Silhouette Digital Cutting Tool, win it!

Does anyone own a Silhouette? I really want one, think of all the vinyl I could make! Check out all it can do here.  You can enter to win a Silhouette today over here at Thrifty Decor Chick.   I am literally drooling on my keyboard thinking of all the things I could make with this Silhouette.  I am hoping if I don't win, someone else will and then they will give it to me for Christmas.  A girl can dream, right?  So hurry over and enter to win one and maybe you'll let me come over and play with it sometime! 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Today is the day to gather around the table with family and friends, to share your blessings with each other, to give thanks for the big and the little things in our lives. It's so easy to just live day to day without taking the time to think of all we have to be thankful for, I hope we all can take some time today to reflect on this before we enter the rush of Christmas!

God's blessings to you and your family this Thanksgiving!!!

A few of my Favorite Things

How fun! Come join Melissa over at 320 Sycamore for her 2010 favorite things party!
All you need to do is post a few of your favorite things and link up your blog post.  While you are there, don't forget to check out what other people have posted because isn't that half the fun of linking up?
I'm not sure what to post because I am not a coffee addict, I don't collect a certain thing, I don't have a favorite lotion or candle scent or even makeup.  I could put cheesy answers like my family, Jesus or my dog but I just can't do it.  So while sitting on the couch with my favorite hubby, dog and children all gathered around, here is what I thought of while watching Jim Carrey's The Grinch.  I am looking forward to busting out Elf tomorrow night, love that movie btw, Buddy the Elf rocks!  Sorry, I got distracted from my favorite things, here they are without further ado!


1.  Spray Paint!!!!  Especially loving the ORB right now.  It's crazy how cheaply you can transform anything with a few coats of spray paint!

2.  I can only find these at Christmas but that's part of what makes them so special, Rold Golds Chocolate Covered Pretzels.  Yummy!!!  Too bad I can't find a picture of them but I do have a picture of some chocolate pretzels..  They are in stores already though so head out and pick some up!

3.  One of my all time favorite books to read is "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell.  I first read this book my senior year of high school and every few years I pick it up again.




4.  It's hard to think of what  my favorite things are but  I love, love,  love hydrangeas!  They are so beautiful and I am lucky enough to have two bushes outside my front door that give me big beautiful flowers that I dry every year after they are done making me so happy all summer long!

5.  Now I'm on a roll, where do I stop?!?  It's a toss up between lasagna and Hobby Lobby but HL wins because the nearest one is 2 hours away and it's such a joy when I get to go there!

I hope you enjoyed my edition of Favorite Things, now head on over to the blog party and check out some more favorite things lists.  Maybe you'll even be inspired enough to post one of your own!

At last, my curtains!!!!

Since moving into this house 3 years ago, I've had a hard time with window treatments. The living room has 3 windows, the dining room has two windows and the kitchen has a patio door. When we first moved in, I had heavy dark brown curtains with window valances for the living room, two striped brown valances for the dining room and nothing for the patio door.
I fell in love with a checked curtain from Better Homes and Gardens that was at Wal-mart. I didn't want to spend $120 for my living room curtains because technically I didn't "need" them, I had the heavy, dark brown ones that worked just fine. I purchased one panel and brought it home and loved it! Now I needed 5 more panels. I have waited ever so patiently for these curtains to go on clearance and they finally did! Except that they were all gone at my store by the time I discovered they were on clearance. AUGH! I have been checking every store in a 50 mile radius online for a few weeks and found nothing.

Mr.A and I snuck away for a little time alone last weekend and I scored so big on my curtains! At one Wal-mart I bought the very last curtain and it was only $5! We ended up driving 40 minutes one way in the opposite direction of our hotel and home to buy 6 curtains that one Wal-mart had! When I called and asked how many they had available and she said 6 and they were $9 a piece I jumped for joy!!
So without further ado, here is a before shot:

Here are a few after shots, unironed curtains and all!

I even had enough curtain panels to put some up over the patio door...

Shutterfly cards for Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! And that means it's time to find your perfect picture or pictures and make your annual Christmas card. I love using shutterfly for Christmas cards, calendars and even picture books.  We make a picture book every summer of our adventures and my kids love to look at them.  We have also made baby J's birth announcements and they turned out so adorably cute!  I can't wait to get started on our Christmas cards!
Check out some of these cute cards and these were only on the first page!  I love the monogrammed cards, the different colored cards like pale blue, green and black.  They have quite the selection, I"m not sure how I'm ever going to choose just one style!

They also have some really cute ideas for those hard to buy for people on your list.  Check out the photo mugs, mouse pads or maybe even some playing cards.

A favorite gift of ours to give is the personalized calendars.  Right now they are buy one get one 50% off so if you need one for you and one for the grandparents or maybe both sets of grandparents, head on over to Shutterfly and create one or five!!!   Look at this cute calendar.....I can't wait to get started on mine!

Finally, if you are a blogger yourself, check out this great deal that Shutterfly is offering up.   Who couldn't use 50 free cards?  So start looking through all those great pictures you took this year and head on over to Shutterfly and get some great one of a kind, created by you gifts from the comfort of your own home!  

Coffee filter wreath and vinyl lettering

In addition to painting the doors, I also added some vinyl lettering to the mudroom entry area. I originally bought the vinyl for my glass door piece but it wasn't quite big enough. I think it helps blend the door and the kitchen table with the rest of the house. Here it is....

Last week The Nester featured a wreath and a tree made out of coffee filters. I loved them and knew right away I was going to have to make at least 6 of these! Here is the link for the wreath and trees: http://www.thenester.com/2010/11/making-a-coffee-filter-wreath-and-tree-and-things-of-that-nature.html


And here is my first wreath which was made on a weird foam wreath shape that I won't be using again. I searched my Wal-mart, Hancock Fabrics and Dollar Store but no one had a normal wreath shape that I could use. I finally found the one I used at Hobby Lobby this weekend while I was away with Mr.A.
Of course I didn't take a before picture but you've come to expect that of me, right? I did take a picture of the back of the finished wreath.

I think if I make another one, I will not use quite as many filters. I still need to make a ribbon so I can hang it. If anyone has any blog posts about using ribbon to hang things, I'd love to read it. I also think my next wreath will be white. This was so simple and cheap, I'm sure I will make at least a few more. Stay tuned for my latest finds, I'll be blogging about soon!

Catching Up!

The weeks have been flying by around here lately and I've been working on a lot of little projects around the house. Winter will soon be here so my spray painting days have come to an end for now but I'll be back at it in the spring! This past Monday through Wednesday we were in the 60's here which is unseasonably warm for this time of year. I had Mr.A install our new front door with the help of my dad and so when the nice temps were here I decided to quick throw some paint on the door before winter. Trying to pick a paint color was too much stress so I just grabbed a color and regreted the decision as soon as he started mixing it. Oh well, at least the door has some paint on it and I can repaint it in the spring. What's the old saying, Haste makes waste? So true.
I also purchased some black paint so I could paint a coffee table I found on Craigslist for a mere $10. I don't have a before picture but it was a reddish brown with a big old red circle on the top where some nailpolish spilled and they tried to take it off with nail polish remover. Nothing a little paint couldn't fix and I like that the legs have a little character to them. Here it is how it looks now.

I also used the black paint to paint the back of my entry doors. Here are the doors and of course I don't have a before. sigh. I also need to purchase some more trim paint so I can paint the pieces that need to go around the front door and touch up the spots on the back door that I somehow managed to get black paint on. I even used painters tape this time! I usually like to play it dangerous and see if I can paint without taping.

The front door which Mr.A just installed.

This is the side/back door which has our little mud room area.

I'll post some more stuff in the next few days. I'm off to bed soon, had a busy but refreshing weekend away with Mr.A and no children!!!