Fall Decorations

Oh how I love fall. Even though it's a very short season here in Alabama, it is still my favorite. I wanted to show you my decorations for this year.

My cute little table centerpiece.

My table with my new curtains! Hooray I have a set of curtains in our eating area! You'll never guess what they're made of. Go on, guess... Ok, I'll tell you. They're bed sheets. I'm so proud of my curtains I made.

This is an arrangement I did last year. I just tweaked it a little bit and put it in a different container.

You can have so much pride in your house when the outside looks cute. Can you see my door?

Look! :) I got this cute idea from Thrifty Decor Chick.

Here's a closer look. I used a frame I already had. The previous owners left it. I didn't particularly like the fruit picture in it, so I gutted it. Then I hot glued some leaves I bought from Dollar General as randomly as I possibly could. (Which means I chose them very carefully to not have too many of the same color, lol.)

Now, the days are getting cooler and shorter, and I'm smelling the wonderful smell of our neighbors cranking up their fireplaces. And to top off everything, the hubby made Butternut Squash Soup.

It's officially fall now. :)

Just be you!
2 Corinthians 10:12

New Outdoor Cushion Covers

Does it ever bother you how much outdoor chair cushions are? Am I the only one? I mean, it costs almost as much as a new chair set just to buy some not-so-tacky cushions. I priced Wal-Mart’s on-sale cushions and it would cost nearly $100 to replace the old cushions on our four chairs.

These are our old chair cushions:





*Stepping off my soap box* I had a better idea anyway. It only cost me around $65 and they look pretty good.




I just made some covers for them. It was my first major project for my new sewing machine.



Recognize the table? Yeah, it’s the one I refinished. It’s moved around the house several times now and I think it has its permanent, yet original, purpose and home. :D

Basically all I did was measure out the biggest of our two sets of cushions, cut it out, hem, and sew on some ties of the same fabric. I became lazy and only sewed on two at the top, but the covers don’t look so back tucked up under the existing cushions.



I ended up only using about half of the material I bought. I’m VERY tempted to make a back to these and fill it in with cushion…filler….pad…stuff….whatever it’s called. Lol! Don’t you love my very specific nomenclature for all this sewing stuff? I should do better since I did graduate with a technical writing degree. Lol.

Oh, and here's a project Andrew is working on tonight:



It's a pancake costume for a kid in the youth group. They're doing a skit to promote the adult leader's pancake breakfast next week. It's going to be hilarious! I'll post a video of it later.

Have a great week!

Now, I'm Back

Ok. So part of me wants to explain why I've been gone so long, and part of me doesn't because I don't want to seem like I'm forcing sympathy from anybody.

Well, I guess I should explain, since I'm the kind of person who tends to be brutally honest. Not only was I getting ready for a house warming party, like I had explained in my last real post, I was battling something I wasn't sure what it was. Well, I think the doctors have finally ruled it's acid reflux disease/GERD. It seems so simple of a diagnosis for such pain and not-feel-good-ness I had been going through for so long. Anyway, I'm being treated for that now and I'm starting to feel a lot better. I'm still taking it one step at a time before I do any major confirming.

Ok, enough of that. Let's get to the good stuff...the stuff I promised ya'll.

For this post I'm linking to Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday and A Soft Place to Land's DIY Day.

First off my birthday presents from my dear Derf. :) I had been wanting some solar lights to go out in the front of our house, and that's what I got...sort of.


He made me some sun jars. He is so clever when it comes to these things. I need to show you the blender and toaster lamp he made, too. Anyway, I love them! Well, except when I come home at night and I'm startled by two of them that are on our back porch. It looks kind of like a person is walking out there when I'm not paying much attention.

Basically, he took the solar light off a $3 solar light that stakes into the ground and glued it to the top of a latched canister. Then, he frosted the glass with a can of spray frost. It was quite ingenious, if I say so. :)

The second thing was new porch furniture.


We got a steal from Big Lots. It was their last table and chair set and it was the floor model. So, we were able to get a total of 50% off. It was great. :) Oh, and I love the candle holder. That came from Sam's. It does great for citronella tea lights.

And, the last are the shelves I had mentioned above our desk. They didn't last. No, they didn't fall, but we took them down and now have ugly unmatched patched holes in the wall above the computer. I have to get on that and fix it. I'm thinking those shelves are going to go above the work table in the kitchen.

Well, that's the first of the updates. Stay tuned for more!

Mouse

Cork Board Jewelry Displays

Here's one of my latest projects. I've seen this on several blogs and knew it was a great idea for my jewelry. I like the way it gets to be displayed and not tangled in a box or something. These are just 4 cork boards wrapped with burlap cloth and a leather fabric I found in a clearance bin at (evil) walmart. I stapled it all with staples for paper. *Word of the wise: don't use a staple gun. The staples will go all the way through and puncture your hand when you try to put something on the board, and it slips and you try to catch it by slapping the board with your hand to find said staple. It's not fun.* Anyway, I hung them with some small picture nails on each corner. It's pretty neat if i say so myself. :)

Welcome greetings and first project

Hi!
This is my new blog. I've been bitten by the blog bug and now I have two blogs! I can barely keep up with my first one: www.rocketcitycakes.blogspot.com. So, I hope to post at least once a week on either or both these blogs.

Well, since the other blog is dedicated to just the cakes my husband and I make, I'm dedicating this one to our house and other goings on that I would just like to put out here on the interwebs.

I guess I should welcome you to our humble abode. Welcome! :)


Yes, that is the MLS listings picture. I was so excited about this house that I saved all of the pictures from the MLS listing.

So, on to more exciting stuff! This is my greatest creation (that isn't a cake) yet. I bought a sewing machine and the cabinet/table for $20. Turned out the sewing machine (the thing that I wanted the most) had broken gears and the feed wouldn't work. But, I soon realized I could use the table as an entry way table. I've been looking for one that my husband and I could agree on. The entry way is a little narrow so we had to find something kinda small. Anyway, here is the before.

That's a piece of art we got from my husband's grandmother. It's a modern type piece and thought it was kinda cool to go right there. And now, here's the after:

Oh, no. Sorry it's so dark. I'm not that great at taking indoor photos at night. Here's a close up:

I love this so much!!! Here's a photo montage of the process:

There were some scratches and water stains in the finish of the wood and it needed sanding badly.

Here is my new toy. I really like this thing! :)

I meant to take a picture of it after I sanded and before I started spray painting, but I forgot.

Here's a leg that I haven't painted and that's what most of it looked like.

Yea! And please excuse the head in the corner I wasn't paying much attention what was in the shot because I was so excited.

If you want to know of any advice that I could give when doing a project like this, it would be: take your time. I'm very impatient when it comes to projects and tend to skip steps, like priming before painting. The wood totally soaked up a lot of the paint on the first coat. What I should have done was sand, prime, paint, sand, paint, and protect (with a coat of protective sealer). Well, the sealer is on my to do list, but I will have to do it later because I just wanted it in the house by this weekend. I'm so excited for the possibilities of this little piece of furniture.

Have a great day!

Lee