Christmas countdown blocks

last year I made countdown blocks using scrapbook paper and I love how it turned out (sorry about the lighting):

But this year my color scheme is different from last year so I decided to make new blocks. here's the finished product:

First I cut my blocks with my saw and my miter box.

Then I painted the blocks silver using craft paint.

Once the first coat was dry I painted the blocks white.

Once the second coat was dry I sanded the blocks down a bit so the silver with show through.

I cut out stencils with my silhouette SD. On one block you'll need numbers 0-5 and on the other you'll need 012678. Number 6 can be turned around and used as a nine as well. I painted the numbers red.

And I also added a little stencil on each corner which I filled in with a silver permanent marker.

For the bottom block I didn't add any embellishments and I tied a ribbon around the whole set. Oh, and the font I used for the numbers is called St. Nicholas, it's a free font and I love using it at Christmas time:) Enjoy!

gift plaque

A month ago I had to go to a meeting at my daughter's school but my husband was out of town...so I was in desperate need of a free babysitter. Luckily A sweet lady from our ward was happy to help me out and I wanted to give her a little something to say thank you so I made her a plaque:

This project was very fast, choosing the fonts and the image took the longest but I did that the night before while the kids were sleeping. The rest took about 30 minutes of my time here and there because you do one step and then have to wait for paint or glue to dry so you can still play with your kids and not feel like you are neglecting them :)

I had the supplies on hand, I used a piece of molding that I cut with my miter box to fit the inside of my 8X8 piece of wood.

I then used wood glue to glue the molding and let that dry about 20 minutes.

Because I'm not an expert at sawing and my miter box isn't in great condition anymore I used wood paste to fill in the gaps in the corners and let that dry a bit.

Then I painted the whole plaque with blue craft paint. I like craft paint for small projects like this because it dries fast:)

I used my silhouette to cut out what I wanted to put on the plaque and took out the insides of the letter so I could use it as a stencil.

filled in the letters with white craft paint and pulled off the stencil.

And there you go!

Hydrangea heart wreath

Once a month there is a flea market just outside out apartment building, there are always 2 or three stands that sell shabby chic stuff. One lady also sells these handmade hydrangea wreaths. I bought one for 5 euros and chose the heart shaped wreath. The flowers were still fresh when I bought the wreath as you can see in the picture below. The lady said to just lay it flat for a few days until it dried.

So these next pictures were taken about 4 days after I bought the wreath, it was dry so I decided it was time to use it properly.

The colors are still the same as when they were fresh! I love this wreath!

Enjoy!

sitting corner

one of our favorite spots in our new apartment is this guest bed covered in pillows right by the window. The kids love to stand on the bed and look out the window and my husband and I like to sit and read or take naps there.

I still need to put something on the wall and find a cuter side table to replace this Ikea table.

I picked up this lamp at the thrift store in France, I painted it off white and distressed it. The pillow cases with the roses were a wedding gift from one of my best friends from Finland, I love the pattern.

A couple more views from the balcony in the living room, I love sunny days with a blue clear sky!

A few views

No, we do not own a mansion in the center of a small German town...but we do live (it's a rental) on the second floor of this cool gray and white building in the center of a small German town:)

The apartment has nice big windows so that we can fully enjoy all the nice views from the second floor. These pictures dont really do the views justice in my opinion though.

It's fun to just sit by the window and watch the people down below. I love that we can actually see the mountains in the back. Apparently the best view is from our tiny bathroom window that's too high for me to look out of but my husband who is way taller than me gets to enjoy the nice view every time he uses the bathroom:)

I'm so excited that fall has arrived, I love curling up on the couch with a good book, lots of pillows and a warm blanket on my legs...and maybe a couple cookies with lots of cinnamon in them!

Kitchen in new apartment

We moved in 3 weeks ago and there is still so much to do but the place is starting to look nicer. I've spent most of my time working on the kitchen (when I have any time at all).
I love this area of the kitchen with my little table and the three ikea chairs that I painted (well they aren't all finished yet but you can't tell in the picture which one is finished and which two aren't:)

The built in kitchen is more 'modern' than I'd like it to be and there is practically no cupboard space or work surface. Since this is a rental we didn't do much to improve that except add a few shelves. I only have one drawer in my kitchen so our silverware is hanging on the wall:)

I do like the the cupboard with the glass door so I can display some of my nicer plates and bowls.

This is a thrift store find that I got in France, we only live 20 minutes from France now which is lots of fun. I'll post more pictures of some of my other thrift store finds from France soon!

I love the light pastel colors of the design.

the ceilings in our new place are very high so you can't actually see the lamp hanging from the ceiling in the first picture. I love this lamp, it's goes perfectly with the table and the little shelf on the wall. I also love that I got this lamp for free:)
Will be posting more pictures of our new apartment soon!

in between boxes

The first week end that we were supposed to start packing I decided to paint a table for our new kitchen. The kitchen in our new apartment is going to be very small, we can fit a table in it but it has to be very narrow. I had this really cute table that my Dad and my Grand-father had restored for us as a wedding gift, we haven't been using it the past few years because it needed a new coat of paint. Since I like farm style kitchens I decided to strip the top of the table so the wood underneath would show.

This is the only before shot that I have. The table in this picture is an ivory color and I wanted it to be an antic white.

I love the color of the wood!!

There was a lot of sanding involved...

I used a satin finish cream white paint to cover the legs.

It was getting dark when I finished painting the legs so they look a lot creamier than they actually are, the color is much lighter. In this picture I haven't actually varnished the top, I later added 4 coats of clear varnish to the top the table.

I have four of these wooden Ikea chairs, they are very white right now and I've started to take the paint of the seats and painting the rest the same color as the kitchen table legs. I am also going to distress the chairs a bit.
I'll take pictures of the finished product in our new apartment where the lighting is much better I think. 3 more days till the big day!!!