Fall Sunday's

First weekend of the school year.   Everyone I know around here is back in school; public school, private school, home school, college, masters, you get the picture?

Although not all things have been added to the "school year" calendar, most has.  We've had Tae Kwon Doe, baseball, shopping, cleaning, organizing, grilling!  Still coming up is church and Sunday school followed by lesson prep and an extend family dinner.  Doesn't get much better.

Well, that isn't entirely true.  We had a big rain store that dropped the temperature over 20 degrees yesterday.  That was NICE and this morning it is still quite nice.  I hope to get to a few fun Fall type things this afternoon.  What's on my mental list, here's a peek:

• make a "BOO" sign; something like this but my own take on it.
• make Candy Corn Pretzels; however mine will have yellow and orange "chocolate" and white sprinkles
• bring out a few fall swags (berries and leaves)
• put out some fake pumpkins (we still need to shop for real ones)
 

If you'd like more fall ideas, here is a link to my Fall pinterest page.

Happy Fall Sunday folks,

Jennifer

A few days late . . .

in posting pictures of our new school wall.  I really like how it turned out and thankful I finally made the time to work on it.  There's room I may add a few other things, but for now, it's fine.

 Our framed metal board which still has "Happy Birthday Dad"

in plastic magnetic letters.  A picture of Miss C Dog, our school mascot.
The pink picture has a school then and now drawn on it.

 Class pictures; this year we have 6th grade and 3rd grade.

Wooden frame that I'll change out sign, periodically,

for the season.  For now, it is "IN OUR HOUSE".

Close up of letters with wooden button covering the screw,

which the wire wrapped around.  The letters are held on with

mini clothes pins.

The boys wanted a school picture this year.  These are the

sweat shirts I made for them a couple Christmas' ago.  Oldest

has almost out grown his.

Hoping to find a new way of displaying our maps.  These may just lean against this wall.  Lots to ponder!

Thanks for looking,

The wall and the dilemma!

Finally decided to pull everything off of one wall and patch the nail holes.  Why?  Because I really want to be able to have a school wall and that was the easiest one to use! {by the way, patching a wall goes quickly w/little or no humidity and really little holes!!!}  Besides, if I wanted a lot of wall space, I'd have to get rid of a lot of book cases and books ~ eeeekk!

So the dilemma is this (and not accounting for the triangular part of the wall that is open to the steps), there is a light switch just about dead center on the wall width wise and about 4 feet off the ground (whatever the standard height is for light switches).  It makes hanging a decent sized cork board, maps, white board, chalk board or whatever, next to impossible.  Well if I want just one or two of those things, it might not be so bad.  If I considered buying smaller maps, it might not be such a big deal, which is a possibility as well.  Hhhmm! Maybe it is time to go over to Rainbow Resources and see what they have.

Boys are growing up!

Which should be quite obvious really! They're moving on from an all consuming desire for things that are trains and into more tween/teen interests. Sports and Legos are difficult to combine, though, when desiring to design a new room for the boys. I keep coming back to a surfer type room with hints of sports and legos. Probably because a few years ago they had a surf/beach party and I tend to buy and make some sort of accessory for the theme.

As a result of the party, we have two strands of the lights, like those to the left, and they still work. Think these would be cool in the nook they have in the big room they'll be moving into again. Might attach some tea cup hooks to the ceiling and hang the lights criss cross all over that area. That area will also have some new Billy Bookcases {like these but without the narrow ones at each end}. I still want to bring in some tie dye, but just not sure how. Possibly in bean bag chairs or making a cover for the papasan chair they have and enjoy using.

Also, I plan to fix some surf boards I made that look more like enlarged boogie boards. I want to try to make them look more like surf boards which means they need to be a lot more narrow. I've seen a number of paint designs that would be cool and could also put their names on them. I can get the boys involved in this painting and am sure they'd love doing this.

Have you seen these peace lights from Pottery Barn? I think they're very cool and would be cool to have one, in black, for the boys room. I'm having trouble coming to terms with the light costing $149.00, though. Really??? How much does one have to make a year to be able to spend about $150 on a light? Suppose it is a good thing that we have some scrape plywood, about the right size, have tools that will work, and I enjoy working with wood and craft projects in general. All that is really lacking, in house, would be the black paint and rope light. Those can be picked up relatively inexpensive. As we have next week off from school, maybe I'll start working on it. Should be a fun project.

Other things that will be included in their room: a lava lamp night light, some sort of pennant banner (at their request with plaids and possible surf type stuff), fringe that looks like a hula skirt (possibly as window valance), and hibiscus flowers.

Happy Decorating,

Christmas Tour

Welcome to our house at Christmas time. On the Five in a Row Boards, some are posting photo's of their home at Christmas time and I'm finally getting to some of ours.

The front of our house. Not that you can see clearly, but
there is holly and lights around the front of our porch, wreaths in the
windows on the second level and one in the living room window.
There are also candle lights in each window. Also, not visible,
are red bows on the gates to our back yard.

Better shot of the snowman on our front porch. He's
made out of three grapevine wreaths, a hat, scarf, and boots.
Picked this idea up from Southern Living a few years ago.

Our Santa collection. Think we're up to about
eleven. Because there are so many sizes, it's hard
to take one photo and have them all fit.

Indoors, our one and only Christmas Tree. It is
Thing Two's year to put the star on top.

The NOEL letters I painted last year. They're gold and
sit on the dining room window.

When I was single, I'd hang stockings on this shelf.
Then after Kevin and I were married, we kept hanging our
stockings on this shelf. It's become "the place" that we hang them
even though we have a fireplace.

The second take of the Advent Calendar I made
this year. Yes, we start on one and will go until the 25th.

Made this card holder this year as well. It is Christmas
themed fabric cut into strips that are approximately
one inch wide by approximately six inches long. I then
tied them onto a ribbon. There are a few gold, wire trimmed,
ribbons in there that I made curly. When we receive a card, I
slip on a curtain clip to hold the card (the clip isn't a full circle,
so it slides on easily).

Yard Sales . . .

We visited my folks this past weekend. When there, Saturdays seem to mean yard sales. My mom wasn't to excited about going, but got talked into it. We loaded up into two cars, just in case there were lots of treasures to be had. There were, but not big ones, and they all didn't call our names. My boys were excited about all the toys they were seeing; but honestly, these were toys we're trying to get rid of at home or for kids about a year old. I was quite happy with the five dollars I spent. Found three pails marked 50 cents each ~ got all for $1.00. At another yard sale, found a grape vine wreath with berries on it and a bag of extra berries marked $5.00 ~ asked if she'd would sell just the wreath. She wouldn't; so I asked if she'd take $4.00. Yup, walked away with those as well. For $5.00, I bought 3 pails (two with holes in the bottom already, perfect for small plants - maybe some daisies), a grape vine wreath with fall berries on it, 2 short berry vines, 2 medium length berry vines, and 1 long berry vine. A success as far as I am concerned. Here's the photo's:

The wreath was promptly put outside, once we were home.

Not sure what I'll do with the remaining vines, but they'll
be put to good use. The tins I have some good ideas, but
may need to wait until spring.

All because of Sheri . . . . .

I am finally feeling motivated to finish some of my projects around the house. My friend Sheri has been going crazy with fun projects around her house. One was painting one of the doors in her kitchen with chalk board paint for her kids to use. When she blogged about it (see here), probably about a month ago at least, I became a bit frustrated with myself, in that I had everything I needed to do the same and hadn't gotten to it yet.

Today is the day. The boys are off cleaning their rooms upstairs, which means, that if I don't get after them, I have a couple hours to get my own stuff accomplished. I gathered supplies up from the basement, took things off of the door, and got to business. First coat went up well, with minimal clean up. Yeah!! Will see if I need to add a second coat. I'll add a piece of tin for notes and I'll be in business. It's even got me thinking of how I want to redo the wall to the right of the door. HHHHHhhhmmmmmm!!!! Lots of fun things to think of!

Here are some before and after photo's:

The door to the basement prior to paint. Kind of boring and white.

Here's the same door, with the first coat of chalk board paint.
It went up fairly easy. I also decided to paint the trim to the
cat door. Don't think white would have looked to nice on it.

Monday Musing's

I've been working on Christmas decorations the last few days.  I have been painting the letters in the word "NOEL" gold.  I'd seen this in a Southern Living Christmas 2008 book and really liked it.  Hoping to getting some family photo's with each of us holding a letter and some individual shots, too, for a frame that has been on the wall (for a while now) with four empty slots.  I've taken a few pictures of the letters in my dining room window, which turned out really cool, but realized that my Five in a Row ornament's were in the shot.  I might be able to crop them out but haven't taken the time yet.  I hope to try a little later in the day.

 In the same book, there was a photo of hung stockings with a letter dangling with the stocking.  Thought this would be a cool thing to do as well.  So, the eight letter are almost finished. 

It's amazing how many coats of paint are needed, when using gold, to get it covered.

Got to the pictures, as you can see.  The gold doesn't show up well.  But when we get to family photo's taken, I'll post those.

So excited!!

Yes, I've fallen into the homeschool decorating scheme.  My wish list for Christmas includes bookshelves and Five in a Row manuals and Books.  We also bought some metal sheets from Home Depot to hang for magnets (Thank you Heather W. for the inspiration!!)  so the boys could work on language arts in a different way.  It will probably be used for more ways than just language arts though.  

Hope to get them up today and have pictures blogged soon.