Vignettes...

Around the house...

I've been slowly redoing our living/dining area.  I've been selling up a storm, all things not "needed"/wanted and in turn redoing (CHEAPLY) the living/dining area with the money I've made from selling.  I still have a bit to go before the full "reveal" but here are a few of my favorite vignettes so far...

This awesome candle holder I found at Ro*ss.  No price and there was a line behind me so she rang up the nearest glass item she had and called it a day... at $1.99!  Score!  Leather straps rock!  The candle was one I had and the hook was inexpensive on Ama*zon.


Dollar*Tree vases with paint inside!!!  The little glass vase was 90% off at Michael*s!


This sign I showed making in a previous Saturday post.  The lamp was from Tar*get, the blue/green vase from a thrift store!, and the three white vases were more from Michael*s at 90% off!


This orange paisley canvas I LOVE!  FB garage sale purchase!  Lamp again from Target.  The glass tray was another Michael*s 90% off purchase.  The "ball" vase Davids had made as a gift when he came to be hosted.  Green candle I've had for a while (essentially free with a coupon from Pier One), top black frame was a gift and lower frame another FB garage sale buy!

Took the kids to our local park today to see the finals in the Powerboat Nationals.  We passed one of these boats on a trailer behind a car the other day and had never seen anything like it.  They almost look like a cross between a boat, jetski, and submarine! :)  A couple days later I saw a sign in town for the Regatta and looked it up online.  The races were all weekend, and I had wanted to go Saturday when they also have a cardboard boat race, but the weather Saturday and most of Sunday was awful and I wasn't feeling well Saturday anyway, so today we went.  It was a PERFECT day too... hot in the sun but there was lots of shade and a cool breeze and it was gorgeous!  Of course there were carnival food vendors... so we brought some change and had a treat or two!

A new portion of my Saturday Favorites!

Both of these pictures are to finally show you my new hallway bulletin board and window display for my classroom this year.

The first is the bulletin board.  You can see a tiny bit of the window display on the very left.  The background fabric and corresponding banner triangles are nothing more than a fabulous canvas drop cloth!  It just "happened" to be the exact width of the bulletin board so I kept the finished edges there.  I then cut both the top and bottom to the length needed and threw it in the wash to fray beautifully!  I did have to iron it before hanging as it was pretty wrinkled.

The triangles I cut from the remaining piece of drop cloth.  I washed those as well to fray the edges and then used Tacky Glue to glue them along a piece of twine.  Using Crayola Fabric Markers, I stenciled the letters for "Reading is Magical".  At the bottom of the board are pictures of each of my students dressed in a Gryffindor robe and tie.

If you've never read any of the Harry Potter books, they have some wonderful, witty, and insightful words from a Professor, Albus Dumbledore.  I've printed many of them out and will be placing a new one on my board each week.  As the year goes on I will be reading the first book aloud and talking in depth on the four "houses" in the book that are at Harry's school.  Each house has certain character traits that it's known for such as courage, kindness, bravery, etc.  We will be implementing a system where they can earn points as a class by "catching" each other showing these traits.  I'm really looking forward to it!


As I said, to the left of the bulletin board is a window display.  There is a recess that has the door to my class and the window runs alongside.  I created large shelves using dollar store foam core and then created a Honeydukes candy display inside.  Honeydukes is a candy shop in Harry Potter.  The top shelf is full of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, which was a PDF I purchased on etsy and printed onto glossy cardstock.  The gold Chocolate Frog boxes a shelf below were created the same way.  The labels on the lollipops were purchased and printed onto regular paper.  The rest were shown in former Saturday Favorites.  


I really had a lot of fun putting this look together and I even included a framed picture of the Honeydukes found at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal.  The kids are loving it, even though they don't know the whole story yet. :)

Finally a bit more movement on the adoption front I can share with you!

First though I wanted to update about our van.  Which broke down on Olivia's birthday.  Yuck.
Anyway, I love our van.  We drive a twelve passenger van and even though it's just the four of us (for now) we have used it to the hilt: having extra foster children fill some of the seats, driving friends to Chicago with us to spend the day, driving to Florida at Christmas and having room to bring along scooters and all of the Christmas gifts, taking extra kids to and from school, etc.  We purchased in 2009, buying a year old model at the height of the gas prices skyrocketing.  They were practically trying to give these things away! :)  We were able to get a GREAT deal (our mini van was in the last stages of usefulness) including low mileage, an extended warranty, and installation of TWO DVD players.  And... it's paid OFF... NO debt!  Which has been great!

So... when we limped our van into the dealership to drop it off on Aug 16, and then found out the next day that it was the transmission, and the transmission guy was of course on vacation until Aug 20, and we were renting a car in the meantime... well... it was disappointing to say the least.  I've had a few people ask why not "get a new car"... but that just wasn't even an option.  As I said, we have no debt on this!  Buying something else, even if we got a good deal on trading, would have meant a car payment again, something I'm just not willing to do in the midst of an adoption.  We have no savings right now, all of our savings is our adoption fund.  If this had happened at the beginning of summer I can tell you that we wouldn't have done much of anything this summer.  Our activities are budgeted in, along with a heavy deposit into our adoption fund, each month.  Although we do quite a bit as a family, it's within our budget and I'm watching that money VERY carefully.  We buy seasons ahead in clothes when we find great deals.  We thrift shop.  I have sold MUCH over the past couple years.  But this was definitely not in the plan and was a hit I wasn't liking.  BUT... we are still "rich" beyond measure.  We serve a mighty God.  I had the money, but am now VERY limited on what is in my adoption fund and (hopefully) soon we will be needing more... More to travel. Twice. and More to enable myself to stay home for a bit when they come home, assuming it's during the school year.  I can take up to twelve weeks off, but it will not be paid leave.

All that to say, we may be doing some more fundraising in the near future... so stay tuned! :)  But, I hope to have some FUN fundraisers where you could WIN!  

Reminds me, we STILL have to get to that 100 "likes" on our FB page to give away $10 on Amazon!!!  Get to it, share, blog, get the word OUT! :)

So... on the adoption front... As of Thursday all of my dossier was at my adoption agency!  I only need to get a paper called the I171H which I'll get after my I600a is approved saying I can adopt internationally with Gov't approval.  And Monday I'll FINALLY be able to apply for that I600a!  Once they receive that packet, I'll await word on when I'm to go in to be fingerprinted.  Two big things in one week, right after all the car issues... I think Satan KNEW something was going on! :)

That's ok... we're ready to do battle to find out WHO our little one is and WHEN they're coming HOME!  Liam asks about her all the time... he is so excited!


So are we buddy, so are we!