I'm moving to a new website!

I have been working on getting a new website up and running! My new site address is http://frugallymindedhomemaker.com. The new website is dedicated to helping you find a frugal way to make your home a beautiful and happy retreat for your family! I hope to see you there!!!

Autumn Birthday Party Favors

I made these cute favors for my daughters birthday party. It is a small cellophane bag filled with candy corn and tied with a green fuzzy chenille stick. It is just one part of the favors that I am giving away at her birthday party. I will post the entire favor later - when I complete it all:)

Inexpensive Bathroom Decor

My bathroom colors are gray, yellow, and white. I have had a hard time finding decorations in those colors, so I came up with this inexpensive artwork. I found the material at Joanne's and bought it when it went on sale. I cut out cardboard in three identical shapes and glued the material to the cardboard. Lastly, I hung the three pieces on the wall using pushpins.

In all the project cost less than $7.00 and took less than 30 minutes to complete! It was a very easy project to do during Katlynn's naptime. I'm very excited to have some artwork on my once bare bathroom wall!

Shutterfly Birthday Invitation

Shutterfly.com recently sent me an offer to get 10 free greeting cards! I ordered Katlynn's birthday party invitations through Shutterfly.com and was able to get the 10 invitations for only the cost of shipping and handling. I know that our family will love an invitation with Katlynn's picture on it!

Toddler Birthday Party!

My daughters birthday is on October 19. I have been looking forward to decorating for her party! She is going to have a fall themed party. I was having trouble figuring out the exact color scheme (because I still want the decorations to look girly) when I came across this dress. I love the brown, pink, and orange. I think this is the perfect inspiration for her birthday party! Now I have a lot of work to do in preparation:)

Fall decorating at my home

I have almost finished with fall decorating at my home! I wanted to share pictures of a couple of my decorations with you.

This is the centerpiece on our dining room table. I have a lot of burlap for some reason, so I incorporated it into many of my fall decorations!

This is the table in our entryway. I love the huge sunflower!

More Autumn Decor!

Here are some more pictures of my mom's autumn decorations. Her home is so beautifully decorated! I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I have:)

This is an arrangment on one corner of her kitchen counter.

This arrangement is on her kitchen island. I think the sunflowers look so beautiful!

This is how she decorated her front door. As you can see it has been such beautiful weather here in Michigan that we have been able to leave the front door open. I love this time of year!

This is a birdcage that she has on her porch. My daughter loves watching all the birds at "Nanna" and "Bumpa's" house. She was able to see very tiny baby birds in one of my mom's birdhouses in their yard. It was fun to watch the baby birds and their mother!

I love this arrangement that my mom put together on the side table. The wreath looks so nice with the flowers, pumpkins, and sign nestled in the middle!

Here is the front view of the same end table.

This is her window sill and a small bench in front of it. There's a picture of my daughter when she was just a baby! I can't believe how much she has grown!

Now that I am inspired by her fall decorating, I need to go home and start my fall decorating!!! I love decorating for fall and for Christmas. I am so excited about decorating in my new home!

Autumn Decorations

My daughter and I are in Michigan right now visiting with my family. I wanted to show off some of my moms decorations. (My mom is a great decorator!) I'll post some more pictures later when I have more time.

Isn't this a great arrangement for your window box!

This fall arrangement is in one corner of my mom's kitchen.

I love my mom's use of decorative jars! She always has pretty decorations in the decorative jars.

This is my mom's pantry door. She repurposed an old screen door for the pantry door! I love the basket with the sunflowers.

Here is a chandelier that I bought from a Restore this summer. It was pretty ugly, but I could see the potential in it.

I cleaned the chandelier up and painted it silver. Doesn't it look so much prettier now? I have it hanging in our master bedroom now. I am working on making our master bedroom elegant and romantic. It still needs a lot of work though!

Bedroom End Tables

I have been searching for end tables for our master bedroom for awhile and have had a hard time finding what I wanted. Since our master bedroom is so small I wanted to find small narrow end tables that wouldn't take up too much space. My mom gave me the idea to use shelves instead of end tables. I found these shelves at Hobby Lobby a couple weeks ago and they were 1/2 off. I love to find a great deal!



Also, I got some material a couple of weeks ago to make a headboard for our bed. You can see the material draped over our present headboard in the above picture. My husband is going to help me cut a piece of plywood into the shape I want for our headboard. We are then going to cover the plywood with batting. Finally we will cover it with the material. I will be sure to post pictures of it when we are finished (unless it looks awful - in that case I will destroy all evidence that I tried)

I am so excited!!! I have been saving up money for a new computer and was finally able to buy one this week. Our old laptop was on its last leg and was very frustrating to use. I am looking forward to blogging more now that I have a nice computer (a computer that is fast and doesn't turn off on me if it is bumped at all like our laptop did).

I wanted to share some pictures with you of my daughter. She was having fun posing for the camera last night and this morning.

Here is a picture of my husband, daughter, and our new puppy. My husband likes to let the puppy inside in the evening when he gets home. Maybe its just me, but I've never been a big fan of having pets in our home:)

Katlynn is modeling the brand new boots that we bought her from the thrift store yesterday. They still had the tags on. We were both very happy with such a great find!

Our New Home - A Work In Progress

I decided to post some pictures of our new home. There are before and after pictures. Please remember that it is still a work in progress. I don't think any room is completely done yet.

Our entryway. I painted the walls gray and have put the first coat of white paint on the trim. I think the white trim looks very nice next to the gray walls. I need one more white wicker chair though.

Here is our living room before with mismatched couches and boxes everywhere (We arranged the boxes against the wall so not many of them were in the picture, but trust me they were stacked high.) I picked the wrong color of green paint for the wall. During the day time the paint matches my decorations, but at night it looks almost lime green. I am hoping to get it fixed this week.

Here is a picture of the roman shade that I made for my kitchen.

Sorry for the messy kitchen. I should have put the dishes away before I took the picture:)

I am planning on painting my chairs and table white so they will match. Our walls still look a little bare.

I decided to put my hope chest in this little nook. I am going to make a cushion for it and make it a cozy little sitting area. I think it will look really cute with some pretty pillows and a chandelier.

High School Reunion

I decorated for Hammond Baptist High School's 10 year reunion last Friday. I was hired to set up the pillars and ferns the rest of the decorating was done by someone else. The reunion was at the Centennial Park Clubhouse in Munster, IN.

Green and White Wedding

I have been so busy the past few weeks!!! My husband and I just bought a new home and have been spending every second packing, painting, and unpacking. Plus I decorated for a wedding one weekend and a high school reunion another weekend. I am glad I finally found a few free minutes to post some pictures to my blog.

First I will show you pictures from a wedding I decorated for 2 weeks ago. The colors were green and white. It was an outdoor ceremony at Centennial Park in Munster, IN and the reception was indoors at the Centennial Park Clubhouse.

Fourth of July

Here are pictures of a Fourth of July Centerpiece I made for our house. My husband and I are in the process of buying our first home and moving so most of my decorations are packed. With a little bit of creativity and paper I was still able to make a festive centerpiece for our table.