Monograming my home

So after my beginning work on the living room, I decided to continue by adding our family initial to the decor. I did this two different ways. The first way was to spice up our existing evergreen wreath from Christmas with a non-holiday look. I changed the wreath from including a red bow and snowy pine cones with berries to a simple green wreath with our initial. Here's a look at the final piece. I'm in love with it!

 I started with a simple wood letter that I bought at Hobby Lobby for about a $1.

 I spray painted it white (making sure to cover the edges and sides) and, once dry, I then used Command hooks to hang it on the wreath.

 I'm completely in love with the way this looks and I'm so glad it was incredibly simple to do.

 Of course, this isn't all I did with our monogram. Prior to painting it, I used it as a stencil and traced it onto some styrofoam board (we had some in our garage from a package that we'd received and it was used as packing foam). My objective was to create a moss covered letter to add something natural looking into the living room.

So, after cutting out the letter of the foam I also traced it to some light brown card stock to use as a backing for the letter. That way, if hanging on a mirror, no one would see the reflection of some bright white foam. I then started to use the hot glue gun to attach the moss to the letter. I used moss (not moss sheets) I had bought from Michaels (using their 40% off coupon of course).

 I made sure to cover the top and sides then I had to go back around the letter to touch up any white spots I could see. I'm pretty meticulous and wanted to ensure it was fully covered so I would say this took me an entire Sunday afternoon to make.

Once finished and the glue was dried I used some clear window suction cups with hooks to hang the letter on my mirror. (sorry about the below photo being so dark- I plan to post a better one)

I'm not quite finished with it yet only because I want to include a ribbon to make it look like the letter is hanging from the mirror on a hook. Once I have that piece complete I'll share an updated photo.

You may be able to see, in the reflection of the photo above, a hint at my next post...a wall of frames. Boy was that a project!

Busy Bee!

Sometimes I wonder how things change from simple to complicated so quickly. I start out with a small project and it leads to something else which leads to something else and before you know it, the small project I planned to do has led to 5 projects that took a week and a half. I think there's some good and bad to those scenarios. It's great because I had fun creating some really cool things but it's not so good because I don't always stop to take a break and breath. So with all this time I've not been posting, I've been busy making things.

Over the next few days, I'll be posting what I've been doing the last month and a half. First, I'll start off with my lamp shade and pillow make-over.

I had bought some barrel lamp shades from Target quite a while ago and just left them as is. Recently I've needed some color in our living room so I added a small change to the lamp which I think looks so cool!

Before:

After:

I took some brown and blue ribbon and attached it with some fabric glue. I really love the little bit of color it adds to the room when the lamp is on or off.

Now on to my pillow makeover. I've had the original pillows for at least 5 years and the wear was beginning to show so I needed to do something to give it a new look. I decided I would give the sweater pillow look a try. I went to Salvation Army and found a nice white sweater for 1.99.

Before:

After:

I turned the sweater wrong-side out and sewed the bottom of the sweater together. I then turned it right-side out and placed the pillow inside to get an idea of the size needed and where to cut. Once I marked where I needed to cut I took the pillow out and added 1/4 inch to my cut markings. From there I began to cut off the extra material not needed. For me my markings told me to cut about 5 inches below the collar and make sure the sleeves were cut as well. I turned the sweater wrong-side out again began to sew the opening together leaving about 7 inches un-sewed. I then turned the sweater right-side out and stuffed the pillow inside the sweater through the 7 inch opening. In order to close up that 7 inch opening I turned the ends in and used a whip stitch. Once that was complete, my pillow was ready for the couch!






Two simple projects that made me feel our living room was evolving! I love it!!

Weekend Projects

What a weekend! Not only did Hubby and I get a date night (movie: J Edger, dinner and Bean's birthday & Christmas shopping) but we also got a lot accomplished in regards to projects.

First of all, I want to ensure I update you on our home projects. A month or two ago we had new house doors installed (front and side; door and storm door). What do you think of our new front door? I love it!

Before

After

As for other home projects, this weekend, Hubby did a final mow of the lawn...which has our lawn looking so nice. And, while the temperature is still tolerable, he also got our Christmas lights up (First time ever and I'm so excited!!). Don't worry, we celebrate Thanksgiving at our house so they won't be turned on until after the fall holiday :)

I happened to get a few projects completed myself! One of those happens to be a holiday gift project. I can't share details with you just yet (Otherwise it won't be a surprise to those people getting the gift) but I will be sure to update you after the Christmas holiday. Another was our 'Jar of Thanks' (mentioned in the previous post) and a decor project for Bean's birthday in December.

 Jar of Thanks

I'm having a Winnie the Pooh birthday party for Bean in December with her parents, uncle, grandparents, and great grandparents all there to help celebrate the big '1'. Bean's birthday decor project is a Winnie the Pooh banner. I found a Winnie the Pooh book at Goodwill and got some ribbon from the fabric store. From there I found the pages I wanted to use and cut them out and used rubber cement to glue it to the ribbon. Yes, I said rubber cement...it still exists. You'll have to wait until December to see the final product and the rest of Bean's birthday celebration.

Have a great week and just remember, it's the last full work week before Thanksgiving so make it a good one!

Yard Work

We've completed the first step of one of our important projects this past weekend... Landscaping! We had 5 evergreen bushes that needed tore out. My husband and father-in-law started to use a pick-ax to dig these out and finally decided to head to the hardware store to find a more efficient option. They found a tow strap and hook that they planned to tie around the bush stump and pull out with the Excursion.

 Here we have three stumps removed and two left.

They dug around the stump so that the tow strap can firmly fit around the base of it. Here's a video of the removal. I think the guys had a lot of fun tearing these things out. Anyone need stumps pulled out ;-)

Part 2 of the project is now buying soil to level the area and possibly getting something planted before winter. We will see how far we get over the next few weeks. Until next time, enjoy your time outside in this fall weather. Before we know it there will be snow on the ground!

Reading in circles

Many of you may know that I enjoy reading (when I have time, of course, which can be few and far between). Regardless of how often I get to read, I think it's a very important part of who I am and therefore I have been looking for a way to show that in our home. You might think 'why doesn't she just display her favorite books in bookshelves?'. Well, if you've seen our home, you know we don't have a lot of room and built in bookshelves weren't a part of this 1980's layout. So I'd been waiting for the perfect project to come along and it did, about 6 months ago.

I found this wonderful blog post by Lindsay at Living With Lindsay. I fell in love with this wreath made from book pages (how perfect, right?) and decided to follow her tutorial to make my own. I think it turned out great! (Now, all I need is a little color on the wall...but that's another project.)

Finishing touches

So at the beginning of the summer, my husband and I decided we had some exterior house projects that we wanted to complete before summer ended and snow began to fall. The main project consisted of painting our house. This large task then lead to many other smaller tasks we wanted to do to the outside of our home. One thing leads to another, as I'm sure you know. These "to do's" consisted of tearing out some evergreen bushes, new house numbers, adding an American flag, and installing new doors. Now, not all of this is complete but we are getting there. The snow hasn't started falling yet, so we still have time.

As we were looking for paint colors I think we tested 4 colors of green/gray and 3 different trim colors. Once the decision was made to go with Connected Gray and Roman Column, we decided to wait until July when Sherwin Williams has their 40% of paint sale. We made sure we bought more than enough paint and only had a few can's tinted the house color and the trim. That way, if we didn't need all the paint we could return the un-tinted cans. If we needed more paint tinted we could bring it in and get the tint we needed with no extra charge (since we'd already bought the paint). We are very happy with the way the color turned out. You know you made a good choice when your neighbors tell you they really like the color. I think it's beautiful!

Thank you to my husband and my father-in-law for all their diligent work on completing the majority of the painting in one weekend.

Before:


Today:

Our house is becoming a home and I love it! Stay tuned and I'll post new photos as we complete our list of exterior "to do's".