This is a project I have been working on.  I decided to make this small wall, which was wasted space in my family room, into my makeshift mudroom. The entrance from the garage is just to the right but it opens directly into the room.  It is a weird room.  Lots of angles, long and narrow and despite the pictures above dimly lit.  I will save all the gory details and provide more pictures when I am done with the other side of the room.  Anyway, I bought the hooks and letters at Hobby Lobby in the unfinished wood craft section of the store.  I painted the hooks with some leftover black paint.  I decoupaged the letters with scrapbook paper, also from Hobby Lobby.  The hooks were $4.00 each.  The letters were about $1.50 each.  The scrapbook paper was $.60 per sheet.  I painted the wall behind the hooks green before I installed my hooks (okay, my husband installed them for me).  The paint is Lemon Verbena by Sherwin Williams SW 7726.  I have a hard time picking out good shades of green.  They either have too much of a yellow undertone or too much blue for my taste.  I think this green is perfect.  It is both earthy and sophisticated.  It also looks good in different lighting.  My favorite is direct sun (from a west facing window) but it also looks good in the  incandescent and fluorescent lights I have in my family room. The paint was $18.00, so all in all, I spent just under $40.00 for this project.   I really am loving the black and white with the green.  Best of all, we all have a place for everything and everything is in it’s place (for the moment anyway).

 I hope you are surrounded by loved ones and delicious aromas.  I just wanted to take a moment and share a few photos of our Thanksgiving table.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!   

     No pictures, no long commentary, or design of any kind, just many, many thanks to give.  First and foremost, I am thankful for my husband Steve, the love of my life.  No matter what circumstances led us to one another, everyday I am grateful to have you by my side.  Thank you for always having a smile to give me and that extra ounce of patience to lend when mine has run out.  I am thankful for my children.  It is my great privilege to be your Mom to be there for every joy, every tear and everything in between. You bring me more happiness than I ever thought was possible.   I have a healthy, happy family.  I am truly blessed.

     To me, Christmas will always be warm, happy, and MESSY.  I have wonderful memories of making Christmas crafts with my Mom, brothers and sister.  We also spent at least a couple of days each season baking and decorating cookies and making Christmas candies.  I try to keep those memories alive by doing the same with my kids.  True it is not quite as much fun now that I am the grown up (I have to clean up the mess!) but I hope that we will have many, many more years of Christmas crafts ahead of us. 

     Our theme for this year’s Christmas is “A Jack Frost Christmas”.  The kids are on Thanksgiving break this week.  We are making everything now so we can decorate for Christmas on Friday,  First we made paper snowflakes to hang from the ceiling.  Then we made salt dough ornaments for the tree.  The recipe is simple, 1 cup salt, 1 cup water, and 2 cups water.  Mix together and knead.  Roll out as if you were making cookies and then cut with cookie cutters.  Make sure you make a hole near the top for hanging before you bake.  Bake for one hour at 250 degrees.  Let cool, then paint.  We just used craft paint.  We also embellished our ornaments with sequins and glitter.  I still have to spray them with some polyurethane and tie the ribbons on.  We bought a can of fake, spray-on snow so we can freshen up some of our tired and old decorations.  I haven’t tried this before, we’ll see how it works .  I will post some more results as we get closer.

     I think it is time to officially welcome winter.  We have had a few little skiffs of snow but nothing like the eight inches we got yesterday.  We finally got enough snow to make stuff with!  The kids spent most of the day outside.  The boys made snow forts.  My daughter made a snow castle complete with furniture, and they all pitched in to make a snowman.