'Blessed' Picture Blocks

I've been slowly but surely finishing up a few fall projects for around the house lately. 

Husby was sweet enough to get out all my fall decor boxes and I spent last week making the house look nice & cozy for fall :) 

I shared my fall mantle last week with you guys & besides the mantle, I only really decorated a few other key areas in the house- the foyer table, my faux mantle & a couple other pieces set out on random tables & shelves.
I didn't feel like going too crazy and getting everything out this year. 

I figure keeping up with a newborn is a good excuse to not go all out right now!! 

One project I wanted to do were some picture blocks. 

I intended to use them for my mantle but then ended up not liking how they looked up there once they were done.
So they ended up being a gorgeous centerpiece for the dining room table. 

Aren't they fun? 

I love how they turned out and they were the perfect way to display some new photos from this past year. 

Because we definitely feel so blessed from having our sweet Baby M :) 

Excuse the quality of these next few pictures- they were all taken on my Iphone. 

Gotta do what you gotta do!

So the blocks all started like this...

These are the scrap wood blocks that hubby found on the side of the road and brought home for me. 

He knows the way to my heart :) 

I grabbed seven of them and laid them out to decide how I wanted them to look.

I didn't care that they were uneven sizes- I wanted the staggered look.

But if you're more OCD than me, run them through a table saw to make them all the same size. 

I found all the pictures I wanted to use on the blocks and made them black and white. 

Since my printer has decided it hates printing good quality pictures, I sent them to walmart to get printed.

Don't you love when they ask you for a copyright release for pictures that YOU took? 

Always makes me half frustrated and half proud that they are considered professional enough to get a release. Ha. 

My blocks were the perfect size to fit 5x7s so that's what I printed. 

After laying the pictures out on the blocks, I trimmed them a bit so the blocks would be framing them. 

The white small letters are from Hobby Lobby. 

After placing everything out, I gave the blocks a good sanding to smooth them down then stained them first with dark walnut stain. 

After the stain dried, I dry-brushed them with my favorite enamel white paint so that the stain and grain of the wood would still show through. 

No sanding necessary since I didn't paint thick layers on them. 

After they were all dry, I adhered my pictures to the blocks and then hot-glued each of the letters into the corner of the blocks. 

I spraypainted them gold to bring a pop of my favorite fall color in :) 

I love seeing all the sweet faces of the ones I love most :) 

I really just needed a great excuse to print some pictures of baby M out and have them up! 

The table still looked a little bare with just the blocks on them so I whipped up an easy table runner with some fabric I found at JoAnns.

Me & my sewing machine have finally come to a truce :) 

I added some glittery pumpkins & our hardware store pumpkins we made last year all around the blocks. 

I'm in love with how these turned out & love seeing those sweet faces every time I come into the dining room. 

What do you guys think? 

It's such a fun & easy way to display pictures! 

On another fun note, Hubby gave me an early Christmas gift of a new embroidery/sewing machine so I'm going crazy learning the ins & outs of that! 

I hope to have a few pieces done soon to share :) 

Hope you guys are having a great week! 

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Fall Mantle 2014

It's that time again where I get to pull out all my fall decor and bring a little bit of fall into the house!! 

Eek!
Definitely my favorite season of the year to decorate for :)

I can't get enough of it. 

I just wish we would get a bit more consistent fall weather around here. 

My goal this year was to keep it simple and only decorate a few key areas in the house- so I wouldn't completely overwhelm myself. 

The mantle was definitely a must when it came to deciding what would get a fall makeover. 

I'm in love with how it all turned out!!

It's safe to say that I'm still in love with gold this fall. 

I was still so in love with my shim chalkboard that I pulled it out again this year. 

I used a mix of old things & a couple new items to layer it all together.

I'm such a word person so I love all the quotes & printables mixed in.  

I love to switch up my pieces each year and a super easy way to add in something new is by switching out printables. 

I found the 'come thou fount' printable here and loved it adding it into my decor since it's one of my favorite songs.

Our family theme this year is definitely 'blessed' as we have felt so incredibly blessed this past year with celebrating adding our sweet baby M into the family. 

I love the splash of blue & orange mixed together in my frame so it came back again this year. 

Another easy way to change things up is using different fabrics as a background. 

I'm still crazy about orange and so it stayed this year :) 

And all it took was covering the cardboard insert from the frame with a scrap piece of fabric. 

The 'Let Your Heart Sing' print was a Hobby Lobby find from this year.

They have a whole line of gold framed quotes and I. am. obsessed. 

I heart all of them big time. 

The gold & white striped board was a piece I made last year and never got around to sharing. 

I love the mix of distressed gold and white with the gold rope wrapped around the bottom. 

You can find the 'Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart' as a free printable that I shared last year.  

Of course the star of the mantel is the gorgeous shim chalkboard that I'm in love with. 

This year, I traded out a fall quote for a simple burlap & gold leaf wreath that I threw together a couple weeks ago. 

It's one of the simplest wreaths I've ever made and I love how subtle and glam it is. 

I added a little chalk art and a gold leaf garland strung across the top. 

Isn't the burlap + shim combination gorgeous together? 

I love all the texture it brings to the very center of the mantle. 

The cute pumpkin sitting on the wood piece was a Hobby Lobby find a few years ago. 

The wood piece was a gorgeous part of a branch that hubby snatched from the side of the road.

I had him cut several slices from it and then sanded them down to be beautifully smooth.

I love the color & grain of the wood. 

Can you tell that I love me some natural wood thrown into decor?
These pieces I use for almost every season- they were cut from a tree in my parent's yard and these little pieces are the perfect size to add height to so many fun displays. 

I added a cute ruffle pumpkin & a painted mason jar to the mix.  

I snuck in a couple of my DIY Banister Candlesticks that I made last year to add in some height on either end of the mantle. 

I love these guys! 

So there you have it- some old, some new & a lot of gorgeous fall colors!! 

Have you started decorating for fall yet? 

..............................................................................................

Check out last year's fall mantel here & for more fall DIY inspiration, check out the tutorials below!

DIY Triangle Block Pumpkins

Beaded Leaf Fall Wreath

Glitter Gourds

White-Washed Wooden Pumpkin

Jenga Block Farm Sign

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Catch as Catch Can @ My Repurposed Life. Inpsire Me Please @ Liz Marie. The Party Bunch @ Thirty Handmade Days

DIY Triangle Block Wooden Pumpkins

September is here which means that my absolute most favorite time of the year is finally back-- I'm so in love with fall!!

Christmas and spring are definitely fun seasons and I love them for their own traditions and reasons but there is something absolutely amazing about fall to me. 

I love all the smells, the changing colors, the layering of clothes and chunky sweaters. I love being able to wear scarves and boots without worrying about wet, sludgy snow (or ice, which is what we get). 

I love smelling hot cider & fresh pumpkins and cinnamon everywhere. 

I'll admit, I got a little giddy when I walked into Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago and saw all their fall stuff everywhere. 

I may have squealed a little. 

And yes, yes I did buy a few glittery 98 cent pumpkins last time we were at Walmart.

I have full intentions of going back for the bigger ones too :) 

Even though I have tons of fall decor that I still love, I can't resist making a few new projects every year.

Fall is incredibly inspiring to me which is perfect for coming back after just having a baby.

I needed a few things to inspire me back into blogging. 

And these adorable chunky wooden pumpkins were just the ticket...

Aren't they the cutest??

So a little back story into these new pumpkins I made...

hubby came home last week saying that he had a surprise for me.

I love when he has surprises :) 

He knows my heart so well because his big surprise was a ton of wooden blocks he'd found on the side of the road. 

Like filled up the front seat of the car kinda load. 

Big score!!

Then he told me that there had been tons of triangle pieces too but he wasn't sure if I could use them so he had left them.

I let my wheels turn for a couple days and then asked him if he could go back to grab them. 

This is what he brought me home: 

Well actually, these were after they were cut a little & sanded.

The triangles were a little long for what I wanted and hubby had the brilliant idea of making perfect triangles to create a hexagon shape for the pumpkins. 

I love him and his great ideas :) 

So he cut them down into perfect triangles and I sanded the heck out of each of them. 

After sanding, I laid all the triangles out to get the best fit for each pumpkin. 

I knew I wanted to have a 'patchwork' kind of design on them so I laid them out and decided on which ones would have which design and then painted their base coats. 

Use post-its to label the pieces if it helps you keep them organized better.

I used a mixture of different oranges and whites in simple acrylic paints to paint each of the triangles. 

Then I used painters tape to stripe some of them off to paint different designs on them.

I used foam circle pouncers on the others for polka dots. 

Shhh. Don't tell anyone but I was terrible and didn't have what I wanted on hand to put them together with so these bad boys are held together with hot glue.

Yes, hot glue.

Which won't last for the long run but I'm planning on getting metal brackets to attach to the back for a much stronger hold. 

But for now, it does the trick :) 

 I went walking through the yard and found the perfect stick to cut up for stems. 

I wanted something thick enough to adhere to the top well and look perfect for the size.

I think it did the trick, don't you? 

Can you believe that I didn't take the sander to them and distress them??

Not saying that it won't ever happen but for now I love them with their bright oranges & whites. 

I'm kinda in love with these guys. 

How could stripes & polka dots not make you grin?? 

Especially when they are on pumpkins. 

So what do you think of my first fall project of the year??

Ready to start pumping some of your own out yet? 

I have a couple more ideas in my head and am dying to get my fall boxes out to start decorating!! 

I wouldn't put it past me if I had them out this coming weekend :) 

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Baby Girl Update!

Hey friends! 

Thank you for being so patient with me while I took a break to enjoy getting used to being a family of five!! 

In case you hadn't hear, sweet Baby M graced us with her presence almost two weeks ago!! 

We have been enjoying the past two weeks just watching her and being with her. 

Hubby had almost two weeks off of work to spend at home with us and it was absolutely wonderful. 

I never could have asked for a better partner and daddy for our children.

There are no words to describe how wonderful he's been. 

Watching him love on and take care of Baby M has been world-changing. 

I never thought I could love him more than I already did but, boy, has it grown these past couple weeks. 

I went into labor around 5:30 in the morning on the 21st and had her at 12:23 in the afternoon.

Everything went smoothly and we couldn't have asked for a better hospital experience. 

They let us go the next day since me & baby were both doing amazing. 

We had newborn pictures taken when she was 3 days old and I can't wait to share some of them when we get the disc back. 

They were breathtaking. 

Baby has been mostly a good sleeper and been sweet to mommy & daddy :) 

I mean, how could she not be the sweetest thing in the world? 

So I guess I've had a good excuse for being MIA the past couple weeks, right??

I"m not going to promise that I'm jumping back in full-time but I can tell you that I have a pretty awesome fall project that I was able to get done this past weekend that involves my favorite fall thing ever. 

So stick around.

I'll be back with some fall gorgeousness soon!!

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