bonus room

Slowly but surely I am starting to get some decorating done around the new house. Our bonus room has become the hodge podge room where we put all of the unwanted furniture, but I have been able to do a little decorating in there and really think that will be my vintage funky junk room.

I love my old dynamite boxes that I picked up this summer.

And my husband put these suitcases in the Goodwill pile. I had to pull them out, I just couldn't see them go yet!

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silhouette house numbers

For Christmas my in-laws gave me a Silhouette machine. Awesome, right?! With the move, and the puppy and well, life, I haven't had time to play with it until this weekend. My first project, vinyl house numbers for the front door.

Aren't they awesome?! LOVE IT! Pretty sure you will be seeing a lot more silhouette projects from me soon.

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hand stamped initial necklace

I know I'm a little late in the game joining the bandwagon of hand stamped jewelry, but I got a little busy. I bought the stamp set nearly a year ago at Harbor Freight and tried it out on a washer with no luck. So it sat until I found something better to stamp.

I think I found something better. I was at Artco (my favorite local craft store) this week and picked up some circle and diamond shapes for $3.99. They were dying to be stamped! I gathered my materials (stamp set, hammer and do you see that nice little steel rectangle? That's something my husband made me so I could pound in eyelets. I think it works for this too!) I took my letters (the initials of my kids) and hammered each one about 20 times.

Then I got out the next set of materials. Nail polish remover, a cotton ball or paper towel, and a sharpie.

Sharpie over the stamp that you make, then wipe off with the nail polish remover cloth.

It should leave you with something like this.

I love it!

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Valentine's for the kids

So I was reading through my blog reader this morning and came upon this super fun idea from I Am Momma . I shared it with my two valentine giving kids (the middle schooler is SO past that!) and they totally loved the idea too.

Before they left for school I took some pictures of them. I managed to follow the tutorial and made some up while the kids were at school. Aren't they fun?

Now to figure out how to make them into bag toppers and we are all set!

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Candy Cane heart suckers

I just love this idea from The Idea Room . Such adorable candy cane heart suckers with a full tutorial AND a crazy exciting feature in Family Fun magazine. How awesome would that be?!

I attempted to make these heart suckers last year with some larger candy canes and it didn't work as well as I had wanted (see my results here ). So this year, I got some smaller candy canes after Christmas and have come to the conclusion that candy making isn't for me.
Most of my candy canes ended up looking like this. Broken hearts in a ziploc bag (I'm feeling the future title of a country song, aren't you?). Bummer...
But I did manage to make a few that stayed together. Pretty sure I am going to leave the candy making to the professionals!

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Dream, Imagine

I finally feel like I did something crafty. I know, right! It's been what feels like months! I guess I can't take all the credit. I bought a sheet of vinyl images at TJ Maxx for $9.99 and thought they would look perfect in my daughters room. They came as little individual stickers so I did have to do some creative work at getting them on the wall.

She's got a pretty cool two story room with an extra window at the top. It makes for some cool architectural lines in her room.

My husband also put in some shelving in the kids closet. The only thing that was in there to start with is the wire rack/rod at the top. Worthless if you ask me. The shelves make so much more sense in a kids room. It gives us such good usable storage in there now and it's easy for my kids to keep their rooms clean.

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Where I am

We took advantage of the long weekend and headed out of town. Can you guess where we went?

It has trolley's (or are they called cable cars?)

Yummy fresh sourdough bread (no one can stop eating for long enough to smile!)

and so much rolling fog that it covers up any evidence of it's world famous bridge.

It even has a prison known as "the rock". Any guesses? Yep, we went to San Francisco. We were so thankful to get the time to not only celebrate my husband's grandmother's 90th birthday, but to also tour the city a bit. It's a beautiful city and we hope to have more time to spend there sometime.

In the meantime, back at the ranch, we are still chugging along in the selling of our home. Did I mention that we sold our home on the first day to the first people who walked through the door ABOVE our asking price??? We were thrilled. We continue to walk through the process of paperwork, and hope to sign the closing papers at the beginning of next month. But really, with a view of Mt. Rainier like this, who wouldn't want to buy it?!

We will miss our first home tremendously, but after a decade there (the longest I have ever lived anywhere before!), it was time to move on. My husband and I both felt like we would be more emotional about leaving our first home behind but we haven't been. How did you feel packing up your first home?

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ps I love you

I don't know if I love this so much because it's so simple, or because I have elementary school aged kids, or because I found an old box of love letters that my husband and I sent to each other years ago when we were dating, but I think it's pretty darn adorable. Head on over to Flamingo Toes for the tutorial.

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boxes and organizing

So while I thought all of the boxes were unpacked and taken care of, I walked in one evening and found this lovely stack in the corner of my living room. My husband was organizing the garage and now that all of the Christmas stuff is put away, it was time to really decorate the house. These are the boxes specifically full of decor type items. Yikes!

I was really feeling quite organized as we moved into this new house. I even have drawers in the kitchen that look like this.

I've done the best I can with organizing the drawers and the closets.

So I guess it's time to start tackling some decorating in the house. Not sure why it intimidates me so much.

Not quite sure how I feel about this mantle, but I had some pictures I know I want hung in the den, and there were hooks on the walls already, so I made do...for right now.

What do you think?

And for the good news. We finally listed our old house and it sold in the first day, to the very first buyer that walked in the door for more than the asking price! We feel like that is a definite answer to prayer.

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paper rose wreath

I've finally packed away all of the Christmas decorations and it seems like it's time to start rolling out the Valentine's decor. I saw this paper rose wreath today and thought it was amazing.

Could you even imagine the time that went into this? I think it's beautiful and would make such a gorgeous wreath to celebrate Valentine's day. Head over to I'm a Yarner and check it out.

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A New Year, a new home and a new puppy

Happy New Year! We had so many changes at the end of 2010, we are excited to jump into a new year in a new community.

As if moving in the middle of December wasn't enough stress, we decided to make good on a three year promise to the kids and get a dog when we moved. This sweet little 12 week old ball of Golden Retriever fur joined our family last week.

We named her Sophie and are enjoying the fun puppy energy she brings to our home. We aren't enjoying the small messes and middle of the night wakings as much, but she's a sweet little addition to our family of five.

Moving also meant some new furniture for the new home. Thankfully, Craigslist and a housewarming gift from my parents helped us out and we were able to buy some wonderful new things for the house.

At our old house, we didn't have a couch that would hold our whole family of five. I really wanted a sectional that would allow our whole family a cozy spot to sit in front of the fire, or during family movie nights.

Our old dining room table didn't fit my style anymore and I was thankful to have this set when we entertained guests after Christmas. Now to figure out what to put on the wall. It's looking awfully bare!

And speaking of walls, this niche needed something. I bought this art before we moved in, but hung it up in this spot trying to decide if I liked it. The house has such a large scale that I really thought it wasn't big enough to fill the spot, but it grew on me. Especially, since the colors worked so well. So, despite the fact that it isn't quite large enough, it works to fill the empty space.

We also got a new desk when we moved. My husband was very specific in what he wanted and I knew I wanted something white. So we had to make a few compromises, but I like what we came up with. It needs some new organizational things (heck, the whole house does!), but for now, it works.

And one of my favorite new additions at the new house has been this fancy new washer/dryer. It came nearly 2 weeks after the promised delivery date, but they were kind enough to upgrade us, so I tried hard not to complain too much! The thing I like best about it, is that since it's electronic and shiny my 12 year old son is totally digging it and will willingly do laundry on his own! Can't beat that!

We also picked up this new kitchen table (with bench seating on the back) to accommodate our family on a daily basis. It's seen many lego builds, play doh making and dinner times already and we look forward to many more wonderful memories around the table.

So as we slowly settle in, I invite you to continue to join me as we make this new house our home. Happy New Year to you and yours!

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