Homemade Gift Ideas

My favorite gifts are homemade one's. I also prefer home cooked meals to out to eat. Something about the time people put into making something makes it a ton better.

I have this frame I painted a while back. I got it at a garage sale for $1.

I added a bit of fun to it. I see these fabric flowers all over the places at boutiques. We've been looking at fabric for window treatments so I have a ton of scraps. I found a use!

This is how you start. With a triangle glued to a small felt circle or square.

Then you just twist around and glue. You could use fabric glue but I have burned finger tips immune to burns....

I added a 2nd fabric for some contrast.

This is another frame I finished.

There are a lot of printables online I'm thinking this is a great gift for teachers, family and friends.

Boys Room Before/After

My favorite part of makeovers are the before and after shots.

This is Will's room. Lucky guy got Daddy's big book shelves from his old office. It give him a lot of storage and display. This is what it looked like when we looked at the house.
Boring white walls and a bed on the floor.

Will loves his new room.

He especially loves that he has his own bathroom and doesn't share it with any girls.

Menu Monday

Can you believe how grocery and eating out prices are going up?

A couple weeks ago we visited Chili's and all menu prices up.

To counteract this we do most meals at home... we also live 20 minutes away from the nearest restaurant.

Monday: Crock Pot Brisket - easy and better than most BBQ joints

Pick up a center cut brisket trimmed

1 jar of Claudes brisket marinade

Cook it for about 5 hours

Take out once cooked put in fridge for an hour

Cut and put in oven for about 30 minutes (This makes it that dry BBQ)

Enjoy! Costs about $13 compared to take out BBQ at $35

Tuesday: Leftover BBQ

Wednesday: Frozen Pizza

Thursday: Freezer Purge

Friday: Grill Burgers at the Barn

Goodwill Bench Transformed

I'm baaackk! I felt like I should shout that out as I was painting a piano bench I found for $5 at Goodwill.

For those of you who've read for a while know I loved to spray paint and transform things. Well baby #4 and a move held things up a bit.

I found this messed up and gooed up bench and knew it had potential. Solid wood, score!

We've gone back to the tube TV. Our friends graciously let us borrow the tube while we try to figure out what the heck to do. Remember we had a 55 inch flat screen and had custom built in's at the old place.

I regress, back on subject....

See it was pretty shabby. I kept it with a basket of our shoes for a whole day before I prettied it up.

I used my favorite Heirloom White paint and English Chestnut stain and bingo a new side table.

Caroline can't contain her excitement over mommy's new pull up bench.

Gotta say it again, I'm back and ready to paint.

The girls and I are heading to Canton this weekend to turn some trash into treasure.

I'm linking up to Miss Mustard Seed

New Look

What is frugal living?

To me it's living within or below your means.

All of our means are different and with time it changes. We've had our ups and downs financially as most families do.

As you can tell our family has had some major changes. We recently bought our dream home and property.

Without frugal living for many years it wouldn't have been possible.

It's important to make goals and know where your headed. For our family a country home was important. We scrimped and saved and did it with a lot of hard work and saving.

I've had people say you can't be frugal Jen living in that house.

My answer, yes I can. I'm still as frugal as ever. I'd love to decorate the house immediately with all new things but I can't.

We live on a strict budget and we don't live beyond our means.

Frugal is a way of life. You can make it drab and boring or your can make it fabulous and an adventure.

Cheers to new adventures!

Fall Fun

Life with 4 kids is seldom boring. Mostly we're busy going from one activity to another or working on the property.

Each Tuesday we make a trip into our old town for gymnastics and lunch with Daddy. Here's my little gymnast. Will's turned into a pumpkin head.
We spent or family night out at our barn. We carved pumpkins and hung out by the fire.

This is our 2,400 sq ft bonus building/barn. It could be a charming house. We laugh and say it's where we will live when we get old. One of the kids can move into the main house.

We have big plans to finish it out for a guest room, home office, shop and entertaining space. Our favorite part is the huge deck out front which overlooks our pond.

Our little country girl Caroline.

It's not Texas if we're not playing baseball. In between watching the Rangers world series games we were watching our favorite ball player. His nickname is "homerun Will". My dude has some serious skills. Since we moved to an ultra competitive city he's improving daily. I love to see the joy in his face while he plays.

I've fallen in love with drinking out of mason jars. I ditched the old glass cups.

I don't know what happened to my city husband but he's seriously wanting to buy a big tractor. He was checking them out at the state fair. As you can see Will thinks it's a good idea. We have a new search on Craigslist for tractors.

Our open living room and catwalk have a sniper you have to be careful of. He's a sharp shooter with a nerf gun. I know he's coming if I hear screaming girls.

We are enjoying out time at our new home. It's a dream come true to have some land to roam.

Honestly the first couple months I thought.... what have we done, I want to go home. After time I'm loving it. I don't do well with change but now I pull up and breathe a sigh of relief, I'm home.

We laugh we still have a home in the "city". Our old home didn't sell during the selling season so we put it up for renter. We have renters in until the end of the school year. Not sure if we will sell or continue renting it out. Rentals are in high demand so the extra $$ is nice.

Dining Room Progress

I've been so busy I've neglected the blog a bit.

I underestimated the amount of time I would be busy.

This is our dining room taken this morning. I'm slowly picking out decor.

Something funny has happened to me, I actually like the gold accents.

Call me 90's Jen but I really like it. A year ago I would spray paint in Oil Rubbed Bronze.

I see some tall tablescaping in the future too.


We've had the hardwood floors refinished twice, yep twice.

Seems our inlay was week and required some replacement. Didn't want anyone stepping through our floors.

You can see in the below photo the floors before we did the 1st round. The wood was a little light for our taste.


We've been busy.

Gone is the wall paper.

We put white bead board and had the walls textured to match the rest of the house.

The floors got a dark refinishing.


This is my favorite part the chunky molding.

It's been easy to get overwhelmed because there is so much to do. Our last house was completely done decorating wise.

It's exciting and fun to pick out new items although I'm a little impatient because I can't buy it all at once.

Grocery Challenge

I've done a little experiment with grocery shopping.

Over the past couple years I've gone to Wally World (wal-mart). I started to wonder what was up when my grocery bill gradually went up. It quickly got to the point of out of control.

Each time I visit I have to go from one side of the store to the other.... that's where they get you.

I was picking up candles, craft items, kids clothing... etc.

My bill in the meantime had gone up almost $100 a week. Out of control I tell ya!

So, after we moved I visited the new Wally World, same deal.

Then I decided to go back to the grocery store get a saver card and all.

In 2 weeks my grocery bill is down $75 a week and I'm getting more food. Yes some items are more expensive but I'm saving money. I've also noticed the high quality of meats and produce.

I'm saying so long farewell to my weekly trips to Wally World! Hello little ole small town Brookshires.

P.S. I love that I get help out to the car!

Coming soon, back to coupon Frugal Jen.

Menu Monday

I forgot what a schedule was like...

We're back on Menu Monday.

Country living doesn't mean no evening activities it just means we drive futher to get there. However I LOVE the drive. It's beautiful driving in rural areas with no traffic. We see many sunsets and beautiful bluff views.

Ok on to food:

Monday: Grilled Burritos (yeah a night at home!)

Tuesday: Frozen Pizza (baseball practice)

Wednesday: Crock Pot Brisket, come and go (youth group)

Thursday: Leftover BBQ (Dance and baseball practice)

Friday: Burgers at home with a movie night... relax from the busy week

Gotta share some decorating and I need ideas. This is our casual dining off the kitchen. I'm looking for fabric for a valance.

I'm stuck on what to do on the back wall. I don't like the mirror it doesn't seem to go there. I'm looking for a country idea. Any ideas?

This is our oldest daughter who seems to be missing from blog posts. I'm so proud of her. She's adjusted great from the move. She's got a great group of new friends. This past weekend she went to homecoming, the dance and also had a slumber party with new friends. She's a busy girl.

New Family Addition

Since we're country folk now we had to get a dog.

Saturday we surprised Will for his upcoming birthday with a basset hound pup. He quickly named him Gus.

Madeline is loving Gus too.
I had to throw in a cute photo of Caroline. She's growing up so fast!

This is where Gus loves to relax next to the shrubs in the back. He perches up on the ledge and howls at the sky.

Our oldest Kate is enjoying Gus as well. She didn't have makeup on when I took photos so I was forbid from putting them on my blog.... teenagers.

On a different note we are so proud of her. She made the homecoming princess nominees. She was 1 of 10 out of a class of 500. Awesome for a new girl!! She found out today that she didn't make the top 2 for the award but we are thrilled with making the list. Let's just say she's adjusting very well!