Sunday Celebration!

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless Babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save

'Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live, I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again

And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From a life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny

No power of hell, no scheme of man
Could ever pluck me from His hand
'Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I stand

I will stand, I will stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground, all other ground
Is sinking sand, is sinking sand
So I stand

Wedding Gifts

The two weddings I was in this summer were an absolute blast! Since I had bought gifts for their showers, I was pretty frugal for their wedding gifts. I bought a wooden C and F (their new last initials!) at Hobby Lobby and a few sheets of scrapbook paper. I also bought some brown craft paint and ribbon. I painted the letters brown to start off with.


Then I used my handy dandy modge podge to adhere some fun scrapbook paper to the top layers of the letters.


I wish I had a picture of the F too! It had some paper with a picture of the Eiffel Tower and I was really happy with how it turned out. All I did after this was staple some ribbon to the back of the letters for them to hang it up.


I thought they turned out super cute and I got to personalize them for my dear friends!

Here's a picture of the three of us when I went to visit a few weeks ago :)
Aren't they gorgeous? And I swear the ruffles on my shirt don't seem nearly as obnoxious as they do in that picture :)

And to end this post, here's a picture of my Prince Charming and our not-so-little furchild...


I'm linking up to...
The Shabby Nest
Just A Girl
DecorMamma
Young and Crafty

Long Time, No See

I thought we would actually have more time after the summer was over. No dice. But it's been fun! I've had the chance to do a few more small projects...

After our wedding, I swear we had about 8,259 picture frames. I'll be honest, I wasn't great about putting pictures in frames for our first year. We knew we would be moving, so I pretty much only put up my absolute favorite pictures and left the rest until after I moved. Now that we're moved in, I have been dying to make a gallery photo wall. We had a lot of 8x10 pictures (we take advantage of it everytime they're free at Wal-Greens), so we've been looking for frames around our house that work. We had received one for our wedding that had not been used but it had been scratched in our move.


We liked the frame, but even without the scratches the silver wouldn't work in our room very well. We did have some leftover paint samples so I mixed an off-white with some pearl craft paint - just experimented with some of the colors. After I did a once-over with a foam brush, I took a very tiny paintbrush to get into the fine detailing on the sides. It turned out pretty good and our gallery wall is coming along. I hope to put that up soon!

Manly Cheeseball

I am all about food that doesn't have to be cooked. In fact, my most called-for dishes by friends, family, and my Prince are oreo truffles, crunchy cole slaw salad, and my manly cheeseball, all of which involve no heat (except a slight microwave portion for the truffles). Anyways... I had read of a cheeseball that used ranch seasoning for flavor and thought it sounded fun to try. Usually cheeseballs are covered in crushed nuts, but one of my best friends is allergic... so I needed to think of something else. Then I thought of my dear husband and what he loves most... ranch dressing and bacon (not together...although I am sure he wouldn't mind that either). So I began experimenting with it and it was very well received.... here's the recipe:

2 8 oz packages of cream cheese (slightly softened)
3 cups finely shredded sharp cheddar
1 ranch seasoning packet

Mix these three ingredients and then roll into a ball (or log if you prefer). Then, just cover in bacon bits. It's really yummy and a much more manly cheeseball than any other I have come across. My husband and his friends LOVE it! And it is super easy to make!!! It looks a lot like this picture...



I'm linking this to Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

So I realize that the last few months have been summer "break," but we have been crazy busy. Between graduating, moving into our first house, starting a new job, and getting a puppy, we have also been to 5 weddings (2 more to go!) and been to the lake 5 times. We have only been in our new house a total of 2 weekends so far. I feel like I need a nap just writing about it. Honestly, it has been crazy this summer but oh so much fun! I will be in two weddings of my friends (who were my bridesmaids) and I couldn't be more honored. These girls mean so much to me! As we have all began to graduate and move away, we have been joking that these weddings have "weaned" us off each other. Even though we don't live in the same place (the maid of honor of all three of us lives in Wisconsin now!) we have seen each other so much this summer! I wouldn't trade that for anything! It's been a blast. One of the weddings was last weekend and it was one of the most spiritual weddings I have ever been to. I was teary the whole time up on stage. I feel horrible because I took ZERO pictures which is totally unlike me! I was running around so much, I completely forgot about my camera in my purse. Whenever I see some posted on Facebook, I am totally stealing them! The next wedding I am in is in two weeks and I need to be a bit more diligent about my camera duties! Anyways... here are a few pictures of my summer so far!

It's amazing what a nice little coat of paint can do for a room. Our living room was a deep red color that really made our whole room look dark all the time. We only have one window in the room and a small lamp and ceiling light so it needed a bit of an update.

Here's the room before we moved in.... Here it is after my dear Prince Charming painted it and we finally got things put up on the walls!
Doesn't it look much more light and airy now? And don't you just love our clock??? We got it at a store in our college town that was sadly going out of business.

And just for good measure... Here's a little picture of our newest addition to the family, Penny Lane :)


Is our little pound puppy not the cutest little gal ever? Since Prince Charming has been home all summer getting the house fixed up (more details on that later!), he has been training her. So far she knows sit, lie down, shake, and stay (sorta) and my mom actually taught her a little variation on shake while she was with the grandparents this weekend so now she gives high fives! It's adorable! Yeah, we're smitten with her! It makes me terribly sad to think about her out on the streets and we couldn't be happier about our choice to adopt a dog. She's great!

That's all for now! I will try to post more often with our little projects!

We're Almost Outta Here!

So, I took quite the break. I pretty much figured out the life of a married college student is not so exciting and very, VERY busy, but that is soon coming to a close! Only a few more weeks until my final graduation. Crazy! Anyways, we're heading to Oklahoma to sign the papers for our HOUSE! I'm so excited! I might chronicle a few of our attempts to fix up the house on this blog. We shall see how it goes....

Anyways, my dear friend's little boy turned 1 year old this month! I remember the day he was born and he's such a big, handsome boy now! To be a little creative, I decided I would make his gift. I saw a great tutorial on a different blog for customized baby blocks and I really wish I could remember the name of it.

Here is basically what I did. I used some of my leftover scrapbooking paper and bought some wooden blocks and stickers at my favorite place, Hobby Lobby!
After I had all my supplies, I used the blocks to trace out the correct size of paper I would be needing.On a few of the planned sides, I added stickers to the scrapbook paper.
Then I used my trusty modge podge to adhere them to the wooden blocks. I think if I were to do these again, I wouldn't modge podge the top necessarily, but you live and learn. It turned out fine, just a little harder to work with.
Once all the paper was glued to the blocks, I sandpapered down the edges so they were rounded off. This makes it more safe for the little kiddos and also gives it a nice well-used look. I planned out a different theme for each side: his name, numbers, different colors, animals, different patterns, and a picture of the cutie-pie.
I also sprayed some sealant on them so the modge podge wouldn't get soggy later on if water was spilled on it. This also took away some of the glossiness of the pictures. Overall, I was very happy with how they turned out and he seemed to like them when he opened them. He immediately screamed with happiness and threw them! Hahaha, he really enjoyed that part.

I'm linking this up to A Soft Place to Land's DIY Day.