Jazzed up Fireplace

So I have always wanted a fireplace with a grand mantle and all those homey things on it. Well, in our new house we opted for a pellet stove to act as a fireplace and heat the house, but it has this tall exhaust tube as well as it's in the corner, not flush to a wall. Well, a grand mantle it may not be, but we found these little mantles at the Habitat for Humanity Homestore here in town, used and a GREAT price, so I thought they would help jazz up this space. In addition to my oops paint found at Fred Meyer, we have made this space more of a focal point in the living room (and hubby says the color is too dark for an accent wall!!!)

Placemats to table runner

My friend Sandie gave me these placemats that she didn't want anymore, and I loved the colors in them. But it's hard to see in these pictures from my camera phone. So terribly sorry, I'm new at blogging, and when my friend Sharon is a natural at blogging and posting spectacular re-do's, I'm just getting started with posting these! Haha, there you go Sharon, you are blogtastic m'dear!

Anyways, I just sewed 4 of them together, cut off the tassels and there ya go, a nifty runner. Oh and did I tell you that the matching plates were only a $1 each at the dollar tree? I have had them for years, and only brought them out for fall and harvest decorating, but they were perfectly matched to the new runner. Love it simple!

Make your own pavers

So our house looked like this 3 weeks after it was finished and we put the fence and stairs in. There was some slightly growing grass, some gravel from the rock driveway spilling over and looked unfinished. I really wanted a cool walkway with stone pavers that went from the gate in the corner and extend out to the front of the stairs. I wanted the look of this: Well I found out quickly after showing my husband, that FLAGSTONE wasn't in our $$budget $$!! So I figured I could get something similar and I went to the local hardware store to buy some pavers that I liked that weren't just regular brick looking. So after googling, I found how to make your own cobblestone looking walkway from bags of cement and a Quikrete Walk Maker Mold. This was perfect, I thought to myself! I showed my husband the molds and mostly my excitement that I found what was in our budget. He promptly said "You couldn't do that". Well, let me tell you I think I laid a layer of my tire on the road leaving our house to the hardware store to see what they had. If you want me to get something done, well then telling me I can't do something, is the perfect way to get me to do it! I started with one bag and couldn't stop. Here it is in mid stage and still a little wet. Looks like a robot with one big leg, doesn't it?

So I kept going and think it took about 12 bags of cement at about $5 a bag or less, the mold was about $10 or $20, so my project took about $60-$80 to finish, and I am so darn proud to call it my own! But then I owe my son a little of the finished product, he dropped a bag of sand on it one day, and tried to sweep it away, but all the cracks were filling up. All the cracks filled up you say? Why PERFECT! Get more sand, boy! And here it is without your heels getting stuck in the cracks!

Ok, I'll be a blogger too...

Everyone seems to have a blog, I don't know how they do it, I can hardly find time for most things. Ok, well, I guess I'll admit that I don't make time for most things. I'm currently bulking my homework responsibility for my online class. Which is an amazement in itself, since I hadn't planned to take a college class, but it was offered through my work, so I said 'why sure, I of course have the time to do and online course'! I recently deleted my Farmville account on Facebook, since I was timing my life around when crops would harvest, then my daughter and husband got hooked on it too, and I was getting on their accounts during the day to harvest all their stuff. Wow, look at all the free time I have now to BLOG! Let's see how long I can stick with this, who really wants to read my thoughts anyways?