Deck The Halls

I thought it would be fun to do a little Christmas home tour for you. I'm not going to show you everything, just some of my favorites. You will get a little sneak peak at what we have been doing in the living room too. I have a bit of a thing for reindeer, you will see, I love them.

Nativity in living room.

Reindeer and trees on top on TV in Living room. These deer were an anniversary gift from Andy last year, I love them.

Decorated stair railing and console table with reindeer underneath.

Painted leaf by my Grandma Donna in the hallway. (Hi Grandma Donna!)

Christmas village on the ledge going down the stairs.

This Santa greets you at the bottom of the stairs, I adopted him from goodwill last year for $3.00.

Another Santa sits on top of a bookcase in Andy's office.

I got these little cross stitch Santa's from my Grandma's house, I just put the in little acrylic frames and set them out on the bookcase in Andy's office.

Another small village above the TV in the family room.

This little ceramic tree was my Grandma Lois's. Now it sits on the end table in my family room on top of a runner that also belonged to my grandma. (Hi Grandma Lois!)

Our stockings are hung on the table with care. The rug under the stockings is actually a Santa trap (it plays music if you step on it). The silver trees are from a local store and the little glass nativity is from my mom's house.

Our tree this year is decorated with ornaments from my childhood as well as some other things we have picked up during our first 5 years of marriage. The train under the tree I found at goodwill last year for $5.00.

I hope you enjoyed this little Christmas tour.

Merry Christmas from our house to yours. -Andy and Katie

Christmas is coming!!

I snapped a photo of the centerpiece I whipped up today. The branch candle holder is from World Market (this year) the green candle holders and flameless candles inside are from Gordmans (this year) and the rest is stuff I had.
Sorry the quality isn't very good I took it with my phone. I'm planning on starting to post again in the new year. I never finished my house tour so I plan to do that and we also have been redecorating out living room so I will be sharing that soon. I hope you all have a merry Christmas and that God blesses us all in 2011.

Garden beds

Sorry I've been gone, I have no excuse except that I'm lazy. I'm going to try to be better but sometimes there is just not much happening around here.

A few weeks ago Andy and I picked up these two raised garden kits from sam's club I think they were around $40.00 a piece. I have been wanting to put in raised beds for awhile but I had been thinking of using stone but that would be more expensive and take more time that Andy just doesn't have right now to help me.
These are made out of that recycled composite material so they should last for years to come. Here is Andy putting them together, I did help but someone had to take the pictures.

Hunter is always so interested in what Andy is doing.

They just slide together it was pretty easy.

Once they were together we slid them to were we wanted them and Andy sprayed something on the grass to kill it. These now have dirt in them and I planted herbs, lettuce, and spinach. I will show you what this little area looks like a little later when it's not so windy out, I put some plant hooks on the fence with some hanging baskets and made a little seating area. I'm really happy with them so far.

A new project and a new toy

I stared a new project yesterday, something I've never done before. I started seed for the garden. I decided to take on more of the responsibility for the garden this year since
Andy is going to be very busy. I picked up two of the seed starter greenhouse kits at Ace. And a variety of seeds that need to be stared before the last frost. I may be a little late but I'm hoping for the best.

Filled the trays up with dirt and planted my seeds.

One tray done and it seems to be working. (fingers crossed)

I also ordered a new toy and it was delivered today. I'm really excited about it and already tried it out. I'm loving it. It's a Breville juicer, I made apple-carrot-romaine juice yum.

Bag Lady

Today I spent some time making bags. These a grocery bags so that we are not using those plastic bags all the time. They were pretty easy to make and I'm going to do my best to show you how to do it. I am not a seamstress at all this is probably the first time in at least 3 years that my sewing machine has been out so this really is something almost anyone can do. Start with some heavy fabric, I found this in my bin of fabric I think it was used to make a window valance at my mom's house.

Cut two squares around 18"x 18"

And two rectangles about 4"x 10-18" depending on how long you want your handles.

Fold the rectangles in half and sew along one edge.

Set that aside and move to your large squares. On each square press a .5" seem on one edge that will be the top on the bag.

Fold again about 1" and press again.

Set those aside, and grab your handles. You need to make it so the right side of the fabric is out.

This was probably the hardest part on the project, I used a knitting needle and a pair of tweezers to pull the tube right side out. It wasn't to bad just took some timeTubes

Press the tubes into flat strips.

I'm missing a picture in here, but you need to grab your large squares and sew the smaller fold. you can see it in the picture below. Measure the same distance from the edge on each side to position your handle.

Fold over where you pressed before and pin the handle on to place. Do this on both squares.

Sew.

Flip your handles back and turn to nice side of fabric.

Sew a square with an X in it over the place where the handle attaches to the bag panel.

Then sandwich the panels together nice sides in an sew the sides and bottom. I went over the bottom edge twice just to reinforce it a little bit.

Flip right side out and you have your bag. Clear as mud right? I made three because that is how many I could make with the fabric I had but I plan to make 3-6 more in the very near future when I get more fabric.

Workout Room, Almost Done

Well, we are almost done with the workout room makeover. Only a few finishing touches and it will be complete. Sorry these are not the greatest pictures but I took them at night. Here is the view when you walk into the room.
The bookcases are billy from Ikea and benno dvd towers also from Ikea. I just threw the books on for now, I will try to make them a little better organized later.
Here is the view from the opposite corner:

The bookcase is another billy from Ikea, it it half the height of the other ones. You can also see our new blinds, they are white faux wood cordless blinds that we found on clearance. As you can see we still need to put up the cord cover but I don't think that will be to complicated. We also have new light fixture to put up and I need to figure out what motivational phrase I want to put on the big wall. I'm so excited to almost be done.

Ikea, Kirklands, and Borders Loot

Here's all the great stuff I got this weekend. I had a very hard time restraining myself at Kirkland's, there were so many things i wanted for when I redo upstairs. I limited myself to only things I can use now.
I also have these:And this:

I'm hoping we can get them put together in the next few days but Andy caught a cold and is really not feeling well, so it may be a few days before I get those babies unwrapped.