Craft table progress

After I posted yesterday about our Pinterest inspired IKEA trip, a friend of mine let me know that she had a bookcase she was willing to let me have. Yay! Well, this got me to thinking...should I try to use one of the bookcases I already had to make this craft table work?

After I picked up the bookcase from my friend, I started unloading everything off of the bookcases that needed to be moved and moving other things out of the room.  Here are a couple of before pictures:

One of the things that prompted trying to put this craft table project together was that card table in front of the 'closet'. I have been using it to rotary cut out material for my quilting projects and let's just say, it is not cutting it. :o) The table is just not tall enough and my back was not happy about it.

Of course when you clear out a whole bookcase of books and stuff, you end up with piles all over another room in your home:

Here is my version of the craft table project that I had pinned on Pinterest:

And here are a couple of after pictures of the progress so far in the whole room:

The table ends up being about 36 inches off the floor which makes it perfect for standing and rotary cutting out quilting pieces.

One of the things I always realize when I tackle this type of project is just how much stuff I have. Looks like it is time to do some clearing out and finding new homes for some things...but I am so thankful that I was able to pull off this whole re-do for just $5.99!

Our Pinterest inspired IKEA trip

Matthew has been working over with our friends the last couple of days.

Since Kelsey and I had to drive over to pick him up today, we decided to stop off here first.

Source: somedaycrafts.blogspot.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

I have been wanting something like this for our craft/school room and have pinned quite a few ideas on my 'Dreams for my home' board. When I saw that you could put this whole thing together for about $15, I knew this would work for my budget and my available time. So today, we purchased the $5.99 table top from IKEA. Hopefully, I can get the bookcases later on this week.

Before we arrived at home, I was excited to see that our favorite strawberry stand in town is now open! These will go really well with homemade buttermilk pancakes in the morning... yum!

Beautiful Girlhood

"Far away there in sunshine are my highest aspirations,

I may not reach them,

but I can look up and see their beauty,

believe in them and try to follow where they lead."

-Louisa May Alcott

Kelsey and I have been able to share some girl time together on Wednesday nights while Kevin is at Bible study and Matthew is at youth group. I thought this would be a good time for us to read through a devotional together and build on our good relationship as she enters into these next few years of her life.

I purchased the Beautiful Girlhood book at a homeschool swap some time ago and picked up the companion guide to go with it. We have gone through a few lessons already and have really been enjoying this time that we have together. Her life is so different than mine was as a young girl. I know that I am not perfect, but I want to be able to share with her that with faith in Jesus, she can grow up to be a confident young lady who is not afraid to be different from the 'world's' standards.

We have also been going through my craft board on Pinterest, searching for projects to work on together. On one of the blogs that I like to read, I found this simple Easter project. Kelsey thought this would be a great one to work on. We started them both last week and finished them up yesterday.

I really like the way they turned out!

Last night, we found another project to start on. We cut out all the felt and will be working on finishing them up over the next week.

Stay tuned to see how this one turns out!



Pinterest, Instagram, and Baking

A friend of mine pinned a recipe on her baking board that sound so yummy. So I printed out the recipe and we decided to start baking after lunch.

Well, then I learned that Instagram was finally available for Android! I have been envious of Matthew having this app on his iPod, so I have been anxiously waiting to be able to use this app for a while now.

I had a chance to give this app a try yesterday during our baking session...

...letting the eggs and butter come to room temperature...

...cinnamon sugar biscotti!

Since I don't always have my camera with me, but I always have my phone with me, I am looking forward to playing around with the Intagram app and seeing what I can create. Let me know if you are on Instagram so I can follow you... :o)



Preparing for our special visitor

We are pretty excited around here as we will have a special visitor at the end of this month! Since Olive will be speaking at a nearby church in the morning, Compassion thought it would be great if she could visit our church also. We will be putting together a special Sunday evening service so Olive can share with us what it was like growing up as a Compassion sponsored child in Uganda.

Yesterday, I ran by the library to pick up a book that was on hold and thought I should pick up a book on Uganda also.

I had forgotten that Katie Davis (author of the book, Kisses from Katie) was currently living in Uganda ministering to young orphaned girls. I am looking forward to learning more about Uganda over the next few weeks and learning more about this young lady who has left her comfortable life to follow what she believes is God's plan for her.