Jumping For JOY

June 26, 2013 by 1 Comment

Vertigo…I’m not talking about the song by one of my favorite bands ever, U2.  I’ve been suffering from vertigo for the past couple of weeks.  Normally this might mean I have an ear infection or a UTI.  Both were ruled out, so it’s been unexplained.  Hopefully, {knock on wood} it is finally subsiding.  It’s quite difficult to sit at the computer when your head is spinning.

In any case, I decided to post a few family photos we took after my daughter’s graduation for Wordless Wednesday.

family jumping familybringsjoy.com

I love this jumping pose my kids did with their aunt and uncle, my sis and bro.  This is also a sneak peek of our new pergola and outdoor living area. 😉

Siblings familybringsjoy.com

It’s not often I’m able to be with both my sister and brother at the same time.  Even more so, get a photo.  I love them both very much.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful time with their families this summer.

Take photos of your family,

Filed Under: Home Brings Joy, MY Family Brings Joy, Photography Brings Joy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Chevron Wreath Tutorial Including Videos

April 30, 2013 by 3 Comments

chevron wreath pattern familybringsjoy.comFirst 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:

  • pool noodle and heavy duty shipping tape to make the wreath form
  • scissors (not shown in photo)
  • felt sheets of however many colors you want (see below for how many)
  • hot glue gun
  • above template

chevron wreath supplies familybringsjoy.com

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.

 felt chevron pieces for wreath familybringsjoy.com

 

beginning of chevron wreath familybringsjoy.com

I apologize profusely for the horrible clicking sound in the background of the video. I found it rather annoying myself.  It is the sound my camera makes when it is auto focusing.  I didn’t realize you would be able to hear that.  I now know to turn off the auto focus before videoing.  So sorry…hope you can overlook that, if not, feel free to mute the volume.  Oh and the chime you hear occasionally was my phone notifying me of a text. 😉

Again, here are my chevron wreaths finished hung up in our home:

pink and white chevron wreath familybringsjoy.com smaller size

blue and white chevron wreath familybringsjoy.com

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,

Filed Under: Crafts Bring Joy, Home Brings Joy, Me Time Brings Joy, Photography Brings Joy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Chevron Wreath Crazy

April 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Look what I taught for my craft class on Saturday…
pink and white chevron wreath familybringsjoy.com smaller size

Those are my old pointe ballet shoes, BTW. 😉  I love sharing my passion of dance with my daughter.

pink and white chevron wreath familybringsjoy.com small size

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.

close up of pink and white chevron wreath familybringsjoy.com

blue and white chevron wreath familybringsjoy.com

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.

close up of blue and white chevron wreath familybringsjoy.com

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…

Please come back tomorrow for the chevron wreath tutorial.

 

Don’t you just love the chevron pattern,

Filed Under: Crafts Bring Joy, Home Brings Joy, Me Time Brings Joy, Photography Brings Joy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

You Are Invited To Learn…It’s Not A Secret

April 6, 2013 by 1 Comment

While running this morning I was thinking about how excited I was to watch General Conference via broadcast for our church this weekend.  I reflected over Mitt Romney’s run for presidency and how the press continually mentioned how secretive Mitt was about his faith.  It’s not a secret what we believe.  It is sacred and personal…our faith.

I decided to offer an invitation to all who want to know more about my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to join us this weekend.  General Conference is held every year on the first weekend of April and the first weekend of October.  This conference is special for Latter-day Saints as we listen to the president/prophet of the church and other leaders including the 12 apostles.  They give us instruction on what we need to be focusing on to be better followers of Christ.  We already had one session this morning from 11AM – 1PM CST and the next session is about to begin…3PM – 5PM CST.  If you have BYU TV on your cable or satellite it will be broadcast on that channel.  Otherwise you can watch or listen via the internet here.

LDS General Conference

There will be 2 more sessions tomorrow, Sunday at the same times as mentioned above.  As you listen, feel free to take notes or write down questions.  I then encourage you to ask me or other members of the church your questions.  We are happy to answer questions and if we don’t know the answer we have missionaries who do.

Time to go watch,

Filed Under: Home Brings Joy, Values Bring Joy Tagged With: ,

Spring Cleaning

April 3, 2013 by 17 Comments

I hope everyone had a beautiful Easter weekend.

Today is the day!

Today I am guest posting at Gluesticks.

Laundry Room announcement familybringsjoy.com

It’s spring cleaning time!

And I have something uber special in my post at Gluesticks.

Head on over to see what it is.

See you there,

Filed Under: Blogs Bring Joy, Home Brings Joy, Photography Brings Joy Tagged With: , , ,

Help Me Choose

March 27, 2013 by 6 Comments

Which Easter mantel do you like best?

Mantel One

mantel 1 familybringsjoy.com

Mantel Two

Mantel 2 familybringsjoy.com

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.

Hershey's Easter familybringsjoy.com

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,

Filed Under: Blogs Bring Joy, Crafts Bring Joy, Home Brings Joy, Photography Brings Joy, Values Bring Joy Tagged With: