Walking in a Winter Wonderland

{doing}&{living}

We LOVE snow (my husband and I) and living in northern/central Virginia we do get some but usually not massive amount (in other words usually not as much as we'd really like) of course a few years ago we did have massive amounts of snow (at least for us - winter 09/10) and it was fantastic. The past couple years though we really haven't had hardly any (and last year the best snow we had was at the end of March - which is super late for us - the week before Easter. My husband did make a cute little snow Easter bunny though....

Isn't it adorable? look at it's cute little butt!.... but anyway.......
So needless to say we were pretty excited to hear a forecast for 3-6 inches yesterday and then even more excited when it got upped to 4-8 inches (and our favorite weather man Topper Shutt was pretty excited to.... seriously he is Awesome! never thought I'd have a favorite weatherperson lol), we didn't end up getting quite as much as we'd hoped, we got more like 3 inches, but it was still a pretty good snow and really really cold today so it actually stayed around and didn't all melt right away like snow tends to do around here. So this afternoon after going out to get some lunch we decided to head down to the river and take a little mini "hike" along the river in the snow. (I say mini "hike" because it was only along a really short section of the river, but we were out there for half an hour or so at least) It was extremely cold, but beautiful and energizing (I was actually reading an article a few days ago about the benefits of getting outside and doing stuff in the cold, so there you go lol.....) I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took while we were out :) P.S. these were taken with my phone and it was really hard to see the screen in the outside daylight so there are a few of them with a little bit of my mitten in the edge of the picture... ooops......

 

Procrastination

{living}&{making}

So.... I should be getting some housework done right now... that was the plan anyway, while my husband is working today.... More specifically I should be straightening up and cleaning the living room since it kinda looks like a bomb went off in there, and I'm getting ready to do some minor redecorating that will include moving a couple pieces of furniture. (a chair that I am sort of in the process of re-doing the upholstery on - and also changing the way it's upholstered, but that needs to go in the basement for a little while until I'm ready to work on it again, and moving in a new chest/desk) Now it's true that I can't really move the furniture until the hubster can help me (well I could... I used to move stuff all the time before I was married... but I'm not going to), but there's some stuff that needs to be cleaned off of the chair (since it's been un-sittable for a while it's kind of become a place to toss stuff that really shouldn't be there (jackets, scarves, random stuff, etc.) and I need to clean out behind it because it was in a corner and I know there's probably a bunch of stuff that's gotten behind it and stayed there that shouldn't be.... but.... I really don't feel like getting to work on that right now (I'm telling myself I don't feel too well, but I don't feel that poorly... I'm really just procrastinating... FYI I am the queen of procrastination... I try not to be.... but it usually wins... lol).
   So... to put off getting started on the housework a little longer (hehe) I thought I'd share one of my projects I worked on this fall that I had intended to blog about and never did..........

{Stamped Flatware}
I saw the idea for this on Facebook actually, it was something Hobby Lobby had posted on their page, and I loved the idea.  You can buy the metal stamps at Hobby Lobby (I'm sure other craft stores have them too, but why would you go anywhere else if you can get them there? lol). And it's really pretty simple to do. (or course I say that but if you take a look at the close-up picture you'll see I did still manage to make a couple mistakes on this batch I did....

I thought I had taken a couple pictures of the process, but apparently either I didn't or I managed to lose them somehow, but it's simple enough to get the idea without the pictures.  Basically you just place the end of a letter stamp on the end of your flatware and hit it with a hammer to stamp the letter, repeat until you've got your whole word on there and then finish it with some metal patina by putting a couple drops of the patina over the word (it's kinda like a thickish ink) and wipe it off right away with a paper towel (it stays in the grooves of the letters - just be aware that it will also stay in any grooves of the flatware design that it goes over as well). Here's the original tutorial from Hobby Lobby's facebook page that I saw.  One other thing I would add is that I believe the original tutorial says to use thrift store silverware and that probably makes it much easier if the utensils are actually silver since it would be much softer, but the ones I used were just regular Stainless steel flatware I picked up for I think $.25 a piece at Goodwill, and it works just be prepared to really hit hard and maybe a couple times for each stamp on the stainless since it's a much harder metal.  I've only done the four sets so far but I am hoping to get some more pieces and do more over the winter months... it's definitely a good winter project.  I alternated "eat", "enjoy", and "yum" on mine but you could also maybe alternate just the word eat or enjoy in different languages, or stamp them with your last name, or perhaps something like "thankful", those are just a few of the other ideas I had come up with before settling on "eat", "enjoy", and "yum". (and I'm still considering doing a couple with our last name on them... but I'm also considering having a "B" (our last initial) engraved on all my actual silver flatware (which also happens to be mix and match antique and vintage pieces) so I might not do any of the stainless with our name).  My intent was to have these new pieces gradually (as I make them) replace our "everyday" flatware, but I actually have used them for a couple "Holiday" dinners that I didn't want to break out the actual sliver for (especially since it needs to be polished lol)....

 

 "Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner" {Our annual Thanksgiving dinner party we have with our friends in the week leading up to real Thanksgiving}

 

And Christmas Eve Dinner {we do Christmas eve dinner at our house after church with my parents and sister and then do Christmas Day at my parents house}

    Of course as you may have noticed I had to throw in a few pieces from some other flatware sets I have (or random pieces that no longer belong to a set), because I didn't yet have enough to set all the places with the stamped flatware, but since it's a mix and match kind of look anyway that works if you don't have enough stamped pieces. :)

But now I suppose I better get going on the stuff I actually need to get done today... especially since I just looked around and realized I haven't even taken the Christmas stuff down and put it away yet.... oops.... sigh.... here I go.............. 

 

So... um....... wow......

{living}

So... Um....... Wow..... this fall and holiday season really flew by, and I can not believe that I didn't even get a single post done since September! (all though to be perfectly honest I thought I would have trouble keeping up with it long before then... so... go me? :/ .....) But you know what? It's a new year and a new opportunity to get back into the swing of posting.  I would go back and try to recap my fall and Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's celebrations and projects, but you in all reality I think I'm just ready to head forward into the new year (although I have to admit that I've yet to actually get the Christmas decorations taken down and put away.... hopefully tomorrow or Thursday).  I tend to focus a lot on project around the house in January and February, partially because there's not a whole lot of outdoor activities going on (although this year we are planning on heading up to Shenandoah National Park with our annual pass to do a little winter hiking..... I've never been to Skyline Drive in the winter and am looking forward to it... I think we're going to hike the Stony Man trail), and partly I think because when I was a tour guide the sites I worked at were closed in January and February so I had both a lot of extra time and very little money to do anything else, so I just got in the habit of thinking of January and February as a time for working on stuff around the house.  We also had a couple projects that we did or started in the fall  but I'll probably post about them this winter.
    I do have some other plans for this winter though.... of course the winter hiking trip and a (probably day, but possibly weekend) trip for Valentine's day with the hubster that will also kick off our "around the world in Virginia" day/road trips that we had hoped to do over the summer and weren't able to, and I'm hoping to maybe organize a winery day with the girls sometime soon.....
    So... all that to say that while I may have disappeared from the blog for a few months there, I'm going to try my hardest to do better in 2014, and I'm super excited about the year ahead....