Backyard Phase 1

Well it has been a while since my last updates, but we have been very very busy continuing our home improvement projects. I think I have come to the realization that our house will NEVER be complete because I am always finding new projects etc. Thankfully Jeffrey and I love new projects! We met with a landscaper to discuss our backyard and decided for budget purposes we would do our backyard and front yard in two phases. The first phase was all about the hardscape. Next year we will touch the landscape portion. Here are some befores of our backyard..

So then once the hard scape was done it was time to decorate and I was trying to do it as budget friendly as possible...lets just say garage sales were a HUGE help!! So here are some of the after pictures.. still a work in progress of course but I am super pleased with how it looks! 

Well that's whats we have been up to over in our neck of the woods...more pictures to come as we finalize details etc. As my sweet mother in law would say it's like we just added another room to our house! We cannot wait for all the memories we will make!

Thankful for a home,

MJ

4th of July SHORTS!!! DIY

 

So many of you might have seen these cuties on PINTEREST.. well my sister and I decided to give them a try. Since we will be apart on the 4th of July it was necessary that we both make a pair to wear. She will be on the ranch in Longview and I will be in BOSTON on the harbor. I am horrible at giving tutorials on how to do anything but you can check out exact directions here  FLAG SHORTS ... I will say for someone that is not very crafty this was pretty easy.. granted I had my SUPER crafty sister Annie to help me along the way. Here is our process:

Here are the supplies we used.. fabric spray paint.. sticky stars for the template and painters tape! Oh and of course scissors to cut of the shorts! 

We went to the good will and bought Jeans for 99 cents to cut off... According to Annie you should not cut straight across it should be on a slant.. we used shorts we liked the length of to measure. We added two inches to the measurement because we wanted to be able to fold ours over if we wanted. 

We then taped everything off.. you can arrange things however you want. Then the painting begin 

After we finished spraying and removing the tape

Then it was time to wash and dry them.. ours didn't come out exactly how we wanted after the first wash so we added bleach and washed again to get the washed out faded look. 

 We can't wait to wear our shorts!

Thankful for a crafty sister,

MJ