"I would wear it everyday"

"If I gave you a sweater, and you loved it, I would know because you would wear it so much you'd be on the verge of wearing it out, because you loved it that much.  It would be the sweater you wear on Christmas and to get coffee and that you sleep in sometimes and that you drag around in the back of your car and tie around your waist.  It would start to smell like you, and it would get snags and get all stretched out, and just looking at it would make you tell a thousand stories of where it's been and who you've been in it.  

That's what I want my life to be, like a well-loved gift.  I think life, just life, just breathing in and out, is a great gift.  God gives us something amazing when he gives us life, and I want to live with gratitude.  I want to live in a way that shows how much I appreciate the gift.  If life were a sweater, I would wear it every day.  I wouldn't save it or keep it for a special occasion.  I would find every opportunity to wear that sweater, and I'd wear it proudly, shamelessly, for days on end.

...and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift, who will use it up and wring it out and drag it around like a favorite sweater." 

Cold Tangerines, Shauna Niequist p 231-232, 235

I LOVE LOVE this book! If you haven't read it, it needs to be the next book you pick up! Seriously.  It literally played a big part in how I view my daily life.  And what I quoted above says it beautifully.

I want to celebrate today.  I want today to be the best day of my life.  Not yesterday.  Not that day 5 years ago.  Not waiting for tomorrow. Or the next.  But today.  

Today is the only day that I know I have.  Yesterday is gone.  Today is here, and I want to live it to it's fullest.  To enjoy every blessing.  To see this day the way God sees it. 

I have concluded that if today is going to be the best day of my life, I want to wear my favorite outfit. To wear it "proudly, shamelessly, for days on end." (Shauna Niequist)

So that leads me to my "sweater" -- right now for me, its my sweatshirt.

In my confusion of what my wardrobe actually is & what style I actually am... this is my favorite because it is the perfect combo of who I am.

Here's the how to:

 1. Buy a larger sweatshirt
(mine is an XL from Walmart -- fits boxy-- length is good in the arms + really wide, but not long- comes just bellow my belt-- which is what I wanted)

 2. Find + cut lace.
I had an old vintage tablecloth that I had found at a thrift store.

Here's what to do if you are cutting your own lace:
-find the 2 sections you want to use
-cut out your selection with fabric scissors -- mine are 10 in. length (5 in front, 5 in back) + 6 in. width
*I cut the inner edge by my neck straight, all other edges I cut around the pattern.
-run fabric glue around the edges with a q-tip (or your finger) to seal the edges from fraying

*If I were to do it again, I would find a thicker lace that is maybe even cut in the shape that I want -- I thought about using cloth doilies.

3.  Place the lace on the sweatshirt, pin it in place.  Then take a section at a time & glue it down with the fabric glue.  Make sure you do the edges well + places inside the middle of the pattern so that it stays flush on your sweatshirt (you don't want the center to be flopping around).  Press down as you go along. Let it dry & you are done!

*The fabric glue turned my lace a little yellowish, which is why I suggested to find a thicker lace -- I'm assuming it did that because it was old & thin.  So hopefully if you use a thick and/or newer one you will be fine! But I don't mind the yellowing anyways, it just makes it look even more vintage.

*PS I literally have worn it the past 3 days in a row since I made it.  

  

project time.

I've been going crazy all summer with all these ideas & no resources to do them!  (or space in our car to bring it home...)  So FINALLY I get to get my creativeness going & fill our house, turning my ideas into reality.  

First on my list.  { Chalkboard for our kitchen }

It was perfect timing.  I was driving Wes around the other night (since he has a double ear infection, bed time has been a disaster-- so car rides it is!!)  and drove by a house with all kinds of stuff in front with a sale sign.  Who would expect a garage sale at 8pm on a Friday night!?  So I pulled over.  Almost drove off immediately.  But I reversed, because this frame caught my eye!!  I asked the man how much... $4!!!!  I love Oxford!  I didn't have any cash on me... and he was totally just going to give it to me & gave me his card & told me to call him when I got the $$.  WOW!  Well, since I was just driving to drive Wes asleep, I drove home, got some cash & drove back.  I must say, probably one of my best finds!!!

I bought a wood board today - sprayed it with the chalkboard paint - took out the horrible painting that was inside - put hooks on the back to hang it up - and done!  

*I used this to hold it in place so you can write without the frame moving around.

What's extra great is that the way the frame is there is a huge "lip" up top that holds the chalk!  And you can't even really see it :)

You can see the grain a little bit through the chalkboard paint... Which I debated if I liked that or not.  But, it writes like butter since its wood (I've tried glass before). So my conclusion is that I love it!

Here it is:

My second project... Yes. I did 2.  In one day (partly because we were trying to let Wes "cry it out" so he was upstairs for a long time... never cried it out...that's a whole other story)  


Anyways... Here it is:

{ A doorstop }

All it is is rope coiled together held together by hot glue.  And there is a plastic baggie with sand inside to give it some extra weight.  That's it.  

Hopefully its a "baby friendly" door stop, because the plan is for it to hold Wes' door open in his bedroom (we quickly realized the ceramic baseball player was not baby proof!)  

We'll see if the rest of my days before work really begins again next week look like this one.  Probably not.  But I'll keep you updated!

jewelry problem solved.

Literally for years I have been looking for a way to organize my necklaces.  But I've never found the right thing.  It's always been either too short, or I just think it's ugly.


Then I got creative.  All with things I had laying around our house!  And it only took a few minutes!  And finally... my jewelry problem is solved!










I used the same lovely linen fabric that I used to make the slipcover for our new ottoman (post coming soon about that)

I wrapped some cork board with the linen -- used flat push pins to hold it in place.  Then nailed it to the wall -- one nail per corner.  Then used other push pins to hold the necklaces.

I love organizing.

Dresser top, clean. Finally.

1 month.

Our little boy is 1 month old today!  I can't believe he's been with us that long already.  So this is what everyone is talking about when they say it goes by so fast!  

Well, he made it past his birth weight (yeah!) and is now growing like a champ!  Today he had his 1 month check up & he is 9 lb 2 oz!  SO BIG!  He also grew 3/4 in.  And my favorite hat is starting to get a little tight, I'm going to be so sad when it doesn't fit anymore-- so I had to make sure it made it in some of his 1 month photos knowing it may not make it to month 2.  

Happy 1 month Westin!!

His cute onesie was a piece of cake!  I didn't do anything... I just put him in a white onesie, and stuck this sticker on it!  It comes in a pack of 12 for the first year-- how cute is that?! I'm so excited to use them every month!

{ to see all of Westin's "first year" photos click here }

garden tea party.

for all my senior ladies that graduated this weekend I threw a "garden tea party" this past Thursday night. It was a perfect evening to be outside on our back porch. We celebrated our year together with tea, dessert & sharing memories from the year together & their past 4 years in college.

I also made them a little take home gift with a list of "what I've learned" & "Kristen's recommended reading list" to pass on to them as they move on to their next phase of life.

aren't they beautiful!? I love these ladies!

thrift store finds: 3 candle sticks (Scott spray painted them white for me), 2 candle holders, 3 tea cups & lace tablecloth. I filled the tea cups with pink chrysanthemums.

for dessert: chocolate chip cookies, brownies, angel food cake with cool whip & strawberries, crepes with nutella & raspberries, tea & coffee.

it was a beautiful evening celebrating as the sun went down & the cool breeze came in.

Hope you have many lovely summer evening in your future with sweet friends!

little bird.

I made this little bird for my mom for Easter. I think it's pretty cute.

it's reversible, so you can display it on either the blue or cream side.

Hope you had a beautiful Easter celebrating the resurrection of our Lord & Saviour, Jesus Christ. He is risen!

invitation.

i made this invitation for my sister-in-law's baby shower. i particularly like this one (both the invitation & the sister-in-law).

the owl is from her bedding she registered for. i think owls are so cute.

handmade.

i made this frame for my sister's birthday. i like it a lot.

quick fixes.

So I had 2 pillows on our guest room bed that I didn't have covers for-- I wanted them to be usable... I found 2 king size pillow cases that I had-- clearly WAY to large for our pillows.

But, I solved the problem-- I folded over the extra fabric, then sewed on buttons that I had.  Here's the finished product!  

Merry Christmas

We hope that you had  a wonderful Christmas, 

celebrating the birth of our Savior!

We're down in North Carolina with Scott's family, enjoying the mountains & warmer weather.  

Here is the Christmas card that I made this year!

getting ready for Christmas

Our home at Christmas time...

warming up by the fire

wrapping the presents...

my home-made labels

I love this wrapping paper!

legacy tree

we have an upperclassmen Bible study the first 3 weeks of school.  I am helping with some of the creative details...  yeah!!  Our theme is "ready, set, go."  This week is about being "set"-- focused on reaching the campus for Jesus.  

So one of our ideas was to have a tree that you fill in with the names of those who have invested in you... then who you are investing in... and who they are investing in... so you can see your legacy... and dream about how you want your legacy to grow! 

we're using these trees for the power point slides as the night goes on as we fill in our trees.

anniversary project complete

so I've been working on this for a few days now, and it's finally finished!  The worst was when I would get to the last few comments, and realize I forgot something really important I wanted written on there.... and I would have to re-cut my mat board, re-write everything!!! UGH!  But I'm ok now, its over!

For our 1st year anniversary I started a tradition, to take a photo from our anniversary and to frame it-- then on the mat board, write out "everything" (loose term) we did that year. So we had year 1 & 2 framed on the wall... but as I was getting ready for year 3 we decided it was too much to hang them all up...

so then came the book! Great idea!  We actually like it better.  And we are ready for up to year 9 to fit before we have to buy more pages-- I feel good about that.
beginning of year 1... I'm thinking of writing our wedding date on the bottom of this page.  But we can't decide if we like it simply plain like this, or if we should write it out... what do you think??

our first year!!  What a good year!

year # 2... still good!

year 3... much harder year, but loved it just as much!

I'm so glad I'm finished with this project till next July!!!

my favorite thing

So this is the Bible Scott gave me for my wedding gift, and its beautiful!  And I wanted something beautiful to put it in, and to keep it safe.  Some other wise people had made little box holders out of the box that the Bible came in.  I thought that was a great idea!  So I did the same, with a little embellishment....  

First, I glued the box together with some hot glue.  Then I cut out the top so that I could easily slide my bible in and out.  Then, I covered my box with some paper that I love, wrapping it like a present and hot glueing it together.Finally I added a plaque to the front with, you guessed it, hot glue of course and wrote the word inside "Speranza" which means "Hope" in Italian.  It just makes me happy every time I look at it, and reminds me of the hope that I have in Jesus and His Word!

button love

So I found some of our old buttons that I got from my mom & grandma, and the creativity flowed... With some pliers, I pulled off or pushed down the backings, and with a little hot glue, earings are made!  I'm addicted!  I get brand new earings for just a few cents; the price of the backings for the earings.  And they are all unique and original!