Songs of the Week!!

Hello Lovelies!

I have some new songs of the week for you all! This week's songs are:

1. Unbreakable by Fireflight which you can listen to here!
2. Walking on Water by Lecrae which you can listen to here!
3. White as Snow by Haste The Day which you can listen to here!

What do you guys think? Do you like these songs? Not a fan? What are your faves? 

I hope you all had a fantastic Spring Break or weekend, whichever is more applicable to you! :)

Landscaping Excitement!

Well! There has been some movement on the landscaping front! How exciting!
A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that our front garden area was kinda icky and that we hope to spruce it up for some awesome curb appeal. Well, we got started on that last weekend! Thanks to a belated wedding present from Blake's parents, we had the means to get started, and I was (and still am) SUPER excited!
Well, we got started a bit late, so by the time we decided what we wanted and got everything back to our house and unloaded, it was right at sun down! But, I was going out of town the day after we bought all of this stuff, so it had to be done that day! So, that's why most of these pics look like they were taken in the dark...it's because they were!

This is what we got:

Three boxwoods

10 bags of lava rock and 12 edging fences

Once we got everything on the porch, we got started digging:

(Shout out to my mother-in-law totally dominating this bush!)

Then, we placed the bushes where we wanted them to go!

Unfortunately, after we dug two holes for the new bushes, we realized they weren't placed the way we wanted....so we had to recover the old holes and dig new ones....sad face

Finally, we got them in the ground, but when we started putting the lava rock down, we realized we didn't get enough...not by a long shot....we ended up needing 7 more bags, putting the total at 17 bags of lava rock!

Then, Blake put all the fences in the ground, and we ended up with this:

(Disregard the random bush on the side...we're craigslisting our old bushes but until then, they'll be chilling next to our new bushes) :) 

Here's a close up picture of the fences. I totally love these, because they show the lava rocks, look like metal but are actually plastic, and were really inexpensive!

We're super thrilled with how it turned out! We still have a few more things to do like get some flowers to go in between the bushes, add something to the left (where the "private residence" sign is), and add some sod to right in front of the fences where that icky mud is! So, still a little ways to go, but for now, it definitely looks way better than it did, and it totally looks way Brighter to me!

Just as a reminder, here's what it used to look like:

So, have you guys been bitten by the it's-warm-outside-so-I-want-my-house-to-look-amazing bug? Any new landscaping projects you've taken on? Or have any ideas to make mine more amazing??

Spaghetti-o's=Pencil Holder? I think so :)

I have a craft for you guys today! And it's super easy and cheap!!
I made a pencil cup out of a spaghetti-o's can!
Step One: Eat yummy food!
Step Two: Take off the original wrapper and wash out all the remnants of the yummy food, so you end up with this: (disregard the mess, more on what caused that mess a little later)

Step Three: Find some super cute scrapbook paper that appeals to your inner awesomeness! (like this paper did for me):

Step Four: Find some tape and scissors and go to town! (It's easier if you cut the paper a bit too big, then cut slits in your paper at the top and tape as you go around so you don't have lots of icky wrinkles!) Mine ended up like this:

Step Five: If you're like me, this can just looks way to plain, so find some extra scrapbook paper laying around, like this:

Step Six: Find some cute pictures online and either print out a stencil or free-hand it! (I did three different birds, because if you don't know me, I am SUPER indecisive) :)
Step Seven: Cut out your super cute design and tape it on your can
Step Eight: Admire your hard work! Add pencils (or whatever you need to store) and Voila! Your own custom pencil holder!
This is what mine ended up looking like:

I wanted something that makes me smile sitting on the desk at which I do so much work, and this definitely does the trick! I mean who doesn't love a cute little birdy?? It totally helps me to focus on The Brighter Things! And what's even better was I did all of this for less than $1! (Hobby Lobby had a 50% off sale on all scrapbook paper and I all ready had the can, but if you include the can it was still less than $3!) YAY! :)

So, have any of y'all taken on a fun crafty projects lately??

Baby Trees!

Okay, they aren't actually baby trees, they're technically bushes but they're so cute Blake and I have adopted them as our little baby trees :)
We're trying to up our curb appeal since we're wanting to sell our house, and this is what we're working with:

Doesn't exactly scream "buy me" right? Well, we took a trip to Lowe's to get some stuff to make it awesome, but once we got there we realized we had absolutely no idea what we were doing! We came to the conclusion we wanted to have bushes that would get about 3-4 feet tall so it wouldn't clutter up the window and garden area like our bushes do now and some flowers to go in between and motivate people to buy our house (I read online that yellow does that for people for whatever reason). We also needed a tree to fill that nice little whole that was left after the tree that the builders put in literally fell over...So after walking around the garden center for an hour or so, we found these cute little bushes:

We planned to put these on the outer corners of the garden area, to replace this weed-looking bush:

And this odd looking bush (it really bothers me that our bushes don't match!!)

But, then when we put our little baby trees by the garden area, this is what we got:

We determined they will look great after they grow a bit, but for now they look like the little cousin of the bushes we have. And since we are wanting to sell our house as quickly as possible, giving our bushes growing time just isn't quite in the cards. But, we love them so much! They're just so dang cute! So, we're getting some pots to put them in so they can grow and we can use them at our new house or something! 

We also decided that instead of going and buying more plants, we're just going to spruce up what we have the best we can (think pine bark, edger rocks, and hedge trimmers) :)

And as for the tree...all the trees at Lowe's would get too big and after we looked at all the other trees on our street that are all still not bearing leaves or any form of life, we're thinking we're going to have to give the soil a makeover! So, for now, we're rocking our hole! 

Do you guys have any ideas for what we could do to spruce up our garden area or tree hole? Do y'all have crappy soil too and know how to make things grow?? Any and all ideas are much appreciated!!! :)

Hope you all are having a fantastic weekend! Remember to focus on The Brighter Things! :)

No Paint, No Problem!

As we're trying desperately to sell our house, we have gotten into figuring out how to stage it! We've just started so we still have a long way to go with a super short budget, but baby steps, right? Well, we decided that painting over the basically new paint job (our house was built in 2008 so the paint is only like 3 years old) wasn't the best way to get a return on investment. So, we stayed with the all neutral palette going on in our home and decided to add color through curtains and art! Well, this is our first curtain adventure! Here's out it turned out:

I'm pretty pumped! I really need to work on my "before" pictures...I always forget until the task is complete!! Anywho, we tried to hang the curtains as high as possible without looking like they were expecting a flood so we could make our window look as big as possible and our ceilings look super high (unfortunately I didn't know this trick until after I bought the curtains, so their length required us to put them pretty much as the regular height...oh well! Better luck next time) :)
But, since I've never posted pictures of our dining room, this is what the rest of it looks like:

With this little guy in the corner:

And a close up of our centerpiece and place setting:

The wine glass part of the centerpiece we found at a yard sale (there was one broken piece, but I always liked even numbers anyway) ;) The candle was our unity candle in our wedding, and the coasters were a souvenir from our honeymoon in Cozumel, Mexico :)

The plates Blake purchased from Bed, Bath, and Beyond a few years ago, and the chargers are from WalMart and a Christmas present from my mom! :)

We're super thrilled about our first curtain hanging adventure being a success! So, we can cross that off of our list and move onto even more fun decorating stuff!!

Have y'all hung any curtains lately? Did you go with a more neutral color to compliment everything else, or use them as a statement piece?

Out With The Old, In With The Old

Once Valentine's Day was over, I figured it was time to put our house back in regular order. (I am totally one of those people that wants to decorate the house for every holiday possible) But, when we started putting everything back together again (not like all the kings' horses and all the kings' men....hope you got that Humpty Dumpty reference lol), I started to realize that I didn't really like our setup...I don't have a picture, but it just didn't have any umph. It still isn't exactly what I'm wanting, but considering it cost us zero dollars to put together, I can't complain! And we have a few more ideas in mind so hopefully there will be a new post soon! :) So, here's the new mantle decor:

The mirror we found at Target for around $20 back when we first got married. We have been using it for a full length mirror, but when we were searching for new stuff to put up, Blake had the brilliant idea to turn it sideways and use it as some mantle decoration! 

The painting we had from Sips'n'Strokes all ready. I wanted to put it up in the dining room, but once we held it up on the wall, we determined that it just did not go at all! Then I saw the colors and looked at the mantle and *ding* (picture a light bulb above my head)!

The thingies on the sides were from Home Goods and the fake grass was from Hobby Lobby, both of which we all ready had, we just had them sitting on the ground. 

That cute little flower-picture next to those tall grass holder things was a gift from someone from our wedding (sorry I don't know where they got it!)

And finally, these two plaques:

We got from Hobby Lobby on clearance for like a dollar each! Yay! :)

And then at the bottom we have:

That same picture from Valentine's Day, and that swirly awesome artsy thing is from Home Goods I believe (it was a gift during Blake's house warming a couple of years ago)!

So, we totally redid our mantle for a grand total of $0 by using stuff we all ready had in our home!!

Although I did sneak in a little holiday cheer! I painted this little guy at Do It Yourself Crafts in Homewood, AL. I wanted to get a pic of it without it being filled to the brim with yummy deliciousness, but Blake had other thoughts (also, I didn't tell him...lol). So, I got some Easter/Spring fun in our house somewhere :)

So, how about you guys? Have y'all done some new decor stuff on the cheap using things you all ready had?

Songs of the Week!

Well...last week...I totally dropped the ball on you guys!! Every time I would think "I need to go post my songs of the week" I would be in my car....I don't know what it is about remembering what you need to do when there is absolutely no way to do it, but I am a pro at it! Anyway! Here are the songs for last week!

1. God Is Enough by Lecrae featuring Flame and Jai; Which you can listen to here!
2. God Save The Foolish Kings by House of Heroes; Which you can listen to here!
3. Innocent by Luminate; Which you can listen to here!

What's on your playlist for this week? Anything that would make everyone smiley face? Do share! :)