Goodbye November!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Turkey Day was so early this year, that I didn't have a chance to finish all of the 'Thanksgiving Projects' I had planned before Thanksgiving, so I decided to finish them this week....you know, so they are all set for next year:).  I thought I would show a few pictures of how our great room is looking today (along with some other random pictures), because tomorrow Christmas is making it's grand appearance around here:)!

I made the 'Give Thanks' sign using the same canvas that I used here and here and here.  I just added metal 'stencil' letters that I picked up from Michael's in the summer.  I actually purchased an entire alphabet of letters when they were on sale (normally $1 each).  I also picked up a couple duplicate letters that have special family meaning, so I was also able to make this Thanksgiving version too with the help of one extra 'G': 

I painted this turkey onto burlap, we'll call him Tom.  Tom the Turkey, I like that.  It's not perfectly centered on the picture it's wrapped around.  I have an order into Bill for a simple wood frame that I can staple the turkey burlap to for next year, and when we staple it, we'll get it closer to center!  Painting a big turkey was a pretty straight forward project, but I've included a little tutorial at the bottom of this post in case you want to duplicate Tom for next year:)!

I cut these letters out of felt using a computer template.  I cut out two pieces of felt for each letter, and then Lucky and Charm helped me sew the pieces together.  The added weight of two felt pieces made the letters hang better.

I picked up these stick pumpkins on sale from Target last year.  They were in the $1 bin area, but were really $2.50 each originally.

In addition to Tom, we also made hand print turkeys this year:

We ate fruit turkeys too:

We also made clay turkeys:

And we read some wonderful Thanksgiving Books:

Finally, we completed our Thankful Board:

We really had fun completing our Thankful Board.  It's amazing how a few simple words can capture so much about our lives this month!  It will be fun to read this list in years to come.

And on Thanksgiving Day, we managed to get a decent family picture:)!

And with that, Adios November...bring on Christmas!!

Tom the Turkey Tutorial

Find a clip art turkey profile that you like.  Print it out on computer paper and make some measurements to determine how big you want your final turkey to be.  I ended up taking my computer picture to Fed Ex Kinko's and had them blow it up to 3.5x the original size.

Cut out your turkey and center it on your fabric.

Grab a marker (really any marker would do...I just happened to have a fabric marker).

Trace your turkey.

Grab some paint.  If you decide to paint on burlap, you'll need tons of paint to make it look opaque.  I wanted the natural look of burlap, so that's why I used it, but I probably would use a tan/beige duck cloth if I had to do it again.

Paint.  A lot.  I think it took 4 coats of thick paint to cover the turkey as well as I wanted.

Tape/Staple/Glue your fabric turkey around a frame or canvas of some sort.  Stand back and Gobble.

Have a great weekend!

Let the Thanksgiving Fun Begin!!

With only one week to go before Thanksgiving, I figure it's time to mention a couple Thanksgiving themed activities that we are doing in our household this year.  I found a great "Thanksgiving Bucket List" on Modern Parents Messy Kids, and we plan to tackle many of the activities listed.

The first activity that we're working on is a chalkboard Thanksgiving Countdown.  We take turns coming up with people, places or things that we are thankful for, and then I write them on our dining room chalkboard, one per day.  My favorite so far was when Charm said he was thankful for, "All my people."  I think he meant he is thankful for all his relatives and friends that he loves.  It was so funny and so sweet.

We also started gratitude journals and each day the kids draw a picture of something they are thankful for.  It keeps them busy while dinner is cooking, which I am thankful for:).

In addition, we are planning a few turkey crafts for today, and some fun and festive thanksgiving themed snacks for the next few days. I've tracked down a few Thanksgiving books to read as well.

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful tradition, and a great reminder for us to be grateful for all the blessings in our lives!  Do you have any Thanksgiving activities planned for the next week?

Bad News, Good News, Let's Give Thanks!

The bad news is first.  I didn't finish what I wanted to finish by Thanksgiving Day.  I had big plans to 'finish' our dining room by the time we served our feast of a meal to our family on Turkey Day, but I still have one big task to complete that involves lots of measuring and some paint.  I was hoping to post about it today, but since a few things came up that required our attention instead, my last dining room post (or two:)) for awhile will have to wait.

The good news is that our basement window treatments surprised us yesterday (half of them anyway), and Bill worked hard to get them installed last night (Thank you!!).  It's exciting, because we no longer have the makeshift shower curtain window treatment in our guest room anymore...yeah!!  Pictures will come in the near future:).

Finally, Happy Thanksgiving!!  I hope you have an enjoyable and relaxing long weekend!  We are going to have a blast with family, good food and some Midnight Black Friday shopping too:).

I'll leave you with one more turkey day project I'm working on that involves these wishbone charms that I purchased on Etsy recently for 50 cents/charm:

 And these clearance napkins that I purchased to stage our old house and never opened:). $1.74 for 4 napkins x 2 packs.

 Also, I used the bottom of an old cup to trace a circle on black construction paper:

The little white nubby thing is a tiny piece of chalk:).

Put everything together, and what do you get?

A wishbone charm napkin place card holder:)!  I just love the wishbone charms.  I think they would look darling on a necklace or bracelet.  Wishbones remind me of Thanksgiving and family and good luck!

Bring on the yummy food:)!

Getting Guest Ready: Sunburst Style

Back in April, I introduced our basement guest room in this post.  Not much has changed in this space, except for a little furniture rearranging in one corner and one big wall addition.

For a quick refresher, here is our guest room:

This is the view as you walk in the room.

Here is the view of the wall you see while on the bed:

Nothing too special was going on here.  

With the help of Janell's sunburst mirror tutorial (Isabella and Max Rooms), a couple bundles of sticks (one was from my mom when she sold her house last year and one was a Target clearance bundle for under $2), a $2.48 Target clearance mirror, some spray paint and my hot glue gun, here is what I ended up making:

I wish I had more before and during pictures of the project, but if you guessed that I lost them in the great photo card tragedy of 2011, you were right.  So here are some more after shots:

It was really an easy project, but it was a bit time consuming.  I'm not sure the mirror will stay white for long, I'm thinking a nice grey may look nicer in the space against the yellow walls, but for now, it works!

Project Cost

Mirror $2.48

Sticks $1.48

Spray Paint $3.24 (Primer on hand already)

Total Cost: $7.20

General Ideas to Get A Spare Bedroom Guest Ready

And while I was in the guest room yesterday getting the room ready for my parents, I thought it would be nice to do a quick post about what I like to do to make sure guests are comfortable while staying in my home!  Here's the run down:

1. Write a welcome note:

This may seem a little silly, but I love doing it!  I think it sets the tone for a nice visit, and lets people know that you really want them to be comfortable and enjoy their stay!

2. Leave water and a few snacks:).  Our guest room is in the basement, and since we don't have a bar area set up on that level currently, I like leaving a few snacks and some water.

3. Magazines/Books

I know I love reading a bit before bed, and it's easy to forget night time reading material when you travel, so I like to leave a few magazines in our guest room.

4. Lots of Towels

We have towels out on a bench at the end of the bed, in the bathroom and spare towels in the closet as well.

5. Closet

Our guest room closet has two sides.  One side is not camera ready.  It's full to the brim with our suitcases, camping gear, etc.  The other side is all about our guests.  There is hanging space for clothing and a shoe rack.  

There are spare sheets, towels, blankets and pillows.

There are also spare toiletries in a bowl, as well.

6. TV and Computer Access

In this corner of the room, we've moved our sun porch television in for the winter.  An in room TV is always a nice bonus in a guest space.  We also have a computer station for our kids and guests that is set up in our basement.

Other general ideas include having an area for guest suitcase storage (think a dresser top, a bench or a suitcase rack) and also a nice mirror (bigger than my sunburst mirror ideally) so that a guest can get 'ready' in their room if they so choose.

One area of our guest room that I would have really liked to address before our holiday guests arrive is this:

...our curtain is still the make shift shower curtain that we have had up for about a year:(.  The good news is we've decided on and ordered permanent window treatments for the entire basement, including this room.  The bad news is that they won't arrive until later in the week, which means they won't be installed before Wednesday.  Sometimes progress is slower than we'd like...but we'll get it done nonetheless!  

Window treatments aside, here's hoping Oma and Opa enjoy their room for the long weekend!

Linking up to Finding Fabulous.

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Thanksgiving Preparations: Fridge and Pantry Finessing

Last week, I took on the semi-daunting task of cleaning out this guy:

He's our double wide fridge/freezer that probably should have a name, like Tina, the mini fridge in our basement that we bought in an attempt to thaw a frozen turkey for Thanksgiving in less than 36 hours a few years ago.  We didn't have such a big refrigerator at the time, and needed the mini fridge to fit our turkey in because our real refrigerator was full of the rest of the holiday trimmings.  The fridge thaw idea didn't work.  We ended up thawing the turkey using water in our sink.  It wasn't a fun experience.  In the end, we were left with a white mini fridge that we still call 'Tina, The Turkey Fridge'.  That was a long way of saying that I think our double wide cooling appliance needs a name.  Any ideas are welcomed!

Here is the fridge side of our refrigerator right after a good scrub down last week.  The picture was also taken immediately after a big grocery shopping trip.  Funny how empty it looks, no?  It is seriously a stockpiler's dream fridge!

It is so organized looking to me.  I actually contemplated making labels for the shelves (ie: cheese drawer, meat drawer, fruit and veggie drawer, condiment shelf).  Actually, if I had more time last week when I was cleaning it out, I would have made labels.  Next time!  

Here is the freezer side:

We NEVER would have been able to fit all of this food in the freezer at our old house.  In fact, we had an extra freezer in our garage at that house so I could take advantage of grocery sales better.  We still have that freezer in our basement, but we only run it over the holidays or when we have company so we can be well prepared hosts!

Moving on to our pantry.  I introduced our pantry in this post in June.  As a refresher, when we bought our house, there were no shelves in the closets/pantry (with the exception of the small nursery closet).  Our pantry looked like this for awhile:

Here was the grocery shopping mess I was dealing with last week (a more recent 'before shot' after our custom pantry install was complete): 

 And here is our pantry all ready for company:

You can read more about the baskets and chalkboard slate labels I made in this post.

Our 'sweet treats' bin is currently full of mini-marshmallow packs from the Halloween clearance section at Target.

I've found it extremely useful to organize our snack foods into a 'closed' and 'open' section.  The rule is that we have to check the open section before diving into the brand new packages.  It works really well for us!

Our bread basket and one of our two baking baskets along with unopened cereal boxes are on the right side of the pantry.

The pantry is so big and organized, I actually have some empty sections!

Our small kitchen appliances are all stored on the top shelf of the pantry for easy access.

Spices are on the far right.

My grocery/shopping list is on a clipboard hanging from a small hook.  We keep a pen attached with a piece of twine.

Here's a list close up...Sam's Club, here I come!:)

Extra canned goods are stored here.

Don't judge me because I currently have 6 extra containers of Parmesan Cheese.  My family loves this stuff, especially on vegetables.  And it was on sale for $3 with a $1 off coupon that doubled = $1/container.  I stocked up:).  My Pam supply used to be equally as impressive.  I still have 2 containers of Pam left.  I can't remember the last time I bought Pam.  Stockpiling is awesome!

Dear Family, 

Please don't tease me about my parmesan cheese stockpile or my cream cheese stockpile when you come to visit this weekend.  I love cheese.  I may live in Minnesota, but I'll always be a cheesehead.

Love, Me

I love my pantry counter top!  Especially because we added a couple outlets that allow our toaster and mixer to live in the pantry.  

We've even contemplated putting a tile backsplash in our pantry.  It's on our 'ideas to research' list, but it's not a super high priority at this time.

I heart my chalkboard label jars!

I recently repainted a step stool for our use in our pantry.  It used to be hunter green.  I repainted it in an aqua blue that I had on hand from another project that I have yet to post about!

The apron on the stool is personalized for Charm.  Lucky has the same apron, and our entire family has matching chef hats for cooking and baking:).

The aprons and hats all hang behind our pantry door for easy access!

I have to take one trip to Sam's Club this week to stockpile on frozen goodies for the big weekend coming up, and then we'll be all set!  Bring on the Turkey!  I'll be back tomorrow and Wednesday with short posts, and then I'm taking the rest of the week off to celebrate Thanksgiving with family.  We are all so excited!!

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