with every christmas card…i see

Nope, not dreaming of a white Christmas. But we are still enjoying holiday cheer through our border of Christmas cards here on Evergreen Drive.

As I've done the past couple of years, I display every photo card we receive on the chair rail ledge that lines our living and dining rooms. After all the decorations are put away and the house is clean, these reminders of family and friends grace the walls of our home for a few more weeks.

I'm thankful for these cards, and I'm grateful for the people in these photographs.

hippity hoppity

I love getting ready for Easter. Lent is all about preparing your heart and mind for the Lord and something about that has the power to change your whole mindset. That feeling of love, forgiveness and grace extends to my daily interactions with people as well as the happiness in my household.

On top of that, for me anyway, there's spring cleaning and the urge to check things off the to-do list. You know, the ones that have been sitting there for a while (in my case, months), staring at you in the face, begging for a checkmark. Again…I am speaking for myself. I know some of you are happily not doing any spring cleaning or have time for any home projects. But that urge to cross things off the procrastination list - little home projects, fixing broken things, look into this, file that, call them… has enabled me to get some things accomplished. And being a stay-at-home mom with little ones definitely makes you crave that sense of accomplishment once in a while!

So back to Easter.

Easter decorations might be my favorite of all decorations. We don't have a lot, but every year I look forward to putting the stuff out around the house. Obviously Hannah loves to help, my little decorator, and Joseph…well, Joseph likes to find whatever toy (meant to be played with or not) and get into trouble.

I used our crystal monogrammed pitcher on the breakfast room table to hold egg picks I bought from the Dollar Tree. The pitcher was a wedding gift but is so fragile (this is actually the second one we've had and has a small crack at the handle) that it's not really functional to be used for the purpose it was designed. But I hate to part with it, so I use it for other things. The bunny votive holders are from Meme. The carrots hang on the chest. They are from Pier One.

We bought Hannah and Joseph their baskets (from PB Kids) for their first Easters. I ordered Joseph's before he was born as he was only a few days old his first Easter Sunday. The Peter Rabbit design is my favorite. And Hannah's could not be more appropriate… A couple years ago I found the rabbit and lamb for their dressers.

A long time ago when I was living in Atlanta, my mom gave me a set of three little nesting Easter bunnies. {My mom loves decorations even more than I do.} They have made it through many moves but not through the curious and playful hands of children. The littlest bunny was the first to lose an ear. Then another… And then only a few days after putting them out this year, the big bunny broke an ear. I tried to fix it with two types of glue, but the best I got was this:

No idea where that missing piece went. I could keep him and call him Evander Holyfield, but the inevitable… The little one's ears were gone for good. At this point the middle bunny was still intact. I picked him up to hand to Hannah, and I dropped him. Not even joking. Apparently my hands are just as capable of breaking them as Hannah's or Joseph's.

So three little bunnies hopped off to the trashcan. Sad, but they were enjoyed for many years.

My mom also gave us the little bunnies perched on top of the china cabinet. Notice, they still have ears. The secret to bunnies with ears is to put them up high. We have three of those egg wreaths, which I found at CVS (score!). The other two hang on the hall and laundry room doors in the breakfast room. They are my favorite decorations. 

I wanted something to go over the baskets on the dining room buffet, but didn't want to spend any money. We had lots of plastic eggs so I strung some up and hung across the mirror.

If you're interested, it's very easy to do. You need plastic eggs, string (I used jute) and scissors.

The eggs already have holes in them, generally. Depending on the thickness of your string, you may need to use the scissors to make them bigger, as I did:

Thread the string though the eggs.

And adjust spacing as needed. On a few of mine I had to tie knots in the string to get the eggs with holes too big to stay put.

Very simple. Not a formal decoration, but fun.

And we are all about fun. Speaking of the dining room, I filled my dough bowl with natural raffia but have nothing for inside of it. 

Maybe this year, I'll go au naturel.

st. patrick's day and hanging shamrocks

We were originally suppose to travel to Savannah for St. Patrick's Day (which was this past Monday as you likely know), but for various reasons, we decided to stay home.

Of course I dressed the kids in green for school. Yes, some people actually have to go to school on St. Patrick's Day! {In Savannah it is a huge holiday…and the population of the city usually doubles.}

Joseph wasn't happy about Hannah having his sunglasses. I posted the picture below on Instagram, and I'm still laughing about that face.

Hannah was upset she would miss the celebration, but I hooked up the laptop to the TV so we could stream the parade. She decided to change outfits. It was all good...

It was a cold and rainy day in Savannah, so it wasn't a bad year to miss. It was also a cold and rainy day in Sandersville...

I know St. Patrick's Day was Monday, but since it's still the same week, I won't consider this late…

I have, very randomly, been saving toilet paper tubes for a few weeks, thinking maybe there was something crafty I could do with them. Well, imagine my surprise when I receive a weekly Parents daily newsletter in my inbox with a shamrock craft, made from, yep, you guessed it - toilet paper tubes. I usually don't even read (or open) those newsletters, but the craft was the main photo and thus got my attention.

Here's what you need:

cardboard tubes
scissors
glue (I used Tacky glue)
green paint
paintbrush
fishing line

 1. Flatten the tubes and cut 1/2" rings. {For each shamrock, you will use 4 1/2" rings.}

2.  Cut through the rings and then bend and glue three to form hearts. These are your leaves. Fold the fourth to make a triangular shape. This is your stem. You may want to secure with a paper clip, as I did, to hold it together while it dries.

3. Glue a leaf on either side of the stem and then the third leaf to one of the other leaves.

4. Your shamrocks will look somewhat like this:

{No two things look exactly alike in nature, so don't worry about perfection.}

5. Paint them green! You can do all one color, as on the website, or you can mix it up. I did an ombre effect.

6. Tie them with fishing line and hang!

I linked mine together but you can hang them individually from the ceiling or a doorway or do however you want. Since I started this craft on Tuesday (after St. Patrick's Day), and finished it yesterday, I just strung mine up as a garland in the playroom. Next year, I might be more creative. For now, I'm calling it crafty garland: Irish edition.

{You can see the video tutorial here.}

valentine garland

Last week, when it was cold and rainy and we were stuck inside trying to get better, I felt inspired to do something crafty and festive. We love decorations and so I picked up some supplies at Walmart and set out to make a heart felt garland with Monkey.

I was happy with the end result, and she loves it.

My workspace in the playroom:

My helper (self-portrait):

It wasn't difficult but it did take some time, as I worked on it here and there over a few days. My biggest challenge was threading the needle. After having to go to my husband a few times, I got him to show me how he could do it so easily. If you're interested in making a Valentine garland, this is how I did it...

My supplies:

felt - red, white and pink {I wanted mostly red and white and used pink as an accent color. Amount depends on how big you want your garland. I actually wasn't prepared at the store, and just made some guesses and tweaked as I went along.}
card stock
pencil
scissors
white embroidery thread
embroidery needle
poly-fil stuffing
white yarn

I love a sketch, so here's my plan:

Step 1: Cut out heart shapes from card stock and trace on felt.

Step 2: Cut

Step 3: Using embroidery thread, sew two hearts together creating a pouch. {I chose embroidery thread because it was thick enough to see contrast and still be thin enough to pull through the felt.}

The stitching does not have to be perfect. I did it fast and am no seamstress.

Step 4: Sew until you get to about this point, and fill heart with stuffing.

Step 5: Sew heart the rest of the way up and knot the thread a couple times at the bottom. Repeat until all hearts are done.

Step 6: For the garland string, thread the yarn through the loops on the backside of the hearts. {I went through the middle loop to keep the hearts from leaning forward or flipping over when the garland is hanging. Yarn works great because it is stronger than the thread but still fits through the hole in the needle.}

Continue in whatever pattern you want until all the hearts are on the string of yarn, then hang!

Ta-da!

We decided to hang it from the mantel in the playroom. According to my sketch, I originally planned to create a swag with two or three levels of hearts, but since we are still using the fireplace and we might need to take the garland down, I went with this simpler approach.  The heart in the middle was painted by my little boy at preschool.

And that's that. Onto the next project...