I love a pretty place setting like nobody's business, but our rarely used fine china was taking up prime real estate in our dining room-craft room-play room combo space, so it had to go. Love an open floor plan, but sometimes these large, undefined rooms can be a pain to decorate!
Empty and full of possibilities...
{I wasn't feeling the paint on this one so I just went with repurposing for now.}
Goodbye china...Hello fabric cabinet!
Finally a place to store and display my favorite vintage sheets...
And some of my favorite Lulu & Co. party hats...
There's a little friendly lamb pincushion that greets you when you walk by - fun! A fun giveaway I won a couple of months ago from sweet Kerri...thank you!
I stacked some of my favorite prints up high and the colors are so pretty!
A good reminder to use what I have...sew from my stash. But fabric is sooo tempting and hard to resist!!
But it's always little bits and bobs that make me smile when I walk by...
Vintage trim will always have a soft spot in my heart.
Some sweet vintage cards, handmade treasures from friends and embroidery patterns round out the top corner...
So there you have it! A fun little cabinet ready for projects whenever I can sneak in 30 minutes here and there.
Not fancy, not a room with a door {one can dream!...next house, for sure}, but it makes me happy every time I walk by so that's a win in my book.
Happy crafting, friends!
With school back in session, orders have started going out again...
But we are still holding on to nights like this...
All while enjoying the rhythms back-to-school brings...
Like sneaking in lunch with the littles here and there...
Packing lunches and healthy after-school snacks {the easy part} and *trying* to work my way back to weekly meal planning/prep {Oh, the challenge this is for me!}
Getting back in the routine is not always easy, but we try and celebrate every little step forward...
And some mornings we are extra smiley because we earned enough rewards tickets to "take off our shoes in class" and that is super fun when you are in the second grade! {I love, love the list of rewards her teacher gave them on their first day!!}
And to finish our Summer with a bang, while Daddy was here...
We squeezed in a little American Girl...Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...Legoland fun of our own.
Now we are ready for F A L L!
Things have been quiet around here but that's because we've been trying to soak up every little bit of 'Summer' we can! We've been having fun with sweet friends...
And enjoying Christmas in July at the waterpark! Hudson found out he has been 93% nice so far this year - hahaha!
Splish...Splash...FUN!
I love my sweet snuggle mornings with this little guy...
...and my Saturday morning Pioneer Woman tradition with the little pumpkin!
On Monday, July 14th, this little guy read this ENTIRE book to me at bedtime!!! I was sooooooo proud!!! Oh, and sunburn = no pj top!
We've been taking advantage of summer break - along with every other parent in town - to get that semi-annual dentist visit in. Hudson had his "cheese" smile ready even before getting his teeth cleaned - ha! A+ visits for both. Hooray!
Noonie and I finished this adorable maxi dress for Grace. Loooooooove!
I so enjoyed a fun Sewing Club with my sweet friends Ashleigh, Sara, Jamie and Lara! We missed you, Emme!! Thank you for being the best hostess, Ashleigh!
Lance was gone out of town for a week, so I decided to tackle our dining room. We don't really use our dining room much - we eat most of our meals in our breakfast nook in the great room - so the dining room turned craft room had been neglected for far too long. Annie Sloan Chalk Paint to the rescue!
In just a couple of nights we had a whole new dining table + chairs! LOVE how it turned out. I'm seriously crushing on my own furniture right now! Do you have a project just waiting around your house??? Do it! Do it! Soooooo worth a couple of late nights and a little elbow grease!
I'll share better pics once the entire room is finished.
I decided to make the most of the week Lance was gone and do lots of cleaning/organizing/purging. During my cleaning frenzy, I came across my wedding shoes and LOOK what I found??!?! Isn't it amazing? Serendipity! All I could think of was Psalm 139:16...All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
What would Summer be without a few {okay, A LOT!} of these...
And of course, these...
I love Summer nights!
But all hasn't been pink + glittery + unicorn like. We've had plenty of cRAzY days full of ornery behavior. Today was one of those days.
I had to call "time out" on the packing and get out of the house for a while. We hit up the Dillard's sale. Eight pieces of jewelry for $32 is pretty good in my book!!!
And speaking of packing. Can I just say that packing is most definitely in my top 10 least favorite things to do!! I did NOT inherit Noonie's amazing packing skills, that's for sure! Jewelry and shoes...check! The rest...blah!
And while I'm on all things 'Summer'...these are 3 of my budget-friendly Summer must-haves...
Essie's enuff is enuff coral shade is my go-to. Revlon's pango peach gives your lips a shimmery pout and just a hint of color. And L'oreal butterfly mascara is 10x better than the tube of Younique 3d fiber lashes that sits pretty much unused in my makeup drawer. Much faster too!
Do you have any Summer faves??
I'd love to know!
Every year I look for the perfect day planner to keep me organized, use it a couple of months, and then out the door it goes. I think I finally found a keeper!!
Ordered {this one} from Paper Coterie when it was on sale a couple of weeks ago and I couldn't be happier!
The monthly layout is perfect for me because I'm visual and like to see everything together on one page...
I love that it has these fun pages with categories like "10 things I am grateful for", "a funny thing happened", and "favorite moments"...so much better than "to do" and "budget" - ha!
But what I love most are the pictures sprinkled throughout!!
Every time I open my planner and see pictures like these, my heart grows a little fuller...
At 8" x 8", it's the perfect size to keep tucked in my purse. But if you see me finding excuses to pull it out randomly just to sneak a glimpse at my favorite people, you'll know why!!
I have a feeling this one will be around way past 2013...
Happy Monday!
