Faith, Hope & Love

Step 2

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Back in December I took my boring half bath from blah to fun by painting it green. Before I painted it, here's how it was looking (except with hardwood floors).

So boring, right? And here's the room after a coat of paint.

My next step was to add a new mirror. The builder mirror was not doing it for me at all - bye bye mirror! I had bought a mirror at Target quite some time back with the intention to use it in this bathroom, but it sat unused for the longest time. No more! The mirror now has a home. =)

I also used my friend Meredith's directions to make a no-sew roman shade for this room. I actually made one back in December, but then I hated my fabric choice and decided to start over. I hope I'm not the only one that happens to and I also hope that I will find a use for that shade somewhere else.

After my fabric choice fail, I selected some from fabric.com and started the project once more.

Meredith's instructions were awesome and the shade ended up looking amazing! I was so proud I had done it myself. =)

Here's how the shade looks when it's down.

Here it is up as well.

I love how it turned out and I love the color it brings to the room. And of course here's the new mirror looking pretty - so much better then the builder mirror, right?

Now onto Step 3!

Pinterest Project!

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

My friend Kelly is getting married in October and for table decorations, she chose a project from Pinterest. The original project can be found here.

Kelly bought vases at Hobby Lobby and we grabbed the rest of our supplies.

Kelly wrapped a vase in jute.

Meanwhile, I got to work putting rubber bands on another vase.

After that we stuffed paper in them so that the spray paint wouldn't cover the inside.

Then we went outside and spray painted them which I totally forgot to take a picture of.

And the final product? Voila!

I think they look awesome and with a candle added inside they will be lovely wedding centerpieces. Kelly also said that after the wedding I can keep one. =) They would be great as candle holders or as vases for flowers.

I can't wait to see them in action!

New Rug Sneak Peek

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

When I posted about our new chairs, I mentioned that I wanted to get a new rug for our living room. Well, we took a leap and got one! I'm hoping to be take some more pictures this weekend, but for now here's a peek at our new rug!

Wrinkles and all. ;-)

Homemade Brownies

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I had never made homemade brownies before this past weekend. Wellll, never that I can remember. It's possible that I made them with my grandmother growing up, but I have no recollection of those events.

So anyway, I got an itch to bake and whipped up some brownies following this recipe from About.com. I altered it a bit.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups margarine
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter and then mix with cocoa. Stir in sugar and blend in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla. Stir in the flour and and mix for about 2 minutes. Bake in greased 9 x 13-inch pan for 25 minutes.

Yay for brownies!

99 Red Balloons

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

They are not floating in the summer sky, but still.

I don't know why I felt compelled to share this - probably just because I am weird, but a few years ago my friends and I had a 99 Red Balloons party at my mom's house (I still lived there then and all the get-togethers took place there). Why? I don't remember. We probably didn't even have a reason anyway. Who needs a reason to throw a party?

So anyway, here's how we took that theme to a whole 'nother level.

Red everything was the basic rule. And you KNOW we had 99 Red Balloons jammin' in the background - in English, in German and even the remix.

We baked a cake and iced it with red icing and even drew 99 red balloons on the top.

Yep, there were 99 red balloons in the house. We were all in band in high school so it wasn't that horrible to blow them all up since we had band-level lungs.

For dinner we served tomato soup (duh, it's red) with veggies and we had plenty of red-colored snacks.

Can you spot the person in this picture?

*Sigh* I love parties! Even if this one is a few years past.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

The other day I got a hankering for broccoli cheese soup and what did I do? I made some. I thought I would share the recipe I used with you. It originally used chicken broth, but you all know I made it vegetarian. =)

Broccoli Cheese Soup (altered from this recipe from My Blessed Life):

1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 c. butter, melted
1/2 c. all purpose flour
4 c. milk
4 c. veggie broth
1 lb. fresh broccoli (I actually used frozen *gasp!* - the scandal!)
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 t. nutmeg
16 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Whisk butter and flour in a stock pot over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Stir constantly and slowly add in the milk (heat it up a little first). Then add in the veggie broth while still whisking. Let this simmer for 20 minutes.

During this time, prepare the onion by sauteing it in 1 tablespoon of butter.

You can also take this time to grate the cheese.

Since I used frozen broccoli, I microwaved it for about 4-5 minutes and then set it aside.

After the mixture has simmered for 20 minutes, add in the broccoli and onion. Cook the soup over low heat for about 20-25 minutes then add salt and pepper to taste.

At this point, you can puree your soup in a blender. Eric and I recently bought a Kitchenaid immersion blender from Target for $50 so I just used that and it worked really well. If you use a blender, return the soup to your pot after and set the stove to low heat. Add in your cheese and stir until well blended. Then add the nutmeg.

I served the soup with some tasty bread.

The finished product:

I loved this soup! It was everything I dreamed it would be.

Surprise! Paneled Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

You may have noticed in our NYE pictures that it's looking a little different in our living room these days.

Don't see anything different? Well, in case you didn't know, this is our TV wall as it had looked since we moved in:

Pretty boring, right? I always felt this wall was so bland and I thought about adding pictures, but I knew that wasn't what I really wanted for this area. I wanted to add some character to this space.

I decided on doing a paneled wall and after browsing Google Images, I finally got an idea of what I wanted and then I handed the project over to Eric. Here's the wall in-progress.

And almost done.

The grand finale!

Eric did an amazing job. He finished the entire project in 2 days. I was surprised at how inexpensive this project was as well. We just bought one sheet of MDF for $26 at Home depot and they cut all the pieces for us in the store.

Eric did all the work himself. I do not do measurements - that has Eric's name written all over it. I was the creative one and inspired the project and he handled the math and execution. =)

I love our new paneled wall and how much character it adds to the room.

And I know you're all digging the Guitar Hero World Tour drum set over in the corner... I can play most songs on hard on the drum set. Don't be jealous.

So there you have it, another awesome project thanks to my main-man Eric. He's getting to be a right proper carpenter, don't you think?

Murder and Mayhem Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I shared part I of our NYE murder mystery party re-cap and now I'm back for part II. When I left off yesterday, we had experienced 2 murders at our party and a little greediness from our guests (stealing money off 'dead' bodies).

With 2 murders so far, we continued asking questions and trying to figure out information to solve the crimes.

And then, another murder!

And *gasp!* another one!

So many crimes to solve!

We wrapped things up eventually and were shocked when we figured out who committed each murder and all the things that were going on right under our noses that we didn't know about. Everyone had secrets and people were blackmailing each other like crazy!

We gave out awards for best costume, best performer, guest with the most money and for each guest who solved the main murder.

After we finished the game, we had to take some group pictures (some people had already left, but we got some with the people who were still there).

Then we headed down to the end of the street to shoot off roman candles that a friend brought to the party.

After we finished with the fireworks, we walked back to the house and on the way we noticed my neighbor's yard was on fire. Yes, you read that right - on fire. That had been lighting some small fireworks in their driveway and one went off into the grass.

Of course I had to get a picture with the fire and my two friends who were trying to stomp it out since my neighbors didn't have a water hose.

And that was how we welcomed 2012 - with mystery, roman candles and fire. Happy New Year to all of you!

Murder and Mayhem Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

As I mentioned before, we had a murder mystery party in 2010 for NYE and it was so much fun we decided to do it again to ring in 2012. This year our murder mystery party was 1920's themed and took place in a speakeasy/night club called The Four Deuces. We took a ton of pictures so this is definitely going to have to be a two-parter so check back tomorrow for part 2.

For now, let's start at the beginning. Last year our murder mystery game was a kit bought at a game store in the mall. This year after some Google searching, I found our game Murder at the Four Deuces from a website called Dinner and a Murder. They have several different games on their site, but we chose to take it back to the 20's and head to The Four Deuces (which can accommodate 10-20 guests).

We chose to download and print the materials ourselves. My friend Kelly made our nametags and they turned out awesome! She made them out of playing cards to fit the Four Deuces theme and glued little clothespins to the back so that we could clip them on.

I laid them out along with each character's booklet so I could just hand them to guests as they arrived.

I also printed out a 1920's slang dictionary, which I found on the Dinner and a Murder website. I messaged the dictionary to all the guests before the party, but I also placed on our entry table so that people could review it as they liked during the party.

Kelly made a sign for us to hang on the front door with the name of the club.

In the 1920s, it was common for speakeasies to require a password, so of course we requested that our guests give us the password before they entered.

To set the mood for the party, we found a 24/7 online radio station that plays only 20's music and set that up to play during the party. We have Netflix streaming and found a Charlie Chaplin collection so we played that on the TV.

For dinner we had traditional 20's food. I discovered that Chinese and Italian food were very popular during this time. This led us to decide on ravioli as the main course for dinner (it helps that it's quick and easy to prepare). After more research we came up with a full menu for the evening that was all completely 20's inspired:

Snacks:
Potato Chips
Mixed Nuts

Dinner:
Ravioli
Caesar Salad
Breadsticks

Dessert:
Devil's Food Cake

Eric created this centerpiece all by himself to go along with our club/casino feel. I love how creative he was with this!

Our friends Bobby and Kelly purchased our decor from Party City. They purchased wall decals and card suit streamers that were perfect for setting the 1920's club mood. We also bought red balloons and put those around the room (we didn't have 99 red balloons, just about 14).

After dinner we got to talking to everyone and getting to know each other's characters.

And then..... a murder! Fortunately we had an Inspector there to keep things under control.

After this bribery, blackmail and rumors ran rampant as we all raced to get to the bottom of things.

After talking for a bit, I passed out a weapon's clue sheet to each guest for them to fill out in order to get clues as to where they might find one of four 'weapons' in the house. I had hid those earlier in the day and it was fun watching everyone racing around the house hoping to find a weapon. If your character discovered a weapon, you had the opportunity to murder another character during the game if you felt it was necessary. This was something we didn't have the option to do in the game we played last year.

What's this? Another murder! *gasp!*

Upon arriving, each guest received game money that they could use to bribe or buy secrets/information from other characters. Money was crucial to finding out what you wanted to know so if a character was killed, everyone raced to get the money from the 'dead body.' That was pretty funny to watch.

What happened next? More drama, drama, drama. Come back tomorrow for part II!

* Note: I was definitely not perked for mentioning this game. We just found it and enjoyed playing it. =)

New Year, New Chairs

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

In case you didn't know, Eric and I entertain quite a bit. I use the term entertain loosely - it's more like we get bored and invite people over at the last minute for water and microwave popcorn. But still... We also throw parties often - pretty much for any holiday. I don't think we've had an arbor day party yet, but maybe this is the year?

Point being, we have people over a lot and we need chairs. Of course we have our sofa, our Target chair and the 2 parson chairs we got from TJMaxx, but for watching movies and talking we wanted some more comfortable options. I searched high and low for affordable chairs and I tell you what, they are so hard to find. I finally turned to Ikea and found exactly what I was looking for - the Jennylund chair in white. The price point was great and the look was just what I was imagining. Only problem? Ikea is 4 1/2 hours away from me. I didn't want to make that long trip, but I also didn't want to pay the outrageous Ikea shipping prices.

What did I do? There is a couple here in my town that makes trips to Ikea every few weeks. You can place orders through their site and they will bring back your Ikea items for a small fee. The fee was totally reasonable and we got our chairs within 4 days of ordering them. What more could I ask for? We put the chairs together and put the covers on to see what they looked like.

Once we put the cover on, I knew that it was too white. It was so stark white and really stuck out like a sore thumb next to our couch, which is a more natural off-white color. Did I send the chairs back? Nope! I figured this would happen and I had a plan.

Tea staining.

Eric might have thought I was crazy, but he rolled with it. I had seen a post on Young House Love a while back about tea staining pillow covers and wondered if it could be done for bigger pieces. I posted a comment on the post asking if they thought it might work for our chair covers and Sherry responded positively. With that vote of confidence, I gave it a go!

I followed the directions on Young House Love pretty closely, but I had to stain the slipcovers in the bathtub since they were too large to fit in a pot on the stove. The first time I did the process I used 12 tea bags and they covers still were too white so I had to give them another tea bath. This time I used 20 tea bags (I was not messing around!).

Yep, those wooden spoons were very helpful at pushing down the slipcovers in that searing hot water. Eric said this was the Tea Party Convention, haha.

After the second time, the covers were looking much better! I threw them into the washer on cold and hung them up to dry. Once they were a little damp, we put them back on the chairs and they looked awesome! I took some pictures with my old camera, but it didn't do the chairs justice. After I got my new camera for Christmas I knew I had to take some more pictures!

Here are our new chairs (with their new color)!

It's hard to tell the new color from pictures, but they are a creamy, off-white color. They aren't a perfect match to the sofa, but I'm OK with that. I'm just happy that they don't clash with the sofa like they did before.

Yes, I finally took down the birthday banner. About 3 hours before our New Years Eve party on Saturday. =)

And yes, that is my ironing board in the background. I was still working on my costume when I took these pictures.

I am definitely digging these new chairs and they are so comfortable. It's nice to have people over to watch movies and not have to make people sit on the floor.

Yes, I probably did take too many pictures, but the excitement over having a new camera made me do it.

This next picture, as bad as it is, shows the new color as it looks in real-life the best.

Now that we have new chairs, I have more things I want to do to the living room at some point. I want to paint the legs darker because our sofa legs are darker and I just think the chairs would look better to me if the legs were darker. I also want to get a bigger rug for the living room, but we will see what happens on down the line.

2011 Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Everybody else is doing it! So in the spirit of conformity, I'm going to make like a high school girl and copy my peers. Here is my recap of some of what Eric and I have accomplished in 2011.

I made a rainbow cake for my sister's 14th birthday.

Eric and I had our one year anniversary.

I shared our guest room makeover.

For Father's Day I made homemade oreos.

We hosted a Fourth of July celebration at our house.

I made herb stuffed bell peppers.

After finding my grandmother's recipe in a cookbook, I tried my hand at baking a red velvet cake.

Pinterest inspired me to make mozzarella sticks.

We threw a party at our place for Halloween.

A command central was created in our pantry/laundry room.

I painted our half bath downstairs.

Eric built me a desk.

My friend Sharon and I baked an ombre cake for our friend Kelly's birthday.

It was fun looking back on what we've done this year! Here's to more fun in 2012. =)

From One Holiday to the Next

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Did anyone else go out for a little day-after-Christmas shopping? I had to work, but I left around lunch time and headed to Target to check out what they had. Parking out in the boonies was an unfortunate side effect of going shopping on a day everyone else was too, but it was worth it. Walking is decent exercise. =) Everything in Target's Christmas section was 50% off so that was pretty nice and I was able to grab a few things.

Check out my spoils.

The disco ball ornament sets were $2.50 each and the felt tree ornaments were $0.50 per set. Not bad. I love a good sale price!

So with that taken care of, I was free to move on to the next holiday - New Year's Eve! Every year it's tradition for us to have a New Year's Eve party. When I was living at my mom's house we would have it at her place every year, but now that Eric and I have our own place we host it here.

Last year we hosted a Mardi Gras themed murder mystery party.

It was a big hit and lots of fun so we are going to have another one this year! This time it will be 20s themed and with that in mind, here are the pieces that will somehow come together to be my costume. I'm really looking forward to Saturday!

What are your plans for New Year's Eve?

Christmas Re-cap

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Warning! Picture-heavy post ahead.

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! Eric and I sure did. We started out by heading to my grandfather's house on Christmas Eve in the morning and spending time with my mom's side of the family.

They have 2 cats and one of them is pregnant. It was so cute and McKenna loves animals so she had to hold it. =)

We all went to eat lunch, which kind of turned into a fiasco. Originally, we were headed to a steakhouse, but upon arriving discovered that it was closed so we called everyone to go to another restaurant that we didn't actually end up going to. We finally ended up outside Ruby Tuesday wondering if it was open since there were a thousand cars at the Cracker Barrel next door and 2 at Ruby Tuesday's. After checking the doors and finding out that they were open we went in and got a table and then saw that all the waitresses were wearing tacky Christmas sweaters so that was fun to see.

After getting back we opened presents and I had to take a picture with my sisters, of course.

We then headed back to my mother's house to see my father's side of the family, including our little cousin.

McKenna had a fun time playing with him and teaching him a new game. =)

After hanging out with them for a while we went to our church's Christmas Eve candlelit service and then back to my mom's for taco night! Which I think will be a tradition now because we did that last year too.

I got an awesome gift from Eric, but at first I wasn't too sure because he handed me a huge box to open and after pulling out tons of packaging, this is what I saw:

Here it is closer up.

If you don't get it, watch this video and this and then you will.

So after that, I opened another box and saw my real gift.

Ahh! Yes! That is really what it was!

Please excuse all the crap on the floor - that's my post gift-wrapping mess that I neglected to clean up. Just keepin' it real. The important thing here is to look at the awesome camera box.

On Christmas we headed over to Eric's parent's house for lunch. Check out how his mom decorated their mantle - so cute!

There was so much food and we all stuffed ourselves. We took a break to eat dinner and then came back for dessert which was lava cakes.

Aren't they cute?

We went by my mom's house afterward to drop off something for McKenna and I took that chance to take some pictures with our new camera.

I love my mom's red and green tree!

I also love my sweet little sister. =)

It was definitely a most wonderful Christmas weekend. We had a fabulous weekend with friends and it was great to slow down and take some time to remember why we celebrate this time of year.

Tis the Season to ...Party?

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Yep, we had another party. My BFF Kelly had her birthday last week so of course we had to have a party and celebrate. I wanted to bake a cake for her and I got an idea and ran with it. My friend Sharon came over to help me and totally went along with my cuckoo bananas idea. I remembered seeing an ombre cake on Pinterest a while back and that's where I got my idea from so run with it we did!

Kelly's favorite color is blue so we decided to do shades of blue. We took a cake mix and prepared it according to the directions and then divided it into four glasses which we then colored blue.

We baked two layers at a time in pans that we greased with butter and powdered sugar (yahoo answers tip there - actually worked pretty well!). We just made sure to check on them sooner than the package said since we made 4 layers instead of 2.

My lovely accomplice!

With the first 2 layers in the oven, we were free to dance!

Then back to work... I assembled the bottom 2 layers and frosted while Sharon got the top two layers into the oven.

Then Sharon assembled the next two layers once they were ready.

And the finished product. Check out this bad bay - with a 'K' for Kelly!

Of course I had to take a picture with it. =)

And the birthday girl with the birthday banner (a tradition for any friend who has a birthday).

And of course, the inside of the cake.

If you know me by now, I totally neglected to pick up birthday candles since Sharon's party a few weeks ago soooo Kelly also got the privilege of blowing out the soy candle. =)

Here's what we were left with by the end of the night.

I'm so glad the cake actually turned out properly and go Pinterest for another inspiring idea! =)

Mystery Solved!

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

On Friday I shared with you this picture and left you to ponder what it could be.

I've talked before about my 'dream desk' that is sold at Pottery Barn. It's the Bedford corner desk and it's gorgeous. There's so much space to spread out crafting supplies, wrap gifts and more.

I snapped this picture of the desk in person when I visited Pottery Barn a while back.

Well, Eric made it for me!!

Please ignore the random blue paint on the walls - I am wrought with indecision.

I don't know how Eric did it, but he built this entire thing by himself with directions from Ana White's website. Impressed doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about how it turned out and I'm stoked over how inexpensively he was able to make it. How lucky am I? It's everything I ever dreamed for a desk.

Thanks Eric! You rock!

A Complaint and a Mystery

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

So let me begin by complaining... One of the roads I take to work every day just got closed for repairs and now it takes me an extra 15 minutes to get to and from work. Boo! Am I a big baby? Yes, but it's still annoying.

Secondly, I present to you this:

I know you're thinking, "What is that? What could it be?"

Well, I'll be sharing more on Monday. =) Have a great weekend everyone!

No Bake Reese's Bars

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Growing up my mom would make Reese's bars for me and my sisters and we loved them. Since then I got the recipe from her and would make them from time to time for parties or just hanging with friends. They are easy to make and so yummy!

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups peanut butter
1 stick butter
1 (6 oz) pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup graham cracker crumbs crushed
1 box powdered sugar
1/3 block paraffin

Melt butter. Mix with rest of dry ingredients. Press into a long cake pan. Melt chocolate chips and paraffin. Pour over ingredients in pan. Let cool; cut into squares.

Those are the basic directions. Here are my directions -- with visuals!! (More fun that way, right? Get enough powdered sugar to kill a horse (1 box) and pour it into a big bowl.

Get 1 1/2 cups of peanut butter and dump that in on top. (make sure your counters are as messy as possible before doing this step)

Melt a stick of butter and pour that in too. (Paula Dean would be so proud!)

Pour in 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs and mix together.

Once your hands are covered with all your ingredients, wipe them on your pants and get your pants all messy too.

Melt 1/3 block of paraffin in the microwave (mine took me about 3 minutes). Then pour your chocolate chips into the bowl with the paraffin. Stir until mostly mixed.

Put the bowl back in the microwave for 30 second intervals until the chocolate is good and melted, stirring at the end of each 30 second interval.

Pour your peanut butter mixture into a pan and roll it out.

Then pour your chocolate on top.

You, my friend, have homemade Reese's bars!

And a messy kitchen too, but what-evs. You get to enjoy a tasty treat so it doesn't matter! =)

Party Party

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

So at the end of November was my BFF Sharon's birthday. It's always right around Thanksgiving so she was a turkey baby. =) Of course we had a party for her complete with pumpkin spice cupcakes.

I make these pumpkin spice cupcakes quite a bit in the fall/winter. I love them! I got the recipe from Pam over at Relatively Reagan. These cupcakes are so moist and tasty! I usually use cream cheese frosting from a can or I'll make my grandmother's cream cheese frosting and use that.

We re-used the banner we made for our friend's Matt's birthday back in March. I think it will be tradition now to put it up for everybody's birthday.

My ladies!

Sadly I was not very well prepared for this party and I did not have any candles for Sharon to blow out... This also happened last year on her birthday. But we always look on the bright side and just grabbed my big soy candle and lit that for her to blow out. We're so resourceful, right? ;-)

We also played board games. One was a game Sharon brought called Wise and Otherwise, which was new to me. Basically each card has an old saying on it with the latter part left out and you have to fill in what it might be and people vote on the best ones. It was pretty cool! I love making up stuff so that was fun for me.

In summary, I love parties. =)

Hopefully at some point I will get around to re-capping this past weekend was pretty much completely full for me. I need a few days to re-adjust my sleep schedule, haha.

Guest Posting

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Happy Friday all!

I'm guest posting today over at The Snugly Duckling for Kara's 25 days of crafts! So pop over to Kara's blog and you can see how I made this:

and this:

Check it out!

Behind Closed Doors

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Let's talk about the space underneath kitchen sinks. When we moved in I threw a bunch of stuff under there and didn't give it a second thought. It was just a jumbled mess of cleaning supplies and miscellaneous items. I "cleaned it up" at one point and this is what I had.

At Target the other day I saw this adorable contact paper and I was inspired.

Plus I had a Target gift card so what could I do? I had to get it.

Tada!

I found that hanging thing (that's a technical term) on clearance at Marshall's one day - I love getting things out of the way so that I can store the big amount of nothing that I have...

At least it looks better under there and there's some cute contact paper to look at!

Oh, and I also got this hand towel holder. It's quite convenient as it's right underneath the sink.

It's the little things that make me happy. =)

Step 1

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Our little half bath downstairs has been pretty much the same ever since we moved in. I didn't know what I wanted to do with it so I just never did anything. We added hardwood floors throughout the first floor last year, but outside of that the bathroom was looking very... blah.

As we all know, paint works wonders. I chose to paint the bathroom Wales Green by Benjamin Moore, which I got color-matched to Olympic no-voc paint. I'm loving it so far!

I took down the ugly builder mirror that came with the house and will be replacing it soon, but at least step 1 is over for the bathroom! You know I love color and this green is so cheery.

My next step is DIY-ing a roman shade for the window following my friend Meredith's tutorial. =)

Christmas Gifts

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

After completing a yarn wreath for myself back in October and discovering how easy it was, I decided that I wanted to make one for my grandfather's wife for Christmas (It also didn't hurt that they had a BOGO on wreaths at Joann's). She enjoys crafting herself so I thought she would appreciate one, especially since I chose to make it Alabama themed. My grandfather and his wife are huge Bama fans so I think they will both be happy to have it.

Since Bama's colors are crimson and white, that's what I chose to wrap the wreath with. After wrapping for quite some time this is what I had:

Of course I had to add the iconic Alabama A to the wreath and I think I get bonus points because I made the A out of houndstooth felt! How Alabama is that? If you don't live in Alabama, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but just trust me. =)

I also added these felt flowers that I made after reading a how Brittani made fabric flowers over at Birdie Branching Out.

It was really fun to make and I hope it's something my grandpa and his wife will be able to enjoy for many years to come.

Fa La La La La

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Can I just say how incredibly hard it is to take a picture of a Christmas tree? Or is it just me? I took about 10 pictures in a row and all of them were blurry.

These are the ones that actually turned out:

Me thinks I need a new camera.

As you can see, our color scheme is quite colorful. I bought these Christmas decorations before Eric and I even went house hunting because I bought them after Christmas when they were all on clearance. I got some amazing deals and I really do like all the colors. I'm generally a blue and green kind of girl, but these colors are really fun too.

We also added our ornaments that Eric's mom bought for us the Christmas after we got engaged and a pretty silver key my mom bought us last year to signify our first Christmas in our house.

As far as other decorations go, I have also added some ornaments to our bookshelf.

And I added this framed snowflake.

Sooo... not much decorating, but I'm enjoying what little we do have. I love having the tree lit up at night. If only I could take some better pictures of it. Does anyone have any tree photographing tips? =)

Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving! Eric and I are still eating leftovers over here. We spent lunch on Thanksgiving with Eric's family and it was lovely.

I loved the mantle decorations his mom made.

For dessert we had pumpkin bars and they were most delicious.

After lunch at Eric's parent's house, we headed over to my mom's for dinner preparations. Me and my mom have cooked Thanksgiving dinner each year since my grandmother passed away. I love the time I get to spend in the kitchen with my mom cooking. We pick dishes we're going to make and form a menu from that.

My mom always handles the meat. =) Thanks Mom!

This year our menu was:

Rolls
Turkey
Ham
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Roasted Carrots
Green Bean Casserole
Turnip Greens
Chicken Casserole
Vegetable Casserole
Corn
Red Velvet Cake

We pretty much make the same things every year (tradition!) and we have our system down pretty well now of what time we cook which things. We ended up finishing 1 minute before our scheduled time to eat.

It was so fun seeing everybody and hanging out while enjoying some tasty food (if I do say so myself). I also got to dance the night away with my baby cousin in Just Dance 3. I'm so thankful for my family and friends.

How was your Thanksgiving? =)

Command Central

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

After painting my laundry room/pantry and re-organizing the pantry area a few weeks ago, my next goal was to create a "command central" where Eric and I can hang coats/keys when we come home. My first step toward our command central was the cork board I created. Here's the full setup as it stands now.

Here's how it looks from the kitchen.

Eric added a hook for me to hang my aprons as well as key hooks and a coat hanger. Both the key hooks and the coat hanger came from Target (love).

I added a calendar for my forgetful self. I have things going on all the time and I always feel like I'm forgetting something so hopefully this will remedy that situation! I also added an adorable organizer (from Target) that I put my meal plan in.

I'm loving the new function added to our laundry room. =)

I'm also loving that I saw a double rainbow today! Check it out. And if you haven't seen this video yet, you are missing out.

What else have I accomplished? Well, I made my grandmother's red velvet cake for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. Here's the cake and part of the huge mess I made while making it.

I may have a messy kitchen, but at least I have a place to hang my purse and keys now, right? It's all about perspective.