Everything In Its Place

I have been marveling at people like on YoungHouseLove. There house always seems so perfect and in order.

I have been trying to do this. Find a place for everything and make sure that when it is not being used, it is back in its place. *Side Note: I made those curtains and striped pillow cases myself. I'm pretty proud.*

I have been decluttering lately and just throwing out stuff or giving things away that I don't need. I chose to start with the living room. They goal is to always have this room neat and ready for guests. It feels good to look around and see that I live in a beautiful house.

I am going to count how many days the coffee table can look this good. I am the type that likes to pile stuff up in certain spots.

How do you stay organized? Do you suffer from trying to be perfect too?

A Case for Silly Samplers

Recently, while in a book store trying to spend some Christmas money from family, I found a book entitles, Subversive Cross Stitching. While I didn't find all of the patterns in it appropriate, I did find some of them funny. If you don't offend easily I suggest that you take a look.

This is a concept that I LOVE. Once when I was forced to do a cross stitch for church, I made a pattern that said, "The Gospel is True, and People are Jerks." It was something that my mother had always told me and I thought it would be nice to share. :) Or maybe a scripture like this.

Proverbs 17: 28 Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent...

That would make a cute sampler to hang in my house, wouldn't it!

All you ever see in houses are the sweet ones. Slightly cheesy but positive messages that you want to look at every day. I understand.

But wouldn't you smile when you saw this too?This is a quote from Star Wars if you didn't get the reference. (How could you miss it with the light sabers at the top?)

I feel a slight shift in my desire to sew...heading toward cross stitching some stuff for the fun of it. Well...I do have a year to work on my goal of sewing. Stay strong!

The Gift of Giving

I don't know if any of you have every read "The Five Love Languages" but if you haven't, you should because it is an amazing book about love and how to fill other peoples' love tanks. You can look up more about it here. I had a church young leader suggest it to me once and I loved it. (I would suggest it as a present for a friend.)

Moving on, with this in mind, I am a Receiving Gifts love language. This love language is the one that at the beginning I thought I for sure wasn't. It sounds so greedy. After reading the chapter I realized that for me, it isn't about receiving gifts so much as it is about giving gifts.

I love giving people things. I love collecting little tid-bits and sending them to people. When I go shopping I will buy people things that I know they will love even if a special occasion is no where in sight. This is why I love Christmas.

I have been looking for fun gift ideas online and these are some things I have found.

Some of these are really cheap and just fun for no holiday in particular. The first one is a book of adjectives that describe the person that you are giving it to.I thought that it is really cute how it accordions out. I have some gift card tins that I thought would be really cute to use for this. What do you think? You pop off the lid and pull out a long page of all the wonderful things about you. The original can be found here.

Or how about this yummy gift!

You can find the recipe here. I had a friend who would spread a layer of home made caramel in the middle of his brownies. They were awesome!!!

Right now it is the trend to think green so why not make something out of things you already have in the house. There is a website trying to sell these for about $40 a pop.

But I found a website that gives a tutorial of how you can cut glass and design your own. I think that this is something that if done right, you will be able to be really proud of.

On the subject of recycling and DIY projects how about this?It is a scented clothes pouch made out of an old bra! How cheeky is that? Who wouldn't want this as a present! If you don't want to use any of your bras to give to people (because of the weirdness factor) you can get some at the DI for really cheap. As long as you don't think of them as "used" you should be fine. :) You can find the tutorial here.

Before we completely leave the idea of bottles, this woman had a great idea for recycling bottles. You can fill these cute things up with anything you want, I guess. If you made a set of them, they could just be decoration to put on display with all of the other Christmas things. Too cute.

I hope you enjoyed these gift ideas! I might have some more tomorrow! Or something else entirely.
Sincerely,