It’s been over eight weeks since we had our little bean. Tomorrow will officially mark two whole months! Time is just whizzing by at an unbelievable speed. We had a minor mix up with our birth announcements, but they are finally here and we LOVE them! We got the idea from a pin we saw on pinterest and edited it to our specifications. Joey and I are pretty bad with photoshop, but after the try-fail method a million times – we finally wond up with something we loved and it only cost us $15 for 50!

We used overnight prints with a coupon, but pretty much anywhere that prints postcards (and we got the envelopes from them too), you can get a one side print pretty reasonable. We picked 4X6 for these and think that was perfect for these. This would also make a super cute birthday card. Right now we are testing out a bunch of self-publish photo books, photo printers, etc – but for postcards I have always loved overnight prints because they are so reasonably priced and have only messed up once in the six years I have used them.

A tiny bit of DIY + some pretty gold heart stickers and we are ready to announce his arrival via snail mail. Happy weekend friends!

I am SO OVER WINTER! I have been over it before it even started! I have been dreaming of planting in the raised bed Joey built for months now! Also, I can’t wait to get out of the house and into the sunshine with Rocket, Porkchop and Joey and Atlas. Spring, you are so close. In anticipation and celebration of sweet Spring, I joined forces with some of the most lovely ladies online to host a link party and blog hop dedicated to Spring! Please check out Emily from MerryPad‘s blog tomorrow where she is kicking things off!

Happy happy Monday friends! We are 33 and 1/2 weeks down and have a little more than 6 weeks to go before little “A” gets here! Isn’t is crazy hou you can feel so ready, yet so not ready at the same time about something? We are working our butts off to get the nursery in order, while preparing for hosting Christmas at our house and Joey’s grandfather’s 90th birthday! A lot is going on to say the least! We still keep squeezing in little Holiday Projects, and this one is super cute.

These super cute tiny trees I found at Michaels got me thinkin’ about cute ways to display them so their tininess wasn’t lost. Then Boom!

Clear ornaments! I found some plastic see-through ornaments which I think would work better than glass because super glue is what’s binding the tree to the ornament.

At first we tried to drop a few drops of super glue at the base of the tree then used and old tweezer (I highly recommend using one you never plan to use again, you will ruin it) to place it. I messed up like a million times until I just dripped the glue into the ornament and then fed the tree through with the tweezer.

Once you get a grip, hold firm. About three to five drips will be enough, and also dry quick enough.

There you have it! The ornaments were 50 cents each and a bag of a dozen tiny trees were a dollar. Yep! That quick, easy, and cute. Totally fits in with our traditional Christmas this year! It’s been fun making ornaments. The one to the right is made from sculpy and then some gold ink. The imperfections make me happy and entertains Joey to no end.

Hello! Happy mid week! How’s it flowin’? I decided to get a little adventurous and try something I never would have. We turned bar soap into liquid soap, and it was fun!

The lovely pick (as well as photo above) comes from a blog I just found out about via the magic of pinterest! The Farmer’s Nest gave pretty great instructions, so I won’t be repetitive and break down the deets, but I will tell you what I learned.

We used a bar of soap we had hanging around. I think it had glycerine in it. We followed the instructions and the funny part was, well, yea, I am going to just tell ya. So the recipe calls for liquid glycerin. I looked for it in the band aid isle as recommended. Welp, the fine folks at CVS did help me fine it, just not in the band aid isle. In the laxative isle. In the form of a butt injection thingie. For when you need to poop. I bought it anyway. Glycerine is glycerine, right?

Anywho, it worked just like instructed except ours had this snot like consistency. I think there was too much glycerin. I ordered some Mrs. Meyers soap bars to try again. We got about a gallon of totally usable soap. I added a little scented oil to give it an extra kick. Love it! Totally want to make more household cleaning stuff!

So, what did you get into this week? Share! 

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Yes! Finally! I am committing to a schedule more and more in my old age, and Wednesday is the mother of all awsomeness for me now. I will be obligated to, get this, do something I have pinned on Pinterest. Yep. It’s my job people. Remember back in the Summer how Katie from Bower Power kicked off the Pinterest Challenege with Myself, Emily Henderson, and Young House Love? If you need to get up to date, check out the video below.

Also check out their Winter Pinterest Challenge if you haven’t already! Anywho…

Inspired by these past events, I decided to self proclaim a pinterst challenge weekly, to myself. Hence, One-A-Week-Wednesday. I have pinned over 200 DIY ideas, projects and inspiration on my “Let’s Make Something” board and have only accomplished one. Guess which one? The chalkboard fridge from the Pinterest Challenge! Yep!

Some projects are big (like huge-big), some are tiny. Some have more of a home ec thing going on, and other are puppy related.  Want to guess what we are working on for next week?

One of these guys got us thinking, and we are working on getting her done! I love a good schedule and am so excited to have a “mandatory” DIY project on our plates that’s fun and inspired by other talents. We have a lot of not-so-creative projects going on around here, and this will spice reno up a bit!

It’s been clear to us we keep many projects running at one time. We could have potentially finished the screen door a few weeks back, for sure, but you know how we love to sit on things and L-O-V-E them before we finalize it. Let’s just say, we L-O-V-E how the door turned out!

This was indeed a labor of love. Our dear friend Duane, sketched out the design, Joey routed it, together we painted it and weatherproofed it with Minwax, spray polyurethane, from our local True Value store (all the products were found at our local True Value Stores, including a True Value lumber yard). The white and darker blue (Royal from Krylon spray paint) is one solid piece of wood cut to size. The light blue scalloped edge was hand painted with True Value brand paint sweetly names Haily’s Heart in a 4 oz. sample tub. Here is how we attached the scalloped edge with a seamless look:

diy screen door

Joey sized some little white nails by cutting them in almost half to keep the edge nice and stable. We decided to keep the inside of the door pure white, to compliment the mudrooms serine feeling. It also makes it feel more cohesive and adds a bit of a surprise when you walk outside.

We can’t wait to fix up the backyard entrance and add a new light, some plants, and refinish the stairs and outside of the mudroom. We know this was made to be the Au pair’s entrance, and most people would not focus on making it a beautiful space, but I can’t help it. It just so happens when you walk out that door you are faced with a raised garden about three feet off the ground. The bushes are wild now and grow raspberries amongst many other things – but picture wild flowers, veggies, and fruits - right outside your kitchen!

So here she is in all her glory, both the inside and the outside view. We have A LOT of work to do out the outside of the mudroom! for such a tiny space it houses French doors, a sliding screen door and the door displaying the new screen door finishing.

We would love to know your thoughts! Have you made a bold piece situated on the outside of your home? We would love for you to share your quirky projects with us!

Lets get legal: We were one of the 10 bloggers True Value has chosen to work on The Blog Squad , and we are way excited to take on the challenge of showing you exciting DIY projects.  They have compensated us for our time and writing, and provided materials for the projects we have worked on. However, our opinions are entirely our own and we have not been paid to publish positive comments. Did we mention we are excited to show you our DIY Blog Squad Projects?