Happy First Day Of Summer!!!

It's summer!  Summer makes me want to lay in a hammock, drink yummy fruit smoothies, look at the clouds, run around barefoot in pretty sundresses and work around our house.  Yes!  We have a lot of projects in mind and summer seems like the perfect season for that!  Mornings are warmer, the days are longer and evenings are peaceful.  We've built a picnic table (I will blog about it soon, promise!) where we have dinners daily.  Now we are working on a shed... that will take half of our summer!  I will enjoy every minute of it.  I love being outside as much as possible, soaking in the sun rays.  Maybe I won't have so much time to lay in a hammock... Okay who am I kidding, I don't even HAVE  hammock (yet) but even if I did, I couldn't really picture myself laying on it so much... I like to stay busy and productive!  Although I did take a break yesterday and took the kiddos (my two nephews and a niece) to a pool and we had the best of time!  They were swimming, I was tanning.  I get off subject WAY too easily... I was hear to wish you all a HAPPY HAPPY first day of summer!  What are your plans?  I would love to hear them!  

xo, m.

Make Your Own: Chalkboard Wall Calendar

I have been wanting a chalkboard SOMEWHERE in our house for the longest time ever.  I thought about covering a whole wall with chalkboard paint, I thought about buying a chalkboard, and then I stumbled upon this! I have immediate fallen in love with chalkboard wall calendar and I thought we could make it, too! 

My loving husband did all the taping.  I will admit it took a little longer than we expected.  A lot of measuring was involved.  Then all I did was applied four coats of Valspar chalkboard paint that I've bought from Lowe's.  After a day of drying I covered the whole calendar with chalk and it erased well with a damp paper towel.  The fun part was the decorating and personalizing my calendar! :)  

The only thing I wish I did differently, was paint the whole wall first and THEN do the calendar.  I had to repaint the wall and it took me a while to go around the calendar... Oops! But now I have a fresh wall with a fresh piece of art! ;) I love it! Are you into chalkboard as much as I am?! 

Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to stop by Jen Loves Ken to get more inspiration for home decor projects! :) I am off to work on a shed! (WHAT?) :)  Yup,  last Saturday we started working on it and I can't wait to share our progress with you! Happy Friday! xox, m.

Rustic Coasters

I've talked about how much I love rustic home decor.  What I love more than rustic is handmade.  My husband and I've combined our love for rustic and handmade and started to decorate our home. It's kind of the theme around our whole house.  My hubby build a beautiful coffee table from old pallets for me and it is one of my favorite pieces in our home.  Little by little we've been adding more handcrafted items to our home. Like this ladder shelf  along with this necklace holder. After living in our house for a little over a year, we learned that our favorite furniture is handmade.  Our favorite thing to do in our "free time" is design, build and create!  We are loving every minute of it!  When I look around our house, the items that we've worked hard on make me smile big. They bring back memories of the time my husband and I spent bonding, while working on a certain project together.  We have so much fun doing this! I would choose working on projects together over many other things!  I really do feel like it's a great way for us to spend our time.
Anyway, this blog post is about coasters... somehow I got carried away talking about my husband and our love for working together...  It's hard for me to write a blog post and not to mention my husband, if you haven't picked up on that little detail yet.  He is simply the greatest, he is my life.  (Oh, and he helps with almost all of my DIY projects...) :-}

I blogged about my camping trip in the beginning of June, if you haven't read it yet, check it out!  Camping is SO.MUCH.FUN! While we were camping, we picked up a few tree logs... For coasters! I've been seeing coasters made out of tree stumps ALL over the internet.  Of course being a fan of rustic home decor, I really wanted to add some to our home.  They were really easy to make.  Says me, because I didn't even make them... :( My husband used a saw to cut them out and all I did was smooth them out with a sander. I've been using them a lot, hot tea lover I am! We made a ton, these will make great gifts! I hope next time you're in the woods, you will find yourself a fun little project as well! If you already have wooden coasters, (I feel like everyone has them) please share the link in the comments below, I would love to see! :) Thank you for stopping by! I'm off to drink some tea! Happy Wednesday! M.

Succulents + Vintage Tin Cans

You might remember when I shared my DIY ladder shelf and also how I've obsessed about my vintage tin cans.  I'm in love with vintage things. I was giddy when I stumbled upon some vintage cans while treasure hunting at our local Goodwill. 

My tin cans started out with Marigolds.  I loved it, but I had to water them almost daily and to admit, I am not so good with keeping indoor plants alive.  I decided to move them outside and fill the tin cans with succulents!  Best decision ever!  (I wanted to plant succulents in them from the start, but it was flower season and I couldn't pass up on colorful flowers!) I added some rocks to my succulents from Lowe's to cover up the soil.  My ladder couldn't look any prettier, in my opinion! ;) 

Happy Tuesday! M.

Paint The Front Door

My husband and I love to take walks around neighborhoods and look at the different houses and yards people have.  Front doors say a lot about a person's personality. Front door is the first impression you receive about the homeowner and the house. Today, I want to share a few tips and tricks on how I painted our front door.

Some of these tips will probably be very obvious and others might be more helpful, I have learned a lot while painting our door.

1. Pick out a color that speaks YOU. My husband suggested red, since he knows I love red. I have a lot of things that are red in/around our house already and also I've seen a ton of red front doors. I wanted something different, yet a color that I love. I picked out mint! Mint is a lovely color, it's right there with red for me.  The type of paint that we used was exterior satin enamel.

2. You want to pick a nice day. Duh. You don't want rain and you don't want it to be super cold. The door will have to stay open the whole time you're painting and after while it's drying.

3. You want to use a brush. The effect is so much prettier than a roller. 

4. You want to tape up everything you don't want paint on. Another obvious, but so important!!! My husband was kind to prep everything for me. He also laid out plastic for my work surface. You could use cardboard or big trash bags. Whatever you have handy. I also suggest keeping paper towels with a little bit of water near by, just in case! ;) Also, if you want to hang something on the doors to keep the flies and bugs away, you may. I didn't, because I didn't want to block out the light.

5. A friend of ours, an experienced painter, suggested to add two teaspoons of water to our paint so it will be a little thinner and easier to apply. Now I don't know if that works for all the paint out there, but it worked for us and it was helpful. 

6. Start painting!!! :) After you're done, make sure to let the paint dry before you start peeling the tape off. Very important step! We let our doors dry for about 3 hours before my husband started to take the tape off. The doors stayed open all day. We didn't want to risk closing them while the paint might not be dry all the way.

Before

After

It's a subtle change but we love it and it makes us happy! By now, you should be in the mood to change up your front door! :)  Thank you for letting me share a few tips with you! 

Happy Tuesday! M.