Getting Settled In...Still

This month has flown by! It must have gone by somewhere in the whirl of cardboard boxes and freshly painted walls. I really thought I would be further along in the settling-in process that I am. This has been on of my rougher unpacking episodes. I think it had something to do with doing some remodeling right at the beginning, plus starting to paint right away, plus the unbelievable disorganized mess of our boxes in the garage..ha

Slowly, but surely I'm getting there though. Thank goodness!

I still have a very long punch list of things we want to do to this house though. I thought I'd share them with you...in no particular order:

paint the master bedroom walls
paint the kids' bedrooms
paint The Princess' bedroom furniture
paint some of Mr. B's bedroom furniture
paint the hall bathroom walls
paint the hall bathroom vanity
paint the kitchen walls
paint the kitchen cabinets
paint the hall light fixtures
paint the *new* hutch for the kitchen
sand/stain/paint our dining table and chairs

OK, I'm not done, but I'm going to stop there because the list is making me even more tired. But you get the idea, right?

Don't worry, I've already taken the *before* shots and I'm taking the *afters* along the way!

We've already:

painted the front, aka:reading room, walls
painted the learning room
built custom shelves for the learning room
painted the hallway walls
created a custom headboard

I can't wait to start sharing some of these projects! Even though they are a lot of work we are enjoying it because it's our house. It's just not fun to do things to a rent house~at least not for me~so I haven't really enjoyed decorating much at all in the past 3 years. But I'm having fun again!

Oh~and we are back online as of yesterday! Whoo hoo!!

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

Fun With 4th of July Crafts: Part 3

I love my new patriotic front door wreath!! I had fun putting this together, although I must admit this is more of an adult craft than one for kiddos. I was inspired by this article in Family Fun magazine. I didn't have quite everything I needed for this one, but all I had to purchase was a few sheets of scrapbook paper and some double-sided tape. Then all I had to gather up were some scissors, regular Scotch tape, a ruler and some cardboard. First I cut four (5"x 6") pieces of each paper. Then by placing a piece of double-sided tape on one of the short ends of the papers, I rolled them into cones, pressing the seams together well. Then I cut a 10" circle out of cardboard and began to stick the cones on it. I used another piece of double-sided tape to stick the cones on, arranging them in a circular pattern. Next I used regular Scotch tape to attach them on the back to the back of the cardboard. After getting all the cones on, I was ready for my centerpiece. He...

my blessed life

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