Simple Ideas to Create Family Unity
For today’s Wordless (actually limited) Wednesday I wanted to share a pic of an upcoming craft class. We will be putting to good use our old catalogs and magazines. Besides, gotta love how fun and therapeutic decoupage can be. So all you local readers, be sure and head to Dottie’s to reserve your spot…any state can be made. Please email me if you have any more questions about the class. And as usual, I will have a tutorial on here after the class.
Crafts bring joy,
I’m back from Haven (blog) Conference. {It’s actually been a couple of weeks.} It’s time to share my experience.
1. I love Atlanta!
Even though I’ve been blessed to travel around the world, this was my first time to Georgia. Their peaches are the juiciest and sweetest! The conference was held in what is called the Buckhead area. I walked around this area and was pleased with the cleanliness and close proximity to many great shops and restaurants. The people there exude southern hospitality with smiles on their faces.
2. Made some awesome friends.
Remember this photo I shared on my pre-Haven post?
Well, 2 of these girls became some of my best friends. And yes, they are just as beautiful in person as they are in their photos. What matters more is how beautiful they are on the inside. Katie and Mimi are both from Washington. It was so much fun to visit their sites after getting to know them in person. It’s quite different meeting a blogger before seeing their site rather than meeting a blogger after you’ve been to their site. It’s much more personal and I am very impressed with both of them and their expertise in the field of DIY and home decor. I might have been a little intimidated if I had been to their site before hand. They are super sweet and down to earth. I plan on staying in touch with them and hope to learn from these blogging pros in the future. Make sure you visit my new friends at their sites: Katie’s is Creatively Living and Mimi’s is Blue Roof Cabin.
Right away I met Candace and we hit it off! We stuck together like glue and enjoyed meeting Katie and Mimi at the welcome reception on Thursday. Even though Candace is a new blogger, she has a background in communications as a reporter. This means she is a writing pro {she won an Emmy!} and she is quickly catching onto the blogging world. Her blog is beautifully filled with many creative ideas. See photos below of my new friends and I. Visit Candace’s site at Vintage News Junkie
3. Love meeting bloggers in person.
I was able to meet some of my favorite bloggers!
Here I am below with first Carrie from Making Lemonade and Jen from I Heart Organizing
4. Learn from the best.
The workshops were filled with valuable information.
Here I am being silly at the cocktail party.
5. Bloggers who Instagram are awesome!
The bloggers who came up to me and said, “I wanted to meet you. I follow you on Instagram.” Bless YOU. That totally made my day!
This post needed a little bit of colored photos too! 😉
Time to catch up on laundry before taking my youngest to her dentist appointment.
Color your world today my friends. Be creative and live life with Joy!
Conferences bring joy,
First up, you’ll need a template. Click here to print your template on card stock. If you missed yesterday’s post with photos of wreaths, you can see them at the end of this post.
Here are the supplies you’ll need:
I decided to make a tutorial video for this. There are 3 parts or 3 videos to the tutorial. Here’s my disclaimer…It was me, my camera and tripod. Unfortunately, there will be times where you might not see what I’m referring to {mainly in part 2.} Please don’t hold that against me. 😉 Hopefully you’ll still be able to understand.
If you don’t glue the chevron pieces too close together you will need 4 sheets of felt of 2 colors {total of 8 sheets, 4 of each color} and 3 sheets of felt for 3 colors {total of 9 sheets, 3 of each color.} If you like the chevron pieces to not be spaced out as much, then you will need to cut more pieces. The tracing and cutting process is what takes the longest. I allotted an hour for this class but should have allotted at least an hour and a half or maybe two hours.
Again, here are my chevron wreaths finished hung up in our home:
Tomorrow I’m sharing photos from the class with all the different wreaths everyone made. They turned out super cute! Thanks for joining me for this tutorial. I hope you have fun making one. Let me know if you have any questions. I’m off to pick up kids from school. Have a beautiful day!
Beautify for less,
Look what I taught for my craft class on Saturday…
Those are my old pointe ballet shoes, BTW. 😉 I love sharing my passion of dance with my daughter.
I made this pink and white chevron wreath for my youngest daughter. We are in the process of redecorating her room. I surprised her with this little vignette on top of her dresser today.
I made this blue and white chevron wreath for my oldest daughter to take with her to college. It’s done in BYU colors of course. 😉 This will be the base for the special graduation mantel I’ll be putting together soon. Only 17 more days until my first born graduates from high school! Been super busy preparing for all our family {from out of state} coming to see her graduate and celebrate with us. Just ordered a pergola and new outdoor furniture for the backyard patio. {I’ll have to share pics of the furniture in a future post.} Last year we extended the concrete outside our pool yet it’s sat there all blank and empty. It’s easier on my nerves to spend a smaller amount of money at a time. One of these days we’ll have a fence around the perimeter of our house. The shade from the pergola and new comfy outdoor furniture should be the perfect setting for a family graduation celebration.
I know I sound like a broken record…I’m insanely busy…to the point that it’s a miracle my depression hasn’t crept back. I’m so grateful it hasn’t and pray the overwhelming monster stays away. The reason I bring this up, yet again, is because I promised I would have a tutorial for this chevron wreath today. Well, I was lucky to get these photos shot for you. I hope you don’t mind waiting one more day. Please…
Don’t you just love the chevron pattern,
It’s just me…with shorter hair. Yep, I finally got up the nerve to try the pixie cut. This is plenty short and don’t plan to go shorter. But, I love it! If you had as thick hair as I do you would too. I’m grateful for people telling me I have the perfect face for short hair instead of exclaiming, “what did you do to your hair!?” lol 😉
Her first graduation card
There’s only 23 days until the last day of school which is also graduation for our high school senior. Her school prom is this Saturday. We’ll be hosting 4 youth for a pre prom dinner in our home. I’m happy to do this…even though in my mind I’m thinking of all the stuff I’d like to do in my dining room before Saturday and realistically know it’s not going to happen. Between now and the last day of school we will also be attending graduations of our 8th grader and 4th grader too. The schools here have 1st grade through 4th grade in one school, so when they finish 4th grade they have a “graduation” for them. Our junior high is 7th and 8th grade so they also hold a “graduation” for those students. This means 3 graduations for our family this year. Geesh! It’s not like one is not enough! I can’t begin to list all the events we’ll be attending because I think the overwhelming monster might take up residence and I don’t have time for his visit.
Our new red washer
Yesterday started out well, until the washer repairman shared the ill fated news {cost me $60 too} of our washer needing a new part, which would set us back a few hundred dollars. We already had this part replaced once on this washer. I didn’t want to sink more money into it. This required me to shop for a new washer in hopes it could be delivered ASAP. If I go too many days without doing laundry it begins to pile up. Fortunately, Sears had the washer I chose on hand and they delivered it this morning. I’m loving the red. It has a sweet little chime when the load is finished washing.
score!
Baseball is now over until the summer so I guess that will free up a little time. Unfortunately, not enough but I’m trying to stay positive.
chaperoning
A few weeks back we chaperoned our 2 oldest kids to church prom. I was excited to meet my daughter’s new boyfriend. He lives about an hour away. He is very nice and polite. It took a little getting used to him calling me mam. I was grateful he decided to wear the boutonniere I made him even though it was somewhat embarrassing to my daughter. She was a little timid with me taking formal pictures of them together. She’s regretting that decision now. I sneaked a photo of them, yet he saw me and smiled:
Aren’t they cute! Son is pictured to the right of her
Boutonniere I made for her BF
My prom dress for chaperoning
Hubby and I danced to exactly 4 slow songs. According to our son that was 4 too many. He told us we weren’t allowed to chaperone any more dances because we embarrass him. Whatever! We enjoyed watching him dance to the YMCA…which reminds me…I have video of that! Hmmmm…maybe I should share that? I’m such a bad mom, huh?
Our princess
A family that runs together stays together
Finish line!
I’m still running. In fact, our whole family just ran a 5K. It was my first 5K in a couple of years. I was grateful to finish 5th in my age group. I haven’t been timing myself while running. This is a strategy I use as to not sike myself out when I see how slow I’m running compared to how fast I used to run. I am just trying to get where I run 3 miles without feeling as though I’m finishing the last 3 miles of a marathon. I think it’s getting there. Just a lot slower than I’d like. Our 2 oldest kids and hubby received trophies for placing 3rd in their age groups. I’m happy we all ran and feel it was a great family activity.
I’m very happy to report I lost 6 pounds while participating in a 21 day cleanse/detox made by Standard Process! One habit I developed while on the cleanse I am keeping…I only drink water. Except for the too frequent visits to the restroom I think it helps to lose weight and is much healthier than drinking diet drinks.
I’ll be teaching my second adult craft class this Saturday and my first kid’s craft class. So happy my supplies just arrived via FedEx. I can’t wait to share the tutorials for the crafts with you next week.
Well, glad I could catch up a bit with you. I hope this finds you and your family doing well. I truly mean that. 
Enjoy the journey,
Which Easter mantel do you like best?
Mantel One
Mantel Two
I was super ecstatic about finding this chalkboard art at Dear Lillie. Oh my goodness if you haven’t been to Dear Lillie’s site, you must go. {As soon as you finish reading this post and voting on which mantel you like best ;)} Jennifer has a beautiful elegant style. I found out she’ll be attending Haven blog conference and hope to meet her!
Anyway, I purchased and downloaded the chalkboard art onto my jump drive and took it to Staples. They printed the poster for me. You should have seen the look on the girl’s face after I thanked her profusely for helping me. I was acting as if she made my day {jumping up and down squealing,} which she did make my day because I LOVE THIS! I think she thought I was a little weird, but I don’t care. I rushed home and cut it to fit over a mirror I had in storage {used double sided tape.} I don’t use much gold in my home anymore, but this print fit the frame and I think these precious words deserve to be framed in gold. I paid a total of $14 for that wonderful piece. I splurged and bought real orchids which set me back about $24, but is nice to smell and see real flowers up there.
I love Easter. It doesn’t seem to get as much hype as Christmas and I’m okay with that. It’s an important spiritual holiday.
The good people at Hershey’s were kind enough to send me an Easter basket again filled with goodies.
I’m afraid we already ate most of the candy before I got around to writing this post. You can see the crumbs of the Hershey’s eggs in the bottom of the milk bottle on the left. The kids said the Jolly Rancher Sour Bunnies were better than Sour Patch Kids. I agree they are very yummy. Of course the first to go were the Reester Bunnies. Reeses is a HUGE favorite in our home. All of these are perfect to add to Easter eggs and sure to brighten your Easter celebration.
I hope you and your family have a very blessed Easter,
Just copy & paste the following code into your blog or website:
connect