Naming Your Home

HowDoesShe? Did an amazing post here, titled  3 TRICKS to take the WORK out of housework a bit ago. It seemed to hit about the right time for me.  When it comes my home I really stress out a lot about it not being in tip top immaculate shape! I know I'm being a bit ridiculous, especially since I have 3 little girls that love to play and make messes :) But I really tend to work myself up into such a stressed out frenzy over the "mess" in my home. I become overwhelmed and then to top it off I am NOT a fan of  doing dishes or folding and putting away laundry. So coming across this post the other day really hit home! Here's a paragraph that I never get tired of reading:

 "The most important trick to taking the “work” out of housework is ATTITUDE.  If you can shift your paradigm about why we keep house, by altering your attitude, you have unlocked the key to happy homemaking.  Now go back and read that last sentence again.  If you can really do this, it will be very powerful."

   I have that post bookmarked and keep referring back to the other two tricks! One thing I really loved about it was that one of the 3 Tricks is naming your home. I know, I know it sounds a little weird but the idea is that you need to take pride and ownership of your home. For me this is really hard. We have found a few problems with the home we live in and it doesn't exactly fit our family any more.We would love to move and find a better and bigger place or even just build our own home, but that's not something we can do right now. So when I read that, I immediately latched onto that idea, anything to help me out! I immediately asked the girls to help me come up with a few names so we could pick out our favorite one. What we came up with was Cozy Cottage. It works great for our cute little home! So I went right to work at finding a way to create a sign for our new name. I went to the Dollar store bought two frames and then visited a hardware store for some little tiny i-bolts. The rest I had at home!

First step was to paint my frames. They were a red color that was alright but not my favorite. So I spray painted them black. I figured I would give them two coats of paint but when the first coat dried and had a bit of red showing through I ended up really liking that so I didn't do the 2nd coat of paint.

I then got busy on my computer and just using Microsoft Word I created the name and added our address! Very simple! I then just screwed in the i-bolts to the bottom of the big frame and top of the little frame and tied them together with some ribbon. I immediately hung it up by our front
door! I think it looks great! And you know every time I see that name I do feel a bit more pride in my home. :)

Halloween Decor

I've had this one for awhile but absolutely LOVE it! I love Halloween but really don't have much in the way of decorations. I can't ever find stuff at the store that I REALLY love, they always seem kind of cheesy to me. But I do have a stamp set that I LOVE and thought it would be perfect to make something with that! So I ran to the Dollar Store (love it there!) and bought a frame and then came home and starting putting things together. I stamped out the images, picked out some great Halloween paper to go with it and Ta-da! We have a cool Halloween decoration! Of course I couldn't stop there, I had to drill some holes in the frame to do wire through them and hang it up! Simple, fast and easy! Love projects that go that work out that well.

Name Frames

I made these cute little picture frames awhile back for my girls. I tried to personalize each one to there tastes or personality. My girls LOVED them! They were really easy to make. I just bought some frames at Walmart and cut out some cardstock for the background to fit in the frame. I used cardstock, rubber stamps, ribbon, brads and ink to create my frames.

Supplies: All supplies from Stampin' Up!

More Frames...

I thought I would share some frames that I made a while ago. These frames were made for a show that I had a booth at, I had to demonstrate a project on stage and decided I would show how to use stamping in your home decor. I actually only demonstrated this one, "Hope". I found the frame at Walmart, printed the word "Hope" on vellum off of my printer. It was actually a very fast and easy frame to make, I think the most time consuming was cutting out the Monogram H which "Imagine".actually only took me about 5 minutes. I then came home and decided I wanted to hang it in my scrap room but I wanted some more to go along with it so I made one that said "Dream" and this other one that says I couldn't believe how easy they were! And how much fun I had making them. It did take me a while to come up with what exactly I wanted but once I got going it was super easy!









Hope Frame-
Stamps: Monogram H & Dots and Daisies
Paper: Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Whisper White, Apricot Appeal, Almost Amethyst Cardstock & Vellum
Ink: Certainly Celery
Other: 2 Black Brads, Hemp twine, White Signo Pen, Distress Wheel, Flower punch, SU! Font "Harry Paul" and frame from Walmart

Dream Frame-
Stamps: Monogram D, Polka Dots & Paisley
Paper: Bashful Blue & Whisper White Cardstock
Ink: Bashful Blue, Pretty in Pink & Regal Rose
Other: Hemp twine, SU! Font "Woodward Script", White & Navy Narrow Grosgrain Ribbon

Imagine Frame-
Stamps: Monogram I, Canvas, & Doodle This
Paper: Whisper White, Marigold Morning, Vintage Violet & Rose Red
Ink: Basic Black & Vintage Violet
Other: 2 Silver Brads, White Narrow Grosgrain & Vintage Violet Stitched Ribbon

Name Frames

I have been working on name frames for my daughters. I finished Adara's way back but finally got around to doing Senedra's now I've got one more to do! Yeah! They have actually been a lot of fun to work on and just let my imagination roam with them. I pick out a stamp set that best suits their personality and let them pick one color and then I just go from there. I never really have a plan when I begin. But I overall I really liked the final outcome!

On this one I wheeling the Flitting By Jumbo wheel across the Perfect Plum to create a background I then cut out Pale Plum, Perfect Plum and the Confetti White Cardstock to layer over each other. I also used the Color Spritzer with a Perfect Plum Marker to spritz over the entire thing once I was done.

All Supplies from Stampin' Up!:
Stamps: Bold Butterfly Stamp set & Flitting By Jumbo Wheel
Paper: Perfect Plum, Pale Plum, & Confetti White Card stock
Ink:Perfect Plum, Pale Plum
Other: Silver Brads, Narrow White Grosgrain, Narrow Eggplant Grosgrain, White Organdy Ribbon, & Black Frame from Walmart

This one I really had fun with! I think in doing the first name frame I was feeling a bit intimidated but after seeing how easy it was to make one I really just had fun with this one! I used these fun animals on this one because my daughter absolutely loves animals. So I stamped them and then cut them out and used an exacto knife to cut around the elephants ear and the lions head so I could put them thru the letters. The two Flower brads that are on here I have no idea where I got them.....I am a horder! There I've said it! LOL Now that, that is in the open I've had them for years and just kept them for the "perfect" project, I'm sure many of you can relate to that! Anyway, I used the White Gel pen from SU! to make middles on the flowers...can I just say I LOVE that pen it works so well all the time!

Most Supplies from Stampin' Up!:
Stamps: Monogram S, Monkey Business, Wild about You, & Big Deal Alphabet
Paper: Certainly Celery, Cameo Coral, Tempting Turquoise, Apricot Appeal, Old Olive & Whisper White Card stock
Ink: Certainly Celery, Cameo Coral, Tempting Turquoise, Apricot Appeal, Going Gray, Pumpkin Pie, & Close to Cocoa
Other: Silver Brads, Narrow Apricot Appeal Grosgrain, Narrow Tempting Turquoise Grosgrain Ribbon, flower brads (unknown origin) & Black Frame from Walmart

Have any of you done name frames? I would love to see pics of them if you have any!