Outdoor Projects and Decor! Handmade Wind Chimes

   This time of year has everyone out in their yard adding special touches and making lists of special projects! I've come across so many lovely handmade ideas for wind chimes and outdoor decor that I just had to share!!! So here is the most recent thing added to my outdoor project list!!

The below is featured on Crystalarium. They have some beautiful pieces with crystal details. The great thing about this is there will be gentle noises in the breeze and wonderful prisms of color :) 

I really loved the below concept. Take antique pieces and attaches beads, utensils, small antiques and objects that reflect you and your likes! Beautiful and one of a kind! 

I also love the utensil chimes and decorative pieces! Really best reuse of these items and so fun! The reality is that if you enjoy home projects and DIY art then these are not difficult and just really unique and fun! Also, just to buy these already complete they are pretty expensive. Try your hand at creating your own. Then time spent makes it special! If you don't have the time though, which happens to us all, then definitely wonder in to your local craft and decor stores for some beautiful pieces already complete and ready to enjoy! 

Another chime that beautifully displays unique antique pieces, or duplications of them. Love, love this one! 

This really shows how you can take any okect and repurpose it for a chime. Be totally open minded. If you like the look of something upright, upside down, or sideways then make it happens. Use a steamer basket from kitchen, a metal wire basket for fruits, and the list goes on. Flip it upside down and add your attachment to hang the finished piece. Then add anything that clangs with a noise you think is pretty and add pieces that reflect your surrounding, personality, etc!

I really liked the concept of the below piece, but in my mind I would want to add children's handprints and seal them or special sayings that my family enjoys, my kids art on each piece, or all of us painting them together and adding special details! 

Here is another I loved! I just keep seeing so many beautiful ideas!!!! I really want to add this piece to my collection too! 

I am working on making some of these and so are the sweet little helpers in my life!!! Will follow with a post of my little boys wind chime and mine! :)

I hope this sparked some ideas in your mind for some beautiful creations to add to your porch or garden space! Happy creations!!! :) 

Thanks for visiting!!!! Share some of your beautiful creations and ideas with us!! Love seeing the ideas and special pieces!! 

~~Momma Mia~~ :D 

   

   I pray for my family, friends, daily decisions, and the example I set to show others and encourage others. I pray and search for guidance to a strong person relationship with God and also for my family to have the same. I pray at the center of our family for a strong focus and faith in God. I read this post on http://kirkcameron.com/praying-lords-prayer-marriage/ and just really felt the need to share it. I hope others enjoy it as much as I did. I enjoy his posts regularly. It's constant focus on family and relationships with God and each other and they are very wise and encouraging pieces I feel. 

Praying the Lord’s Prayer for Your Marriage

By Darlene Schacht at Time-Warp Wife | January 31, 2015 

It was about ten years ago. I was sitting in the basement with a couple of friends, huddled around our desktop computer. If memory serves me right, they had stopped by to get a little help with setting up their own blog and to taste my borscht. Blogs I knew, but ask me anything else about the computer and I had to call the kids in for help. You know how it goes…

It was around 5:30 pm. That I remember because we had just finished eating dinner together before we went down stairs. Laughing and chatting and clicking away, we kept ourselves busy until something stopped us dead in our tracks.

It was my 12-year old son.

“Thanks for the wonderful meal, Mom!” He hollered down from the kitchen.

Spinning around in her chair, my friend gasped, “What decade are we in?”

And with that we broke out in laughter.

Obviously this was a foreign concept to them, but to us it was an everyday thing.

I remember specifically training my children to thank me after each and every meal. “Bring your dishes to the sink, and thank the person who cooked it.” That was our rule whether they were at home or away.

And not just a simple, “Thanks,” either. I wanted them to pause for a moment and express a little more than one word. I’ll admit it felt silly at times asking someone else to stop and thank me, but it’s my job as their teacher to lead them in truth.

[Read the rest of the article at Time-Warp Wife.]

New Year and New Experiences Already!!!

   Just as the new year arrived we found out we were ready to go and able to start searching for our first home!!! I want to share this new journey that myself and my family are on right now.  It is the first new event of the year for us. We are shopping for our first home purchase! I have to say it is an ever changing, petrifying, emotional roller coaster. The upside is I know when all of this is done, complete, and we have found our perfect little home for our family it will all be worth it. Then I can go in and paint my own walls, hang my own pictures, and put up my own decorations. Let me tell you that is when the diy projects and blogs are going to start happening like crazy! I am so exited to share the journey with people too and all of the experiences of purchasing your first home just so that when you do it or if you have already done it you can share and relate to the experiences. Also, use it as some sort of comfort when you go to purchase your first home if you have yet to. There are days with a lot of stress and low moments and then the happy and well accomplished days with much progress made. 

   The next special event tha presented itself in the new year is finding out we are expecting our second little one! Wow... A new little family member, a new home in the works, and so much change all at once!

   I am searching a lot for guidance and calm. For peace and the ability to trust through every challenge. I fall short so often and it amazes me because I see proof every moment of every day that God His hands on our lives yet I second guess and put myself through the questioning and the attempts to take control! 

   One example, I was stressed about finances and felt things just we not looking up and I drove to grab a meal to split with my sister and when we got to the window someone before us had paid for our meal. I'm now really familiar either the pay it forward concept and think it is a special and yet such a simple way to impact a persons day. It made me break down in tears! It was to me an immediate sign He was in control and was going to work everything out if we just trusted. 

   So I simply wanted to just share these thoughts and hope that my ramblings encourage someone else today. 

   I'm thankful I know that I'm not alone, I'm thankful my family is not alone, and I'm so thankful that there is a higher purpose and loving arm around us to step us through every day. 

Lots of Love,

~~Momma Mia 

Our Handmade Christmas ! Enjoying the Holidays & Keeping A Budget :)

   If you have a lot of people to buy for this Christmas or even if you only have a few special people in mind, but either way you are trying to maintain a budget for the holidays then I have the list for you. :) I have compiled a list of my favorites and the list of things that I'm doing this holiday to cut down on cost, but really increase the meaning of the gift you're giving to your family and friends.

   A big focus of mine is handmade! Now this scares some, but don't let it! There is a wide range of handmade gift ideas and absolutely everyone can find something special to them to make from the heart! 

 1) Handmade Art by Your Kids :)

  Your sweet little ones can create gifts for the holiday that mean the world when received! Visit your local Hobby Lobby and pick up some of their canvas for handprints and footprints or a beautiful piece of art painted by your kids! This will absolutely be a hit and you won't ever get another like it! 

2) Gifts Fresh from Your Kitchen

   Go to the kitchen and pull out your favorite recipe! What is a signature dessert you love to make or a favorite hot chocolate with your special flare added to it that everyone just loves?! Now think mini version! :) Make your favorite pie, but in a cupcake pan for bite size gifts to fill small Christmas trays with or a batch of cookies would be perfect too. Back to the hot chocolate you could make one of those adorable ingredients layered ready to mix up mason jar gifts as well!!! Just get creative and pick your recipes and treats according to ingredients and pricing as well. There is no harm in picking the best dessert at the least expense. Everyone loves a warming, homemade treat and it will be a hit no matter what! 

3) Handmade Crafts by You

   Something I personally love to do is crafts. I am making a lot of crocheted things for the people this year. This is something that relaxes me and majority of the people I know love to receive these types of things. Pick patterns and projects suitable to their tastes too. I am making blankets, scarves, hats, head bands, and little cell phone purses. You can crochet all of these and at a very reasonable price especially if you watch your sales at your local craft store such as Hobby Lobby. They run sales for sections of their store every single week and they also offer a 40% off coupon for one regular priced item per customer. Also note weeks before Christmas even comes close to arriving Hobby Lobby and many other local craft locations are already marking down the Christmas everything substantially so this would be a great time to grab those last minute yarns and scrapbook papers with a holiday theme!!!! 

 

4) Now for the Festive Wrapping! 

   Now to "wrap" ;) this all up think about the wrapping paper that you are using. That festive pre-finished paper can be so expensive and for barely any paper! Some wonderful warm, personal alternatives can be butchers paper or some basic white paper that you can buy from anywhere for a multitude of purposes. The cost will not be nearly what it would be for some pre-packaged holiday wrapping paper because it's not geared towards the current high demand. Grab a silver or gold marker and write your Christmas note right on the paper. Get some solid white paper draw some pretty designs on it or make a little ornament and attach it to the top as a decorative edition. Examples of ornaments are in my prior blog post about handmade ornaments http://mommamiamoments.blogspot.com/2014/11/handmade-christmas-decorations-family.html?m=1 . I have also included some other ideas below. Simple little wooden ornaments you can create by just finding a tree limb in your yard or grabbing a dowling rod that you can get from your local hardware store and cut in slices. You want the width to be substantial enough to make a nice circular ornament so a few inches wide is ideal. Use a little wood burning tool kit or paint (whatever you prefer) on these and add some sweet sayings, a Bible verse , names and a date, or note the celebration of a first Christmas for a couple just married or in their first home. Highlight a precious baby's first Christmas or a gift for expectant parents and it will mean so much, but at a portion of the cost. 

   I hope that you enjoyed this and are inspired to out your own personal touches on Christmas this year!!! I appreciate each and every person that stops by and reads my page. 

Merry Christmas!!!! 

~~ Momma Mia :)

DIY Pipe Projects for Home Accents

   Take a look at this wonderful link with awesome ideas using pipe you can pick up from your local hardware store. Cost efficient, great look, and easy DIY!! Had to share this! 

To view full original article visit:

http://www.decoratingyoursmallspace.com/diy-projects-with-pipe/

Thanks so much for stopping in!!! 

~~ Momma Mia :) 

Gods Little Blessings

   There have been a lot of changes in my surrounding friends and family's lives lately and through it all both happy and sad prayer is the thing that is the foundation!  

   There are prayers of need and sadness for lost mommy's with little ones, husbands, parents, siblings, and friends left here to pick up pieces and really connect them in a totally different way... For lost baby's before a mom could ever see them open their eyes, for family and friends and sudden tragedys. 

   There are also prayers of thankfulness for blessings of all kinds: safe travels, new baby's, clean bills of health, new milestones in life, close relationships with Christ no matter if newly found or just stronger than ever.

  This may seem confusing to some, but based on some of the things we have experienced lately I am at this second to the point of tears just from feeling overwhelmingly blessed, grateful, honored that my son can call for me and find me. That he can say Mommy and not have to keep looking with no knowledge his mommy went to Heaven and will no longer be able to love and care for him on this earth. I pray for a long and healthy life in which I can pester and harrass my family to the very last because though I know I'm going to Heaven and I'm blessed to have that opportunity I also love my little piece of Heaven God has granted me on this earth. 

   Prayer is the very first and yet also the final place your heart and lips go to cry and to rejoice! He is our beginning and end and He is our full unending support on earth. I just feel incredibly blessed and am reminded daily even more so really by the minute at some times how very blessed I am to have His love and through His love to have an amazing and faithful family and close knit group of friends to move through life with.

Dear Lord,

   Thank you for your gifts of love unchanging and for my beautiful blessing of a family and extended family through friends. Please always allow me to work more every day to shine and honor you! Please let me work to never take for granted my blessings on this earth and in Heaven. Amen 

   Thank you as always for stopping by and taking the time to share in my posts, thoughts, life, mommy moments, and projects. 

~~ Love Momma Mia

Handmade Christmas Decorations ~ Family Fun & Special Ornaments DIY

   I love to decorate for the holidays and I love the special memories this time of year brings!! Leading from this I think THE SINGLE MOST perfect memories and decorating combination is handmade decorations with your children, family, and friends! Absolutely nothing beats the value of those to me! Give me an ornament that is store bought in comparison to an ornament my little boy made for me and the one that will light up my day is the one he hands me with his beautiful art work and a huge, proud smile!!!

   Below I have shown several pictures of ornaments we have made at home this holiday season. 

** Below is the way my sister arranged her special handmade Christmas decorations and I just loved and had to share! She made the little snowmen clothespin son the tree and the terra cotta pot snowmen sitting on the end table as well. 

1) Children's Handprint Ornament

   

   Below is a blank porcelain ornament where the kids painted their sweet little hands and placed their handprints one on top of the other. I just love, love this!!! Immediately made it and every member wanted one! Be sure and let the prints thoroughly dry then spray a sealant for safe keeping :)

2) Terra Cotta Snowman Ornaments 

   These are precious and were simple to make. Well, I say that, but it takes a tiny bit of sewing and prep before it just falls together and my wonderful mom did the prep on these precious pieces. We made this as our Thanksgiving Day craft for all of my sisters and the little ones to do together. 

   First just simply paint your terra cotta white then for the scarf base we just got glued ribbon on. The face is hand painted and little Pom Poms are the ear muffs! :) Feed a couple of bells larger than the hole in the base of the terra cotta pot onto a string and then feed the string through the hole. Knot it off and this is your bell sound and ornament hanging string :) 

3) DIY Clothespin Snowmen

   Just get clothespins from any craft store and paint them white. The scarfs are pipe cleaners twisted and secured in one little spot with hot glue. The hats are the wooden sewing string spools painted black and then to widen the base of the hat more we cut some black felt in a larger circle and just got glued to base of the black wooden spool. Tada! :) So cute!!!  

4) Reindeer Ornaments from Wine Corks 

   These are assembled with hot glue, twigs from our dogwood tree :), and a little screwed on loop to hold string on top so it can be hung as an ornament. I like to crochet so I also just did a simple double crocheted scarf for each to the width and length that was proportional to their size. 

This is mine below. 

Then the one I made for my husband. 

Then the one I made for our son :) who is two and a half. I tried to pick smaller wine corks and tinier details for his. I also painted the tips of the antlers blue like little lights because he liked ;) 

   I hope you enjoyed these handmade ornaments and let me know how's yours turn out as well!!!! If love to hear ideas and requests too for other posts! 

~~ Merry Christmas from Momma Mia and my Family!!