Dining Room Gallery Wall

Here is the finished dining room gallery wall made from mirrors and empty picture frames.

 

Mirror and Picture Frame Gallery Wall

I'm just dropping in to give you a sneak peek of a project that I did to fill one of the walls in my dining room. I got a collection of different mirrors and picture frames and painted them all the same color. In this picture, I have them laid out on the dining room table to play around with their positions. I will post the finished project soon.

More Kitchen Progress

Here are a few more pictures of our progress in the kitchen. We have some upper cupboard doors now too. It makes the whole kitchen look so much cleaner and brighter.

 

Christmas Ornament Wreath

A little while ago, my friend Amanda and I had a craft night where we made these Christmas ornament wreaths. I am so in love with how they turned out!

 

 

We used wooden wreath forms wrapped in ribbon (to hide the wood) and attached the balls using hot glue. It was a super easy and I will definitely be making more.

Some Holiday Decorating

 

 

I haven't done much holiday decorating yet, but I put up some garland in the front hall and got the advent bags filled up with treats. I re-used the garland I had last year but hung it in a slightly different way. Click here to see what it looked like last year.

 

Progress in the Kitchen

 

This is a really quick post to show some of the progress that we have been making in the kitchen. You can see that the actual cupboards are painted and the lower cupboards even have doors on them now! This has been a long time coming.

Dining Room Bar Cupboard

 

 

A few weeks ago, I finally got around to refinishing the bar cupboard in our dining room. The actual refinishing didn't take long at all. I wish I had done it sooner. I probably bought this piece a year ago and for some reason procrastinated working on it, even though I knew exactly how  I wanted it to look. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I'm sure you will be seeing more of it in the future.

Halloween Decorating

 

Halloween is upon us. I feel like this holiday kind of snuck up on me and I didn't have much time to decorate. I did end up doing a little something in the front hall though. Here are some more pictures.

Fall in the Dining Room

After my sister's wedding, we had a ton of leftover mini pumpkins and flower centerpieces. I took some of them home, did some rearranging, and here is what I came up with.

 

 

I love how fresh it looks, but still feels like fall.

Thanksgiving Mini Mason Jar Cheesecakes

 

This past summer, I made some mini mason jar cheese cakes for my sister's wedding shower. They were a big hit so I knew I would have to make them again. I used the same recipe, but switched up the toppings and served them for dessert at Thanksgiving dinner. The jars made it perfect to send the extras home with everyone.

 

Give Thanks

 

As I mentioned earlier, I found a new spot for my Give Thanks sign. Click here to see where I had it last fall. This year I put it on top of the bar cabinet in my dining room. I added some flowers, pumpkins, pine cones and burlap and now it looks like fall.

 

Book Pages Wreath

A few weeks ago, it was my Grandmother's birthday. I made this book pages wreath as a gift for her. I thought it would be a nice tribute to the fact that she is an avid reader and has a wonderful book collection in her home (which she is generous enough to lend out to anyone looking for a good read).

New Living Room Curtains

 

 

I was finally able to decide what I wanted for living room curtains. I have had many different ideas (roman blinds, fabric covered roller blinds, white sheers) but none that I loved enough to commit to. I prefer the look of floor to ceiling curtains for this room and when I found these grey and cream chevron panels, I had to have them!





A Touch of Fall

 

It's been feeling like fall lately which has made me want to add a few touches of fall in my home. I haven't got very far yet (just a bit in the entryway to be exact), but I have a few more ideas that I will share with you shortly. I also have a new spot for the Give Thanks sign that I made last fall.

Jewelry Frame



I've had this project in mind for quite a while and I finally got around to doing it. It was super easy because I just used an old frame that I already had and stapled some chicken wire to the back of it. Now I have the perfect spot to store/display some of my jewelry.

 

Entryway Bench

One of my latest projects is an old TV cabinet turned into a hallway bench with lots of storage. It took many coats of paint, but in the end I love it. I don't have room for this piece in my own entryway but  when I explained what I was working on to my brother, he said he could use it. I'm happy it found a loving home!

 

Burlap Wreath In Its Home

Remember my last post about the burlap wreath that I made for a friend? Here it is in its new home!

I love where she chose to put it and I can't wait to see what she does with the rest of her home.

Burlap Wreath

A friend of mine, and her fiancé just finished building a new house and I made this wreath for her as a little house warming present.  I have made this style of wreath before and love it because it's super easy and always turns out great. You can see how to make this wreath in my tutorial. Here are some pictures I took of the wreath at my house before I gave it to her.

 

New TV Stand



We recently painted our living room light grey, which I love. The new look for the walls got me thinking that we needed a change for our TV stand. You can see the old TV stand (and yellow walls) here. I actually ended up finding a cabinet on the side of the road. I added some doors and painted it and here is how it turned out.

 

 

Mini Mason Jar Cheesecakes

 I made these mini mason jar cheesecakes for my sister's bridal shower and I had to post about them because they turned out so well! I had never made cheesecake before so I was a bit nervous about how this would go but I gave it a shot. The recipe was super easy and I would recommend this to anyone. Here is the recipe:

Bridal Shower Decorations

On Sunday, I hosted my sister's bridal shower.  I had a lot of fun setting it all up and everything went really well. Here are a few pictures of what my house looked liked decorated for the shower. I made two banners that both said "bride to be". One was made out of mason jar lids painted with chalk board paint. The other banner was made out of burlap.

 

 

Bridal Shower Invitations

I'm hosting a bridal shower for my sister this August and a few weeks ago, I sent out the invitations. I'm really looking forward to it because I love hosting parties at my house. Here is what the invitations looked like and more about where I got them from.

A Bit Of Baking

This past Monday, I had my nieces, Madison and Avery, over for the morning. We baked some oatmeal muffins with chocolate chips and raspberries. It gave me something to put under my new glass cake cover which just happened to fit perfectly over my favourite cake stand. I love how it looks sitting on the kitchen counter.

A Gift For Baby Liam

Our friends recently celebrated the arrival of their first baby, Liam. Here are some pictures of the gifts that I made for him. There are three blankets, a couple of burp cloths, and a couple of pacifier clips. The first blanket is double-sided flannel. I cut the letters out of some extra red flannel that I had and used a zig-zag stich to sew it to one of the side of the blanket.

I absolutely love this rainbow chevron fabric.

 

A New Look For An Old Bench

I bought this small bench from the antiques store a while ago and finally got around to painting and recovering it. It has found a home in my living room for now. I fell in love with this fabric a few months ago. My initial idea was to use if for curtains in the living room, but it looked too yellow-y when the sunlight came through it (I'm glad I just bought a meter to test it out first). I ended up making a couple of pillow cases and recovering this bench instead.

Introducing The Vegetable Garden

My parents have planted a vegetable garden in their backyard this year. They're growing radishes, cucumbers, snow peas, spaghetti squash, pole beans, yellow beans, tomatoes and carrots.

 

 It's growing like crazy but I will start off by showing you some pictures of the early stages. The next couple of pictures give you a clear idea of where everything is planted.

A Few More Baby Blankets

I recently found some 25% off coupons for flannel fabric which has inspired me to make a few baby blankets. These pictures are not the greatest, but it gives you an idea of what I've been working on lately. I found this really cute reptile fabric that I thought would make a good boy blanket.

Shoe Organizer Turned Barbie Organizer

Last weekend was my niece's fourth birthday. She absolutely loves Barbies so it was easy to choose a gift for her. I thought it would be nice to also get her a little something to keep all of her Barbies in. I found this fun shoe organizer and thought that it would be perfect for her to hang in her bedroom.

Some Summer Decorating and My Peonies

I don't typically do a lot of summer decorating, but here is a little something that I put up in my front hallway (above the coat rack). 

 

Birthday Flowers

Today is my birthday and I just wanted to do a quick post to show off some of the beautiful flowers that I got from family and friends. I feel very blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life. Happy Birthday to me!

 

My Spring Wreath

 I made a spring wreath a while ago, and I am finally getting around to posting it now. I already had the twig wreath form and just added some flowers to it so this project didn't take much time at all. I like how it brightens up my entryway.

A New Look For A Jam Cupboard

A little while ago, my Aunt asked me if I would refinish her jam cupboard. She has had the cupboard for years and wanted to give it a new look. It's a beautiful solid wood cupboard and I was more than happy to help her out. I gave it a couple coats of Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint, distressed it with sand paper, and then did a wax coat to seal it. I also switched out the wooden knob for a glass knob. Here it is:  

 

Magnolia Tree

I just wanted to do a quick post to show some pictures of our beautiful magnolia tree. I am so happy that it bloomed this year. Last year the frost ended up killing all of the buds so I made sure to take lots of pictures this year. Here are a few of them:

Sock Monkey Baby Shower Gift

 

A few weeks ago, my Aunt asked me to help her with a baby shower gift. We chose a cute sock monkey print flannel fabric and I used it to make a couple of blankets, burp cloths, a small tag blanket, and some matching pacifier holders.

Butterfly Mobile

My niece, Avery recently celebrated her 1st birthday and I wanted to make her something special as a gift. Her older sister has a ballerina themed mobile hanging in her room, so I wanted Avery to have a mobile for her own room. Here is what I made:

 

Old Window For the Kitchen

In October we made a kitchen message board to keep our lives more organized. Here's a reminder of what it looked like hanging up.

I was really happy with how the actual message board turned out but I was not happy having it hang in the middle of the kitchen. It was convenient but I couldn't help feeling like it looked too busy for that spot on the wall. I have a better spot in mind for the message board which I will share when it actually gets hung up. I decided to hang an old window that I recently stained and distressed in its spot. Here's how that looks: