yellowsongbird Giveaway!

Kim at yellowsongbird is pretty amazing. I just love her dresses, headbands, and earrings! I wish I had this talent-and the time! Here's a glimpse at what she has.


Right now she is hosting a giveaway. Go here and enter! Check out her blog and etsy shop.

Front Room Reveal...finally!

Okay, Lindsey got me...she finally messaged me about being a MIA in the blog world. It's much easier to just read my subscriptions than to write my own. Plus, with teaching again, the time just slips away.

But I have done things! So here is an update with our front room (should be dinning room but we don't have a dining table). It's probably one of my favorite places in the whole house!

Pretty Stinkin' Excited!

So yesterday I received the best blog news ever! I am featured on The DYI Showoff blog today! SUPER excited!! Evidently, she really liked my $2 furniture re-do. Check it out! Also, you should subscribe to her blog if you like this sort of thing. I love, love, love getting to see what other's are up to!

Here are my latest furniture finds at garage sales. I am obsessed with them, but can't decide what to do with them.



The tall table was $7 and the shorter, rectangle table was $5. I also can't decide where to put them. I'd love to put one in our bedroom, but Ryan's furniture is pretty matchy-matchy and we can't exactly just pawn the bedside table off. Any ideas??

{I think I have just about decided that my iPhone camera is just not a good camera for blog photos.}

Project (Ghost) Lamps

About 3 weeks ago I found this super cute idea on Life in the Fun Lane to make lamps. I immediately fell in love with them! And being my crafty mother's daughter and my fit-it father's daughter, I knew I could do it! Off to Home Depot for light kits, Goodwill for shades, and Hobby Lobby for twine. The iron angles were missing, but we quickly were able to fix that! We had gone to a garage sale about 2 weeks ago and found a cute shabby chic white shelf, new in the box, for only $5! As Ryan was going to put it up, I said, "Oh! I think we could use those iron pieces for our lamps! They were more than $5 at the store!" Of course Ryan loved the idea because that meant he didn't have to put up the shelf! After HOURS, and I mean HOURS of wrapping the cords in twine, we have our lamps, my friends! TA-DA!



I wish we would've put them closer to the corner so that I could tie the cords back to the wall somehow, but oh well. I'm also not sure about them because I think they need to be lower and closer to the table height. It makes me want to put the old sofa table back in this spot. This will have to work for now!

Only $2? I'll take it!

I woke up last Saturday and thought that I'd check out the garage sales in our new neighborhood. I found a treasure! A $2 small shelf that would be a perfect accent piece! It was missing a drawer, but oh well. I knew I could just put a basket in it's place. I immediately came home and got to work. I had never painted a piece of furniture, but I knew what I wanted the end product to look like. WAH-LAH! Two days later, I had our first DIY furniture project completed! I found the basket at our neighborhood thrift store for $1.99 and with a little white spray paint, it does the job well! :)
Before:


After!

Our Garage Sale and Clearance Office

So we had a productive Saturday. I got up at 6:30 and went garage sale-ing and Ryan mowed. I painted a piece of furniture and some picture frames. Later we hung things up on the walls, and I found homes for some of our garage sale pieces! Most went into the office, which is STILL being cleared of wedding gifts. I feel like I will never find a place for things to go. Here's where we ended up putting a few of the garage sale items.



The vinyl rub-on was SO easy to do! Totally recommend it for easy decorating! I was a bit nervous, but Ryan helped out a lot and it turned out really cute! This room will be one of my favorites when it's all done. I can't wait!

Garage Sale Success

Yesterday Ryan and I headed to League City to check out Altar'd's garage sale. It began at 6:00 p.m. and we arrived at 6:21 p.m. We were about 21 minutes too late. Two ladies arrived before us and bought the whole dern garage sale!!!

We were successful in finding a few treasures, though. Check them out!

I don't know where we are going to put it all, but we love all that we purchased! Tomorrow's task is to find a "home" for all of our new stuff. I'll post pictures soon!

HomeGoods, So Good!

In the last 3 days I think I've made 4 trips to HomeGoods. I went with Kali in search of lamps. Thanks to The Nester, they are my latest obsession (if you haven't checked out her blog, she's pretty much amazing and you definitely should. She has our dream home!). So while there, I found 1 lamp that was on clearance for $29. I just couldn't yet make myself pay it because the bottom portion of the lamp wasn't the same color as the lamp shade. The blues were off and it just bothered me. I came home, talked to Ryan about it and of course, being the genius he is, he said, "Just paint it. Didn't you read somewhere how to paint porcelain?" Sha-Zam! He fixed my dilemma. I went back the next morning and bought the lamp. Along with some other goodies!



I continued my day of lamp hunting to downtown to only find another lamp on sale for $22. (I am loving our Visa gift cards we got as wedding gifts!) We aren't fond of the lamp shade, but that's totally replaceable with the help of or trusty Goodwill Store.



Yesterday as I was having lunch with some kiddos from my class last year, I decided that I'd check to see if a HomeGoods was in the area. Wahlah! It was meant to be and off I went. I walked in and there it was. Amongst the awful mess of reconstruction going on in the store was the same lamp I had originally found except in the right color!



I bought it for the low price of $15 and just thought I'd swap the lamp shades around. Of course I came out with more than just a lamp, too!

Here were the lamps before...


Here are the lamps after!

Sweet Mercy

God is good! And that is true always. I woke up this morning and spent time dilly-dallying around and found this video that has just brought me to tears. There is just so much truth proclaimed through her sweet words. Check it out!



I didn't even feel like I was down until later that day when something came up. Praise the Lord for preparing my mind and heart for the battle that was ahead! He reigns and it's wonderful to be reminded that victory is ours through his sweet mercy and grace!

Praise be to Him!!

Enjoy, wonderful friends!

Aches and Crafts

The last two days have been an attempt to redo some decor items we already had and some we have recently purchased for super cheap. The problem has been that both days I've been hit with a tummy ache. The second problem is that no one makes "female finger" spray paint! Seriously! Who, besides a man with big fingers, can hold down the spray paint nozzle for more than 5 seconds and not have a bruised finger?! The fact that my finger still hurts and I didn't even finish the shelf yesterday says 1 of 2 things. 1. I'm a wimp. or 2. The nozzle is just too dern hard!! Let's just pretend it reason #2. My dad said it was just cheap spray paint and was not the brand to use. (note to self, don't buy Wal-Target spray paint anymore.)

So this is the before of the spray painting.


Fabulous, right?! Well, as soon as my finger recovers or Ryan gets home and is willing to just spray paint for me, we'll be on a roll.

I cleaned out almost all of the wedding room today! It looks FAB, if I may say so myself. It's not done, but I did get my desk moved in and you can walk in the room now. I was able to get a vacuum in there (Praise the Lord!). The guest bedroom is now looking better, too. But here's the sad news-as I was unpacking the wine glasses we received I discovered a broken stem. It wasn't just in 2 pieces-no, it couldn't be that easy! I unrolled the bubble wrap they were so neatly packed in and crrrrssshhhhhh! (that's the sound shattering glass makes) GLASS WENT EVERYWHERE!!! It was all over the kitchen counter. Needless to say, Dillard's doesn't do such a great job of packing their items because this isn't the first thing that we've received from them that has been broken. Back to Dillard's is where I will be headed on Friday.

On the cooking side of things I made Mexican Casserole for dinner tonight. According to Ryan, it was delicious! My mouth said it was WAY to spicy! I bought HEB brand enchilada sauce and the can said "medium". I definitely think it was labeled incorrectly! I didn't even finish my helping. Again, I was reminded how much I hate our gas stove/oven. The gas is so hot that it immediately burns whatever you put in the bottom of it before the rest can even cook. The beans for dinner were burnt on the bottom. Which is okay-we just won't get any beans from the bottom of the pot. But it's frustrating because I just want to cook a good meal that isn't frustrating to cook! Hopefully tomorrow will be better...church will be providing dinner. :)

Home, Sweet Home!

We have now been home for a week and I am just now blogging. I hope this isn't what the rest of our blog life will be like! Every day I think, "Oh! We could totally blog about that!" and then I never do. I've determined it's a lot of work. So I'll do a quick update. Here are the things I could've blogged about each day since the honeymoon.

-Tuesday, July 6- How amazing our honeymoon was and all of the silly things we learned about the St. Lucians (I started this blog, but never finished)
-Wednesday, July 7- I should've taken a "before" picture of our wedding room filled with gifts and talked about all of the things I -am graciously and happily donating to goodwill to make room for the new stuff
-Thursday, July 8- We finally got to go back to church for Bible Study. We saw our flower girl and she remembered everything from our special day! It was so sweet! We got to meet a new pastor at our church and hear him teach. It was great. But the best part of the night was that during this BS my wonderful husband decided to be Mr. Participator of the Night. He answered all of the questions and each reply was, "Well stated. Did everyone hear that? I don't think I can repeat it." Finally I turned to Nikki beside me and said, "Who is this guy??" and she quickly replied, "Girl! That's your husband! Be proud!" It was just a cool time that I got to see the Lord glowing through Ryan.
-Friday, July 9- We went on a pub crawl for Derrick's birthday. I kept calling it a "pub hop" to which each time Ryan said, "No, it's not a pub hop. It's a CRAWL!" It was...well, interesting. Let's just say I got in some great people watching. I also got a HAIRCUT!!! WHOOHOOO!!! I went back to my wedding hair girl, Katie and said "Hey, I need you to finish the cut you started on my wedding day." She did and I love it! I but off a good 4 inches but it's so healthy now! I am in love!
-Saturday, July 10- We went and got the last couple of things from my apartment, had a wonderful lunch with kiddos from my class last year, and then we went shopping for FURNITURE!!! We got a wonderful piece and fell in love with many more. www.furniturewithasoul.com Check it out! Loved the pieces. We even came in under our $300 budget. We bought it some of our wedding money and are using the piece to display our fancy dishes. We then went to an Antique store and came out with an old screen door, a stained glass window, a jar, a pot holder, and two old table legs. And just wait!! They are going to make great treasures!! I'll post pictures after they are all brought back to life.
-Sunday, July 11- The DUMB oven burns everything on the bottom and leaves things uncooked inside! Dave came over and watched the World Cup with Ryan. I used my red KitchedAid mixer (yay!!!) and made cookies. The oven ruined them. Burned (or is it burnt??) on the bottom, gooey inside. BLEH! We also got rid of a couch and recliner. Now we have room for the new furniture! Yay!

That brings us to today. The house is feeling more and more like a home everyday. Praise the Lord!! I made a trip to Dillard's and Bed Bath and Beyond today. Thankfully the lines were not long at all. The time to go is mid-morning I've learned. The same applies to Target-mid-morning is the time to go, my friends! I also went to Goodwill to buy two lampshades. I found an awesome idea for them. I do need Ryan's help though. My goal is to have those done by Friday. I'll definitely post pictures.

This was definitely a long post. Holy cow! I think I should also get mad points for doing this while watching The Bachelorette.(Go Chris!) And I must also say that Ryan just said, "If I was on The Bachelor they'd have the whole town of Grandview gather at the community center." HA HA HA HA HA!!! Hilarious! And probably so true! I love it!

Finally!

About 3 years ago over Christmas break during senior year of college I decided that I wanted to blog. My boyfriend at the time, who is now my fiance, said "you would be a blogger". Well, as it turns out, he was wrong! Okay, maybe a little right. ;) While I definitely had the desire to blog, I could never figure out how to make it cute. Why would I blog if it wasn't even going to look cute? It was just too much for me! The wonderful Lindsey sent me the link to her blog and I thought, okay, if Linds can figure it out, I can too! So for the last 3 hours I have been trying to figure out how to make it all fit together, layer it, and make it work. Not too easy, at times frustrating, but definitely worth it!

My heart for this blog is to be transparent and just share life with friends and family. In T-13 days (12 according to the clock now) I will marry my best friend! We are not even close to perfect so I'm sure you will learn from us and laugh at us. We are pretty okay with that. :) If we bring you joy, then that is just awesome!