Don't forget the laundry room

My sister and I had a long conversation the other day about laundry rooms. She was struggling with what to do with her laundry room, as she didn't like it's current look. She said when she went in, she wanted right out! Cluttered, not cute, no decorations. So we talked about decorating laundry rooms. Hmmm?...decorating laundry rooms!?!? Yes folks, those too need to be decorated. Doing laundry is bad enough, but if you have a room that is equally as bad...forget about it! I love the clean fresh white linen look for my laundry room. I'm also big into baskets. Use baskets to organize all your cleaners if you don't have cupboards. It will tidy up the space and make it look more like a room rather than a utility closet. The key is functional, but pretty! I'm working on some new art for our laundry room (I'll show the finished product later), but for now...enjoy these pretties:

First Knit Project

I promised I would show my first knitting project. I made a pillow sham for our family room. I started making the second pillow for the room today. It will look exactly the same. I love to knit. I seriously feel my blood pressure drop while I knit! Really folks...this is the best way to relax. Here is my first project:

The beginning....

Final Product

Really?

I always said I wanted to marry someone who made me laugh....and boy did I!

Today Craig came home for lunch. We sat down and had a nice lunch together talking about how our days were going so far. When it was time for him to go back to work, I started doing the dishes. It was at this time I heard a drawer quickly open and close behind me. I figured Craig was getting a little piece of chocoloate or some other sweet. I didn't think much of it. It wasn't until he was on his way out the door that I saw a HUGE hershey chocolate bar in this back pocket? Here is how the conversation went from there:

Me: "Babe...why in the world do you have an entire chocoloate bar in your back pocket? Were you afraid I was going to tell you that you didn't need the entire candy bar?"

Craig (whith a little grin on). "Maybe..."

Me: "Oh geez...I don't care....you really think I would have cared enough that you thought you had to sneak it in your back pocket?"

Craig (smiling....and now laughing): "Okay, no....I just didn't want to share."

The irony of this whole incident was that just the other night he said (after I gave him most of the dinner fixings, that he insisted I could have more of), "I love you so much, that I'd share anything with you...including food!"

So today, with the hershey bar in his pocket I asked, "but you just said....you would share anything with me...including food."

Craig: "Well...I didn't mean any food."

So there we have it! Needless to say I let him leave the house with the hershey bar in his pocket...without having to share. :) Craig is a funny funny man. :)

Guest Room - Done!

I'm slowly getting all the rooms downstairs decorated. Yesterday I completed the guest room. My goal was to spend $0 decorating it by using stuff I already had. I like to decorate on the cheap, so this was a fun goal. It turns out...I was "for the most part" successful with this goal. I only spent $3. The candles each cost $1 and the ribbon on the sides of the candle tray cost $1. For the pictures above the beds, I reused old frames and found some chandelier silhouettes on the Internet and printed them off. They ended up making beautiful pictures. The art on the wall was also homemade. I used some old garden gates we had in the garage. I cleaned them up and nailed them on the wall. I then printed off some silhouettes, cut them in various shapes, hole punched them, and tied them onto the gate with some left over red fabric I had from another project. I also used some left over fabric to make a tie around the magazines. I like the clean white feel with just a pop of color. Red seems to be the "color pop" I use throughout my house.
All in all, I like. Craig always asks what the theme is for each room. So this one...I themed it vintage chic, with a side of elegance! Hmmmm...I think that describes it!

Pants on the ground...

"Pants on the ground, pants on the ground. Lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground!"
Craig and I have been singing "Pants on the Ground" for the last week.

Favicon!

You might ask, "what in the world is a Favicon?" The Favicon is the little icon that appears on the left of the url. Blogger's standard favicon is the Orange square with a white B.

I just learned how to change out the standard Blogger Favicon! Next to our URL you should see our new Favicon (pictured to the left). It was really simple to do...following these easy steps.

1. Make a picture you want as your favicon. Keep it simple since it is quite tiny. I made mine in photoshop. It can be any size.

2. Go to this URL: http://www.iconj.com/icon_generator.php

3. Upload the picture you just created.

4. Once uploaded, there is a link given under the title "Host it at IconJ.com".

5. Copy this link.

6. Go to your blogger dashboard, go to "Layout", then "edit HTML".

7. find the spot in the code that says: 8. Right above this line, paste in the code you got from the icon generator. And...there you go, a custom icon for your blog! Enjoy your new Favicon!

All done

So...6 hours of air drying and about 45 minutes of brushing, and I'm done. Did I mention I'm a groomer now? ;) Today I effectively groomed Goose, Maverick, and even Craig (yes...I even cut Craig's hair).
BTW...if a stuffed animal were to come to life, I'm pretty sure it might look something like this dog....

A Sheepie Bath

It is tub day for Goose. Many have asked what he looks like wet...so here ya go! (P.S. He LOVES bath time. Many times he falls asleep because it is so relaxing for him.) In about 5 hours he will have air dried enough to blow dry him!

Just a little knit

Every year I like to learn how to do somthing new. This year I decided to learn to knit. So last night I went out and bought a little "how to" book and some yarn. By the end of the night...I was a knittin' fool! It is so much fun. I have already found a bunch of neat things to make. I like the "knit look" so I'm really excited about this new found hobby! I'll share my first creation when it is complete...which might be a while since I'm really slow.

Family Room

Finally, our family room is complete. I used mostly neutrals with a pop of burnt red. I used lots of linen, basket, and sweater knit textures. In order to make the artwork on the wall exactly what I wanted, I made it myself. I used "old world" themed scrap book paper and then painted the sides to match the red pillow pattern. I designed the room around the picture in the top right. This is a picture my grandmother painted of the street which she lived on as a young child (Manchester, England 1914). I completed the room with the following painted on the staircase wall leading to the family room "May our home know joy, each room be filled with laughter, and every window open to great possibilies." Enjoy!

A Free Giveaway

If you love interior design or photography, check out Fabulous K's blog! This girl has some amazing taste...and she has a lot of awesome free giveaways! Her latest giveaway is a $75 gift certificate to Lisa Leonard Designs. Lisa creates some of the neatest custom jewelry. I love it! In order to enter, visit Fabulous K's blog and read her instructions. Easy as can be and only takes minutes.

sweater knit

I love this pillow (from pottery barn)! I can't get enough of the sweater knit pillows and throws. The texture gives the room a warm casual feel. I wish I knew how to knit. I need this pillow in dark brown.

Neutral Galore

I love the neutrals in this room (found via Pottery Barn Website). I could live in this room. It looks comfortably yet simply beautiful.

More inspiration! Thank you Pottery Barn!

Inspiration

When we first moved in, we got some really nice furniture for our downstairs family room. Ever since, I have been struggling with putting together the right accessories. Truthfully..it is driving me crazy! The couch came with some pillows...which are alright, but they are not doing it for me. So today...I looked for some inspiration...and look at this pillow! I love it. Fancy, but casual. I like the mixture of grays, browns, and tans. I'm a big neutral color person. I like neutrals because you can keep them around longer with out getting tired of them. Our couch is a tan color and our furniture is a deep brown. We also have deep brown curtains hanging. I think I'm going to carry this picture around with me and see what I can do to work on some accessories. I prefer to sew my pillow covers so I won't buy these exact pillows...but I'll be looking for something similar.

I Love Design

I love all types of design...blog design, home design, photo design, all of it. I'm in love. In addition, I love taking photos. Figuring out the right settings for my camera to get just the right shot is so much fun. Today I wanted to see if I could capture some little details around our house. I made our blog banner with my pics. The far right pic on the banner is a pic of the clock we have on our mantel. I love beautiful things...and this clock is not only beautiful but extremely special. It was a wedding gift my great great grandma and grandpa received. It dates back to the early 1900s. very special, and very beautiful. I also took a couple of snap shots of the entire living room and breakfast room. These types of shots are always tough because getting the true colors is really hard. They're not perfect, but a good start. Taking photographs of my home design...heaven! Two of my loves all in one!

New Years Tradition

Ever since Craig and I have known eachother we have had a little tradition to stay home and cook on New Years. We call it a "date night." We like to bring in the New Year spending time with eachother at home cooking. We always make a bunch of o'dourves and make brownies for dessert. Our first New Years date...back in January 2002, we made our first batch of brownies together. We wanted to decorate them with frosting. Well, needless to say the brownies were a complete disaster. The pan was too big so they were really thin, burnt to the pan. We wanted to write "Happy New Year 2002" on them...but we ran out of frosting so we only wrote "Ha 200" ...short for Happy New Year 2002. Don't ask...we were weird. Well this tradition continues to this day. Here are some pictures of our New Years spread this year complete with:
- Crab crunchies
- Chicken Brains (not really chicken brains...but a yummy sausage cheese mixture)
- Crackers and cheese
- Crab meat and butter
- Crackers and smoked salmon spread

A Look Back and A Look Forward

It is always kind of sad putting away the Christmas decorations and declaring my favorite time of year over. However, it is also a time to reflect on the year past and look forward to the year to come. Looking back, 2009 was a year full of some uncertainly, little and big gifts, some tragedies, many lessons, countless new experiences, and lots of new friendships. I can remember specific times this year when I could not wait for the year to end. However, I remember even more times when I actually stopped, looked around and really wished that I could stop the clock and live in the moment just a little longer.

I have spoken about my greatest weakness many times on this blog this year...that being my impatience. I struggle with impatience a lot! Generally, things move about 10 time slower than I would like at any given moment. This year however, I have learned a great deal about patience. I learned that no matter how much I pray for patience, God will not give me patience. I learned that when I pray for patience, God will only give me the opportunity to be patient. This year my prayer was answered and He sure did deliver. I have had more time to practice my patience than I could have ever of imagined. If I could put a title on this year, I would title it, The Year I Waited. Yes indeed, I sure have done a lot of waiting. No matter what it was this year, I was forced to wait. One thing is certain however, when you learn to wait and be patient, you also learn a lot about Faith. You learn that because it isn't happening now, does not mean it won't or can't. You learn the truth, the truth being that in time God makes everything beautiful. Key words there... IN TIME.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

I love that. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Isn't that amazing? EVERYTHING has a time to be beautiful! The good, the bad, and the ugly...all of it has a time..to be beautiful.

So as I sit with that verse on my heart looking forward to this upcoming year, I am ready to be patient knowing...everything has its time.

I wish everyone the most wonderful New Year! May you have many moments this year where you sit, and truly wish time could just stand still for a little longer, and may you see many things become beautiful.

Christmas Time!

I LOVE Christmas. Time with family, good food, lots of laughs, giving gifts, shopping, Christmas lights, etc.. I just love it. This year was extra special for Craig and I because it was our first time hosting Christmas at our house. In the years past, we have always gone to Missoula for Christmas. Of course this is always accompanied by all the inconveniences of traveling in the dead of winter with many other anxious travelers. This year however, we were able to spend all our time, money, and energy getting our house ready for Christmas! My family came up a couple of days before Christmas and the festivities began. We had such a wonderful time! Highlights from this Christmas:

- Roasting hot dogs on the fire pit outside! It has been my family's tradition (forever) to roast hot dogs on the fire on Christmas eve before we open presents. In missoula, my family had a fire place we could do this on. We only have a gas fireplace so we had to do it outside on the fire pit this year. We have a deck right off of our kitchen where we put the pit. It turned out to be a lot of fun! It is neat sitting outside in the cold, next to a warm fire roasting hot dogs! It is always an exciting time because it is almost time to open gifts!

- Opening presents! Cliche I know...but I love giving gifts.

- Christmas dinner. We braved it and tried something new for Christmas dinner. With my mom's help, we cooked up a prime rib. I've never done this before but it is quite easy. It turned out wonderful!

- Decorating the table for Christmas dinner! My mom and I had a really good time getting the table all fancied up for dinner. It was complete this year with an absolutely beautiful center piece given to us by Craig's mom and dad. When we were done...the table could have appeared in a magazine :).

- Being woken up at 5 am by little brother because Santa had come. I love listening to him scurry around in the wee hours of the morning looking at all the treasures Santa brought him.

- Waking up again at 7 am to check on little brother. I should have taken a picture but I was worried I would have woken him up. He was curled up sleeping on the floor, next to the warm fireplace, with his toys all around him. So precious.

- Baking cookies. Cookies always taste and smell great, but at Christmas time, it is even better. I love decorating them with reds, greens, and whites. I love watching everyone enjoy them when they are done, and I love packing some up to have Craig run over to the neighbors. I love Christmas cookies.

- Playing games with the family. Polly bought several great family games for us this year. It was really fun to sit and have lots of laughs with everyone. We even played some poker!

- Last but not least...church on Christmas day. We missed church on Christmas eve because we started dinner to late, but we made it Christmas day.

Here are some snap shots of Christmas at the Neumans!

Weird Dog

Every year as a kid...I begged for an early present (little brother has since taken over this duty). This year was the first year I got a package labeled "early present"!!!

Playing a crazy game. Craig is trying to touch his nose with his tongue.

Our Beautiful Table setting.
The Center piece from Craig's mom and dad.