Flipping the Deck

This is our deck.

  It was in pretty bad shape when we bought our house and has been on our "To Do List" ever since we moved in.

Obviously the boards were well worn and hadn't been taken care of for quite some time.    

But there were other things too.  Like the railing, or lack thereof.  We had a lot of work on our hands.

The first item of business was to close up the side.  It had been left completely open and critters were becoming a problem for us.  So, my awesome hubby bought some latice and went to work.  Love the way it turned out! 

Then he started flipping the boards.  Literally.  It took hours and hours and hours and HOURS.  But, the underside of those boards was like new. 

There were only a few boards that had to be replaced.  

And after all that hard work, it was so pretty!

Next up was beefing up that railing a little bit.  We'd been looking online and finally found a pattern for how we wanted it to look.

And this is what we came up with.  We are in love!

I just can't get over how different it looks.

This last weekend, we stained the entire thing.  It feels like it took all summer!  

 But we are sure happy with the results. 

Back 2 School Relief Society Activity

In August, we had a Back 2 School night with our Relief Society.  This one was a lot of fun to put together!  To create this vignette, we brought in the portable chalk board from the church, and strung up my Target special bunting that I use for every party.  I also pinned up my book page wreath handmade for me by a friend of mine as a housewarming gift.  Love it!  We stole the stool from under the podium to raise up our vintage school desk one of our members just happens to have, which seemed just a little too small next to that chalkboard, and threw some books and lunch boxes on there for good measure.  BYU even made it to this party in the form of a crate from the Creamery we somehow inherited while we were attending years ago.

We strung jute string across the ceiling and clothespinned and paperclipped flashcards to it to create a school themed bunting.  On the chalkboard, I wrote welcome to class, in true 'first day of school' fashion. 

 

 And the podium table was just decorated with a bunch of nicknacks from around my house.

The more I looked at my house, the more I found I could use to make this look like a vintage school room.

  Globes were a must.  I put some $1 flags in a vase, and got a pack of pencils and put them in a mason jar.  I had recently bought a slate chalkboard from Hobby Lobby to do the '1st day of school sign' with my son, and wrote Back 2 School on it in chalk.

I also filled a container with scrabble letters, and bought a bunch of cheap rulers to put in a pitcher.  These pinwheels I made using doublesided scrapbooking paper.  I just hot glued them onto scewers.  They don't spin, but they sure look cute!

I used some photo albuns to raise up my vintage lantern, pulled in a vintage clock I have, and at the last second thought it would be a good idea to use a statue of the Savior in our display.  

He is, after all, our greatest teacher.

I just love the mix of the neutrals looking like a vintage school room with a little bit of those bright colors still thrown in.  That bucket was filled with bookmarks which we gave the sisters at the end of the night.  Loved the colorful rainbow of ribbon they provided in the display.

I found this quote to go along with our theme, printed it off on cardstock, punched a hole in the top and looped different ribbons through.  Easy peasy!

To make it feel like a school room, we brought in all the classroom tables and put them together, so each table sat six people.

We had set up different displays in the center of each table as well.  Most with bundles of books from my house.

And more pencil bouquets.

At each seat, we placed a notebook for them to take home as well.

These were just the mini composition books Target and Walmart sells during back to school season, with a "Search Ponder & Pray" label stuck to the front of it.  Our last mini class was on studying the scriptures, and this gift tied in with that lesson.

On the side board, we had a back to school bunting hanging, as well as grade level printables found on Pinterest.  Here is another shot of the flashcard bunting we made across the ceiling.  That really made it seem festive!

On this table, there was more stuff from my house.  These giant crayon penny banks were perfect for our display.  I also threw my magnet letters in a few jars - amazing how that classes them up.  Maybe I'll start doing that at home!

More pinwheels - I loved the feel those gave to this activity!  I found this printable (along with most of my other ideas) on {here on Pinterest} and just clipped it to our clipboard.  Had an apothecary jar filled with apples.  And this is actually how I store our blocks.  I love the way they look on top of my kids dresser.  A decoration that can be played with!  Cute and functional are my favorite.

Our dinner that night was a school lunch.  We had veggie cups with rach dip, apples, chip bags, sandwiches, lunch drinks, and rice crispy treats (which didn't make it in time for the picture).

I was surprised at how fast we ran out of chocolate milk!  You're never too old for that stuff, I guess.  However, hardly anyone drank regular milk.  Curious...  

When I told my helpers my idea for the food, no one was too excited about it, but it was actually really good!  

The display over here consisted of my oversized scissors, some mini trunks, another globe, and a vintage style lantern.

I had fun making these plates.

Just added some paper leaves using double stick tape and voila!  Apple plates!

We had 3 mini classes:

Home Economics - we learned how to make our own laundry detergent.

Mathematics - we learned about Budgeting and Finances

Reading - we learned about studying the scriptures.

All in all, it was a great activity!

Scatter Sunshine Relief Society Activity

We recently had a great activity for our Relief Society sisters.  Relief Society is a group within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for women. 

This was our invitation and display for the activity. 

I got the idea for this activity on Pinterest of course.  These are all images found on the many pins I found.  I thought it would be great to have little baskets of sunshine ready to give someone once a need arises.

You could really fill the basket with anything, but we chose to keep everything yellow to go with the "sunshine" theme.

For the activity, we had a sister teach us how to make baskets using paper bags and paper twists.  That was our time filler.  Another idea I had was to have someone speak about service.  But for this one, we made it a crafty activity.

We had a few things for people to put in their baskets, but we didn't have enough to fill it so that people could personalize it any way they wanted when they gave it away.

The items we provided were pens with flowers taped onto them - you know: daisy pens.

Also little yellow card/envelope packages,

waterbottles which we labeled with sunshines,

along with single lemonade drink packets,

paper enveloopes like you get at the bakery that they could put a little goodie in,

and lastly the dove caramel hearts - cause they're packaged individually in gold. 

Everything was yellow.

Once the sisters made their baskets, they got to fill them up with the items we provided.

Personally I love these baskets most for using when people are feeling under the weather.  Love all the little goodies in this huge teacup.  

A lot of the pins on my {Scatter Sunshine Pinboard} come with printables you can use if you make your own baskets.  These are the printables we used.  

Everyone got a card - I printed about 6 on a sheet. 

And every waterbottle got a sunshine.  We just peeled off the lables and stuck this on instead.

We also provided the sisters with this list of ideas for what else they could include in their baskets:

Treats

Lemon Heads

Yellow Starbursts

Sunkist Lemon Gummies

Extra Dessert Lemon Gum

Golden Oreos

Butterfinger

Juicy Fruit Gum

Jello/Pudding Cup

M&M's 

Skittles

Sugar Babies/Sugar Daddy

Jelly Beans

Wheat Thins

Shortbread Cookies

Lays Potato Chips

Homemade: Banana Bread, Yellow Frosted Cookies, Lemon Bars, Cinnamon Rolls, etc.

Drinks

Snapple Drink

Lemon Lime Gatorade

Lemonade

Little Gifts (All Yellow)

Nail Polish and Nail File

Flip Flops

Lotion/Hand Sanitizer 

Soap

Loofa/Sponge

Spa Accessories like Headbands, Towels, Wash Cloths, etc.

Burts Bee's Products

Lip gloss/Chap-stick

Notepad/Post-it Notes

Candle/Votive

Rubber Duck

Pencil

Drink Cup with Straw

Just to name a few…  A good idea is to make the basket more specific to the recipient’s needs, once you have a person in mind.  Be Creative!  Put your own twist on it!  Have fun!

It was a great and also fun service project.  And I've already used these baskets twice.  People love them!

Baby Girl's Nursery

I've been a little busy of late.  Renovate a house - check.  Move in - check.  Have a baby - check.  Decorate a girly nursery - check.

This is the first room that we feel is totally finished in our house.  Here is a before shot:

Could not WAIT to ditch those blinds, tear down that wallpaper, and cover up that mauvy pink paint!

We started with the wall color.  I knew I wanted gray, and we went with Silver Chain by Benjamin Moore.  It's a perfect gray.  Just gray.  Not blue, not green, not purple, not tan.  Just gray.  And we love it!

It is one of my favorite colors we've used so far.  I may repaint my Master Bedroom this color, I love it so much.  It makes the room look and feel so calm and pretty, and I love the way it plays with the pink.  Gray makes pink more soothing.

Next came the curtains.  Good old Walmart had these from Better Homes and Gardens and I love them too.  I love that they're not baby curtains.  But, they still look great with all her baby things. 

 We already had the furniture from our two boys.  My husband actually built - yes built that changing table for me.  Isn't he the greatest!!?  

And the bedding is Wendy Bellissimo Sweet Baby Dreams, with a bumper I found at Babies R Us.  I wanted to go with pink, but especially after drooling over all the bedding at Restoration Hardware Baby & Child, I wanted there to be tan mixed in.  I think the tans and greys really tone down the craziness pink can give a room. 

So, I was really excited to find this bedding on the cheaper side on Amazon. :) 

Above the crib are some shelves filled with little nic nacs I found mostly at Michael's.  I fell in LOVE with this little crown!  Princesses all need little crowns in their bedrooms!  And the pedastle from Hobby Lobby was perfect for it! 

I love the tiny little flowers I found to accessorize the shelves, too. 

At the head of the crib, I hung a mobil that I made using styrofoam balls, ribbon, fabric, and an embroidery hoop. 

I saw the idea on Pinterest and about died!! 

I mean, so cute.  I'm in love with the way it turned out. 

And I think it adds the perfect touch to the head of my princess's bed. 

Love this pillow from the bedding collection. 

The shelf is of course filled with baby essentials like diapers, creams, and clothes.  But there are a few nic nacs on it as well. 

My favorite piece is probably the little children figurine.  It was my Mom's.  The basket is filled with burp clothes, and the canister holds binkis. 

I really love this little display shelf. 

Found the cute little cherry blossom canisters at Michael's, and they hold the hair accessories that don't match the room. :)  Perfect!   

These blankets were a gift and I'm completely in love with them.  There will be newborn photos taken with them shortly. 

The ducky and block box were re-used from my boy's nursery decorations. 

These headband holders I found on Amazon.  I LOVE them.  They are white leather and really sturdy.  I found the candlesticks they're sitting on at Marshalls, and I think it just gives them a prettier perch.  The headbands were all given to me at my baby shower.  This is what we did instead of play games. 

I saw these headband holders on Pinterest, and through the links I found out that you can get a kit to make them at a baby shower from {LB Boutique}.  I LOVE the idea, and I LOVE that my host did it for my at my shower.  She's the best! 

Last but not least, a little pretty clock sits above the door, so I know how long thost night time feedings last. :)  It was a photo clock, but I just covered the holes with paper to match the room.

Ta-Da!  I love it.  Girls are so much fun.