Hallway Reveal!

We've owned our house for a little over a year now. And just recently I've finally started to feel like it was truly home. I think a lot of this is due to some recent painting and decorating we've been able to do. So each month I'm going to reveal a new room. Unfortunately some of my before pictures were lost when my computer was stolen, so you'll have to use your imagination.When we first moved in every wall in our house was painted the color of butter. A really dull ugly butter. It was actually very similar to the color of masking tape. Boring! So our hallway, living room, and game room all got painted a nice brown.

Even after painting, though, I still felt like our hallway was pretty boring. One big blank wall. Here is the before:

I decided I wanted to do a gallery wall. I did lots of research and decided I wanted to do one with a horizontal line in the middle (it'll make sense in a minute). So I gathered all my frames and made paper cut outs of them. I used yarn, tape, and a level to make the dividing horizontal line. I rearrange the paper cutouts until I was satisfied:

I spray painted all my frames so they matched. Then, in order to hang them exactly where I wanted, I made pencil rubbings of the hanging piece on the back of each frame. Does that make sense? Then I hung the paper back up and nailed right through the paper based on where the hanger was drawn on the paper. Rip the paper off, hang your pics, and voila! Exactly how you want them. I also used a torpedo level and putty on the bottom corners of each frame to make sure each frame was level and perfect. And the putty helps them stay that way, which is nice considering I have a three year old who likes to race down the hall and frequently runs into it. Here is the final product:

What so you think? Sorry I don't have any other pics. It's a hard place to photograph since there is no natural light. I personally love the wall. We left a little room on the end so that we can add more frames if we want to.

"He Is Risen" Door Hanging {tutorial}

Easter is almost here. I've already shared a few Easter ideas and here is one of my own! And though the idea of the Easter bunny and copious amounts of candy are a lot of fun, there is another, more important, reason to celebrate. So I decided to make a door hanging that reflected my family's personal thoughts on Easter. It was super easy and cheap, because I had all the supplies on hand!

Supplies Needed:

• Yellow cardstock
• Gold glitter cardstock
• Glue gun
• Gold paint pen
• White Cardstock
• Tulle
• Cardboard

Step 1: Using the yellow cardstock, make three accordian flowers. You can find the tutorial here.

Step 2: Glue the flowers onto a strip of cardboard.

Step 3: Cut a strip of white cardstock. Using the paint pen, write the words "He is Risen". If you don't trust your writing skills you could print out the words and then trace them with the paint pen.

Step 4: I used some fancy scissors to cut around the white cardstock. Then cut a strip of the gold glitter paper to be just larger than the white. I used the same scissors on the edges of the gold. Hot glue the strips on top of each other and then onto the flowers.

Step 5: Glue a strip of tulle to the back for hanging.

Happy Easter!

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Show Off Saturday {Easter}

Wow it seems like Easter is coming up so fast! Ok so it is. I mean, we've already bought our daughters' matching Easter dresses (I never thought I would love buying matching clothes...but I love having two little girls!). The other day I was thinking about what we should get for our older daughter's Easter basket (let's face it...the two month old won't know any different!). And blogland is full of Easter crafts. I love it. I love Easter colors. So pretty. Plus, the reason for Easter is very special. Any day we can celebrate Jesus Christ is good in my book.
I'll be sharing my own Easter craft next week but until then, here are a few of my favorites I've seen this week!

1. This Easter egg garland from Crafty Endeavor is adorable. I love the colors and how she made different designs with the string.


2. I love anything that glitters. So of course I am in love with the eggs from Craftaholics Anonymous. So fun!



3. Easter basket grass is obnoxious. It gets everywhere. I am not a fan. But I am a HUGE fan of growing your own grass right inside your basket! How Does She? has a great tutorial so you can avoid the plastic mess.



4. My daughter is really getting into crafts lately. I'm sure she would love making this cute bunny out of paper plates from Free Preschool Crafts.


5. These burlap bunnies from Urban Hoot would turn any mantel into utter cuteness! Plus it's another great craft to involve your kids in. I'm always down for that!


I'm so egg-cited for Easter! hehe. Make sure to grab a button if you were featured!

Organization Solutions {Grocery Bag Dispenser}

Time for another solution for organizing your life! We've already talked about that dreaded place under the kitchen sink. Today it's time to talk about organizing those obnoxious plastic grocery bags. Confession: I do have cloth grocery bags, but I hardly use them because we use the plastic ones as garbage sacks in both our bathrooms and our nursery. So we need them. Unfortunately they can be difficult to contain.
This is how we used to store them:


Seriously. That is a bag of bags, hanging on a nail in the garage. And it was not uncommon for some of the bags to fall to the ground and get left there. Yep, that's laziness for you.

But now I have a great solution for you...roll them and put them in a cute dispenser! First, you need to learn to roll them. It's super easy and there's a great guest tutorial on Tatertots and Jello for it here. This is what they'll look like when you're done:


After that, grab a Lysol Wipes canister. I just rinsed mine out and let it dry. Take the old label off. I decoupaged some pretty paper (the plastic is kind of rough on the canister so the Mod Podge held pretty well) and added some ribbon. Then I put the roll of grocery bags inside and I was done! So much prettier and much much more organized this way! It fits nicely in my super organized kitchen cupboard!

Flannel Burp Cloth {tutorial}

Babies spit up. A lot. I feel like we go through our meager supply of burp cloths at least every 2-3 days (where did all my burp cloths go from my first born? No idea). So I figured it was time to whip up some new ones. Luckily they are really easy to make. I think it took me a total of 10 minutes to make one.

Supplies Needed:

• 1/3 yard flannel
• Sewing machine
• Coordinating thread
• Template...you can find it here

Step 1: Print and cut the template out. Tape the two pieces together. Trace it onto the back side of the flannel twice and cut out. You should have two identical pieces now.

Step 2: Place the two pieces right side together and pin. Sew around the edges, leaving about a two inch opening for turning.

Step 3: Turn the burp cloth right side out. Press down. Make sure to press in the open edges.

Step 4: Top stitch around the entire burp cloth.

Now get ready to wipe up those messes! I like using flannel because I feel it's a bit more absorbent. Plus you can get it in some really cute prints!

Brittany is a stay at home mom to two beautiful little girls. When she's not busy keeping up with them she loves to create and blog about it at My Decoupaged Life.

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