A Reminder

I just wanted to remind everyone that I moved my blog over to Wordpress. You can now find me blogging at:

http://tashiadoyle.wordpress.com/

Please stop by and see what I've been up to over there. And if you like what you see I'd love it if you would follow along!

I've been posting some pretty great recipes and sharing my 2013 Project Life pages, along with some other great stuff!

Hope to see you there!

Moving

I've decided to move my blog from blogger over to wordpress. I know I've mentioned that I want to take the blog in a new direction and I feel this is the best way to do so. I would love it if you would stop by and follow along! A lot of the content will be the same. I'll still have craft posts, home improvement posts and personal posts, but I plan to add a lot more memory keeping project and idea posts. So if you're interested, you can join me here:

www.tashiadoyle.wordpress.com

I hope you see you over there! And thanks so much for following along the past 2 years! It's been fun and I would love to keep it going, only better!

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/)

Happy Halloween!

We went to the pumpkin patch two weeks ago and the kids had the best time. There is a huge pumpkin patch here in Omaha called Vala's that gets somewhere around one million visitors a season, which is crazy because the pumpkin season only lasts one month!! (If you're ever in Omaha during pumpkin season it's definitely worth a visit!) It's huge and a lot of fun, however, this year we decided to hit up a much smaller patch with a bunch of little kid friendly activities. I'm so glad we did too, because it was much less busy and a lot more enjoyable with small kids; not to mention much cheaper! Here's a little photo recap for ya!

I loved this display. What I wouldn't give to have it in my house!

The corn box was by far the favorite activity of the day!

This was my favorite part! I adore horses.

I hope you have a very Happy Halloween filled with lots of sweet treats!

Five Favorites

I'm not finished with my Pinterest Challenge project yet (big surprise), so I thought I would post a few of my favorite things at the moment.

1. Midwest Living Magazine
It's the November/December 2012 issue in case you want to pick one up for yourself. It's filled with all things holidays and I'm loving it! I actually need to get started on my pages for December Daily, so I was looking for a little holiday inspiration to get me in the mood.

2. Our new family photo

We finally had a professional family photo taken by a photographer named Danny Bligh, who also happens to be an old friend from my high school days. He's pretty selective about his projects, but I think my cute kiddos had a little influence on his decision. I couldn't be happier with the outcome! It's actually our first "real" family photo of all four of us. Please don't tell anyone that. How embarrassing. Thanks Danny!

3. The Dreaming Tree Wine

Jeremy and I bought a bottle of the Cabernet and really enjoyed it! I think it's my new favorite for the holiday season! And not only is it good wine, but it's also made by Dave Matthews (along with some other guy), one of my favorite musicians.

image source



4. My (Almost) Completed Summer Mini Book

It's an Elise Cripe mini book that I bought to document our trip to Big Sur. I'm loving how it's all coming together. I'll be sure to post about it when it's completely done. I still have some journaling and embellishments to add. Here is the link to her shop if you are interested in making your own summer mini book. She will also be adding holiday mini books soon too. I've seen a sneak peak on Instagram and they look pretty rad!



5. The Walking Dead

I seriously am obsessed with this show. I'm constantly telling everyone I know how awesome it is. I need to get out more...but in my defense, it is awesome. We started watching it on Netflix last Spring, finished the the first season in less than a week. We were hooked.

image source

I'm hoping to be done with my Pinterest project before the end of the week. Fingers Crossed!





Pinterest Challenge-Fall 2012 Edition

Sherry from Young House Love and Katie from Bower Power are hosting another Pinterest Challenge this week.

I'm all over this! I need to browse my DIY/Craft board and my Holiday Inspiration board for some ideas!

The plan is to take the rest of the week and the weekend to find and finish a project and then blog about it and add it to their link parties.

I've been a crafting maniac so far this fall and I can't wait to get started!!

Are you going to join in on the fun too?!

Rice Heating Pad Gifts

Last month I decided to make both my parents rice heat pads for their birthdays. My mom's birthday is in September and my dad's is in October, so I figured they would be the perfect gift for the cold weather that's on its way.

I found a great tutorial from The Green Wife on Pinterest.(Be sure to check it out!) It was easy for a beginner like me to follow. I followed every step with the exception of the the step where she sews her sections. Since I'm still learning and not a great sewer, I tried to sew 6 sections in my dad's, but only managed 5 and then I only sewed 3 large sections in my mom's. Sewing the sections was the hardest part, because you have to add the rice and then pin off the section and sew. I could not, for the life of me, sew a straight line along the pins!! UGH...

Oh, and I also didn't serge the edges like she does. I just sewed them with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

And I didn't buy flannel fabric (because I didn't read that part before I bought my fabric), but I did line both warmers with a layer of white flannel to help keep in the heat in longer.

I snapped a few pictures of my dad's heating pad, but I didn't get one of my mom's before I gave it to her and then she left our house before I remembered to take any. Darn it!

It's definitely not the best looking rice heating pad ever. Not even close, but it gets the job done!
My dad is a die hard Nebraska Cornhusker fan, hence the Husker fabric.

I put this one through a few test runs and it worked great! My dad has a bad neck, so he's used his a few times and loves it! Yay for useful, handmade gifts!!


I also thought the heat pads would be great for heating up the end of the bed before they climb into it on those freezing cold winter nights.

I bought some pretty flannel fabric to make one for myself too, but still haven't gotten around to making it. Go figure! And I need one desperately!

My next sewing project is a quilted Christmas pillow case for each kiddo. I've already bought the fabric, but need to cut the pieces and then learn how to put it all together. Yeah, that should be interesting. But I did pin a fantastic tutorial on Pinterest, so we'll see if I am smart enough to figure it out!

It's Kind of Spooky In Here

I finished getting all of our Halloween decorations up this weekend. This year I decided to go glittery with my decorations. I already had a glittery skull, so I picked up some glittery spiders and an owl. I like the idea of collecting decorations over time, mixing and matching, so I'm still working on my collection. Here is a little photo tour of our decorations.

I got this awesome barn door at Junk Stock here in Omaha over the summer and finally just got it hung up in our living room. I love the way it looks with the spider web! And I can't wait to decorate it for Christmas!!

As I've mentioned before, we don't have a fireplace, so no matel for me to decorate. Hopefully in our next house! I do always try to decorate these shelves that hang above our tv. This is what I did this year so far. I'd like to add a few more glittery items though.

These cool votives were a gift from my mom a few years ago. I'm pretty certain they came from Kirkland's.

This owl came from the dollar section of Target, but I think it was $2.50, not $1.00. I wish I would have bought 2 of them and now they're gone. Bummer.

That's pretty much all of the decorating inside. I put up some orange and purple lights outside, some pumpkins and a couple of cute Halloween signs. I still want to make a wreath for the front door at some point, but I may just settle for a Fall wreath instead of a Halloween wreath.

My Life-September 2012

This post is a little overdue, but I wanted to share it anyway. We were pretty low key this past month. Hudson starting soccer for the first time was probably the biggest event that took place, as well as my favorite event. It is hilarious watching 3 and 4-year-olds running around a soccer field! We also hit up a carnival, watched a lot of college football and had my whole family down for a visit for 3 fun-filled days and I planted some new bushes and some mums. Here is the photo recap for you!

We had Rhododendrons planted, but the roots didn't spread for some reason and they dried up in the heat this summer. I even separated the roots, but apparently not enough. I bought these Winter Gem Boxwoods at Lowes 50% off. I think I paid $3.50 each. They're not my first choice, but they are medium growers (which means they'll grow fairly fast) and will fill out the space nicely next year.

My mums look kind of sad here, but they are thriving and look great now!

Hudson loves it when his cousins come for a visit! Yes. There is a snowflake blanket draped over Hudson's window. I'm not proud. But I haven't found the "right" fabric to make him curtains yet. And the blinds just don't keep it dark enough. Oh, and I've been looking for some pallets to make him a base for his bed. We just have so many projects going on at the moment that that one has kind of been put on the back burner. And I just noticed that the stripes on his bedding are going the wrong way. I think my nephew made the bed.

Harper hanging out with her cousin Emersyn. They're only 11 days apart, but it looks like Emmy is a lot older!

Mine and Jeremy's idea of a perfect Saturday night. College football, coffee and our computers! Boy, are we getting old or what?! Ha! Ha! (Please don't look at my awful looking nail polish!)

There's been lots of playing in the leaves! So much fun!

So, that pretty much sums up our September! Fun and low key! Hopefully I'll get October posted in a more timely manner!

Enjoy the day!