Welcome, new house, into our lives. We’re a little different than most of your past owners, but we promise to take care of you, keep the cobwebs out of your windows, and fill you with love. What you have to realize though, is that you are now our canvas. You’re probably curious why we have been finger painting your hallway, why one of your walls is now a chalkboard or why you are now storing about 20 musical instruments. It’s because we want to celebrate creativity in our family, in our friends, and in our community. You’d better get used to the fact that we’re asking people to graffiti your walls. I promise you’ll start to like it eventually. We are taking this job seriously: we are going to fill you up with memories. Good memories. We want every friend that walks in your doors to be celebrated. We want every fight that happens within your walls to be resolved gracefully. We want every wall painted to have a prayer behind it. We want every flower planted in your yard to bless our neighbors. And we want to create, teach, host and serve MORE because God has blessed us with you and your four lovely walls.

Sincerely,

James and Kristin

Thanks to everyone who has been praying, helping paint, helping move and loving on us!

Need a re-vamp on your bedroom set? Does your bed skirt match your drapes which matches your shower curtain? Headboards are an easy way to update things.

Before

After

Instructions for a Recover:
1. Remove the fabric on the back. That should reveal the staples that are holding the front fabric on. Remove the staples, the old fabric and piping. On this particular headboard, the piping had been glued on. Take note of how the headboard was originally put together so that you can copy it with your new fabric.
2. Wash and iron the new fabric. Stretch the new fabric around the headboard. (If the stuffing looks ratty, cover it with a new piece of batting). Begin stapling the fabric to the back. Make sure it is stretched VERY tight.
3. If there is piping, wrap the old piping with the new fabric and secure with hot glue. The use hot glue or super glue to attach it to the headboard, making sure to cover up staples and seams.

Construct a headboard from scratch:
1. Buy a large piece of plywood (to fit the width of your bed) and 2 longer narrow pieces for legs.
2. Trace out a shape for the top of the headboard. Here are some ideas:


3. Use a jigsaw to cut along the design you’ve drawn.
4. Wrap the plywood in 4-8 layers of extra thick batting. Staple it to the back.
5. Cover the batting with your fabric and staple on tightly.
6. Attach the wooden legs to either side of the back of your headboard. You can paint it or wrap it in fabric as well if you think it will show.
7. Put floor protectors on the bottom of your headboard so it won’t scratch up the floor.
8. Attach piping if your design calls for it.
9. Cover the back with felt and staple it to secure it.

Now give yourself a hug cuz you’re awesome.

I’ve been playing around with different packaging ideas for image CDs. I bought these recycled CD cases off amazon.com and made a logo stamp. I was going for a crafty antique look… this is how they turned out.

I married my sweet husband James almost 2 years ago now. I had just turned 21 and was still in college. He graduated the day before we got married. It was the best decision I’ve ever made. But… getting married young comes with it’s challenges as well. As you can imagine, money can get pretty tight for two young musicians trying to navigate the world of adulthood. We’ve had a lot of laughs and tears trying to be creative in the way we make things work. Last year, when I got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, I had to go gluten free as well, throwing a wrench in to our spaghetti-heavy grocery plan.

But now, I have figured it out. The way to feed two people, be gluten free, and eat somewhat healthy for a grand total of $40 a week.

The plan:

1. Avoid the trendy grocery stores. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s are great, but it’s really hard getting out of there without dropping $100 or more. Kroger and Aldi are good economical options. The Kroger Plus card saves a lot of money and gets you gas points.

2. Shop the perimeter of the store. Sticking mostly to the fresh foods and avoiding the processed foods will save you money and be healthier. I only venture in to the middle aisles for rice, beans and occasionally olive oil.

3. Plan meals that use the same ingredients more than once. I usually buy one meat for the week and use it sparingly in a bunch of different dishes.

4. Buy produce that is in season. Prices go way up if you’re getting it from half way across the world.

5. Gotta love rice and beans. Beans are SO cheap and good for you… you can substitute them for a meat since they are pretty filling. I make chili ALL THE TIME. Pasta is good too if you’re not avoiding gluten.

6. Coupons can be deceiving. Don’t buy 5 boxes of a random granola bar because you have a coupon for it. If you wouldn’t have bought it normally, don’t buy it just because you have a coupon for it.

7. Save your left overs. Don’t trash that extra cup of chili. Save it, mix it with rice, and eat it for lunch the next day.

8. Stock pile certain items. Freezing Christmas cookies and storing away Halloween candy can come in handy when you’re in a bind but don’t want to spend the money on sweet treats. Just ate some of my Christmas M&Ms today. Yummy.

9. Double check labels. It takes a little more time, but you can often pick a cheaper or generic version of whatever you picked on at first glance.

10. Be creative and have an open mind. Often by the end of the week, we’re mixing together whatever we have left in the fridge. Sometimes it becomes a great new discovery… and sometimes it doesn’t. Attitude is key. Right James? *wink*

Want specifics? Here ya go:

Orange juice- $2.59

Chili Beans- $0.60

Kidney Beans- $0.60

Canned corn- $0.79

Turkey sausage- $3.99

Big block of cheddar cheese- $3.99

Cage free eggs- $2.49

Baby carrot packs- $1.59

Mini tomatoes- $3.29

Mushrooms- $ 1.79

Bell pepper- $1.79

Cucumber- $0.99

Asparagus- $4.02

2 Oranges- $1.25

2 lemons- $0.84

2 potatoes- $1.31

Whole Pineapple- $2.50

3 bananas- $0.53

Rice- $3.00

Oatmeal- $1.05

TOTAL= $39.00

Meals:

Breakfasts-

OJ

Fruit salad (Add peanut butter?)

Eggs with cheese

Sausage and bell pepper scramble (with or without eggs)

Oatmeal with fruit

Lunch/Dinner-

Vegetarian Chili- 2 nights

Burrito bowls- rice, beans, corn, cheese

Asparagus broiled with salt, pepper and lemon

Baked potato casserole- potato, turkey sausage, cheddar, veggies

Stir Fry with sausage and rice

Veggie Kabobs

Snacks-

Carrots

Cucumber

Pineapple

Bananas

Oranges

Nuts (again… from Christmas)

Yogurt (or whatever is leftover) from last week (hehe)

I’ve always wanted to reupholster something, but have been terrified to try. I finally bit the bullet the other day when I found this sofa at a thrift store for $4. I figured… hey…. can’t mess up with a $4 investment.

Check out those floral stripes and those purple tassels. So classy.

So I gathered some tools… In retrospect, I should’ve invested in an air compressor and air staple gun. My hands took a beating from using the hand-held.

Other than the staple gun, I used a hammer, pliers, screw driver, sewing machine, and super glue.

I was lucky to find some really inexpensive and thick fabric at the thrift store. It was $9 for about 6 yards of material. You definitely want to make sure you have plenty of fabric in case you mess up. Look for bargains and sales at the fabric store of check wholesale websites.

Here’s a step-by-step:

1. Tilt the chair up so you can see the underside. Remove the staples from the bottom of the chair first using pliers and a flat screw driver. Remove the fabric on the underside.

2. Start taking off the old upholstery in sections. I started with the bottom front section. Then I took the back piece off. You can start to see how the furniture was put together and upholstered the first time.

3. Try to keep the pieces of fabric in tact as much as possible. I took the old fabric pieces and used them as a stencil to cut out the pieces of my new fabric. Pay attention to how the fabric was put on the first time: right down the order you’re taking them off in and if there are any stitches or sewing that needs to happen.

4. If the furniture has piping, save it and reuse it with your new fabric. Save $ where you can!

5. Here’s the tricky part: the arms. On my original piece, the arms had been sewn, kinda like a slip cover. I tried to do that, but my sewing machine was totally NOT cooperating. So I improvised. I stapled the arm fabric on first. Then I covered the piping material with my fabric and stapled that around the seams of the arm fabric. The staples didn’t always want to hold at this part, so I used some small nails as well. Then using super glue and staples, I secured the outer part of the arm over all my seams. I had plenty of extra fabric so I could fold over those ugly frayed edges.

6. The cushion is pretty self explanatory. Use the old cushion cover to trace the parts for the new cover. Make sure it fits TIGHTLY! If the cushion foam is gross looking, get some batting and wrap it around the foam parts before you put the cushion cover on.

7. Last parts to put on are the back and the bottom. The back probably had some wood or cardboard pieces along the edges. Try to recreate this as much as possible. For mine, I nailed some tack nails through the wood, but not through the top layer of fabric. Then I positioned the wood pieces along the sides and hammered it in where I knew the nails were. You don’t want any staples or nails exposed on the back.

8. For the bottom, I used the same meshy fabric that was on it before, I just turned it inside out because the exposed side had gotten damaged. Fold over the edges and staple to the bottom covering up all your frayed edges from the other fabric pieces that are stapled down there.

9. Do the happy dance because you’re done!

See them side by side:

Well… I finally caved and decided to decorate for Christmas. Nothing says Christmas magic like a little Christmas fort.

As long as it doesn’t catch on fire, we’ll be good.