I feel like I constantly come to this place and say over and again how amazed and overwhelmed I am.

This embroidery pretty much sums it up.
Every month I sit down and do our budget.
Every Spring rolls around and I question the rationality of me continuing to build this business.
And every time I do it seems crazy.
But every time I do the budget we meet our needs.
Every time I start to think I need to find a “real” job the Spirit convicts me.
I hear the words
“trust me”,
“do not fear”
and “in all things He is good.”

Like this post I read this morning, I am reminded of all the ways I think we are lacking or will lack.
But when I look back at the past year; when I look back at even yesterday I see where He has done nothing short of supply more than our needs.

I feel like everywhere I look lately I see post after post reminding us as Believers to the realization that God longs deeply for us to follow our hearts. He longs for us to walk His path. And His path often times doesn’t make sense to anyone but us…and many times not even us!
He longs to fulfill our dreams and so often our dreams are tiny compared to how He will fulfill them.

There are so many things I don’t know as I walk through this day. There are so many things in the future that are unknown. The learning curve I’ve been on as I walk this path has been so crazy steep and fraught with so many fears and worries. Yet, the joy that I’ve felt as I’ve walked has been nothing short of amazing. I have walked through so many days overwhelmed with the list in front of me, yet also overjoyed at the gift that the Lord has given me. It’s a small piece, a small reminder, that He does give bountifully and richly and fully.

In His time and in His way.

I am living a God-sized dream.

Probably one of the best gifts we’ve given our kids ever was this little mailbox full of a year of Valentines.

We have made some of the best memories this past year via this little mailbox. The kids have had a blast scratching off the month’s activity. What made it more fun was that I forgot to write down what was coming up each month so some month’s it was as much of a surprise for us too! Directions on how to do the scratch off paint can be found here.

We aren’t going to repeat this idea for 2013, but instead will be building on it and tweaking it just a little bit. More on that later.

Hey there friends!

We are in the mountains running after monarch butterflies making me a little behind on my 31 days…

hopefully I’ll get caught up tonight!
aimee

It’s Friday again.

And this bird has flown her coop!
Check back next Friday for another edition of my favorite links from around the web.

Until then…
Happy Weekend!

I tried my hand at a yarn wreath way back in October and I loved the results. That time around I used a foam wreath form from the craft store which cost me around $4 and honestly took forever…weaving the yarn over and under.

This time I got smart (I know I stole this idea from somewhere) and spent a whopping $0.50 on some tube wrapping stuff from Home Depot. It was quicker this go around because I didn’t round it up until I got pretty much towards the end.

The supplies. I opted for a gray/black yarn because I wanted a wreath I could keep up for most of the year instead of a seasonal one that I had to change all the time. Our roof is a charcoal gray metal one and eventually we will have gray trim around all our windows too. Our front porch step is also going to be painted either black or a dark gray so I wanted to bring all that together.

(I actually only ended up using one of those variegated yarns. Not sure what made me think it would take two.)

Here is how it looked when I got to the point of taping the ends together.

And here is the end result! Pardon our horrible, horrible red front door. We are on the hunt for a salvaged one, but haven’t found the right one yet (aka, one for less than $500) so this is how it looks where it’s going to be for a while. And yes, it really is that red.

I looked high and low for some wooden numbers using this wreath as my inspiration:

but couldn’t find any anywhere. I opted to print out some templates from the computer and use some felt for the numbers. I stitched two layers together and eventually they will match the color of our house if it ever gets painted.

Here’s a better picture without that horrible red door glaring you in the face

After learning and experimenting with the couching stitch for the January Feeling Stitchy Stitch Along (whew that’s a lot of words!) I was inspired to try my hand at another one. This one was inspired by a tiny valentine’s card I saw pinned a while back. I used black boucle yarn and black embroidery floss to outline the letters. Then I cut out a tiny wool felt heart and hand appliqued it on. This is stitched onto a stiff cotton duck fabric that is heavenly to sew on.

I’m still doing some experimenting with framing options for my embroideries. This time I used an 8×8 black square frame I found at Michael’s Arts and Crafts. This one was actually a true frame, so I removed the glass and had to fiddle around with how to attach and stretch the fabric on the inside so that I could put all the accoutrements back inside. Now that it’s all done and hanging on my newly painted wall, I absolutely love it and kind of didn’t even want to list it for sale...but I guess I could just make myself another one

If there is anything I’m not the greatest at, it is setting a fancy table. It hit me yesterday that this year Thanksgiving is at my house and therefore I needed to come up with some sort of pretty table. I perused Pinterest last night and took a few notes, knowing that my budget for buying anything was about $10-12 max. I had it in my head that I wanted to do some floating candles in water, but did you know Target doesn’t have those? Boo. On to plan B.

I found this big candle on clearance for $6 and then bought this pack of small tea-lightish candles, also on clearance for $6. There went the budget. I dug out the remains of my burlap from my “give thanks” banner and found a piece of scrap cream to put underneath it. I raided the kid’s sensory box for some popcorn and other things and also used some fake pumpkins/gourds that I had also. Voila! I’m actually mildly impressed with myself!

On that note…Happy Thanksgiving to you all! May you all have a fabulous day counting all the ways that you have been blessed this past year! I know I’ve been blessed beyond measure.

Day 11: day 1 of the bathroom redo

Why is it that the rooms in your house that you think you aren’t going to have to paint soon end up being the ones you have to paint? After two holes were created in the wall of the bathroom, it became necessary to start thinking about paint.

Here is a before picture:

Here are the elements of style that are going back into the bathroom when I am done:

a shower curtain with my most favorite Heather Ross fabric (mendicino) including matching towels that I edged with the fabric.

On the walls will be these embroideries that my son drew (except the octopus, that was a stitch-along) and I embroidered:

And I also got rid of the horrible little white cabinets that were in the corner. I found a great shelf at Habitat and painted it to provide a little bit of storage. You will have to come back tomorrow to see the big reveal of that great find.

I am leaving the beadboard white for now. The long term plan is to paint it a very, very pale icy blue and I also want to tile the floor with 1 inch white tiles. But that is going to have to wait a while. For now, we’ll be happy with part one. I painted the walls above a dark, coffee brown. So far, I am loving it! Can’t wait to see it all put together!

Come back tomorrow for the big reveal!

Missed  a post in my 31 days of creating series? Click here for the complete list.

I can’t write what’s in my head and heart right now, but I know there is a post coming. This is one of the most freeing posts and conversations I think I’ve read about schooling your child and I wanted to pass it on…thoughts forthcoming.

Why I Do Not Homeschool (part 2)