Life Made Lovely

Dear April

Dear April,

I do believe you will go down on the books as the busiest month of the year. While you were here we celebrated a 38th, a 9th, and a 39th birthdays. We also ushered in our 12th wedding anniversary, the kick off for VBS registration, the start of evening walks, a special trip to the theater, and a hotel sleepover party. Oh, and we had our first 100 degree day, which we used as a reason to stop by Sonic Happy Hour. You were a really good month to us, but I am very much looking forward to the days of May.

Until next year.

Yours truly,

Heather

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monthly memoirs

Natalie’s Home Made Lovely

Welcome to Home Made Lovely, a special home tour series.

hello & welcome! my name is natalie . i find joy in the everyday moments & share them on my blog. i am happily married to my husband & together we have a family of two sweet pups & a flock of chickens. we have a deep passion for living fully & simply in our home. we cook from the harvests of our garden & prefer old things to new.

the first day we moved into our home, i hung twinkle lights on our paint-chipped porch. i instantly fell in love with this space, knowing it would host many early morning moments with coffee in hand & outdoor dinners made from scratch.

we have lived in our home since august & deeply love it here. most of the items that make up our home were thrifted nearby or picked up at a yard sale for a dollar or two. we strive to live modestly while creating a home environment that is creative & comfortable.

i am also a big believer in doing what you love. my husband & i are fortunate enough to devote our working day hours to the field of sustainable agriculture. he focuses on sustainable food production & i grow gardeners as a program coordinator for a nonprofit organization that encourages healthy living & school gardening. in our home we live out our passions by growing food & raising backyard chickens. when our friends & family stop by, they often bring home a bag of lettuce or a dozen eggs.

within our home, we enjoy creating a place that brings the outdoors in. plants are sprinkled throughout our home & photographs of ferns & flora adorn our walls. we crave natural lighting & open our windows every chance we get to the sounds of the neighborhood buzz & birds nearby.

we are inspired by natural tones with a hint of whimsical color. we don’t own anything too fancy in our home. instead, we try to create a space that feels less like a museum & more like a warm & inviting place to learn, create, make & do.

we both enjoy toting our cameras around, which lends itself to many moments captured in photographs & hung on our walls. we also love purchasing art from small artists on etsy. some of our favorites include katygirl designs, small adventure & katie daisy.

our kitchen is one of our favorite rooms in our home. it’s very small, almost an afterthought to the house’s layout, but it’s the center of daily living.

during those first few days of moving in & settling, i ripped off the doors to our cabinets & painted the inside a vintage-inspired mint green color. it’s a favorite feature in our home, allowing us to display our collection of cork-topped jars full of bulk grains & beans.

although our kitchen is small, you will often find us in this space baking, mixing, fermenting &canning. our connection to the food we eat is important to us so we make room for jars of flour & fresh eggs on the counter.

it’s inspiring to have everything within reach when cooking in our kitchen. i imagine the many vegetables chopped on our old pull-out cutting board & the dinners prepared on a shoestring budget.

in creating a home, my husband & i made the decision to not own a television so our evenings are spent in conversation over a home-cooked meal at the table. our chalkboard (decorated with paper bag & tissue paper flowers completely inspired by ashley of under the sycamore) displays favorite quotes. i found our old, handmade table from a yard sale for $30. i have collected the chairs over the years, digging deep in a barn for the pretty white one, & never spending over $5 each. we love eating, creating, & sharing life at this old table.

most of all, we hope that our home can be a place where friends & family feel welcomed & we can rest from a long day. thank you so much for visiting our home & thank you heather!

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home made lovely

A Freshie

Here’s to the start of a fresh new week full of possibilities.

Let’s make it a lovely one. xo

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life

Kate’s Room Made Lovely

Welcome to Room Made Lovely, a special part of the Home Made Lovely series.

Hi there! My name is Kate (Katie if you have known me since elementary school) and I blog over at Songs Kate Sang. I have been married for 13 years and we have 2 wonderful children. Very soon, we will have another little to call our own. We are going through the process of adoption and have a very special two year old living with us right now.

We are native Texans and we have been in Arizona for almost five years.

Thank you so much for having me, Heather!

I can remember when I stumbled onto blogland and found people who called their decorating style ‘granny chic’ or ‘vintage french country’.

I fell in love with the pictures and knew that I loved the freedom that came with these styles - just love what you decorate with.

Take little corners and make them happy.

When you walk by a shelf, you should smile - either because you think it is adorable or it brings you a very happy memory.

When you walk into my home (and I hope you will sometime! I love having friends over!), you turn right and see this room.

When we moved in, I wasn’t sure what to do with this space. It was a large open area that has a slanted wall. We moved to Arizona from Texas and I had never really seen a room like this. I was stumped.

It became our piano and reading room!

I listen to my daughter play piano and I open my mail here.

It has great floorspace for matchbox cars and legos.