Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of you and your lovely families! Now that I am finally starting to feel better this month has just flown by! I promise in the new year I will be back and blogging as regularly as I can :) Until then though I truly wish you all the most blessed Christmas and New Year!

Christmas Time is Here

I hope you all are having a wonderful December so far!  I want to share with you all my home during Christmas time.  I think my decor is my favorite during the holidays :) 

We don't really have a mantle.  We have this weird wall that separates our family room from our living room.  It doesn't go all the way to the ceiling and has little stair steps at the end. An very annoying "shelf" to decorate.  This year, my husband thought of adding these three trees to the top of it to add some depth.  I love when he gets good creative ideas!

Added some oversized ornaments and greenery to my lampshades.

 These last three pictures are all on top of our piano.

 Shots throughout the house

And lastly, our tree.  LOVE

I made some fun little waterless snow globes that were inspired by Anthropologie and will be doing a post on those this week!  I hope you all are well!

Love,

Happy December 1st! And a Giveaway!

It's December 1st and that makes me happy.  One of the reasons being, I will be 12 weeks in a few days...so hoping and praying that the nausea will go away and I will finally get some energy back!  I miss crafting, I really really do! I also miss sharing all of my fun projects with all of you.  This also means that the weather is finally and hopefully going to cool down and stay cool here.  Where I live it has been known to be 85 degrees on Christmas!  Not hoping for that this year. And lastly, but most definitely not least, celebrating my Saviors birth.  I love our Christmas Eve service at church. It is always such a great reminder to me of WHY we celebrate. What is your favorite part about December?

With the arrival of December, I have decided to do a little giveaway.  Nothing fancy, just something to add a little festivity to your homes :)  If you have ever visited my shop, you will know that I love working with burlap! Well I made this banner that is perfect for winter and Christmas! One you of you ladies will have it to hang on your mantle this holiday season.  

The giveaway will only be open until Wednesday, December 7, so that I can have it out to you a little bit before Christmas.  There are 3 ways to enter:

1- follow my blog and leave a comment saying that you did.

2. - Share this giveaway on your blog, fb or twitter and leave a comment saying that you did.

3. leave a comment telling me what your plans for Christmas are. :)

That's it.  Good luck and Happy December!

***THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED***

Love,

DIY Ornaments- Inspiration

I'm starting to get a little bit of my energy back and am really wanting to make sure I craft as much as possible for Christmas!  I LOVE ornaments.  I love how you can use them for so much more than just hanging on a tree.  You can attach them to a gift, hang them from the ceiling with fishing line, stack them in vases...the ideas are endless.  I am wanting to create a lot of ornaments this year for sure!  On Pinterest, I have found a lot of cute ornament ideas that seem very easy to duplicate.  Here are just a few of my favorites.

all images can be found on my Pinterest Christmas board

All of these can be done with scrap pieces of fabric or paper.  Easy and inexpensive...my two favorite words while crafting!  I made a few ornaments last night, but am hoping to get quite a few more done soon!


What is one of your favorite Christmas crafts?  I want to do them all this year! :)

Love,

Healthy Strong Heartbeat

Today was my 8 week ultrasound, and as I noted in my last post I was a nervous wreck! I am happy to say that there is one baby with what the Dr. said has a "very strong, healthy heartbeat!" Those words were music to my ears!

Meet our little peanut.  This baby is loved more than it could know already.  Thank you for your prayers and if you wouldn't mind continuing those prayers.  You all mean so much to me and am so grateful for you!  I really promise I will get back to crafting as soon as I can.  I have two duvets to finish up by Monday, then I am finished with those until further notice!  So until then my lovely readers, have a beautiful day.

Love,

My Fears

This post is very different from any post I think I've ever written as I want to be very transparent and open with you all about my fears at the moment.  First, I wanted to apologize for not blogging more! I am just so nauseous that it is hard to do much right now let alone anything crafty! I am really hoping to get some Christmas crafting done very soon and as soon as I do it will be up for all to see! :) Continued prayers for us and this pregnancy would be greatly appreciated. I have a dr. appointment on Monday to hear our little ones heatbeat and see them for the first time. I'm excited beyond words, yet nervous and scared at the same time.  I'm not sure if I have shared this with you all but I lost my first pregnancy at 8 weeks.  That was an extremely difficult time in our lives and with Monday being my 8 week mark it is hard not to worry.  I worried like this when I was pregnant with my daughter too and she was born a beautiful healthy gift from God.  I know that whatever happens that God is in control and He will be praised in ALL situations.  Thank you all of my lovely readers for your sweet messages and comments.  You all feel like a whole extra part of my family!  I will post on Monday when I get home. 

Love,

13 Days of Halloween Calendar

Hello hello hello my lovely readers! Today I have a fun, easy and very inexpensive craft to add to your Halloween fun!  I have never used a 13 Days of Halloween calendar before but thought now that my daughter is 3 and loves holidays I thought we would star this year.  My calendar was inspired by a picture that I saw in this months Family Circle magazine.  Here is what we came up with!

The supplies were mostly things I had laying around the house.  I used cupcake liners for the circles, punched out the cream numbers and used bags from the dollar store.  I didn't happen to have a frame large enough to hold all of the bags, so I used a vintage window frame.  

Inside each of the bags we put cute little notes of what we will do that day. For example, some of them say: carve a pumpkin, watch Hocus Pocus, go to the pumpkin patch, make cookies...the ideas are endless.  This is such a fun tradition to start this year and I'm so excited we did!  Are there any fun Halloween traditions any of you have with your family? I would love to hear about them!  Have a wonderful day everyone!

Happy Halloween!

Oh my goodness I feel so late on this post, but I finally decided to take some pictures of my Halloween decor this year! So enjoy my little tour of Halloween at the Carter house!

 These beauties I have had for a few years now.  I made them by dying cheesecloth in tea, the wrapping it around dollar store glasses to make "mummy candle holders"

 These vintage lampshades are my favorite flea market finds! They give that perfect creepy look with gauze fabric draped over them.

 These adorable labels are printables from the Martha Stewart Website.  I just glued mine to mason jars and put creepy rubber fingers and rats in them.

 I added black vinyl bats to my vintage window that hangs in my living room.

 This is my little raven that sits perched on top of my kitchen cabinets and watches me as I cook. :)

I hope you all enjoyed the Halloween tour!  Can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!

Some Very Exciting News

We're pregnant!  We are super excited and I'm already tired! Haha!  I know that I have been a bad blogger again lately with such sporatic posts, but I am learning to say no to certain things and will be back blogging regularly very soon.  The baby's due date is around June 20, 2012 so I am very early on...so prayers for a safe and healthy pregnancy would be greatly appreciated! Love you all and thank you for sharing in this with me!

My Little Lovebug Turned 3!

Yesterday, Oct. 2nd, my precious little girl turned 3. For her 1st and 2nd birthday, I threw large decorated parties and was completely exhausted before, during and after them! This year I decided to just make it about being with family. In the morning, the in-laws came to our house then in the evening we went to my parents house. The little thing was still as spoiled as ever. :)

She told me on the way home from my mom's that she had such a great birthday!  That's all I needed to hear!  Happy Birthday to my sweet baby girl! Mommy loves you!

Moss Wreath Tutorial

I am proud to say that I made my first "halloween-ish" craft! I love wreaths and how welcoming and warm they make a front door feel.  I saw this picture in a Ready Made magazine a while back and wanted to re-create it.

I was able to find some spanish moss at the Dollar Tree and had an extra foam wreath and lace on hand.  So I am proud to say that this project only cost $1.00, and I have moss left over! These are your supplies:

-spanish moss

-hot glue gun

-lace (cut into a strip)

-foam wreath

This is a VERY messy project and should definitely be done on a towel or blanket or even outside.  Take your moss and cut it into clumps.  Put some hot glue on your foam wreath and stick the clumps of moss onto the glue.  Continue all the way around and on the outside and inside as well.  Easy peasy! 

Once that is all finished, take your lace and pin it into the back of the wreath and wrap it around the moss as far apart as you want.  When you're done you can add a nice little bow which I made out of a scrap piece of muslin.  Here is how mine turned out.

It's a bit eerie and pretty all at the same time.  What holiday craft projects do you have going?  I'll be posting more very soon! Have a great day!

Let's Find A Cure!

Some of us may know about or know someone who has type 1 diabetes. JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) is a foundation committed to finding a cure for Type 1 diabetes. First off I wanted to let everyone know this is not a paid advertisement. This is something that is very close to my heart because it affects someone very dear and close to me! My 4 year old niece, Arianna. 

She was diagnosed in April 2010. She is a spunky little girl who had to grow up so quickly because of this horrific disease. She was having to have her blood sugar checked numerous times a day by being pricked in the finger, then depending on the number of that having to have even more shots of insulin daily. I can't imagine having to deal with that on a regular basis, let alone a child.

Some great news is that she was recently given an "Artificial Pancreas" which is a pump that gives her insulin through a tube depending on what she eats. Her parents program the box and the pump (artificial pancreas) does all of the work!

Here she is showing off her new pump! :)  

Now to the point of this post! JDRF is hosting a Walk to Cure Diabetes on October 1st.  My family is trying to help raise money for this amazing cause. Even if you can't donate, please visit the site and share some love!  Every little thing counts.  Love you all! I couldn't ask for better readers!