Rose infinti T-shirt Scarf

I love traditions especially Christmas ones! Growing up we had a few traditions I know I will carry on  when Lance and I have kids. One tradition we had is every year we drew names and bought that person an ornament in my family, all the way up until us kids got married, when I got married my dad boxed up my ornaments and gave them to me to put on my tree!

 Which brings me to this post about my scarf! On my husband's side of the family they have a tradition with the whole family (cousins, aunts, grandparents, and whoever else comes!) it's a sort of gift exchange, except these are the terms: the gift has to be home made or an act of service.

For example one year someone's act of service was to put Christmas lights up the following year, another persons gift was to offer manual labor on any household project. Some home made gifts were chocolate cake balls, someone wrote a book, and someone made an audio cd of a book.

Well since Lance and I don't live close to the family it's hard for us to do an act of service as our gift so we usually make something. I saw this idea from one of the girls in our church with this t-shirt scarf, and took it and made my own version of it. It was so easy!

I took one of Lance's t-shirts(he has so many he never wears!) Cut it across the width over the stomach, you can do it however thick you want it so it's best to use a plain t-shirt so no designs are on it. Then I cut the trim of the sleeves and started twisting it and as I shaped it into a rose, petal by petal I would hand sow it. Then just sow the rose wherever you want it!

You can probably do any flower or design  even buttons, and since these are in right now it's perfect, you don't even have to go to a store just look in your closet (or your husbands)

Since I'm on a 2 week break I love trying new projects out especially ones that don't require me to go to the store!

D. I. O. (Did it Ourselves)

The past few months I have been in the search for a dining room table. It's been a want of mine for quite some time because when Lance and I got married we did what we could with what we were given to furnish our home and don't get me wrong we were so blessed.
Our previous table was a little bistro set we got at Bed Bath and Beyond with some gift cards from our wedding, I really do like that table it's just a little small. Now 2 years later we are ready for a bigger table, one we can actually have people over for dinner and we don't have to sit on the floor by our coffee table to eat lol (Oh good times) The tables I have been looking at cost around $400-$1900 (Ikea, Crate & Barrel, and Pottery Barn) I would love to buy those if I had the money but I'm not one to spend money on something I know I can score a better deal so.....

I'm really excited to share about this table because for one it only cost me $40 and second me and Lance got to refinish it ourselves! Now looking at this table it had a lot of scratches but she was calling out to me to be rescued! We found it on Craigs List and the guy was moving I probably could have got it a lil cheaper but I loved it so much I was ready to pay the full asking price. So here she is before

Isn't she a beauty! The lighting isn't good but its an old ugly maple color

We sanded it down (well Lance did lol) took off that old scratchy maple color. (I give all the hard elbow work credit to my amazing hot looking husband)

His arms were made for this job! I only lasted a lil bit lol

The outcome of this table was exactly what I was trying to picture in my head which those rarely turn out for me so I was ecstatic to see how awesome this turned out, I love it! We got these chairs from Ikea and stained them to match the table, theres a bench Im getting that we will stain as well, and then just 2 more accent chairs and my dining table will be complete!

 

Addy loves this table already! I don't blame her, we had our first meal on it the other night and played cards!

She looks like she owns it (she probably will)

Total cost of this Pottery Barn Project:

Table- $40

2 Ikea Chairs- $20 each total of $40

Wood Stain- $8

Sander-$20

The bench I'm getting- $70

2 accent chairs- not sure yet haven't found them
2 new handles for the drawers- still looking for those

TOTAL- $178

O' Christmas Tree

These last 2 weeks I have been getting ready for Christmas, got most of all my shopping done, got the tree decorated, and even made a couple of my own decorations! I'm one of those people that like to enjoy the holidays and my vacations and so I usually try to get things done early so I can relax and not stress. Of course I'm not perfect and so the stress part usually falls upon me once or twice especially when it comes to buying presents but it only lasts a short minute and then I have to remember the real reason of Christmas and not get carried away. I think it happens to a lot of us I'm not trying to codemn anyone (mostly speaking to myself (: JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON sometimes that sounds cheesy but its true! Well just wanted to share some pics of what I have been up to

These centerpieces were so easy and cheap:

Floating Candles: I had leftover from our wedding

Vases: $1.00 from Dollar Tree & thrift

Cranberries: $2.28 from Walmart

Pine Branches: Free if you have a tree (: 

or go to the lot or u can buy them in a bundle at grocery stores

Well we decided to go with red & gold for our tree and we couldn't find

our star so we used these branches, I still don't know where our star is!

My tree pic came out blurry :(

I bought this wreath a month or 2 ago for $2 and got these ornaments

and the dollar store: Total cost of wreath $6