May 2013

Here is a little peek into what we've been up to!

We finally bit the bullet and bought a fence. It has been so nice and I keep wondering why we didn't do it sooner. I love letting the dog out without needing to watch her every second and I love sitting outside without feeling like I'm in a fishbowl. 

We splurged a little and bought these wonderful chairs so we could better enjoy our yard. I love sitting out there in the morning enjoying some coffee, or perhaps on a hot afternoon enjoying a little snack. Those Talenti ice cream bars are to die for. They seriously taste like a raspberry truffle. They are a dangerous little treat :)

I also planted flower pots for the first time. These are supposedly mosquito repelling plants, so we'll see if they help out this summer or not. The plants are already much larger so we can only hope.

My little sister graduated high school! I am so proud of her! :) Isn't she cute?!

We participated in the Zions Bank Paint-A-Thon. Every year each department works with a family in need of some touch up around the house. I loved this photo they snapped of us while painting :)

Laundry Day

A few weeks ago I attended a bridal shower for my cute cousin Ellen! I am so excited for her!

Everyone was given a "First" on their invitations. This was then you're assigned gift for the couple's "First"as a married couple. We then come up with our own ideas as to what to actually give. Examples are: First Dinner, First Game Night, First Kitchen Mess, etc.

My "First" was Laundry Day! Because laundry is so exciting I knew it could be a very exciting gift… or not so much. So, I wanted to at least have a great presentation, and think a little outside the box.

I have been wanting to try my hand at making a cute vinyl sign for quite a while now. So, I started looking on Pinterest for ideas! I wrote down a bunch of quotes that I liked and then I started searching on the Silhouette Online Store for even more ideas! I only had a few days from when I received the invitation to the date of the shower but I was so excited to make a sign, I didn't let it stop me.

It stopped by the craft store on my way home from work the next day, picked out an unfinished piece of wood, and some paint. I painted the first coat that night to get it going.

By this time I knew I wanted it to read: Laundry Room - Loads of Fun! and if possible I wanted a picture of a clothesline. I really wasn't sure what I would be able to fit on the sign. I came across this perfect download in the Silhouette Online Store. It had almost all of the elements I was looking for! The sign I bought was very square-ish so I did have to make some modifications to make it work. Using the Silhouette tools I was able to design my sign, cut it out of vinyl, and voila!

I then decided that I should have all of the gifts, in an actual laundry basket for a cute presentation. This sounded good in my mind until I realized how deep the basket really was, and how you couldn't see the gift items in it! So, I found a box in the garage, and wrapped some red cellophane paper around it to hep prop up the gift items.

While I was out shopping for the rest of the laundry supplies/gifts I found some great mini-clothespins at WalMart! I just had to get them. They were that cute finishing touch I was looking for :)

Gifts included:
Laundry Basket
My Homemade Sign
Laundry Detergent
Dryer Sheets
Stain Stick (I love this stuff!)
Lingerie Bag

Happy Crafting :)

Step #1 - Clean House

I have come up with the first way to try to reduce the stress in my life.

I have noticed that my stress level is directly correlated with the cleanliness of my house. If I am stressed - the house is a mess. When I'm not stressed - the house is clean. So let's try to work at this backwards… if the house is clean, then maybe I won't be as stressed, because I won't be stressing over cleaning the house… it's quite the vicious cycle, really.

Solution: we have hired a house cleaner. Yay! She's going to clean the house so we will have more time to enjoy our weekends. I have noticed that weekends tend to be saturated with house cleaning instead of fun. It will also help because we are going to be forced to pick-up the house more regularly (aka the pre-clean :) hehe) before the cleaner comes. This way it hopefully won't ever get too overwhelming. I am so excited! I hope this will help reduce the amount of stress.

This is my first step towards my new year's resolution - yay for progress!

We Hung Some Stuff Up - Finally

Can you believe we have been home owners for almost two years?! I sure can't. Time has flown by way too fast. If you would see our house you'd think we just moved in because we haven't decorated at all. I wish I had the time and money to decorate, but I don't. We have fun going on our adventures so decorating and home improvements don't happen too often. I think about it more in the winter because we're confined to the indoors more. I really hate going outside in the freezing cold. It's not my thing. My poor puppy loves it though - she lives for snow! If it snowed, I really wouldn't mind because the only thing I like about winter is snowshoeing and snowboarding. Since I haven't been able to do either winter is not so fun, just freezing for no reason ;)

Over the holiday Spence and I took a week off. We ended up in Home Goods and found some stuff we liked which inspired us to hang things up on our walls...

We found this unique wood thing that wasn't meant to be mounted. I'm really not sure what it was intended for, but we hung it up in the TV room. It took us a while to figure out how to mount it because both sides look the same, so the back side isn't completely flat. I want to put pictures on the sections or Spencer thought we could put some canvases up. We'll see what happens. I'm just happy to have something up on the wall. I also printed our lovely family photo and hung that up. I want to do a wood/cabin feeling in the TV room - so this was a start ;)

We also found this cool picture of the bridges for Spence's office. I love the black and white theme he has going on in there. We found a few other things that we're not sure where to put yet so those aren't pictured. I want to print some of his own photography in black and white and hang that up too. The cathedral is a poster he bought in Europe. We had it framed back when we were living in our apartment. It finally got hung up too, woohoo! We've been so hesitant to put any nail holes in the walls. I think we just need to do it so our home will feel like someone lives here :) hehe

Holiday Decorations - Finally!

I finally put away Halloween decorations and put up some Christmas ones durning the windstorm. Yes, it was a week or so into December and our house looked like fall! (Yikes!) I didn't have time to put up everything so, our living room is the only decorated area. (I wish I had time to wrap the banisters with garland and lights, because I really liked that last year. Maybe I'll get around to that next year, sigh) I really think what I did do turned out cute. I love how cosy the living room looks. Don't you just want to cozy up next to the fireplace with a blanket & peppermint mocha or hot chocolate?!

Here are some pictures:

We used these vases during our wedding reception and I wanted to use them as a table centerpiece. I found cute red, green and gold sparkly balls to put inside them and wrapped some ribbon around them. I think it turned out great. Maybe I can use this idea for more holidays :)

Happy Holidays! :)

The Hamilton's Have Arrived!

September 18,2010

They are here! Our couches finally made it! I think they look perfect in the living room! They are just the right size for the room :-)

For an added bonus you can see the shutters too! I need to work on decorations for the end table. Don't worry I am not leaving the green vase in my red/yellow/gold room!

I also got Spence to help me hang up the picture above the fireplace. I found some decorations around the house, and stopped at Home Goods to pick some up. I think it turned out alright. I am not totally in love with the decorations, but they will do for now.