Large Wood Heart for My Front Door

Last week I looked at our undecorated entry way and thought to myself, “I need a heart.”

No, I’m not quoting from the Tin Man (Wizard of Oz)…lol 😉

I envisioned in my mind a simple big rustic wooden heart to go on my front door for Valentine’s Day.

Normally, when I get something in my head like this, the first thing I do is go searching online for it.  Invariably, every time I spend way too much time looking for ‘it’ and never find it.  So instead, I decided to make one!
2 Beginnings of Wood Heart familybringsjoy.com

4. I painted and added a little of Annie Sloan’s Dark (Brown) wax to give dimension and have a subtle rustic look to it.

keys to add texture familybringsjoy.com

To add to the rustic look I took keys and banged them on the painted heart.

I decided to sand the heart again after I got my frustrations out by throwing the keys over & over on the heart.  I wanted a little of the original light wood to show through around the edges.  I ran into a slight hiccup when I decided to sand over the top of the heart as well.  I explained and showed on the following videos {very amateur videos} what happened and how I was to remedy the problem without repainting it all over again:

 


Next part of making wood heart familybringsjoy.com

Final Wood Heart on door familybringsjoy.com

My Son says it’s “tacky.”  What do you think?

I heart Valentine’s Day,

Great Organizing Tips

photo(22)Yesterday, after tripping over shoe upon shoe I decided it was time.

Time to organize my closet once and for all.

I never truly organized it when we moved in to this house about 3 years ago.  It has also become a dumping ground for stuff around the house.  For example, I might have company coming so I grab a container and throw all the clutter in it.  That container ends up in my closet.  For some reason I have linens and all kinds of non-closet items.  I always justify that the rest of the house {the part everyone sees} deserves my attention more.  However it is completely out of control and beginning to wreak havoc when trying to find clothing I need or want.

I have a nice size walk in closet with built ins.  It is plenty big for my needs yet most of the time I can’t walk in.  Isn’t that awful!?  It is.  Sigh…

This is where I am in my organizing {no I did not finish}:

-Took all the shoes out of the closet.  Purged shoes (1 bag)

-Vacuumed the floor I could see. {I love vacuuming because of the instant gratification it brings!}

-Purged dresses and shirts. (1bag)  Threw away old hangers and used new wooden hangers I scored for only $6 for a box of 20 at Wal Mart. {Sure hope when I go back to Wal Mart they’ll have more of those hangers}

-Grouped my dresses in colors.  Ahhh…if it only looked like this all the time.

Anyway, so a beautiful person I met at Blissdom last year is a professional organizer.  Her name is Amy Volk from amyvolk.com  She saw me whining about how grueling this closet organizing process is for me on Instagram with the photo above.  She left me this comment of hope:

“Tomorrow my segment is on closet organizing :))))”

I visited her site first thing this morning and found a video of Amy on a TV news segment and had to share it with you:

I’m off to work some more on my closet.

P.S.: When I updated my blog it took away my pages {Home, About Me, Blogs Bring Joy, Affiliates Bring joy, Books Bring Joy} I’m currently waiting to hear back from WordPress to see how this can be corrected. Sorry for the technical difficulties

Wish me luck,

White Christmas Week {in OK}

Happy New Year from familybringsjoy.com

snowangel familybringsjoy.com

‘baby’ girl’s snow angel

snowfall familybringsjoy.com

It’s not ‘normal’ to have snow in OK the week of Christmas

Using her new camera familybringsjoy.com

Taking a snow photo with her Santa gift ;)

blizzard familybringsjoy.com

Testing my new wide angle lens…thanks hubs {our backyard}

Winter Wonderland on Wordless Wednesday,

A JOYful Christmas Mantel

I hope everyone had a safe and lovely Christmas!Christmas Mantel 1 familybringsjoy.com

One of my favorite sayings is “Better late than never.”

Christmas time requires more than what we normally do on a day to day basis.  I apologize for not being able to post these photos before Christmas.

Welcome to our home for Christmas 2012…

Christmas Stockings familybringsjoy.com

I got a wild hair and decided to make some new Christmas stockings this year.  I almost bought some burlap stockings but decided denim was more me.

I couldn’t find any online I liked so why not make them?

Kid's Christmas Stockings familybringsjoy

I took my pattern off our old stockings on size.  I figured out how to do a cuff based on the old ones as well, but decided to make them all different.  The red gingham ones are the boys.  The white cuffed ones are the girls.  It took me longer to blanket stitch the loop hangers than it did for me to make all 5 stockings.  I still think it was worth it, though. 😉  I bought the letters/ornaments at Pottery Barn to place on the kid’s packages.  I decided they looked cute on the stockings and wished I would have bought one for me and the mr.  {Thus the 2 stockings without initials on them}

Nativity 2 familybringsjoy.com

I was so excited to find this unique nativity at a holiday bazaar I went to with my Mom.  It’s made out of metal and came with the pretty background.  You can find one of these at EverThineHome.com

Nativity familybringsjoy.com

I channeled a little creativity by covering up some Styrofoam trees {below}.  I used denim scraps left over from making the stockings to ruffle around one of the trees.  It was as simple as using pins and hot glue.  I covered the large tree by wrapping it with red yarn.  The smallest tree was decorated by using kraft wrapping paper.  I used my circle punch and pinned the circles on the tree.

Trees familybringsjoy.com

The wreath below was also purchased at the Ever Thine Home booth I spoke of earlier.  I love how the leaves are made out of hymns.

JOY with wreath familybringsjoy.com

The JOY letters are the ones I decorated with sweater material at Whatever Craft Weekend.  I changed the embellishments to be more Christmas like.  Thanks to A Cottage Life I used her mini bunting she gave as swag for Whatever Craft Weekend on the O.  On the J I used the same red yarn I used to wrap around the tree and a couple of cute pins JCPenney’s was handing out this year for the Y.  I saved the old window frame I bought at the barn while at Whatever Craft Weekend just for this Christmas mantel.

JOY letters familybringsjoy.com

At the last minute I decided to make the lighted garland.  I added red and white tulle to a battery operated led light strand…just tied them on.  I tied a few snowflake ornaments {12 for $1 at Dollar Tree} to complete the look.

Christmas Mantel 3 familybringsjoy.com

Christmas Mantel 4 familybringsjoy.com

So glad you stopped by! :)

Let there be JOY,

11 Family Friendly Halloween Movies

Looking for a Halloween movie for your Family Fun night?  Look no further.

If you have a subscription to Netflix Instant Streaming you can see the following movies:

    1. The Good Witch
    2. Dreamworks Spooky Stories
    3. Hogfather – We started this movie over the weekend.  It’s not for little ones.  It was sort of scary for my 9 year old Daughter and my 14 year old Son thought it was boring. We stopped it about 20 minutes into the movie.  Go figure!  BTW, it’s about a day celebrated similar to our commercial Christmas.
    4. A Wrinkle in Time
    5. Matilda

247086_TV episodes & movies instantly streaming from Netflix. Start your FREE trial!

If you have Amazon Prime you can watch the following movies on their

Prime Instant Videos for FREE:

    1. The Witches
    2. Addams Family
    3. Addams Family Values
    4. The Addams Family
    5. Clue
    6. Mad Monster Party

Enjoy,

He’s My Son

Today is my Son’s 14th Birthday!

14 Things I love about our Son:

  1. His smile
  2. His grades
  3. He’s intelligent
  4. His passion for knowledge
  5. He can draw very well
  6. He likes the same kind of cake I do 😉
  7. He’s handsome
  8. The growth of his testimony and love of his Savior
  9. He’s courageous
  10. He’s persistent and perseveres in his goals
  11. Hard worker when he wants to be {& for money}
  12. He plays the trumpet
  13. Let’s me play catch with him occasionally {baseball}
  14. He’s my Son

I’m grateful for the opportunity I have to be his Mom.  I love him so much!

Happy Birthday Son,