How Did You Spend Your Thanksgiving?

This month I have been making an effort to really pay attention to all the things I am blessed with in my life (I even have a daily list going on my Facebook Page) and Thanksgiving Day yesterday didn't disappoint.  Start to finish, it was a great day.

 Sam did all of our share of the cooking (we had invited friends over and divided the food pretty evenly), leaving me free to work on last minute cleaning and setting up the Party Room.  Tyler vanished to the playroom for most of the day, but Kaitlyn was in this awesome helpful mood and not only did she happily help with the rolls but she cheerfully did a lot of things that on other days she would have complained about.

 She was also being a little spunky and funny.  I had to laugh at one point in the morning when I had pulled out a handful of vases and left them on the counter while I decided what I wanted to do for centerpieces.  She of course wanted to know what they were for and when I told her I was figuring it out her comment was "why do ladies always have to impress people?" lol

 I don't think I hit the "impressive" mark but the staging for a party is always fun.  I didn't do a lot of preplanning for this one and almost everything is something I already had, but I did add some fun little touches.

 The Grown Ups' Table

 I thought these printable tags were a fun touch.  (Found them here) 

 And the Kids' Table

 with their own fun tags.  The husband says he is impressed with my ability to find silly kids jokes for holidays (I always print some for lunchboxes). lol

 

 And this year (thanks to Pinterest) I decided to start a new tradition - have everyone write something they are thankful for on the table runners.  Then we can look back on it every year and add to it.

 I was surprised that even the guys quickly got to work when I brought out the fabric markers and did some fun and creative additions.

 Kinda wishing I had started this 10 years ago so I'd have my own babies' handprints right there along with little Miles. 

All in all it was a great meal (and evening) with great company.

Good Enough

Paper clutter.  Right now it's driving me batty.  You should see the state of my craft table.  No, scratch that.  If you see the state of my craft table you will realize exactly how unorganized and crazy my life is right now.  And I don't have the time or energy to clean it all up the "right way" so there it all sits.  And gets worse.

I had a little "a-ha" moment the other day.  I had pulled out my recipe binder to search for something and as I was paging through the giant stack of recipes we had shoved in there since I set up the binder

(You can find my original blog post about organizing my recipe binder here) for the THIRD time without finding what I was looking for...well, I realized something.  I may not have the time to sit down and type up, format, print, then stick in page protectors all the recipes I want to add to the binder.  But that doesn't mean that they can't join their friends in their categories and make themselves a little easier to find, right?  So right then and there I spread out all the random paper on the counter, sorted it into piles (including some meant for the garbage can - a key to all organization projects, true?), punched holes in one side, and stuck them in the binder.  Took me all of 5 minutes.

It's not perfect and it's not completely finished.  But sometimes good enough is, well...Good Enough! ;)  Now, where else can I apply this new concept???

New Furniture!

 This one has been a long time in the works.  We've been in search of a piece of furniture to house the cable box and DVD player since we moved in three years ago.  We finally spotted one we thought would work, with shutters to cover up the ugly electronic components, but of course it was too expensive so we made plans to build one.  I ran across the shutters and legs at a Habitat for Humanity resale store in March.  Then last month I said that's it, we're building this thing for my birthday!  So, one month late and I did the finish work myself but Happy Birthday to me! ;)

 One set of shutters hides the cable box.  The thought was that the remote would be able to shoot through the gaps when they are open, which is does.  But because the components are on the side in the corner the remote still gets some interference from the couch sometimes so we've been opening the door when we want to watch TV.

I know - the colors look all different.  That's because none of them looks right in photos.  In person it's a much deeper, richer teal color which I love right now.  I'm also really happy with how the antiquing turned out.  According to my Pinterest research I was supposed to use "antiquing glaze" but the stores here had no clue what I was talking about it.  So I did the spray paint, distress the edges with sandpaper, then stain over the top of everything method.

 You know what's coming next, right?  ACCESSORIES!

Giving Thanks

 

Here we are in November - the month for Giving Thanks.  Typically it's the few weeks sandwiched in between Halloween and the Christmas holidays where we try to have a little normalcy or start prepping for the whirlwind of December.  This year I am trying to not let myself get carried away with What's Happening Next, but instead spend a little time focusing on what's happening now.  The change of seasons, the breezy weather, fall leaves, gorgeous blue skies.  In trying to be more mindful of the premise behind Thanksgiving and recognizing all the things there are to be grateful for, I am posting at least one Thankful item (on my Facebook page) every day. 

I was also pretty quick to give the home décor a little update.  This weekend I took the time to switch out all the Halloween stuff for things that are more Fall or Thanksgiving themed.  The front porch was pretty easy.

Down came the witch wreaths and swags and up went the fall wreath I made last year.

 The mailbox got it's own matching swag.

I had planned ahead and put the Thankful Grateful Blessed wording on the back of the witch sign.  I love the way this one turned out, especially the stain technique.  (I'll do a quick, more in depth post on the sign in a few because I'm just that happy with it ;)  ).

And of course the pallet pumpkins got to stay.

 Inside I did a quick switcheroo on the mantel.  The bead board banner got flipped from Trick or Treat to Give Thanks.  And down came the witch hats in favor of a few pumpkins (including one of my 2x4 wooden pumpkins).  It's still a little bare looking, but it will do for now.

And the witch hat centerpiece was replaced with another pumpkin that I pulled from the ledge in the stairwell (where the footprint ghosts still reside lol - they work for Thanksgiving, right? lol). 
It all took a surprisingly short amount of time to pull together - yay!  Another reminder that the small things can make big statements.  Which brings me full circle back to being thankful, mindful and recognizing all the small things in our lives that make us happy.  Like the pretty sunrise I just spotted outside my window.  I think I'll take a minute to enjoy that before rushing to grab a shower and pack the kids' lunches.
Happy November!

Pallet Pumpkins

Happy Fall!  These great pallet pumpkins are one of my favorite fall decorations for the front porch.
As the blog has switched to a new domain, I have moved this post over there as well.  Additional photos and details (and even a quick tutorial!) can now be found HERE.
Thanks for stopping by!

Craft Fail - Almost!

It should have been an easy project.  Kaitlyn wanted a bulletin board for her room.  No big deal right?  Buy an inexpensive bulletin board, slap some spray paint on it and viola!
Hahahahaha!  Nope!
I bought the bulletin board months ago, then finally pulled it out to cutesy it up (after many promptings from Miss Kate) one day when I was in Get It Done mode.  My first idea had been to spray a chevron pattern on it.  Yeah right!  Do you know how long it takes to try to tape out a chevron pattern?  And how particular you have to be with it to get it to look clean?  Yeah that idea survived all of 5 minutes with the 'ole painters tape before I decided to give up and go with stripes instead.

So then I sprayed it.  Easy enough.  And from far away it doesn't look bad.  But you know what happens when you buy a cheap bulletin board?

 The spray paint doesn't like to stick to cheap plastic frames and chips before it even makes it in the house.

And the thin cork sticks to the tape when you pull it off and causes holes.  Even when you are super careful and use the blow dryer.
So the poor bulletin board sat there for more weeks, with the tape half-removed because I didn't even want to think about it.  But there was my 9 year old who had been patiently waiting for the craft project I had promised her.  So the last time I took a trip to Hobby Lobby (and was in the fabric section anyway for supplies for a Halloween costume) I found some cute fabric - in the chevron pattern I had wanted originally.  Yay!  And the very next day (or maybe the one afterward) I pulled out the staple gun and attached the fabric.

Woohoo!  Much better right?!  And it took me all of 5 minutes.  Why didn't I do that in the first place?!!!

 Oh and adding the "nail heads" was a suggestion from a friend.  I wanted to give it a bit more detail than just fabric stretched over the board and I think these did just the trick.  As I wanted to get the project finished RIGHT NOW, instead of running to the craft store I simply painted a box of thumb tacks with spray paint and used them instead.

Ta-Daaa!  Now I have a happy Kaitlyn.  And one less project on my To Do list.

Friends

Sometimes in life you get those little "A-ha!" moments where your brain (or your heart) gives you a little nudge and right in the middle of whatever is going on, you realize just how lucky you are.  I've had a lot of those reminders lately and I feel very blessed.

 I have a lot of fantastic friends and family in my life - always have and I am so very lucky to have them.  But I wanted to acknowledge this particular group of ladies as they mean a lot in my daily life - right here, right now.  You see, I live in what I like to refer to as a "high drama" neighborhood and it's been quite a roller coaster ride finding true friends nearby since I moved here almost three years ago.  About four months ago it suddenly gelled for all of us and it's been amazing.  These ladies are my loyal supports, my social network, my reminders that life can always be fun, my crafty partners in crime (most don't claim to be truly crafty yet, but the enthusiasm is sure there lol), my safe place when I need to vent, our family while we're away from home.  They give me things to look forward to in life and sometimes I even let them "corrupt" me a little bit (you know I can be a little to firmly rooted in the serious).  ;)
Well all too quickly our little group is being shaken up.  All of the husbands are in the military and sure enough one of us is moving across the country.  So we threw her a surprise Going Away brunch yesterday.  She thought she was coming over to craft (and we did, eventually) but we had other plans.  And I have to say I'm pretty proud of us for pulling it off - especially since I'm a horrible liar and don't do well with that kind of thing.  We spent a fun couple of hours eating and chatting (and forcing my husband to play photographer for a while) while the husbands took care of the kiddos and it was awesome.

 Of course we couldn't let her go without a little parting gift.  A couple of them actually.  It's kind of our running joke that we are Real Housewives and we've tossed out the idea more than once that we needed to have wine glasses made up and we couldn't let her leave without following through on that.

 Fun, right?  I used outdoor vinyl and my trusty Silhouette and according to Pinterest these should hold up to hand washing and even the top rack of the dishwasher.  We shall see.
I did put our names on the bottom of each, but that didn't photograph well.
And our second super-sneaky project:

We took the group photo at her daughter's 1st birthday party the day before and my husband was nice enough to run to pick up the one hour print while we got the party started yesterday.  I literally snuck into the garage to put together the finishing touches while she was here and before she realized it was a party LOL.

The quote says it all.  Love these ladies!