Summer Mantle Inspiration

Now that I have a mantle to decorate I'm excited to be able to change that decor up pretty easily with the seasons or holidays. My mother is a big fan of fireplaces(like really huge fan, she likes to text pictures of her warming her hands in front of the fire to her friends almost every day in the winter) but she never ever mixes it up on the mantle. The arrangement of pictures,candles, etc. that is on her mantle would be almost the exact same arrangement that you would have seen there yesterday, last month, or even 3 years ago when she moved into her current place. For me I feel like this is a spot where I can get creative and inject some holiday(seasonal?) cheer without making major changes in the house or investing a whole bunch of time. However, having never decorated a seasonal mantle before I needed a little inspiration and her are a few I rounded up...

  

this one is from Ashley's Thrifty Living and she shows how she created the banner along with highlights of some of the other little touches

 

 

I love the nautical feel and the muted blues in this mantle from Completely Coastal and I feel like most of the things here wouldn't be too hard to recreate with just a qiuck trip to Lowe's.

 

 

I really love this one from The Lettered Cottage with that adorable flag idea.

 

I can't wait to get started on making my mantle summery so I can enjoy it on every one of those long summer days. With our fireplace being in the kitchen, whatever I choose to put up there I definitely will see a lot of since so far that is where I can typically be found when I'm at home.



Craft night

I finally got around to having a craft night with a friend of mine that we have been talking about doing since February! We have been so busy around here with work and all the things to do with our new home and any sort of craftiness has gone out the window so it was nice to take a little time out. We tried our hands at making some burlap wreaths for our doors. Thanks to Pinterest I had no trouble finding a whole lot of tutorials and ideas. I went with one from the blog Rooms for Rent that you can see Here. In the tutorial there they looped the burlap through the two outside parts of the wire wreath form, I opted to alternate outer and inner rings because I felt like it would make it look a little fuller. Also I made a small one to practice on that I used burlap wire ribbon on and having tried wired and non wired ribbon I would go with the non wired every time. Trying to pull that stupid wired ribbon through the wreath form made me so frustrated and mad it feel like my fingers were arthritic by he time I was done. So no more wirey burlap in my future, at least I don't think so. Here is what I ended up with

I loved it and still do but now I'm feeling like it needs a bigger "M" and maybe that "M" also needs to move a little further up the side. I don't know yet wether or not I'll actually change it but we'll see.

I was so sure that once we moved I was gonna be able to be crafty all the time and I would have tons of stuff to be DIY-ing over here and now I feel like I've been so busy with everything ese that I don't have time for my crafty outlet anymore. But it's looking like every other Tuesday I'll be able to do some pinterest inspired crafts with a friend of mine and so hopefully that will get me going again.

 

We are finally home!!!

We closed on our first home on April 2nd and we could not be happier. I can't believe today makes exactly one week of living here. There are boxes and bags and bins everywhere still. I was determined that I was always going to park my car in the garage(that's how excited I was to finally have a garage) and it's surrounded by more boxes and furniture. Our kitchen is up and running and I have already cooked a total of 4 meals in there and we have already grilled for the first time in our new backyard.

And then it came time to do some yard work and oh how that was a project I expected to be easier than it was. We are still not even halfway done with our front yard and we have already completely filled 40 bags. 40!!!

This was just at 20 bags so imagine the stack at the curb this morning!!

If anyone else has ever had to rake and bag leaves on a hill like this my heart goes out to you because I now know how insane this process is. The thing is, I can't even complain because I'm so happy and thankful to have a yard to rake that's our very own! Hopefully I will have everything in place soon so that I can start working on some projects.

 



One thing long overdue

One thing definitely long overdue for us was a real vacation...as in we haven't been on one in FIVE years! Well we went to Gatlinburg, TN and had an absolute blast. Get ready for picture overload and two adorable little monsters

me and the boys playing with the giant lite brite

creating giant bubbles for my sweet nephew

my little guy helping with a driving lesson at Wonderworks

our lovely view

Park is a good bit smaller than the worlds largest man

awwww, his nervous face. He wasn't so sure about sitting on the fake fish

can't get more excited than this

my monster pretending to be swimming in the fish tank

a little laser tag time

Best.Spring Break. EVER!
We are about 12 hours away from closing on the house now and I can't wait but for now back to packing.