DIY Christmas Crafts

I am fully aware that we are still in the month of October.

I know Halloween hasn't happened yet.

I know. I know!

But Christmas is by far my favorite holiday and I just couldn't resist making some cute Christmas crafts when the mood struck me.

My all-time favorite Christmas song is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. It doesn't even matter who is singing it, I love it so much. So every year, I look for a sign with this saying to add to my decorations. Last year, I found one at Joann craft store but didn't buy it when I saw it and then it was out of stock the rest of the season. This year, I found the sign and bought it immediately. While I love the sign, my problem stems from the fact that it's not in my Christmas colors.

So I thought to myself, I'LL CRAFT ONE!

I'm not a crafty person, but I thought I'd at least try. So let me share it with you!

Supplies needed: Blank canvas, any size you want
                            Poster stickers, to spell out the words
                            Painters tape-I used green frog tape
                            Colors of Spray Paint that you want to use

 I started with a plain white canvas from the craft store. It was a 3-pack so we ended up with 3 signs. First, I spray-painted the canvas white (yes, I know they were already white) because of some imperfections that I wanted to cover up. Next, I taped out my border and made sure to really press down the edges so that the paint didn't bleed through.

 I decided how I wanted the words laid out then used the poster stickers to spell everything out. I ran out of letters so had to improvise for the second R in merry but it worked out fine. I had to reposition the letters over and over again because the spacing was bothering me but I finally got it just the way I like it.

 Once I had all the letters in place, it was time for the main color. I tried to paint in even sprays but for my first time spray-painting, I didn't do too bad. The one thing I didn't realize was that the letters weren't super sticky. I accidentally got too close to the T in Christmas and the force of the spray blew it up a little bit so the lines around it aren't as crisp but it gives the sign character, right?

 Once the paint was dry, I took off the stickers and the border tape and TA-DA, I had my sign. I have been wanting one of these forever and I'm so happy with how it turned out.

 The hubs decided to make this next sign. He again taped the borders then painted the darker blue color. We then set the letters up and put another piece of tape under it. We sprayed the letters white then once it was dry, we took off the stickers and line tape off. Derek sprayed a coat of glitter over the sign then took off the border tape. I love how his sign turned out and I love that it's a quote from ELF since it's one of our favorite movies for any time of year.

 This final sign was a little harder to make than I thought. I painted the whole canvas blue then taped the border and put the stickers on. Somewhere in my mind, I thought it would be easy to cover to blue paint with white paint. Nope. Not easy. We both had to attack the canvas with the white paint but it the end, it still wasn't an even coat. I kind of like that it ended up almost looking like a frosted window(hard to see in the picture) so that it goes along with the saying.

The paint I used for my two signs

The paint Derek used

The white that we both used

The glitter spray

Overall, I'm so happy with how all these signs turned out. I'm not the most crafty person but I think we did a really good job with everything and I can't wait to add them to our Christmas decorations

Griffin Family Update #1

Hello bloggy friends! Obviously I've been MIA for a while but lets be honest, I'm not the best at blogging in the first place.

Oh well.

Due to my (unnoticed) absence, I figured that I'd give everyone a little update on the Griffin clan.

Derek:

The mister has been working hard as a front end supervisor at Lin's. He's currently up for a raise and fingers crossed that he gets it! He is very deserving of it with all the hard work and extra tasks that he has been taking on. At the moment, Derek is still in the process of deciding if he wants to return to Dixie for the Fall semester. He does seem pretty excited about the prospect of being the main bread-winner while I work my way through school though. I guess we'll see what he decides come the beginning of August.

Emily:

I recently started a new job at Wal-Mart. It's been exciting to learn new things and I'm a lot less stressed now. It's been a good change so far. Plus I'm making some actual friends finally which is a major bonus. I just finished up my summer semester classes. I seemed to fair pretty well. I should end up with an A in one class, and a B in the other. Feeling pretty proud of those grades at the moment. I'm registered for all but one class for the Fall semester. I have to take a math placement test before I can register for my last class but it's math. I HATE math so I've been putting off taking the test. However if I can get into the math class, I'll have my associate degree come December.

The Pups:

Charlie and Molly are as adorable as ever. Molly has gained the new nick-name "Paulsy" which is weird but she responds to it. Charlie has started to calm down a little but he is still playful and loving. We also saved a little chihuahua during a Sunday drive in Arizona. We brought her home and began the search for her family. We posted all over Facebook hoping to get the word out. Meanwhile, all of us, including the pups, fell in love with that little girl. We named her Lucy and decided to make her a permanent Griffin if we couldn't find her family. Unfortunately, Lucy got out of our yard Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon her family in Arizona contacted us and we had to give them the sad news that we lost their little girl AGAIN. We took to Facebook again trying to find her but to no avail. Little Lucy is gone. I hope someone took her in and will give her all the love she needs.

General News:

We took our 3rd trip to Disney World in May. It's seriously one of my favorite vacations ever and maybe I'll write up a post about it one day. In June we got to go to Pleasant Grove to visit family and friends. It was so lovely and much needed. We get to go again in August to see Derek's dad get sealed to his wife. We are very excited about that trip. Also in August, Derek and I will start Foster Care classes. This will be our first step toward becoming a family of 3 and we are hoping all goes well.


Those are the updates for now. We are so happy and more in love than ever. We're looking forward to what the next few months will bring our way!

Decorating Paralysis

Guys. I need HELP.

Major help.

We've lived in our house for almost a year now so I decided that it has high time we started to make it our own. I decided to start in the master bedroom and go from there. I created this vision in my head and thought it would be a snap to create.

oh how wrong I was.

It took me probably 2 weeks, hours of research, and 7 paint samples before I finally chose a paint color. I had the perfect bedding all picked out and it arrived two days before we painted. I was so excited to put it all together and figured once it was in place, everything else would be easy.

Again, WRONG.

Now that we've painted and the bedding is in it's rightful home, I can't do anything! I have ideas of what I want and I find something that I love, yet I don't buy it. I don't know how to take the image in my head and make it a reality in my room.

Walls are blue. Bedding is gray and white. I want pops of yellow. Hours on Pinterest have not helped my cause either.

I need a lovely decorating friend to help me ASAP.

Or any advice would also be appreciate. This room is stressing me out.

Why couldn't I be artistically gifted?

100 Days: 1-10

So far I'm 10 days in to the #100happydays challenge. I'm ABSOLUTELY loving it. It's so wonderful to find the little things every day that make me smile. I'm finding that life is THAT much more enjoyable now.

EVERYONE SHOULD DO THIS CHALLENGE!!!!!!

So, lets recap the last 10 days.

Day 1: lovely ring dish from my love

Day 2: Picking out paint colors for our bedroom. !HINT! It's not either of these colors

Day 3: Been on my bucket list forever to finally have a passport. Now to travel the world

Day 4: I finished studying this list for Jazz History. I HATE THIS CLASS

Day 5: Our customized park maps for our upcoming Disney World vacation came in the mail

Day 6: My husband and I exchanging sappy love notes of FB. Yes, We're THAT kind of couple :)

Day 7: My fur-babies! Charlie and Molly. I sure love cuddling with them!

Day 8: My bestie, Trina, sent me this baseball cap for Christmas. Seattle is my favorite city!

Day 9: Hard to see, but my hubby left me a love note in the steam on the mirror #truelove

Day 10: Our new bedding came today from Amazon. I'm so excited to be updating our bedroom!

I'll do another recap in a few days. But seriously, everyone do this challenge. It's changing my life for the better and I can't wait to see how I feel once I complete it.

Find your happy, dears.

100 Happy Days

Do you recall the last time you were "in-the-moment" happy? So many of our days are filled with mundane, every day tasks. We're too busy thinking about our TO-DO lists for the day or what big thing has to be done tomorrow that we often forget to just...live in the now.

I am guilty of doing just that.

I don't often take time to stop and smell the roses as they say. I'm a full-time college student working 30 hours a week all while trying to maintain the house and continue to build up my marriage.

Occasionally I'm so focused on on school work or sleeping that even my marriage falls to the wayside sometimes.

What kind of life is that?

I don't want to continue being so caught up in the busy-ness of life that I miss the the little things. The things that make a bad day better. The things that make a good day great. I want to focus on the happy.

Enter 100happydays.com

I saw a link to this page on Facebook and thought I'd check in out. The challenge? It's simply really.

For 100 days, you take a picture of something that made you happy. Doesn't have to be big or over-the-top, it actually shouldn't be. They don't want you to be bragging. This isn't a challenge that you do to win. This is something you do for yourself. To see the happiness and beauty in your busy, every day lives.

I'm so excited to do this challenge for myself. I'm looking forward to focusing more on the happy. I'll be taking my pictures on instagram as well as posting them to Facebook. If anyone cares to follow along, you can click on the links on the side.

If you want to start the challenge yourself, click on the link above and get going!

Focus on the happy lovelys.

A Love Poem and Thank You Shout Out

On our wedding day, we received many wonderful gifts and I am very thankful for all of them. One simple, sweet gift we got included a poem. This poem has been displayed in our home ever since and is a good reminder for our marriage.

If you learn the art of compromise,

The craft of give and take

And keep in mind your partner,

In the choices that you make.

If you can just remember, 

It's the little things that add,

More pleasure to the good days

And comfort to the bad.

If your partner is your best friend,

Your pal, your mate, your buddy,

Who sticks with you through all your moods,

The good, the bad, "the nutty".

If a hugs your favorite thing to wear,

A kiss, your midnight treat.

And if you think a cuddle

Is the perfect source of heat.

If your favorite choice of music,

Is the other person's laughter...

Then clearly, you two know the way

To Happily Ever After.

I love this poem and it is always a sweet reminder of our love and how we wanted to live in our marriage. So since Valentine's Day is in a week,  I just wanted to share the love with everyone, especially my hubby!

Also, special THANK YOU shout out to my friend Ashley! She designed the new look for my blog and put up with my random emails when I couldn't figure out exactly what I wanted. She did an amazing job and I absolutely love it!. You can follow her here

Happy Love week everyone!