Ch-ch-ch-changes

I have a wonderfully handy husband. As a result, I now have several new pieces of decor around the house. We've spent the past few days combining garage sale finds, treasures from my parents' house, items laying around our house, a few new things, and our design ideas.

Let's go on a tour....

1). The Breakfast Room.


I want a blue and white kitchen. Chris does not want a blue and white kitchen. Our breakfast room has ugly bluish/tan wallpaper. We got a beautiful blue and white plate as a wedding gift, and it's found a home in our breakfast room. Two weeks ago I bought the white milk glass vase (on the left shelf) at a garage sale for $0.50. I bought some shelves at a garage sale this past weekend and started painting those white. Sadly, they were not wide enough for the vase and teapot to sit on. So, Chris went to work building the shelves you see in the picture.

I purchased the "Simplify" sign and wooden "C" at Hobby Lobby last weekend for less than $5 combined. The teapot I bought at Old Time Pottery for $12.99 (a little bit of a splurge). The pitcher was one of Chris' grandmothers and the spools were his grandmothers. Now, I have a blue and white area in our house!

2). Living Room, Exhibit A


These shelves were the ones that were supposed to be in the kitchen. Chris painted them green (the same green as the frame in previous post). The little plaques were a Christmas gift (thanks, Liz!) and the figurine was our cake topper at our wedding.

3). Living Room, Exhibit B

This is what the living room wall looked like before. (Please excuse the crazy faces of my siblings.)

After

My parents are remodeling the living room and dining room in their house. These windows came from their house. They didn't have the slat/grill/trim things in them when we brought them home. Chris put those in and painted the whole window sage green (same as shelves and frame). We bought scrapbooking paper at Micheal's, cut them to size, and taped them to the glass.


Here's a close-up of one of them. I love how they turned out!

3). Living Room, Exhibit C


This wall just had the mirror on it before. The sconce was hanging where the green shelves now are. The other wall hanging is just a framed piece of scrapbook paper. We had the frame already. This is the more masculine addition to the room!

Here's a view of all three of the exhibits together.


Thank you to my fantastic husband, Chris, for all your help on these projects and for letting me make so many changes to our house!

DIY Wall Hanging

This past Saturday I went to a few garage sales and picked up a couple items I thought would be good craft projects. I started working on them that afternoon. I've been wanting to make a new wall hanging with a scripture verse on it. I had a blank 11 X 14 canvas and some paint already, and I found this picture frame for $1 (or maybe only $0.50, I can't remember now!).


I took the lovely picture of Gabriel out and painted the frame a sage green color. (Sorry, no picture. Just look at the picture of the finished product.)

Next, I got the canvas and painted it red.


Once the red dried, I used scrap booking letters to write out the scripture verse. (If you're wondering, yes I got the letters a little lopsided. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until I was completely finished. I blame it on my equilibrium being off. I can't write straight, I can't cut straight, I can't walk straight, I can't drive straight... it's just life!)

Next, I painted over it with the same green as the frame. I did 2 coats to get good coverage.

Once the paint dried, I peeled off the stickers. I had to touch-up some of the letters using a toothpick because the green leaked through. I found some rub-on decals in the scrapbook section at Micheal's and rubbed those in the corners.

I bought a red mat at Micheal's and framed the picture.


Here it is hanging on the wall. It's a little Christmas-like, but I like it. What do you think?


Break down of cost:

Frame - - $1 at garage sale
Canvas - - free, already had
Paint - - free, already had
Letter stickers -- $2.99
Decals -- $2.99
Mat - - $6.99

Total: $14.97

Projects (Liz, this post is mostly for you!)

I've been itching to do some DIY projects around the house. I worked on some this weekend, which I will post about when they are complete. Tonight I did a quick project to make a new wall hanging.


I've had this wrapping paper since my birthday in December (thanks, Strem!) and knew I wanted to make a wall hanging out of it. So, tonight I gathered the wrapping paper, a sage/olive green mat that I've had for over a year, and a black frame that Chris had in the basement.


First, I cleaned up the frame a little. Then I cut the wrapping paper to fit the size of the mat. I taped the wrapping paper onto the mat and put it all together.

Tada.....

I love how it turned out! We hung it in our dining room, where it ties in well with our black dining room chairs and the green in our living room.


*Liz, notice what's on the table!?!? Yes, some apothecary jars! Chris bought these for me this weekend on his trip. Isn't he great!?!

There's no way it's been a year already!

It's true, today marks one year since I married my wonderful husband! It can't be true, but it is. The year has flown by, but it's been a good one. I'm thankful to God for blessing me with an amazing, smart, and God-fearing husband. I am amazed daily at His blessings upon us.

This is my favorite of our wedding pictures. You can see the genuine happiness and excitement!

I feel like I've learned a lot about my husband and about marriage in this past year, but I know there is a WHOLE lot more to learn in the years to come! I pray that God would help me to be patient, attentive, and open to learn the lessons unfolding daily. I pray for many more wonderful and blessed years with the man I love by my side. I pray for those around us to know, feel, and share in the love our Heavenly Father bestows upon us.

My Husband Rocks!

I've recently become a follower of Kristin's blog. Every Friday she does a post titled, "My Husband Rocks," where she brags on her husband. It's very sweet. Well, I never like to pass up an opportunity to brag on my wonderful husband, so I decided to also do a post.



My husband rocks because he can do almost anything around the house. My dad is a very handy man. He's always doing some kind of project around the house and nothing is too hard for him to handle. When I would think about the kind of man I wanted to marry, I knew I wanted a man who is handy like my dad. It just simply had to be. Thankfully, the Lord blessed me with such a man.

Many of you may be friends with my husband on Facebook and notice that he often has posts about all the tasks he's accomplished each day. It's usually quite a list and makes me exhausted just thinking about it! I would like to take this opportunity to make it very clear to everyone that these tasks ARE NOT things that I have put on a "honey-do list." No, my husband is so wonderful that he sees the things that need to be done around the house and just does them. It's amazing.

He always says he has two speeds: Tasmanian Devil or Doing Nothing. When he gets set in that Tasmanian Devil speed, he goes to town!

We're currently spending some time in Texas visiting his family. We're staying at his Great Grandmother's house (she lives with us in Illinois, but she's glad to be back in her home for a while!). When we got here last night, we noticed several things that needed to be done around the house. In his usual manner, my husband was up early this morning getting things accomplished. He trimmed trees in the yard, put up some paneling in her kitchen, scrubbed the kitchen real well, washed the windows, fixed the carpet, rigged up a light or two, hauled out an old refrigerator, and rearranged things. I know I'm missing a few things to add to the list, but this will suffice to prove my point that he is just simply wonderful!

Like my dad, there isn't anything that my husband can't do. He is smart and knows how to fix nearly anything. He can rig up handy contraptions all around the house. He can clean like no other man I know!

If you can't tell, I admire my husband and I am very in love with him! He is fabulous, wonderful, amazing, and one-of-a-kind!

Isaac and Heather Corn

This past weekend my older brother, Isaac, got married in Lexington, KY. The wedding was beautiful and we had a wonderful time. I got the opportunity to be "assistant photographer" to my Aunt Daphnea. She did our wedding pictures and did a fantastic job. I tried to capture some of the little moments and "behind the scenes" type things that she wasn't able to catch.

I have a ton of pictures, which I haven't started editing yet. We're headed to Texas for several days, so perhaps I will have some time to do some editing then. For now, I'll leave you with a few of my favorites that I took.