JoAnn Fabric Search

You know, ever since my trip to IKEA a few months ago with a friend, I have found myself looking for a specific floral patterned fabric and just can't seem to find it.

At IKEA, they had this cream and gray floral patterned tablecloth that happened to NOT be for sale so I just took a picture of it in the hopes of finding something similar at a fabric store.

Ugh...isn't it gorgeous?!? I am determined to find something similar OR perhaps find that exact same fabric somewhere! I think it would look amazing on our dining room table and possibly on our kitchen mat...hopefully more on that later.

But....I do have a hunch that IKEA doesn't sell this fabric material anymore. Boo!!

So even though I haven't been able to find this exact fabric, I did recently make a trip to JoAnn's with my daughter to snap a few photos of fabrics I loved and a few that come close to the one I've been looking for that was on display at IKEA.

Here are some of the fabrics I loved and was able to take pictures of for the future...you know, in case I plan on buying one or two of them anytime soon.  ;)

So this first one is pretty but I think it may have a little too much brown tones going on which is fine but not what I am exactly looking for.

I think this second floral pattern is my favorite so far...I like the hints of green because we do have green accents in our kitchen, dining room, and family room...so it would help pull all of those colors together.

And here is our oldest daughter...helping mommy shop around. Thankfully, she sat the whole time in the cart so I could browse for 30 minutes or so in JoAnns. :)

Now, I know this is not the kind of fabric I want in our kitchen and dining room, BUT I did take a picture of it because I thought the polka-dots would look absolutely adorable in a little girls nursery! Perhaps this fabric would look good in a toddler's room too! Just a thought!

And this one I thought was a fun pattern for summer or early fall. I love the pops of orange, red, and green together. It works really well in this particular pattern...but again, not what I plan on buying for our kitchen and dining room.

So, there you have it...a few pictures of my JoAnn fabric tour. I didn't purchase anything yet, but they are having a sale this month so I would like to decide on something soon. :)

Did any of these fabrics stick out to you? Would you buy any of them for your home?

Thanks for stopping by!

Pudding Cookies....So Delicious!!!

Hello, hello!

I am back today with an amazing recipe to make what is called "Pudding Cookies."

It's a super easy recipe that I used to make cookies for our Bible study earlier this week on Tuesday night. They were so yummy that we only had 2 left after everyone ate them. :) To which we gave the leftovers to our babysitter when we got home from Bible study.

Anyways, I used vanilla and cheesecake pudding to make them and added dark chocolate chips and dark chocolate M&M's to them for added flavor. MMMMmm!!!! What is great about this recipe is that you can pretty much use any pudding mix you prefer and add in whatever toppings you want.

Here is the recipe I got from another blog and then I will share with you some pictures I took of the ones I made for our friends.

1 1/2 sticks (or 3/4 cup) butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 (3.4 oz) package instant vanilla pudding (or any other pudding you would like)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2-1/4 cups flour
1-2 cups chocolate chips (or whatever add in you would like)

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Stir together flour and baking soda and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars together.
Add in pudding package and beat until well blended.
Add eggs and vanilla.
Add flour mixture slowly until well incorporated.
Add chocolate chips or whatever add-in you chose.
Roll into 1″ balls and place on greased baking sheet.
Bake at 350 F for 8-12 minutes.

And here is our little one playing on the computer...or at least pretending she is typing up a post like her mommy. :) She is such a smartie...

Have you made pudding cookies before?

Thanks for stopping by! 

Linking up here:
http://amy-newnostalgia.blogspot.com/

Our Family Room with Storage Solutions

Hey there!

Have you ever wondered what to do with all of those household items around your home?

Well, in our home, we lack built-in storage so we have to get creative!

In our family room, for instance, we don't have closets or built-ins or shelves...but we needed some kind of storage solution because we have a ton of things that need a place to live, you know?

So, over the past year, my family and I have been thrift shop hunting around our area to find the perfect storage solutions for items in our family room.

In this post, you will see several examples of what we used to store things like books, movies, toys, left-over fabric, etc and I hope you get inspired to do the same in your home. :)

To start, I just took some pictures of our family room so you get a better idea of the space and its function.

The mirror over the fireplace was a neat find from The Home Depot Martha Stewart Collection.

I used a gift card to purchase it so it was a deal to me!

I will talk about the book cases and the floral patterned chair later on in this post...they have a neat story to tell.

 If you are like me, you enjoy taking tons of pictures of all sorts of things. I love to photograph family, scenery, and pretty much anything that strikes my fancy.

But I also need a place to put those pictures on display, so I purchased these frames from Wal-Mart for $3.00 a piece a while back. I painted them white and hung them around the television. It's amazing what a little paint can do.

 The television stand holds a ton of DVD's, cords, batteries, and other electronic things that we didn't want out on display for everyone to see...especially our little ones. We had to make sure those items were stored safely away so we purchased this T.V. stand from the thrift store and I painted the bottom white and kept the top in its original wood tone for visual appeal. I also gave the handles an update too with some spray paint.

Now these chairs are pretty special to me because they were thrift store purchases that I absolutely love!!

Each cost under $25 and all I had to do was give them a makeover.

They work great in our family room because they provide the function of extra seating, which is something we desperately needed in this space.

To read more about the floral thrift store chair makeover, just click here.

I bought 2 of these armchairs at another thrift store in our area and painted them in a navy color and Voila! more seating in our family room was accomplished.

Some of these pillows were DIY projects and others were bought on clearance at Target. They serve as comfortable backings to our FREE couch!! Yes, I said a FREE couch! :)

The pastor of our church was getting rid of his so we quickly took it home and recovered it.

I love our fireplace mantle!

It's a great place to display family mementos like these owls my mom bought and our thrift store vase I painted a year ago.

And here is the bookcase my husband and I creatively put together ourselves! We are pretty happy about the way it turned out.

The top part is made from Target shelves and the bottom part is actually a dresser that we transformed. It works great as a base unit to our shelves.

And don't worry, it is safely nailed and attached together.

To read more about this project transformation, click here, here, and here.

:)

But this piece does a great job holding storage as you can see. And I love that it sits cozily next to our fireplace which makes it a great spot to curl up an read a book- especially on those cold nights!

 

And I will leave you with a few more pictures to enjoy of our space.

How do you handle to storage needs in your family room?

Thanks for stopping by!

Linking to:

http://amy-newnostalgia.blogspot.com/
http://thededicatedhouse.blogspot.com/
http://somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/
http://www.theshabbycreekcottage.com/
http://www.firefliesandjellybeans.com/

http://emilyaclark.blogspot.com/