The other day I was thinking about when I was young and what I liked to do. Most girls loved to play house, barbies, dolls, dress up, etc....but that was definitely NOT me. Oh, I owned those things, but didn't get why you would ever play pretend. For some reason my WAY too logical mind just wouldn't allow that one. Instead, I would make clothes for my dolls or dress them up in pretty outfits and put them up for display in my room. That was my extent of playing with dolls. I also had a dollhouse, that I don't think I EVER put a doll in but I LOVED that thing! My mom and I would spend hours re-decorating it. We would get sample wallpaper books from the wallpaper store and re-do all the walls. We would make/buy mini furniture, make food and decor out of clay, etc, etc. I LOVED decorating that house. I wish we would have kept it.

Anyways, my point being...even from the time I was little I always have loved to decorate. I have impatiently waited for the time I could paint and decorate my own walls! And now that the time is here....I think about it WAY too much. When I should be asleep at night I wake up because I had a dream about this or that. Sometimes it is an epiphany...but most of the time it is me dreaming that I decided on something too crazy which turns into a weird form of a decorating nightmare. See? Told you I am a little obsessed.

Anyways, so now I feel like I have all this pressure, from myself and only myself, to decorate our house perfectly. HA! But I am enjoying our slow start... I am really into making things and having unique, one of a kind pieces. I don't want to just go out and buy all our furniture and decor (nor can we afford everything I would think we would need...) so instead I have been on the lookout for furniture I can refinish and decor I can make myself! I am addicted to craft blogs...I can't believe all the ideas people come up with! Now, every time I go shopping...my favorite places to hit are thrift shops, the DI, Ross, etc. I have found two things that I really like so far and I am still on the lookout for more!

The weekend before school started again Dan and I started painting our front room. This weird lavender/mauve color in our house is driving us both batty. We picked out a nice tan color, called Whole Wheat, for the main color of the house. I bought an accent color for the kitchen and bathroom but I am sure we will add more accent colors over time. We both felt like we can't really get a sense of what we like until we get rid of this yucky color and have a good neutral base to go off of.

I may or may not have accidentally painted Dan a few times....and I may or may not have painted his hair later on as well...but don't worry, he got paint up my nose trying to get me back, so we are even:)

I just had to show proof of how pinky/purply our walls looked, it was quite obvious once we started to paint the tan color.

More proof....

One of my great finds was this cool cabinet at the DI for 10 bucks! I was so thrilled! I forgot to take a picture of it before I started painting it...but here it is during my refinishing process. It was originally this weird 70's brown wood color with brown knobs and was quite scratched. I loved the character of the piece and knew it had great potential though!

I first sanded it, then painted it red. I then sanded it again along all the edges as well as a few other random places. I took black wood stain and painted on top of the red and wiped away the stain anywhere I didn't want it (thanks to all the crafty blogs out there that gave me this idea!). I love it. I can't wait to try the same technique again. I just painted the knobs black that came with the furniture. Eventually I want to get some unique artsy knobs to replace them.

This is the front room so far...still a little boring but we just finished painting it Saturday. We are just happy there is no more mauve and that it has some furniture in it now! We didn't have anything in there for the first two months (other than our Christmas Tree in December). My parents gave us their old couch so the room wouldn't look so bare, which we are so grateful for!

My next find was this bench. I have been wanting a bench for the foyer area by the front door/front room. I found this bench on craigslist. I was so lucky to just happen to get on the internet right after the lady posted it for sale. I was the first out of like 10 people who offered to buy it from her.

I painted the bench dark brown/black and sanded the edges. My parents gave us a picture of the Bountiful Temple (where we were married) for Christmas that I had just been waiting to hang until we found a bench to go beneath it. I also splurged on this rug this past weekend...yeah...that wasn't one of my thrifty finds but I feel in love with it and couldn't resist.

While I was one my spray painting kick (Donna you should be proud....) I decided to go ahead and repaint and distress our old kitchen benches as well.

We have now moved onto painting the kitchen. My mom helped me paint yesterday and Dan and I are planning on finishing the job Saturday. Our goal is to have the main part of our house re-painted by the time Dan's parents come to visit us during Spring Break. I guess my other goal should be to get my homework done and get good grades during the next couple of months as well.....hee hee

Christmas Break

We had three weeks off between semesters from school for Christmas. It was SOOOO nice to have a break but it went by WAY too fast! I didn't start any Christmas shopping or prep at all until finals were over with on December 11th. So I was feeling VERY behind since normally I get so excited for Christmas I start decorating and shopping at least a month before that! It made for a few fun weeks though. I love Christmas. I love everything about it. I love the warm feeling that comes just from knowing the importance of the holiday. I love getting gifts for others. I am the person who will buy a gift, return it because I find something better, buy another one, return that, etc, etc...because I want to make sure I find the perfect gift for everyone! I usually end up with lots of ideas of things to make for people as well. This year I made a few projects, but time only allowed a couple.

Anyways, like I said. We LOVED Christmas break! We were able to finish unpacking our house, pick out a few paint colors, go to Christmas parties, have a sleepover with Dan's younger brothers, etc, etc. On Christmas Day it was fun to be able to go to Dan's family's for Christmas Breakfast and to my parents later. My mom works every other Christmas so we got there in time for her to arrive home for work. Enjoyed the evening which included talking to my brother in Philly!!! He is currently serving an LDS mission there and it was so nice to hear from him!

I didn't do too well at taking pictures...I was too busy relaxing but here is a few!

My mom and I both have started collecting nativity scenes from around the world. I have a mixture of both ones that just have special meaning as well as ones that are international. I am getting quite obsessed with wanting a huge collection already:)

For my birthday, my sweet mother-in-law got me this cute little handmade set from Guatemala, her home country. I love how small it is!

This set is from Kenya. My mother-in-law did a fundraiser at Weber State for women in Guatemala. She takes students there every summer to help teach women how to provide for their families by helping them start small businesses. Most of the women need as little as $50 to get started. They had lots of handcrafted items made by women from 3rd world countries trying to support themselves. This set was hand carved by a woman in Kenya. I couldn't help myself from buying it, not only did I LOVE it but I love the fact that not only did it help the woman who made it but it will help women in the future in Guatemala as well.

This set I got for Christmas last year from my mom. Dan's brother served his mission in Argentina and my mom had his family bring us both a set back last year. I was excited to finally get to display it after having it in a box the past year!

Dan also got me this set last year for Christmas. It is the Willow Tree collection, which I love. As you can see...I love nativities.

Our Christmas tree in our new home! I forgot to take a picture of our new ornament this year. It is a snowman, representing our first Christmas as a family living somewhere with snow!

And for the ONLY picture I took of people during Christmas Break! This is of Dan and some of his siblings at the family Christmas Party.