I'm Thankful

I had such a wonderful Thanksgiving! I was able to go home to my parents house for three days! I spent time Christmas shopping with my sisters, cooking with mommy, and chatting and watching Better off Dead with my daddy. (that is a hilarious 80's movie bytheway!) I am thankful for so many things- my family, the great food, a warm bed, my husband getting a little time off work, and Poppop not only being at Thanksgiving but also walking around on his new steel leg and eating his fair share of pie!

Everyone signs the table cloth every year they come to Thanksgiving

I made this FANTASTIC pumpkin dip and carved a pumpkin to place the bowl in.

playing games

So good to have Poppop on two feet!

Went to the craft fair for a little Christmas shopping with my mommy and mommy-in-law!

Thankfulness in a Jar

Let's be honest- I LOVE mason jars, especially the uncommon shapes and the blue ones. I really fell in love with the dark teal jars that are even more rare and more expensive when I do find them in antique stores. But guess what I found at the Goodwill yesterday!

I literally gasped out loud when I saw it and snatched it (carefully) from the top shelf to find...a $2.99 price tag!!!! Thank you to whomever put that in their donate pile!!! I'm not exactly sure what I am going to do with it yet , maybe just display it or fill it with Christmas candy- I do have 3 of the same model but in clear so they'd look cute next to each other. Any Ideas?

So now that I've shared my excitement- thanks for listening :),  I want to tell you about another jar, one with much more meaning.

This jar was displayed on my lemonade table at my wedding to collect "tips," honeymoon money and marital advice. It was so sweet opening it up and reading well wishes and having a bit of coffee money in our pockets.

This is my lovely Aunt, Uncle and cousins who kept the lemonade full and my uncle built that GORGEOUS stand! (you can sort of see the jar sitting in the center of the table, it's an extra large mason with a tin cap.)

This jar was far to special and sentimental to just get thrown in a closet, it needed a purpose, a meaningful life. My husband came up with the idea to use it as a thankful jar, sort of like the thankful box our Premarital counselors/friends had. I knew I married a good guy!

Here's how it works, throughout the year we write down things we are thankful for on slips of paper and put them in the jar and we don't tell each other what we wrote down. On Thanksgiving, usually in the car while we drive to see family, we open the jar and read them aloud and record our blessings in our scrapbook (which is more like a journal we write big things in-like Thanksgiving, new jobs, big events in life). It's really neat to see what the other was thankful for over the year and which things we both wrote down. Last year was our first year doing this so this year I think I'm going to add to the tradition reading last years thankful notes as well. This is such a fun way to remember God's goodness throughout the entire year and remember what He has done in the last year on Thanksgiving.

Fall Pinterest Party

I hosted a Pinterest party last night for some of my girlfriends and it was awesome! I decided to do this party because I have WAAAAY too many pins I haven't tried waiting on my Pinterest boards and because I love spending time with friends and playing hostess.

We started out with dinner. Everyone brought goodies they had on their Food Boards to share. We had apples and cream cheese dip, peta-pizzas with garlic butter, potato soup (which is now a favorite easy crockpot dinner!), and I made brown sugar cookie squirrels.

I also cooked up some Pumpkin White Hot Coca for the girls as they were crafting. It's really easy and sooooo good! Tastes like Pumpkin pie in a cup! (tip: whisk the ingredients as you cook them)

We worked on three different crafts:

                                     My mom here is working on a burlap "give thanks" banner. see how here

We also decorated mugs (which i bought for a dollar a piece at the thrift store. Jo Ann Fabrics has glass paint pens in lots of pretty colors. I just bought black (to keep it simple) and everyone decorated a mug or two. I'm kicking myself for not taking more pictures! We had all sorts of cute sayings, some adorable owls and love notes. (see some mug ideas here)

We also made leaf mobiles out of plastic bags- YES plastic bags! This was the coolest thing ever, super easy and surprisingly pretty! Even my husband was impressed with how it looks! I hung mine in the window where the sunlight can filter through it-the picture doesn't do it justice! (find the tutorial for making these here.)

 

Then I sent the girls home with their own little goodie bags. See these ideas and more on my board.

I had so much fun I think I'm going to plan a Christmas Pinterest Party!

New Series! Small Space Living

 This Blog has MOVED! thanks for visiting! Check out SMALL SPACE LIVING posts and the NEW BLOG by going to Making Life Beautiful!

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I LOVE  my little apartment. It is the perfect first home for us two little newlyweds. And by little, I mean tiny.

It's a one room basement apartment (main room, bathroom, bedroom) in the home of one of our professors. They are the sweetest family and the best neighbors! With low ceilings and less then 500 sq  ft, storage and decorating can be a challenge. And then add our small, newlywed college student budget and things get a little harder.

This series, Small Space Living, will cover my decorating, organizing, and shopping ideas to help you live in your small space cheaply, comfortably and beautifully!

Here are some other posts with my decorating style: hallway, my diy chevron rug, the apartment when we first moved in a year ago.

My first secret: I do A LOT of thrifting. This saves me money and i find original items and i usually dont mind repainting or tearing apart these cheap finds to make new things. Below: all my picture frames are thrifted and repainted, the candle sticks were a grage sale find, the cake plate/cheese plate was a thrift store find, etc. It hard to look anywhere in my home and not see something that is secondhand! I LOVE IT!

Since my last decorating post I have already changed things up!
I got bored with all white walls, and though I'm sure they would have let us paint it would have taken far too long for my impatient self, so for my first apartment decorating trick....

 Get out your staple gun and tack up some fabric on a wall! I chose burlap because I already had it on hand in a large quantity from my wedding. But you can always find coupons and get cute fabric on discount. The other great thing about this is that I can quickly and easily change it depending on the season or my decorating mood. Depending on the wall size it might not be cheaper to go this route over paint, but for those of you in apartments or dorms where you can't paint this is perfect!

 I also love decorating with natural things-real pumpkins and dried leaves. Small decorative pumpkins are about 50 cents at Winco!

 I also rearranged my living room. I took out my coffee table and arranged a little sitting area.

 I love the stacked books in my fireplace, but cold weather is coming! and I'm very excited to start using my fireplace for cozy fires, but now I have to find space for all those books...solution coming soon!

I found this lovely pillow at the Goodwill for $4! It's a Target pillow in perfect condition that usually goes for about $20! This series will also cover my thrifting adventures, I'd love for you to come along with me!

View the other posts in this series by clicking the HERE or the Small Space Living tab above.

My Autumn House

Sorry for leaving you hanging for so long!(Previous post) Here are pictures of my autumn decor...

I bought all of my mini pumpkins at Winco. I think I got them (11 of them) for about $6. Yay for cheap decorations!

 These burlap banners took me about 40 minutes total to make. First I cut out triangle shapes in two different sizes for the various banners. Then I added letters. I wrote the GIVE  in Sharpie but cut the THANKS out of orange scrapbook paper and hot glued the letters to the fabric. I just free-handed the letters because I dont have a stencil. Then I hot glued the triangles on to string. Wha-la!

I found the artist's mannequin at Value Village for $3 a while back. My mom has one and it reminds me of home.

I made this banner in the same manner as the others only I glued the burlap onto a sparkly black ribbon instead of twine. A girl like me has to have some sparkle somewhere. :)

I have found that my chalkboard is probably the best decor decision I have ever made. It's fun, quick and cheap and allows me to change the feel of the wall any time I want-which is quite often!

The Thankful poster above is a free printable from thelatestfind.com It's a quick easy way to dress up a space! I just printed mine out on regular printer paper and put it in a thrifted frame.

See before photos of my home here and by clicking on the     decor and craftiness link above.