4th of July Decor

I am just about out of time to make any of these things, but I thought I would share them anyway. Maybe I can make them for next year!


From Better Homes and Gardens


From Better Homes and Gardens


From Better Homes and Gardens


From Better Homes and Gardens


From Martha Stewart


From Martha Stewart


From Martha Stewart

I hope you all have something fun planned for the long holiday weekend! I will be spending the weekend at the lake camping and boating! Have a happy and safe weekend! Don't forget to take a moment during the festivities to stop and remember what this holiday is all about!

Happy Birthday to My Hubby!!

Today is my wonderful husband's 24th birthday!!! The same number as me for the next few months so hopefully he will quit calling me old! :) He doesn't like to make a big deal out of his birthday so we will probably just lay low and have a pretty normal Monday evening! Me being the terrible wife that I am have not gotten a card made for him yet, so I know how I will be spending my lunch break!

Happy birthday honey!! I love you and hope you have a great day!

On a side note, today is day 6 of the 10 Tasks In 10 Days challenge and so far I have completed 2 tasks. Go me.

Things I Like Thursday

It's Thursday again??!! How crazy! Time is flying by so fast lately, I'd kind of like it to slow down a bit! Well since that's not going to happen I guess I better just enjoy it huh? On to another edition of Things I Like Thursday.

These whole wheat Pizza Pot Pies at How Sweet It Is look and sound so yummy! Definitely going to try them sometime!


A great post on Low Cost, Low Upkeep, 'forever flowering' flower beds from Donna over at Funky Junk Interiors. Not something I would probably spend time working on at this house, but my next house I would definitely like to incorporate some of these ideas and have more flower beds!

Easy DIY Fabric Wall Art at This Present Life. This does look super easy!


These Cabana Striped Pillows from Under the Table and Dreaming are gorgeous! Then again, most of her projects are.


These No-Sew Curtains at Young House Love are right up my alley. I do know how to sew, but curtains have always seemed a little scary to me for some reason. I love these and would love to make some for home!


Well I hope you find some inspiration from these great projects that I happen to love!

On a side note, it is day 2 of "10 Tasks In 10 Days" and I have so far crossed nothing off my list! :( I have started a couple different things, so that is something right?!

10 Tasks In 10 Days

The Shabby Chic Cottage is hosting this "10 tasks in 10 days" challenge and I think it will be a good way for me to get some things done that I just keep putting off! I am going to try REALLY hard to get all of these done, but I have a lot going on during the time that they have set for it. It starts Wednesday, June 23 and runs thru Friday, July 2. The tasks can be anything really, something small like organizing a cupboard to something larger like painting a room. The goal is to just finish some projects that you have had on your to-do list for a while but keep putting off. Wish me luck and let me know if you decide to take this challenge too!

Here are the 10 tasks that I would like to complete:
1. Sew tear in brown pillow
2. Make pillows for living room
3. Paint craft room/office
4. Make tipsy pot planter
5. Paint American flag & frame from Goodwill
6. File magazine clippings
7. Clean out file cabinet
8. Take pile to Goodwill
9. Touch-up paint in the bathroom
10. Clean basement

Some of these seem lofty and we will be camping and boating this weekend and headed back down next Friday (and preparing on Thursday night I'm sure) so I am going to do my best!

Happy Tuesday all!

Things I Like Thursday

Wow, it seems like I just did this weekly post! This week has flown by for me! I was getting ready for work this morning when it hit me, oh shoot, it's Thursday and I haven't started my post yet! So lucky for you guys, I remembered! I haven't even had as much time to look at blogs this week so it has taken me a while to find the projects to share this week, but I can always come up with some!

I love this American Flag Spindle Post over at Under the table and dreaming. I really need to get busy re-creating some of this Americana decor for our house as the 4th of July is fast approaching!


Here are some great ideas for decorating with ladders at You Paid More than Me. It really makes me want to find an old ladder for my house. I do have one of those "ladder" shelf things, but that's another post for another time. I suck at decorating it and really need your advice, maybe later tonight. Here is one of my favorites!


This Pottery Barn knock-off Candle Holder doesn't look that difficult to make! I don't know the price tag on the Pottery Barn one, but I would be that it is A LOT more!


These Oversized Spool of Thread bookends would be great in my craft room!


I want this black hutch in my house!!! Not that I have room for it, but I could always store it in the basement for now until I have a bigger house someday!


Okay, that's enough for this week! I am going to try really hard to do another post tonight or tomorrow to show you a couple of things! We will see how that goes, I have a bathroom to clean and a tush to exercise, but I have to have my priorities right?!

Tomorrow is a big day!

It's true, tomorrow is a very big, exciting day for me!! About 5:00 PM tomorrow, this little beauty will be mine:


Photo courtesy of www.blackberry.com

You really have no idea how excited I am about this! I have wanted a smart phone for so very long and I finally get one!

We renewed our phone contracts and got new cell phones in January and I got a phone that I ended up absolutely HATING and did not return it in the 30 day window. Booo!!! I loathed that phone so much that I borrowed an old Motorola Krazr to get me thru the next 1 1/2 years of my contract from my MIL. Nick checked with a guy that works at US Cellular and the cheapest he was going to be able to get me this phone was for $175!!! No thank you!!! But I decided to do a little search on my good friend Craigslist yesterday and lo and behold what do I see? This little beauty listed for $80!!!!!!!!!! I emailed her, she still has it, and now it will be mine!! To say I am excited would be a complete understatement! It is so sad really how happy I can be over something as silly as a smart phone!

I thought you would all like to hear my happy news. :)

Things I Like Thursday

Two weeks in a row!! Woo-hoo! I hope you are all having a wonderful week. Here are a few projects that I have found this week that I really like.

This Sunburst mirror made from cereal boxes is awesome!


A great tutorial for making your own stencils! I am working on a tray right now that I want to put a "W" on so I think I will try this method.

Here is a simple bench made from 2x4's. This is another one of my someday projects when I have a deck or patio!


This Pottery Barn Inspired Shelf goes great with my post from yesterday!


I love the look of these empty frames on the wall, I think I even have a perfect spot in my house to try this!


Hope you like the ideas! I am so happy, today is my Friday at work!! Tomorrow morning I have an orthodontist appointment in Des Moines and then my mom and I are doing some shopping and garage saleing!!! Hopefully I will have some great deals to share with you! Have a great day!

My Decorating Style

How do you possibly define your "style" and make it work without completely changing those things that you may already have in your home? I have been spending a lot (probably more than I should!) of time lately looking at blogs and I see so many things that I love, that I would like to re-create and use in my own home, but I am afraid it would just look silly with those things I already have. There is not just one style that I like, there are several. I like some modern and comtemporary, some antique, some farmhouse, a little bit of everything. How do you make them all work together?? I hope I am not the only one that has this issue!

The more time I spend thinking about all of this, the more I think of defining my style as "Pottery Barn Style." Though I do not own one single item from Pottery Barn, I look thru their catalog and pretty much love every.single.item! So someday, when I am loaded, I will furnish and decorate my house with everything Pottery Barn (and maybe a little Restoration Hardware thrown in here and there!) For now though, I can look at the catalog and dream and maybe think of a few Pottery Barn knock-off projects that I can do that won't break the bank and look just as awesome!

I was going to put some pictures on here from the catalog that I just love, but the pictures are not cooperating with me, and I pretty much love it all, so click here to daydream about a complete Pottery Barn house!

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for my second edition of "Things I Like Thursday" Happy Hump Day!

2 Projects in One Day, Just Because I love ya!

I finished a couple of projects tonight that I am excited to show you!! I think I have one or two that I have finished in the last couple of weeks that I haven't posted yet, but I'll save them for another day!

This first one is made out of something I never thought I would use to decorate: empty toilet paper tubes! I think my hubby thought I was slightly crazy when I said I was going to cut up toilet paper rolls to decorate our house! I have seen this done on a few different blogs and thought it was a pretty neat idea, not to mention cheap.

It was a really simple project! I don't think there is much explaining necessary, just a couple of tips that I learned along the way. I used Elmer's school glue to glue the pices together and then put paper clips on the two pieces that I glued until it dried. It will take SEVERAL coats of paint!! And it is a real bugger to try to get in all of the different crevices. I like it so far, but I plan to keep adding to it when I get more toilet paper rolls!



And a close up!



My second project for today is another lamp revamp! My mom found this lamp base at a garage sale for something like fifty cents and then I bought the shade at Goodwill for just a couple bucks!



I have to give credit to my hubby for the shade, it was his idea to do the paper bag mod-podge. He likes the sign that I made like that and thought it would look good on the lamp! I agree!! I thought it needed a little something else so I bought some jute and put it on there.



The flower close up! This was easy to make, I just laid it out on a newspaper and hot glued the center of it to the newspaper and then just peeled it up and glued it to the lamp.



And since I love photos of flowers I thought I would leave you with a picture of one of the blooms on the hibiscus that Nick gave me for our anniversary. It is beautiful!!



Hope you all had a great weekend and a happy Monday!

Things I Like Thursday

This is going to be a new weekly post (wish me luck!) to show you some fun things I like that I have found on other blogs. It is partly for you to see some cool projects, but really more for me to have a place to save some of the many neat things that I see and think that I would like to replicate someday. I have found so many awesome things that people have created and tried to keep track of the ones I like, but that hasn't worked well, so maybe this will. There will be a wide variety of things on here from outside decor to inside decor and from gift ideas to recipes.

First up is a Lemon Sugar Hand Scrub that I found at Under the Table and Dreaming. I love hand scrubs and this one would be so easy and cheap to make. It could also make a nice little gift for someone! She has a really awesome blog, so I am sure you will see more projects coming from there.



A Painted American Wooden Flag also at Under the Table and Dreaming. I would love to make this soon so I could hang it for the 4th of July!



One more from her site then I promise I'm done. How awesome is this Hanging Coffee Cup Herb Garden?! I totally want to make this!



These Pizza Scones at Sumo's Sweet Stuff look so yummy! I need to try them soon!



Here is some cheap wall art over at The Adventures of One Crazy Lady. This looks super easy and it's a great way to cover up a decent size space.



This is a someday project. Like someday when I actually have a porch that I would want to put a porch swing on. Someday when said porch looks over a big beautiful back yard or a field or some cows instead of my pot-smoking neighbors rundown fence and their backyard that smells of dog poop. I love these Patio Pillows that I found at A Girl and A Gluegun!



I am completely in love with this Tiered Terracotta Planter at Positively Splendid! I think it is beautiful!!



And finally a beautiful Calla Lily Wreath also from Positively Splendid!