Front Deck

There is a wall to divide my front deck from the neighbor's. It's boring, so I decided to make it a little cuter. The best part is that it only cost me $4 for the whole wall-hanging!
Shutters: $1 at a yard sale last year
Wreath: $3 at Hobby Lobby (50% off sale this week!)
Ribbon: From the stash.
Husband's tools and labor to hang screws: Free.

Little Bench

I bought this ugly bench at a yard sale a few years ago. I liked the shape of it but it took FOREVER to get around to making it cute. It has taken almost as long to get the pictures posted! Here goes:

First, I painted it red. Then, I hand-cut some stencils. It was pointed out to me that vinyl would have been easier, but I don't have a vinyl cutter.... so exacto knife won.

After the letters were stenciled on, I just aged it a bit with a sander and then left it out in the weather for a full year. (That's REAL distressing! ha!) Here's how it looks now:

Lately...

I actually have made a few things. First of all, I made this:
Then, I thought she should have something to wear, so I spent the last couple of days sewing a blessing dress for her.Last month, I made some patriotic banners for the front deck:

Love is in the air!

Yesterday, I was buying some fabric for one of these pillows. The lady at the cutting table asked what I was working on, and when I told her "a Valentine's Day pillow," she said "I think it's a week from Monday..." So I had to prove to her and myself that it was worth the purchase; I whipped up the heart pillow today, so I can enjoy it for a whole 8 days. (Actually, I will leave it out longer, because it's the Month of Love at our house, with a wedding anniversary on the 21st!)
Both pillows are inspired by V and Co., whose blog I can't get enough of. Super cute ideas and great tutorials. Check them out: heart pillow and ruffle pillow

Happy Month of Love!
(when it's okay to deck the house out in pink and red and your manly husband can't even complain! Woo-hoo!)

snowballs

Some seasons, I have cute things to put in my apothecary jars. In October and November they were filled with miniature pumpkins. In December, they were filled with glass Christmas balls. Today, Parker and I made some snowballs to fill them for the next few weeks.Easy, quick, and FREE! (because Aunt Penny gave me a huge roll of quilt batting!)

Matching Quilt

Lately, I've been kind of busy working on one of these...

...and have spent too much time doing this......to find much time to do this...

But, I thought I'd show you something I made a couple of years ago. I was inspired by my aunt who made a "matching quilt" for her grandchildren. I rummaged through my fabric stash and found 36 patterns of fabric and cut them into 4" squares. (I actually had WAY more than 36 different ones, I just picked my faves.) I made them into a little quilt. It was fun, quick and easy.
Then I made a matching bean bag for each quilt square. I love bean bags.
It was a fun project. I even duplicated it a few times for gifts. It is also a great way to use up some fabric scraps! :)

Spooky Mantle

I had fun decorating my mantle for Halloween this year. First, I fluffed a lot of black tulle along the bottom. I added my specially-made witch's hat (see the post below), pumpkins, potion bottles, and then made new covers for some of our books. The titles read, "Things That Go Bump In The Night," "Favorite Recipes with Creepy Crawlies," "Witch's Brew for Two," and "Book of Spells." There are plenty of spiders, including some dangling from the ceiling. (Thank you, tall husband.)

Next year I plan to add some of THESE amazing labels from Love Manor to my bottles.

Happy Haunting!