We've Moved!

We've recently moved to a small home on a farm and will be journaling our exciting new adventures in raising chickens, goats, and gardening at our new blog Flutterbee Farm.  I hope you'll pop over and  visit!

Bathroom Makeover!

One of the first rooms to be completed at our new house!  The bathroom!  I had no idea what direction I wanted to go in for this one until I was at Walmart and found a pretty awesome shower curtain.  Then it all fell in to place after that.

Next I paired up the shower curtain with a rug that had some spunk and decided on a proven paint color, Comfort Gray by Sherwin Williams.  I didn't want to be another person to jump on the "Gray" bandwagon but it went really well with this shower curtain and the more I look at it all together, the more I love it.  It appeared to be more blue then I expected at first, after all,  I was under the impression the color had green undertones.  Once it dried it had a mix of everything depending on what time of day you looked at it...gray, green, blue.  Very soothing color, now I get what all the hype was about.  :)

Here's the BEFORE picture of the bathroom:

And the AFTER:

One room down, 5 more to go! :)

Our New Home

Over the last year my husband and I have begun to learn more about ourselves, as individuals and as a couple. What we've learned is that we struggle to conform with the society we live in. It's a wonderful, family-friendly town but there seems to be a lot of importance placed on material goods such as name brand clothing and purses, tube tops and wine drinking, and houses. People move up, they go bigger and newer. And honestly, we've grown tired of trying to keep up with the Jones'.

In a years time, we decided to send the children to a private school, at first it was going to be tight. I got a part time job in marketing and the salary matched the tuition almost to the penny, that along with the flexibility this job afforded made it obvious it was God's way of looking out for us. Since then, my husband has gotten a raise and promotion so we were back to being fairly comfortable. We could have "moved up" but I didn't like the feeling that came with it. So we decided to downsize, with the intent of finding a place with a little more land and privacy so we could grow closer to God through nature. I don't feel like I "owe" God for what He's done for us in the last year but rather, I want  to show my appreciation and acknowledge that without Him, I am nothing. No material goods on this earth is worth having over Him. So we've decided to downsize, clear out a great deal of our possessions and live more simply.

By downsize, I mean we've gone from 1700 sq ft house with a basement and attached garage to 960 sq ft on a crawl with a detached garage. But it's a beautiful oasis on 3 private acres, almost like a vacation home up north. The best part is that it's all fenced, the entire 3 acres so the kids and dogs are free to roam.  We got day old chicks before we completed the move so the very first thing on our list is to build a coop!  There will be many projects  to post about in the very near future including paint our exterior, brush hogging, gardening, building furniture, etc. Yes! A complete lifestyle change that we're so thrilled about. This will be an amazing experience for the kiddos as well as myself.   Good bye suburb and hello backwoods home!

 

The Best Teacher Gift Ever! The Blessing Candle

This is kind of a chaotic time, so much so that I should be anywhere but here typing this evening.  But I'm taking a moment to get this post in before it falls through the cracks, since it's a pretty good one that I really wanted to share with everyone.

So it's the end of the school year and time to recognize our teachers for their hard work and dedication.  I'm the room mother for my oldest daughters class and I wanted to organize something that would be very memorable for the teacher.  Of course the whole school is accepting donations to be split among the staff but I wanted the teacher to feel how much we appreciated her.  I stewed on ideas for days and finally decided to pull the trigger on one, hoping I could pull it off.  I couldn't find anything about it on the internet to know if it would work or if anyone else had already tried it, which made it a very risky venture.

My idea was the Blessing Candle.  Similar to the 'jewelry in a candle' concept, only the candle would contain little blessings, bible verses, memories, and notes of gratitude instead.  I did a beta test to see how a note would hold up in the melted wax of a candle and it failed miserably.  I had to tweak the concept so I put the note in a small ziplock-like baggie and THEN wrapped it in heavy duty foil.  It survived the melted wax.  So I headed to the store to pick up my actual supplies to get started on making the candle.

I sent an email out to the parents and requested that their child (parents were welcomed to participate as well) write a small note for the teacher on a piece of paper no larger than the size of a business card.  Once the "blessings" were all in, I set an afternoon aside to work solely on the candle creation.  It does take a significant amount of time, but the end result is a beautiful keepsake that will make a memorable impression.

Supplies:

• Strong (thick) candle container or glass container of your choice
• Wax
• Scented oil (or not)
• Wick
• Pot
• Metal bowl
• Tape
• Foil
• Small zip baggies

To start, make sure each blessing is folded up very small and insert in to baggie.  Then fold the baggie and wrap snuggly in foil.

Step 1:

Bring water to an almost boil and insert metal bowl containing a block of wax.  Wait for the wax to melt down.  While you're waiting, place your wick in the center of the candle container and tape the top to a pencil, knife, or popsicle stick and rest on top of the candle container to keep the wick from moving about.

Step 2:

Once the wax is melted down, add a few drops of scented oil.

Step 3: 

Pour the wax into the candle container and wait for the wax to begin to set (this is the time consuming part, to help speed it along, I placed the candle container inside a bowl of cold water). 

Step 4:

Once the wax has begun to turn from translucent to opaque you can begin to add a few wrapped blessings, or notes. 

Step 5:

REPEAT until you reach the top of the candle container.

Then decorate container as you wish.  I made sure to include little poem and an organza pouch with tweezers inside so the teacher could retrieve the blessings without burning her fingers in the wax.  She can also keep the notes in the organza bag as a keepsake after the candle has revealed all of it's "blessings".  

I did find that if you tried to add the next layer of wax too quickly, it would re-melt the previous layer, letting loose the blessings to float about.  Not too big of a deal, I would just have to watch for it to set up again and shove them back down into place.

The students have since presented the candle to the teacher and she went home and burned it immediately and said it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever gotten (score!).  It was her idea to keep the notes in the organza bag afterwards too.  :)

So a risk turned out to be a success!  What a way to end the school year!

Opie, he makes me smile...

American Girl outfit giveaway...

Oh how I'm hoping I win!!  Check out this awesome giveaway....

Front Door Update

I saw this photo online of an awesome pink door with a vinyl address decal on it and fell in love.  I took my chances and painted my front door pink and found a shop on Etsy called Leen the graphics Queen that makes the vinyl decals.

So here's my pink door...

Sorry, not the greatest photo...cute dog though, right? :)

The pink lasted a few weeks but when I pulled out my Fall wreath it TOTALLY clashed.  How do you create a Fall wreath and incorporate PINK?  So, I repainted (not a very exciting color but it's neutral and it's what I had left over in the garage) then added my address decal.

Here she is now...

I love the decal, it adds a touch of class that makes my door stand out from the rest in the neighborhood.  Thanks Leen!

Linking up to:

Romantic Home

Forever in our Hearts....

June 2002-August 27, 2013

We love you Daisy, you'll never be forgotten.

Spray Painted Outdoor Lights

Our outdoor lights are a sad sight and it wasn't doing much for the curb appeal of our home.  I ended up spray painting them to give them new life.

       
                                                                          Before:

After:

I learned a quick lesson on taping off the glass, just use painters tape...you'll see my examples below on taping.

  **Start taping from the bottom of the pane and work your way up.  That way, when you use your box cutter to trim the excess off the sides the tape won't catch and peel backward.  Nice and neat.

If you look in the first picture, you'll see the middle strip of tape in the top corner was caught and started to peel back.  Notice the bottom piece of tape wasn't affected because the middle layer of tape was over it.  'Going with the grain' I guess you could call it.  It was after this picture that I learned the lesson.  :)

Spray Painted Poster Board

It works!  I was worried about ruining my poster board sunburst mirror but I took the chance and it worked!

I used Krylon Dual (Paint + Primer) in Gold.  It really warmed up the room.  I thought for sure the spray paint would just drip and make a mess but I lightly sprayed and waited a few minutes between coats, which I probably put on 3-4, and it worked out great.

Here she is, before.....

After.....

Opie the Photobomber...

Chicago!

We sold our camper earlier this year in order to go on larger trips and expand our traveling territory.  Our first stop, Chicago.

I lived there for a short period of time, right after I graduated from United Airlines flight attendant training in 1997.  I forgot how much I missed it, what a fun trip for us, the girls had a blast.

Our itinerary...

Day 1:

- Took the "L" to the Skydeck at Willis Tower
- Rainforest Cafe for lunch
- Jay Pritzker Pavilion to see and hear the free orchestra music
- The Cloud Gate (aka the Bean)
- The Crown Fountain, the kids played in the water (it's okay, it's allowed)
- Buckingham Fountain, it has hourly light and water shows

Day 2:

- Shedd's Aquarium
- Lou Malnati's Pizzeria
- Navy Pier (caught the Cirque Shanghai show)

Day 3:

- Kiddos wanted to go back to the Crown Fountain and play
- Drove home

If I were to offer tips for those of you who may be planning a trip there, buy tickets ahead of time.  Also, those who bought the Fast Pass, they cruised to the head of the line each time.

Try to eat a little earlier, say 4:30-5pm, just before the crowds.  And for Navy Pier, it was a mad house, maybe because it was Saturday night and there were fireworks but next time I'd shoot for a weekday.

Also, the Bean and the Crown fountain are very close, next time (I was prepared the second day) I'd have the kids wear their bathing suit and there's a public restroom on the level just below the Bean where they can change into dry clothes.

Shedd's Aquarium has an awesome Stingray touch exhibit, I highly recommend it.  The 4-D movie, on the other hand, didn't compare to the Bug's Life 4-D at Disney.  So if that's what you'd expect you may be disappointed.

The cheapest mode of transportation would be the bus.  We were too intimidated to try it though and ended up paying a fortune for taxi's.

We stayed at the Grant Park Best Western on S. Michigan.  It was the cheapest around with a parking structure and it was one of the few that had a pool (on a roof, which the kids thought was cool).

Jell-O Worm FAIL

This summer, I've tried to do at least one project a day with my girls.  Today we tried the Jell-O Worms.  What a disappointment.  I saw this pin on Pinterest, looks easy peasy right?

Not so much.  Here's how it really turns out:

Could it be because I used generic Jell-O?  Were the straws not big enough?  Not sure.

I'm going to be Featured!!

I just got an email from Beckie over at Knock Off Decor saying that my knock off Pottery Barn Seagrass Headboard is going to be featured on July 21st at 8pm!!

Hop on over there to check it out and show Beckie some love by browsing her site, a pretty awesome one I might add!

Reupholstered Dining Chair

The kitchen table I used to have was too large and the chairs kept banging against the counters and half wall in the kitchen.  About 2 weeks ago, I found a smaller dining set that fit much better, only problem was that it had microfiber seat cushions.

Believe you me, I've scoured Pinterest and Googled every possible way to clean microfiber and yet nothing truly works.  One dear girl gives her dining chairs a spritz of Windex and scrubs down each one  before bed each night.  That's just not going to work here.

So I came across this fabric at JoAnn's that I fell in love with for kitchen curtains, right next to it was a coordinating chevron fabric.  I just had to get them both.

Here's my nasty, 2 week old, stained microfiber seat cushion (and admittedly, I did try the Windex)....

Coordinating fabric (upper half will soon be the kitchen curtains):

Linking up to:

 

Lamp Make Over

I had a set of lamps in the house that desperately needed updating and I wasn't about to spend $30 or more per lamp to buy new.  So at my local hardware store I found these drum shades for $12 a piece.  They just needed a little something so I went to town with some paint and walahhh! my new shades.  :)

1.  Measure to the middle of the shade and made pencil dots all the way around as a guideline for tape.

2. Eyeballing it, I placed my tape about 1/4 inch below the pencil markings.

3.  I place another round of tape about 1/4 inch above the pencil markings

4.  Then the gold metallic paint by Martha Stewart (found at Lowe's) was busted out.

5.  Next I painted with a paint brush all the way around within my tape lines.

6. Remove the tape and let thoroughly dry.

7. Once it was dry I prepared for the smaller lines by taping OVER the line I had just painted.

8.  I placed another round of tape above and below the middle guideline (once again, eyeballing it).

9. Paint

10. Remove tape and wahlahhh!

PS  I had previously painted the base as well, it's now the metallic gold, the same paint used on the shade.  

Linking up to these lovelies....

DIY Show Off

Funky Junk Interiors