Around Here

Looking at our Christmas tree and enjoying the view

Loving that the holidays are just around the corner

Shopping for the perfect Christmas gifts now so I'm not doing it at the last minute

Getting ready for delicious food, lots of family time and relaxation that is Thanksgiving

Preparing for our annual holiday party. Lots and lots to do!

Painting our kitchen cabinets

Working on my December Daily page prep and getting super excited to start it again this year!

Eating lots of pumpkin goodies before Fall comes to an end

Needing to get back on the treadmill after last weeks absence

Building a wooden "tree" display for my advent calendar (more on that later)

Reading Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

Drinking lots and lots of water lately

Cooking new recipes from Pinterest in hopes of adding some new favorites to our rotation

Listening to the Christmas station on Pandora with a little bit of Mumford & Sons mixed in

Feeling extremely grateful for all the wonderful things in my life

Pinterest Challenge-Fall 1012 Edition

I knew I wanted to do a season related project and decided to go with making a Thanksgiving banner. I pinned one I liked a while ago and used it as my inspiration.

My inspiration came from It's The Little Things That Make A House A Home. I really liked the simplicity of her letter banner that can be found here.

Her banner was very simple and I knew I wanted to glam mine up a bit, so this is what I came up with. My whole goal was to make something sparkly to hang on the barn door in our living room. I think I accomplished my goal!

Unfortunately, there were a few spots where the Mod Podge dried before I got the glitter added, but you really can't tell unless you're close up like this. I kind of think it adds a little rusticness to it anyway. Is that a word, rusticness?! I'm going with it.

This project ended up being totally free!

Everything I used, I already had on hand.

Supplies:

white card stock

Martha Stewart smoky quartz glitter

Mod Podge

paint brush

twine

hot glue gun

Directions:

I did this the hard way and simply printed out the letters in the different fonts I wanted to use onto card stock and then cut them out using scissors. (I printed them in a soft gray color so that it wouldn't show through the glitter) I could've used my Silhouette machine, but didn't think of it until after I started cutting by hand.

After they were all cut out, I just used my paint brush to apply Mod Podge to one letter at a time and then sprinkled it with the glitter.

Once the letters were all glittered, I used my hot glue gun to apply small dots of glue to the backs of the letters and lightly pressed the twine into place.

SO easy!

I really like how they turned out. You can't really see how pretty the glitter is in these photos, but it looks fantastic in person!

Don't forget to check out It's The Little Things That Make A House A Home to see my inspiration!

My Goals: November 2012

Hello November!

I was so ready to change the calendar to November. I'm not sure why, but I'm ready for a new month and new possibilities.

I did a pretty good job crossing items off my October goal list, but now we're on to a new month with new goals and some continuation from last month.

-Continue working on Christmas pillow cases; I got all of the squares cut, and now I need to start piecing them together.

-Finalize our Thanksgiving plans

-Print and mail out Christmas party invites

-Paint TV stand in basement

-Take a trip to Minneapolis to meet Young House Love; I'm SO excited for this!

-Clean windows before it snows

-Go on at least one date night with Jeremy

-Continue buying/making Christmas gifts

-Catch up on my Project Life

(photo by Danny Bligh; check out his photography blog over on my sidebar http://dannybligh.tumblr.com/)