Paigey's Autumn Bridal Shower

As you might know, I like to get the most out of our projects. So, when it came to throwing a fall bridal shower for the lovely Paige, I knew I wanted to use the sunflower mason jar decorations again. They have been repurposed for multiple weddings, showers, parties, etc. We were able to combine our decorations with some from someone's fall wedding from last year and put together a pretty awesome shower. And of course Pinterest provided plenty of inspiration.

 The bride-to-be's mother shared a lovely devotional about marriage that brought both laughter and tears to the guests.

 

 One thing that we have gotten in the habit of doing is having a photobooth set up. Not necessarily the goofy kind (but we love those too). But it makes for a great way to capture the bride with each of her family or friend groups and always provides a lovely reminder of all the wonderful ladies that support and love her. I have known Paige since she was just a little girl. It has been a blessing to see her grow into a beautiful woman of God.

 

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Pink Taffy Designs Giveaway

 I love to decorate my kids rooms.  There are so many fun and playful things you can do in a kids room that might not work in other rooms of the home.  One thing that I love to do is have a statement piece spelling out the child's name (or their initials).  I have done this for each of my kids in various ways.

One great way to do this is with wall letters.  Not everyone is a DIYer so its great that there are baby boutique sites that offer the cutest things to help you decorate your baby or kids rooms. Posh Baby Blog is having a giveaway- the winner gets a set of their hand crafted wall letters!  You can enter via the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Staging

We recently put our house on the market. And when I say recently I really mean it. Its been a week now. We were both blessed and cursed by having a call the day after we listed it for a showing. Ah! We had not yet checked off all the things on our To Do List. Well we had a mad dash cleaning spree for a day and with the help of my mom and sis and friend (yes, it took that many people to get our house show ready) we had decluttered nearly our whole home. My parents were gracious enough to allow us to store some stuff in their barn during the staging/selling process.
While I do not really have "before" pictures, let me just say that my house does not normally look like this. We have three kids... two special needs... we normally have toys in every room, laundry baskets here and there, folded and unfolded laundry frequently takes over the master bedroom. You get the idea.
I have watched a lot of HGTV while nursing in the last year and I think I was finally able to put all that information that I've absorbed to good use! I can't remember which show it was on but I remember one of the hosts say that there are Three D's of Staging: Declutter, Depersonalize and Disassociate.
Basically, we went through the house and packed up anything that we thought we would not need for a few months (really hope we've sold by the time we need our winter clothes again!).
So, we reorganized our closets, rearranged furniture, depersonalized by taking down some (but not all) of our family photos, did whatever we could to make the rooms look as big as possible (which included getting rid of a few bookcases and other misc pieces of furniture that were just adding to the clutter). We even "staged" the deck to look its best too. Here are a few links that I found helpful:

HGTV's Ultimate Staging Checklist

Staging Checklist

Another version of the Three D's of Staging


While we have not yet sold our house... I do feel much more prepared for showings and I definitely think that the work we have done (and will continue to do) will pay off in the long run. So hopefully soon I will be able to say for certain that staging worked for us!

Feel free to share your "Works for Me Wednesday" post at We are THAT Family!!

Girly Room!

My baby girl is seven months old! Ah! I guess its about time I posted pix of her bedroom makeover! ;-)
This is the only "before" picture I could find of Christine's room. It had been a music room for Isaac awhile ago - you can kind of see the guitar hooks on the wall. But gradually it just became the catch-all room. We were barely able to walk through the room a few months ago - that is how much stuff had accumulated. Just miscellaneous knick-knacks and pieces of furniture that no longer had a "home" found their way into this room. Finally enough was enough and we tackled it!


It was not a quick project. We gradually got rid of the unneeded items and the "keepers" found their way into better places (closets, the garage...). Then came the painting and trimming.
Finally we completed the transformation of the old music room (turned catch all room) into a adorable girly bedroom for my sweet Christine.

List of craftiness in the room: I painted a rug that we already had to match the colors in the room. I made the bunting valances using the tutorial found HERE - though I skipped the interfacing and used bias tape instead of ribbon.
My friend Lehi sent me a link on facebook for these flowers. As cute as they were I had to find somewhere to use them, so I incorporated the same fabric from the valances and made one to embellish the "C" hanging between the windows.
List of deals in the room: The bedding was bought from a friend for $20 (she had gotten it on craigslist and ended up not using it after all). A few of the accessories I already had, the rest I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby, JoAnn's and even Good Will. The loveseat was free from friends at church. The rocker was Isaac's parents when he was a baby.



Linking up to ThriftyDecorChick's Show Us Your Kids' Room!

Bedroom Re-do: DURING

Here we are in the process of painting our master bedroom. My mom and Isaac & I all worked on the painting.
Then my mom and I tackled the headboard together (as you can see by the picture it was mostly her). It was originally just a rectangle that we stapled some fabric over. But I found a pix of an upholstered headboard online that I liked and mom cut our board to mimic the shape. Then we added extra padding and a new fabric in an elegant b&w damask.
We found a coordinating striped fabric to make a bedskirt and matching pillows. We kind of dragged our feet getting the project started but once we got the planning and main decisions made (my mom and I feed off of each other's indecisiveness) it moved fairly quickly.

We couldn't have done this project without my mom's help. She has put in alot of hours over the last few weeks helping us with the painting and sewing. She has been great!! Check back tomorrow for our "after" pictures!!

Our Bedroom DIY Re-Do: BEFORE

Our master bedroom has never been anything fancy. In fact it has the same white walls that we moved into over six years ago, hand-me down furniture and barely there decorations. This project has been on my dream to-do-list for awhile now and we just have not gotten around to it til now. I thought this would be the perfect time since we are planning a homebirth and it would be beneficial to have a calming oasis of a bedroom to help me to relax during the labor.

I am a dork and watch decorating shows sometimes and they get my creative juices flowing. Using this piece of artwork (pictured below) as inspiration, my mom and I worked together to pick colors and get ideas for what I wanted to transform this room into. I tried to include Isaac in the planning process but like a typical guy he did not have a tremendous amount of preferences concerning decorating. I would like to think that I did a pretty good job of keeping his taste in mind, I tried to stay away from anything too froo-froo, kept it pretty low cost, I did not buy the wicker chairs that I liked and he did not... That is pretty good, right? ;-)
I have been able to find a few good buys while shopping for things for this room re-do. I knew I wanted a chair or pair of chairs and had been checking craigslist faithfully for weeks with no luck. In the end I ended up finding a great cream wingback chair and ottoman at GoodWill for $35!!
When shopping for accessories I found a few things at Hobby Lobby at 50-80% off and I used a giftcard from Christmas! Have I mentioned how much I love finding good deals? ;-)

Stay tuned - I will be posting "after" pix soon!