My one Word

It's that time.  Time for a new year!  Time to set new goals.  Time for a new word for 2011.  Last year my word was Focus.  I did pretty good remembering about it til about...February.  Then things seemed to get busy around here and I forgot all about Focusing.  So, I hope I will do better with my word for this year. 

My word is:

Capture

To capture the moment.

Capture the picture.  I'm going to try doing a picture a day for 2011.

Capture the time with my family.

I have one more day to change my mind.  But I think this is going to stay.

Are you doing one little word?  What is yours?

2010 in Review

I started this little blog when we purchased our new home.  I thought it would be a fun place to share what we were working on and what we continue doing around here.  And the little fun things that make up our day!

The end of the Year is coming real soon and I thought I would highlight what we accomplished. 

We Painted

Tried decorating

That was a little hairy...(the spider ha. ha.)

My real first furniture redo

Made grape juice for the first time

I also thought it would be fun to see what posts caught the most eyes.

So what have you liked seeing?

The number one post has been

What to do with sticks!

followed by

the big Desk Redo

Another big one has been

Making our Mickey Shirts.

Thanks for following along and supporting me!  I look forward to a new year and New Projects!

I joined Southern Hospitality Top Projects of 2010 party.  Click to see others!

Happy New Year,

Melissa

Magic

The Magic of NOW

 The lights, the stockings, the anticipation.

 Santa brought it all.

 I even got my hubby to wear his Christmas socks.  It's been a great day.

Merry Christmas!

3 More Sleeps

It's crazy, crazy I tell you!  Christmas is almost here!

We stayed up til 2 a.m. wrapping presents and watching Psych.

I think we are about ready.

How are you?

I want to wish you a Merry Christmas!

Have a great weekend with your families and eat lots of yummy treats!

More Christmas

I finally got the "one" other item done.  It took about 5 minutes.  I wish I hadn't put it off for so long.  What is it?  Ta Da!

I have always had my Nativity set out in the living room.  But, in this house there isn't any good spot to put it where my very busy, curious, rough housing, 2 year old couldn't get to it.  So it was suppose to be put downstairs.  I felt a little sad about that.  There needed something upstairs that signified the true meaning. 

Hello Silhouette.  We are becoming good friends.

This was such a fast project!

Here it is on the table.  I love it with my favorite picture of Mary and the baby Jesus.  It's done by Liz Lemon Swindle, love it.  Morty the elf made it into the picture too.  He is our elf friend for December.  Morty finds new places to watch over us each day.  This just happened to be it.  And since you can't touch Santa's elf's (they won't be able to get back to the North Pole if you do) we told him to smile big.

So here is the Living Room, one last time. 

It feels just a little more complete.

Christmas Tour

I have a lot of fun decorating for different holidays.  But as I am looking around my house I think I need more Christmas stuff.  Oh, my husband will love reading that one!  I think I had more for Halloween.  Which is not okay...

My mantle is totally different than in the past.  I found an adorable print on eighteen25's blog and had to get it printed.  Amazingly it's the perfect color for my living room.  I think it's a great focal point.

I can't get my silly stockings to not twist.  So sometimes you see the front, and sometimes you don't!

Our tree didn't change this year.  I have bought some stuff to spruce it up a little but that would require taking off all the ornaments.  Once was enough for me!  So it won't happen until next year. 

Tree's are so hard to photograph!  We have a red, white, and green, candy cane, Santa theme going on. 

Over on my curio is where I put a lot of stuff.  Seeing that I don't have any shelves or pictures put up on the walls yet, I tend to put it here instead.

I made these fun Joy stands last year from a post on shanty2chic.  It was really fun to make something from scratch all by myself (kind of).  They were great to put the how-to on there.  I think that's when I decided YES, I can make stuff!

That is almost all the decor in my living room.  I have one more table-but I need to finish one more thing up on there before I show it off...  How many more days til Christmas?  Ha :)
Linked to these fun parties

Snowflake Shower

We have a lot of fun events going on for the month of December.  Two weddings, one baby, and a special 60th wedding anniversary.  I helped decorate for a bridal shower the other day.  It was a fun red & winter theme.  They are getting married just after Christmas so we thought it would be fun to add some snowflakes and pine trees to it.  I used the little tissue paper flowers again. 

 They are just fun, and since they turned out so well for the baby shower, why not?!

The snowflakes have been collected over the past couple years.  They go on my Christmas tree.  But I can share :)

The tables had red table clothes on them with the little pine trees.  We sprinkled little peppermints on the table to bring together the red and white theme.

It was simple again.  But I like that it doesn't take away from the cute couple.

Hope all is well with all of you!

Dessert Table

Remember that baby shower we had a while ago? 

I thought I would share how the dessert table turned out.  It was a lot of fun to do.  Plus, I had lots of help from my 2 cute helpers.  And when you have all that wonderful help the kitchen becomes wonderfully messy.

My decor all started with the fun tissue paper flowers.  I know they are all around but this was my first attempt making them.  They were pretty easy and I think they make a big impact.

I had a cute picture of a little girl picking at her toes.  She is sitting in all her cute chubby nakedness while she is doing this.  I think its really cute.  So it went on the table too.

We served pretzels dipped in white chocolate with pink and red sprinkles on them, this was the favorite treat by the way, rice crispy treats with heart sprinkles, and water with floating raspberries.  Everything had a little touch of pink.

So, nothing crazy.  Tried to keep it simple.

Start it Right!

Happy December!

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December 1st is the day we drink Hot Chocolate, break open the count down calendars, and our special visitor arrives. To add more fun to December 1st, we decided to give one gift to everyone.
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Jammie's!

I know, it's a big tradition to receive new p.j.s on Christmas eve, but it seems my kids get jammies from others that day as well.  So, we decided to do it the first of the season and set the tone for the whole month!

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 What fun tradition do you have this Christmas season?



Pretty in Pink Garland

My sweet sister-in-law is pregnant with her first baby.  She is very excited and super scared, just like most of us are!  The unknown can be a very scary thing!

She was able to travel home for Thanksgiving so we threw her a quick shower.  She had a good group of people come support her, even the day before Thanksgiving! 

I wanted to decorate and make it fun, but not over the top.  So I started with my Silhouette Machine and selected a flower.  I cut out of ton of them to make a little garland to go across the window.

Then I quickly sewed them together.  It was so much fun!  You don't have to worry about straight lines or anything.  Just zip them out!

Then I cut out some more flowers making them bigger than the last and cut out some letters.  Glued the letters on then punched 2 holes on each flower threading some pink ribbon thru to hang them up.

And there we had a soft little backdrop.

More to come later!  The dessert table turned out cute too.

Be Grateful

I know, it's after Thanksgiving and everyone has moved onto Christmas.  But I thought this one was worth sharing.  Maybe you can remember it for next year.
We have a thankful wall each year.  It starts on November 1 and ends on Thanksgiving.  Each day we try and remember to write or draw something we are thankful for.

Somedays it can be a challenge.  But it sure is fun to look back and read them! 
We keep it pretty simple.  I cut a bunch of different leaves out using my Silhouette Machine this year.  Last year, I printed off a bunch and cut them out.  Either way works just fine!  Then we simply stick it on the wall using that magic blue stuff.  I never remember what it's called.  It keeps the papers up there great though. 
Sometimes, we have to do 2 a day because we forget to do it the day before.  But Shhhh, its our secret.  Really you can do it however works best for your family.  It's a fun way to see what your kids are thinking about too.  We got Candy a lot from my 2 year old. 
I hope that gives you an idea on how to make Thanksgiving a bigger deal around your house!  I know it does for ours.

Pirate Mickey

Wow. It took me long enough!
I finally got around to finishing the Mickey shirt for my little man.
I did it about the same as I did the Minnie Mouse shirt.
I tried using a knit fabric for his Mickey. It was harder to work with, but ended up okay.
(If you don't look too closely!)
I used wonder under to adhere the layers to the shirt.
I free-handed the pirate hat then stitched around each layer.

This is my little man in action.
He loves his Pirate Mickey!
It's been fun using shirts they all ready have and transforming them into something new!

Money for Candy

There is a dentist close to us that will buy your Halloween candy from you the week after Halloween.  $2.00 a pound is what they pay.  I think it's a great way to get rid of some of the excess candy.  Especially the kind I don't want my little kids eating or the ones they won't.  i.e. gum, red hots.

We took our bag in today and got $3.00.

A very easy way to earn a little more spending money for our vacation!

What do you do with all that candy?

Mickey Count Down

I broke out my sewing machine today.  It's been sitting around neglected for some time now.  But we are going on vacations soon.  Not any vacation, we are taking our kids to Disney World! 

I am SOOO excited!

They don't know anything about it.  Well, they know we are going on vacation and flying on a plane, but that's it.

Because my little 4 year old wants EVERYTHING I decided I better be a little prepared.

I decided to make her some little shirts she can wear.  That way we won't need to buy any!

I made a little Minnie Mouse shirt by tracing a Mickey Mouse face.  Then used Wonder-Under with some red polka dot fabric and ironed it on.  I stitched around it with my sewing machine giving it a little more of a finished look.  Minne needed a bow of course, just tacked that right on.

I know she will love all the princesses.  So she needed  a princess shirt.  She had a cute purple shirt that was in here drawer all ready.  I used my Silhouette Machine to cut out the princess lettering, stars, and crowns.  Then ironed it right on.

I put a little crown on the back.  I think its fun to have something there too!

 Put a few little stars on the bottom.

 It was so fun putting these together!

I guess I need to figure out something for my little man.  Maybe a Mickey face would work for him too.  I just need to look for a shirt he already has that will work!

Happy Fall

I did it, I got started with my fall decorations.  Plus my laundry is all caught up.  A productive day I must say.  We even had dinner ready at a decent time!

I don't have nearly as much fall/Thanksgiving decor as I do Halloween.  But that could really be a good thing. 

My mantle is started.

Something doesn't feel right about it yet.  I guess I will keep tweaking as the days go by...

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I think I like this, as long as my 2 year old will leave it alone!

It's the top of a cedar chest in my living room.  Those are real pumpkins with spanish moss in the bottom of the hurricane .  I thought it was fun to have something real.  Doesn't happen much around here!

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How are your mantle, book shelves, tables coming along?

linked to these parties