home woes & bible verse {printables}

**NEW** Visit my Etsy Store, Lou & Letter, where I sell hand lettered prints and gifts!

The past few weeks have been full of the unexpected and some emotional ups & downs for us.  Unfortunately, the sell of our current house fell through...which means the buying of our new {old} house also fell through. :( Big bummers all around. So we started back at square one with trying to find another buyer for our house while hanging on to the house we want in Liberty with a 30 day contingency offer. We also dropped the price on our current house again to see if being a little more aggressive would help the process along.  So we will see... right now we just wait, and trust in God's plan for us.
It has been difficult for us to try and understand and appreciate the fact that God is in control of this situation.  After all, this isn't what we want to happen... and what we wanted to happen was within grasp {less than 3 weeks away from being a done deal} just to have a major let down take it all away. I can definitely say I've already learned some tough lessons through all of this... Caleb and I have had many conversations about flaws in ourselves that have been exposed through this all. I've definitely been seeking peace through God's word through this all... which has made all the difference!  Here is one excerpt from the She Reads Truth devotional blog about trusting in God's plan of the "big picture" and not getting stuck in the temporary moment... {I highly encourage everyone to read this particular devotional from that day}

This truth really spoke to me as I feel like there have been so many times I have needed to hear this in the past {with my dad's death, with job situations, with this house situation} and so many times in the future I'm sure I will have to reflect on it.

I just so happen to have started working on some bible verse printables right around the time all these house issues started going down, so I thought now would be the perfect time to share them.

This first one I made in two different background colors because I couldn't decide which one I liked best... :)

Then I went with more of a floral theme...

 

This next verse is one my sister sent to me during this rough patch... I really love the promise here that if we obey the Lord, He will come through for us - possibly not in a way we want, but He is faithful always.  {I have the best sister, thanks Lee!}

If you would like to download any of these prints for yourself, feel free. They are all 8x10 size. The links are below.  I like to get them printed on thick white card stock.  {I've used places like Office Depot or an online printing site called Zazzle}

**NEW** Visit my Etsy Store, Lou & Letter, where I sell hand lettered prints and gifts!

Printable Verses:

Anchor Print, Hebrews 6:19 {blue}

Anchor Print, Hebrews 6:19 {coral}

Dark Background Floral, Isaiah 40:8

Stripe Background Floral, Exodus 14:14

meal planning & cookies

Meal planning... one of those things I've mentioned on the blog before that I was going to "start doing" {<---- when you read that, feel free to make air quotes}.  I believe I talked about starting it during my freak out, crazy-list-woman post... ga'head and read that here if your unfamiliar with that wonderful trait of mine.  Anyway... similar freak out senario while I was at the store yesterday after I text Caleb and asked...

"What should we do for dinner?"

{It was six o'clock - I just got off work and Caleb was at a master's class}

Caleb's response was "Something good."  

Gonna be real honest here... I'm not your gal to just whip up "something good."

So I'm walking through the store picking up 2 more cans of refried beans when I already have about 5 cans at home, because I have no clue what food I have nor do I know what to make. So then, after I spent $60 at the store and Caleb calls me afterward and asks what we are having... my repsonse was...

"I still don't know... :( "

At home, I proceeded to give Caleb and lecture {which was really directed at myself} about how we were going to start meal planning for real because with my new job and new work schedule, I can't be getting off work at six and going to the store.  So here I go again, let's try this one more time...

To make this much more fun for myself... I designed my own weekly meal planner in photoshop! :) I will share it with you in case you need something similar. I know there are a ton of free meal planners on Pinterest, but I really just wanted to make my own for fun! Here it is....

The size is 8.5 x 11 - to make sure it fits within the margins, choose "scale to fit" or similar when printing. Link to download is below.

 Download the meal planner for yourself:
{Weekly Meal Planner} click to download

While I really dislike cooking and think it's a pain, I really don't mind baking. Last night while I was going through my own Pinterest board with meal ideas, I ran across a M&M cookie recipe I pinned a long time ago and never tried.  I really felt like some homemade cookies and I just happened to have all the ingredients... {including the secret ingredient of vanilla pudding mix powder}.  I found the recipe here.  Let me tell you, they are glorious!!!  I love them so much and will make them for many years to come!

I used my Silpat baking mat, which I have almost never used before... but the original blogger used one and I think it contributed a lot to how perfect the cookies were!

Happy planning & baking! :)

easter printables

I just recently removed my Christmas printables from the frames in my living room, and have been busy trying to replace that holiday decor with more of a spring-theme.  I've also recently got sucked into some really adorable graphics on Etsy, from shops like The Ink Nest & Angie Makes,  and also some freebies from an awesome blog, Pugly Pixel.  This all led me to wanting to make some printables for Easter!  I absolutely love playing around in Photoshop making these and maybe no one else out reading this on the interweb cares, but I love them to have to hang on my walls!
Here are the two I made...

For this one, I also saved it as a PDF with a plain white background to save ink in case anyone would print these at home.

{Floral graphics from the printable above are from The Ink Nest on Etsy}
{Fronts are Lullaby & MA Sexy - both free - I usually get all my free fonts from dafont.com}
{Digital frame from Angie Makes on Etsy}

{Fonts are same as above, Lullaby & MA Sexy - free}
{Cloud brushes for Photoshop were found via Pugly Pixel blog post but are from Lauren Harrison - free}

Feel free to download the printables by clicking on the links below:

- Paradise printable 

- Paradise printable (plain white background)

- He Is Risen printable

I also gave my blog another facelift... I know this is like the 3rd time in 6 months.  I'm fickle about it.  But, I think I've finally found a design I really like and can work with for quite a while.  I used graphics mainly from The Ink Nest & fonts FT Achor Yard {Fresh Picked header}, Traveling Through {sub header}, Soymilk {navigation bar & side pics} - all free.  Also, free clip art files like washi tape on the left sidebar & the "velvet corners" on the picture on my About Me page were also found via the Pugly Pixel blog.  {She even has a wonderful "freebies" section on the blog were you can find tons of free goodies}  I use Photoshop CS5 to create all of my graphic files but I know others who use Photoshop Elements, and even Microsoft PowerPoint!

So excited it's March! That means Spring is right around the corner... I think!

Christmas decor

Merry Christmas!

I'm posting this a little later in the Christmas season than I had hoped, but I thought I'd share how I decorated this year.  I started a few weeks ago showing you my Christmas printables and then how I made my Joy to the World map, all seen on this wall...

Here is a close up of the Oh Holy Night printable in an Ikea frame.

Oh Holy Night printable - found here

I added an ampersand because those seem to be a bit of trend right now... and I liked it!  I bought a cardboard one from a craft store, painted the edges a mustard/gold color, and modge-podged some paper I had left over to the top.  The picture seen here is one I took on our summer vacation to Colorado in a thrift store frame.

Next, our tree!  We started getting a real tree last year and fell in love.  The only pics of the whole tree I have were taken with my phone:

 You may notice in this picture the mantle decor started different.. that's real garland but it turns out its not a good idea for real garland to be right above a frequently used fireplace.  The garland started drying out and turning brown in the hottest places, so it got bumped to outside.

Our ceilings are also very high in the living room so we have room for a tall tree.  This year our tree is about 9 feet tall.  She's a beaut!  I don't have a particular Christmas tree "theme" but I am drawn to the woodland creatures as ornaments.  Here are some of my favorites...

From left to right, top row: Polar bear from West Elm, wooden candy cane from Target (few years ago), burlap reindeer from Target (few years ago); Bottom row: wooden moose from my childhood, bottle brush penguin from West Elm, bottle brush fox from West Elm

Then there's my ever-changing mantel... my plaster frame is of course a staple in my mantel decor, as well as books.  Then I used some antique owl bookends I spray-painted white, fake evergreen from JoAnn's, and some very large pine cones my mother gave to me.

For the pine cone garland, I screwed brass eyes into the top of the pine cones and then used baker's twine to connect them.

Also on the mantle are some Christmas jars I put together.  I loved the look of the Christmas snow globes that are all over Pinterest, but I wanted to do something cleaner and quicker.  I saw the idea to do a Christmas jar without the water/glycerin part of it.  It also makes it to where I can easily reuse the jars and its not a big clean up.  I bought small deer figurines at Hobby Lobby and used the same spray adhesive I used on my Joy to the World map to spray them down before dumping glitter on them.  I repeated the adhesive spray/glitter portion until it was well covered.  I used sugar as the snow and I bought the bottle brush trees from Hobby Lobby {which were orginally green} and soaked them in bleach and hot water to make them white.

We also have lighted garlands on the railings...

In the kitchen I add a little color with tea towels and rugs.  My rugs are from Target a few years ago, they also happen to be a popular place to lounge in the kitchen...

Above the sink I filled some of my jars with evergreen scraps from the tree and and cranberries into water filled jars...

I also like to get a Poinsettia every year... the faded red/pinkish color is my favorite.

On my table I have the same thing I've had since Thanksgiving, a mixture of brass candle holders, all from thrift stores, and glass containers with tapers.

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas! I hope to post about some gifts I'm making for the children on both sides of the family soon!

Christmas printables

I felt a need to make some new downloadable prints because my "Boo" printable is still hanging on my wall... behind my Christmas tree. :) True story.  So I need to change that soon, it really clashes with the Christmas decor!  I made up some rather simple printables in several different styles.

 

Here is the link to download each via Goggle docs if you find one that fits your style :)
All are 8x10 inches

Oh Holy Night
Noel
Peace on Earth
Joy to the World
Holly Jolly
Merry & Bright

FYI - The first two files are larger and Google docs doesn't show a preview

Enjoy!

Autumn prints {download}

Lately I've done lots of playing around with new fonts and graphics in Photoshop.  I love finding interesting and unique fonts for free from all over the wonderful interweb!  I've also found some great turtorials for Photoshop.  My favorite thus far, is one that shows you how to make your font look like letterpress.  You can find that video tutorial here.
Then I came across this print on Etsy...

 I really liked it, but it was $10, and I was pretty sure I could make something similar {hers is more snazzy than what I made, and comes already beautifully printed, so I would encourage the purchase of hers if you aren't into printing them yourself}.  I like the idea of switching out cute prints like this one throughout the year.  I recently purchased several Ikea frames during our trip to Colorado, and I still need to fill some of them.  Instead of using photos in all my frames, I wanted to integrate some art as well... so I thought this could be a really cheap way to achieve that!

So I started messing around with graphics in Photoshop and I also downloaded some neat fonts.  When searching for fonts, I searched "free carnival font," which gave me lots of options to choose from.  The one I used in this sign is called "JF Ringmaster". I already had some digital frames that I had purchased from Etsy in the past.  Here's what I came up with...

8x10 Boo sign

Then I decided to try another Halloween saying... this font is called "Monbijoux".

8x10 Spooky sign

And I tried one with a Thanksgiving theme... in this one I use book covers textures as the background.  I found these textures for free on this website.  This font is called "A font with serifs". I did however, purchase the fall leaves, along with some other fall graphics, on Etsy for $5.00 here.

8x10 Give Thanks sign

 I really enjoyed making all of these and in the future I might expand to some other holidays or bible verses.  I also think a set of several signs could be a great budget friendly gift! I've uploaded these three signs to google docs and I have the links to download them below if you'd like to display them in your own home. Enjoy!


DOWNLOAD HERE
Boo sign

Spooky sign

Give Thanks sign - this file is large so it won't show a preview, but you should still be able to download it.