Porch Reveal

I just realized I never shared my porch redo with you. I guess I always feel like it's never finished. There is always more I could do and for lack of funds or finding the right extra pieces I am calling it DONE!

First, here's a couple of fall shots I took last year.

Here's the after....

I love sitting out there on my computer with my coffee now. I'll share all the details on everything sometime next week.

Graduation Party....DONE!

We had J1's graduation party this past Sunday. Whew!! It was a lot of work and anticipation! Today, we are feeling like we can now look forward to the rest of the summer and the new school year. I could not even think about curriculum until after the party was over. It was also hard to blog about anything! Graduation planning was numero UNO. I'm actually excited to sit down and start investigating curriculum choices now.
Today I spent the whole day gardening! What a joy! I've missed it terribly!

I thought I'd share some of the ideas we used for the graduation party. I wish I took more pics. (something I need to remember to do at J2's party)
We decided to have a backyard BBQ theme. I scoured the internet for ideas and thankfully found some at Hostess With the Mostess.
She had found some great ideas for having a gourmet hot dog bar which J1 really liked. I was able to download all the printables for free.
It was 92 degrees on Sunday so we set up all the food in our sunroom.

Then I found desert table ideas from Paisley Petal Events which lead me to
Frog Price Paperie
I purchased her 2011 graduation set on her Etsy site in black and red.
I wish I had found her sooner because I did'nt have much time for all the cutting!
I think it still turned out wonderful!

Also, I stole an idea from Thoughtfully Simple ....her leave a note idea.

I bought a cookie jar from Target and cut peices of twine for people to tie their notes up like a diploma.
Finally, Creations From My Heart inspired my centerpieces.

Almost everything to put hese together was from the dollar store except the chalk boards (Jo Ann Fabrics) and the buckets (Hobby Lobby for $1.20 clearance). I filled the buckets with play sand, hot glued everything onto dowels, and stuck them right into the sand. The weight of the sand kept the table clothes in place. (Yes, even though it was 92, we had a breeze)
I would recommend if you use the candy idea and it's hot out the day of your party...take it out! We had milk dud mush!

Hope you enjoyed the pics...I'm heading back to the garden!

Camp Mom -Handmade T-Shirts

When my two older boys were younger, we had fun activities we would do during the summer. Instead of going away to camp we decided to bring camp to us. The boys coined it, "Camp Mom". Every time we would go to the movies, make projects, go letterboxing, etc., the boys would shout "We're at Camp Mom!"
It kind of stuck through the summers and this summer is no different. We ran a little late with our school year and the younger two are finally done!
I have always wanted to get one of those creative art kits from Hearts and Trees! Love!! Love!! Love her site!! Not to mention that I don't know what I would have done with out her mother's blog, "Harmany Art Mom"! She has really inspired and encouraged me in homeschooling highschool the Charlotte Mason way! More of that in a later post.
Anywho... when she was offering her spring 2011 kit for $10 I thought I would try one out for B and J3.
This week we made our own T-shirts! What a perfect first project for Camp Mom!
We had a great time choosing our stencil ideas. B loves cats so she printed out a cat and mouse from the computer and made a stencil from them onto the freezer paper. J3 loves fishing so we printed out some fish and a hook. I actually just googled online stencils and found everything we were looking for.

We found our fabric paint at Jo Ann Fabrics on sale for only .50 a bottle and they had youth T-shirts on sale as well.

I used a permanant marker to draw in a fishing line on J3's shirt.

Next we are going to make the pencil toppers!

Yard Sale Finds

My daughter and I had a little time to visit some yard sales on Thursday. Here are some of our finds.

The plastic sunburst mirror was $1 (I plan to spray this to look like metal)
The glass dome was $1
The Longaberger basket was $3 (going to use on my front door)
The tall metal bucket was $2 (I thought it would be great for my sunflowers I grow)
The chairs were free!

Total spent = $7.00!!

I'm linking up to the Nester

More Porch Love

I found these babies in someones garbage pile while I was taking a walk in my neighborhood the other day.

I was soooooo excited!!
I took them home with me, washed them up, and grabbed some of my spaypaint. I used Rustoleum's Metalic in oil-rebbed bronze.
I then decided to use an idea from Kimba and find some ferns at Walmart! Like her I had always viewed them as "old ladyish" but I loved her idea of planting petunias underneath them. It really makes a difference! I had already bought some mini petunias in red and plum that I thought would work well.
I decided to place them on each side of my front door. I absolutely love the results!
I have a few more things to complete and then I will show you my completed porch redo.

Barn Sales, Testing, and African Elephants ...OH MY!

Last weekend we had a barn sale and thankfully we had beautiful weather for it. B had been working hard to have her own table with the things she has been making all winter. She makes soaps, beaded key chains, and waterbottle ID tags.

Sadly, I think because we have had so much rain around here, everyone was home mowing and getting things done in their yard, instead of going to garage sales! The first day she sold a few things but on the second day she was a little disappointed. Still, she learned a lot and is already thinking of other ways to sell her products.
At one point, we had a man looking around that asked her if school was off for the day. She answered, "Yes."
He was unsatisfied and looked at me and said, "Why are the schools off today?"
I said reluctantly, "She's homeschooled."
He made a "ohhhh" sound.
Then I decided... hey wait..and said, "She's taking today off to run her own business."
With that, he seemed more than satisfied.

We have been completing our end of the year testing over the last two weeks. It was J1's last test before graduating highschool and J3's first standardized test ever. We have been having a lot of milestones happen in our home this year (especially this month and next). J2 turned "16" yesterday and J1's graduation is next Saturday! B is heading to her first sleep over tonight. Help!!

I had to laugh when I realized I took a picture of J3 testing to remember his fist standardized testing ever. Only a homeschool mom....only a homeschool mom. :-)

We still found a some time to do a little project. We decided to paint some African Elephants. I can't remember where I first saw this project but I will try to find it and post a link.

First we drew in pencil lightly and then we went over the drawing with washable markers. You then paint with water just like one of those water color books that already have the color drawn in.

I'll show the finished paintings in our quarterly wrap up post. They turned out pretty good.

Wicker Furniture Redo

So after a long two days of having a garage sale I found some time to work on my porch redo. I have a set of wicker that consists of two chairs and an ottoman. I bought it last year for ten dollars at a garage sale. There was almost no finish left any of it and I was having a hard time deciding on a color.

It was so sunny out it's kind of hard to see how badly they needed a face lift!
I found a can of American Accents "Nutmeg" that I had pruchased over the winter because I liked it (but had no idea what I would do with it).

I went ahead and tried it out on the ottoman first. I loved it! Around here, you can only find it at Jo Ann Fabrics, so I had my husband run and pick up another 3 cans. I LOVE the way they turned out!!!

Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chicks Spray Paint Party: