DIY Decorative Storage Boxes

So this project was born when Liz @ Bon Temps Beignet posted this project and got me thinking that we have several areas in our living room that I would love some cute boxes to fill! See exhibit A below:

And then I remembered that I had a few of these sitting around from when we used to sell things on Ebay. (I did not go to the post office and commandeer any...please don't do that! Any box will work! I just remembered these because she used them too!)

I took them outside and set up a little painting station..

And taped all of the flaps inside to hold it firmly together.

Then I coated them with white spray paint to hide the markings. Maybe you will get lucky and have some that are plain white!

Once they dried I took these babies down to my girl cave and stood them on end on top of my scrapbook paper that I got on clearance at Michael's. I traced the ends and cut out one in each pattern.

Because i am a perfectionist I held them up to the box to make sure I cut the right size.

And then I used Mod Podge both under and on the outside of the paper to hold it well. Once I smeared it all on I used my fingers to smooth out any bubbles.

Once they dried they looked like this:

Next, I took a thumb tack and made a hole on each side of the box about halfway back.

I took some jute and threaded it through the hole, tying a knot to secure it. Then I pulled the string around the front, threaded a key tag on and did the same on the other side of the box.

I ended up with this look going. I was going to put numbers on the tags but it seemed silly with only two boxes. And I don;t have something specific for them to hold, more of just clutter catchers. So I settled for "Love You." Why? I have no idea :)

And here are the little cuties in their places! Ignore all of the cords and dust. Its a work in progress people! Just keepin it real!

Aren't they so cute!?

 This shot was at night, so the lighting is a little weird. And you get my leg in the corner. You are welcome.

I really want to make more of these. I may undertake a larger box next time. We will see! It was seriously so easy though. and a much better solution than paying $5-8 for a storage box from the store!

I wanted to show you guys this cute baby dedication cake that I made last week too. I love it :)

That's all I have for now! Love you, friends!



I've Missed you Guys!

This week has been so off! I am sorry! I DO have a great project to show you guys but our internet has been down at the house for the last few days and I don't have the software here at work to load the photos! Just wanted to let you all know that I am alive :) Please check out the previous post and look at this awesome company. I love them for real, yall! And its an amazing cause that they have. Have a happy Saturday and if I can get the 'net workin at the house I will try to post tonight or tomorrow! LOVE you guys! Serious!

Shopping with Purpose!

Friends, I have a totally cute project to share with you! It just may not make it to the blog until tomorrow. See I am going bridesmaid dress shopping with my older sister tonight so the blog will have to wait! I know, I know. I have been a boring poster this week. But I have been crafting! And I DO have a project to share!

However, I want to share something that is very near and dear to my heart with you all in hopes of raising them a bit of support. My family has been touched by cancer many times. My mother lost her Mom to cancer when she was eleven, her uncle to cancer when she was young (not sure about the age). My grandparents have had cancer. And most recently my aunt Jackie who I adore has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She is a fighter and is doing well, thank you. I know I have mentioned that before and appreciate your prayers. I know my family is not unique. So many families across the country have been touched by this terrible reality. I would say that I don't know anyone that has never had a friend or family member that has been touched by cancer.

Shortly after Jackie was diagnosed, I found this amazing little local gem of a company called Crystals of Hope.

They give a percentage of the proceeds from each sale directly back to cancer research. The owner herself has battled cancer and has an amazing testimony from it. I would love for you all to go and check out their Etsy shop. Here are a few of my absolute favorite pieces! (Click the words above the photos to go directly to the item)

Childhood Cancer Awareness Necklace - Swarovski Austrian Crystals and Sterling Silver Beads

 

Down's Syndrome Awareness Bracelet - Swarovski Austrian Crystals and Sterling Silver Beads

Melanoma Awareness Bracelet - Swarovski Austrian Crystals and Sterling Silver Beads

Breast Cancer Awareness Watch - Swarovski Austrian Crystals and Sterling Silver Beads

Chunky Pastel Pearl Necklace - Crafted with Pearl Glass Beads, Swarovski Austrian Crystals and Sterling Silver

This last one is my favorite! What a beautiful way to support the awareness and research for these diseases. I just cannot get enough of this company. It is such a unique and beautiful thing. And what a special gift to give that friend that was diagnosed, or to wear and show them that you support them. It just gives me chills! You will probably hear more from me about this sweet company. Please check them out!

I Happen to Like My Marriage...thankyouverymuch!

This post may put some of you to sleep. But I had to share how ludicrous I think that it is! My husband had mentioned this jerk to me the other day but I had not really gotten frustrated until I read it. Marriage is hard sometimes and it is a lot of work most of the time, but I would not trade it for the world. I cannot imagine going through life without my best friend there to support and love me. I can't imagine the thought of trying to raise children by myself...or never having any. Or the uncertainty that can come with having children with a man that you are not married to. It just scares me! I am so grateful for my husband and he is never an "unnecessary hardship." The following article was emailed to me this morning from Crosswalk, a Christian marriage newsletter that I subscribe to. I would really like to know your thoughts on it! (If you are not asleep..I promise if you stick with it you will be fired up. i hope!)

Killing Off Marriage? Dr. Ablow Reports — You Decide

Dr. Keith Ablow thinks that marriage is “a source of real suffering for the vast majority of married people.” As a matter of fact, that is only one of the accusations Ablow hurls against marriage before eventually calling for its demise. Marriage, he insists, is a dying institution — and he celebrates its death.
Few might know or care of Ablow’s thoughts on the matter but for the fact that he is a psychiatrist and a member of the “Fox News Medical A-Team.” FoxNews.com recently published his assault on marriage, and the essay is sure to gain attention.

Ablow begins by quoting actress Cameron Diaz, who recently asserted that marriage is a “dying institution.” She added this comment: “I don’t think we should live our lives in relationships based off old traditions that don’t suit our world any longer.” Well, maybe that says a lot about her own world of experience and influence, but it is a breathtakingly audacious statement. It also reflects a view held by many among the intellectual and cultural elites, among whom marriage has been seen as a retrograde institution for some time.

Keith Ablow adds his hearty approval to Cameron Diaz’s indictment of marriage, adding that he is “not certain marriage ever did suit most people who tried it.”
He elaborated:
From what I hear in my psychiatry office, and from what I hear from other psychiatrists and psychologists, and from what my friends and relatives tell me and show me through their behavior, and from the fact that most marriages end either in divorce or acrimony, marriage is (as it has been for decades now) a source of real suffering for the vast majority of married people.

The physician claimed the mantle of a healer in diagnosing the epidemic consequences of humanity’s most enduring institution: “As a healer, I can’t help looking askance at anything that depletes energy, optimism, mood and passion to the extent that marriage does. It is, without a doubt, one of the leading causes of major depression in the nation.” Note his concern for “energy, optimism, mood and passion” — as if these constitute the greatest needs or aspirations of humanity. Dr. Ablow may be a psychiatrist, but a quick look at his books indicates concerns more in line with pop psychology.

The doctor diagnoses the ills of marriage with four arguments. First, he asserts that “the involvement of the state in marriage has been a colossal mistake.” Governmental involvement “debases” marriage, which is properly a religious institution. Government involvement renders marriage “sterile, linked to legislation and weighted down with legal implications that are psychologically suffocating.”

He adds this: “Smart, aware people feel consciously or unconsciously disempowered from the moment they say, ‘I do.’” Really? Just because marriage is a legal institution? This is sheer nonsense, of course, and it is a very unintelligent argument as well. Marriage is granted legal recognition precisely because it is a public declaration with public meaning. The law, he says, should not distinguish between single and married persons (or, he offers as well, three cohabitating people), and individuals or couples could merely go to lawyers for contracts as needed.

That would lead to legal, moral, and cultural chaos. If the state were to “have no role in marriage, whatsoever,” it would simply mean that the government has decided to call marriage by some other name. Given the realities of human life, some standardized means of recognizing privileged relationships is a necessity. No civilization exists without it. This is true even in societies that separate the religious and legal definitions and authorizations of marriage. There is no major society that exists without marriage, and those rare movements in history that sought to eliminate marriage led to disaster.

Secondly, Ablow argues that marriage is dying because of the invention of oral contraceptives. Brace yourselves for this one. “Once human beings understood that they could express themselves emotionally, romantically and sexually without necessarily creating multiple families and perilously dividing their assets, the psychological pain of living without sexual passion (even by choice) was significantly intensified.” If you are looking for a prime example of the psychiatric subversion of all morality, look no further.

Keith Ablow is arguing, quite straightforwardly, that The Pill offers a chemical means of allowing adultery, and that this is liberation for humanity. Marriage, in his view, kills sexual passion. “The vast, vast majority of men and women, in fact, are no longer physically attracted to their spouses after five or ten years (that’s being kind),” he says. “If they have seen one another most of that time.”

He doesn’t stop there. Few “normal people” maintain sexual interest in a marriage, he insists. “Human beings just are not built to desire one another once we have flossed in the same room a hundred times and shared a laundry basket for thousands of days.”

Third, and most inanely, Ablow argues that marriage “inherently deprives men and women of the joy of being ‘chosen’ on a daily basis.” No kidding. He argues that the vows of marriage deprive us of the experience of being chosen by our spouse every single day. Most married people “have to wonder whether their spouses really want to stay, or simply don’t want to go through the hassle of leaving.”
This argument is not only nonsensical, but it makes us wonder if Dr. Ablow has any real understanding of human beings. Does he really believe that — even if marriage were to disappear as a legal institution — men and women would re-decide their most intimate relationships and commitments every day, free to come and go without emotional pain and complication? Seriously?

Finally, Dr. Ablow argues that marriage is being undermined by hypocrisy. In his words: “The fact that millions of Americans take vows to stay in marriages for life, then leave those marriages — once, twice, maybe three times — has so trivialized and mocked those vows that many silently chuckle to themselves while listening to them.”

Well, now he is on to something real and important. No one can seriously doubt that this kind of hypocrisy is indeed weakening marriage both as an institution and as a personal commitment. But, in a strange way, the hypocrisy accidentally affirms the importance of marriage and the marital vows. Even those who break their marital vows do so after affirming in public what marriage ought to be and was always meant to be. The answer to hypocrisy is moral correction and a return to integrity in making and keeping the sacred vows of marriage. We do not solve the hypocrisy of the liar by rejecting the very idea of truth.

Coming to the end of his argument, Dr. Ablow insists that the end of marriage is “only a matter of time now.” Marriage is passing away, and we should plan for “what might replace it.” His great goal: “We should come up with something that improves the quality of our lives and those of our children.”
We can only wonder at the audacity of a man who champions the impermanence of relationships, argues that couples cannot long remain attracted to each other, celebrates the sexual liberation from marriage made possible by The Pill, declares marriage “a source of real suffering for the vast majority of married people,” and then calls us to something better for our lives and those of our children.

The current controversies over marriage, oddly enough, affirm what Dr. Keith Ablow denies. Marriage is so essential to human happiness and to the organization of human society that it simply cannot be ignored or denied. Of course, there are those who want to deny the obvious — apparently even on the “Fox News Medical A-Team.” Keith Ablow’s assault on marriage is a sign of our times — and an embarrassment.

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I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler

Dr. Keith Ablow, “Cameron Diaz is Right — 4 Reasons Why Marriage Is a Dying Institution,” FoxNews.com, Friday, May 6, 2011.

A Sad Day...and a NEW blog that you should follow!

You guys may remember this little guy. My little buddy Joshua! Well over the course of his short little 7 month life I have grown pretty attached to the little guy. And to his sweet Momma, whom I consider to be one of my best friends.

She and I redid her master  bedroom in one Saturday. You can see the process here. This is the finished product.

Anyways, Priscilla is my co-worker, crafting partner, and a very good friend. Her husband is in Seminary and has just taken a full-time job in West Virginia as an Associate Pastor for a church there. This is great because 'Cilla gets to be a stay-at-home mommy to Joshua and to explore the fun of crafting and having a blog of her very own (I got her hooked on all of your blogs!) However, I am losing a good friend sort of. I know we will still talk and all but its not the same! No crafting parties at work or walks on breaks or quick runs to Goodwill to see what we may find. Until today I was kind of just not really thinking about it. And then today at work our boss reminded me that Friday is her last day at work. And I will be out of the office two of these days. And that made me realize that they are leaving in not much longer than a week. And that made me sad. So, Priscilla....here is a whole post just to you, love. Please blog a lot. And Blogger friends...follow this girl! She is so creative and talented and her blog will bless you! You can see her blog by

CLICKING HERE

She is new to blogging so show her lots of love! I promise she has lots of fun things to share! :)

LOVE you girl! I hope this didn't make you sad...we will have to plan visits for sure. And I want a weekly picture of Joshua! :)

Happy Momma's Day!

This post is dedicated to my wonderful Mom, who I love so much. She really has taught me so much in my life about being a woman of God, a wife and a home maker. I wish that everyone in this world were as lucky as I was with a mother. She lost hers when she was eleven years old and still managed to raise us all with an appreciation for family and a bond that means so much. I hope that some day I can be that kind of mother to Michael and I's children and that they will feel about me when they grow up the way that I feel about my own mom. Also, I would like to say that I have been extremely blessed as far as mother-in-laws go too. I have never felt any sort of dislike or angst for her, only love. Its like when I married my husband, I got a new girl friend too. I think its sad that so many women don't get along with their mother-in-law. So God, thanks for my Momma and for my Momma Debbie. I am so blessed.

ANYway! Today I would like to show you what we gave my mom for Mother's Day along with a little how-to lesson.

Here is my work station. Our picnic table on the carport...I put a piece of newsprint down to catch the potting soil from getting all over the table that we eat off of. I got those pots from WalMart....they are terra cotta but are a nice tan/brown color. I really like them and will probably be getting some for us to keep! I have a bag of potting soil that I got from Ollie's for the Herb Garden (if you have an Ollie's near you..you need to start shopping there!)

At Walmart and Lowe's and I am sure anywhere that sells plants...they have these herbs that come in a biodegradable dirt-type pot. I got Mom mint, parsley and basil.

Basically, what you do is fill the pot just over halfway full with dirt. Then I use my fist and make a large indention in the middle. After that, you tear off the bottom of the pot that the plant comes in, break it into pieces, and press the pieces into your crater.

Then you set the plant (still in the top half of its pot) into the hole and press it in firmly. I like to press the top edges of the dirt pot down a bit so that they don't show when I put the rest of the dirt in. Apparently its important to leave it on because it contains nutrients that will help the plant to thrive.

Once you have done this, gently pull your plant to the side and fill around it with more potting soil. Press the soil down firmly, but don't pack it in if that makes sense. Then you just have to thoroughly water your plant and you are good to go!

I decided to put the little plastic label picks that they came with back in because the contain important information about sunlight and watering. Had I been better prepared...I would have whipped up some cute little labeled garden picks. I figure though that she plans to use these on her back porch, so I would have had to come up with something that could withstand the elements. Alas, here are the cutie little plants!

I also had gotten her this ca-uuute little set of wooden blocks that said "FAMILY." Could I have made a set? Probably. But these were adorable, already done and a great price! They look amazing on her mantle!

For wrap, I used plan brown packaging and tied it with a purple satin bow. I love the simple look of wrapping packages like this! Maybe I will start doing that from now on. There is something so classic about it. Am I just weird?

So there you have it. My adorable gift for my wonderful mother and a little FYI session on potting plants. Its sooooo easy. All I did was follow directions. All of this planting gifts for other people makes me really want to start my own container garden! How awesome would it be to have fresh tomatoes all summer long??? One plant would more than pay for itself the way that tomatoes are priced these days! 

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day. I am off to soak in the tub. Our sermon this morning was about making choices to change if you are unhappy with your circumstances. So I made a choice to run this evening after months of...well...not. And my ankles and knees are not happy with me.  Happy Mother's Day, friends! Especially to those of you that this is a first! :)

A Whole New Cloche

Yeah I have been really really wanting a cloche since I have seen so many cute ones filled with seasonal items. I would check Goodwill relentlessly for one, to no avail. And then one day about a month or so ago, I saw one. $3. Yeah I didn't waste one second on that. It needed a touch of TLC but that was fine with me because I wanted to paint it anyway! But I brought it home and kept not buying paint for it. So a few weeks ago I just set it out and filled it with my jute wrapped eggs and moss balls. Who cares that it totally clashes with our living room? Psht not me! Stick that puppy right inside the front door!

 Last night I decided to invest in a $1 can of white spray paint and get this makeover underway. I am not big into sanding so I decided to just take my chances on this one.

 And here it is! After a couple coats of white satin spray paint!

I love it! I really honestly like the way it looks empty! But I will fill it. Just not yet. I probably will look for something a little more summer-ish to fill it with. Maybe some fake lemons or limes? That would be ca-uuuute!

PS-I am going to apologize in advance if I don't post for a few days. I have a mega research paper due by Wednesday!