A Weekend in Pictures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  I am so sad this break is coming to an end tonight. But I had a wonderful break filled with lots of family time, sleeping in, crafting, and movie watching. Tomorrow it's back to teaching B, working, and the boring chores around the house... only 3 weeks til Christmas break. Woo hoo!
I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving break! Isn't there so much to be thankful for?

DIY Colored Ornaments

   Sometimes you want to have a color theme for your Christmas tree. Or maybe you don't, but let's pretend you do for right now. So you're thinking to yourself, "Man, I just can't find the right color ornaments for my tree anywhere without spending out the wazoo." or "Gosh, I really hate hot pink and purple glitter! Why is it on every Christmas ornament?"
  Wouldn't it be great if you could just buy some clear ornaments and dump a paint color of your choice inside and transform that lifeless, colorless ornament into something totally beautiful?

You can!! And I'm going to show you just how to do it. It's cheap and so super easy.

Step one: Purchase clear ornaments and craft paint of your choice.
(I got all my supplies at Michael's for around 7 dollars. 12 ornaments and 3 paints.)

 

Step 2: Take top off ornament and pour in paint.

 

Step 3: Swirl paint all around until it covers up the inside.

Add more paint if necessary. 

 Step 4: Allow your ornaments to dry a little before putting the top back on.
*EDIT* I forgot to mention, let these dry upside down, perhaps resting on a thumbtack in a piece of wood. It allows the paint to drip out and not settle to one side of your ornament.
Once dry, put tops back on, hang on tree, and admire how awesome an artist you are!

Do you have any DIY holiday crafts you'll be doing this year?

Too Soon?

 I'm not sure what the technical rules are for the day you can set up your Christmas tree, but I took the liberty of setting mine up yesterday. Is that so bad? I'm really enjoying the new atmosphere in the living room. There's just something about white Christmas lights...

The House Journey

Hello friends! To your surprise, this blog is not coming from Adrienne today, but from her husband, Kevin! We originally planned on doing this blog together, but I dropped the ball and so far it's just been her.. Anyhow, I'm excited to make my first post on here. A great mile marker happened in our home renovating project last month. I finally finished the spare bedroom, pretty much completing the main level of our house! Now all that's left is the basement. It's crazy to look a year back and see how far we've come. Not only with renovating, but with changes in life. When we first moved in here, things in life, including this house, had Adrienne and I at odds. It was a dark time with many struggles. "This house is from the devil!" I said, demanding that we just finish the renovating and move out asap. In recent months, not only has God proved that this house is not "from the devil", but in fact that this is God's house. This has become a place of community, a meeting place for prayer, a space with all kinds of possibilities to seek and live into His kingdom. This may not be where we saw ourselves a year ago, and who knows how long we'll be here, but it's where God has us right now, and it's been a great journey. Here's a couple before and after pics of the spare bedroom.

No more popcorn ceiling! Thank goodness. If you are going through some hard times, ask God for help, call on Him, wait on Him, get into the word, He is there and He will work in amazing ways in your life. He can turn around any situation to work for His good. Thanks for reading!

Daydreaming...(yes, again)

Today I am daydreaming about snow. Piles and piles of snow outside my window. Sitting on my couch with a view out our picture window. I always wanted a picture window, and now I have one. I am excited to put my Christmas tree in front of it, and turn the twinkling lights on, and watch the snow fall.
Boy, I hope we get snow this winter.

Picture taken from Tumblr

Stillness

   This week, our small group is doing an experiment of stillness in prayer. I am anxious/excited about that. Excited, as my soul is so craving this alone time with the Lord, but I'm anxious because I haven't spent time alone in so long (or really ever, if I think about it). What if God actually does something in those 20 minutes of silence with Him? Scary, right? I'm so thankful for getting to experience this kind of thing along side others, though.
   Things around 25th and Skillern are so busy! But busy in the best way possible. Several months ago, Kev and I thought this house was pretty much a curse. We hated it here. We asked God to help us use this house for His glory...and He has done just that. More times than not, there's always friends or family over. We have an amazing roommate, Melissa. There's prayer nights. There's dancing nights There's Halloween parties. Most importantly, God is here. It's so refreshing to get the focus off us and the house and its problems and onto those who come into it and how we can bless them.
  Hope you all have a great week and weekend. I'll leave you with some pictures from our Halloween party on Monday.

L-R: horn girl, Egyptian goddess, pink haired rock and roll girl, sugar skull

Asian tourist and a woopie cushion

woopie, greaser, hipster mummy

Jamie, me, Julienne, Erika (beautiful zombie princess)