Getting Creative.....

As with most college kids, my room has always seemed a little bare and definitely lacked personal photos of my friends and family. I didn't want to put a bunch of frames on my walls because I'm pretty picky about what they look like and I'm kind of lazy about printing pictures out.

When I was home for Spring Break, Emi's room was decorated so cute. For Valentine's Day, Kara made her a collage of pictures using string, clothes pins, and black & white pictures. I absolutely loved it and have been wanting to do something similar in my room.

The Inspiration

I don't have a headboard in my room, so above my bed seemed really bland. I figured this was the perfect place for my new project.

I decided I wanted to have a word made of wooden letters hang above my photos so it wasn't just be a string of pictures hanging on the wall. I ordered my letters from Hobby Lobby. They're 4 inches tall and and 1/8" thick. I painted them with black acrylic paint so they match my other decorations in my room. Then I drilled holes in the tops, used the same string as my "picture clothes line" to hang them up, and hung them on the wall with clear push pins.

I couldn't decide what pictures I wanted to use, and I also wanted to be able to spread my pictures out so I ended up doing two separate lines. Everything needed to match because I'm OCD (just ask my family), so I printed my photos in black & white.

The Finished Product

It turned out exactly how I wanted, and it didn't take very long. It was such a simple project. It took less then an hour to paint the letters, drill the holes, thread the string, and hang the letters on my wall. It took about another hour to edit my pictures, cut them out, and hang them up. Only two hours for something that looks that cute? I'll take that any day! :) I think it adds so much to my room to have something most substantial above my bed. It makes my room feel so much more complete and decorated in the way that I'm finally satisfied with. Thanks Kara for the inspiration, I never would have thought of this without you!!

Christmas Decorations.....

I went to Kmart today to get some storage containers for my room and couldn't help going to the Christmas section to see what they had for decorations. They had the cutest Santa's and Snowmen. I was very impressed with the cute decorations they have. I forget about Kmart, even though it's only a couple blocks away from our house, we usually go out to Walmart.

I love Christmas time and all the cute decorations to put around the house. We usually only put our Christmas tree up, but we wanted to do something more this year. It totally adds a lot to our little tree. We might put some lights around the windows, but that's if we're feeling ambitious and ever decide to get them out! For now this is good enough.

Accomplished.....

I've been feeling very accomplished these past couple days. It could be because I actually did something for a change. :) Usually when I get home after driving all day I just sit around, but not this trip! Dani & I left earlier in the day because it started snowing and we didn't want to be traveling in bad weather. Most of the time we get home late around 8 or 9, so there's not much time to do anything, but we got home around 4:30 so there was a lot of time left in the day. I got everything unpacked, the house cleaned, went shopping, did my homework, and my personal favorite was getting my Christmas tree put up while listening to Christmas music!

I love this time of the year and count down until it's time to decorate, listen to the music, and watch the holiday movies. Our tiny tree got a change this year. In the past we decorated it in pink & silver. Dani was never that big of a fan, and I wasn't either but our choices were limited. :) When we went up to Billings before we came home, we found some new things at Target to decorate it. This year it's red & green, sticking with the traditional colors. I love the change!! Our little tree is the best, even if it is a kind of crooked, we're only in Laramie for a few weeks so it does the job.

Then today I've been to class, did my homework, watched another Christmas movie, am currently blogging, and going to do some more homework. It's kind of pathetic I feel accomplished when I've really done so little, but I still feel that way! I'm trying to get my online classes done within the next two weeks, so I can have an easy Finals Week with only one final. If I do this, then I'll be done & home for my month long break before my birthday!

Thanksgiving Break.....

I can't believe Thanksgiving has already come and gone. We got to have an extra long break this year because we don't have classes on Tuesday, so we headed to Lovell Friday morning. We spent the week with Kara and her family, hanging out at home, being with friends, and eating good food. What we didn't plan on was getting sick. The flu went through our family and made things a little miserable for some of us at times.

Emilee had a busy weekend when we first got to town with All-District, a WHSAA meeting, basketball practice, and her activity banquet, we barely saw her until later in the week when she was off of school. She's such a busy, talented girl, and she definitely needed a break!

I spent a lot of time with Kara and her kids this week! I sure do miss her cute kids when I'm down at school. Saturday we went to How the Grinch Stole Christmas for the Holiday Mingle at the Hyart. On Tuesday, Jake had his first grade ABCs of Thanksgiving play. He looked so cute in his little pilgrim outfit. He's getting so big, and is such a smart, handsome boy! I love to support them all in everything they do.

After the play was over, I headed to Basin to see Kristen and her new house. It's hard not having her in Laramie with me anymore, but she's happy and loving married life. It's crazy we're all growing up!

Wednesday I spent at home, went to Minchow's for dinner, and then helped my mom make pies. I've never made pies before, and I was a little nervous. It took a lot more time for my mom because she was teaching me how to do everything, but I'm happy I got to learn because she makes the best pies (and I definitely need to learn how to make them)! I'm glad to report that I didn't screw up the pies, and they tasted good - but of course that's because my mom kept a close eye on me.

Thanksgiving was small this year. It was just our family and Kara, Jason, and the kids joined us. It was nice to spend it with family and the food was delicious. We spent the day eating and being lazy. I made activity books for the kids to do when they got to the house. They had a word search, cross-word puzzle, word scramble, coloring pages, and a page to write what they're thankful for. Needless to say, they were a hit! We ate in the living room, and Katelyn said our house looked like the Olive Garden (which means it looked pretty dang cool)!

I love this holiday and the opportunity it gives me to think of all the blessings I have in my life. I'm such a lucky girl to have been blessed with so many good things in my life.

To finish out my break, I spent it with my family. Emi and I went to Breaking Dawn part 2 up in Powell on Friday night. Then on Saturday, we spent the day in Billings shopping, eating at the Olive Garden, and spending time together :) It was a great ending to a really fun break!

This year is flying by!! I'll be done with another semester of school in 3 weeks, and home for Christmas break for a month. I love the holiday season and am so blessed to have such amazing friends and family to surround me.

Wedding Decorations.....

This past weekend was Kristen's wedding. I was a bridesmaid, and was constantly running around doing whatever Kris needed me to do, so I don't have any pictures of the ceremony but will post some after I get them from the wedding photographer.

Her wedding was beautiful. She's so creative and made a majority of the decorations herself. Her pastor made a beautiful wood arbor, cross, and pulpit for the ceremony. She was a beautiful bride, and I am so happy for her!

Kristen & Calvin love the outdoors: fishing, hunting, you name it. Her wedding was up at the Circle J Ranch, which is at the foot of the mountains outside of Ten Sleep. What a perfect location! Her wedding decorations were amazing and totally reflected what both Calvin and her love to do.

Calvin and Kristen make the perfect couple, and I'm so happy for them. Her wedding was amazing, and I definitely plan on recruiting her when it's time to decorate for my wedding when that day comes!

Moving Day.....

Well the day has finally come. After four years, I've parted with my room, huge bathroom, and closet down here in Laramie. I figured it was time for Dani to enjoy that part of the house. :) We switched rooms today and it's a little different. Everything is able to fit in my new room, I just had to use every square inch. The one thing I had to change was putting my piano in the extra room because there was no way it was fitting in my room.

Before we got to the finished product, our house was a mess. That's definitely an understatement. It looked like our house could be featured on Hoarders. It took us hours to get everything moved between rooms and then put back together. It was a long day to say the least, but totally worth it.

We had to leave the rooms set up pretty much the same because that's how it fits the best in both rooms. So the layout is the same in both rooms, the inhabitants are just different!

Dani is loving having a big room. It feels like she has room to take laps. She's not use to having that much room. We're both liking it. It's different being in a small room but not bad at all. I'm glad Dani finally got the best room in the house, I've had it for so long so it was definitely her turn!

It was nice to get things cleaned up and sorted through to get that much closer to being ready to go home for the summer. Only finals are left until I get to go home all summer & move rooms all over again at home in Lovell!

Minor Changes.....

Well, there's been some more changes in decorations in our house but nothing too drastic.

For Christmas this year, Dani got me a new lamp to go my bedroom. It's lime green and matches my decorations great! I changed the blanket and decorative pillow on my bed because I wanted some color in my room. I love it and it makes such a difference. I moved my old lamp onto my dresser and got rid of the one that was on it before. There's a lot more light in my room now because I have two big lamps, and it makes all the difference in the world.

My bathroom got some new hand towels and they add to my decorations. It's still the same colors and nothing else has changed.

In the living room, our breaker box is on the wall right when you walk in the door. It's such an eyesore and I had looking at it. Before we covered up the box with a scripture in a black frame. For my birthday, I got a pretty mirror and a saying that says "Bless This House" to put up, which looks beautiful now! I put what used to be hanging there in the extra room because it is decorated in black and white and matches perfectly.

We also hung up some pictures of our adorable niece and nephews right next to our front door. It was perfect, because we needed some more pictures and finally had something to put around our strange small window.

After Kaia moved out, we decorated the extra room so this has been done for awhile, but it went along with this post so I decided to include it. My old twin bed, some pictures, and a book case are in there to fill up the room.

The biggest change was Dani's bathroom. It got a new make over. It used to be decorated in brown, blue, and white. Now it's decorated in black, white, and red to match Dani's bedroom. I love it and having a white shower curtain makes the room feel bigger and brighter.

I love making small changes in decorations. The changes may not be too drastic, but I love them.