BEAUTY IS A LIFESTYLE THING

Happy September, and now welcome to fall's change of seasons. After this summer my area suffered through a harsh hot weather related drought and an uptick in tornadic activity; though we have a lot of tornados and straight line winds wrapped with thunderstorms here, this year we had at least three different occaisions where we had upwards to five or more tornados at one time! That will have your head spin for real! Sitting on the patio relaxing one night last week, I felt a cool breeze saunter through the trees and ruffle my umbrella ovehead announcing onset of fall was not far behind. I took this photo late in October 2022. My friend's sold their 25 year old home to get in on the housing boon and to downsize. My girlfriend wanted to finally, after all this time, get her true "forever home" just the way she wanted it. They built a new ranch style home with all the bells and whistles on it and in it. They finally finished it and her husband is about to retire so th...

A craft you can make! Although I usually don't decorate for Valentine's Day, I thought I'd join in and present a very easy peasy craft for your home decor. I like easy. I also like to upcycle things that I already have on hand. When I make things to sell or to give as gifts, I make them permanent with permanent glues and fixatives. For this little project, I went shopping in my house and as you may already know, nothing is ever permanent here! I did purchase a bag of the scrabble letters from Target in the dollar section, the whole bag spelled out "You Complete Me" and it was $3.00. I purchased these because I have some mixed media art that I will be using them for, but for today, five of them will be for the little shelf sitter above. When I shopped my house, I found a ton of usable frames, but most are so old that the frames hinge on being ugly, or in need of some repair. The one used in this project is little, it is 3x5" and was an old 1970's ...

The tree is up. Now that Thanksgiving is officially over, it's time for us to get ready for Christmas. I don't know about your house but we dress our house up, which includes the mantle, the Christmas trees, and the outside. The hardest part is dragging everything up from the nether regions of the basement dungeon. I hope everyone has a built-in teenager that will substitute for the moving men that are needed to make this all happen, and thank goodness I do! I'm going to do a little mini-series on decor and small crafts that are not only easy but inexpensive and make a huge impact. I am slowly taking my decorating to a lower level. My time is always limited and I will be culling my decorations this year and I will be donating some of the things that I no longer need. I'm trying to make my life easier and that of my husband's too. My 9-foot tree is currently up in the front, one set of lights are out. This weekend, my husband the official l...