christmas crafts

after a great long weekend home, we're back and working on christmas crafts!
here's a simple gift for some friends here in chattanooga -

2x4's about a foot long, some modge podge, cute paper, clothespins, & a little chalkboard paint and you've got...

a christmas countdown on one side and a little place for a picture on the other



easy peasy!

happy thanksgiving!

(source)

We have so much to be thankful for today.

Happy Thanksgiving!

christmas focus

i love christmas

like crazy - listening-to-christmas-music-since-october-thinking-about-presents-sinse-july-gives-me-a-fuzzy-feeling-to-see-hobby-lobby-isles-full-of-xmas-stuff-love-christmas- crazy.


(source)

but since i read THIS post a couple weeks ago, i've thought a lot about how i really celebrate HIS birthday. do i execute or experience the season? do i celebrate like a pagan?

if things aren't on a to-do list, i'm not very good at them.

and adding "put focus on Christ" on a list won't really cut it.

SOOO i don't have an answer. just thinking. and praying.


take 2 minutes & go read it.


i love stormy omartian's books on prayers. they so often give words and scriptures to what's in my heart just more eloquently. so i've ordered this one. i get that reading a book won't fix it but i want to take some intentional steps this season.


merry christmas!

house tour

as much as we absolutely loved living in the barn, i don't think i ever imagined downsizing from its' spacious 890 sq. feet.

then we moved to chattanooga

492 square feet. oooh yea.

it definitely took a little bit of re-thinking about what we really wanted here with us and what we could do without (goodbye table, gail pittman extras, and excess camo). we unpacked and then repacked a bunch of boxes & sent them back to storage in the 'burg.

after all was said and done, we're absolutely loving it here. i can officially sleep through typing with the lamp on & james can study like a champ through most anything.

wanna see a little?


it's a big house that James' nicest professor has split up into several apartments. that's ours with the light on upstairs.




fun curtains from World Market! love that store. and my favorite drawing of grace's :)



old school lazy boy? check
bike? check
tent? check
guitar? check
side table i meant to paint months ago? check
at least the wall is fun, right?



this large blank wall is throwing me off - would i center something in the middle of the wall or middle of the couch? pretty sure it would bother me either way so it's probably going to stay blank



*hopefully* a little christmas present we pick up at ikea tomorrow will change this little space!



room #2



where james spends lots & lots of time


more ikea shelves. not the neatest but quite functional. i promise i start out folding our clothes








fun little old school medicine cabinet



my little sewing space with my basket of on-going projects underneath


we've got this little space loaded up! there's 2 plastic bins and more spray painted file boxes behind those 4. you should have seen me trying to get our heater out of the back bottom bin (try to say that 5x fast)




for what our kitchen is lacking in counter space, it makes up in the awesome huge drawers. if we ever build a house, i'm definitely asking for big drawers.




and that's it!

i gotta say i haven't missed much of what we packed up.
best part?
cleaning is quick. i'll definitely enjoy that while i can :)

purse project

I've been wanting to try to sew a purse ever since Shelley gave me this awesome book for my birthday and it's only taken 4 months for me to get the courage to attempt it.


I got this fabric at Ikea on one of our trips a couple months ago and sewed the bag part.


pretty proud of my liner and pockets :)


at this point, I'm loving the bag but it's definitely feeling a bit homemade, not in the good way.
I went to Anthropolgie for some inspiration and found this bag with some leather details


well leather runs a little high for me, so - don't hate - but i got the softest vinyl i could find :) I know vinyl isn't quite anthro, but hopefully it's not screaming homemade



(hmmm, maybe i should check my picture backgrounds a little better, as beautiful as the big white fridge is...)

anyway...this project was so much fun!
thanks so so much for the inspiration, Shelley!!

fun friday

we started off the night at kanghis grill


a build-your-own stir fry place


with our sweet friend casey


who then showed us this amazing view from the top of signal mountain


and ended the night at the signal mountain opry where you can hear some of the best bluegrass around


good times

thrift store makeover

do you ever read about some fantastic makeover on the ugliest thrift store clothes,
get inspired,
go buy something ugly from the thrift store,
& then have no idea what to do?
yep, me too.
and then it haunts me just sitting there in my sewing basket.
ugh.
this is the last time i'm buying something ugly from a thrift store.

so before:
the picture doesn't do justice. it was ugly - high waisted, long, lots and lots of gathers, not real flattering


enter elastic thread. for some reason this stuff has been scaring me for months. i finally took the plunge and hand wound my bobbin with it and... it worked!


yea, when you buy stuff sheared in a store, it has neat, straight lines that don't overlap.
i gave up on that about line 3 and decided to mark it up as my first try.
i just won't let the waistband show.


i added pockets but wish i'd made them lots bigger.
live and learn.


not pretty but you get the idea - i cut the top half of the skirt off and most of the sides, sewed it back together, and then the elastic pulled it all together.


and after

easy comfortable a-line skirt.

glad i conquered the fear of elastic thread and got this beauty out of the sewing pile.
i'll think twice before being swayed to buy another ugly skirt from the thrift store.

lately...

happy happy 23rd (yesterday) to my little brother!




not much blog-worthy going on around here lately...

my school's finally calmed down a little and i'm starting to remember why i decided to teach




james' school has not calmed down and i'm pretty sure he's counting the days until this semester is over



of course, after he wore this to class, they asked him to start teaching the classes, so that's added more work :)

(but for real, james ordered these glasses off line and they didn't look quite so large in the picture. i personally think they look like clark kent glasses. that being said, he doesn't actually wear them out of the house)

i went to the Chatty Crafty art fair this weekend





and got inspired to start my own christmas crafts




and make a couple birthday happies for a girl at school


got a real letter in the mail and it seriously made my week. i forgot how fun it is to get real mail. with stamps. i'm inspired to get off the computer and write more letters



and that's about it.