Pantry Door Remodel

 This is what our pantry doors looked like before. Very plain with no shape to the doors whatsoever. There wasn't even a handle or anything! So of course I had to do something about it. I love the "barn style look" and decided to upgrade these doors. 

We used the same doors, but just added to them. We created a "Z" design out of 1x4's. We nailed the 1x4's to the original doors, and filled in the holes with wood putty. 

Twine

I'm a huge fan of country decor as I just love anything shabby chic. One material that is often used with DIY country themed decor is twine. There are SO many cool things you can make with twine. I am always on the look out for new ideas. I have attempted several projects, some successful, some not. Here are a few decorations around my house that I made:

I just used an old wooden frame for the border. I bought the wreath at Hobby Lobby for $6.99 and the wooden letter for $2.99. I wrapped twine around the letter, using a hot glue gun about every third wrap. Then I made 3 burlap flowers by folding, twisting, and gluing. You can decorate your wreath however you'd like. 

Mermaid Party

I threw a mermaid themed party for my daughter's 5th birthday. She wanted to have her party at the pool, so I thought that a mermaid theme would be fitting. 

I designed this invitation on my Mac.

I made a fish bowl centerpiece with the number 5 on it. I just put glass beads, seashells, and water in it (all purchased from the Dollar store). I also scattered seashells on the tables. 

Gender Reveal Party

We are currently expecting our second child and we are beyond excited!! Gender reveal parties are a new trend and I love the idea! It's so much more special to find out the gender of the baby with your close family and friends instead of by yourself laying on the sonographer's table. I decided to hop on the band wagon and have a little gender reveal party of our own. 

The first thing was how to actually reveal the gender. I have seen so many wonderful pictures on Pinterest of people having blue or pink confetti fall on them from a box, balloon, or a piñata. I first tried to do the whole balloon thing, but couldn't find a store that would stuff the balloon and fill it with helium. Who knew that would be such a hard thing to find! That's when I discovered pull-string piñatas! I loved the concept of not having to beat up and destroy the piñata just to get into it, but instead, be able to simply pull a string. These are also great for little kid birthday parties who might not be able to break open a piñata. ;-) I had looked on Etsy for pull-string piñatas and they are around $30-35! So I decided to make one of my own using the good ol' fashioned paper mache method. Here is a great link for instructions. I wasn't good about getting pictures of the process of making the piñata, but I did take one when it was almost done. 

Here are more pics from our gender reveal party. :-)

Pony Party

For my daughter's 4th birthday, we threw her a pony party. There is a local lady who owns Fairy Tale Pony Parties which is where we had her party. Her property was beautiful and the party was a huge success. I highly recommend Fairy Tale Pony Parties!

These were the invitations. They weren't homemade, but fit the theme well. I did make a homemade insert to describe more about the party. 

I love, love cakes made in a shape out of cupcakes! It makes it so easy for people to eat, just grab and go!!

Rainbow Party

My little girl is 3 now! It truly is amazing how fast time goes by. The older I get it, it seems like the faster time goes by. This year's theme was rainbow which truly was an easy theme. You pretty much just buy supplies in every color and it goes right along with your rainbow theme. I had a lot of fun planning this party. First I sent out rainbow invitations. I found this template on Pinterest and loved it! It was a foldable rainbow that came out of the envelope. How cool is that?

Corn Hole Game

Corn hole games can cost upwards of $200. I had some materials left over from the DIY play kitchen so I figured we could make a set for way cheaper than buying it. My dad helped me build the board on one Saturday. It's actually pretty simple. We didn't make 2 at this time, but we will have to make a second board further down the road.

I found a great blog on how to make a DIY corn hole game and I like how they decorated their boards as well. Check out the Happier Homemaker's blog for step-by-step instructions.