Goodbye Flatscreen!

Josh sticks Lady in the Tramp in the DVD player.

DVD player sucks it in.

TV shuts off.

& doesn't come back on.

We disect the TV to get Lady and the Tramp out.

Goodbye Flatscreen!

Hello Lady and the Tramp on the big box TV!

:)

oops...

Just found this picture and thought it was funny.

This is not the only catastrophe that I've had in our kitchen... I've also spilled Cheerios & protein powder all over the floor. 

Just a good reason to give the floor some extra love and scrubbin'! :)

Names of God

This is the big project that I mentioned here. I started it in November, but just pulled it back out last week to actually finish it.  It required a lot of work!  I have to tell you first, that this was not my idea. My inspiration came from here.  I found the picture on pinterest, and then discovered her blog.  She has some great ideas, and I particularly loved this project.  So, I took her idea and made it my own.  These pictures just don't do it justice, but with my camera this is as good as it gets.

 So I bought a cheap piece of plywood from Lowe's and got Mr. Chris to take some of the length off, to get it to the size I needed. (I have some ideas for that extra piece, too! :))  I painted the plywood white, and sanded it some to make it look distressed.  Looking back, I wish I would have chose an off white color. 

Then, Josh and I picked the names of God that we wanted to have plastered on this thing.  The ones that we love the most.  I printed them in different sizes and fonts, and then the WORK began.  I placed them on the board where I wanted them, and traced each letter to leave an indention in the wood.  This was time consuming and tedious!  I had to stop many times because of cramps. haha. You have to push into the wood really hard to leave an indention.

This is when I took the really long break from this project.  I finished the tracing in November, and then stuck it in my room and didn't pull it out again until February!  The painting begins!  I chose black and this mustard color because those are the colors that we have in our kitchen. Painting the letters was the best part.  It was so much fun to see it come to life.  Once everything was painted, I covered the whole thing with a crackle glaze.  Once it dried, I didn't like the shininess that it had, so I sanded over it.  It left the crackle, and made it look a little rougher.  I sealed it - then hung it above the table!

You really can't see the detail in these pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it or come by and look for yourself! :)  There are definitely things that I would do differently if I did this over, but all in all I'm happy with it.  We love for this to be the focus when you walk into our apartment.  It is very imperfect, but a sweet reminder of our God and King!

March Mission

It's about to get crazy...

We have a tiny kitchen... and if you've been to our apartment, you know that what I'm saying is true.  It's crowded and jammed packed with stuff, and I don't have very much counter space.  In the pantry everything is just stacked on top of other things, and it's hard to just reach in there and grab what I need.  Now, enough compalining...here's the thing:  This is the kitchen that God provided for us!  I don't want to just "deal" with what I have, and dream of a bigger kitchen... NO WAY!  I want to make the most it!  Oh, and I love organization, so I'm pretty excited about this mission.  There's no better time than... MARCH... to get in that kitchen/pantry and go into mad organization mode!  The key is to keep it in budget.

I want your advice!  If you have any ideas or favorite products, or anything that may help - I need to hear it! :)  I'll post before and after pictures and share all of the secrets with you!  My goal is to be finished by the end of March.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Happy Birthday Josh!

Josh is 24 today!

Happy Birthday!

This is also a little glimpse into our tiny apartment, or as my mom calls it - "The Love Nest".  I'm standing with my back against the front door and you can see to the very back of the apartment. 387 square feet.  We prayed that God would provide exactly what we needed - no more, no less. He did! :)

Sadly, it's Wednesday.. which is his busiest day. So, we started celebrating Tuesday night. I made him blueberry muffins for breakfast and lasagne for dinner. That was literally the only time that we had together all day! 20 minutes for breakfast and about 2 hours for dinner (from the time he got home from work until we went to sleep)! Crazy! He said that this really felt like a "grown up" birthday :( so sad.