bit. Before I get started, I want to thank Ann from The Apple Street Blog for hosting this month. The girl is a rock star and keeps us organized!

I am sure if you’ve been on here a hot minute you’ve heard me say that we down sized on our recent move. Which means that there were things that I basically threw into drawers, closets and cabinets when we moved in since it was right before the holidays. One such thing is my napkin collection. We had a couple over for dinner a few nights ago and I realized what a mess they were. And did I really need ALL of them? This is drawer 1.

Drawer 2.

And drawer 3!

It quickly became apparent that, no I did not need ALL of them. And I needed a better system. As every time I tried to pull them out of the drawer I successfully ended up messing up the entire drawer.

After a quick search on Pinterest, I came up with this solution.Binder clips.

Just grab 4 napkins – 6 napkins if they are thin – and place a binder clip on them!

Then store them! Whoever thought of this was a genius!

I had a few of the cute patterned ones that I used as a trial run to see if it would actually worked. Once that I knew that it worked well enough for me, I found these here for $4.98 for 2 packages of 12. Woo hoo! If you wanted to you could cute these binders up by placing Washi tape on them or like me, just spray paint them. The only downside for me is that it may leave a mark on the napkins where the binder is clipped. However, that’s not a big deal for me as I iron my napkins before I use them. OR more likely, I will just ignore the mark!

Now I hope that you will join me and visit the other talented bloggers on Ten on the 10th. You know you don’t want to miss this!

Decorate and More With Tip

Apple Street Cottage

Pandora’s Box

Let’s Add Sprinkles

Exquisitely Unremarkable

Blue Sky At Home

This months DIY Challenge is inspiration for warming your home this winter. For me, I like all the things. Texture, smells, warm and fuzzy, a nice fire in the fireplace and a good cup of hot tea! So when our hostess Terrie from Decorate and More With Tip issued this challenge I was excited!

In December I hosted a Queen’s party where we made these loop yarn wreaths. Super easy, fun and tons of texture. I had a ton of the yarn left over and decided to see if I could find something to do make with it.

I quickly stumbled upon a video tutorial from It’s Always Autumn. She’s great at sharing how to make this pillow! It looked easy. She said she made her’s in an hour or so while watching TV. Perfect! Or so I thought.

Now, before I get started, I want to say that Autumn is in no way responsible for my inability to create this pillow in an hour or so.FIVE DAYS people!Five days of hand knitting, pulling it out because I dropped a stitch, lots of cursing, more knitting, more pulling out…You get my drift.But, I DID finish it!With that said I will show you how I made it, but if it doesn’t make sense, or I loose you, please click on the link above and watch Autumns video.

1.  To start your pillow you will want to cut open the last 2 loops on the strand to make a tail. At the end of the project you can tie it off or just weave it in. Also, when you get to the end of your ball of yarn you will cut open the last loop to create a tail which you will tie to the beginning of the new ball of yarn. This creates a continuous strand to knit with.

We will start by making the back of the pillow. For the back, count out 24 loops with the tail to the right. Make sure that your loops point up and are as flat as possible. Although Autumn didn’t do this, I found it helpful to mark the end of my row with a clothes pin.

Now, take loop 25 and  pull it through the back of loop 24, pull up. Then take loop 26 and pull up through the back of loop 23. Continue to do this all the way across the row.

Once you have reach the end of the first row, you will do the same thing in reverse, going from right to left. Continue going back and forth until you have made an 18 X 18 inch square.

Now you will want to bind off your 18 inch square. At the top of the pillow  on the end of the last row, cut the next two loops to make a tail. Go back to the beginning of the row and take loop 2 and pull through loop one. Then loop 3 through loop 2, 4 through 3 etc. Continue until you are at the end, tie the last loop to the tail that you had made

Let’s make the top of the pillow! You will start by making a tail, just like you did for the back except you will count out 26 loops – tail to the right. Again, just like the back the 27th loop will be pulled from the back through the 26th loop. Instead of pulling up, you will pull down continuing pulling loops until you get to the right side.

At the end you will have a row of loops that will be pointing down and the original loops pointing up. Now go back through the same original loops and pull that row down. Give the two down loops a good tug down every 5 -6  loops, these 2 down loop rows are what creates the loopy texture. When you get to the end of the row, turn around and go through the same to the top loops, pull a third row of loops, this time pull straight up. You will have 1 row of loops up and 2 rows down. Each row that points up gets 3 rows pulled through it. 2 down1 up. Continue like this until you have an 18″ square. Bind off just like you did the back side.

Now Tie the back to the front. Lay back of pillow and the front of the pillow wrong sides together. Cut about 1 yard length of the yarn, snipping the loops at the bottom to create a string of yarn. Use the yarn to sew around 3 edges of the pillow together. To sew it together, tie one end to a tail and sew around the binding on both pillows.

Before sewing the 4th side, insert an 18″ pillow form. Then sew the 4th side shut. If you have any extra tails of yarn, simply tuck them inside the pillow.

Just like Scarlet O’Hara I’ll just say this: As God as my witness I will never make one of these again! However, I sure do like how warm and cozy it looks in my living room!
Now please join me in visiting my fellow DIY Challenge bloggers. I can’t wait to see how they warm up their homes for winter!

Terrie With Decorate And More With Tip 

Kelli at Olympic Nest

Dani at The Taborhood

Christine at CD’s Country Living

Cindy at Cloches and Lavender

Michelle at Blessings By Me

Mary at Shady Oak and Sassafras

Jessica at Jessica B Simmons

Shae at Sweet Southern Grace

Happy New Year my friends! I hope that you enjoyed your holidays as much as I did. As I get ready for the new year, I can’t help but look back at what I did over the holidays. The past few weeks have been super busy, a lot of fun and left me recharged and ready to rock 2020.

Besides shopping, going to parties, and watching football we did fit in an evening to go look at the Christmas lights in our neighborhood. So many beautiful and creative displays. One was even synced to music! So much fun.

Son #2 was sick over Christmas, so we didn’t get our usual photo by the tree. However, we did get this one taken at the Lagaly family Christmas. Even though it’s not the greatest picture of The Hubs, I’ll take it! With all of us living in different cities, going in different directions all of the time it is hard to get photos of all of us together.

Once the Christmas tree and decorations were put away, it was time to do a little decorating. We had only been in our new house a little over a month when it was time to put up the Christmas decor so I didn’t do a whole lot of decorating before. I’m having so much fun getting my decor out and playing with it!

Right before Christmas I hit up Hobby Lobby for a few last minute Christmas items and came home with a lot more than I went for. Who could resist at 50% – 60% off? I finally got around to hanging this shelf and pictures.

After Christmas I realized that our temporary dining table just wasn’t working. So I started shopping. And failed to find anything that I liked in my price range. So I found the cutest fixer upper table and chairs on Amazon Market. We picked these up the Saturday before New Year’s Day. We tied them down well, or so we thought. On the way home a huge gust of wind moved not one, but two chairs right into the table legs. Sigh. Oh, well. I wanted to learn how to cane a chair anyway. NOT. I also cut my hand on the chair pad, but decided to spare you that photo!

I started a loop yarn project that I will share with you next week on the DIY Challenge. Let’s just say that like Scarlet O’Hara says “as God as my witness I will NEVER do this one again.” The tutorial said it was a beginner project that took a couple of hours. 5 days later….We will leave it there until next week.

Last on my list of things I did over the holidays – I rearranged the living room. And I love it. Finally! It’s a long story involving a floor outlet, but could never get this room arranged to my liking. See where that little white chest is behind the sofa? Well, it took care of the floor outlet and the rest of the room fell into place. I’ll be on the look out for a small, skinny sofa table to replace it, but for now I am loving the look and feel of this room!
So what comes after the holidays?

Happy New Year my friends! I can’t believe that it is January 2020. I took a couple of weeks off to enjoy the holidays with the family and now I’m energized and ready to rock this year. I’m so excited to be participating in the $100 Room Challenge along with some other very talented bloggers
A great big thank you to Erin at Lemons, Lavender and Laundry for hosting!

That means I’ll be redesigning a room in my home in 1 month for $100 or less. We will be sharing our progress every Wednesday throughout the month of January. I’m thrilled. I’m scared. You know all the feels! So What room am I doing?

My art studio/office! I’ll be honest up until about two days ago this was not the room I had planned to do. I was dead set to redesign my laundry room.

In fact, I came into my office sat down and tried to do some major planning and I was so distracted by this hot mess that I couldn’t get anything done.

To the left of my desk is the best closet for an art studio that I’ve ever had, but this is what I saw every time I opened the door!

I mean, who could possibly be creative in here? In my defense, I was left alone, unsupervised and was running with scissors! Seriously, we moved into our new (downsized) home this past October and with the holidays so close I basically just unpacked and threw stuff in here. Thinking that the main areas of the house were more important.

In all honesty I’ve been planning each room of this house for a long time!

Here’s my inpso: I saw this dining room from Less Than Perfect Life of Bliss and fell in love. She and I even have the same rug!However, the mural was out of my price range.

And this window seat…. love, love, love.

So, Here’s my plan: Clean everything, declutter, donate and get rid of any and all stuff I don’t use. Organize the closet. Sew and hang a relaxed roman shade above the window seat. Paint the window seat white. Refurbish my bulletin board, tray and stool. Sew a cushion for my window seat. Paint a wall mural above my work station. If time and the budget allows, add desk lamp and a chandelier.

That’s not a lot, right? This girls got a lot of work to do!
Now please join me in visiting some really talented bloggers and see what they are up to!

Christmas is 4 days away and I’m happy to say that I’m done shopping and decorating.  It’s time to sit back and enjoy the fun. However, I realize that not all of you may be finished with your shopping. For those of you with a little more shopping to do I have a few last minute deals and steals to share with you. And I found them all at Hobby Lobby.

I ran into Hobby Lobby to grab one more roll of wrapping paper and found a ton of things. All on sale.It all started with this pom pom garland.So cute!

If you’ve been following along the past few months you might remember that I these pom pom and bottle brush trees were some of my first new Christmas purchases.When I saw the pom pom garland I knew it was a match made in heaven.The garland was definitely going home with me.Oh, did I mention that all Christmas decor is 66% off?

I had no more put the garland in my basket, turned to the next isle and found these!The bottle brush tree napkin rings and these cute tree napkins.Well of course, at 50% off, they were meant to be!

When I found the napkin rings they were a little plain.These mini ornaments were the perfect tree topper.Also 66% off.

They also had these matching place card holders.

If you ever doubted that plaid is IN this year, doubt no more.These are just two of the plaid patterns available.Not pictured was a navy, green, white and black plaid.So stinking cute!

The next few items I wanted to take home, but sadly didn’t.I’m still trying to find room for a ton of things in our down size move.

Like these towels.

And these gold utensils! Which were surprisingly of pretty good quality.

I feel in love with these black and white tassel napkins.I mean, honestly, you could use these year round.However, I have some very similar black and white ones already….So at the store they stayed!All tableware and linens were 50% off!

Did you know that Hobby Lobby also has some of it’s home decor on sale for 66% off?I’ve been looking for a small shelf like this one for awhile now.This one definitely came home with me!

I also picked up these ….

And these!In fact, I picked up too many things to show all of them to you now. That will have to wait for another time.All at 66% off!Most were under or right at 10.00.These last minute deals and steals would make the perfect last minute gifts!

So how did my pom pom/ bottle brush table turn out?Let’s just say that all things are merry and bright!
I’m taking a break next week to just enjoy the family, so I want to  wish you a very, Merry  Christmas!
See you next year….

I was recently on Pinterest and there was a blogger featuring how to  make her version of Rae Dunn ornaments. Say what? I was so intrigued and after reading her instructions,  I thought that I could make a few as gifts for family and friends.  Here’s how to make a Rae Dunn style ornament!

Here are the supplies that you will need to make your own ornaments.

Black vinyl

Cricut or Silhouette style vinyl cutting machine

White ornaments

Transfer tape or if you don’t have transfer tape you can use Glad press and seal !

First things first.

The font.

You recognize Rae Dunn merchandise right off the bat because of her font.

Because I love you, I’m going to share where to get that font FREE!

The name of the font is The Skinny and you can find it here.

While The Skinny isn’t a perfect match, it’s pretty darn close!

Once you have it downloaded onto your computer, you can use your vinyl cutting machine to design your ornament decal.

I chose to use the names of the people I would be gifting instead of generic Christmas words.

Now, what if you don’t have a vinyl cutting machine? 

Well, there are places that you can buy precut vinyl decals for your ornaments. 

You can see those here.

Now that you have made your designs, simply cut out your decals.

Next, “weed” your vinyl cut outs. 

This simply means take away all of the extra vinyl that you wont use.

Once the weeding is done,  put transfer tape on top of the decal and give it a good burnishing.

I use an old card to make sure that the transfer tape is firmly affixed to the vinyl.

Here’s a quick tip:

I use a coffee cup with a small opening, lay a wash cloth over the opening to hold my ornament in place.

The wash cloth also gives the ornament a nice soft place to lay so that it wont break.

Next step, remove the decal backing.

This should leave your vinyl attached to the transfer tape.

 Center the decal on the ornament, then attached the vinyl.

I like to start in the center and work my way out when doing this.

Be sure to gently rub over the vinyl to make sure that the vinyl is firmly attached to the ornament.

Honestly, I could have stopped there and my ornaments would be perfect just as they are.

However, I  decided to add ribbon to match my gift recipients trees.

How did they turn out?

I think that they are pretty cute.

Hopefully, my friends and family will too!

Until next time… 

Have you ever had a party right after you moved? And if you had that party and realized that you couldn’t find half of you Christmas dining decor what would you do? Normally I would have an over the top, drop dead gorgeous centerpiece before a party. But that was not to be. So, I did what any resourceful woman would do, I threw together a five minute centerpiece. And you know what? I loved it!

I started with a clean, shiny table and added my favorite furry white table runner.

Once that was done, I did some digging in the leftover Christmas boxes. I found these 4 evergreen picks, pinecones, an old truck with a felt Santa driving it, and a few red candle holders.Game on! I took the greenery picks and laid them out on the table like this.

Once my greenery was placed, I rounded up a small string of fairy lights.I wrapped them carefully in the greenery picks, being care to keep the stings as hidden as possible.

I took the old truck that I found and placed it in the middle of the greenery.

There were a few “holes” on the sides of the truck .To hide those I added a couple of pinecone picks on each side of the truck.

To complete my centerpiece, I added two red mercury glass candle holders on either side of the truck. My centerpiece was done. Time? 4 minutes 57 seconds.

Once my centerpiece was done, I set my table. And you know what? I didn’t miss the big, elaborate, time consuming centerpiece that I normally do! Not being able to find my Christmas decor and dishes turned out to to be one happy accident that taught me a valuable lesson!

Until next time….

Another Queen’s Christmas party is in the books. I just love these women! Even though we don’t see each other as often as we’d like, when we get together it’s like we were never apart. I know that I could give any, or all, a call, and they would show up with shovels, tarps, a cocktail and alibis! That’s true friendship in my book. Every year, on the first Saturday in December, we get together to celebrate. We eat. We talk – all at the same time, over each other and at loud decibels. And for the past 4 years we make a “make and take” craft. This year I shared how to make a loop yarn wreath.

I saw a video on Youtube earlier in the year on how to make one and knew instantly that this would be The Queen’s craft this year.

In case you want to make one this is what you will need:

Step 1: Take the end of your loop yarn and attach it to the wreath using a straight pin. Don’t worry about the color of the pin head. You won’t be able to  see it.

Once you have your yarn attached to the wreath, start wrapping the yarn around the wreath form. You want to make sure that you are wrapping the yarn firmly around the wreath. Not too tight though! At first I was wrapping it so tightly that it broke the wreath in half! Every two or three wraps, push the yarn together so that it bunches up tightly.

When you are all done, this is what your wreath will look like.

Next step, decorate your wreath! I used these mini bottle brush trees that were featured in the video; however, The Queens all had great ideas to add to or replace the trees. Trees with a little red bird, mini snowmen, mini angels – the possibilities are endless!

I found these trees on Amazon. You can see the ones I bought here. They came in a box and there were 4 different sizes.

I just tucked the trees into the loops of yarn where I wanted them and they stayed perfectly. However, since The Queens were traveling with them, they hot glued them into place.

The final embellishment was a 6 or 7 inch bow. In the video I watched they didn’t add a bow to theirs. But we are in Tammyland and this Queen liked a little more bling than the one in the video!

Before I share with you the finished wreath, I wanted to show you the Queens wreaths. I think that this was a fun, fairly simple craft project. So much so that a few of The Queens are planning to make a few more!

I hung my finished wreath in my entry and I love it! So simple, yet elegant at the same time.

One last tip.
Hanging the wreath was super easy to do using this Command strip hanger. For two reasons. The Command strip hook sticks to almost anything. And the loops on the yarn make for a natural hanger for the wreath! Ya gotta love how simple that is. Happy wreath making!
Until next time…..

Remember if you loved it, be sure to Pin it!
If you like my blog, please be sure to share it with your friends! It’s the best way for my blog to grow. I would love for you to be a part of my family so sign up to receive my emails. You will get an updated email every time I post a blog. You can also follow me on Facebook HERE and Pinterest HERE. 

Happy Holidays, y’all! I am so excited to share with you this months DIY Challenge. Terrie from Decorate With Tip and More is our fearless leader and each month she chooses some of the BEST challenges for us. 

The DIY challenge: Make something using a Dollar Tree mini tree.

The Rules: Be creative!

If you are coming here from Dani’s, welcome. I’m so glad that you are here! I just loved her mini tree DIY and I know you did too.

Here’s what we started with. This little tree came out looking a little like a “Charlie Brown” tree, however once she was fluffed and shaped, she wasn’t so shabby after all. After looking at my tree for a few days, I decided that it was the perfect size for an Advent tree!

My advent tree would be made up of small triangular boxes that were numbered and filled with goodies! I chose 5 different complimentary pieces of card stock to make my boxes.

I found a pattern for my boxes on my Silhouette that I knew would be perfect. Only one BIG problem. My Silhouette decided to take a holiday vacation. Since my morning tea box was my inspiration, I decided to use it for a pattern and cut them out myself.

I simply traced my tea box 5 times on each of my 5 papers.

I’m not gonna lie, this was my least favorite part. However, since it was only 25 boxes, it wasn’t too bad….

To make folding my boxes a little easier, I used a ruler to crease the fold lines.A boning tool would be ideal for this step, however I didn’t have one so the ruler worked just fine.

Looking at my original tea box, I knew that I needed to cut an inch long slit in the bottom edge of the box.This allows the upper tab on the box to be inserted and keep it closed.

 Next step: attaching something to the box to allow me to hang it on my tree. I used 1/8 inch wide ribbon to make a loop to form a hanger for my boxes.Cut 3 inches of ribbon for each box.
Loop the ribbon, then glue to the box using a tiny drop of hot glue. Now put goodies into your box, fold it together and your boxes are done!

I wanted to number my boxes, one for each day of Advent. These small tags and number stickers from Hobby Lobby were the perfect solution.

Thanks to my sister who went shopping with me. Both of these were her idea! Not only were these cute, but they were supper easy to make. Simply put the sticker on the tag.

I applied the tags to my ornament boxes using foam adhesive dots. This gave them a little dimension and since they are sticky on two sides, made it super easy to attach the tags to the boxes. For some crazy reason, I didn’t get a picture of this, but I decided to fill the tag hole with tiny jingle bells that I had in my stash. Even an Advent tree can use a little bling!

Once my boxes were finished it was time to decorate my mini tree. I honestly couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

Now I hope you join me and hop over to Carol’s at Blue Sky at Home and check out her DIY Challenge.

I’ve also listed the other talented bloggers below because you know you don’t want to miss a thing!

Terrie – Decorate and More with Tip

Kelli – K’s Olympic Nest

Shae – Sweet Southern Grace

Rebecca – Rebecca Anne Home

Dayna – Just Another Farmhouse

Christine – CD’s Country Living

Dani – Welcome to the Taborhood

Carol – Bluesky at Home 

Mary – Shady Oak and Sassafras

Jessica – Jessica Welling Interiors

Teresa – Through a Vintage Door

Michelle – Blessings by Me

Jessica – Jessica Simmon

Lately I’ve been finding some really great deals! Not only are they great deals, but they are also a few of my favorite things for this Christmas season.  A few of them I’m kicking myself over because I wish that I had purchased a few more of them! So without further a do, let me share a few of them with you.

A few weeks ago I was in Home Goods. Believe it or not, I wasn’t even looking for Christmas items, but I did do a quick head turn when I walked past this garland. It’s so pretty, super well made, and, at $14.99, it’s a steal!

I know that it seems as if I am at Walmart all of the time, but honestly I’ve only been there 4 times in the last 3 months! Okay… maybe 5. Don’t you just love these multi-colored felt stems? And how great is it that they match the garland I bought from Home Goods? I love the colors, the textures and how versatile they are! In case you couldn’t tell, I’m in love with them!

When styling my kitchen hutch I couldn’t resist using a few stems! I bought all of the stems that my Walmart had, but I plan on checking out a few more stores for a few more of them. I have plans. These were only $3.00 each! If you love these as much as I do, you might also love the matching wreath and the table top tree.

These sweet Christmas trees were a Michaels flash sale find. See? It really does pay to spend hours looking at Instagram! They were only $8.00 each, regularly $20.00. I love that they look so real and that they are lightly dusted with snow. Also, they were available for in store pick-up, which I love!

While on Instagram recently, I saw the prettiest Christmas mantle. Lots of greenery, lights, bows and on the corners of the mantle were the most wonderful large jingle bells. I immediately started shopping for a few. Unfortunately, they weren’t all that easy to find, and if I did find a few, they were a little cost prohibitive. Imagine my surprise when I entered Walmart on one of my 5 trips and saw large 5″ jingle bells.

This is what they looked like when I bought them. They look very pretty in the photo, however in real life they are a little too brassy for my taste. So, of course, I painted them. Did you notice the price tags? $3.98 each!

The last of my great finds were from Hobby Lobby. If you love lots of bright colors for Christmas, then this Pom tree is for you! Right now, all Christmas is half off.
At first, I thought that I would just make my own, but if I remember correctly this size tree was $17.99. With the 50% off, this tree came in at $9.00. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to make your own! As I was heading to check out, I passed these brightly colored bottle brush trees. It was love at first sight. None were over $6.00 and all were 50% off. They are perfect Christmas decor for my new studio.
That’s all of my favorite things, however I promise that if I find more fun finds at great prices I’ll be sure to share them with you!
Until next time…..

Now that we are getting a little more settled in our new house, I’m ready to get my Christmas decorating done! Like all things when moving, not all of my Christmas decor worked any more. So I was looking for some inspiration when I ran across the cutest white Christmas houses at Le Cultivateur. I figured not only could I make a few, but I could share how to make white Christmas houses with you! Honestly, they were so easy to make I could have given these to the nieces and nephews to do for me!

Here’s what you will need:

Paper Mache houses

paint – white spray paint or craft paint

Paint brush

Glitter

Mod Podge

I found this set of 3 paper mâché houses at Hobby Lobby. Normally $14.99, they are on sale for 40% off, making them. $8.99.

I purchased 2 sets of houses. On my first set, the weather was super cold so I decided to hand paint the houses. Using white craft paint, I painted 2 good coats of white to each house. This took a while! So when it was time to do the second set, I decided to spray paint them.

TIP: I filled the insides of the houses with a plastic grocery bag while spray painting to protect the insides from over spray.

Here’s what they looked like when they were finished. I could have stopped here because they were so pretty; however, I wanted to give them a little something extra.

I wanted my houses to look like they were covered in new sparkling snow. This is accomplished by painting on Mod Podge and then sprinkling white glitter on top of the glue.

TIP: At first I was using both white and silver glitter. But it quickly became obvious that it didn’t work so well. It looked like dirty snow. When adding glitter, it’s best to pick one color and stick with it!

Also, I added liberal amounts of the glue to add dimension to the snow areas.

Here’s my finished house. So cute, so easy and definitely something extra.

Until next time….

When my friend Kris asked if a bunch of us from PoKeeno if we wanted to go to a cookie decorating class I couldn’t say yes fast enough. For many years I’ve tried to do the whole cookie decorating thing. I wanted it to be like a Hallmark movie. Lots of fun, Christmas music in the background, baking with a pretty apron, the kitchen is shiny and clean and in the end we’d have dozens of beautiful cookies. Usually what I got was tired feet, a great big mess and by the time I got the cookies cut out and baked who wanted to decorate them?

So, yes, I needed this class! And to make it even more appealing, the class was held at Lost Oak Winery. Wine and cookies. What could possibly go wrong there? We arrived and this was our set up.
A list of detailed instructions with a recipe for the cookies, how to roll them out and a how to make royal icing.

So what did I learn? A lot! First off,  you want your cookies to be the perfect thickness. Too thick and they don’t get done. Too thin and they will burn. So what’s a girl to do to get perfect cookies?

Buy one of these! This isn’t your mama or grandmas rolling pin for sure. The end rings come off and depending on which one you use, it will ensure that your cookies are the same thickness every time! Yes, please! If you are like me and need help, you can find one of these here.

Also, instead of using the icing bags of old that were stiff, difficult to use and were a super pain to clean up, these disposable bags are the bomb. The are super easy to use, can be used with or without a tip and are super cheap. That’s a win for me!

Also, instead of icing one cookie all at the same time, you do a little decorating on each cookie at a time. This insures that it has dimension and that it doesn’t run all together.

I also learned that drinking wine makes you decorate cookies better!That’s my story…..

Also, decorating cookies is way more fun with friends!

Not only did we have a great time and learn a lot, we also got to take home 5  cookies that we decorated!

The cookies turned out super cute, but best of all, they tasted awesome.
I can’t wait to try out all my new skills on Christmas cookies. Who knows? I may be featured in that Hallmark movie soon.

Until next time….

We have been in our new home now for a little over a week and it’s finally starting to feel like home. Like we’ve actually made some progress here at the  castle.I’ll be honest half way through the week I had my doubts!It’s been super warm until yesterday, when we had a huge cold front blow through. Like 60 mile an hour blow through!So it was only fitting that we light our first fire!

This was the previous owners formal living room.We’ve decided that we don’t really need or want a formal living room, so we are going to make this room a library.We made our office in our last home a library and loved it.I have a feeling we will spend a lot more time in the Library than we would a formal dining room.All of the furniture that you see here will be finding new homes.Downsizing is not for the faint of heart!

In addition to unpacking hundreds, or what feels like hundreds of boxes, I’ve also done my fair share of shopping.We knew that we wanted to replace the oven.The oven was black, but at some point they had to replace the operation panel and replaced it with a white one. Umm… no thank you!What we didn’t anticipate was that the dishwasher and the microwave would need to be replaced immediately too.It’s always something!

I’ve also taken a little bit of time to look at fabric for curtains.Still no winners there.

If you look closely in the upper left hand corner, you will see the wallpaper in the guest bath that came with the house.Not bad, just not my style.

It took me a week to remove the wallpaper in the guest bath, but I’m happy to report that it’s done!Now , it’s time to paint walls, trim and cabinets!I’ll be sharing more on that with you soon.

Remember that I said that down sizing is not for the faint of heart?This is my favorite print.And it’s huge!It was in our former bedroom.Unfortunately, there is not one wall that this will fit on.Not one.Saying good-bye to some of my favorites has been really hard to do!

On a lighter note, I have found a little time to watch some football!Did you see the Dallas Cowboys play the New York Giants the weekend before last?This poor kitty found himself the center of attention when he decided to go out onto the field during the game.Once he appeared, Dallas came from behind for a win.This past week Dallas put him on their roster!Seems he went viral and is their new good luck charm.Turns out, he wasn’t such a great lucky charm after all. Dallas lost.
I promise to be back later in the week with a super cute Christmas craft!Yay!Until next time…

It’s Ten on the 10th! Usually there are ten or more fabulous bloggers sharing their ideas for under $10.00. This month however there less than 10 of us. #life. Our theme this month is Holidays. Which is perfect because it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here at the castle!

Anyone who knows me well or has been reading my blog for awhile, knows that I love colored glass. I’ve been collecting it since I was knee high to a grasshopper! So it will be no surprise to you that snow globes fall into the colored glass/collectible area.

On a recent shopping trip with friends to the Fort Worth Junior League Craft show one item stood out from all of the others. Snow globe lanterns. Some were old time lanterns, some were in the newer stream lined black lantern style. Almost all lit up and blew snow around winter characters in the “globe”. Unfortunately, at $50.00 and up, they were out of my price range.  So I sadly moved on to other purchases.

Remember my recent trip to Walmart for some fun Christmas items? Well, Imagine my surprise when I found some very similar lantern snow globes!

I was in a big hurry, story of my life… so I didn’t pick one up.You guessed it, by the time I got back all of the sleeker lantern styles were gone!

However, they did have this cute red lantern.It lights up, and as the box advertises, it spins the water making the pretty glitter go crazy!

Not only is it pretty, but it’s costs only $9.98!See the pretty plaid tress?Another Walmart find. And guess what? The larger one is a mere $4.78 and the smaller was $3.48! Making both under $10! It really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas here at the castle!Now, I hope that you will join me in checking out my fellow bloggers wonderful ideas!

Pandoras Box

The Apple Street Cottage

Blue Sky At Home

Decorate And More With Tip