How to Make Canvas Photos for Under $4.00

I feel like this post was a long time coming.

After updating a few spots in our bedroom, it is a wonderment to me why I didn't do it months ago.

One of those updates includes recently adding two DIY canvas photos above our bed to replace these heavy iron-like accent pieces you see below (that honestly needed to be taken down a while ago).

We were a little nervous that the iron accent pieces could fall down and if that ever happened, could possibly be detrimental so down they came!!!

I had been wanting to put some kind of canvas photos in our room at some point, but just didn't want to pay the hefty price-tag that comes along with them!! I'm sure some of you can relate!

Then one night it dawned on me, why not take this idea I read about here and combine that with 2 canvas prints I already had on hand to make something WAYYY cheaper than the actual thing?!

Well, that turned out to be a really great idea and only cost me $3.58 for BOTH prints. :)

So here is what I did:

1. I uploaded and purchased 2 photos of our sweet girls onto the Staples website and ordered the photos in an engineering print...and later picked it up at the store.

2. I took my old canvases and centered the photos on each canvas.

3. After realizing I could staple the photos to the canvas (instead of tape the photos), I went ahead and used my trusty staple gun to do so.

 4. Next, I hung our pictures on the wall and sat back in awe of them....because our girls are so photogenic and looking at these pictures now makes us smile! :)

Our oldest actually posed for me and this was the winning shot. She LOVES the camera and was actually getting a little upset that I didn't take more pictures of her.

I think she did a great job for a 2 year old!

Our youngest, the one with A TON of ENERGY...NO LIE...allowed me to snap a couple of them before she took off after the dog and/or dug through the mulch in our yard. She is quite the fun one and always keeps us on our toes, that's for sure!

I really love the way they turned out, and again, for the $3.58 price tag you have to admit that is quite a deal!

Now go ahead and order some for yourself, your family, and/or your friends....I know you want to!

Thanks for stopping by...oh, and
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

 The Shabby Nest for Frugal Friday, Imparting Grace for Grace at Home

 My Romantic Home for Show and Tell , Stuff and Nonsense for Friday's Unfolded

 French Country Cottage for Feathered Nest Friday, The Thrifty Groove for Thrifty Things Friday

 Common Ground for Be Inspired ,The Charm of Home for Home Sweet Home Friday

Jennifer at Jennifer Rizzo for Fabulously Creative Linky Party

 Tatertots and Jello for Weekend Wrap Up Party , Redoux Interiors Friday Party

http://rootedinthyme.blogspot.com/2013/10/happy-halloween-and-simple-sweet.html

Prayers for a Sweet Little Girl

Recently, a high school friend of mine posted a story on Facebook and asked for prayers for a sweet little girl named Ella Joy who was diagnosed with cancer. The cancer has spread throughout this little girls body and into her bone marrow.

I do not know this little girl or her family, but every time I read the posts about this family's journey I cry....EVERY SINGLE TIME!! It's especially hard seeing pictures of this little girl and hearing about the suffering her and her family are going through.

This family has such faith in God and this is really encouraging to me. As a mom to 2 beautiful young girls, I realize more and more how important my time with them truly is. I want them to know God's never-ending love for them and am so grateful for the time I do have with them.... the time that God has given me to spend with them, because we don't know what each day can and will bring so embrace and enjoy your children....and teach them the Lord's love!

This is the post to the blog about this family and if you can and have some time, would you take a few minutes to read about this family's story and please pray for them! Even if we do not know this family personally, I do believe there is power in prayer! 

 “The Lord is my strength and my song: he has become my salvation.  Shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous.  The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!  I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done.  The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death.”  Psalms 118:14-18  

Thank you for taking the time to read this and have a blessed weekend ahead!

DIY Towel Hangers

I have been wanting to make some towel hangers for our master bathroom and for our girl's bathroom and finally got around to doing just that this week! Hooray!

We have a lot of left-over wood from our BIG project  (which I have yet to share with you) and what better way to put some of that to use than to make DIY towel hangers?!

I pretty much just drilled a few holes into the wood pieces, used some screws to keep everything in place, and added S-hooks (from my IKEA trip last year with a friend).

I also wanted to add some wall shelves onto this empty wall in our bathroom.

I made those floating shelves from left-over scrap wood as well and spray-painted them white.

I kind of wish I stained the wood first before painting them just in case it looked a little bit better, but I'm happy with the white paint and the way they turned out.

My little girl loves to play with my girlie things and here she is reaching for them now!

I know you can see the nails in the pictures above (it's obvious, I know!!) but I have a plan to cover them up...I just need time to do that. :)

I am really, REALLY happy with the way the girl's hangers turned out!

The towel/robe hangers look rustic and fresh.

It's finally nice to have the towels and robes in a place where they are easy to grab and within reach instead of sitting on top of our sinks or stashed in a cabinet somewhere!

How do you hang bathroom items in your home?

Thanks for stopping by!

A Little Reading Nook

Hello, hello!!

The hubs and I are almost finished with our BIG project and I can't wait to share it with you all...but until then I have some smaller projects that just got completed and are ready to be posted!

In our family room, we have this area by a big window that didn't really have a purpose...that is until I made it a reading nook. :)

I used some scrap wood from our BIG project to make magazines racks for the wall next to our reading chair.

I spray painted the wood with chalkboard paint so that I could easily switch our magazines and books if need be.

Our reading nook may not be magazine worthy but we love it all the same and it really makes for a nice place to cozy up and read (that is, when we get the chance to).

So far it has become a space that my oldest daughter loves to be in and read with her books, which is such a sweet thing!

Oh, and don't you just love the little "pup" in the bottom left corner of the picture? :)

That belongs to my daughter which we got from a friend recently. She loves giving her play puppy "treats"...and sometimes she will actually give our real-life dog a treat...that is when she isn't teasing him with her food!!

Oh the joys of being a parent! Haha!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a great start to your week!

Friday's Crush- Our New & Improved Front Porch

Confession, we have lived in our home for over 2 years now and I haven't really done much to our outdoor living space. I have been really focused on getting our home decorated to fit our needs (and style of course) that I didn't have much time to think about the front porch.

 Quick sneaky peek!

Then one day while I was out with my daughters, I stumbled across some FABULOUS chairs sitting outside of one of our local thrift stores. Of course I pulled up and got the girls out to take a closer look. :)  (My girls will appreciate my thrifting some day!)
When I glanced at the price tag, I couldn't believe how much they cost...
$9.00 each!!!!!! 
Seriously, are you kidding me??? You would have thought that I would have bought them right then and there, but guess what?
 I didn't buy them on the spot...
nope, of course not. 
The girls and I got back into the car and we went home. But the story doesn't end there.
After pulling into our driveway, I just kept thinking about those chairs and called my hubby. He told me to go ahead and get them since I have been looking for chairs I liked for a while. 
So I unloaded the back trunk and pulled out our strollers and decided to go back to the thrift store (which is thankfully only about 3 minutes from our house) to purchase the chairs.

The chairs were originally a light wood color so they were spray painted in chalkboard paint because I love the finish of that spray paint I tell ya!

I also made the seat cushions (which didn't cost me anything!) and bought the yellow potted mums at Home Depot.

I sat on the idea of keeping the original color of the chairs for a few days and then decided to paint them. The color was too light for this space, which gets flooded with a TON of natural light, so I knew something in a darker color would just work.

Can't beat using left-over scrap wood for projects!!!

I posted these pictures before I did any touch up painting because I was just toooooo excited about how they were turning out and had to post these for you guys!!

What do you think?

I know the yellow makes them look a little spring-like but I really don't care...It's such an improvement from what we had before (which was nothing really).

Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY Friday!

Reading Chair Musical Chairs and Fabric Choices

Hello and happy Wednesday!

My hubby and I have a major project in the works for our outdoor space that we are so excited about starting. We haven't built anything for it yet...but we have already purchased some of the supplies which means there is no going turning back now!

 

It will be a few weeks until we can show the final product, but I hope to get a few pictures posted of what we are going to be building as we go. I hope you stay tuned for that! :)

In other "decor" news, I recently moved one of our big armchairs from our bedroom into the family room.

I am not that in love with the original fabric choice on this chair as you will soon see in this post, so I am thinking about buying a fitted slipcover for it or possibly making my own slipcover...that way I can easily wash it when need be. We have a slipcovered couch that we love so I may go with one similar to it.

You know, some people are just able to throw different kinds of furniture together in a room and all of a sudden their house looks magazine worthy. 

That is definitely not the case here...I'm not sure I can make this chair work if I tried. But you never know, maybe the look will grow on me??? I really don't know.

I plan on shopping around for slipcovers that are fitted in hopes of finding the right color and texture...and the right price for that matter.

We will see what happens!

Have a great rest of the week everyone!

Thanks for stopping by!

Our Sweet Little Miss

I usually don't do posts like this often, but every now and then I do because I want to remember these big milestones.
So our little girl (or not so little anymore) is 27 months and she is growing so fast!!
It is so amazing to see what she has been learning since she turned 2 at the end of the summer.
Everyone kept telling me how much children learn and understand after they turn 2 and it didn't really hit me all that much until I experienced it myself...just like most things.

After our daughter turned 26 months, she started using the potty more often and now at 27 months, she is pretty much fully potty trained!!! She wears a diaper only at night but that's it!!
Today at church, she told the helpers that she had to "use the potty" and she went all by herself. I was actually anxious when we got to church because I knew this would be the first time she wasn't wearing a diaper in her Bible class and was a little concerned she wouldn't tell anyone if she needed to go potty. But sure enough, she did because a little after 11am we went back to the toddler room and the lady said our big girl came right up to her and told her she needed to do her business! Of course she didn't use those big words quite like that, but you get the idea!
I still can't believe she is potty trained already...she even tells us she doesn't want to wear diapers anymore only "big girl undies" as she likes to call them. :)
It's funny because when she does have an accident which thankfully hasn't been that often, she gets upset and says "Oh no!!"-- "No pee in undies...pee in potty." I think she gets those words from her very own mother...ME! Haha!

And she has been talking so much more now. It's kind of ridiculous! She feels the need to always tell people what she sees around her and she LOVES to sing! I seriously mean that! Everyday...and I do mean everyday, she wakes up and starts singing some of her favorites including: Elmo's version of the ABC's (she even has learned a few letters and can point them out now!), the neighborhood song from PBS, the count to 4 song from Feist which we sometimes listen to on Youtube, "This Little Light of Mine", and "Mother Duck". Those are only a few from the many she sings...maybe that is a small look into her future?!

I also love watching our oldest play with her younger sister. She still gets so excited to see her "sissy Lydia" in the morning. She always greets her with a smile, a "Hello, Sissy!", a kiss and a hug. Sometimes she tickles her sister just to watch her laugh. It's the most adorable thing to watch.
Ahhhh I love being able to be a part of that. I can really see and feel how God has blessed my family and can really see His love for us in how I love my own children.




Other big things she has been doing now:
-Sleeping in a big girl bed for 10 months now
-Helping us pick out items we need at the grocery store
-Watering our plants in the front yard
-Associating numbers with the actual thing itself
-Learning basic colors
-Takes care of her "baby" in a motherly fashion
 -Tries to form longer complete sentences
-Desires independence to do things on her own
-Loves to play make-believe

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Our sweet girl, you make us laugh so much and you are always teaching us things we didn't think we would be able to learn before becoming parents.
I am so grateful I can be a part of your life and cannot wait to see how the Lord is going to use you as you grow!