I Heart Saturday AND....pillow covers from mom!

My mom can sew. Me - not so much. But, I have so many ideas that just need a stitch here and there... nothing MAJOR. So, her having a new little machine works out PERFECT for me :)

I wanted to add this fabric somewhere.....I thought covering my favorite throw pillows would be a good use.

My mom surprised me with some really cute touches! She used velcro to attach the one of the sides so that I could easily take out my former beloved pillows.

But, what I did not know she would do was to add these buttons - which were my grandmothers.....

and she picked out this cute ribbon for the inside.....

more buttons...each pillow is different...I love!

I Heart Saturday AND....home remedies!

After pulling my casserole dish full of piping hot sausage filled manicotti's the other night, I laid a towel down on my table and the dish on top. I thought (lame) it would protect my table. It did not.

I lifted the towel and this stain was left. I was so mad. I am so hasty and rough on things. Uggh.

Searched my Home Comforts book and it only mentioned how to repair with sanding and staining. Google brought up this idea:

Hover your steam iron above stain and the stain will be lifted. This worked at first, but then the stain came back after about 5 minutes.

Another said, put a pillow case or white towel over the stain and set your steam iron on it for about 30 to 60 seconds. I tried that and it worked!

Happy me.

(Oh, Renee White - if you see this, that is my new Southern Living cake stand, turned up side down. I love it!)

hanging out in the backyard

enjoying my lemons! I love this tree and I love sharing my lemons...



my new umbrella..it was a birthday gift from my dad. He picked it out! It is a really cool mustard color and...

he picked out a granite umbrella stand too..

Matt's plant box has one little sunflower that reminds us of the little engine that could.

my tomatoes are coming!

pretty white flowers are popping up

my new grill ready for the pork chops...

neighborhood girls that pop up over the fence to say hi... I love that!

a new room for the girl

The girlies birthday is coming up and as a birthday gift, I told her we could re-decorate her room. So, for the past few months we have been looking around at options and ideas for bedding/style.


this is what I had in mind...



this is what she had in mind...

While our style choices may be different and I will give in and she will obey :) I think we found a cute happy medium (by the way, I am really liking that chalk board stripe on the wall in the pottery barn example above)

I can get my pink and white and she can get her green, brown and more "tween" look. Today we are off to look at paint options - she is wanting every wall a different color...aahh..here we go again!

Free Chairs

I love my free chairs. I love that they were free - found in trash cans. I love that I can paint them black. I love that I did not have to find them, 'cause they found me.

Imperfectly Beautiful

My favorite blog http://nestingplacenc.blogspot.com/ has invited us to share what is imperfectly beautiful in our homes. While I had many areas in my home to choose from, the piles of books around the house is the winner.

We have piles like this, right on the floor. My Brian and I are at least reading one, two maybe three books at a time, so is Nate (14 yr), plus we love read-alouds for the younger ones, then there is the various books we use for family devotion time. This is the room we pick up a book and just drop in a chair or the couch and so the books never seem to make it back to the shelf. Speaking of book shelfs (shelves?), I really only have one, that's why I actually have similar piles of books in other areas of the house as well! Its not that I cannot pick up a good book shelf at a yard sale, its just my house does not have the wall space to put a shelf against. Anyway, I love this beautiful mess!