A Sneak Peek......

       The other day, I shared with you that we have been working on our floors this past month. It has been a huge undertaking as we are ripping out all of our carpet and replacing it with laminate.  We have 3,000 square feet of flooring to put down, and we’re only halfway done.  I say "we"  like I’ve been the one laying the floors, but it’s really been my husband and his brother doing most of the work….lol.  Progress is scheduled to resume the second weekend in June.  That’s the next weekend that Matt’s brother has a weekend off of work and is available to come help us.  We really couldn’t take on this project without him, and I am very thankful for his help.  I will share with you why we chose laminate over hardwood in a future post, but today I just wanted to give you a sneak peek of the progress that we’ve made.  I’ve been told this project will be completed in about a month and I can’t wait!  Until then, here are few pics of the progress we’ve made so far.....

P.S.   All of these pictures were taken with my camera phone. They're not the best pictures, but it gives you an idea of how things have been comin' along at our house this past month;)

May Flowers.....

The other day, I told you that we’ve been planting flowers for the wonderful summer season.  Today, I'm sharing a few pics of our outdoor living spaces all decked out for the warmer months:)

A Spontaneous One Day Getaway....

      Memorial Day weekend is here, and the kickoff to summer has arrived!   Matt and I usually like to take advantage of long weekends by going out of town together.  This year we both had a four day weekend and anticipated spending the long weekend in Philadelphia.  I had the whole weekend planned several months ago, but when we realized that the California road trip we were taking this summer was consuming our entire vacation budget this year, we decided to call off the Philadelphia weekend.  Our Philadelphia plans turned into house project plans as we soon had this weekend's schedule all planned out:   Friday - clean house, run errands, purchase and change outdoor light fixtures, Saturday -  rip up the loft carpet, cut and roll remaining carpet for the first of the month garbage pickup, Sunday – church and rest as usual and Monday – paint master bathroom and update all fixtures..... 

.....BUT......our Saturday plans soon changed as we were reminiscing about a romantic weekend getaway we took to New Buffalo, Michigan, for Matt’s birthday this past August.  

{If you're ever wanting to know what to do in New Buffalo, you can read a post that I wrote about that weekend getaway here.} 

It didn't take too long before we were talking about how New Buffalo is only a three hour drive from Indy…..and how we could leave at 7:00 a.m. and be home by 7:00 p.m......and how it was going to be ridiculously hot and humid in Indy this weekend….and how the cooler temps of Lake Michigan sounded wonderful…..and how we’ve been working so hard on the house that we haven’t made much time do anything fun together lately....and how we could make New Buffalo a day trip and pack a picnic….and how we didn’t need to spend any money there, because we’ve already experienced all there is to do in New Buffalo from our previous weekend getaway…..and how we could park on the street and walk to the beach for free....and before we knew it, we were putting off this weekend’s Saturday plans of ripping out carpet to next SaturdayJ



Enticed by this new plan only costing us a tank of gas, we gave into our spontaneous side, woke up early this morning, packed a cooler and a beach bag, filled the car up with gas and three hours later, we were on Lake Michigan enjoying temperatures that were twenty degrees cooler than Indy with absolutely no humidity!

It was a perfect day really.  I mean what more could I ask for?  I had the water in front of me…..

….the sand dunes behind me….

….and my best friend with me.

Add to that the sound of waves crashing...

…..and the sound of seagulls over head.

And let’s not forget the feeling of my toes in the sand….

….and a book in my hand;)



Our minds and bodies were soon in a completely relaxed state as the morning was topped off with the breeze blowing off the water and the warmth of the sun lulling us into wonderful beachy sleep.

The only thing better than all of that was spending the entire day with the love of my life:)

I’m glad that we still have a little spontaneity left in us….

…..to help us realize that sometimes we just need to take a break and have a little fun together:)

The only thing this date cost us was a tank of gas ….

(and a $5 strawberry milkshake from Jake’s At the Beach, because you really can’t go to New Buffalo without getting one of those)

…..but taking time to do something fun and unexpected together – priceless:)

Five Minute No-Sew Napkin Pillows

One of my most popular posts was “No-Sew Pillow Cases - Made from Napkins”.  In that post, I shared with you a way to inexpensively and creatively make pillow cases by using cloth napkins, no-sew adhesive, a zipper and a pillow form.  You can find that post here.  Today, I am going to show you how to make no-sew napkins pillows that are even easier to make than the previous post.

The benefit of the previous tutorial was that pillow cases can be changed throughout the year.  In today’s post, I am not making pillowcases.  Today I am just sharing pillows that coordinate with the bedding on our guestroom bed.  To start this project, I bought two pillow forms from my local craft store (half off with a coupon of course) and four Waverly napkins from Burlington Coat Factory for $1 each. 

Now for the fast and simple part.…..I took two napkins, and using hot glue.....yes, I said hot glue, I attached three of the four sides of two napkins together.  Then I inserted the pillow form and sealed the fourth side with more hot glue.  I followed those same steps again, and within five minutes I had two pillows.

I know that some of you are saying to yourself….hot glue….really?  To be honest, this isn’t exactly a new idea.  I’ve seen several bloggers use hot glue on fabric.  I’ve seen some make curtains with hot glue, and I have even used  hot glue for my no-sew felt flower pillows seen here and here.  The truth is that for a project like this, ie: a project that will get little use and is pretty much just for looks, hot glue is a great inexpensive, durable and super-easy option:)

Busy, busy, busy....

               Busy, busy, busy…..that’s what it has been around our house lately.  I feel like I’ve hardly blogged at all this month!  Trust me….there is much to blog about.  I just haven’t found the time to put it all into posts.  Part of why we’ve been so busy is because we’ve been replacing all of the floors in our house,  that has consumed much of our free time this month.  I’ve learned that it takes a lot of work and a lot of time to do floors!  We’ve also been busy getting the outside of our home ready for summer by planting flowers and doing other yard work.  I’ll try to post pictures soon.  Oh, and I’ve also been working on two different furniture re-dos. Can’t wait to share those with you!  One is finished, and I’m hoping to get a post out about it this week:)  Crossing my fingers that it will get done.  When you mix all of that in with family get-togethers, graduation season and just the ordinary stuff of life, this little blog has been put on hold lately. New posts will be coming soon though…..I promise;)

Painting Horizontal Stripes

Stripes!  They always look so good when they are finished, but boy can they give you a headache during the painting process.  This guestroom wall took me an entire day from start to finish to complete, but when I stand back and look at, I’m happy with the results. 

Unfortunately, I got so wrapped up in painting the wall, that I completely forgot to take pictures as I went along.  I'll just have to explain this process without pics....sorry:(  

 Step 1
First, I needed to figure out how thick I wanted the stripes to be on the nine foot wall.   For this first step I had to do a little math and create a mock drawing of what I wanted the finished wall to look like.

Step 2
Next, I started at the bottom and worked my way up, by measuring and marking where each stripe needed to go with a pencil.

Step 3

The next step was taping……yuck!  This is where it gets complicated to explain, especially without pictures, but I will try my best.  I started by taping one stripe at a time.  For example, I taped the bottom stripe, but because I was going to have to wait for that stripe to dry before painting the next stripe up, I taped every other stripe up, painted those stripes and then worked my way back down.  Yeah….I’m kind of wishing that I took pictures of all of this, so it would be easier to explain….sorry:(

Step 4
Moving on to how I got my tape straight.  Well this part is always tedious, especially since I do it without a laser.  The truth is that once I got the hang of it, the taping went by pretty fast.  I simply used a ruler and measured so many inches up from the previous piece of tape, marking on the wall with a pencil every foot or so across the wall.  Once I dotted with a pencil across the wall, I took the tape and dragged it from dot to dot, so I knew it is straight.    Again…..I am really wishing that I took pictures for you:(

Step 5
Lastly, there’s the actual painting process.  I used three different shades of grey and applied it on the white wall, while still leaving some stripes white.  I chose the colors mink, fawn brindle, and aloof gray, and I painted the stripes with a small trim roller.  Because I didn’t need much of each color, I just bought one samples of each color from Sherwin Williams.  Each sample cost $6, so this wall was painted for less than $20:)  Overall, I really like the look of this wall. It adds interest and was well worth the time and effort:)

I've been featured......

I have a bit of news to share today.   A blog that I follow, Embracing Change, featured one of my projects, "Oil Rubbed Bronze Glass Door Knobs":) Be sure to check out Embacing Change to see what other creative ideas were shared and to see other blogger's featured projects.

I also added the post, "Flower Wreath from Book Pages", to my featured projects page. You can visit that page to see what other blogs have featured my projects:)

Embracing Change