A Few New Favorites

We MOVED!!!! Holy smokes I can't believe it's actually real! We have a new house with so much more room. We have been so busy decorating, building barns, fencing, and pens that I haven't had time to stop for pictures but soon!

For now, I just want to share with you a few new things I've found that I really love. 

First up is a company just getting off their feet called Rumala and Co.  Clicking on their name will take you to their Facebook page where they will be announcing all their new products. Here is the calendar I bought from them through Amazon. It's huge and beautiful and I love it so much that I bought their smaller one to keep on my fridge upstairs!!! 

I'm still working on this little command center but I love the direction it's taking. The girls have their chore chart here and the baskets hold their assignments for the day. 

Next up is Grammarly.  It's a little add-on for Chrome (and maybe other browsers too, but Chrome is what I use) and it corrects not just spelling but grammar too!! 

It just shows up next to your search bar as this little green circle and corrects you as you go. Maybe you're a grammar police but I'm not and this definitely improves my typing. I'm not going to tell how many times it's corrected me here, lol.  

And you may have noticed that little camel up there too. That's for a site called Camel, Camel, Camel. 

You add your Amazon Wishlist to it and it watches the prices for you. When the price dips below what you are looking for it e-mails you an alert! I have bought 2 books I have had my eye on for a while now. Both of them are usually about $60 and I got them for under $10 gently used! 

Anywho. Those are my fun finds recently. I hope to have my house cleaned up enough soon to be able to start sharing some rooms with you soon. For now, we are still battling post-move clean up and trying to get everything locked down for the winter. So in the meantime tell me what you've discovered that you are excited about! 

You’re Mad.

Lately I’ve been caught up in all kinds of home repair and kind of paint-by-number crafts that have been fun but not really artistic. I found this Pin and it inspired me to get my creative juices flowing. I used a mix of vinyl and finger painting.  

 

If you don’t have a vinyl cutting machine you can always stencil, free hand it, or use scrapbooking stickers for your lettering.

 

I don’t have any substitute for your fingers though

Word Of The Year

How is everyone out there? This last year was a whirlwind of things going wrong and I am to excited to get back on track!

Last year I chose the word Simplify for my word of the year. It ended up working really well because sometimes that was all I had left to do after the chaos drained all the money, transportation, and often time. But you don’t need a lot of those things to take a minute out and get back to basics. The trash can is always right there, ready for a purge. Any box makes a great donation bin. And you can do more than you think with beans and rice! The most important part of it was spending time with family. They don’t need a lot of fancy things, and time is golden. It was such a refreshing mantra for me and I hope that you try it for yourself one year!

So…..are you ready for this years word?

Finish.

We have lots of things in the garage just begging to be done, walls that need a little primer, a backyard that could use some TLC, scrapbooks that need put together, stuff that just really needs done. Most of it won’t cost much to do and a bunch of it will be free too.

When I ditched our third bedroom in favor of a craft room I really tried to finish off everything that I could. Sure, one day it could have new baseboards and I’d like all the furniture to be white. There are always tweaks to be made. Overall though, I am at peace with it. There are only two spaces in my entire house that I can say that about, the craft room and the entry way. I’d like to say that about all of it.

So that’s my mantra for this year. to Finish. To tie up loose ends. To bring what we have into full use. To be at peace with my home.

My New Craft Room

Once upon a time I had a craft room/office.

It was kind of awful but it was mine and I loved it.

When my two little princesses decided they were out to kill each other I gave it up and moved into the closet.

It was all very Harry Potter.

Perhaps my sacrifice was an inspiration to the princesses? They decided that having separate spaces was no fun and that they loved each other enough to sleep in the same bed. No exceptions. Ugh.

So no one was using this room except to make a mess out of.

I hate messes. I hated my closet. I needed some space!

And thus my craft room was born!

The only thing I bought for this was under $30 in paint, which I used about 1/2 of, around $100 in flooring, and $24 in curtains. All of it came from Lowes, bought with gift cards I got for Christmas and my birthday. I use this room every day so we can just file it under BEST PRESENT EVER!!!

My FREE Craft Armoire is still my favorite! It came in from the living room. Let me tell you, the roll outs works SO much better on this new flooring than it did on the carpet.

It packs a punch holding all of my paper.

My washi tape is on a tension rod.

All of the boxes are labeled.

And I added Command Hooks for extra storage.

I was Pinspired to file my small stash of fabric.

And even my $13 sewing machine has a little space.

Looking back into the hall I have the fish tank. It came from the dining area.  While a little Chinese restaurant dining experience is cool,  I really love having it in here to calm me down.

Just inside the door is the girls area. I repainted the chairs we got for free, brought the repurposed chalk table (it used to be our dining table!) up from their new bedroom, and hung the letter art I made. The $20 file cabinet from the closet office serves as a magnet board for them and an organizer for me.

The table in the back is one Joel and his Dad made when he was younger. The chair is from the dining room but that will be replaced soon.

This little nook between the craft armoire and the desk holds additional fabric, my Cricut, and various craft supplies for the girls.

This rug I got from Lowes for $20 with the gift cards too. It’s been in the girls room downstairs.

I have envied it from the moment I brought it home. I love the clean lines and geometric pattern. Now it’s mine! Muhahah!

I think that about covers it.

Well, there’s actually a whole other small armoire behind the file cabinet, to the right of the desk. It holds craft supplies and toys.

I will definitely give you a post about out new flooring when I’m done getting it put in throughout the living room. It’s UNDER $1/sf!

The paint color is Quill by Olympic, the same that I used in the bathroom.

Painted Backsplash Anyone?

I still don’t have the whole full scale camera thing going on yet but I have been working on a project inspired by Saw Dust & Embryos that I found on Pinterest.
 

 

What do you think?

Total cost:

Under $6 for a roll of tape

I used paint samples and the paint color for the accent walls in my living room that I already had in the garage.
I you wan ta tutorial I would definitely to the link above. They do a way better job of explaining it than I could.

To see more pictures on how I did it follow me on instagram @peaches89678!

What's hiding in YOUR closet?

So does ANYONE remember this post from *cough* February *cough* when I picked up this craft closet?

I told you I go it for FREE but what I didn't tell you in that post was that I drove through one of our worst snow storms and almost got involved in a multi-car pile-up that I couldn't see in time because the snow was SO THICK. Then when we got there the elderly lady told me to get out of my truck and she whipped in into her driveway herself because they thought I was taking too long. I was mortified of sliding in the snow and hitting their car. Slow and steady plus a big pickup doesn't really jive well with a foot of fresh now. Then, when we got out she whipped out the power tools and took this bad boy apart pretty much by herself! What an inspiring lady! 

Obviously I'm not so on top of it as she is because it's taken me 7 months to write up this post. In my defense the room we put it in has undergone 3 MAJOR changes in those 7 months and, in fact, it's not even in that room anymore! But those are posts for another day. 

It's in my living room! Kind of a strange place for it, I know, but sometimes you just have to work with what you've got. and all closed up it looks pretty unassuming. 

And what I've got is a LOT of craft storage! I'll admit that this is not everything. I have a closet in my daughters room that is full of Scentsy/Crafting/Velata supplies but this holds the stuff I use most often. You'll see most of my sewing stuff on the left and mostly scrapbooking stuff on the right.  The sewing machine only comes down when I'm using it, being on the shelf keeps it up and out of the way for when I am scrapbooking.

The top shelf holds all my papers and a few extra scrapbooks. 

Each side has 3 shelves. Some of them are empty to accommodate the things on the other side when they are closed. I have thought about using some command hooks to squeeze in a few more inches of storage.

The drawer holds fabric and shelf holds sewing notions. The lazy susan holds scrapbooking and sewing supplies it goes back in the center when it's closed up. The holes were cut by a previous owner. I am waiting to find the perfect thing to cover them up. Maybe even a curtain? Since it is in a corner for now a curtain would allow the cords to go through and I could use the empty space behind it for storage! Hmmm... wheels are turning! 

So, spill it. What's hiding in your closet?

Break Out the Fall Colors!

Around here there's been more rain and wind than I would like, enough that I'm sticking to the inside these days. So, while moping about inside I decided to cheer myself up with a little fall decor! 

I read a blog the other day that was talking about the "new" trendy fall colors and aqua and orange were high on her list. Good to know I'm in good taste I guess. Oh, and keep an eye out for a project involving those insulators in the corner ;)

My 3 little birds given to me by my husbands grandma last year are still some of my favorites. They look so cute scattered among some little fall leaves.

I decided that I would hang my burlap wreath on top of my sheet music wreath and I LOVE the look! 

Click here for tutorials on the Toilet Paper Roll Garland, How to make the Fall Wreath, and the Sheet Music Chalkboard Wreath. 

My cute little owl from Hobby Lobby stuck around too. I think he looks ultra nerdy/sweet next to my ABC balls. Tutorial on how to make those here. 

This little guy fills the gap between the mirrors. I love the natural wrapped wreath and the little pumpkins. 

And just let me add in one more close up of the layered wreaths because I am head over heals for all that texture! 

As always the BEST part is I didn't buy ANYTHING this year so this little up date costs $0!

Click on the links above to see how I made a lot of it last year and saved myself some $. 

If you are in the Anchorage/Valley area make sure you don't miss out on the Fall Festival at Pyrah's Pioneer Peek U-Pick Farm this weekend and next! We go every year and it's a BLAST! There is a small entrance fee but once you get in they have all sorts of FREE stuff to do for little kids! 

How about you guys? Have you been decorating for Fall? 

Linking up with:

DIY Home Sweet Home

Craft-OManiac

I Should Be Mopping the Floor

Positively Splendid

I Heart Naptime

Upcycled Crib Mattress to Reading Nook

Here's Evelyn's new favorite place to read before bed. 

If you have been following along for a bit you may remember I got this bed for her off Craigslist a few months ago.

We have been so busy with chickens and summer that I haven't done much indoors but this is one thing I really wanted to get done. I though't I'd just pop the crib mattress in there and call it good. 

Wrong. 

It was a few inches too long. So they had to go.

Yep. I had my hubby cut it off using scissors and wire cutters. I used the batting from the part I cut off to recover the top. 

I cut the corners so there wouldn't be a bunch of extra bulk for the next step.

I tucked it all in all the way around. 

I used the last little bit of the only duct tape we had to tape it down. 

It was probably unnecessary but I taped it down both ways just to make sure nothing was going to shift around and to make sure all the wire ends were covered by duct tape too. 

I slipped the part we cut off earlier right back over the top. I would have taped this down some too but  I ran out of tape! 

I put on the same crib sheet we used before and it fit just fine, not super snug like before but good enough that I don't feel a need to sew it smaller. 

Now it fits PERFECTLY in it's space. 

Evelyn has all of her reading needs ready to go in her little nook. 

Total cost for a perfect little nook? 

$0

That's my kind of project!