here is my anniversary present, the pics are kinda crappy, but if you click on them and enlarge you can see it

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The dining room and buffet we built.

The kitchen tree.

Yes, I have more than one.

I have my mamma to blame for the double trees. She use to put one in almost EVERY room in our house. We even had a small one in our bathroom.

I tried to get another one for the

dining room, but Chad wouldn’t go along with that.

There’s always next year.

Went out back of the house and picked up all this greenery to make swags for my front windows.

But putting holes in the house is NOT allowed, so I just put most of it up in the house. I also have four hanging swags to put on the porch posts outside.

>

I saw these letters in a catalog, eleven for 20 bucks. Yeah right, made these for less than 6 and that was the cost of two yards of fabric.

>

Spent all day yesterday painting this window for the front room. Last night as I was getting ready to do the letters “Let it Snow”, I look out my window and it was snowing. We just got a light dusting, but it was snow.

This is the tree in our front room, my favorite. The rest of the house is all grown up, but this one makes me feel like a little kid again. I always do this tree and the outside of my house in colors. The white just doesn't feel as much like Christmas.

Most of the presents are for Angel & Solomon, I swear they are gonna have a better Christmas than us this year.

Here is Solomon; he is kinda a camera hound. He wouldn’t leave me alone til I took his picture. And when I say "wouldn't leave me alone" I mean bouncing up in my face and crying. We should have named him Tigger, cuz he can bounce, just not on his tail.

Halloween 2009

Found some trees that were cut down and dumped and tied them up with fishing line. We made our spider web out of clothes line dipped in blue black light paint, then hot glued it to chicken wire. The spider is a couple of black toilet seat covers and sticks for legs.

The bats I cut out of black felt and glued up. Found this idea online.

Our buffet

While walking on the beach back this summer I found this board that had washed up. It looks like it may have come from a boat or something, it still had a metal strap and big rusted chain attached to it. As soon as I saw it I knew what I wanted to do with it, so I sat down and drew out my design. Chad cut off the chain and metal, then cut the board in half.

That was 6 months ago.

Yep, it has taken that long to get this started, but he took leave for Thanksgiving and this is what we have spent that time doing.

We made about 6 trips to home depot in 4 days just to get the right supplies.
Probably could'a saved alot on gas if we'd just built it there,
don't think they'll let you do that tho.
These are pics of the whole thing coming together, Chad wanted some at every stage to show the process.

I originally picked out stain to match my dining room table which is red mahogany, but when I put poly on the boards it turned the grain into this fabulous black, so back to Home Depot we went.

The box, doors and drawer.

Went with the ebony stain to match the top.

Ah, finally getting somewhere with this thing, it felt like it was taking forever to get it built. I wanted to get it done so I could get my Christmas decor done.

We are no where near being professional builders and our tool chest is below redneck standards. It consists of a skil saw that we've had for about 12 yrs, 2 very cheap drills (one that only holds a charge for about 20 min., a router we bought to build our nightstands, and a $25 Wal-mart sander.

The entire time we worked on this Chad kept trying to convince that "my old ugly board was gonna make this beautiful piece of art look like crap"
I never gave in tho, that was my inspiration and it was going on.

Then we laid on the top
and
"Honey you were right, it looks great."

I tried to tell him.

We finally got it in the house last night and I am still amazed.
It looks so much better than it did in my head, I knew it was gonna be beautiful, but this is above my expectations.
These pics do not even show how fabulous this thing turned out.
And to think it all started with a piece of crap that washed up on a beach.

As soon as I get my decorations done I will post more pics. Maybe I can get some better shots.
I have decided our next project is gonna have to be a dining room table, because the one I have just looks horrible with this in the same room.
Maybe I'll find some more crappy wood on the beach:)

Fall Decor

Finally got my front porch finished for Fall.
Our front porch is really great for decorating, but I haven't really had the urge to do it til now.
I think it has to do with the colors, they are perfect for this time of year.
(clic the pic to enlarge)

Put the finishing touches on yesterday.
My favorite part is probably the crows that are perched on everything.

I also love how my sign turned out, even if it did take me two days to get it right.

yes it is suppose to be crooked

And then we have Floyd and Maude. They started the whole thing.

Thank you Aunt Pam for helping with the faces. :)

house pics (downstairs)

You can enlarge pics by clicking on them.


Dining Room

downstairs bath
this one came out a little dark, but the colors are blue/brown/white

Front Room/ Entry

Living Room

Kitchen