Washi Tape Printable Gallery Wall

We’ve been living in the new house for just about six months now, and I have done very little ‘settling in.’ Nothing’s really decorated, and for the most part I’m pretty much okay with that. I hung posters on the wall in the kids’ room, we have kiddo drawings all over the walls in the office, and we hung curtains in the living room, but that’s really it so far.

The floor plan of the main floor has the living room, dining area and kitchen all really open as soon as you walk in the front door. There is one wall in the dining area that was just begging for some love. Since funds were limited (aren’t they always?) I wanted to get creative and come up with something simple and pretty but inexpensive. 

Enter the giant frame. I found a 30x40” frame on a Facebook exchange group for $5! I love the look of gallery walls, but picking up a bunch of frames can get pricey, so I decided it was time to jump on the washi tape bandwagon. I didn’t see any I loved at Hobby Lobby, but Walmart actually came through for me!

I hopped on my Printables board on Pinterest and selected a few of my {free} favorites. From there it was just a matter of printing them out and figuring out the best layout. Well, that and convincing Mr. Bug to hang the frame for me that night after work.  : ) He was a really great sport to do it for me on only four hours of sleep. Husband for the win‼

 

You can find all of these on my Pinterest board (and some other really cute ones) but I’ll link them all up at the end of the post, too. The whole project cost me less than $10 for the frame and the washi tape, and that’s even adding in a couple bucks for cardstock and printer ink. Not bad, huh?
Now I sit there in the morning to drink my coffee/try to get the girls to eat their breakfast and look at my lovely wall and smile. 

Find Joy in the Journey
C.S. Lewis Quote
Feathers
Love the Lord your God - from The Handmade Home
Bowls
Oh, Hello Hexagons
Pray More, Worry Less
Julia Child Quote - This one is Eden's favorite : ) She thinks it's hilarious!
Be Kind - this is our family motto. If the kids are struggling in their playtime together I just ask them what our sign says and they know just what I mean.  

*The 'Be Brave, Little One' and the Bible verse are just ones that I put together in PicMonkey. I'm putting them in the post so you can use them if you'd like. Let me know if you do! And I can't remember where I found the sideways one in the middle. Sorry!*

   

Quick Craft: Gold Herringbone Mirror

I’ve mentioned it before, but Young House Love is one of my favorite blogs out there. I’ve been quite inspired by a lot of their projects, and today’s post is no exception.

A few weeks ago, they posted about hanging a little mirror low on the wall so that their daughter could see herself in it. I thought my girls would enjoy that so much, but since we have little kiddos at our house just about every week I knew any mirror we hung needed to be super light. 

On a miracle solo trip to Target last weekend, I found just what I was looking for. I picked up a little plastic white mirror for about $5 measuring just under 16” across. The plain white plastic frame wasn’t doing it for me, but that’s where YHL came in again.

Taking a cue from their herringbone doll cradle, I bought a set of gold Sharpies (on clearance at Target for only $.88!) and dove right in. All it took was my mirror, my gold Sharpie, and a straight edge—in my case, I used the side of the box of our Mousetrap game. Mr. Bug hung with me and I knocked it out while we watched the newest Mindy Project episode. 

It’s not perfect but I was happy with the results and the girls were really excited. Not sure if I'm going to add any paint colors to any of the sections the way they did or just leave it as is. I'm also pretty stoked that I got this whole project done for around $6!

It’s not hung in their room yet, but I’m shooting for getting it up there in the next few days. I’ve had some sort of weird cold/fever/nausea thing the past couple of days so I’ve taken a break from all things housework-y. I haven’t even put away all of the groceries I got at the store yesterday. No judging, please : )

Moving Right Along: A Little Moving Humor

Happy Sunday evening to you! Since moving is so stressful fun and we love whining to each other sharing, I thought a few funny moving pictures were in order. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving Right Along: 31 Days of Blogging Challenge

Welcome! This is my newly created home page of sorts for the 31 Days of Blogging Challenge. This will be home base for all of the new posts in the 'Moving Right Along: 31 Days of Moving Through Life' series. I'll link to the new posts as soon as they're up! I hope you enjoy : )

 

Day One: Where The Heck Do I Start?

Day Two: My Moving History

Day Three: Loading Up the U-Haul and Other Things That Move Me

Day Four: Basic Moving Tips

Day Five: Moving Away From 'No'

Day Six: A Little At A Time

Day Seven: Quotes That Move Me

Day Eight: Getting Ready to Move

Day Nine: New Memories in a New Home
Day Ten: Packing up Toys & Preserving My Kids' Brains
Day Eleven: Moving Away from Pride {Second-Hand Duds}
Day Twelve: Moving With Kids

Day Thirteen: A Little Moving Humor 
 

I am so excited to be a part of this challenge, organized by the lovely Nester over at her blog Nesting Place. There are tons of bloggers participating! Go check it out!

Moving Right Along: New Memories in a New Home

We've only lived in the new house for a month and already we've made so many memories here. That's one thing that I actually really enjoy about living in different places like I mentioned here. You get to have so many memories in so many places! Today I'm just sharing a few of my favorite Instagram photos that are now memories in our new place

New bunk beds for the girls meant a great big box to play with, so the munsters colored and decorated it before using it as a boat for their toys.

This was about two weeks in to our time here. He had finally figured out where to go in the middle of the night to find me :)

This was our first morning here (and such poor quality!). Judah looked and looked for a seat on which he could sit and eat his cereal bar before giving up and just sitting on a box.

 The Boy was nice enough to help Daddy put together the aforementioned bunk beds. Note the concentration and raw power.

Here's Judah Bear all set to go have lunch at school with big sister!

We finally live in a house that's not on a busy street! So Sissy is out there riding her bike every chance she gets : )

Our first new house 'injury.' Just a smooshed finger, but I took those closet doors down so fast they didn't know what hit 'em. Punk doors hurting my baby.

The Boy insisted on sleeping with his Superman beanie a couple of nights...not sure if this is cute or weird???

First casualty of the new house. Judah squished a roly poly and Eden was devastated. So she buried him and asked me to take a picture of his grave. Judah continued playing in the dirt.

First badge from Awana Sparks! We've never done Awana until this year, so it's been fun to have something brand new in this house.

All of our old toilet brushes got pitched, and Sissy was super excited to be the first one to use the new brush I got. I graciously allowed her to break it in.

Mr. Bug spent a couple of hours one of his days at home to get my curtains hung for me. It was nice not to have the feeling the neighbors were judging me for watching The Good Wife. What? It's an addicting show!

 

Moving Right Along: A Little at a Time

Sometimes feeling at home in a new place is doing something really small. I shared these lamps just over two years ago after I added the little felt flowers to the shades. They've stayed that way since, one on Mr. Bug's bedside table and one on mine.

 

 

In the new place, we only have room in the bedroom for one bedside table (hello, awkward layout in the bedroom) so we no longer needed this matching set of lamps to be quite so...matchy. I picked up some little felt gift bag decorations at Target for about $1, added some grosgrain ribbon and voila! A fun new lampshade to brighten up my little desk. : )

Sorry for the bad photo here :) I took it last night with my iPhone

Up until now, the office has just been a dumping ground for boxes and piles of stuff we haven't known what to do with. But after spending a good chunk of the day yesterday working on getting it cleaned up, I rewarded myself with something less practical and more fun. Because it's the little shots of personality throughout our home that make it really feel like we live here.

 

I got my little Audrey Hepburn illustration about four years ago from the Jolly Edition shop on Etsy. (I don't think she carries it anymore, but she's got some really beautiful illustrations!) I have kept this card tucked away those years since I got it, just waiting for the perfect place to put it. Well, the other day I decided to stop waiting for perfect and I'm so happy I did. Thanks to The Nester's mantra of 'it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful' I am learning to let go of the idea of perfect. But it really doesn't get much more perfect than Audrey, am I right? : )

Moving Right Along: Basic Moving Tips

As I believe I have established, I have a little experience with moving. It’s funny though, how every move is different and I learn something new every time. Some of the things I learn are totally common sense that I feel like I should have been born knowing, but some of them are really just good ideas! Here are a few of my basic moving tips.

~    Before you pack up anything, do a quick sweep to toss stuff you know you don’t need. This is not the in-depth purge you do while packing, but you’ll feel better if you can get some ‘stuff’ out of the way.

~    Label two sides of every box—not just the top! You can’t see the top label if boxes are stacked.

~    Speaking of labeling, if you feel so inclined, using a color coded system for labels works like a charm. I started out doing this on our last move and gave up halfway because I couldn’t remember which color went with which room. (So ashamed to admit that!) : ) {This site has a great free template that you can print out on shipping labels.} I know that 'dining' is misspelled on these labels, but you can use them as a starting point for your own labels, if you feel inspired

~    If you are a shopping bag saver like some weird people *cough*ME*cough* those things are awesome for wrapping up your glasses and stemware. Use them to wrap individual glasses and then lay down another level for the next layer. Side note: I feel super fancy saying ‘stemware.’

~    If you’re looking for good packing boxes, check out grocery stores (HyVee, Kroger, etc.) and liquor stores. These are very sturdy boxes and they aren’t too big, lowering the risk of overloading and ending up with a box that only Tom Hardy could carry.

~    Don’t load a big box full of books. Unless you really are friends with Tom Hardy and even then…maybe check with him first.

~    This one I’m sure you know but I’m going to say it anyway just in case a male stumbles on to this blog post: label ALL your boxes. You will not remember which one had your underwear, you will not ‘keep an eye on it,’ and your wife/mom/girlfriend might smother you with a pillow if you don’t. Just do it.

~    Pack up the freaking toys first! If you have kids, you have toys. If you have toys, you have too many toys. And if you have too many toys, your kids will be happy and refreshed to just play with boxes for a couple of weeks anyway. Trust me on this one. Leave out a few books and something they can use to hit each other with and they’re set. And you’ve already got the boxes, ‘cause you went to HyVee and got them, right?

~    Leave hanging clothes on hangers and use a plastic garbage bag to wrap them up. This works best if the garbage bag is unused, but it really depends on how smelly your trash is. That’s your call.

~    Pack one area at a time. You can use three different boxes to separate items from your closet, but stick to just your closet. Don’t pack the way my sister does. (Closet to bathroom to kids’ room to dresser to linen closet to—what was I doing? Oh! My closet!) : )

There are more ideas I want to share, so once we get to a couple of room-specific posts we’ll get into the nitty gritty details. Happy packing!

Moving Right Along: Where the Heck Do I Start?

When we made the final decision in July to move to a new place that September, my initial feeling was excitement. A new place! New neighborhood! New decorating opportunities! This feeling lasted about 4.3 seconds until I realized something very important. I was going to have to pack up our whole house. Again.

I freaking hate packing. And that passion is not limited to packing an entire family of five to move to a new place. I hate even packing to go somewhere for the weekend. How many outfits do I need? Do I have enough Q-Tips to last the whole trip? How many pairs of undies? (Over-sharing alert: I always pack way too many underwear. But who wants to have that be the thing you run out of??)

But sorting, organizing and packing up a whole house is seventh circle of hell stuff. And if you read this post, you know that I just finished this whole process a year ago. And the year before that. And the month before that. Seriously, guys it’s ridiculous.

So instead of jumping in and doing a little at a time and being proactive, I went with the old Brittany standby and tried to plan out the perfect way to move. The only problem? I couldn’t find anyone who could tell me exactly the best way to go about getting started.  There were a few lists and suggestions, but I needed someone to really spell it out for me. Or just come and do it.

Here are a few sites/lists/whatevers that I found. They might be helpful to you, so go check them out!

 

 

Since neither one of those things happened, I ended up putting off the packing until the last possible second. Literally. I was that annoying person who was still packing on the day of the move. I just had random stuff sitting around and my wonderful friends were nice enough to talk me down off the ledge, pack up all of my crap and move it to a new place. You can’t buy friends like that.

All this to say, I needed a step-by-step list of the best way to pack up your house to move. I couldn’t find one, so I’m going to give it a whirl for anyone else out there that is dragging their feet and anxious about where to start. It may not work for you, but hey…I’ll give it a shot! Come back!

 

The Mouse House

You know how when you’re a kid and you think of a mouse, you automatically picture these cute little guys?

Or maybe even as an adult, when someone talks about a mouse this image pops into your head.

Kind of cute still, right? I mean they’re little and fuzzy and don’t look like they could hurt a fly.

You want to know what mice look like to me? What I see when one of those little creatures shows up?

BAM! “Hey, human. ‘Sup. I know you don’t really like having me around…but guess what? I don’t care one little bit. I’m going to go ahead and go poop on your kitchen towels now. Oh you don’t like that? How ‘bout your kitchen counter? Still no? Sweet. I’m gonna go crap in your sofa. Check ya later.”

At least that’s what our mice said. They may as well have left little notes that said, “Screw you” all over our house. Seriously. All over our house. Poop in every. single. room.

So long story short, we’re moving again. After our landlords dumped some money into the house to take care of our rodent problem, they decided to put the house on the market. We are pretty bummed out because we had hoped to live here for at least another year while we pay off debt and save up for a down payment for a house of our own. But, alas it is not to be.

The good news is that the house we’re moving to (another rental) will be pretty great for us I think. It’s five minutes from school as opposed to 20, it’s four bedrooms rather than three, and it’s back off the beaten path so no more busy street for us!

I’m excited and bummed all at the same time. We’ve put a lot of love into this house to make it home for a few years and we’ve loved living here—except for the mice. : ) But I know that we can make anywhere ‘home’ and that so much of it depends on my attitude, so I’m going to spend the next three weeks getting the munsters excited for the new place. They’re pretty good at rolling with the punches. Heck, since this will be the fourth time we’ve moved in two-and-a-half years, they’d better be!

I hope to get some good pictures of The Mouse House before we move; it’s really come a long way in the last year!

Just to restore your faith in Jaq and Gus. I’m sure they would never have behaved in this manner. After all, they wore pants.

My Entry Wall: It Makes Me Happy : )

You may have noticed I’ve had a little bit of the craft/décor bug lately. I made some Christmas gifts, repurposed Judah’s old crib spring into a memo board inspired by The Handmade Home, shared my Toy Story Halloween costume attempt, and then last week I linked up to Young House Love and Bower Power’s Pinterest challenge with my spring wreath. What can I say? It goes in spurts. : )

I want to share another one with you today (if you don’t mind) that I’m so excited about. As in, ‘I go and look at that wall just to see how good it looks several times a day’ excited. Yes, I am a nerd. No, I do not plan to change.

In our house, there’s a big blank wall right when you walk in the front door. We really enjoy having people over and I wanted that wall to make a statement. Here is what it looked like before with a bunch of small pictures and a book page mirror I made from my sister’s discarded Confessions of a Shopaholic book. : ) Use whatcha got, right??

 

Also, I didn’t tidy up that area before taking the picture so you can see my coffee mug, and Mr. Bug’s watch on the buffet, the bag still wrapped around the newly-purchased lamp, and some kind of train toy on the floor. And this was a good day. Housekeeping is not my strong suit!

Here’s a better picture of the lamps I bought to use here. (Thank you, tax return!!) I really like the bases and the fact that they’re simple and clean but still have some shine to them. They’ll also be really versatile so that I can move them around to other rooms if I want to in the future. I did not, however, love the pattern on the shades. I am not on the ‘animal print’ train even a little bit. It’s just not me. But since they were a perfect drum shade (not tapered toward the top), I knew I could recover them and just picked up some fabric at the same time I bought the lamps. Hobby Lobby truly is your one-stop shopping center!

I tackled the lampshades before really doing anything to the décor on the buffet. I initially thought I would need to use a spray adhesive to apply the fabric to the shades, but in the end I went with what I know best and busted out the glue gun. I was the tiniest bit worried about being able to see beads of hot glue kind of poking up here and there under the fabric, but if you make sure to press the fabric on right away and flatten out the glue, there shouldn’t be any problem. I used my pinking shears to trim the fabric along the edges before gluing it on the top and bottom to make sure it didn’t fray. Here they are all finished and pretty.

 

 

Then I tackled the wall. Not literally, although by this time I had had two cups of coffee which is waaay too much for this mama. I brought in a couple of frames that I had sitting around and switched the paper mirror…thing for an ‘S’ monogram I made a few years ago for our house in Kearney. I was glad to finally find a place for the name plaque my sister got us for our anniversary last June and I loved being able to add our wedding picture into the mix.

 

It took a while (and a few picture texts to my sister for input) but I finally got an arrangement I liked. Then my wonderful husband helped me get it all up just the way I wanted. ‘Cause he’s the shiz. : )

Thar she blows! Doesn’t it look pretty? I’m so happy with it and I really dig the way the pop of color on the lamps brightens it all up. (My apologies for saying ‘dig.’ It won’t happen again.) The items on the buffet itself were mostly things I had. The glass apothecary jar was a TJ Maxx find for $4.50! Since taking these pictures I have filled it up with sparkly Easter eggs and my girls thinks it’s pretty great. Hmm. Now that I'm looking at this picture, someone should do something about those cords hanging down... Ah, well.

One thing I am trying to remember and that I actually said to my husband as we were trying to find an arrangement we liked was this idea from The Nester: it doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful. I need to refinish the buffet and I now know I need to do something about those cords. : ) I know my little entryway isn’t perfect and that I’m not winning any design awards, but it’s my favorite spot in the home right now. It feels very ‘me,’ and that’s so nice to look up and see at the end of the day.