New Year Resolutions & Free Printables!

Like pretty much everyone, I hope to improve my fitness in the coming year. In an effort to help myself be reminded of this and to keep track of my progress, I created these free Fitness Tracking Printables. Each file is the same, but in different color schemes. Download and enjoy!

Brights

Darks

Pastels

{Linked on Fluster Buster, Ginger Snap Crafts, I Gotta Create, Vintage Zest}

Kitchen Island Makeover

As mentioned in a previous post, my husband and I are working to get our home ready to sell at the beginning of the year. We live in a town home and it has been a great first home for us. But when I converted our one storage closet into a craft room, we officially reached capacity. Now we feel it is time to move on.

We have a list of projects to be completed and it is great that we're starting to check things off that list. The first big project was to makeover our kitchen island. Our kitchen does not get a lot of natural light as the only windows are the glass doors in the dining area, so we have been doing what we can to brighten the place up a bit. That was the original intention with this project.

Our cabinets were originally knotty alder and a few years ago, we upgraded our flooring from whitish linoleum to a cherry laminate. It was a major improvement, but left the kitchen feeling darker and like there was too much wood.

To transform the island from knotty alder to white, I decided to use beadboard wallpaper. This stuff is great! It is affordable and easy to use. The biggest issue we had with it is that it is not hard like normal beadboard, but has a foamy texture, which means it can be easily dented.

I have never wallpapered before, but it only took me approximately 45 minutes to apply all the wallpaper to the island. I papered both sides and the front (pictured), then papered the small area below the cabinets on the back side.

We prepped our cabinets and drawer fronts by filling the knots in the wood and thoroughly cleaning all the wood. Then, we painted them white. After three coats, they were covered and we added some poly-crylic over the top. This gave the cabinets a nice sheen while also protecting them from chipping. The last step was to add trim along the top and bottom edges, as well as the corners. Here is the result:

I absolutely love how it turned out! I still need to fill in the nail holes and do a final coat of paint on the trim, but that won't take long. This was an inexpensive and fairly easy makeover that makes a big difference on the overall feel of the kitchen. What do you think?

{Linked on Huckleberry Love, Carrie This Home, Sew Can Do, Uncommon Designs, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, All Things Fee, Serendipity and Spice, This Gal Cooks}

Pieced Journal Cover with Initial Applique

Another day, another handmade Christmas gift! 

These journals with pieced covers are the perfect personalized gift without breaking the bank. I made mine with help from a tutorial found at Stitched in Color. The great thing about these is you can piece your fabric into any pattern you want! Once you've pieced enough together to cover the notebook, simply trim it down, and finish it off. I also added an initial appliqué to personalize my covers. If you do this, just be careful not to make my same mistake -- don't stitch your appliqué on and accidentally sew the cover closed!

{Linked on Be Different...Act Normal, Sewlicious Home Decor, The Wondering Brain, A Little Claireification}

DIY Peg People Ornaments

Lately, I have been extremely busy. I keep adding items to my "to do" list and not checking many things off. Not only is Christmas quickly approaching, but we are attempting to get our home ready to sell at the beginning of the year. I'm making several homemade gifts, cleaning and decluttering, planning my daughter's 3rd birthday, teaching sewing lessons, painting kitchen cabinets, doing Christmas activities with the kids, making baby quilts, and attempting to keep up with the laundry. So my posts will probably be few and far between over the next couple of months.

And now for a fun and simple holiday tutorial! Each year before Christmas, we like to get our kids one new ornament that is just for them. Last year I splurged on character ornaments, but this year, I wanted to try my hand at making ornaments instead. After some research, I found some super-cute wooden peg people and decided to give them a try.

You can find similar items for sale on Etsy, as well as tutorials on various blogs. This was not my original idea, but I made these in a relatively short amount of time and wanted to share!

What You Need

• Wooden pegs (I found mine in an 8-pack at Hobby Lobby)
• Craft paint
• Fine paint brush
• Pencil
• Small screw-in hook (similar to the one pictured at the right)

What You Do

• Decide on what kind of people you want to make. I let my kids decide which characters they wanted. Eddie chose Iron Man, Captain America, and Spiderman. Violet chose Winnie the Pooh, the Grinch, and Rapunzel (not pictured because she is missing somewhere in the house).

• Find an image or toy to use as your model.
• Using your pencil, sketch your design onto the peg. You really don't have to be good at drawing for this. I am awful at drawing! These peg people are meant to be "minimalist," so use simple shapes and straight lines. And if you mess up, erase and try again!

Mr. Darcy, in progress

• Start painting. I generally begin with the most prominent color in the design and save my outlining for the very last. For most of my pegs, I used two coats of paint. Don't forget to paint the bottom of your peg, too, as it will be visible when hanging on a Christmas tree!
• Once your paint has dried, insert your screw-in hook. Depending on the size of hook you use, you may be able to do this without a drill. I used a drill and our smallest drill bit to drill a hole into the top of each peg, then screwed the hook in.

Pegs for my niece and nephews -- Sleeping Beauty, Ninjago, and Buddy the Elf

{Linked on A Little Claireification, The Wondering Brain, Sewlicious Home Decor, Be Different...Act Normal}

DIY Puzzle Storage Mat

I love jigsaw puzzles, but ever since I had kids, I haven't really been able to put them together because we have nowhere to keep them. This year I decided I wanted to get some Christmas puzzles, so I worked up a solution for storing them. Enter the puzzle storage mat! You can buy storage mats from various places for various prices, but they all look basically the same. And after reading customer reviews, I realized that the mats are generally just made of felt. So I thought I should whip up my own. Here's a quick how-to:

What You Need
1 yd felt or flannel (I used flannel)
2 fat quarters in coordinating prints

What To Do

First things first... you'll want to figure out how big your puzzles are. This information is generally found right on the box. The largest puzzle I own is 30" x 38" (2000 piece), so I wanted to make sure my mat was large enough to accommodate that. My finished mat ended up being approximately 39" long x 24" wide.

I purchased nearly a full yard of light green flannel that was in the remnant bin due to some spots on the fabric. The flannel (or felt) will be the puzzle building surface, so you want a continuous piece.

For the back of my mat, I wanted to add a little pizzazz, so I pieced my coordinating fabrics together before attaching them to the flannel. My backing ended up a few inches smaller than my flannel, so I folded the edges of the flannel over, barely overlapping the edges of the backing. Then I zigzagged the fabrics together. Once the front and back were attached, I went back around the outside edges of the flannel with a decorative stitch which should help keep the edges from wrinkling.

Now I can build my new puzzle! And when I'm finished for the night, I can simply roll it up in the flannel and store it in a mailing tube.

{Linked on I Gotta Create, Life After Laundry, Embracing Change, Live Laugh Rowe, 52 Mantels, Joyful Homemaking, The Crafty Blog Stalker, The Girl Creative}

Easy Throw Pillows

My kids are really hard on throw pillows. After our last purchased pillows became completely flat and partially unstitched, I decided that it would be less expensive to just make my own. Of course, the best part about making my own is that I can choose my own fabrics and sizes.

The even better part is that I used fabric from Stampin' Up! My hubby works there so I got a great deal on it, but you can get a pretty good deal, too. They have discontinued their fabric line, so all their fabric is on clearance. (Click here to check out what they have.)

Now on to the throw pillows! All you really need to make a pillow is fabric and poly-fill stuffing. Choose your size and cut accordingly. Sew the edges, leaving a 4-5 inch gap. Turn it right side out, then stuff with fluff! Make sure you get the stuffing well into the corners and equally spread so the pillows don't turn out lumpy. On two of my pillows, I did decorative top-stitching around the edges to add a bit of detail.

I made several sizes, but kept them all square or rectangular so that I didn't have to sew any curves. The largest one I made is 15 inches square and I think it is a little small if it was going to stand alone on the end of the sofa. But grouped with a couple of smaller pillows, I think they are pretty cute.

And naturally, one of them already got messy toddler face prints on it before I got a chance to Scotch-gard it. I also think I will make slipcovers for each size in various prints so that I can change up the look without having a ridiculous amount of pillows to store in my tiny house!

{Linked on Huckleberry Love, Carrie This Home, Sew Can Do, All Things Fee, Serendipity & Spice, Our Delightful Home, Ladybug Blessings, Nap-Time Creations, Inside BruCrew Life, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Coastal Charm}

The Thankful Project Day 11 - Something I Was Taught

Topic: Something I Was Taught

There are many things I could write about this topic, but I figured I should choose just one. And since today is my parents' 35th wedding anniversary, I want to write about what they have taught me about marriage.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a home with both of my parents being present and supportive of my brothers and I. And most of the time, they made it seem like marriage wasn't hard work. Now that I've been married for over 9 years, I understand that marriage is hard work sometimes, but it's also tremendously rewarding. Now I understand the sacrifices my parents each had to make in order to keep our family together and strong.

My parents and I on my wedding day

So the thing that I am most grateful that they taught me about marriage is that it's about working together and compromising. My parents are both very unselfish and even though I haven't mastered that, I feel that I have been better prepared than some people are to manage the give and take of marriage. And even in difficult times, they taught me that instead of thinking about what is best for me, it's better to think of what is best for us. 

The Thankful Project Day 5 - Talents

Topic: A Talent I Have

This year I have been very grateful that I have a talent for sewing. It wasn't always this way... my mom tried teaching me when I was a kid, but I didn't have much interest in it until just a few years ago. Once I started trying to learn, I picked it up quickly. I've taught myself to do a lot of different types of sewing including hand embroidery, appliqué, and machine quilting. I've made Halloween costumes for my kids and gifts for my nieces and nephews. 

And now it is paying off... literally. I just started teaching a sewing class for kids and so far, it is pretty entertaining. The class runs for 12 weeks and I am hopeful that during that time, I can help my four students develop a love for sewing just like I have!

The Thankful Project

Dave and I have been trying to figure out ways to teach our children gratitude and lessen their feelings of entitlement. This is a tough one, especially when you're dealing with a 5 and 2 year old. I decided that it's hard to teach your kids something you don't openly practice and so I am instituting a nightly discussion of what we are each grateful for.

Then this morning, I stumbled upon a great idea from Kenzie at Chasing Happy. She started The Thankful Project on her blog. Here's what she says about it:

The Thankful Project will be 28 days of intentional gratitude and community. Each day, we'll write a post in response to a gratitude prompt. You'll also have the chance to link up your posts here on Chasing Happy, so we can share our thankful spirits with each other (and find some awesome new blogs to read in the process!). There will be a new linkup set up for each day, so you can write on as many of the prompts as you want and share your post each time.  

The motivation behind The Thankful Project is this: an attitude of thankfulness can help us push through and overcome just about anything. It can keep us afloat when our world crashes down around our shoulders. It can help us be content with who and what we are right now, at this very moment. It can boost our self-esteem, strengthen our relationships, give us motivation to persevere through tough stuff, and give us perspective when we're so busy we can't stop our heads from spinning. Being thankful, and taking the time to express that gratitude, makes us happier, healthier individuals. And by sharing our gratitude, we have the power to encourage and build each other up. We even have the potential to change lives. It might sound hokey or idealistic, but it's true. Intentionally cultivating an attitude of gratitude will change your life.

And so I've decided to participate, even though I'm starting a few days late. I'm not going to attempt to catch up by posting 4 posts today. I'll just start with the Nov. 4 topic. So here goes nothing!

Topic: An Experience

Those who know me personally know that I have struggled with various health problems over the years. But the first big health-related crisis I had in my life was a struggle with infertility. After being married for a year, Dave and I decided we should start trying to start our family. I suspected that it might take a while since my cycles were never regular. After a few months with no success, I started the awful process of daily temperature charts in an attempt to track my ovulation. Temperature tracking was a joke! Not only do I have a strangely low basal body temperature (to the point where I had to alter the charts I printed off that didn't go low enough), but my temperature never peaked.

After a few months, we had moved and both Dave and I had new jobs and we finally had health insurance. And so I started my seemingly unending series of visits to midwives and reproductive endocrinologists.  After my third cycle on fertility meds, I got a positive pregnancy test. I still remember that it was on a Sunday in February -- Super Bowl Sunday, I think. I was so giddy that it was ridiculous.

Sometime during the following week, we went to see the doctor for a "viability ultrasound." Just the name of that sounds frightening. It hadn't really occurred to me that the embryo would not be viable until I scheduled my appointment. In we went. Based on the timing, I should have been 6 weeks along. When we saw the embryo on the screen, there was no heartbeat. The doctor said that things looked okay otherwise, so we should wait a week and try again.

That week was the longest week of my life. When we went back in for another viability ultrasound, the doctor took one look before looking at me with sadness in his eyes. He showed us the embryo and how there was no heartbeat. The sac was collapsing. I would have a miscarriage within the next week. I have never been more devastated than I was that day.

After miscarrying, I needed to wait a few months before trying to get pregnant again. While we waited, I underwent a hysteroscopy to remove a septum in my uterus that could potentially cause miscarriage. And then we started over with the fertility meds.

A few months later, I was pregnant. I was much more hesitant to celebrate this time around. We made sure to schedule the viability ultrasound a bit later to make sure there would be no week of waiting this time around. And when we saw the tiny flutter of our baby's heartbeat, my emotions were so confused that I didn't know whether to be happy about this baby or sad for the first one.

Our baby "Smidgen" at 6 weeks gestation.

The morning sickness (which was more like all-day sickness) during my first trimester left me feeling miserable, but I felt horrible that I felt miserable after everything I had gone through to get myself to that point. I thought I should be grateful to be pregnant instead of wishing I wasn't sick. Ultimately, I confessed my misery to my midwife, who referred me to a counselor. I was ashamed that it had come to this, but I went and sobbed as I told her my story and then she said a simple, but profound thing: "You have permission to complain." She helped me understand that I needed to separate my feelings. I could still be sad about my miscarriage, happy about my pregnancy, miserable about the morning sickness, but I didn't need to feel guilty about my feelings.

And now, 6 years and two kids later, I am very grateful for this entire experience. Not only did it give me answers about what I needed to do to get pregnant, but it also gave me confidence when dealing with doctors, took away some of my fear when dealing with medical issues, and prepared me to be willing to ask for help when I ultimately dealt with postpartum depression. And now I am grateful for that as well because it has given me such empathy for others who struggle with infertility and mental health issues and I feel like I have been able to be a help to others.

June 2013, my family

Applique Baptism Towel

My nephew is getting baptized a member of the LDS church today. In our church, kids can be baptized as members at age 8. In honor of the occasion, I made a personalized towel for him. Check it out:

As you can imagine, machine appliquéing all those little letters was time consuming. The CTR symbol was much easier. If you're going to attempt a project like this, here are a few tips:

• Use a script font where the letters are interconnected. This may sound strangely specific, but my first attempt was a non-script font and my letters fell apart before I could get them sewn on! 
• Cut your words into smaller segments. While it's good to have the interconnected letters, you don't want to try fusing a long word (like November) all at once. The reason for this is that the interfacing will not stay stuck for very long. Fuse 2-3 letters at a time, then hurry and stitch them on. I learned this the hard way, which is why "Andrews" on my nephew's towel ended up a little funny. I fused the entire word on and started stitching at the beginning. By the time I got to the "r," my remaining letters were loose.
• Don't leave your letter cut-outs laying around where your toddler will find them. I had to re-do part of mine after cutting them out because my daughter got them and destroyed them.

{Linked on Sew Can Do, I Should Be Mopping the Floor, This Gal Cooks, Love Pasta & A Tool Belt, Momnivore's Dilemma, C.R.A.F.T., Huckleberry Love}

So What Wednesdays

Today I'm linking up with So What Wednesday over at Life After I "Dew." This is a fun linky party where you list all the things you're saying "So what?!" about this week. So here goes nothing! This week, I'm saying SO WHAT if...

• It's the day before Halloween and we still haven't carved our pumpkins.
• I gave up on potty training after a month (A MONTH) because my daughter has a bladder of steel.
• I have so much fabric that I could be considered a hoarder.
• We're having family photos taken on Saturday and I still have no idea what I'll be wearing.
• I lied to my kids when I said I was throwing away the toys they didn't pick up.
• I'm in the middle of 3 separate sewing projects and 4 different books and instead of working on either, I play Angry Birds.

What are you saying "so what?!" about today?

"We Can't Play" Door Hanger (with free printable)

My son is five and until this year, we haven't had much of an issue with neighbor kids knocking on our door. But this year, the knocking has become incessant. In an effort to lessen the dinner-time and homework-time interruptions, I decided to make a sign for the front door. Here is how it turned out:

I still plan to laminate it so that it can survive some harsher weather, but I'm quite pleased at how it turned out. The true test will be the first time I hang it on the front door.

If you like it, download and print your own! Click the image below to go to the free download. The print is 8x10 and you can customize by printing on any color of card stock you like (but please note that subtle patterns work better than multicolored patterns).

Click the image for the free printable!

{Linked on Be Colorful, Serendipity Spice, All Things Fee, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Our Delightful Home, Ladybug Blessings, Romance on a Dime, Nap-Time Creations, Inside BruCrew Life, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Coastal Charm}

Easy Pincushion Project

Next week, I am going to start teaching some of the neighborhood kids how to sew. In preparation for our first project, I whipped this pincushion up today in about 20 minutes. I thought I'd share a quick tutorial here:

Materials

• Pincushion base of some kind -- I used a small plastic container that used to hold buttons. You could also use a simple cardboard circle. Anything will work as long as it helps the cushion retain its shape!
• Fabric scrap, approximately 6 inches square (will vary depending on the size of your chosen base).
• Ribbon
• Poly-fill batting
• Pins!

Instructions

Step 1: Cut your fabric into a circle. It doesn't have to be perfect, but getting rid of the corners will help reduce bunching later on.

Step 2: Cut 1 small triangles at the edge of each quarter of your fabric, coming in about an inch from the edge. So you'll cut one at the top, one at the bottom, and one at each side making them fairly evenly spaced on the circle.

Step 3: Fold your fabric right sides together and sew each triangle closed.

Step 4: Sew a loose basting stitch around the edge of your circle, then pull the thread and gather your circle into a pouch.

Step 5: Fill with batting. This will take a lot more batting than you think. Mine took 3 handfuls. Just fill it until you can't stuff any more in and the cushion is firm.

Step 6: Pull the thread and cinch your cushion closed. Tie off your thread.

Step 7: Attach your cushion to the base. Since my base was a circular container with sides, I simply hot glued my cushion to the bottom and sides of the container. Make sure it is secure all around.

Step 8: Embellish with ribbon or whatever you like!

{Linked on The Stitchin' Mommy, Happy and Blessed Home, Finding Fabulous, Truly Lovely, Sincerely Paula, Craftionary, The Jenny Evolution}

Decoupage Pumpkin

There are so many great pumpkin decorating ideas out there these days, but I could not resist an opportunity to decoupage book pages onto mine. Here's a quick step-by-step on how I created this beauty

Step 1: Clean your pumpkin thoroughly.

Step 2: Rip up your book or magazine pages so they are in strips and small pieces.

Step 3: Using Mod Podge, coat one section of the pumpkin at a time and apply the pages, smoothing them down and making sure the edges adhere to the pumpkin. Layer the pages until the entire pumpkin is covered.

Step 4: Find some cute embellishments! My polka dots came from some Stampin' Up cardstock that had velvety black dots. I cut them out and then used Mod Podge to adhere them to the book pages. Since cardstock is stiff, I applied the Mod Podge, stuck the dot on, then pressed it down for a minute so that it would shape itself to the surface.

Step 5: Decorate that stem. Using a simple bow tutorial found online here, I tied a double ribbon bow and added some orange and green curls. I hot glued all the ribbons in place.

And there you have it! Since I used Harry Potter pages to cover my pumpkin, I thought the best place to display it would be among my Harry Potter books.

{Linked on Coastal Charm, The DIY Dreamer, Ladybug Blessings, VMG206, Our Delightful Home, Funky Polkadot Giraffe, Hope Studios, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, New Nostalgia, And Sew We Craft}

DIY Halloween Costumes - Glowing Skeleton and Disney's Backson

This originally posted last week on Blissful and Domestic. Thanks again to Danielle for having me!

DIY Glowing Skeleton Costume Tutorial

Step 1: Gather your materials.

For this skeleton costume, I found a long-sleeve black shirt and black sweat pants from Wal-Mart. I also found some skeleton gloves and glow-in-the-dark skeleton knee socks in the dollar bin at Target. I also used white chalk and glow-in-the-dark fabric paint (3 bottles) found in the craft section of Wal-Mart or at Hobby Lobby.

Step 2: Draw your bones with chalk first!

I found a diagram of a human skeleton and used white chalk to recreate the bones on the black shirt and pants. Chalk was great for this task because I could easily rub it off and re-draw a portion if needed.  Doing it this way first, I was able to get the scale of the bones right and make sure I didn't run out of space on the clothes. This can also be a good place to have your child try the costume on to make sure the bones are in the right places.

Step 3: Paint!

I don't have a lot of experience with fabric paint, so I was surprised at how much paint I actually used. I ended up buying three bottles of glowing fabric paint. Paint one bone at a time, outlining, then filling in. I did my best to get the paint an even thickness, but you can see on the pants that one side is thinner than the other. It still glows like I want, so I decided not to worry too much about that. The bottle says that the paint will take 4 hours to dry, but obviously, this depends on the thickness. Mine took 5 or 6 hours to dry since I was going for complete coverage. Keep in mind that with this much paint, it will be somewhat stiff when dry.

And you're done! See, I told you it was quick. Of course, if you're unable to find the socks and gloves at Target, you might feel the need to paint those, too. For trick-or-treating, we plan to paint Eddie's face using glow-in-the-dark face paint.

DIY Backson Costume

Step 1: Gather your materials.

For the Backson, I found a pair of purple velour pants at Wal-Mart that were perfect. I also purchased an inexpensive turquoise t-shirt to use as the base for the top. The top consists of the t-shirt, blue yarn, red felt, and purple fabric scraps. The tail consists of purple fleece and poly-fil batting. The horns consist of non-roll elastic, red minky fabric scraps, white felt, and poly-fil batting.

Step 2: Construct the top.

For the top, I used chunky blue yarn to create a "furry" effect. I looped the yarn in small loops across the shirt in rows and pinned it in place. Then I sewed each row down with my machine using a looping stitch. You could probably do a straight or zig zag stitch that would work just as well. I trimmed off the excess yarn at the ends. I tried to space the looped rows evenly.

When I finished, I thought it looked too sparse, so I added more loopy rows between the original rows to bulk it up. The end result is a loopy, chaotic, fuzzy blue "fur."

For the sleeves, I cut triangles of red felt and used some purple scraps I had on hand. I hand stitched the red triangles on first, spacing them out so there would be four stripes per sleeve. Then I did the same with the purple scraps so they alternate.

Step 3: Construct the tail.

For the tail, I used a tutorial by Jessica from Running with Scissors found on Tatertots and Jello. Her tutorial is to make a dragon tail, so I made a few simple modifications to turn mine into a Backson tail.

To make the tail, follow Jessica's tutorial for the cutting, but leave off the spikes. Then, when pinning the body of the tail together, add a couple of turns, like this:

Now, when you sew down the top and bottom of the tail, make sure you include those gathered areas in your sewing. You don't want to end up with holes instead of turns.  It looks messy, but this part will be on the inside of the tail.

Then, complete the tail as Jessica says. Once you stuff your tail with batting, it will stick out (the more batting, the stiffer it will be) and you'll be able to see the shape better.

Step 4: Construct the horns.

Since Violet is a toddler/preschooler, I knew I needed something simple and comfortable so that she would leave the horns on her head. So I opted to make them a headband. I used some 1-inch non-roll elastic that I had on hand (originally purchased at Joann). I cut my horn shapes out of white felt, then sewed around the edges on my machine with contrasting thread (but leave the base of each horn open). I stuffed each horn full of batting, being careful to cram it down into the very tip. Then I hand stitched each horn onto the elastic.

Before sewing the second horn on, make sure you see how it looks on your kid's head. I originally put my horns too far apart and had to remove one and move them closer together. If they're far apart, they will stick out to the sides more.

Once the horns were attached to the elastic, sew the ends of the elastic together to form a headband. Then, to add the "mop of red" hair on top, I hand stitched a rectangle of red minky onto the headband, gathering it up as I went. The gathers helped add a little bit of shape to the "hair" so that it doesn't just lay flat.

Step 5: Accessorize.

I forgot to get photos of this part, but the last thing a Backson needs is some purple gloves with black fingernails painted on. For older kids, you also might be able to add a nose ring, but I'm sure Violet would not agree to wear one.

And you're done!

{Linked on Sewlicious Home Decor, Be Different...Act Normal, With A Blast, Get Your Crap Together, A Night Owl Blog, C.R.A.F.T., Sew Can Do, Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom, Three Mango Seeds, Carrie This Home, Huckleberry Love, Sumo's Sweet Stuff}

Washi Tape Small Storage

Back when I was setting up my craft space under the stairs, I picked up some small plastic storage bins from the $1 bins at Target. These are perfect for storing my pre-made twist roses, ruffled ribbon flowers, and other small embellishments that I use on my wreaths. But they're boring. Today I decided to jazz them up with some washi tape. It was quick and easy and now they're super cute! Check it out:

Before -- boring old black

After #1

After #2

{Linked on The DIY Dreamer, And Sew We Craft, Musings From a Stay At Home Mom, Fluster Buster, Our Three Peas, Ashley's Dandelion Wishes, We Like To Learn As We Go, Trendy Treehouse, Sugar and Dots, My Girlish Whims, Ginger Snap Crafts}

Christmas at Hot Commodity Home

I used to be the person who was disgusted to see Christmas stuff out before Thanksgiving. Now that I have kids, I understand a bit better. And now that I have an Etsy shop, I understand even more. Some things take time so it helps to start early.

I am attempting to get a jump on the holiday shopping scene by listing Christmas items now, so I thought I'd post some of the items I'm working on. Click on any image to be taken to the listing. Please click through to my shop, browse my listings, and "favorite" the items you like to help spread the word!

My Reading List

Since I've been sick for almost a month now, I've started in on another reading binge. I thought I'd share my reading list here... in no particular order. If you've read any of them, I'd love to hear what you thought! Leave a comment and let me know.

Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

The Immorality Engine by George Mann

The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine

Nothing by Janne Teller

River Secrets by Shannon Hale

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Halloween Sale!