An old Window Welcome!

 I am such a fan of old windows! They are so versatile.  They look amazing on the wall in their various shapes and sizes.

 Here is a little picture walk of a few. 

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So while checking out a antique store I came across this window.  It was a mint green color which did not match my decor so I took a little orange paint and went over the green.  Then I took a vinyl sticker which had been gathering dust in my closet, put it on and hung the whole thing on the wall. Vintage windows add instant charm to a room!

I love the way this window has four long panels of glass. 

 

 

Have a great day!

Shannon

I linked up to:
http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/
http://www.uncommondesignsonline.com/2012/02/uncommonly-yours-link-party-16.html

Tissue Paper Valentine Flowers

        Happy Valentines Day!

Here is the second Valentine that we crafted up over the weekend for my daughters classmates.  She was a big help in prepping these flowers I however separated the tissue layers because she kept on ripping them and was getting frustrated. 

First you take two pieces of tissue paper and stacked on top of one another you cut it into thirds.  So you have long strips. 

You then take four of the long strips and stack them together.  Then you accordion fold them like so...

After that, you take the papers and round the ends with scissors.  Then you make two small slices in the center of the folded papers.  This is where you are going to tie the papers so that they don't fall apart.  I used dental floss to do this.  You can use any string, you can't see it once you finish the flower.

Look close on the orange on to see the side slits.  The bottom photo shows the dental floss tied on.  Secure the floss around the side slits you made.

Next take the flower and spread the fan/accordion apart with your hands and start to separate the tissue papers from one another by lifting and fluffing them. 

This photo shows on side separated into layers.  Then repeat on the other side and you get a flower!

At the store I bought green laffy taffy candies.  I then used my trusty glue gun and attached the flower to the laffy taffy "stem".  Then I cut out leaves from scrapbook paper and the kids addressed them to their class mates.  They are so bright and happy. 

These would also be awesome for teacher appreciation or mothers day.

Much love,

Shannon

I linked up at:

http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

http://www.myuncommonsliceofsuburbia.com/

http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

http://www.vwbblog.com/

 

Valentines Craft!

Hi Friends,

My little ladies have been asking for days now to make their valentines.  They love to do crafts and I wanted to find something they could do themselves.  We came up with two different flowers, one I will be sharing tomorrow as well.  They are both way cute and child friendly. 

To make these you will need

A circle template (we used a CD)
Pencil to trace a swirl (this can be free form)
Scissors
A glue gun (this was operated by mommy)
Pixie Sticks
Scrapbook paper (We used assorted red and pink prints for the flowers and green for the leaves)


Trace a CD on paper and cut out circles. 

On one side of the paper I traced a line for the kids to cut.  They do not have to follow the lines exactly and they still turn out great.

When its all cut it is one long curly piece of paper (or a snake as my girls called it)
Then you take the end of the snake and start rolling.

My girls did this but I forgot to take a picture so I did one to show you.  You could have kids wrap it around a pencil as well.  They then look like one long ringlet curl.  I took the glue gun and put a dab on the flower base to hold it together.

These ones are pre-glue.

I then cut out flower petals and the kids wrote happy Valentine's day on them. While they were working on that, I glued two pixie sticks together, to act as the stem.  I then attached the flower to the top and their petal to the middle of the "stem" 

They turned out great!  It was fun to watch my little ladies at work.

Make sure to check out tomorrows flower as well.


Shannon

I linked up to:
http://www.atthepicketfence.com/
http://shabbynest.blogspot.com/

Here is the single shot, which I now realize is a little blurry but you get the idea.  You can see the ones in the cup better in this shot!

Copy Cat!

Hi Friends!

Okay so the other day I was checking out all the latest and greatest projects in blog land. While looking,  I came across this page over at A Perfectly Crazy Life.  Well Libby is full of wonderful ideas.  I love her tag line "finding sanity one craft at a time"  How true is that, people!!!  One of her projects in particular caught my eye and I just had to give it a try... Here is her inspiration piece.

Isn't that the cutest thing you have ever seen!
Libby also give a great tutorial for how to make this project as well. 










So I decided to make my own.  I took fabric; gingham, muslin and denim and cut them into strips about 8 inches long.  Then took take a string of Christmas lights and start tying them on.  Just that easy.  Then I took couch webbing and cut sections and connected them to a jute string with a little glue to make a banner.  I tied the jute string to the Christmas light strings.

Here is what mine turned out like,

Have a great day!

Shannon

I am linking up:

http://www.thegrantlife.com/

http://shabbynest.blogspot.com/

http://funkyjunkinteriors.blogspot.com/

http://tatertotsandjello.com/

http://www.stuff-and-nonsense.net/

news cans :-)

Hi,

This past weekend I was not feeling so hot.  I think my husband as a result was bored.  Fortunately his boredom worked in my favor!  He decided to install a new garbage can system for us. 

He went to Lowe's and picked up these two boxes:

The first one is for a door mounting kit.  We wanted to have the door mounted to the slider so it was one easy step.  Not having to first open the cupboard and then pull out the garbage can.

 We are all about making things easy around here :-)

 The second box is the unit, it come with the garbage cans and everything.

 This is the cupboard we decided to use.  It is located between the sink and the dishwasher, hence the water line in the back.
(there was a shelf divider in here that was removed before the picture was taken)

My guy took it out of the box, assembled it and screwed it in place.  Then did the same with the cupboard door and door mounting kit. 

And Yippee skippy I have a rockin new set of garbage cans! 

I love them!  I have only gone to the spot where the old garbage can was 307 times.  I will figure it out once the fog clears from my brain :-)

I ordered cabinet hardware finally,  I am so excited to put it up! I will share the results soon.

Have a great day!
Shannon

Chalkin it up!

Hi,  Happy weekend friends!

I am so in love with the many chalkboards that are floating around the blogisphere.

Making one has been on my to do list for some time now.  Yesterday was the day.  I found an old frame in the garage that I had painted black, but the corners were separating.  So I took a little wood filler and put it in the corners. 

Then I took two different blues and mixed them together to get the color I wanted for the frame.   Next, I dabbed just a tiny bit at a time onto my brush, and did a dry rub, leaving quite a bit of the black showing through.

  

Then I took some chalkboard paint and painted a piece of cardboard and attached it to the back. 







Put it in a cookbook stand and, Viola!  I too have a chalkboard!  How fun and easy! Why in the world did I wait so long? 

 



 

Shannon

I linked up to:

http://www.thegrantlife.com/

http://funkyjunkinteriors.blogspot.com/

http://tatertotsandjello.com/2012/01/weekend-wrap-up-party-and-the-confident-mom-giveaway.html
http://delectablehome.blogspot.com/
http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

My Girls Rooms

Hi all, I am feeling a story coming on...

I shared with you all a while ago about how we, once upon a time, bought this crazy fixer house and did a little renovation here.  We really did like the house but with three small kids and two massive dogs, the floor plan was not working out so well.  We had a large home but really only were living in a very small portion of the home.  We did have four bedrooms, but three of them were up stairs and one down.  With three kids under the age of four they all needed to be upstairs by us.  They had a huge beautiful toy room downstairs but do you think any of them would play there while I made lunch or dinner? NO because I was upstairs and they have an amoeba factor! See how this is working??? A split level home and the current stage of our family life just were not a match made in heaven.  Now the family that bought the house from us have two high school aged boys.  It is the perfect house for older kids, they could be downstairs away from the parental units.  There is beauty with this type of a floor plan and older kids but I was not willing to wait out the many years to get to that point.

 I often tell my husband our home is my office,  this is where I work, I need it to function in the best way possible so that I can effectively get my work done and do my favorite thing...play with my kids.  So what a girl to do in this situation?  Well move, and like I said we put up that for sale sign and within a week the place was sold.  We chose a builder and had a house built for us that fit our family perfectly.  I love our new home. We use every inch of this home.  There is absolutely no wasted space at all!  I love that about it.  Anyway back to the point, my girls rooms.

So the two girls have always shared a room.  In the new house they would each have their own bedrooms.  We let them choose which ones they wanted prior to construction.  Our house ended up being finished on Christmas eve.  So we took our kids over to one set of grandparents house in the morning. Then the other set of grandparents, and my husband and I, all worked like crazy to set up the kids rooms.  We were going to surprise them with their rooms being set up and ready (from Santa) .  This ended up being a total blessing because it was the perfect time to organize and go through all the toys and thin things out, without our kids being there to take out all the things I had just put away!  So after a whirlwind day of decorating and organizing, my husband and I went off to join the kids.  On the way home they all fell asleep (we were counting on this as part of our plan).  We brought them to our new house and we all slept in our master bedroom, once our kids fall asleep they are totally out for the duration.  Keep in mind, the kids had no clue our house was even finished.  So in the morning when they woke up Santa had left us a note at our other house to go to the new house.  Then we went all EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER style and did the big reveal of each of their rooms.  It was absolutely amazing!!!! The kids were so excited they could hardly contain themselves.  It was really cute.

Here is what the girls saw when they opened the doors... 

Room 1,

Room 2

 We wanted room that would last the girls a while, we put two beds in the first room so they would have space for sleepovers and a queen bed in the other for the same reasons.

room 1,

  The bedding is from blancho,  http://www.blancho-bedding.com/mf01007-1.html.  They have great online coupons, I did not pay anywhere near the listed price.
The sheet were a tj maxx find and match the bedding perfectly! I will take better photos of the sheets and post them this evening.
The vinyl tree was off of etsy, http://www.etsy.com/listing/73445639/the-original-shelving-tree-with-birdsref=sr_gallery_37&sref=&ga_search_query=vinyl+tree+original&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_ship_to=US&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade
I took pain brown shelves and sprayed them pink for a pop of color.

room 2,

 

 The bedding is from Delias.  I tried to link it but it looks like they may not sell bedding anymore.










the vinyl is also from etsy, but a different company,
http://www.etsy.com/listing/61788610/paris-vinyl-wall-decals-french-frameref=sr_gallery_1&sref=&ga_search_query=french+frames+chandelier+vinyl&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_ship_to=US&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade

Our sons room is still not fully finished, he was to young to understand the decor side of things so we just put away and organized his toys in the room and set up his furniture, he was just as thrill with that as the girls.  To this day when someone comes over he says, (and he's 2) "hey, you want to come and see my room"?  Haha, that kids cracks me up!

Now I have gotta run, substituting today.  The job is elementary ART!!!! I have a rough life ;-)

Shannon

I linked up to;

http://www.myuncommonsliceofsuburbia.com/
http://vintagegwen.blogspot.com/
http://frommyfrontporchtoyours.blogspot.com/