Happy List: #219
Why, hello! Welcome to the Happy List! This week on the blog I discussed church pews and homemade freezer jam. That combo makes total sense, right? Ha! You just never know what you’re going to get with this blog! If you’d like to see what we are up to this weekend, please follow along on Instagram or Facebook stories. If you create something I should see, please tag me! I love to see your ideas come to life. Let me live vicariously through your creativity! Now here’s the main event – the Happy List! I’M IN LOVE Sure, modern showers are great, but look at this vintage one! I’m in…
Making Jam Doesn’t Have To Be Hard
Making jam doesn’t have to be hard, time consuming, or require a bunch of fancy equipment. Oh, don’t get me wrong. You can make it that way! I won’t stop you from creating an ordeal, but making jam doesn’t have to suck the life out of you. What sort of jam voodoo is this? No voodoo, I promise. Just make freezer jam instead of cooked jam. Cooked jam is usually preserved by water bath canning so that you can store the jam on your shelf, which is handy. Freezer jam doesn’t require canning because the jam is preserved in the freezer. To me, freezer jam tastes much fresher than cooked jam…
In Praise of a Church Pew for Home Decor
How many of you have spent hours of your life sitting on a hard church pew? *raises both hands* I wonder at what point someone said, “Hey! You know what would make the dear preacher’s long sermons even better? A cushion for this pew.” I would have added cup holders too and I don’t mean those itty bitty ones for the communion cup. But no one asked me! I recently got stuck in the purgatory I affectionately refer to as Facebook Marketplace in search of a church pew to use as decor in my home. Who knew there were so many church pews for sale? Ironically, I didn’t want the…
Happy List: #218
Welcome to this week’s Happy List! This week on the blog was all about the upcoming 4th of July in the U.S. I shared a cellophane faux sparkler craft, which I think would also work smashingly well for New Year’s Eve decor. I also shared our patriotic front porch. If you’d like to see what we are up to this weekend, please follow along on Instagram or Facebook stories. I don’t actually know what we are doing, so I will be just as surprised as you. If you have a project you’d like to share with me, please tag me on social media too. I’d love to see what you…
Patriotic Front Porch for our Colonial Farmhouse
If ever there was a home that needed a patriotic front porch, it is our Colonial Farmhouse. While this colonial farmhouse did not exist for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it was built shortly thereafter. That means it witnessed the growing pains of a newly formed nation and there were plenty! It bore witness to the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War. Those are just the major wars of the 1800s. At the risk of stating the obvious, that’s a lot of bloodshed. I’m sure this Colonial Farmhouse has bore witness to the warm fuzzies in American history as well. Right?!?! While…
DIY Cellophane Faux Sparklers (Mega Frill Picks)
Time to get festive, folks! Let’s DIY cellophane faux sparklers. These could also be called mega frill picks. What are frill picks? Those fancy toothpicks restaurants stick in your sandwich. I wasn’t fancy enough to know that term until I Googled it, so I’m calling these faux sparklers. Tomato, tomat-oh. Either way, they are easy to make and so stinkin’ awesome to decorate with for the 4th of July or any holiday, really. New Year’s Eve, I’m thinking about you! All you need to make these cellophane faux sparklers or mega frill picks are wood skewers, cellophane in your desired colors, scissors, and tape. Here’s the tutorial: DIY Cellophane Faux…
Start of Summer Break
The start of our summer break is finally here! I may be more excited about school being finished than my kids are! It has been a rollercoaster of a school year. It started out as a train wreck, but something beautiful came out of all of that chaos in terms of my children’s resilience, independence, and overall mental and emotional well-being. Basically, we ended the year in a much better place than when we started. The next school year will present an entirely new set of opportunities and challenges and I hope what my kids learned this year will give them the tools to handle and embrace anything that comes…
Happy List: #217
Hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List! What am I doing today? I’m so glad you asked. I’m cleaning out all of this year’s remote school materials. Today is the last day of school and WE SURVIVED. I daresay the kids might have thrived at the end too, which is an added blessing. This week on the blog I shared a house anniversary post. We’ve lived in this Colonial Farmhouse for two years now! I also shared a shed makeover using black stain. It is so much more satisfying to stain something than to paint it, perhaps because I find stain to be more forgiving. If you’ve done a project…
Shed Makeover and Tip for Picking Black Paint
I have the most satisfying shed makeover to share with you today. It is satisfying because nothing fancy happened. All we did was finish someone else’s project (it happens) and address the neglect that had occurred over time. The makeover occurred on the little shed that houses our pool pump and equipment. It’s tiny. We can’t even stand up fully inside of it. We aren’t sure when the shed was built, but the back side of it and the cupola were missing the cedar shake siding. Our best guess is the previous owner ran out of supplies and never finished the project. The last 5% of any project is the…
Colonial Farmhouse Two Year Anniversary
Put on your party hats, people! Today is our Colonial Farmhouse Two Year Anniversary! It feels like we’ve lived here for only a minute and also forever, but in reality it has been exactly two years. Two years is actually a long time for us to live in any one place. It is usually a little before the two year mark that I get the itch to move. I get antsy for change. Ready for a new adventure. I’m not saying I don’t have that itch now, but that antsy feeling is tempered by our life stage and changing priorities. Plus, I have plenty to keep me busy around here!…
