Buying A Home From A Gardener: Positives and Negatives

The lady that lived in our home before we did loved gardening. From the info I got from our neighbors she spent hours upon hours gardening and was a part of many gardening clubs. She ended up loosing this house and then a company that flips houses took over. They kept a lot of her flowers and just remodeled the inside. They didn't do anything really to the outside and put the house for sale in the winter. That's where we come in. We saw the house after looking at a lot of houses and having FOUR houses we put bids on fall through. We loved the cute little neighborhood and the house was perfect. We instantly put a bid in it and they accepted our offer. We finally had our first house!

I was 8 months pregnant when we moved in and I had Eli just as it was starting to get warm outside. I had him via c-section so I wasn't able to do much in terms of gardening. I still did some stuff (shhh don't tell my doctor) but mostly I took it easy. Come to find out the previous owner was an avid gardener. The neighbors told us that there wasn't many places left in her yard that was grass. It was all flowers. We found that out when random flowers started popping up here and there. It was like FLOWERAGEDDEN! We had so many flowers we didn't know what to do with them all and I guess she even took most of her garden with her and we were left with a lot of the scraps. So. Many. Flowers. So we ended up taking out a lot of them but we also kept a lot of them. After gardening the whole day I wanted to share some good and bad about buying a home that was a gardeners.

Lets start of with the positives. I love being positive and I am a super positive person so I figured this is the best place to start. Even my negatives are not super negative. Okay, here we go:

Positive Number 1- You don't have to buy flowers: This is our second year living here and I have yet to buy a single flower. We have just kept her old flowers and either kept them in the same spot or moved them to a better one. My neighbor also gave me two plants that she divided. Yay for free flowers!

Positive Number 2- You don't have many weeds: I have lived at a house where there were so many weeds and it was so hard to garden. It made it so much harder and more work to do anything. When you buy a home from a person that likes to garden, you find out they took great care of their garden. There are some weeds but not really much. It makes it a lot easier to do what you want to the garden to not have to worry about weeds.

Positive Number 3- Flowers are a surprise: I have never been a master gardener. I actually have no clue on what most flowers names are. Thanks to my wonderful neighbor I have been slowly finding out what flowers I have and how pretty they really are. Every flower that comes up is a surprise to see what it blossoms into. It is like a game and a present all in one!

Now lets go to some negatives. We will start at positive number 3 because that is both a gift and a curse...

Negative Number 1- You have no clue what the heck is going to pop up and where. I don't even know what half my plants are. My poor neighbor has me constantly asking her if something is an actual plant or a weed. There are so many flowers that we have had to pull up and just when we think we got them all, five more pop up! It is annoying to have to keep on digging up flowers that are just randomly popping up in your yard.

Negative Number 2- It is a lot of hard work. I have been gardening for the past 6 hours and just got the sides of my house done. I know that I missed a lot of flowers that I didn't want in there too so I know over the summer or over the next couple years that I will have to keep digging stuff up. I feel like its a never ending process.

Negative Number 3- You waste a lot of flowers. I feel so bad having to throw flowers away. I was going to try to give them away but there was just too many of them. We have thrown away around 10 bags of flowers with weeds and dirt mixed in. To even list them on a give away site or to tell people to come and take them I would have to know what exactly they are. I definitely don't know what any of the flowers names were that I pulled up. Plus, we would have to find a place to keep them until they could be given away. Which we don't have a lot of room.

There are the three positives and negatives that I can come up with right now about buying a home from someone who likes to garden. Especially if you are such an amateur gardener like I am. I do not know what I am doing at all. I am horrible with before and afters but I wanted to show you guys some of our progress with our gardening and our home. I have some before and afters but mostly a lot of afters. I am such a bad picture taker so if anyone wants to follow me around all day and take pictures of my life you are more than welcome to. I am taking resumes, but its an unpaid position. Help me I'm poor!

Thanks to google maps this is what my house looked like before they remodeled it. Flowers flowers everywhere!

This is my house (and child) now. There is quite a difference between the two and we are planning on adding more to our garden. We are also planning on taking out the shrubs because they look bad. 

I don't have a before on this but here is the side of my house. I worked really hard on it today. I cannot wait for it to fill in more. When it does and my flowers start to bloom I will take another picture!

This side I actually did a before on. This is my before on the other side of my house. I have no clue what is weeds or plants or what type of flowers were there. 

This was the beginning stage of my starting to pull up everything. I have my little man as a helper!

This looks much better. Thanks to my amazing neighbor I found out I had two hydrangeas, a yucca plant, and a couple geranium plants. She said she doesn't know if the geranium and the yucca will do well since there isn't a lot of sun over here but If they don't do well this year I will *try* to transplant them to a sunny spot. Hopefully they do well so I don't kill them by trying to transplant them!

I did a lot of work today and my house is coming a long. We are going to figure out some sort of border to separate my lawn from the flower beds and we are going to re-mulch and put down a weed barrier. I will probably end up buying some more plants to so I can fill in some spaces but I definitely won't over crowd things. I will have it look like a cute neat little garden! If you have any suggestions on what I should do with my garden please leave a comment and let me know! I will take in any suggestions and I love to hear your feedback! 

Peace and Love, 

Why I Choose To Live Naturally

Okay, so I hear it all the time. You're a hippie or I don't think I could live the "crunchy" lifestyle like you do. I might not be 100% all natural in my daily life but I do choose to get rid of a lot of chemicals and make a lot of things myself. Is it easy? No! I have to find recipes, experiment with them, and make everything that you would just go to a store and by. It is worth it and I think you should start to live naturally too!

Let me get medical with you for a second and tell you one of the major reasons why I choose to live more naturally. Our household cleaners, body products, and even stuff to make the air smell good are KILLING us. No, I am not being overly dramatic either. Your skin? It is the largest organ that we have and it is permeable. That means things can get absorbed through your skin and can effect other parts of your body. How much stuff? There was a recent study done on drinking water that shown the skin absorbed 64% of what was put on it. Click here to read the study for yourself.

 Lets just look at some of the ingredients of the products we use. There was an article in the Huffington Post about 10 toxic beauty products. You can read the whole thing for yourself but here are some of them. Parabens are one that actually mimics estrogen and are linked to increased risk of breast cancer. Yeah, I totally want 64% of that to be absorbed through my skin and a lot of products have it. Phthalates are a type of chemical that can be put in nail polish, perfumes, lotions, and hair spray. They have also been linked to increased risks of breast cancer. They can cause early breast development in girls and can even contribute to reproductive birth defects in both males and females! Tricolsan which is found in a lot of our hand sanitizes and "antibacterial" washes can not only irritate the skin but it can disrupt your endocrine system causing issues with your thyroid and reproductive system. There is also sodium lauryl sulfate which can lead to a lot of issues including kidney and respiratory damage. I am going to stop with those four but you get the picture right? Bad, bad stuff.

Now lets talk about one of our most important organs. Our lungs. Those bad boys help us oxygenate our blood and organs and without them, we would be toast. Everyone knows they cannot live without their lungs. Chemicals can also be absorbed through the lungs. You know those glade plug-in's that make your house smell good. Chock full of chemicals that are getting absorbed right into you. Also any chemical cleaners get absorbed right into your lungs and a lot of them are known to cause respiratory distress. I have asthma and I am super sensitive to these chemicals. I also cannot be around cigarette smoke. When I was pregnant for Emelia it was really hard for me to keep the bathroom clean because I could not breathe. My poor husband had to clean the bathrooms after working 50 hours a week because I could not do it. That is when I decided to try and find natural alternatives to cleaners and start making stuff myself.

If you are having any sort of medical issue going natural wont magically take it away but when you get rid of those chemicals from your life you really do start to feel better. I haven't had breathing issues for years now since I started. Every once in a while I will get tight chested (especially during allergy season) but I don't need to take my emergency inhaler every day. Becoming more natural and being in control of what you put on your skin and in your household is empowering. I know EXACTLY what is in my cleaners because I make them for myself.

Now I am not perfect because I still use a lot of commercial make-ups and I haven't found a shampoo or conditioner recipe that I like yet. Plus I still take my kids to McDonald's every now and again and we are definitely not organic. I can say that my cleaning products are chemical free and so is the way I scent my house. I did find some shampoos and conditioners that are sulfate and phthalate free. Let me tell you how much easier my hair is to handle now. I have super thick, curly, dry, and frizzy hair. It has been a pain in my butt since day 1! With one use of a shampoo that is free of those two chemicals my hair was transformed. Don't believe me? Here is a picture (PS no I am not wearing makeup *gasp* and my hair is naturally that wavy):

Have I scared you enough for today? Good! I am sorry for frightening you but the good news is a quick google search can give you many (easy to make) alternatives for these chemicals. I use my essential oils in a lot of my recipes to make all natural products. You don't get more natural that plants. Essential oils are huge now a days and almost any store now carries them. A word of advice from your favorite oil lady, trust the company you buy them from. Really, even some companies put chemicals in their essential oils. GASP! I know it should be a crime, but it is not! If you want to learn about what oils I use and how to get some of your own click here.

When I can I will post some recipes I use and you can always message me any time or even leave a comment asking any questions. I am here to help. I really want to help people become healthier and get rid of some of these awful chemicals. I can almost guarantee that by living a little less chemical free you will not only feel better but your body (and your families bodies) will thank you. Well that's what was on my mind today folks, until next time.

Peace and Love, 

Mom's Need Time Away

This past weekend the girls and I decided to go to Wisconsin and then the Mall of America in Minnesota. I have never been able to travel much so any time I can travel I am really excited. I went without my kids and it was really nice to get away from everything and just be myself for once.

We drove a lot on this trip. I mean a lot. On Sunday we drove all the way from 7am to 11:30pm. Yup, it was crazy. If I never have to sit in another car I would be happy. My butt still hurts and I feel jet lagged. For those of you that want to go on a road trip, just don't drive all day and every day. It becomes torture.

We decided to do this in a weekend so on Friday we drove to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to get our friend Jenna and we stayed the night out there. We decided to walk around the town and go out to a couple bars. I never go out to bars or drink so this was a lot of fun. We did it responsibly too so that was nice and we didn't get crazy. Just some girlfriends enjoying drinks and talking. It was nice to not talk to toddlers all day.

This is at the hotel when we first got there. This was the only pic we could all get together lol.

In front of the water way! It was super pretty!

Last but not least a rooftop bar. It was really cool up there. 

Two of us are moms so it was rough for both of us to be away from our little's but it was super fun to be able to go out. Ashley and I woke up super early the next morning, to the dismay of Jenna and Stephanie. Poor girls lol but it got us up and out the door to spend more time at the Mall of America. Its about 6ish hours from Milwaukee to Minnesota so we got there around lunch time. 

Mall of America is awesome! The first thing I thought was was that we need to take the kids here! We went to the Sea Life aquarium first because we all love sea life, especially Ashley. I think if we didn't go there Ashley would be super sad. My favorite part was the sea turtles and the big tunnels they had us walk through. 

I also loved the seahorses

We didn't decide to ride the roller coasters this time since we only had a couple hours to really spend at the mall but they looked like fun and next time we go there we are totally doing this all different so that we can have more time to ride the roller coasters. 

We ended up shopping a lot. It was cool to do and I ended up getting a really good deal on some shirts at H&M. Ashley bought me a shirt I was looking at. I was so taken back and thankful for it. She really is my best friend, and no not because she buys me stuff lol. We ended up eating at a restaurant called Dicks Last Resort where the waiters treat you really badly. It was very funny but I probably wouldn't go back there. It was a little too much for me but it was all in good fun and luckily I do not get offended easily. This trip was over way to quickly. I wish it would have slowed down a little. 

Sunday was the worst day though. It was us stuck in the car for hours with nothing to do and we all didn't want to stop much because we all wanted to get home quickly. My legs and butt still hurt. Seriously, I am not getting into a car unless I have to.

So that was a little bit about my trip, now let me tell you why every mom needs to take a trip like this. 

Yes, I was selfish for one weekend. I know what a lot of people would never leave anywhere without their kids for a weekend. I never thought I would be able to leave my kids for days at a time being so little. It was hard and I talked about them constantly. I am sure my friends got annoyed at how much I talked about them. It was needed and I think every mom needs to take at least one weekend (if not more) away from their kids to keep their sanity.

It was really rough for me to make the decision to go on this trip. For one I never do anything for just myself and this would be 100% selfish. I never want to be selfish or take anything away from my kiddos. With that is point two, it costs a lot of money to travel and get away. We are trying to get financially free and I felt so bad taking hundreds of dollars away from my family. We really need that money and I felt completely selfish doing it. We completed Step 1 to financial peace university by Dave Ramsey and we had to reduce the amount of savings so that I could go do this.

So, even though I felt bad and felt selfish I needed this. Moms spend all day taking care of others and we hardly ever take care of ourselves. I cant remember the last time I went shopping for myself and bought a new wardrobe. I always buy things for my kids but never myself unless I really need it. I can't even go to the bathroom by myself, let alone shower. I needed some time to myself some time to be Jessica not mom.

Moms, you DESERVE this. Plus the best part of the trip was coming home and seeing my kids. I had to wait until the morning to see them but they were so happy and excited to see me. I got to give them some souvenirs I got for them and when I came home they bought me a rose. My husband is more appreciate to what I do every day with the kids because he had to live with it. Yeah, it was only a couple days and probably didn't get the full experience of having kids but it was enough. It was nice coming to a clean house and an appreciative husband. It helped renew me and now I feel like I can be a better mom.


Peace and Love,

Eli's First Birthday!

We celebrated our little mans first birthday this past weekend. I cannot believe that we don't have an infant anymore. This year just flew by and part of me wishes it would have lasted a lot longer. I wish that I spent less time being worried and more time just enjoying my last child. I am so proud of everything that he has gone through this year and I wanted his first birthday to be a big celebration of his strength.

We decided to do a superhero birthday party. I am doing his room in superhero so I wanted to take the decorations right from his party and decorate his room with them. I would feel like I am wasting things less and it has two uses for the price of one!

I made a little cape banner and a sign that said ELI in superman symbols. It turned out pretty cool. I am not sure if we got a picture of the cape banner but in the next couple of pictures you will see the superman sign. I had tissue paper balls that I hung from our light and decorated with streamers. My streamers kept on falling down and what I did with them wasn't as impressive as Bridgette's party. I didn't take pictures this time of the decor. I was just way to busy but I will do another blog post when we finish his room and you can see some of the stuff I made there.

We got our cake from Sam's Club because they offered a 1/2 sheet for the price of a 1/4 sheet. We are still eating cake...

Here I am lighting the candles for his cake. He got to wear a little birthday tie that said 1 birthday boy. I felt bad but little man's tie didn't quite fit around his neck. It was too small, he is a big boy. It still looked cute though. He kept on trying to get into his cake. Emelia didn't want to touch her cake at all without a fork on her first birthday so it was amazing that Eli just dove right in. 

It. Was. GLORIOUS! I gave him a big portion of his cake and he treated it like every baby should on their first birthday and got it everywhere! Seriously, it was even in his belly button. I loved it. 

We ended up having our closest friends and family over for the party. A lot of people sadly wasn't able to make it but we still had a pretty good turn out. My mother in law even drove out all the way from Maine! I was very happy she was able to be here for his first birthday. 

This is me right before I gave birth to him. Yes, it looks like I hid a basketball under my shirt. Thinking to a year ago we were so happy to have our little boy. We felt so blessed. Then when he was 3 weeks old we had our whole lives turned upside down. We really had no clue if he would be here for his birthday. When anyone has a surgery there are so many unknowns. It is terrifying but our little boy beat cranio.

This past year we had many heartbreaks with him but we have much more to celebrate. We can celebrate that he is on track with all of his milestones. We can celebrate that his brain can grow the way it needs to. We can celebrate the strength he shown during surgery. Most of all we can celebrate who he is. A happy, loving, silly little boy who makes us smile each and every day. 

I cant wait to see the person he becomes. I hope he keeps his happy and loving attitude. I hope he can always be silly and funny. Our hearts are now full. Our family is now complete. Here is to the past year and the many more that are to come. We love you Eli. 

Peace and Love, 

Struggling With Finances

We are a one income family. My husband is a very hard worker but like most American's we are in debt. Our monthly bills are quite high and even though my husband makes decent money we still live paycheck to paycheck. So what do I do? I am a stay at home mom and I run my own oils business. My oil business is still in the just starting faze so we don't count on that for a true income even though we have made money off of it. It is hard not to bring home a steady income then talk about money, in the end it just makes me feel bad.

I feel bad because I feel like I am not contributing financially. I know I am contributing to my kids health, keeping the house clean, and making sure everyone is fed. That is all great but compared to financial contribution it seems like nothing. Sometimes with doctors appointments and other things that come up I cant even do some of the things a stay at home mom should. You would think since I stay at home my house would be spotless. Well it is not. Not even close. So, when we talk about finances it is really hard for me. It just tells me another thing that I am not being able to help with. 

I do have a college degree that was quite expensive to get. I am a certified Medical Assistant and my degree is a dual degree in phlebotomy. I absolutely love anything that is medical (that's why using essential oils for my health was easy for me) and I love everything a medical assistant does. If I love it so much, why am I not doing it to help earn an income? I would LOVE to go to work part time and earn a paycheck to help out. I say part time because raising my kids and not having someone else raise them is the most important thing to me. Too many kids are being raised by a caregiver these days, which is understandable, but not what I want to do. 

If I want to go to work, then why am I not? I would end up LOSING money if I worked. Yup, that is right. In the end I would have to pay to go to work. Isn't that crazy?! Daycare is very expensive where we are. I also have two and sometimes three kids that would need to be put in daycare. I would pretty much be working to pay a person to watch my kids and pay for gas to get to work. That is really sad. Right now my college degree is just sitting there and I am just sitting here feeling bad because I cant work. 

We actually tried to find something that I could work when my husband gets home but my husbands hours can vary a little bit and he works "bankers" hours because, well, he's a banker. Sadly a lot of shifts are either during those hours, won't get me home on time, or are overnights. Sorry, but I cannot stay up all night then stay up all day to take care of my kids. No way possible. With me not being able to work at all, how in the heck are we going to get out of debt?

We prayed about this. A lot. I know I have prayed about this at least once daily. My husband and I are chronic worriers. We worry about different things but we still worry. I worry most about health issues and he worries about financial issues. It's hard for me to worry about financial issues because Brad deals with finance and bills. Its hard for Brad to worry about health issues because I am the one making the doctors appointments and taking the kids to them.

There is a scripture in the Bible that I recently heard and I think it might just be my new favorite scripture. It is Philippians 4:6 and it really helps to put me at peace. The New Living Translation of it is " Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done." It helps remind me that we are not alone in this. We need to place things in Gods hands more and worry about them less. I think the most important part is to show gratitude for what God has given you. God has blessed us with so much and even when we are struggling we need to be thankful for what we have.

Back to the praying. When we talked about our financial situation and I really started to worry, I decided to pray more. Then all of a sudden our church announces that they are doing a new series called Live Free and it will be helping us with our finances with what the Bible says. Not only will we be talking about how to get out of debt every Sunday, but they started growth groups that are part of the series. Our church got Dave Ramseys financial peace university kits discounted and we will be going through those at the growth group.

 Now let me just tell you something because I know you are all thinking it. Usually when a church talks about finances and the Bible it is talking about tithing and that we should be giving more to them. Well, our church isn't like that. They think tithing is important (it's in the Bible whether we like it or not) but they are not one of those churches that only talks about it. They are not trying to get more money out of us, they are trying to get us debt free. A lot of people don't see finances as a spiritual issue. The Bible talks more about money than it does talk about heaven or hell. Let that sink it. It is a spiritual issue. If we are out of debt, then we are truly free to do more of God's work.

It's so weird how when I started to really pray about it that our church announced that they were going to start with this series. I will start to post weekly post's about what we are doing and our progress in becoming debt free Gods way. I am very excited about this and I feel like God is saying to me "You are raising your children to love and know me. Don't worry about finances I will help you, just keep teaching your kids about me." Now, I just want to make something clear. I am not saying that you cannot raise good children if you don't believe. I am not saying that you are not a good person if you don't believe. I know many people out there that their children are wonderful and they are great people that are atheist. I try not to be judgmental because the Bible say's not to so I would never judge someone by their beliefs. I would love for them to find God and if they want to talk about God to me then I am more than happy to. I will not force my beliefs on them though, God gave us free will for a reason. I just feel in my life since becoming a Christian and following the Bible more, that I am now given a direct path to which my life should go. My path goes one way and that's right to Jesus.

I will make mistakes. I will fail at things. I will have heartbreak and sadness. It is a part of human life. One thing I wont be is alone and I wont ever feel unloved. If nobody in this world loves me then it doesn't matter because I have a God that loves me and would die for me over and over again. I see signs all the time that tell me I am doing the right thing and going the right way with my life. I know we will be okay financially. When everything seems like its against us, God will always be for us. I just have to remember that and be thankful for what I do have even if its not much. Gods not going to do anything for me, I have to put in the hard work. I just know with him on my side when I do put in the work it will pay off. If you are struggling with finances, pray. Keep praying and keep working because I believe God answers prayers and rewards hard work. That is what I will keep on doing and I will update you with how well we are doing getting rid of our debt and hopefully it might help out some of you guys too!


Peace and Love,

The Journey is Never Over

When you are diagnosed with craniosynostosis you hear the saying "welcome to the other side" or something a long those lines. You hear about the other side of craniosynostosis quite frequently. To me, it implies that after surgery you don't have to worry about craniosynostosis anymore and your child is now okay. Your child is "cured" from craniosynostosis. 

While it is a lot easier to handle being on the other side of craniosynostosis it doesn't mean the journey is over. It doesn't mean that your child will never have to have another surgery. It doesn't mean that you don't have to see doctors and specialist or worry about your child anymore. If anything after the surgery starts a new beginning of things you have to do.

Today my son is 3 months post-op and want to know what we are doing? Well, we are preparing for another surgery. We just got out of an eye doctor appointment and because of the craniosynostosis my sons right eye muscle is weak. The only way to fix that is through surgery. Then later we have an appointment for physical therapy. The craniosynostosis caused a head tilt so we have to go to physical therapy twice a week to try and straighten it out which the eye issue can also be a factor to the head tilt. 

Next week we are done with physical therapy. Well at least for now. They will do a check up in three months to see if he has improved and I need to do exercises with him until he is two. We have only one month left of helmet therapy because his head will be healed and we don't have to worry about him bumping it. No more than usual at least. We see a developmental nurse every couple months just to make sure there are no delays. It is more common that a baby that has no other conditions with his craniosynostosis (like Eli) can have developmental delays. We will be having those until he is three. In a couple months we have to go see the eye doctor again before we schedule his surgery. This time his surgery is going to be a lot less invasive than his skull surgery. It is only a 30 minute procedure and we will go home that day. Still though, its ANOTHER surgery! I feel like this is a never ending process with the craniosynostosis. What next?

I am starting to realize there will always be worry about another surgery. Not only with his newly discovered eye issues but what if another suture closes? It is rare that it happens but not impossible. Also there are many other surgeries we might be faced with. We might have to have holes in his skull closed if they don't close by themselves. We are also keeping track on the other side of his skull to make sure that develops the way it needs to. If it doesn't then we might need a surgery for that. There can also be sinus surgeries and a list of other surgeries that craniosynostosis can be the root cause of.

Now don't let me depress you and your journey. Being on the other side is better! We know without a doubt that we can take on any surgeries needed. We know his brain has room to grow now. The doctors appointments are not so bad, most of it is just keeping him on track. Plus a lot of babies are one and done babies. They have one surgery and never have another issue from their craniosynostosis. I'm just saying there is still a lot you have to do. Don't think that the surgery will magically make your life simple. Don't think that you will never have any other issues from the cranio. Don't think that your time of seeing doctors is over. You have been so strong and brave for your child but it's not over until the fat lady sings. Or at least until you are cleared from all doctors, most importantly your craniofacial surgeon and your neurosurgeon.

I have a lot of issues with letting myself feel frustrated. I built up this dream of the other side of craniosynostosis. One where I will not have to see doctors for this ever again and never have another surgery. I want to let you know, whether it's before or after surgery, it is okay to feel frustrated. It is okay to cry and worry. Its normal to feel like that! Don't hold it in. Talk to whoever you can about your frustrations. If you have other cranio-families you know it's awesome to be able to relate, but your friends and family will understand and let you vent too. You are not alone in this.

With all my frustrations out I want to say  happy 3 month cranioanniversary Eli. I am so proud of you and what you have been through in the first year of life. I am so happy to be your mom and what ever comes our way I know we will handle it. 

Peace and Love, 

DIY Chandlier and Paper Lantern

I wanted to post a quick tutorial on how I made my chandelier from yesterday's post about my girls room. Even though the paper lantern was super easy to make I decided to add that in here to do a tutorial on that also. I spent next to nothing to make both of these and they really make the room pop! Here is what they look like.

We will start with the most difficult one first! The chandelier was a huge pain in the butt! Honestly, I will probably never make another one as long as I live. It was worth the pain in the back and the annoyance of making it through because it made Bridgette's side really pop! Also if you have really super sharp scissors that are thin it makes it 100x easier. I didn't, so it was a pain. Cutting out the cardboard was the most ridiculous part but the rest was easy peasy. Lets start out from the beginning. 

I made a template out of a chandelier silhouette I Googled. All you do is Google "chandelier silhouette clip art" and then go to images. Find the one you like best open it up and then right click it to copy it. After that you open up paint and paste the clip art you choose in it you want to make it a little bigger. I did that by going to print and then clicking on the page set up. 

After that you want to look at the fit to part. I made mine to be 1 page by 2 pages. If you want a really big chandelier you can make it 2 pages by 2 pages or 3 pages by 3 pages. You can also change the orientation of the page if you want it to look a certain way. After you switch around the orientation to the way you want it just go to print preview and you can see how it will print out. Here is a little picture to show you what I did.

After the template is printed out you will want to find what you want to make your chandelier out of. I choose to make mine out of cardboard. Since we still have two in diapers we have a bunch of diaper boxes laying around. I did try to make it out of foam board at first but it was almost impossible to cut and make it look nice. Cardboard is the way to go.

I cut out the chandelier template and taped the two pages together to make a big template. There was the beaded part of the chandelier template the I just cut right out so I just had the base. I opened up the box to make it easier to cut. Then I took tape and taped it to the box. I rolled the tape and taped it behind the template so I could trace around the whole image without having to worry about tape. 

Honestly the cutting part was one of the hardest parts of making it. It was a very dark time for me. I became a person that I didn't want to be when I was cutting out the darn thing. I swore, got moody, and felt exhausted after cutting it out. Okay, okay I might be over exaggerating but really guys it sucked! My wrist and back hurt just thinking about it. Anyways, I cut out two of the templates. After they are completely cut out I then decided to paint them. I took regular ol' craft paint in purple and did one coat on each side. A bonus the craft paint was .99 cents at Meijer and I used it to paint picture frames too! Score! Also I cut one of the templates in half before I painted it. 

I let it dry (on top of my picture frames that I was painting) then painted the other side. You can see the foam chandelier I tried to do. I wanted to make it bigger but trust me foam is not the way to go. Plus it cost $1.00 for the foam from the dollar store and the cardboard was FREE! After the paint is dry I modge-podged purple glitter onto it. I am cheap so I made my own modge-podge out of Elmer's glue and water. Super easy you just take the glue and put it in a bowl then slowly add water to make it thinner and easier to be able to paint. The glitter is amazing! It covered up any mistakes and it makes it look so pretty! 

Glitter gets everywhere! It has been two days since I made this and I am still finding glitter! I took some grocery bags to do the glitter on then I was able to put some of the glitter back into the container and throw the whole bag away. It made it less messy but glitter is, well, glitter. By nature it gets everywhere. After you put glitter on it you have to let it dry completely. I made the mistake of not letting it dry completely and when I went to hot glue it together it was very floppy. I would definitely let it dry for a couple hours if not overnight. The cardboard shouldn't be squishy. 

You hot glue the half pieces to the middle of the big piece like the picture above. I didn't wait for mine to dry completely so I had issues with it standing up right. When it was dry it was able to stand up great. I ran the hot glue down both of the sides where I glued the two pieces together. I immediately put glitter on top of the hot glue to hide it. I also took hot glue and ran it along the edges where you could really see the cardboard then immediately put glitter a long those too. It made it look really nice and you couldn't tell it was cardboard. I hot glued ribbon to the back of the chandelier. If I was smarter while the hot glue was still hot I would have added glitter to that too so I could cover up the ribbon part. Oh well, you live you learn. The ribbon is to hang it by. You can really use any type of ribbon for it. I used a thin black one because it was one I had already for crafts I was doing for Eli's room.

After that you can glue whatever accessories you want to the chandelier. I choose butterflies I got from the dollar store and some pearl looking beads I got from the craft section of Meijer. I think it turned out really nice and went really good with the whole decor of the room. You can really glue on whatever you want for your chandelier though, its great how versatile it is. After it was all ready I decided to let it hang on my daughters door until I was ready to hang it. I did this because I noticed when I laid it down some of the glitter came off and some of the parts started to bend a little bit. I am not sure if the chandelier was still wet (a big probability) or the cardboard I used was too thin. You can also buy a clear spray from a home improvement store to lock in the glitter and it will probably make it harder. Either way it will be hanging up and not laying down so it wasn't a big deal for me. 

Then we got a hook and hung it from the ceiling. All together this project cost me around $3! You could buy them at Walmart for around $19 and I think I found them for not too much online. I think it was like $8 but then you had to pay shipping. It was worth the extra work I had to put into it and I love the way it turned out! Now lets talk about the paper lantern. This will be a super short tutorial because it is super easy. First you buy a paper lantern from the dollar store. I had to look a round at a couple of them to find one. 

After I had the lantern set up all I did was add some daisy's and butterflies to the outside of it with hot glue. When you hang it, it will make it lopsided. So you can take some small marbles or some type of weight and then glue it to the inside on the other side so it hangs straight. After that, all I did was use a fake pearl stranded necklace and put it on the hook to hang it up with. I really liked the look of it and it made it hang a little better. I twisted some of the strands to lock it around the hook.

See easy peasy! All together I am guessing that this costed around $3 too. I am really bad at math but thinking about them I am pretty sure they even cost me less to do.You could make a couple of these and pair it with tissue paper balls (super easy to make) and make a really cool decoration to hang from the ceiling. 

Peace and Love,