Giveaway Winner!

The winner of the Free 1 Hour Photo Session is (drum roll please)…

Dani Goff! Congratulations! You will receive a confirmation email within the next 24 hours about what to do next! Thank you to everyone who entered into the giveaway. Check back often for future giveaways and discounts!

XOXO,

Weekend Recap (+ A Giveaway)

"Which one of my photographs is my favorite? The one I'm going to take tomorrow." 

- Imogen Cunningham

Between lots of family time, lots of antiques and lots of photography - this weekend was great! It was nice to pick my camera back up and capture some memories. Now, I'm itching to take some more! 

>   >   >   >   >   >   >   >   >   >   >   > THE GIVEAWAY <   <   <   <   <   <   <   <   <   <   <   <

If you or anyone you know is looking for inexpensive pictures in the Westfield/Carmel area, here is your chance! Just email me at homesweethofmann@gmail.com with your name and the type of photos you are interested in and you will be entered in to win a FREE 1 hour photo session. Winner will be announced Friday, September 26th, 2014!

XOXO,

Lately

Hello friends! I have not blogged in a long time and I think I am having withdrawals. *sigh* But I am back! Things have been busy, busy, busy but a good busy. Not like the "I have 10 loads of laundry to do because I have 20 kids and each one thinks it is necessary to wear 5 outfits a day" kind of busy. We'll leave that for the future... well, hopefully not.

It is that self-made kind of busyness. I have been a crafting, thrifting and baking machine. I hand lettered some adorable globes for our church's Celebration of the Nations coming up to celebrate the fact that we have 14+ different nationalities represented at FAC Carmel. (Woohoo for unity in Jesus!)

Indiana weather is just doing it's thing and acting all confused about what time of year it is again. (Nothing new there.) Did you know that they are predicting that we will see our first snowfall by October 1st? Pray, saints, pray! With all this cold weather lingering around, I needed something to make me a little more excited for winter. So I went ahead and started crocheting for the 2014 Snowpocalypse - Part 2.

My dad recently went in for a scheduled triple bypass surgery and ended up having seven bypasses. Yes, you read that right SEVEN. You know what the best part was? Less than a week later, he made a forty minute drive up to church for prayer with no discomfort! And you want to tell me that God isn't real? God is not only real but He is alive, mighty, holy, sovereign, omniscient,  and in control!

On a slightly different note, I have found the all powerful, beauty elixir with mystical properties and its name is coconut oil. Okay, I definitely exaggerated there but have you ever used this stuff? It is amazing! I started using it regularly about three months ago and I'm never going back.

*Insert the emoji with the big heart eyes here*

We are finally decorating our bedroom. When we first got married and were on a tight budget, I had to pick and choose which rooms to spend money on. The living room, guest bedroom/office, bathroom and kitchen always beat out our bedroom. Those were rooms that visitors would actually be in, so of course we wanted to get them in order first. But now that David and I have both been blessed with steady paying jobs, we can put money into making it our space. 

I would be lying if I said that my busyness was caused by serious business. Unless you consider picking up four new hobbies in the last two months serious. In that case, we should be best friends. One of these hobbies is baking French Macarons. They have taught me so many things like humility, temperance and patience. I haven't mastered them yet but hopefully, by the grace of God, I will someday.

Have you picked up any new hobbies lately? Are you as crazy as I am when it comes to hundreds of different interests? Any success tips for baking French Macarons? I'd love to hear about it!

XOXO,

T-shirts to Cleaning Rags: Photo Tutorial

Supplies needed: Old t-shirts (We used size Large) and scissors

Keep in mind that the size and quantity of the rags depends on the size shirt you are cutting up... clearly. ;)

Cut off the sleeves and cut down the middle like I did above.

Then cut up the seams on each side to separate the front of the shirt from the back.

Cut the front side up the middle.

Do the same for the back side.

Voila! Now you have four good sized cleaning rags per shirt.

If you don't want to waste the top part of the shirt you can also get some small rags out of it.

Trim off the collar and the pointed "edges" where the sleeves used to be.

Now you have two options for the front piece.

Option 1: Cut straight across from side to side directly under the collar and make 1 medium sized rag.

Option 2: Cut into three small rags like shown above.

For the back, trim off the top and the pointed "edges" and you have yourself another regular sized rag.

So there you have it! For the most part, I got 5 regular sized rags per Men's Large t-shirt!

What about you? Do you have something you "up cycle" and use regularly! Please share below in the comment section! 

A Little Paint Job and A Mini Kitchen Tour

When we first moved into our apartment, I loved the idea of an all white kitchen. If you would like an explanation, I don't have one. For some reason, it seemed like a good idea (probably because we were close to broke with all the wedding expenses and white paint was cheap). At least it made the walls look clean and better than they had looked before. 

But after living here for 8 months, I decided it needed a change. It was just too plain and boring for David and I's personalities. And since I have started spending more time in there cooking (and sometimes burning) food, I wanted to jazz it up and make it look a little more inviting.

If you haven't noticed yet, our kitchen is TINY. Our bathroom is bigger than our kitchen... it's true. But on the bright side, it made repainting it a breeze! I also had to paint it all with a brush because we don't have any rollers. (I vaguely remember this predicament from my last post that involved painting. Weird)

I chose a color out of our stash of paint that is pretty familiar to any of you that read my blog regularly. SEA FOAM. I could paint my entire house this color and never get sick of it. Okay... that might be an exaggeration but who doesn't love this calm yet playful color?!

So with my backsplash painted and my counter tops cleared of all clutter, my kitchen got a facelift! Plus the sea foam blue works with our not so appealing countertops.  

I kind of love this little corner of our kitchen. Maybe not as much as our chalkboard wall on the other side of the room, but close. Aren't those little flour, sugar and miscellaneous canisters so cute? 

And last but certainly not least, my cookbook. A dear friend of mine made this for me as a wedding present and I couldn't love it any more even if I tried. She is one of those people that oozes so much creative talent that it's sickening. ;) 

There you have it. A little look into my every day kitchen and my impulsive need for change on a regular basis. Do any of you want to change something up in your home? Well what are you waiting for. Go do it!

XOXO

365 Challenge: Bathroom Wall Makeover

Have you ever just had one of those days where you just wanted to change something about your home? Like you needed to rearrange your bedroom or in my case paint a wall in your bathroom just to get your fix. Well last week my interior designer alter ego was in full force. Soon I found myself scrambling through our paint supplies and searching for a decent paint brush. (I hate cleaning out paint brushes... So usually we have to buy new ones for every other paint project. Oopsy!)

 I didn't really have a plan. I had seen tons of eccentric, geometric accent walls on Pinterest and HGTV and I was always drawn to them. I quickly snatched up the painters tape and soon had a system down of how to get the right shapes I wanted. Okay... maybe I didn't have a system... but it was loads of fun! ;-)

Soon I had all my tape up and I started painting. White was the only color I had on hand that would go with the color palette in our bathroom. I picked shapes out at random, trying to space them out so that I had room to put in a different color in between the white ones. So I painted...

... and painted. Eventually the tape towards to top of the wall started to peel off before I had even gotten up there to paint. Come to find out, it's because our heating vent is directly above that wall thus causing the tape to not want to stick. That, my friends, was annoying! But I stuck it back up and kept pluggin' away. Once I had all the white painted, my hands hurt. Keep in mind, I was using a brush but a roller would have made this job much easier and quicker! But you use what you got when you are in desperate need of a change in home decor "scenery".  

As for my second color, I had no idea. I climbed back up into our paint supplies and found manna from heaven. Okay, not really but close. GOLD SPRAY PAINT! Oh yes, you read that correctly. Gold. Spray. Paint. Needless to say, I broke a ton of home decorating rules that day.

1. I used spray paint inside.

2. I used a very bold METALLIC color.

(What a rebel I am, right?!)

Then I got this. My first thought. "Oh dear sweet baby Jesus. What have I done?!?" I panicked and started coming up with ways to cover it up before David got home. "Really Chrisi? Gold in the bathroom?!" "This is awful..." "Stupid interior designer alter ego... You didn't even go to college!" 

I may or may not have said all these things out loud to myself.

Then I peeled all the tape off and VOILA! 10x better ( I think.) It still needs some touch ups where the gold paint dripped but I am happy with the outcome. If you don't know me very well, then you probably don't know that I am a planner and a master list maker. So for me to make an impromptu decision of this magnitude is a big deal! 

I guess I can say that sometimes it is better to do things on a whim! Have any of you been contemplating changing something up in your home? Have you ever used spray paint inside? Please share below!

HSH 365 Challenge

The new year is always a time of reflection and resolutions. From giving up soda to business goals, just about everyone sets their minds to do better at something. I set a new goal every year, some more attainable than others but by Spring time I have already gotten either side tracked or completely forgotten about my recent aspirations. Why is that? For me, I decided that it's because I have always made resolutions that sounded good but never mean't much to me. Not this year! This year I have decided to make my new year resolution simple. Create. Every. Day. With my main goal to get an online shop up this year, I thought this was a good start. 

At first, I was posting a new creation every day on Instagram but by Day 3, I felt annoying. Now I've decided that every week I will do a post sharing that weeks DIYs and some How to's. Here is this weeks!

Day 1: I made this darling little stacks of pancakes with sea foam banners to add a little flair.

Day 2: I worked on a painting that will be part of our gallery wall. It's not completed yet, but soon.

Day 3: I hand lettered our living room sign with a little New Years inspiration.

Day 4: I learned how to crochet these cute, little rosettes. Now to bunch some up and crochet a throw pillow cover.

Day 5: Cake. Batter. Cookies. These sweet treats were so good! (Warning: Do NOT make these if your resolution has anything to do with losing weight, dieting or good health. They are addicting!)

Day 6: My mom's breakfast burrito recipe. Why yes, that clock does say 12:31... in the morning. We were preparing for the Blizzard of 2014 and this was a necessity. Who doesn't love breakfast?!

Day 7: DIY De-icer. Best idea ever. It even prevented the windows from icing over again last night. How cool is that! So I decided to take advantage of the warm front that came in yesterday and clean off the car for David. (By warm front, I mean anything above -5. On Monday, the wind chill got as low as -34 where we live. Say what?!?)

That's that! So far, the first week of 2014 has been a good one. I have an interview this week and we finally paid off two major bills. If the first week is any indication of what the rest of the year will be like, it should be pretty great! How has 2014 started for you? Any awesome resolutions that you have been keeping up with? Do share!