Tuesday, April 30, 2013

DIY Silhouette Necklace

I'm so excited to be participating in Kelly's Mother's Day Handmade {love} Series!  I'm the third project out of ten coming your way!  Yesterday Jamie at Roubinek Reality shared a really sweet DIY Ruffled Kitchen Towel.  She has awesome and easy to follow instructions - go check her project out!!


So today I'm going to share a fun and easy Mother's day gift idea - a sweet little silhouette necklace.  I'm all about a silhouette - I love the vintage charm.  I wanted to come up with something that anyone could do and uses easy to find materials.  This really is easy, I promise!  Ok, let's get started!


Supplies I used:
- Balsa Wood Shapes
- Craft Paint
- Pencil
-Silhouette Stencil
- Sharpie Markers
- Small Nail (for making a hole to hang)
- Jump Rings
-Jewelry Chain
Jewelry Clasps
-Diamond Glaze or some other finish
The first thing you need to do is paint your Balsa wood shapes with craft paint - simple.  Balsa wood is a soft wood and its found in most craft stores.  I found the pre-cut shapes at Michaels.  I decided to use two circles and to add a little heart for an accent.  

  
After your paint is dry its time to trace your silhouette onto your pendant.  I simply found a profile of my son on my computer and shrank the size down to fit and printed it out.  Then, I cut out the silhouette to make a template and traced around the template with a pencil onto my pendant.  Next, I simply used a black sharpie to trace around the pencil.  *Here's a tip - a fine tip sharpie will work even better for outlining your silhouette.  After you have your outline use the regular tip sharpie for filling in.  I ended up filling in a couple of coats to get it dark and as even as possible.
Now you need to make your hole so you can use this as a pendant for your necklace.  You can either drill a hole or use a small nail and lightly tap it into the wood.  Its super soft wood so it doesn't take much to make a hole.  
After that, the next part is sealing and finishing it all off.  I decided to use diamond glaze- since I had it on hand and I like the glossy, hard finish it gives...Oh, also it dries super fast.  You could totally use a glossy modge podge or even a clear coat spray paint sealer - just use what you have.  


After your finish coat is all dry the last part is just assembling your necklace together.  I used a couple of jumprings to attach my pendants onto my chain.  Round nose pliers work great for opening and closing the jumprings.  Don't let this part intimidate you if you have never made jewelry - its so easy!  Jumprings can also be found at any craft store - even at Walmart.

And finally, you have a cute little silhouette necklace, ready for gift giving.  Mine came together pretty quickly.  I had a few minutes here and there to paint, cut, trace, gloss, etc.  Don't let handmade projects seem time consuming - usually I'm doing one little step at a time throughout the day when I work on a project like this instead of trying to carve out a chunk of time.  It works for me!


Thanks so much for joining me today!!  Tomorrow Jaime at Raising Up Rubies, will be sharing another great handmade mother's day gift idea so make sure to check it out, I can't wait!!  



Have a great day!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Be The City - Missions Week

Its turning into that time of year when I tend to start feeling overwhelmed.  We have a huge summer coming up with vba, summer camp and three mission trips - all of which we are so excited about (PS - we are going to Panama!).  We also have various events leading up to the summer that we are in the midst of planning and working out final details.  Friday night I'm hosting a girls night for our high school girls and we are making shoes for Sole Hope.  I can't wait to share about it!  We also have a Middle School Dinner Theatre this weekend and our big Senior Salute Celebration is on the horizon.  So, lots and lots of plans ahead for our us personally.  Also in the meantime we are attempting to complete our patio project as well as some others things.  And! Coming up next week I'm part of a fun Handmade Mother's Day series hosted by Kelly.  So excited!


Ok, now that you are all caught up on my life (you're welcome for that) let me rewind a bit and share about a recent student ministry missions week we did during Spring Break.

So during our students' spring break this year we decided to host a missions week doing projects here in our own city.  Our week consisted of a vbs for a local community, packaging food for our town's crisis ministry, sponsoring children and taking them to a fun museum and working at our local food bank.  We do a lot of events, retreats and things with our students but this was one of my favorites.  Ok, here comes a big photo dump.
We had such a sweet time hanging out with the kids we had for vbs.  We played games, made crafts, ate together and shared Jesus.  Justin and I were humbled and excited to see teenagers give up their spring break to serve their community.  I know sometimes teens get a bad rap and older generations worry about the future generations.  There are some awesome, loving, giving and generous teenagers being raised up.  I'm so excited to see what God does in their future.  
 Next, we took some time to buy a whole lot of rice and beans and then packaged them up for families in crisis.  We have a great Crisis Ministry here in our town that does a lot for our community and we were glad to be able to help a little.  I love that Silas was able to come and help too for this.  He loves our students and they are a great example for him.  He couldn't wait to jump in and help package food.
During the week we also were able to take a group of kids from our community (that our church is ministering to) to the Marbles Kids Museum.  Its a really hands-on, interactive and fun museum.  Not only do we have a great group of teenagers who took the kids but we have a great group of adults who sponsored these kids for the day.  Our adult classes at church gave a special offering so we were able to do this.  It was such a blessing all around. 


 Our last day we spent volunteering at our city's food bank.  Justin and I have worked at food banks all over the country on various mission trips but have never been to our own.  We loved being there and I have to brag - our city has a really organized and well run food bank who feeds thousands of people all over our state.  We packaged, boxed and organized food for them that day.  We all now know the difference between a yam & sweet potato...I think.
Thanks for letting me share a little bit about our students.  We are so thankful for what we do and to be able to serve alongside of them.  

Hope you guys are having a great week!

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Building a Patio - Part Two

Time for more patio building today.  Our patio is slowly coming together - its just the nature of our lives.  We have pockets of time on the weekends to complete steps between student events.  I'm pretty sure you could do this project in a weekend.  This next step did not take all day like the last, but don't get me wrong - it was still labor intensive - as I'm sure every step of this project will be.  So let's get going...

We left off with a big pit - and a nice pit at that.  It was now time to start filling in our base for the patio.  The first layer is a type of gravel.  We used a gravel called "crush and run".  This is a mixture of driveway gravel and fine sand.  We purchased it at a local place called Mulch Masters (where we get our mulch).


This step included a lot of wheel barrowing and shoveling.  So, I have to say how blessed we are to have amazing friends.  Mark was here again to help as well as another good friend - Buddy.  Even though this is back breaking work, you can still enjoy yourself.  Note that Buddy is wearing a white headband/red shirt and Mark is wearing a red headband/white shirt (headbands are the sleeves of the others shirt).  You know, common patio building uniforms.

Ok, so back to patio building.  Once you have all of your gravel mixture in place its time to tamp it down.  You could do this with a hand tamp or you can rent a tamper.  The place we purchased our gravel had tamp rentals - $39 for four hours.  We totally went with that.  It was sooooo worth it.  If its in your budget - rent a tamper.


After tamping it will look all smooth and pretty.


Buddy and Mark were not the only helpers for the day.  Silas pulled his weight as well.  If only that was a real lawn mower - our grass weeds are needing a mow.  Sowing grass will definitely be in our near future - we have a mess back there.  

So, after your gravel mixture is all tamped you need to add the next layer.  In our case we decided to use screening.  A lot of people use sand - either will work.  Screening is similar (its really fine crushed rock) - it provides the drainage like the sand but gives a more compact and hard base...so we went with that.


Then it was time for more tamping...you can see how the rental tamper came in handy, sped up the process and was worth $39.


We were now left with a nice smooth and compact base - ready for pavers.  The final patio step to come soon!  I can't wait to be relaxing back there!

Thanks for stopping by today!



Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Fridge Organization

I'm still working on getting an organized home.  Today I'm working on one of the biggest problem areas in our house - the fridge.  I have always had trouble keeping the fridge organized and keeping it from becoming overrun.  Honestly, I have never really tried to add any sort of organized system to it so its just been a free for all.  I don't know what we have, what we need and what needs to go.  It was finally time to get it right.


So you don't need a ton of money to get your home organized.  You really just need to come up with the best systems for your family - at least that is what I am learning.  I did purchase a few storage bins for the fridge - but they all came from the dollar store...even the food storage containers.

Ok, let me share some of the details - to start everything off I did a thorough cleaning out of the fridge and cleaning of the fridge.  I unfortunately don't have a real before.  I kind of started on a whim when I got frustrated with the mess.  But I did get a post clean out photo - this is usually how the fridge is.  A random assortment and no real place for anything.


I then grouped everything in different sections and determined which items I wanted in storage bins and which items would go inside the fridge drawers.  I ended up with a storage bin for spreads, snacks, cooking supplies and fruit.  My drawers consist of deli, veggies and then baking supplies.  Plus I have clear food storage containers for more of what I call snacking fruits and veggies - that way I can easily know what we have on hand.


Oh, and I used my little label maker plus washi tape to add a little fun.  
I am loving it so far.  Its been two weeks since we did this and everything looks just as organized.  The storage bins really help give things a place and also really helps me know when things are low and need replacing.  This is like life changing for me - to open the fridge and know exactly what we have and need.


So just for fun I thought I would add some pretty and fun organization elements that I would love to add to our new organized fridge.  All of these items are really affordable too.
1.  This glass creamer carton is so cute to me - it would be fun to store creamer in right?  You can find it at Carol Wright Gifts and for $5.99!

2.  I love ceramic egg crates, this one is by West Elm for $9.00

3.  I'm thinking of using a tray in our fridge for our fresh meats - how could I say no to this tray, its the same exact pattern as our fabric ottoman.  The tray is also from Target for $9.99.

4.  These berry baskets from World Market are so adorable.  Strawberry season is so close and these are perfect for storing your freshly picked berries.  A 3 pack will run you $14.97.

Moral of the story today... The most dreaded spot in your house can become one the cutest and most organized.  It just takes a little time and determination to get it right.

Thanks so much for joining me today!  Tomorrow I'm sharing some more patio progress.  Have a great day!

Friday, April 12, 2013

Share Your Story: Andrea

I'm so honored to have Andrea from Ever After Blueprint sharing here today.  Not only does she have an awesome blog, she has an beautiful story.  She is opening up her heart and sharing about her difficult journey of becoming pregnant today.  I honestly couldn't help but cry as I read her story and how her faith was stretched.  She has a beautiful and faithful heart for Christ.  I know you will be blessed today by Andrea...

I got married young. I was just out of college and married to my high school sweetheart. We were young and in love and had our whole lives ahead of us. We always knew we wanted a family, but we had time. We joked that we were on the 10-year plan. We would travel and work and get established before we started having babies. Fast forward 5 years and a mortgage later and we were ready to start a family. I stopped taking birth control and we assumed we’d get pregnant within the year. 

It was exciting to think about starting this new chapter of our lives. Each month we would dream about the possibility of having a baby, figuring out when he or she would be born, and counting down the days until we would know if we had made a baby. But as the months turned into a year, and one year into two, and we still weren’t pregnant, the excitement waned and questions and fears crept in. We wanted to be parents and were committed to raising our children in a Godly home, so why wasn’t God answering our prayers?

No one talks about not being able to get pregnant. Lots of people talk about NOT getting pregnant, so it’s just assumed that when you want to have a baby it’s easy. 

The phrase “trying to get pregnant” was something I struggled with. In my mind, if I was trying to do something and not succeeding, then I was failing—and I don’t like to fail! If I was failing, my immediate reaction is to assume there’s something I’m not doing right and try to fix it. 

Anyone who has had a hard time getting pregnant has probably been through a time when “making a baby” starts to be more like work than play. It’s the means to an end, instead of an act of love. When you are tracking symptoms, taking temperatures, and watching the clock, making a baby becomes a science instead of an act of love. Friends counseled me to keep the magic alive and enjoy the process, but some days this was easier than others. 

As more and more of our friends started to get pregnant, I couldn’t help but wonder when it would be our turn! I wanted to be happy for them as they started their journey of motherhood, but I couldn’t help but feel left out. During this time of waiting and uncertainty I went through stages of doubt and questioning God. 

I knew if we were going to get through this, Adam and I had to be a team. We had to be open and honest with each other. That meant talking about our frustrations and fears and falling on our knees day after day asking our Father to answer our prayers. 

After close to two years of trying to get pregnant, two things happened. I started to realize Adam and I couldn’t go through this process alone. I was losing hope and realized we needed others to walk along side us. Around the same time, our church started to have times of prayer at the end of every service. Asking someone to pray for me (us) wasn’t easy, but it was such a blessing! Week after week, Adam and I asked for prayer. It was so freeing to be open about our struggles and have our brothers and sisters in Christ come along side us and pray with us. 

Looking back, I can see that it was pride that kept me from sharing our struggle sooner. It sounds silly, but I wanted to be able to surprise people with the news that we were pregnant and I couldn’t do that if we told them we were trying! (If you can’t tell, I’m a little stubborn and like to be in control!) It seems like a small thing, but it was a hurdle for me to get over to first tell people we were trying to get pregnant and then, more importantly, ask them to pray for us. 

I was really good at praying for other people, asking them how they were doing, and caring for their needs, but when it came to my own struggles, it was easier for me to keep them to myself. I told myself that other people’s concerns were more important than my own. Now I realize how prideful I was. The church is a place for sick people. It is a place to be vulnerable and I was being a hypocrite! Here I was expecting people to be open and honest about their issues and concerns with me, but I wasn’t willing to be the same with them. I would rather put on a happy face and pretend like I had everything figured out. Asking for prayer would mean admitting that I needed help, and that wasn’t something I was good at. 

There were times along the way when I was discouraged. I questioned God and why he would make us wait what felt like so long to have a baby. A friend had a word that was so encouraging for me during this time of waiting. She reminded me that God had given us the desire to have a family and he would honor that. I clung to that promise when everything in me doubted.

Eventually, Adam and I went to a fertility doctor to see if there were any physical reasons we weren’t able to get pregnant. This was another humbling experience. I firmly believe that if God wanted us to be pregnant he could have made it happen without us going to a doctor, but I also believe that he gave us doctors for a reason. We both had a variety of tests done to see if there was anything preventing us from conceiving. The first several tests came back fine, which was a blessing and a curse. 

At that point I remember not knowing how to pray. On the one hand if we found out something was wrong, that would explain why we hadn’t been able to get pregnant, but on the other hand, there was a chance the doctor would find something that would mean we wouldn’t be able to get pregnant, and that would be devastating! Now I see it was another opportunity for us to trust God. 

I clearly remember the last time we were prayed for before we found out we were pregnant. I didn’t even want to be prayed for that day, but God knew what we needed, and two different friends approached Adam and me after church and asked if they could pray for us. Of course we couldn’t say no. So once again, we humbly bowed our heads as our friends laid hands on us and earnestly asked for our prayers to be answered. In those moments, when I was at the end of my rope, God knew exactly what I needed. He is so good! When we couldn’t pray anymore, that is when our friends walked beside us and continued to petition on our behalf.



When we finally got pregnant, it was so sweet to be able to tell our friends and family that we were having a baby after they had been praying for us! By inviting them to walk with us through our journey they were able to rejoice with us when our prayers were answered! 

Today it is amazing to hold my darling baby boy and remember all the prayers that brought him here. God is so good! I echo Hannah’s prayer in I Samuel 1:27: “I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.” This reminder is especially sweet when I’m longing for a nap or a stretch of sleep longer than 2 hours!



As I look back on our journey, I see how God used it to humble my heart and deepen my faith. It is so hard to be stuck in the waiting, not knowing how or when your prayer will be answered. There will still be times when I struggle with God’s timing, but I know God is faithful. He will sustain me when I can’t take another step or pray another prayer. And when I make it to the other side and look back and see how God was with me through the hard times, it’s beautiful. My prayer is for God to use my experience to comfort and encourage other women going through a similar situation. I’d love to hear your stories!  

Thank you so much Andrea for sharing with us today!  I know your story has been a blessing to me.  Please make sure you visit Andrea's blog and let her know what her story meant to you!

Andrea blogs about marriage, decorating, and life at EverAfterBlueprint.com
Read about how she fell in love with her high school prom date, her favorite things about living in an old house, and why she loves decorating her mantel


EverAfter Blueprint

If you would like to share you story too just send me an email, I would love to chat! 

Have a wonderful weekend!

PS - Check out more stories from everyday women here.


Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Painting the House Exterior - Finally

This post has been a long time coming.  It has pretty much been a year since we first began the big task of painting the exterior of our house.  It took us months and then I had little things here and there that I have been working on - and honestly I'm still working on.  But, I'm ready to share.  This has hands-down been our toughest and biggest task to date.  Painting your house exterior is no joke.  Its not necessarily hard (at least for a smaller one-level home like ours) just really, really time consuming.  I feel like I could share and share about this project.  This post is photo/word overload, just a warning.

Ok, so true story - I would not even go and look at this house while we were house shopping -just based on the exterior condition.  I hated it.  You can't tell from the photo below but there were lots of mis-matched paint touch ups all over the house.  It was so bad.  Weird thing though, after months of looking and a significant price drop we went and checked it out and loved it.  Our house is in an awesome location in the historic downtown area of our amazing town - which was huge for us and somehow we just immediately liked it when we got there.  So I guess you should never judge a book by its cover.  And if you really want, you can read my first ever post about that here.


Slowly but surely we have been working on the exterior. Getting the exterior painted was high up on our to-do list after we moved in.  We decided to do it ourselves to save some major cash.  Another true story - we actually paid for the majority of the paint with change that we had accumulated over time.  We didn't literally use the change, we cashed it out - but yes you can save your pennies and paint your house exterior.  We were pretty pumped about that.  


So paint color - we went with Valley Hills by Behr.  We used Behr Premium Exterior Paint.  This was a long, long process for me.  I flipped flopped and debated colors forever but ultimately this was and is the perfect color choice for us.  I simply love this gray/green shade.


Another debacle for us was what color to paint the foundation and also the concrete stoup.  We ended up going one color down on the color swatch and went with Painted Turtle by Behr.  I wasn't sure what kind of paint to use but the guys at Home Depot were great and pointed us in the right direction.  I have found that they seem to always have a really knowledgeable paint staff there - at least here they do.  


The shutters, trim, gutters (yes, you can paint them), railing and screen door were painted creamy natural by Behr.  We found it easy and best to remove the gutters (attached to the walls) to paint them.  Also, we painted the trim first - to me its easier to paint the trim and then cut in with the wall color after.  I don't know if that's how the pros do it or not - probably not, but it was the easiest and fastest way for me and it worked just fine.



I now love the cottage feel our house has.  The more we work on it and show it some love, the more we fall in love with it....hmmm that is just like our relationship with Christ.  The more we work towards a love-relationship with Jesus, spending time in His word and so on, the more we will fall in love with Him.



Oh, if you are wondering about the doors - we ended up painting them a dark purple color.  It was a Martha Stewart Living color that is no longer available.  Luckily we have enough left over for touch ups and such.  You can read all about painting our doors here.



In addition to the painting we also have done a ton of work in the landscaping department.  Although we still have more work to do just removing of the old gross plants was a big task and huge improvements.  We have planted a few things in the front but have plans for a lot more.  We ended up keeping one original plant and just relocated it right next to our front stoup.  I can't tell you how happy I am that those terrible palm tree things are gone.



We also have a new walkway - I despised the original one. Once again this walkway adds to the cottage-ness of the house.  At first I think I was feeling I wanted to just modernize our exterior like crazy but as we go, I kind of like the sweetness and vintage vibe this home has.  Restoring something and staying true to its style is kind of nice to me.



So as far as calculating the amount of paint we needed I just asked the paint guy at Home Depot and he helped us through.  We went on the sparse side because we didn't want to over-buy.  We did end up going back twice and picking up extra paint.  I was totally ok with that because we only bought what we needed.  We used, I would say mid-grade painting tools like rollers and brushes...yes, this was all by hand and no spray painter used.  From what I read the spray painters you can rent are nice and quick but you waste paint.  If our house was any bigger though we really would have considered that because this took forever!


Would I paint the exterior of a house again - absolutely.  Do I want to do that anytime soon---no way.  If you are considering painting your house think about how long you think it will take you and times that by 3 or maybe 4.  We even had tons of help- which we are super thankful for.  All in all, we totally love the new paint job - its doing a lot for this old little house.

Ok, I think I'm all blogged out for the day.  And I'm sure you are tired of hearing about painting.

So, I would love to know - has anyone ever painted their house exterior?  How did it go?  Would you do it again???  Share with me!


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