The 4th

Don't you just love the 4th of July?  The fireworks, the food, the fellowship.  Last year we had friends over and this was our Independence Day decor.  I've been so busy with summer school, working on Parker's nursery, and getting ready for our beach vacation that I haven't even decorated for the 4th yet.  Maybe I'll do that tonight, baby willing! 

I use the coke crate all the time on our bar when entertaining.  I have a green one that I use most often.  I put small mason jars in the slots to hold silverware, napkins, etc. 

All that was missing was the apple pie!  I got this "American's Creed" picture at Goodwill for $1.  I use it year round in the boys sports/American flag themed room. 

Sorry this picture didn't turn out better.  This was our entry way.  I used old military photos of my husband and my grandparents.  My grandfather brought back four little cloth napkins that say U.S. Army on them that I used here as well.  I topped it off with the "Home of the Brave" sign I borrowed from my son's room. 

Ok, it's official...I have the 4th of July decorating fever.

A Cookie Sheet Transformed

My friend Lillian is a crafty girl!  Check her out at http://raineydayphotography.weebly.com/index.html.  She is a college student that takes great photos and makes fun crafts.  I wanted to share with you guys the cookie sheet she transformed. 

Her fiance was about to throw the old cookie sheet out when she rescued it.  Lillian's directions were to spray it your favorite color (I do love the red!), cut your monogram out of material and Mod Podge it to the cookie sheet.  Quick, simple, easy & super cute, Lillian!

A Thank You Party

Our friends that are leaving town to take a head coaching job had a party thanking all of their friends for the past eight years they have lived here.  We offered to have it at our place since we have lots of room to move around on our almost 2 acres.  They catered BBQ.  I just decorated the tables in a red, white & black color scheme (their new school colors).  It was an awesome party!  We had 50+ guests.  The weather was wonderful.  We were honored to have the party at our house, it was a small gesture of appreciation to the family that has enriched our lives so much!

My sweet boss let me borrow lots of her galvanized pieces and glassware for the event!

The borrowed milk carrier made a perfect holder for cups, & plastic ware!  I used some of my old athletic baskets for holding bread. 

I didn't make these cute cakes.  I could have, because I've got all the stuff and the know-how.  I'm proud of myself for not volunteering for that! The cakes came from one of the friends of the moving family. 

The bar decorated with sweets.

I had the flower centerpiece left over from a Pre-K Graduation party the night before that I had decorated.  I had pictures of my pre-k son in the center of the pics.  So, I thought it was so cute that I just took the faces of our friend's sons and put them in the flowers.  To make the flowers, I simply took a clipart picture from the internet, printed them, cut them out and hot glued them to silk flower stems w/leaves.  I put a few real red flowers in the picket fence holder and placed moss around the base of the flowers.  It was a quick, fun project!

We had red candies to go with the color scheme (cherry sours, licorice, and red hots).  The chocolate animal crackers were also a big hit!  I didn't even know until about a month ago that chocolate animal crackers even existed.  They are super yummy!

My friend had taken a picture of her boys, holding pennants with their new school on it.  She used it as the invitation to the party.  I used the photo in several locations in the house for decoration.  Here I placed it in a cheap 99 cent frame from Walmart & stuck it in a grapevine wreath.  I placed some left over Mother's Day flowers and used some red gingham to tie up the project for some welcoming front door decor. 

The favorite activity for the 30+ kids that were there was climbing trees and pushing a ride-on car around (the battery bit the dust).  The were so fun to watch.  Surprisingly, there were no injuries that night!! 

I was at a loss as to what to get our friends for a going away present.  Finally, I came up with an idea to give them a customized address book.  So, I took the photo of the boys holding the pennants and took it to Office Max.  There I purchased the guts to a planner that had an address book section.  The Office Max worker printed the picture I had saved on my pin drive on cardstock and bound it all together.  I had it laid out at the party and all the guests wrote in their addresses.  It turned out really nice and only cost me about $15. 

We will miss our friends very much! 

Orange ya glad for great Dads?

Father's Day is almost here, so the boys and I are working on a gift idea.  We are going w/an "Orange ya glad" theme.  Our idea is this:  we are going to give their dad, my husband, a gift basket filled with oranges, orange slices candy, an orange polo shirt and a framed print of the above picture.  We will post photos of the project in the next couple of days.  Meanwhile, I want to share w/you how I created the above photo.  I used the editing tools on the Picnik site, http://www.picnik.com/.  It is awesome!  If you haven't ever used it, check it out.  Once you upload a photo, you can do all sorts of editing techniques like turning a picture into a puzzle, making funny distortions, changing colors, add text or stickers, and much more.  With my photo, under the "Effects" tab, I went to "Colors" and selected an orangish color.  Next, I went to the "Stickers" tab and under "Basic", I chose speech bubbles.  You can change the size of them to fit the needs of your photo.  After that, I went to the "Text" tab and typed in what I wanted the speech bubbles to say.  There are tons of neat fonts to choose from.  Finally, saved the photo and then uploaded it to my Walmart photo account for printing.  My only problem was the Walmart site gave me a warning message and stated that the resolution of the picture wasn't high enough.  So, I'm not sure how to fix that, but I just went ahead and ordered it for nine cents...if it comes out terrible, I won't lose much. 

I will say that I think my boys have the best Dad!  Growing up without a dad around, I know not to take his presence for granted.  He provides for our family and loves each one of us unconditionally.  Most importantly, he is the spiritual leader of our home and leads us down a Godly path.  We are truly blessed to have him in our lives!