Monday, January 30, 2012

Snow-less: spoken a day too soon

Ironically (regarding the opening of my last blog post), I woke up this morning to this...


It's been snowing all day and temperatures are forcasted to drop to 12 degrees later this week.  Oh dear.  Uggs...check, earmuffs...check!  Its officially winter in Lux!

Love from (freezing) Luxembourg...Melanie

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Pinterest Craze

God has been good to this Southern girl this Luxembourg winter.  We have had no snow to speak of and the temperature hasn't even really dropped below freezing...so far.  Though it has been a gray January (those who warned us were correct), Alex and I are still in love with little Luxembourg as we move into our 10th month here.

Its funny what you fill your life with when you suddenly have so much free time.  Thanks to Alex and his honey-do lists, I have very busy days quite often :)  (Right now, I'm working on getting travel visas for our upcoming St. Petersburg, Russia trip!) I also try to be intentional with the time that I've been given here and am so thankful that I have hours to give away.  This week, I was fortunate enough to take a sweet friend wedding dress shopping. I got to watch some cute kiddos while their moms met for Bible study.  Alex and I hosted a Dave Ramsey course.  And then there's...Pinterest.

Pinterest, however not falling into the "intentional" category, is addictive; as if we needed another opportunity to waste time.  But, I will say, it is a way to be creative, to encourage one another, to plan, share ideas, swoon over them and...I LOVE IT!

January has been quite a Pinterest-filled month for Sarah and me and we've felt the need to unleash some creativity.  Are we crafty?  Not exactly a word that I would have used to describe myself...until Pinterest came along!  Sarah and I have dedicated a few days this week and last week to a few crafts that we either found on Pinterest or came up with once the creativity started flowing in us.  Here are a few of our final products.

Wooden wedding date numbers...
I saw some adorable, beat up wooden numbers months ago at a little shop in Trier, Germany.  They were about 10 euros each so...not cheap to get 5 numbers for my wedding date.  When Sarah and I saw the plain wooden numbers in the craft store down the street, I knew what I wanted to do with them. Sarah and I painted the numbers a fantastic turquoise color and then sanded the edges and corners a bit to make them look old.  Though I wish the numbers were larger, here's the final product hung up beside some wedding photos on our living room wall...


And here they are up close...

Mercury-like glass...
I love mercury glass but for some reason, I don't have any.  After seeing a DIY mercury glass project on Pinterest, Sarah and I got started on some bottles.  After a quick raid of the glass recycling bin downstairs, (not exactly dumpster diving :) I had a few bottles in different shapes and sizes that I imagined would look perfect on top of our TV armoire in the living room.  Sarah and I painted the glass silver and, voila!  Though the jars got scraped a little in transit from Sarah's, I don't mind the little lines and like the way the look on top of the armoire!


Initial frames...
I found these small oval frames at an antique / consignment furniture store down the street called Troc.  AKA - a place for a fantastic treasure hunt.  I LOVE this store and visit frequently as people bring in new "treasures" every day.  When I bought the frames, they contained old screen painted birds on silky fabric straight from 1970.  Despite the horrendous birds (and no offense - I love birds - just not these birds) I saw such potential in these frames so I bought them for 3 euros each.  I had no idea what I was going to do with my purchase but...what a deal! :)  1 meter of darling corduroy fabric, a bit of burlap and a few tiny wooden letters later my project was finished.  The initial frames are without a home on our wall as of now but here they are...Alex & Melanie.


Last, but certainly not least, I'll show you Sarah's main project.  Sarah bought wooden (napkin) rings, some burlap, a roll of twine and wooden "Q" letters.  We had the idea to cover the napkin rings in burlap and secure it with glue, then tie twine around the ring and hang the now-painted letter "Q" from each ring.  Adorable, right?  Well, turns out that the burlap didn't cooperate so we wrapped each ring in twine and by the end of 27 Dresses, we had six twine covered napkin rings with a cute little "Q" dangling in front.  Sarah is officially ready for her next dinner party...


What fun craft days we had!  Now back to my honey-do list :)

Love from Luxembourg...Melanie