Rustic Independence Day Decor from Target

If you are anything like me, today is your day to pick up all those last minute things for the 4th of July festivities. Because, as usual, you forgot to do it before today to avoid the other crazy people buying beer and burgers. In my defense, I’ve been slightly preoccupied and housebound because of the bathroom renovation(Yes, it’s still going on. More on that to come). 

At least my kids have flag shirts from grandma. 

Because I will be out doing my last minute shopping today, I put together a list of all my favorite rustic 4th of July decor from Target. Because Target gets my style. And, all too often, my money.

These items are things I would use in my own home. I’m not too keen on obvious decorations; I like to be subtle. Any of these things mixed with a few small flags in a glass jar would be the perfect red, white, and blue Independence Day decor for me! 

2015 Word of the Year

Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed ringing in the new year! We did not intend to stay up until midnight but we ended up reading, writing, and watching several humorous episodes of Jeeves and Wooster and The Big Bang Theory. I came away thinking, as I always do, that I need a Jeeves in my life. An immaculately dressed British valet doing all my housekeeping and fixing everything I mess up?

Where can I get one? Can I get one that comes with a blue police box?

Ahem.

Anyway, now that I've wandered off into nerd-dom and probably lost half of you, I want to bring up one of my favorite things to do for the new year. Every year, I pick a Word of the Year. A Word of the Year is a goal of sorts. It is a word to define one's hope for, and approach to, life in the coming year. I started doing it a few years ago after I started blogging and saw all the cool bloggers doing it.

Cool bloggers pick a Word of the Year. I'm cool and I'm a blogger. That makes me a cool blogger too which means I can pick a Word of the Year. Something like that.

After Christmas

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas season! I don't know about you but the week between Christmas and New Year's is always weird for me. Especially so when the Hubby takes time off from work so every day feels like a lazy Saturday. So here I am, drinking coffee with one kid napping, one kid and the Hubby off to Chick-fil-a for lunch, and me trying super hard to be productive. Despite the rain and the new book that's calling my name.

We decided to have a quiet Christmas this year with just our little family. It was wonderful, even if I did overcook the mashed potatoes into a gluey mess. We have many new toys to find places for and many old toys to quietly dispose of to make room for the new. The boys are really enjoying their new stuff though. One of the most fun things about them getting older is that we can get them things that fit their interests.

Rustic Christmas Home Tour 2015

Well here we are a few days before Chtistmas and the Christmas tour is finally up! Between school finals, family stuff, and me or the boys hurting ourselves every two seconds, it's a miracle it's up at all. No doctor visits so far, although we've come close.

We are all excited for Christmas! This week, we've had little cousins staying at our house and an early gift exchange with my family so the boys are even more rambunctious than usual. Today is our first day without guests though and we are planning a quiet Christmas with just our little family this year. I think all of the presents have been taken care of and I've seen the new Star Wars movie so we are good to go!

This year I went with a rustic, green and neutral theme for Christmas. I especially love how the mantel turned out. I wish I could keep it like this year round, it looks so cozy! I changed the color in the living room this year and, while I'm not totally sold on this shade of white yet, I am loving how everything pops against the light background.

Since it's Christmas Eve already, go ahead and take a peek at how I've decorated this year!

Easy Five Minute Fudge

One of my favorite things to do this time of year is bake. I much prefer baking to cooking and when I'm in the baking groove, I can do it all day long. Cookies, muffins, you name it. I love it all. Fudge isn't technically baking, but I put it in that category because it's sweet and finicky. This Christmas fudge recipe is easy to make and it also happens to be the best fudge I've ever tasted!

December Review {2014}

Happy New Year!

I'm baaack! Mostly. I am still so worn out from December. Part of me wants to just sit back and enjoy vegging out and binge watching Parks and Recreation for a bit longer. But then I won't ever get anything done.

Y'all are my motivation.

Looking back at December, I didn't get a whole lot of posts up. I had plans but then we all got sick and it was all I could do just to handle Christmas. The Munchkin was on antibiotics all the way up to New Year's. A month of sickness and scary ER visits are not my thing. I am done.

Hopefully.

We did have a pretty great Christmas anyway. My big, loud, crazy family was even bigger and louder for the week. It was so great because my brother and his family came to visit which meant I got to meet a new niece! My grandparents live a few states away and they managed to make it too. After Christmas we took off to the In-Laws to spend New Year's with them.

The most exciting part was Little Man receiving a drum set for Christmas. It is his favoritest thing ever. I have never seen him so excited as he was that morning. He had been asking for drums for a while so we couldn't resist when we found a kid's set at the thrift store for $15. We had a slight scare when it fell over and popped one of the drums off, but hero Hubby and YouTube came to the rescue and the drums are back together again, thought slightly off in sound.

So we have drums, the house is loud, laundry is everywhere, and the kids are so happy to be home and in their routine again. Overtired, Christmased out kids are not for the faint of heart. I'm ready to sleep for a week.

Anyway, here are the very few posts that I managed to eke out in December. It's a quick read and I hope you enjoy!

The Real Inspired Christmas Home Tour 2014.

'Tis the Season to Rest

Rest. It's what we all long for. The thought of it is what gets us through our long week. Rest is a beautiful concept; work finished, and there is time for self and others.

I believe that Christmas should be a time of rest. If no other time of the year, than Christmas it should be. Is there no better time to rest than during the season in which we celebrate the birth of the One who said, "Come to me, all that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"?

Christmas is crazy, exciting, and wonderful. And, dare I say, magical? It is a season of hustle and bustle. Shopping trips, road trips, kids tripping over the Christmas tree branches as they go by; it's so easy to get caught up in it. This year, on top of it all, I've had some majorly sick kiddos.

I had such high hopes for this Christmas. Little Man's at that wonderful age where he's really starting to get holidays and birthdays. I wanted this, his first memorable Christmas, to be magical and amazing.

Christmas Home Tour 2014

I am happy to be a part of the "Christmas in the Country" Home Tour and Link Party 2014!  I am one of over 40 decorated homes participating in this two week event from November 28th till December 12th.  Please visit Creative Country Mom's to see all the new stops on the tour each day.  There is also a Holiday themed link party for the event where everyone can add their posts!  Let's enjoy a homespun, Country Christmas at www.creativecountrymom.com!

I'm finally back! And just in time to do the Christmas Home Tour 2014! I had to take a short hiatus because we all caught a respiratory virus that landed the baby in the ER for breathing trouble and both kids on antibiotics for ear infections. It's been a rough two weeks for sure. But hey, I got to ride in an ambulance for the first, and hopefully last, time!

Since I've been spending the majority of the time since Thanksgiving holding sick kids, this year's Christmas decorations are rather simple and thrown together. If it weren't for Hubby and my wonderful mother-in-law, they wouldn't be up at all. But lest you think that all the cleaned up photos are our real life, I've included some behind the scenes shots too. I hope you enjoy the tour!

Welcome to our home! It's so nice to have you here to share the season with us! Don't mind my Christmas wreath. I made him last year and he seems to have suffered the loss of a few of his pinecones while in storage. Fixing him is on the agenda, but it probably won't happen this year. Do come in!

DIY Christmas Ornament Craft

Welcome to the Blogger Christmas Series! For the next four weeks, I am teaming up with some other fabulous bloggers to bring you a variety of posts about Christmas stuff. Lights, decor, recipes, ideas...anything and everything related to Christmas! You can find the links to the other bloggers posts at the end of this post. Check them out when you get a chance!

Let the Christmas posts begin! I have a no Christmas anything before Thanksgiving rule. I've been ignoring the peppermint mochas at Starbucks for three weeks now. That's how hardcore I am. Since it is the week of Thanksgiving, I shall bend it ever so slightly and go ahead and post this Christmas ornament craft. You'll need a week or so of drinking frozen orange juice to be able to make it anyway!

16 Craft and Decor Ideas for Thanksgiving

 It's been one crazy week around here lately! We started the week off with a sick kid and a clogged dishwasher and we're finishing the week off with a recovering kid and a clogged dishwasher. Hopefully this week will see the dishwasher fixed!

Today, I leave you with a little round-up of 16 Thanksgiving craft and decor ideas. Go forth and be creative!

(clockwise from top left corner)

All the Christmas Pillows!

Last week I finally got my Christmas "Tour" up for everyone to see. There are several reasons that I finished that post after Christmas. One, I had an eliptical machine sitting in front of the fireplace. Two, I drenched my laptop with water. And three, I hadn't finished my mountain of pillows.

Here is my couch with a few of the finished masses. The Christmas tree pillow in the center was my decor inspiration. I bought a couple of these a few years ago at JC Penny's. Every other pillow was made by me in a mad frenzy of Christmas spirit. Took me a few weeks to knock them all out, mostly working on them at night after Little Man went to bed.

On the far left is the sweater pillow from my fall decor. You can read about that one here.

The solid green pillow used to be a tablecloth. Thrift store fabric for the win! On the far right is one of two white pillows that I made from a thrift store curtain. I used this tutorial I found at Vintage Revivals. I love her zipper trick! But, unlike the tutorial, I wanted my covers to fit the inserts trimly so I cut the material only an inch larger than my inserts.

All the inserts are old feather pillows bought at the thrift store. The cheap way to buy feather pillows! Best thing!

This is definitely my favorite pillow of the bunch. My shirt pillow. Or, technically, Poor Hubby's Shirt Pillow. You can read more about it here.

This is my second shirt pillow. I didn't have enough shirt material for one complete rectangle on the back so I cut out two squares, lined up the pattern and sewed them together to make a complete rectangle. For the front I used a leftover square of dropcloth from this project. The original plan included stenciling the front, but it was way too close to Christmas and, really, who needs that extra stress? Wrapping leather cording around it was way easier, still fit with my decor, and it was free.

After making the Christmas tree skirt, I had 1/2 yard of faux fur left over. Soooo...another pillow. That I stuffed with leftover stuffing from when I shortened my King-size pillows. Good thing I hung on to that! The snowflake pillow was in the dollar section at Target for $3. 

We really had a pillow-palooza at our house! You can never have enough pillows in my opinion. An opinion that, unfortunately, Hubby does not share. I should have remembered that before I cut up his shirt.

I may be linking up here.

Top 10 Posts of 2013

Hello to 2014! Can't believe it's here already! This year is going to be crazy full, especially with the arrival of a new little guy in a couple months.

As I am looking forward to 2014 and all that it has to hold, today I am looking back on 2013. I've rounded up my top 10 posts of 2013 based on popularity. If you missed some of them, here is your opportunity to catch up!

Let's start off, shall we?

Paper Napkins Become Bathroom Art

How NOT to Paint a Ceramic Lamp

Summery Herbed Tomato Pie

DIY Jewelry Organizer From Shutters

Decorating with Navy Blue

DIY Duvet Cover

Our Master Bedroom

The BEST Spaghetti Sauce

A Few of My Favorite Things

Fall Vignette

Goodbye 2013, hello 2014!

I may link up to some of these link parties here.

Christmas Tour 2013

Christmas Tour 2013! Ok, it's a bit late. The computer flub right before Christmas kinda set me back a bit. I'm so thankful that the computer is back up and running after just letting it dry out!

Even so, I figured I should share some of the little Christmas-y touches around our house. The upstairs and the kitchen were excluded this year because of all the de-wallpapering and moving rooms around. So really this "tour" is just the living room with a few little touches in the office. I'm hoping next year sees us more settled so I can decorate more!


I may be linking up to some of these link parties here.

Happy Holiday Season!

Happy 2nd day after Christmas!

{Your house still looks like this too, right?}

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday...

Filled with wonder...

 And crazy lights.

Minimal grinch sightings,

good food,

new memories,

And family.

Wishing everyone blessings and joy as we remember our Savior's birth from Christmas, through the holiday season, and throughout the new year!

On Turning Shirts Into Pillows

I bought a shirt for Hubby at the thrift store that didn't fit. I shouldn't have been surprised since it sported the very vague size Large tag. I should know by now that I have to buy size specific shirts for him with his long arms and broad shoulders. This particular shirt hit his wrists about 3 inches higher than it was supposed to.

Unfortunately, it was one of his very favorite colors and prints.

I guess he could have rolled up the sleeves, but I figured that would get old after a while. And so I got the idea into my head that it would become Christmas pillows. I did not get permission before I did this. Note to self: do that next time.

By the time Hubby found me, I had already started cutting.

Sorry, Love.

But the material was sooo perfect.

The front of the shirt was about 18" across from armhole to armhole so the finished pillow cover would fit a 16" insert. Since I planned on using the placket as the opening, I just measured a 17" square(to make room for seam allowances), making sure the buttons were centered in the square, and then cut it out. And because of the stripes, it was totally easy to get straight lines. I lined my scissors up with a line and cut.

I made sure I got the front pocket too.

I then pinned it all around, making sure the pocket was far enough away from where the side seam would be, centering the placket the best I could, and lining up the pattern. Then I sewed a 1/2" seam all the way around, clipped the corners, unbuttoned it, turned it inside out, and stuffed it with a pillow insert. My insert ended up being 18" to my cover's 16" so it's a very full pillow but I don't mind.

I did not pay attention to the back seam that goes across the shoulders when I cut it. It wouldn't lay right until I put in the insert. Now it looks fine but if I was doing it again I'd probably cut out the front first, then lay that piece further down on the back, lining up the pattern and then cutting out the back piece.

But it's all good.

And I think Hubby likes them after all.

Merry Christmas everybody!