Plans for the day...

Today begins my Thanksgiving break and so far my plans include:

1. Cleaning this:

(and other rooms that I am just too horrified to take pictures of...)

2. Washing these:

and finishing these:

(What? You thought I'd actually show you what was in my Christmas card box? Not so fast mister!)

Now if I could just get off of this:

I'd be doing all right!

Happy lazy day everyone!

Closet Organization

I love Saturday mornings! I love waking up at 8:00 and getting right into the cleaning, and clothes washing, and everything else that makes domestic life so grand. NOT!!!

Today started off around 7:30 when Landen got up to go to work. I hate weekends that he has to work because he isn't here but I also kinda like them because I can get a lot accomplished around the house. Normally, I would have curled back up in bed with Abbey and slept for another hour or so and then started my day, but since we had a cable technician coming to our house sometime between the hours of 8 and 12 I had to be up, dressed, and ready to go bright and early. After I did the normal weekend chores of sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, and washing clothes I decided to try to find my Christmas card list. I had an idea where it might be so I opened up one of our downstairs closets to this:

Needless to say I abandoned looking for the Christmas card list and decided to spend my time wisely and FINALLY clean out that closet. It is such a small closet that it's hard to organize things in but I was determined to get it done. So I pulled everything out, brought out a bag of garbage bags, and got to work organizing, throwing away, and carrying unnecessary things (i.e, lights we bought to go in the upstairs bathroom a year ago) down into the basement.

After about 2 hours this is what the closet looks like now:

The best part is that since I was able to clear off some of the shelves I could also use it as an extension to our home office which freed up some space in there as well. I had a metal shelf against the wall that held folders, paper, etc and I just moved that down into the basement!

(I also got around to re-organizing our billing system which was a huge relief!)

So all in all, not a bad morning, and with shopping in the afternoon it doesn't get much better!

Goodbye fall...

Hello CHRISTmas!!!

keep checking back...more photos to follow!

Baby scrapbook made easy...

Now that I FINALLY have all of our fall decorations up and the candles warmers smelling up the air with all of the sweet fragrances of the season, I decided it was about time to get started on some of my holiday crafts that I try to do every year. One day while blog-surfing I came across this amazing idea for a first year baby album. A co-worker recently had a baby girl and I jumped on the chance to try my hand at making my own! It turned out so good, and I already have a request for a boy album! I will gladly buy all the material, customize, and create for only $30! What a great Baby Shower/Christmas gift idea!

I started with just a plain photo album that holds two 4x6 photos on each page. I decided to create my own 4x6 cards for the cover card, month info and journaling cards on Photoshop and modeled them after the cards on the original blog.

I tried to pick girly paper and embellishments that matched the colors of the crib set as closely as possible and was so excited to run across these PERFECT month embellishment stickers at my local craft store! I simply cut out some cardstock tabs and stuck them on. I included the rest of the embellishments in the back of the book to be used as needed. They included things like first tooth, first bath, first curl, etc. I also added some of my black stamping ink around the ages as a way to jazz up the name card.

After I got all of the cards created and printed I trimmed them down and then added some pretty paper that coordinated with the front cover card to try and dress things up a bit. Then I just stuck them in where they went. I allowed two full pages of photos for the newborn pictures and then each month had four complete pages. It worked out perfectly for a 200 photo album but could be adjusted depending on the album style.

Once all the cards were in I added the tabs, a decorative ribbon on the side, and tada! a completed baby book. All the new mommy has to do is add the picture and enjoy!

If you know of anyone who would like an album made I would be happy to customize and create one for you for $30! Just let me know!

Falling into fall...

I finally got all of my fall decorations up around the house! It has been such a process and now that it's finished I have already starting thinking about Christmas decorations. We used our fireplace for the first time this past week and I can't think of anything I love more than sitting in my flannel PJ's around the house, snuggled up with Landen and Abbey watching our favorite shows. There really is something about a fire crackling in the fireplace that make a place feel like home. Anyway, enjoy the fall decorations! All of the swags, door hangers, and wreaths were made by yours truly!