Lee gets up and starts to get ready for work. I, let’s be honest, lay in bed for a few more minutes.

We descend to the kitchen and do the breakfast routine. We eat a lot of Special K protein plus with flax seed sprinkled on top and honey.  And that is our very messy coffee cabinet. We choose between french press, espresso or drip and get our morning boost.

Even though I’m not a morning person, I treasure those few minutes I have with Lee before he’s out the door and gone for 12 hours. I’m especially going to miss the mornings with him for the next two weeks while he’ll be gone for a class in New York.

We let this cute little mongrel out of her kennel, and she is ready for action.

And then the dishes are usually calling my name.

It seems like a lot of mornings I feel like doing something creative first thing in the morning. This often take the form of baking or crafting. Just this morning I had created some gift boxes and packed them with Valentines treats– all before 7:30a!

I created a few easy Valentines decorations the other day that I thought I’d share. These projects can easily be adapted to other holidays or celebrations (think bridal or baby shower!)

For this first set of heart garland, I cut out heart shapes from posterboard, and hole punched two holes in them (that I would later string the ribbon through.) Then, I reminisced to third grade, when I’m sure we all created a very similar tissue paper project. I cut out squares of pink tissue, approximately 2″x 2″ (but they definitely do not need to be uniform.) Then I would poke the middle of the paper with my finger and wrap the edges around my finger. I put a dollop of glue on the middle part on the tip of my finger and then adhered it to the posterboard (does that make sense?) Super easy… and a great project to do while watching some TV, as it can take a little while depending on how dense you make the tissue. I love the texture on these.

My fireplace is a two-sided fireplace that looks into the kitchen, so I have two mantles. I couldn’t neglect the other one, so I made some heart bunting.

And yes, I still have a wreath up. My friend Madison actually made this cedar wreath for me this year, and its so pretty I just can’t bear to take it down (yet.) Plus, it doesn’t help that I accidentally peeled off some of the paint when hanging it, so I know if I take it down, I’ll also have to repair the paint.

The heart bunting also is super easy. This time I began with a pack of Amy Butler coordinating papers and cut out heart shapes from a variety of the papers. I cut two holes in them and strung them over some hemp twine.

We’d better check on the dog.

And, one last project. This is a variation on the heart bunting above. I made some party flag bunting. I again used a set of Amy Butler papers, cut out triangles, and threaded them through onto some twine. Turned out super cute! I plan on making drink stirrers with coordinating paper flags on them for some party decoration!

Brides… I LOVE the idea of paper bunting at weddings. I’d be available to make some for you, too.

Since you’ve just seen my messy craft room, I should probably show you the awesomeness that adorns its walls. This poster was given to my by my Grammy at Christmas this year. It’s copyright year is 1972 and it has hung in a room in the basement of her house for my whole life. We call the room the “dungeon” because it has no windows. Everybody has a love/hate relationship with the dungeon. You can sleep like a rock in there because there is NO light, but then you have to deal with the probably 50 year old mattress that makes you all roll to the middle. Good times.  I’ve always loved this poster, and I guess I told her years ago that when she died, I wanted the poster. Lol. She bequeathed that request early, and so I’m now the proud owner of the scuba diver window poster.

After my extended stay in the craft room I walked upstairs to find this little guilty booger. I love how she’s looking sheepishly at me over her shoulder like “Am I gonna be in trouble for that?”

I have more photos from us at home that I shot the other morning, but I’ve had an equipment failure on the device that reads my external hard drives. Yeah, good times. So, until that situation is rectified, there are a bunch of files I can’t access. Boo.

But, one of my goals for 2011 is to take more photos of US. Lee and I have been married over 5 months (on March 5th it will be 6 months! I can’t even hardly believe that!) And, I want our kids to have photos of us when we were “young” and newly married, and what our lives were like. I want to treasure this special time in our lives, and one of the best ways I do that is through photo. Thank you Lord for my sweet little family, for the quiet mornings, and for moments to express myself and make pretty, fun things.

And thank YOU, reader. I’m glad you’re there. If you would, leave me a note to let me know you’re reading!

xoxo

J

As trick or treaters walked up, these creepy light up skeleton heads greeted them.

And then they may have seen these disgusting 2 or 3 foot bats hanging above them.

What did you say? You want a close-up of the little nasties? Oh. Okay.

I was getting tired of taking pictures of all the gross, creepy things, so I thought I’d take a picture of some nice fall-ish-ness. These two things are MY contribution

There’s our cute little doorway and some of my pretty mums. Oh wait, the mums even got sabotaged by the Halloween police.

Ahhh… pretty pumpkin-ness. (And no, I never even carved my pumpkin this year. Oh well, that just means it can be a Thanksgiving decoration too, right?)

Now we move inside the house…

These are my roommate Shannon’s creation: witches finger cookies!

As if the singing skeleton head surrounded by witch fingers were not enough, somebody decided it should have a cockroach crawling out of its eyeball.

My contribution: caramel apples and all the cute paper signs and best costume awards (read: excuse to not do my homework and be crafty instead!!)

I do have to admit, these goblets were pretty sweet.

Is this next one not quite possibly the grossest thing you’ve ever seen in your life?? The tongue felt DISGUSTING!

Okay, so my least favorite “decoration” of all? The random disgusting roaches my roommate scattered around (read: in the refrigerator, our purses, in the corner… anywhere it was bound to freak us out.)

Waterfall of eyeballs.  

Candy in a cauldron. Yessss!

Yes, we sorta bought the cheap candy. Do not judge.

I wish you could see Gabe’s whole costume. He was a care bear. Oh yes. And Gabe is like 6’8″ or something. He definitely won “Funniest Costume” for his efforts. I wish you could see Chiquita Banana woman behind him… she had a whole basket of fake fruit on her head! On the right is the “Bathing Beauty.”

Chick magnet!!! And she was a cute little chick.. with tail feathers!!

So, we didn’t think to take a roommate picture til the end of the night. We are looking pretty haggard by this point, but we had a referee, Angela from the Office, Swine Flu, and “I, Rot”

Quail Man from Doug, anyone? It was awesome.

And yes, we are disgusting. I concur.  I’m not sure whose idea this was, or why we all went along with it.. but it is what it is lol.