Awesome Autumn Decor

A few weeks ago Edgar posted a wreath that Rico made for their front door. It was so beautiful and in my comment I asked (facetiously) if Rico would have time to make one for me. Well, he did!

I was so surprised and thrilled when Edgar responded that Rico would be glad to make me a wreath and after a few emails working out the details of what I like (no birds, owls, or feathers) Rico went to work on my wreath.

It arrived last week and it is gorgeous! I love it and the story of who made it and how it came to be make it even more special to me.

I haven't decided yet where to hang it, I keep trying it out around the house to find the best spot. So I hung it from a hanger on a random door for this photo. Isn't it gorgeous?!

Thank you Rico, the wreath you made is just perfect! And thank you Edgar!

Before...

We were supposed to get the keys to our new house on October 22. We had everything planned out; we invited our family over to see the house for the first time that evening, we were going to power wash the garage and paint the floor the next day. We were going to pull out all of the carpet and start laying the new flooring. The pool fence was going up the first thing.

Yeah, right.

We ended up NOT getting the keys until October 25. Three days later doesn't sound like much, but when you've taken days off according to your plan and now can't take anymore... well, it can become a big deal.

We ended up moving everything over into the garage, pulled up the carpet in the bedroom and office and set the furniture up on the concrete. Slowly but surely we've been working on it and now Dan is flooring the last room. We have no baseboards up. Every square inch of wall needs to be painted. I'm not even thinking yet about what to do with the ceilings.

So we're making progress and the most important thing is how comfortable we are in this home. My SIL commented to me at Thanksgiving that "it feels like you've lived here for years". Now, that's a positive, encouraging remark! Thank you, Kelly! I literally felt myself relax when she said it.

It will take time. But I can just picture how it's going to look and feel when we're done with the updating.

In the meantime, here's some "before" photos:

The "dining room" 

The "living room"

The den

The den

Pantry

Kitchen

Breakfast nook

Kitchen/Nook

Family room 

Hall to bedrooms

Half bath

Laundry room

Guest room

Office

Master bedroom

Fun with Jessica

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
Matthew 16:25 NIV

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Yes, as you can see I can't update my text box again. Grrr! This time I'm not even bothering to send feedback to Google. I don't think they listen anyhow.

Yesterday Jessica was off for Columbus Day. We decided to have a craft day and wow, am I pleased with the results!

My mom had a shoebox of angels that she wanted made into a wreath, so that was the first craft completed. Jessica worked for my brother and SIL as a teen in their flower shop and honed her talent for arranging. Mom's wreath turned out great and Mom liked it too!

This summer as I started to think about Christmas decor, I decided I wanted a swag. Do you know how much they cost?! Even with a coupon, they are still pricey. A few days later my Current, Inc catalog arrived and guess what?! A swag for less than $10.00! And it was flocked and lighted with LED lights. I ordered it and began to think about how I wanted to finish it. 

I was in the garage this weekend looking for something and had to move the tub marked "Santas". That brought to mind the mini-santas Dan painted years ago. I've always loved them, but I've never found just the right way to display them. Well, now I have. Jess used them for my swag and I love the way it turned out.

Two of the ornaments in the center are Santa-related too. One says "HOHOHO" and the other says "Dear Santa" with an outline of Santa reading a letter. Isn't it pretty? And what a great way to display those mini-santas (FINALLY!)

The last craft was pinned from Pinterest. I've seen a variety of ways to do it on that site. Each one is cute. I knew I wanted to make an ornament shadowbox for this year, but that's as far as my thought process went. This August I was walking through Michael's when I saw a grey/silver colored shadowbox in the clearance bin. I bought it and started planning what kind of theme I wanted for the box. I knew I wanted to fill it with ornaments, but wasn't sure what color combo to use. 

Yesterday I decided to use traditional red, green, white for the box primarily. I also added some tiny snowmen to help fill in the spaces. I bought the words for $2 at Walmart. This craft I was able to do with Jessica! Even I can place ornaments in a shadowbox! It is gorgeous. Very shiny, very colorful. I love it!

The swag, the shadowbox, and the wreath we made this summer are going to be festive additions to my Christmas decor this year. Plus, I've got a totally new vignette in mind for decor... you will be amazed when you see it. It's totally outside of the way I normally decorate. I'll share it after Thanksgiving...

Happy New Year!

2012 is here. 2011 is gone. Done. Never to be repeated.

Let's all revel in the freedom of a new year. A fresh start. At least let's be glad that a new week is beginning.

I finished 2011 on a high note. It was 50% off day at Goodwill. We stopped there once before on 50% off day and vowed never to do it again. But yesterday the parking lot wasn't that full so we took a chance. Am I glad we did! I found this gorgeous table priced at $39.99. Which means I bought it for $19.99. It is made of solid wood. The drawers slide open from either side. The top of it was scratched, so Dan filled the scratches with wood putty and we painted it with some black craft paint I had laying around. It looks marvelous! I'm going to put some of my x-stitch supplies in it. But I can imagine lots of other uses for it in the future.

This morning as I reached for my new calendar I had a poetic thought. "I'm holding the future of this year in my hand." I know, it's also a fanciful thought. But it's kind of exciting. Let's all celebrate this first day of 2012. Celebrate the opportunities, challenges, joys, blessings, and yes, even the struggles we may face this coming year. They all combine to make us the person we are meant to be. Happy New Year!

Thursday Thoughts

Yesterday was a challenging day. I had a 9 am dentist appointment and as I was driving to it the car started making a strange noise. It sounded as if I was driving on a gravel road with the rocks flying into the undercarriage of the car. I stopped and looked at the car but couldn't see anything. So, I turned around and headed back home. Luckily it was Dan's day off from Sam's. He had a full day of appraisal business scheduled.

Challenge #1. He took the car to the shop and they said come back at 3 pm, it's a belt and we'll have it fixed in an hour.

He came back home and did what he could on the appraisals, but was unable to go out to do any inspections. At 3 pm, he took the car back to the shop. Found out it was NOT a belt. It was the water pump. It also needed new hoses, other belts, timing thingamajig. Since it needed all of that, he decided to have the rear brakes replaced too.

Challenge #2. They needed to keep the car for a day or two. We only have one car. He had Sam's to go to today. Luckily we were able to borrow a car from my folks.

Jessica picked him up and brought him home. Zach was here because he had just finished a job close by. We talked for a few minutes and then everyone left. It was too late to fix the meal we had planned, so we ran up to Sprouts to buy sandwiches.

 We got back home and he said "I need your keys to unlock the door." I asked him where his keys were. He replied that he left them with the car. I said "ALL of them?!" "I don't think I have my keys with me". Dumped out my purse... sure enough no keys.

Challenge #3. Katie has an emergency key, but she was at least 15-20 minutes away. I called Katie to come rescue us. Meanwhile it was hot, my blood sugar was low, and I had to start eating my sandwich. Dan picks up a shovel (what?!) and takes off into the backyard. Next thing I know he unlocks the door and says call her back, we don't need her to come. I'm not going to share with you how he got in the house... I don't want to give away any security secrets! haha

All's well that ends well. But that was definitely not the day we expected to have...

After all that drama I want to share some photos of my Fall decor. It helps me to imagine that it's not still 108 degrees outside!

Autumn Decor

Last year I had to retire a lot of my Fall decor. It was old and worn. I was tired of it. I was ready for a new look. I'm just not sure what that new look is.

I found the lighted grape vine pumpkin at Hobby Lobby. It is so not like something I would normally purchase. That made it perfect for me. I decided I wanted to build my autumn decor around it. So I bought it. I've purchased a couple of candles, and a candle holder that is also not like me. I will fill in the rest with items that I already have.

I wonder who I'm becoming if I'm purchasing decor that is not like me?!

(By the way, I'm not decorating for Fall yet... I usually do that Labor Day weekend)

It's Saturday?!

Oh my goodness. If you could see my house you would run screaming in the opposite direction. I am not exaggerating. We've needed to switch the guest room and office with each other for months now. We decided to do it this week. I've been motivated for a while, but Dan had to catch up with me. The fact that Thunder is coming any minute and that Sunny will be staying with us a night or two finally motivated him. That's the good news.

The bad news (or maybe it's the other good news) is that he has so many appraisal orders that we are only able to work on the switch for a few minutes each day. A job that should have only taken a few hours has stretched out to several days. In the meantime, I have furniture from both rooms strewn throughout the house as we clean carpets. I think there is stuff piled on every single flat surface of my home. It is so cluttered. And clutter drives me crazy.

Dan's at Sam's Club today followed by an appraisal appointment. While he's out, I'm going to try to load as much furniture as I can into the guest room. I can't manage the bed so I'll have to wait on him. Then I'm going to switch the closet items for the rooms. If all goes well, I think the job should be complete by end of day tomorrow. At least I hope so.

In other news, we are on intense baby watch. Or maybe I should say I am on intense baby watch. Each day that goes by, Katie has more aches and pains, pressure and swelling. I get more and more excited with each new report. Since my increasing excitement irritates Katie, I have to release it on Dan. Needless to say, he's getting weary, too. We have a family pool to guess the date Thunder will arrive. I guessed today. Katie guessed two days ago. The rest of them guessed the 14th through the 19th. I'm sure Katie hopes I'm right!

Christmas Decor - Living Room

Last, but not least, here are the photos of our living room decor. As you can see in the last picture of the Christmas tree, the doors are open at my house. It is very nice weather here... the daily highs are in the upper 70s, lower 80s. I sure hope it stays that way!



Christmas Decor - Office, Bedroom, Guest Room

Here’s the Christmas decor from Dan’s office, our bedroom, and the guest room.

Office Nativity

Office tree

Dan's tree is a mix of "Christmas Story", nature, western...

more "Christmas Story", fishing, hobbies

Bedroom tree - Snow theme

Guest Room tree - Purple theme

Guest Room Nativity



Christmas Decor - Kitchen

I finally got around to taking some pictures of my home decor. These are my kitchen nook photos. These cross stitches are projects that I made. One of them is of the skyline of the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, MO. The ceramic nativity set was painted by Dan in the early years of our marriage. He did the ceramic Santa Clauses too.