back to real life

i thoroughly enjoyed my fall break, although my list of projects almost drove james crazy.

oh how i love a crossed out to-do list.

back to school this week to *enjoy* some of this

and a little of this


james has a huge paper due this week, so he's been researching like crazy

but i'm so proud of all his hard work -

and it all payed off on his midterms:

95

96

98

woohoo!! i'm so proud!

I was planning on giving you a little tour of our apt this weekend but
the kitchen looks like this


and the floor looks like this


so it's probably not going to happen today.
i can blame it on parent conferences, right?

happy rest of the weekend!!

chalkboard love

last year, my dad found a bunch of old frames next to the dumpster & grabbed them for me - yea, he's pretty great like that :) i've been saving this one especially for a chalkboard redo.

before:

i spray painted the frame white and covered up that *gorgeous* print with some chalkboard paint and some blue around the edges.

i broke the glass in the process so it's a good thing i didn't need it anyway.

put it all pack together and

after:


i still have to pick out some pictures for the other 2 frames, but other than that, the wall is done!

i definitely went more bright & fun with the wall and was a little nervous that it would look more dorm room-ish. but you know what?
i like it.
it makes me smile.
and james is pretty easy going as far a decor goes so i guess were good!

chevron prints

so i've been completely loving all the chevron prints around lately & really wanted to try it out. unfortunately, when it comes to things being symmetrical, i'm quirky. i knew if it tried to free hand it, it would drive me completely insane.
I finally found this little tutorial and used their printouts to guide me.


before:

super cheap tray that i let stay like this for way too long



step 1 - spray painted white



step 2 - tracing on the chevron print



step 3 - painting and trying not to let it drive me crazy. i can't look at it too close or it will. i also topped it off with a clear coat of sealer since we toss anything & everything into it on our coffee table.

after:



chevron project take 2: super cheap canvases to go on the wall collage

all traced and taped off
painted with brown

oh how i love the peeling process

quite exciting

don't look too close because they're not perfect, but definitely a pop of fun!

home

we made the trip home last weekend & had so much fun seeing tons of family and friends. i got so excited about seeing people that i forgot to take pictures of them. i didn't even take one of my brother's birthday. so sad.
here's the few i did remember to take

mary brooke loves her uncle james

and she loves her new shoes

sweet jude

jude saying 'hey pig!'


every time we go home, we leave reminded of just how blessed we are.
thank you Lord!

dishtowels

so when we moved to chattanooga and started doing things like, oh you know, paying rent, the christmas budget needed a little tweaking

i needed a thrifty gift for the sweet girls i teach with
(don't you love how i said thrifty instead of cheap? i'm classy like that :)

well, I saw this tutorial for the cutest dishtowels and *bonus* it helps me clean out my fabric stash! (btw - have you noticed yet how all I do is blog stalk people and then copy their creative projects?)


i picked up a pack of these dishtowels at target on my last several trips because what's another $4, right?

side note - yes, it's entirely too early to start talking about christmas, but i'm not very good at sewing in general and sewing under time pressure would be close to disastrous, so it's quite necessary that i start early

during the state/florida game when i was too nervous to actually look at the tv, i cut long strips of fabric with my pinking shears



for some of them, i ironed the edges back, but i hate ironing, so i went with the cute/messy look on some of them



pinned the edges of the strips to the edges of the towel


and the arranged the rest of the strips in messy ruffles and pinned them down


sewed around the edges of the strips and tada! cute dishtowels!


merry christmas!

embroidery hoops

so i finally decided to start hanging things on the walls!

here's the beginning of my big project this week -



no wonder people all over blogland are doing this -
the whole project cause me less that $2.50
& helped use some of my fabric stash
whoohoo!


this is what's on the other side


i got this print for james for our 3rd anniversary from www.vol25.com. love her stuff. honestly, i got it for me and pretended to give it to him but he was a good sport about it :) i thought it was appropriate since we've moved away from everything and everyone we know, right?

i hung it in a thrift store frame painted white and have a bigger clip that i want to use, but its at school and there's no way i'm heading there over fall break!

the wall is coming along. i forgot how homey it looks when things are on the wall. love!

cute, easy burp cloths

one of the first things that i learned to sew was these simple burp cloths.

emily game me a stack of the cutest fabric and the directions on how to make these and i felt like she had just given me a million dollars.

thus began my fabric obsession.

1. cut a rectangle out of fabric and a towel


2. sew the right sides together and then trim the corners off (don't actually cut through the seams like i did here - demonstration purposes, of course)


3. turn the burp cloth right side out through the small opening that you left when sewing and iron
(why is there always ironing involved?)


4. sew a top stitch because it looks pretty


5. welcome to the world baby josiah, who was born to sweet seagie and stu only a couple hours ago!

ruffles

i'm on a mission to clean out my fabric stash

1. boring target pillow cover

before -


after -

love me some ruffles


2. here's another scrap-busting project with blank notecards for a friend's birthday


easy peasy lemon squeezy

the wedding

I'm not gonna lie
We had forgotten just a little bit of all the fun we've been missing out on in the burg.
It's just a little easier not to imagine it all, you know?

Well, we had an absolute blast when we headed home last weekend for the sweetest wedding and were very much reminded how blessed we are with some amazing friends.

Here's just a few pics from the weekend


















and of course we couldn't go home without snyping some pics of the cutest niece ever




it's so good to be home