Pumpkin Patch Morning

 We hit up the Pumpkin Patch this morning with our play group from church.  I have yet to discover an apple orchard here, so pumpkin patches are filling in this Fall.  The kiddos are just as excited about pumpkins, so it's all good, even if Mommy feels just a twinge of sadness.

 Emma Claire loved all the little houses.  She's a true homemaker at heart and it makes me smile. :-)

 Keller is getting so big so fast.  He's still my cuddle bug and will let me hold him endlessly.  Oh, how I wish I could hold him all day long!  No one has to tell me how fast these days go.  It's like I blinked and Emma is now holding conversations with me.

 He has awesome hair.  SO awesome that he's gotten the girl assumption several weeks in a row now.  We're thinking it's time for a trim, but not sure it's worth the cry.  And I'm not talking him, but me.

 His blue blue eyes melt my heart...and melt it good.  

That boy has me wrapped around his finger and Steven will be the first to tell you.

 Shiloh, too, has a heart for the home...

...in her own way. :-)

 They are so beautiful!

 Their personalities, their looks, their talents, are all so different.

I am often baffled and sobered when I think how I've been given these little ones to raise up for the glory of God.  Not given to dress up cute, say the right things, fill with knowledge, keep me from being embarrassed, make me look good, or give me a sense of identity.  

 

They are little human beings each with an independent will, adults in the making.  

And I am their example.

Every. Single. Day. 

If that doesn't make your heart drop with heaviness - a gravity of the situation - I don't know what will.  

I have been sobered lately.  The world rushes by us, Christians included, with all this information about parenting  that just makes your head burst.  Information about car seat choices, organic baby food, breast fed or bottle fed, cloth diaper or disposable, baby Gap or Gymboree, mini van or suburban, working mom or stay-at-home mom, homeschooled, or public schooled..

Purposes for their children, purposes for motherhood, even while unspoken.

But our children see.
They see what is truly important to us as the days roll on.

Let's take it back to the basics.

Me and God.

Alone in the dark.

Searching for answers to this Motherhood thing.

The choices, the unknowns, the unplanned, the struggles, the victories, 

the breakthroughs, the refinings, the lessons...

...the hearts.

Real hearts...needing to be pointed towards Christ.

I Timothy 4:12 -- "Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."

Tin Organizer Gets Restored

Next up in the laundry room, is my yard sale find that was in quite a state when I first found it...

{The one on the right.}

I saw true beauty underneath its' dirt, rust, and hard glue.  Besides, who can't always use another organizational piece for their home?

I sanded it down really really well...working on it little by little over the course of a few days.  My hands can only take so much and they're sore even now as I type. 

Once I got it all smooth and with parts of the metal peeking through.  I rubbed this stuff on edges, corners, and random areas of the piece...

The vaseline allows distressing later on to go much easier and quicker.

I then painted over the whole thing with a greenish teal paint leftover from the bathroom...

I let that first coat dry, and rubbed it down lightly with a cloth. The parts that had had the vaseline applied wore away and the metal peeked through.

Pretty cool huh?! And much better than wearing your hand out sanding vigorously.

Then painted over that with 2 coats of off-white paint.

When mostly dry, I sanded it down to distress it. 

I also chipped some paint off with my fingers - on the spots that had had the vaseline - to get even more metal peeking through.

It looked a little plain to me, so I wanted to get these metal label holders on it to dress it up a bit...

They were 50% off at Hobby Lobby and cost me $2.99 for 2 packs. 

I stole some school glue from the girls' art bin and glued them onto my freshly painted piece...

I glued a broken upholstery tack leftover from the headboard project on the top.

And then filled it up with pretty {to me} things... 
 

Ahhhh...fixing things back up is such a thrill to me. :)

Wood "LAUNDRY" Sign Project

I'm going to share a project with you today from my Laundry Room Redo in the making.

As you know, my challenge was to do this room for under $50.

After buying a gallon of paint, I went into our newly organized garage and rooted through all of Steven's "stuff" to see if I could find anything usable or inspiring. 

Boy did I ever!

I took lots of pictures of my process, thinking you might want to make one of these easy signs too.

~ Painted Wood "LAUNDRY" Sign ~

You'll need:

::Piece of wood - any size will do depending on how big you want your sign - mine was about 2.5 inches wide and 17 inches long.

::Paint {I used Black for my base and White Primer over that}

::Sandpaper or sanding block

::2 paint brushes - 1 small for painting the letters and one medium for painting your wood

::Paper or Cardstock to print on

Computer to print out your letters for stenciling

::Scissors {not pictured}

::Pencil

:Something heavy that you can bang up your piece of wood with - I used those red handled pliers

Take your piece of wood and give it a good sand with your sanding block.

Next, paint a coat of black paint on the wood and let dry.

Then, paint over with a coat of your white primer.

 

Take whatever heavy tool you've got on hand and bang your painted wood up pretty good.  I especially wore away all of the edges and used my pliers to even stip some big pieces off to give it a really weathered look.

 {Photo taken after sign complete.}

Paint another quick and light coat of the white primer over the top of your newly distressed wood.

Sand down the whole thing now - I wanted mine to allow the black paint and some wood to show through in spots.

Find a font you like and type up "LAUNDRY" {or whatever word you are using} on Word on your computer.  Decide how big you want them.  I needed my letters to be 2 inches tall to fit comfortably on my piece of wood, so we took a ruler and just measured the letters on the computer screen.  Print it out, cut out the letters individually and used them to trace onto your wood...

Fill in your traced letters, using a small paint brush, with black paint.  

This part is relaxing!  So put some music on and enjoy the moment. :-)

Once the letters dry, give it one final light sand and step back and admire your work!!!

If you're only wanting to prop your sign up somewhere on a shelf, dresser, etc.  no need to to anything more to it.  However, if you want to hang it on a wall, you can just nail it in for a more rustic look or you could do what we did.

Steven drilled 2 partial holes at an upward angle...

 ...so it could be hung on 2 nails...

 ...and voila'!!!

I love it! 

Let me know if you make one too!

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Catching Up

We had a whirlwind of a weekend...

Chick Fil A run on Saturday morning... (Thanks Tammy!)

Before

During...isn't this photo with Emma Claire and her dolly just priceless?

After

Keller got his first tooth in...praise the Lord. :-)

{And simultaneously figured out if he screamed long enough he could get the nursery workers to get me out of the service to come see him.  We've appropriately dubbed him "King" around here.}

Yardsaling

Got both of those for $6!

Working on elements of the Laundry Room...

{Shiloh was SO proud to help me hand sew.}

Take-out chinese after church...

Installed our new pastor at the church plant in Owasso.

{My camera battery was dead so no pictures. :-(}

And we wrapped up the weekend with my friend coloring my hair...darker. 

I'm completely excited about it...thank you Emily! 

Laundry Room Redo and Tag Fetish

There's nothing like that fresh laundry smell is there?!  

I know some people prefer to hang their laundry outdoors, but I'm too hooked on carrying a warm pile from the dryer that I thank God those things got invented.

I really think people underestimate the potential a laundry room has.  We view it as our catch-all place for shoes, diaper bags, winter accessories, linens, and of course clothes everywhere.
I know most people are perfectly content with that!
And maybe I'm discontent.
Whatever I am, I decided I wanted mine to be pretty.  And it looks anything but pretty in this picture...

When I told Steven I was tackling this room his reaction was..."It's a Laundry Room, Mary Beth."  "Exactly, hun.  And I spend the better part of my day walking in and out of there."    

Steven agrees that a major design challenge with this room is that it is a high traffic area because it opens out to the garage.  I swear I come in and out of there 50 times while loading up the kids to go somewhere.  Someone took their shoes off and left them inside, someone just spit up all over themselves, someone forgot to put makeup on, someone wants a book to read...you know the drill.

As you come in and out, the doors open up partially and bang into our hampers and Steven hates that.  

And that, you all, was my in!

I slept on it for a few days and came up with the cheapest way I thought I could redo it.  After getting the go-ahead from Stevo, I dug in.

The next morning, I asked him for permission to buy the cheapest off-white paint I could find at Wal Mart.  

A $9.97 gallon of paint and a temper tantrum or two later, I headed for home.  

My strategy was to take half of my cheapo paint and mix it up {in my mixing bowl from the kitchen} with some leftover paint from the bathroom project.  I thought about taking a picture, but you all it looked so pitiful I was sure you would think me officially nuts.  Ever tried dipping a roller into a kitchen bowl full of paint?  Pitiful, just pitiful.  And laziness on my part.  Pure laziness.

But I did it. And here she is midway through...


And the other half of my cheapo paint would go towards painting the shelves and some little finds I made and upcycled {I'll be showing you that next week!}

Now here we get into the tag fetish.  You might as well know this about me sooner or later.
 I keep my tags on things I buy FOREVER!
It's because I'm fickle.
Now, I get made fun of a lot for this, {particularly by my dear husband} and it's ok because I do realize that it is weird of me to keep tags on storage containers for almost 2 years.  2 years people!
I cannot believe I'm telling you this.
Anyway, scroll on up to the top and notice the red fabric storage bin to the right of the "before" picture of the laundry room.  It came from TJ Maxx 2 years ago and I have 2 others just like it that don't match with a thing in my house and never have.  I don't know why I hung onto them, but I did.

So I took the kiddos back up to TJ Maxx this morning {2 years later with 2 more children} because those fabric bins were in perfect condition and - of course - still had the tags on them.  They gave me a store credit for $43 and some odd cents.  No questions asked.  And look what I spotted for $15 a piece...

Those 2 metal wash bins on top!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And of course.  

They still have the tags on. ;-)

Back on Monday with some more details and my progress in this room!