Family Room Update

When you live in a small house you have to constantly be coming up with ways to keep things in order. We have to use spaces for multiple purposes and get creative. I want our family room to look nice but also to feel kid friendly since it is also the kids play room. It has been difficult for me to do both. Here is my latest attempt. I found these magnet boards on a super good sale at Roberts last Black Tuesday. I finally was able to get them painted this past month. I love the colors and that the kids have a place to put their art work and other important papers.



I love the fabric and color of the frames. The Paint color is Ivy Leaf (Krylon) The flash cards I picked up at the Chicks Store last year. Love that the math one equals my family. 3+2 =5.
Then I finally decided to use my coffee filter wreath in the middle and the frames I got from Mr. M's Mom. She had pictures of her kids in them years ago. They were perfect to put silhouettes representing my kids in. I cut them out with my Silhouette cutter. I just found one that was an older boy, a girl and a little boy.They make me so happy. I love looking at this wall. I love the colors and I love that it is coming together. Hope you are having a wonderful Tuesday. I am loving September sunshine

Decorating on a Dime and a Dollar

I love decorating. But I am on a really tight budget too. I think this works as an advantage to engaging my creativity. I also realize my kids are learning how to have beautiful things but be thrifty too. We just finished Mini Boden's bedroom re-do and she and I decided to change the color of her desk and chairs. I let her pick. She went out to the garage and rummaged through the spray paint and decided on metallic chairs, and a Watermelon Pink table. We picked up this table and chair set at IKEA last year for $24.00 They are just natural wood color out of the box. I think they are super darling with the color added.


The chairs look like metal ones. I also had to cover them with a clear Krylon seal spray, because the metallic especially kept rubbing off. I am moving them into her room today. Super cute huh?

I have been needing a new Living Room Rug for awhile. My regular one is completely shredded on the edges. I keep cutting back, but I have been saving for a rug and looking for awhile. I found for $90 that I thought would work, and have been putting money away for it. Then a few weeks ago I went to Lowe's with my sis, on a project we are working on. We found the most amazing clearance items and I decided it wouldn't hurt to take a stroll through the rugs. Most of which are out of my budget right now. I was so glad I looked. I found this beautiful thing for $25. Yep that is right 25 buckaroo's. I almost did a happy dance in the aisle. I brought it home and I AM IN LOVE with it. It is super soft and makes me feel sooooo happy. What do you think?





I was at the Dollar Store the other day and found these great fall flowers and greenery. I thought it would be so stunning in some of my crocks. Take a look at our new fall additions.

I am loving the colors and feel like they add a lot to our little Family Room. What are you decorating for a Dime and a Dollar? I would love to hear.

August Decorating

As we sit in the middle of August the end of summer and approaching fall, I am in the mood for change. I think I always feel this way as fall approaches. It is my favorite time of year and I love the transformation the earth makes to prepare for winter. It is as if God gives us one beautiful blast of color and splendor before we embark on the stark coldness of winter days. Here are a few of my fun changes.

My fun new front door wreath:

The twine covered wreath was all over blog land awhile ago, and I made one, burned my fingers so badly on hot glue and will never attempt one again. The wreath was too small for my door so I went a scavenger hunt around my house. I love this fabric I picked up at Jo-Ann's and thought it's color's were perfect for that summer to fall transition time. I ruffled the fabric and some muslin fabric on my sewing machine. Then just hot glued them onto the back of the wreath. I love it. It makes me fee so happy.


I found this plant stand for $1 at yard sale, painted it with Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze. I found the metal tin at DI awhile ago for about 50 cents. I have all these yellow flowers from the flower decorations from last year's Gratitude Gathering and wallah. I think it is bright, happy and full of the last bit of summer sunshine.

Next up is the red mantel. I love the red mantel and change it frequently. Currently this is what it looks like. The red rock's are from our trip to St. George this past year...I love that I can look up and see those every day. I love this cute owl. He is going to be used at Hedwig in our upcoming Halloween Harry Potter party, but for now I liked him so much I decided to have him perch on my mantle.
My family room is a work in progress. I'm not sure what to do with this wall. I love the new pictures with this super cute fabric. It makes me happy. It needs something in the middle. Not sure what yet. So this is the beginning. I will post when I have more inspiration.

or how about this one. I love this picture. It is a paint by number my Dad did when he was a little kid. It has to go somewhere in my house. Trying it out here.

And these are my new pillows. I made the blue one and green one below were made out of two dish towels I found at the Dollar Store. I thought the colors worked perfect.

So I found this darling blog called Dear Lillie.
I love her style and the Jane Austen themed rooms. I decided to add a few Jane Austen accents to my bedroom. I found this silver lamp at Walmart for $4.99. I loved the silver on it. It is actually plastic and was in the Dorm type section. The shade I picked up at Ross for $3.99. It is simple and has a thin brown detailing. The picture frame says: "There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart." - Jane Austen. I also picked up the green at Tai Pain for $1.00 and the little pot for $2.00 I think. It just makes me happy. The journal's underneath are my kid's journal's that I keep with things about them.


Our wedding photo, on a piece of muslin. I wrapped burlap around the vase and put our wedding date on it. The handkerchief under the flowers was my Nan's.
These books were a birthday gift from my sister. They are some of the work's of Louisa May Alcott. And the sand castle was a graduation gift from my sister too. This little display reminds me that she believes in me.
I had to add a silhouette, but wasn't sure where to add one. So I made these and put them on these mirrors. The shell's are from my honeymoon in Florida 10 years ago. This one is my side...the girl silhouette.
This is Mr. M's side. The shelves are plastic and I picked them up at the Dollar Store a few years ago. Painted them red, then cream and sanded. Don't you love them.Mr. M. Doesn't like a lot of decorative things on his side. So I just put a picture of our family and a quote.

Here's the whole bedroom. Can you see my favorite fabric. I love the yellow, brown and red together. It is so inviting and makes me feel warm and cozy.Hope you are having a wonderful August. We have brilliant thunderstorms and big rain drops right now. A perfect day to curl up with a good book.

Happy Day.

Em

Some lovin in the Kitchen

I found these yesterday...such happy inspiration. I would love any of these kitchens. Hope you enjoy. They are all from Better Homes and Gardens...Go here

Lovin the white so crisp and clean.

I think these are my power colors...every time I see yellow and red I feel happy and energized.


Gray cabinets...so in love.

So blue and white is one of my new favorite combinations. It makes me think of being at the ocean and for some reason England. Both make me feel at peace and happy.

Love the yellow and blue...doesn't it just scream summer, sunshine and blue skies.

I love the play with a few colors...gives the room just a subtle punch.

I Love these green cabinets. They are so soothing

I think this is my favorite room. I am so in love with it. I love the bowls. The crisp white with the bright blue and bold red. I think I would just sit in this room forever and never leave. LOVe. LOVe. LOVe
Happy Friday!!

The Power of a Sixth Sense and the Power of Contentment

A few weeks ago Mr. M and I went on a quick date. We have been trying to go out weekly. Which can actually pose many challenges. This particular week I had scheduled a babysitter for a week/school night and so we had about 1 hour. I thought maybe a yogurt and a trip around the block and back home again. Mr. M had another idea...the library. It was such a fun date, even though we ended up spending most of our hour individually perusing books in different sections of the library. It was on this library date that I found a golden treasure. It is a book called Hannah Keeley's Total Mom Makeover: The Six-Week Plan to Completely Transform Your Home, Heath, Family and Life. It screamed at me to pick it up and I have been working on my total transformation for the last few weeks. I could go on for several blog posts about how much this book as truly benefited my life and helped me to create a clear vision for my career choice of motherhood.

Today however I want to share one of my exercises for today because it was powerful. She was talking about including your 5 senses in your home and increasing the beauty and peace you find. Then she came to what she turned her "Sixth Sense" " More information is communicated through your sixth sense than through all your other sense combine3d. Your environment can look taste, smell, sound and feel great, but if you don have a spirit of gratitude, something will feel a bit off."

And here is my favorite part..."You bless your home in powerful ways when you first consider it a blessing to you and your family. Even if it is not your "dream house," begin right now to appreciate those wall that enclose you and the roof that keeps you sheltered.....Let your gratitude permeate every nook and cranny of where you life, and it will light up your home with beauty."

I sat reading today and realized how powerful this statement truly is. I can decorate and fill, beautify and improve my surroundings but until I can recognize the blessings and focus on my gratitude I will not truly be comfortable or content where I am.

For me this rings true. I have a small home with many people. I often view this as a challenge instead of being thankful for the opportunities my children are learning to share and become closer together. Of the skills I have learned in organizing and simplifying. Of the considerably lower mortgage payment we have which will hopefully help us to better achieve our financial goals. I live on a busy street and don't feel comfortable letting my kids play in our front yard by themselves and because of my location we do not readily have lots of kids nearby. Again I realized I could see the blessings in my children learning how to work on friendships and find creative things to do in our home and our backyard. They are diligent about not going in the road and have learned how to be observant when they are out in the front. All skills that are useful and will benefit them in the future.

There is great power in using our sixth sense. Power in finding contentment even in not so desirable circumstances. How do you find gratitude in your surroundings? I would love to hear your input.

For more information on Hannah Keeley go here.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

Emily

Halloween Decorating on a REAL Budget

I love decorating especially for the holidays. I have a small decorating budget...like almost nothing. So I have to get creative. Since the homestead is also small, I have a space budget too. One thing I have done to add holiday cheer is to switch out the ribbons and pictures in my front entry way. Here is our new Halloween decor. The wreath is made from a $1 foam wreath I picked up at the Dollar Store, I wrapped it with black duct tape, then hot glued the candy corn to it. It took about an hour while my hubby and I watched a movie. I found the idea here at Woman's Day magazine. For the pictures I took a piece of orange scrap book paper taped a piece of black and white scrap book paper to the orange. I bought two Halloween stamps for $1 each at Michael's I stamped white paper and printed out some sayings from my computer...I don't have a Silhouette so I have to use what I have. Then I just taped them all together and hung them with ribbon.

I love my wreath. I picked it up at Michael's on clearance it was a nautical themed wreath with shells, a wooden sign and and anchor for $5. I took everything off and then used the wreath for our Halloween stuff. The sign in the center I picked up at Walmart for $1 a few years ago. We wrapped it in fake spider webs and put spider rings all over it, then added a giant spider from Tai Pan which was $2 and that was it. Over the years it has picked up dried leaves which just add to the spooky look. The basket on our house we filled with mini pumpkins from a local pumpkin patch.

This isn't a very good picture, they actually look much cuter than they do here. I have three trees that I have to keep on my porch because I don't have room to store them. So I try to decorate them for the holidays. I put orange lights on them, that I had, and little witches buckets that we have collected from Halloween parties.

Our mantel has been fun. Another scrapbook paper and computer print off for the center picture. The skull, crow and headstone are from the $1 store. The pumpkin tree I picked up for .15 cents at a going out of business sale. The boxes say witches, cats and pumpkin seeds and are just painted black.

My favorite part of our mantel is the banner that Thing 1 made for Halloween. I think he did a great job.

I saw this idea here at the Crafting Chicks blog...I took it to a more simple level. I picked up some black card stock, used metallic white paint for our hand prints and white crayons to list the name and year. I think we are going to do this every year and see how our hands have grown. It was so much fun.

I wanted to add something to our downstairs area, so I made a banner. I traced a circle with a vase on the scrapbook paper from our entry way. I used 2 pieces total for all the projects. Then stamped a haunted house and mummy on white paper and printed off the words Trick or Treat on my computer. I stapled the circles on black gross grain ribbon from the Dollar Store.

Here is the banner up close.

I wanted to add my pumpkins that I bought 3 for $1 at the pumpkin patch so I found a vase in my basement, filled it 1/4 full with black and white beans that I had, put in three pumpkins added some black ribbon and a Happy Halloween sign, with scraps of paper and from my computer. I thought it would be fun to trade out pictures of my kids with ones of them in their costumes from last year. They loved it and it made a fun and inexpensive Halloween addition.

So for all my new decor I spent $1.20 on scrapbook paper, $1.00 in ribbon, $3.00 in pumpkins and two stamps $2.00. Not bad for $7.20. Hope you found some ideas to use. Happy Haunting.

Em