Make Stuff - a women's craft night at our church

For three years or so, I've had a dream to have a place for women to come together at our church and find some solace in other crafty ladies. In past experiences for myself, going to scrapbooking crops and retreat weekends, there have been deep relationships formed over the bits of paper and sticky glue. There is something to be found when women come together to create something with their hands, and find that their hearts bind together.

For three years, the timing has not been right for me for various reasons, and then all of a sudden, God opened the door and things aligned and instead of me pushing for something I wanted, I got swept into what I believe is a small part of God's plan for the hunger of the women in our church and community for deeper relationships. (Yes. That's a super long run on sentence. Sorry about that!)

For now, it is just once a month. I already saw small glimpses of how God can help us to walk alongside each other with the raw bits and pieces of artwork, mending, paint splatters, twines of yarn, hopes, and stories forming in our hands and hearts. 

It is so lovely and refreshing to share this time with likeminded women. I can't wait until next month! We do have plans for some of the evenings to be more structured (we have some projects in mind to work on together as a large group), but we will have them mixed in sporadically with the more open ended nights too. It was good for my heart, not because I was crafting and not because I was with other women, but because in that simple setting, the Gospel was whispered to me. 

Beginning again.

It's been nearly a whole year since I wrote in my blog, and I'd nearly given it up for a goner. Instagram and facebook has taken it's place, and since I mostly use this place to share my creative endeavors, I have resorted to using those more photo oriented sharing places.

However, as time has gone on, I realized there were things about this little space I'd carved out that I missed: a place where I could write about being a mother, share ideas on ways we'd found worked in our marriage, tell everyone about an awesome new book or recipe I'd discovered, and record truths I wanted to be able to go back and remind myself of.

So... I'm back. I'm not sure how frequently I will post, but I will. It's time. And I'm ready.


XOXO,
V

Thoughts on Room Sharing with Three Sisters

I've mentioned our home here a time or two ;) - we live in an old Southern house, built in 1924. I love its screened in front porch, the tongue-in-groove walls, the big old wooden doors. It's got an interesting layout... but what I don't particular love is the way the rooms are portioned off. I am grateful for our home. And I believe that small homes create close families. 

Right?

Sometimes teaching that philosophy doesn't go over so well with  my kiddos. Especially my three girlies who share a room. As we discover in the world pretty quickly, not everyone is like us! My three girls are no exception. I have a super tidy, neat, minimalist daughter, who likes a place for everything and everything in its place. I have a magpie daughter, who gathers up tiny bits of paper and everything is sentimental to her. And I have a silly three year old, whose personality lends itself to chattering into the night and snuggling up close to whoever is her favorite at the moment. 

Providing space for all of them to flourish and for them to learn to get along and respect each other is challenging, to say the least. I'm a "researcher" by nature (I get it from my sweet Grams)- I like to look up how other people have done things, read about different strategies, and learn from others' trials and errors. I have discovered that in looking up info on the WWW about siblings sharing rooms, most of what I can find is either super functional or super extravagant. There's not much middle man out there.

So this post is for you, whoever you might be, looking for cute but affordable rooms for little girls that are sharing the space. :) You're not alone! 

This is the girls' closet. It's the one room in the house with a big closet. The right side of it has a closet bar hanging from the other bar, so we have two rows of clothes: one for my big girl and one for the two little girls. We also have hanging shoe storage on that side. The left side has a three drawer plastic cart with pjs in it, and a basket of socks on the top. Storage for sleeping bags, swim stuff, and other odds and ends is on the left. On the top shelf, I have a rubbermaid bin for each girl with clothes for the next season in it. 

The shelves are backed with wrapping paper. Each girl has her own shelf, and the two big girls also have a bin on the very bottom. Ariana (the littlest) doesn't really care so much about that yet, so all of her stuff is consolidated to one shelf. 

This is our real life, not magazine-worthy sleep situation at the moment. I can't tell you how many times the girls have traded spots, so who knows how long this current arrangement will last! The top bunk is Emerson's (my oldest). She gets really frustrated when her bed gets messy, so I suggested she move up top so no one would mess with her bed. It's working for now! The butterflies were cut with my Silhouette machine. 

The bottom bunk is currently being shared (SHARED!!) by the two little girls. If you'll notice, there's actually a trundle bed below, which is technically Ariana's bed. But at the moment, they wanted to share a bunk and since they are so little, it's fine by me. Sabby is my "magpie" and likes to collect things, so her bed is always full of stuffed animals and notebooks and hidden snacks (that I have to confiscate). We have white twinkle lights woven through the slats above the bed and it makes story time at night quite dreamy. We added some glow in the dark stars this weekend as well which the girlies love when the lights go out. 

The girls share this dresser (that is in desperate need for paint and a knob upgrade... when I have some "spare" time- haha!). The bottom drawer is Sabby's, the middle is Ariana's, and Emerson opted for the baskets and mini suitcase for hers. 

It works for us right now. We keep toys in the playroom and the girls feel a sense of ownership of their room without being overwhelmed. 

And I hope that it will help draw them closer. My prayer is that my girls love each other for their differences, and that I can help their bonds grow strong. 

I'm a Guest Detective!

If you know me at all, you will know that I was obsessed with being a detective as a little girl. OBSESSED. Like, carried around a notebook, learned to read backword, had my own secret codes, had a Secret Agent name, etc. The full deal.

So it's a little bit fun to me to get to say that I'm a guest detective this month at ColorStoriesInspiration! They are hosting the team from NoelMignon and we are having fun "solving" the cases.

The bonus, is, you can come over and play and win a free NoelMignon kit! How fun is that! So skedaddle on over... or maybe sneak on over. ;) 

Gratitude Box

Earlier this summer, when NoelMignon had Shelley Haganman guest design for us, I fell in love with this project she created in a berry box. I immediately went to etsy, bought some (I got mine here... but be forewarned. Lots of other cute stuff to see there!), and have hoarded them ever since. 

Now it's November, and I'm finally using one for our Gratitude Box for the month. I was inspired by one of my favorite bloggers, Under the Sycamore, and her perpetual calendar. My box is just for the month of November, but I thought it would be a great idea to cultivate gratefulness (especially before all the "gimmes" that December can sometimes bring!). 

Everything (except for the box itself) comes from the Willow Creek kit- which I still have PLENTY of to make layouts and other projects with. I love that I can do a big project like this with one of Noel's kits and still have more to work with. 

My plan is to have everyone fill out a card... sometimes we'll do more than one person per card each day, sometimes we'll all talk about something we're thankful for as a family. The great thing about this is if I want to, we can add to it again next year with more cards. 

I kept my card design fairly simple, but still  had to embellish just a bit! And I love that Tim Holtz distress stain in the kit- it gives an awesome patina to my journaling cards!!! 

A frame re-do

My friend Kari Ann is getting married next month. We are so excited for her and are much involved in this big celebration (um, I'm doing her wedding photography- EEEK- and the kids are all in the wedding. It will be an interesting day to say the least! Hee!) 

Last week, I made her and her fella a little gift for their home. 

I found this frame at a yard sale... it had this "beautiful" picture in it:

I took it out and was left with this gold frame. 

A little spray paint, some chicken wire, and some ribbon, and I turned it into this: 

The kids added their own banner to it too: 

They had some more frames like this at the yard sale, and I so wish I'd bought them all! 

Cassandra Cyr, you've been lifted!

This week, we've all been lifting some of our fabulous NoelMignon community members- they are so inspiring! 

I fell in love with Cassie's gorgeous fall layout using Crate Paper. All the layers and the rich colors are just incredible. Cassie's projects always have lots of details and a great design- and this one was no exception. It was really fun to lift and to be inspired by her style! 

I wanted my layout to feel softer and more delicate to fit my photo, so I used the great West Coast kit - the colors and lovely feminine details in it fit the feel of this layout perfectly. 

I loved Cassie's big fabric flowers, so I mimicked it on a slightly smaller scale with the fabrips in the kit. I popped a doily behind it to still give the same feel of a large circular element on that side of the page, but it works better with the size and orientation of my photo than a large flower. 

I think my favorite thing on Cassie's page was the strip with circular elements- what a fun addition! I will definitely be using that idea again! :) Thanks, Cassie, for your inspiration! 

Lisa Day's Sketches Round 2 Class @ BPC... plus a giveaway!

I love how scrapbooking brings together people that would have probably not met otherwise. :) 

I got to "meet" my friend Lisa Day when we were on the design team together at Lily Bee Designs, and then we were on the NoelMignon team together earlier this year. When she asked if I would participate in her Big Picture Class, Sketches Round 2, I jumped at the chance. 

Lisa's sketches are so inspiring to me. Probably the most difficult part of scrapbooking for me (besides coming up with non-cheesy titles!) is the actual page design. I tend to get in a rut and put the same things here and there. I love using Lisa's sketches because it breaks me out of my routine and frees me up to do the parts of scrapbooking I like the most- choosing the products to play with, embellishing, and journaling! 

Here's a couple of sneaks of my layouts... using NoelMignon kits, of course! 

They were SO fun to scrap! 

Here's the extra cool thing... the nice folks at BPC and Lisa have offered class spots to blog commenters. Leave me a comment on this post and I'll draw one random winner on July 16th!

28 Days of Sketches: Round 2 workshop taught by Lisa Day

4-week workshop for $28

http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/28sketchesround2.php

Class starts 7/19/2012

Class Description

Lisa Day is back with another round of 28 sketches! This time, in addition to receiving 28 daily sketches accompanied by layouts from Lisa, you will also receive exclusive layouts and cards from seven fabulous guest stars! This means that you will receive 28 brand new sketches and 56 exclusive projects to inspire you to create beautiful layouts and cards quickly.

Another exciting new addition is that in addition to the 12" x 12" daily sketch, you will see the sketch adapted to a double page layout and an 8 1/2" x 11" sketch. All this means MORE inspiration and MORE ideas of how to make a sketch work for you!

register and read rest of description here

New to Big Picture Classes? Learn more here

http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/howitworks.php

Want more chances to win a spot? Go check out the other fabulous contributor's blogs! 

Jaime Warren

Lynn Ghahary

Kimberly Neddo

Sasha Farina

Jenni Hufford

Michelle Wooderson

Lisa Day

My new scrap area

So, I told you guys yesterday about our "fluffing the nest" project. Another aspect of it is that for quite some time now, I've not had a dedicated crafting area. I've had storage for all my supplies, but I long ago gave up my desk and had just kind of been scrapping where ever most evenings happened to find me (a lot of times in front of the computer).

In an effort to going back to being true to who I am, who I have been created to be, I knew I needed to carve out a place for myself again.

So here's my little area, tonight, after I got to the art of being messy with paints and such.

 The current craft table in the playroom mostly served these days as a "pile stuff on it" table and less of a craft table. The kids use the dining room table for projects, so it just made sense to move their art supplies to a shelf in there, and take over that part of the playroom for myself.

Muwahhaha.

Ahem.

Anyways, it (so far) serves this purpose very, very well. And now the kids play along side me and I can work or just hang out with them.

I quite love it.

Tonight, it was so easy to settle down and get to work on a little project I made as a birthday gift. 

Ain't she cute? ;) (She's a Silhouette mermaid, by the way. I just snipped off the birthday hat that normally comes on her.) 

So all this rambling to say... if you can carve out a small space if your home that helps you to be able to pursue the gifts God has given you to enjoy, do it. It's good for the soul.

Fluffing the Nest

So, if you are friends with me on facebook, you may have seen my rant a few days ago about living in a small house. The whole "small houses create close families" is something I believe in with all my heart, but as I said on that particular post, it was starting to feel more like small houses create insane asylums. 

For the most part, I adore my house. It's old, it has character, it has a screened in front porch, but as with all things of this world, I get to a place of discontent. I start to yearn for something else that I think will "make me happy." And truth be told, that is not going to be found in stuff or houses with lots of awesome storage space or whatnot. We all know that. Contentment is an issue that I find that I come back to time and time again in my life, and have to go back to my Creator to find true satisfaction with it. 

Practically speaking, we needed a clean out. So on the heels of stomach bugs and being stuck at home for far too long, we (and by we, I do mean we... the kids always have to help on these sorts of tasks!) went through the playroom and bedrooms and piled up stuff that we are going to sell in a yard sale and/or give away. So many things that we had just kind of collected along the way but were serving no real purpose in our lives or home. 

I mean, when your oldest, a bit OCD with organizing daughter starts to cry one day because "we have too many toys!" that should sort of be a wake up call, right? 

(Yes. She really did say that.) 

One of the places that we have had the most decorating/design/organizing challenges has been the girls' room. They all three share a room, and with the span being an almost 3 year old to a 7 year old, it creates some issues. 

Emerson has LOVED this picture we found on pinterest, so we went about making the bunks some curtains using flat sheets, curtain clip rings, and tension rods. 

She. loves. it. 

Twinkle lights make everything better, right? I want to add some curtains and or bunting on that window too. The last ones were pulled down by a certain toddler and I just haven't replaced them. 

The girls dressing corner.

Emerson, basking in her room. We want to add some little storage pieces on the walls next to their beds (probably something like this). 

I love seeing this smile. And the amount of stuff cleaned out of her closet already seems to be contributing to her sense of restfulness. 

Meanwhile, on the bottom bunk....

Yeah. They are quite the pair. Usually, Ariana sleeps on the trundle, but for the time being, she's sleeping with Sabriel so they can share her curtain (aka cool bed tent).