Gina
So if you remember
this post, and
this one you remember that I had a lot more I was working on and I forgot to show you! Oops. Anyway, I don't have any before pictures of the kitchen which is really too bad because it was quite a difference for just changing up what was on the counters and taking off the cabinet doors. Here are the afters though.
Just imagine those cabinets on the right on both sides and lots of clutter on the counters and you'll have a pretty good idea of how the "before" looked! lol
And a close up of my doorless cabinets (which I LOVE! Got the idea from
here.)
(yes, I know my blue dishes don't match my red and green kitchen...but the dishes are MINE and I love them and the kitchen...it's a rental! lol ;)
And I also have tackled our bedroom. This is the before of what I've done so far:
I had to move those bookcases there because we have SOOO many books we couldn't just get rid of them and there was litterally NO WHERE else to put them! lol. I think they might be getting a coat of white paint and some distressing come spring. I love the way they look but I'm not digging so much woodgrain.
And this is after! (oh, and what you don't know is that the bottom four shelves are cram packed with books as full as they could possibly be so that I could make these upper ones more attractive!)
and a shot of the bed too. I got the pillow idea from
her. (I think...)
(it really is just a couple towels rolled up with some white fabric and ribbon pinned around it! Can't beat that...aside from the fact that my kids want to destroy it and I'm afraid they're going to get poked!)
Ok, I think that's it for me tonight. I'm off to try and scrap for the first time in I bet a MONTH!!!
sorry the pictures are being weird...blogger is the devil!
Gina
I know a lot of you who read my blog are in a similar time of life and have small children. That means that many of us probably have the same struggles and thoughts. One of the things I struggled with (more mentally than ever not requiring good behavior) was
Why Require Unregenerate Children to Act Like They're Good? The biggest thing that had struck me and stuck with me was that when I required behavior of them that they aren't able to fulfill it's an opportunity for me to point them to their need for Christ. However as I was reading my mail today I saw that John Piper had written a new article on is very topic (see the link above) and he did mention that but also had other points that are very valid and important. I strongly encourage you to read the article and think about these things yourself.
Finally he encouraged us to not simply require good behavior but to also:
be forgiving and longsuffering.
praise and encourage each hopeful sign of life in our children.
apologize when we fail (I'm big on letting my kids know I fail and letting them see and hear me ask Christ for help.)
saturate them with the word.
pray for them without ceasing.
and many other things.
Read the full article
here.
And because she actually smiled for me...
Gina
I've been playing around with my blog again...I still can't get my post titles font size changed but I did get some of the other stuff that was bugging me fixed! lol. I figured as long as I was messing around on my blog I'd change it up a bit too. I've been wanting a new header for a while and when I saw that my friend
Virginia had given her blog a "facelift" it gave me the motivation to actually do it! lol.
Anyway, I just wanted to share the AMAZING site that I pretty much always get my backgrounds from. It's called
Shabby Blogs and they're great!
Their Shabby Blogs Blog is really cool too and they've got freebies all the time...and it's all so super cute!
I'm off to bed finally.
Oh, and just because he's so stinkin' cute!
Gina
I've been thinking about what type of "advent" calendar or "count down to Christmas" I wanted to have and I finally settled on an idea and just did it! I wanted something unique and that wouldn't be too expensive to make. (my total cost was $.53 because I ran out of red embroidery floss!)
I'd seen people use tiny stockings and things like that for this idea but I didn't want to go out and buy 25 of those suckers...plus I wanted it to be a little more personal. So, what's more personal than socks?! (ok, underware are but there is NO WAY I'm making something for the whole world to see out of my underware! lol)
I grabbed all our "divorced" socks and a couple pairs too because I didn't have 25 mismatched ones and started stitching. I made sure I had socks from everyone in our family so they would be all different sizes and then I just embroidered the numbers on the top of them. After I did all that I decided they needed a little something more so I used fabric glue to add the pompom trim and buttons to some of them. Then I used clothes pins to hang them from a ribbon and was done!
Each sock has either a treat (for days I know we're going to be busy busy) or something fun to do.
(sorry the picture is so bad, this is hanging in a hallway and there was just no way to get a good picture of all of it. Oh, and i just noticed I need to take down the hangers for the pictures that are usually there! )
Gina
Finally! It felt like it had been FOREVER since I had just sat down and scrapped. No deadlines, not projects to do, just scrapping. I pulled out my
Season's Change kit from
Color Me Daisy and had fun putting together this simple LO about my little monkey man's love of climbing. Yup...I got me a climber. Anything and everything...he can get up there!
That orange star is by Sassafras and it was in the July kit and the Thickers are from my stash. I outlined everything and added Glossy Accents to a few of the stars too.
And finally, stitched around the edges of the "Junoish" paper (I named that myself, because seriously, how can you look at it and NOT start singing
this? LOVE this soundtrack but I still haven't broken down and bought it.)
