Every now and then I enjoy giving a piece of furniture a makeover, so this month I decided to join my blogging friends for the April Thrift Store Find Makeover Challenge. For this challenge, my friends and I are creating projects using thrift store finds of $20 or less. This month I'm sharing a bench I found at Goodwill. Since I declared our home as a shoe-feee zone, I needed a bench to place in the entryway for guests to sit on to take off their shoes. (The kids and I usually sit on the stairs to put our shoes on and take them off). I don't want yucky shoes tracking germs into our home, especially since we have two young children who love to crawl around on the floor. And sometimes my husband tracks in strange things when he wears his work boots. So I must say I was so pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon this bench at the local Goodwill.  I had to get it, especially since it was only $12.99!

Every now and then I enjoy giving a piece of furniture a makeover, so this month I decided to join my blogging friends for the July Upcycle Challenge. For this challenge, my friends and I are creating a project using a thrift store find of $10 or less. So back in May, I purchased a really cute antique desk for my daughter at a local antiques shop. Of course, the desk needed a chair. So I ventured off to the local Good Will...

Since we moved to our current home a couple years ago, I've been constantly decorating and redecorating. I've changed the theme of our master bathroom three times! Most recently, I decided that I wanted a colorful bathroom after coming across a cute shower curtain and its colorful matching accessories. I also remembered some wall art I saw while watching a show on one of my favorite channels, HGTV. I can't remember which show it was on, but I did snap a picture of it for inspiration.

Today is my daughter's 5th birthday! Yay! To celebrate, we will be spending a fun-filled day at a local fair where there'll be lots of fun rides and animal friends to meet and pet. I'm not into birthday parties at all. I prefer to spend birthdays having quality family time. So since today is her birthday, I thought I'd share a project that is special to me. I created a photo album for my daughter that includes her actual baby clothes and pictures of her wearing those clothes! I wanted to created something special using her baby clothes, and I've seen lots of quilts made from baby clothes, but I'm not a quilter. And at the time I had only been sewing for a year, so making a quilt seemed intimidating, so I came up with this idea instead.

To create this massive cloth photo album, I used felt, yarn, photos of my daughter, vinyl, and some of my daughter's old baby clothes. I selected a few of her outfits and cut them up to fit onto a sheet of felt.  I sewed them onto the felt and used the left over fabric from the cut up clothes to make backgrounds for the photo pages.  The photo album features pictures of my daughter wearing the clothes that were cut up for this photo book. Now on to the pictures!

Just the other day I was telling my husband that I wanted a bench to place in the entryway for guests to sit on to take off their shoes before stepping on our carpet. I don't want germy shoes on our carpets since we have two young children who love rolling around on the floor. And sometimes my husband tracks in strange things when he wears his work boots. So I must say I was so pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon this bench at the local Goodwill. However, I almost didn't get it because I didn't want to find a new place for the dresser that was in the entryway, but I ended up putting it in my craft room. Anyhoo, I decided that I had to get it since I just had a conversation with the husband about wanting one, and it was only $12.99!

I've made several owls before (like 20), so I used one of my favorite owl patterns, the Snuggly Owl, which has a great tutorial. My owl isn't exactly like the Snuggly Owl featured in the pattern because I skipped the center strip, bodice, and the feet. I also made my eyes differently than the owl in the pattern.