The winner of the vintage set Give Away is……..

Commenter #4 was Wendy!!

Congratulations Wendy!  Please contact us, via the ‘E-Mail Us’ tag in the sidebar, to claim your prize and give us your shipping address, so that we can send along your vintage set to you.  We hope you enjoy it!

Thanks to ALL of you, for participating, and sharing with us your lists of favorite things.  We really enjoyed reading each and every one!  We laughed, we said “Awww….how sweet!”, …..we said “Oh, me too!  I should have thought of that one!”.  But… Continue reading

Love Is…..A Give-Away!!

To give a little LOVE back to you all, we thought it was high time for some give-aways!  Anyone up for that?

First up, we’d love to give-away this faux-vintage decoupaged metal set, of a watering can, and a little container.

It could be a lovely touch, for your home decor.

It’s not much, but the set is rather sweet!  Shabby-chic-ish!

Here is the kitchen project I have been SO excited to share with you all!  Again, this was one of my brainstorms, and I’ll be darned if I should’ve thought of it sooner!

So….take a good look at the photo below. This is a stairwell down into the middle level where our laundry room is, to my (finished) photography studio, and to the (unfinished) basement on the other side.  You see that ledge along the stairs and half-wall?  We are always putting stuff there that needs to go down and put away, that we don’t have room for to keep in the kitchen.  Extra platters, our slow cooker, our frialator, etc.  Plus, we have plenty around the kitchen that could use a better… Continue reading

….They are in demand!

People are loving the List chalkboards, and Michael has been filling the orders, and shipping them out.

If you missed it, a couple of posts back, here in The Homestead section, we blogged about a Prayer List chalkboard Michael had made for our home, after another little brainstorm I had.  Scroll down some if you want to catch the whole story, but the update is, people have been contacting us, and wanting to custom order one for their own home, or as a gift.

They don’t need to be marked as Prayer Lists, but that is all we have been selling so far.  (Which is… Continue reading

This is often what one side of our drive-way looks like, as of the past few months.  Sometimes, the piles of these palettes are a little higher, and sometimes a little lower.  But one thing is for sure – we’re always happy to see some out there.

Because these palettes heat our home, for free.  Well….maybe for a little labor.  Although I doubt Michael would call it that.  Michael’s supply company for his business, gives us stacks of palettes, that they want out of their warehouse.  When they are delivering down in our area anyway, they… Continue reading

I am sure I am like many others.  I learn that people are struggling with a hardship, learning of  serious illnesses regarding themselves or loved ones, have family members over seas putting their life on the line to fight for our country, leaving their families behind missing them something awful, and praying for their safe return. People with broken hearts, broken homes, broken dreams.

My heart is often breaking for them….with them.  I want so desperately to fix it all for them….. to tell them it will be o.k.  I feel small and helpless, in the face of their pain.  So I give them the most powerful help I can possibly… Continue reading

I say it all of the time;  I’m no Martha Stewart, but I sure enjoy seasonal home decor!  It’s one of the many things that put the ‘happy’ in our home for me.  I love doing the decorating, and I love seeing it, but I don’t like much taking it down and putting it away.  (Do chefs love to clean up?  lol).  I didn’t get to as much as I wanted to this year with my schedule, but it was enough for me anyway.  If you love seeing the little things around other’s home as much as I do, then I hope you enjoy this small handful of photos.

Whenever the kids have been playing outdoors while I work, I am always eventually bound to hear this:

<door open>,<door slam>, <little footsteps> and “Ma-maaaaa, I have something for youuuuuu.” And into my work cubby pops a fistful of….weeds.  “I picked these flowers for you, ” they say.

And I always say:

“Awwwww!  For MEEEE?  How sweet!  Thank you so much! <kiss, kiss, kiss>. “Can you do me a favor, Honey, and put them on the deck for me?”.  And they say, “Sure!”. And they run off to do it.

(And then I say, “Don’t run in the house please!”)

Back in 1995, when we were searching for our first home to purchase, there were many unique features about this house, that gave us reason to fall in love with it, and seal the deal. The loft, that overlooked the living space (now gone) w/ the ladder that led to it, the kitchen floor cabinets with roll out shelves, the bathroom with the separate vanity area, the bubble shower door on a central turn-style pole (which proved to be inefficient for bathing toddlers…and later, teaching children how to shower…..but it’ll be going back on soon.) for the steam shower, and these built in bathroom shelves………….

I loved these shelves in the bathroom.  I loved the big… Continue reading

I’ve been looking at this area in our home, over the 3 windows of our sun room,  since we’ve had the additions put on…..and I just hadn’t been able to decide what I wanted to do with it.

It wasn’t a matter of a lack of ideas. It was WHICH idea did I want to go with?  Leave it as is?  Mount some cool stuff on the wall?  A shelf with some things that matter to us?  Or a really long custom sized printed photo or canvas hanging?

After fearing I would never be able to decide, I decided to decide, and I could always change my mind at any time, and… Continue reading