Pinteresting Wednesday- DIY Christmas Trees

These are a super easy way to add a special center piece to your table or just to add a little bit of Christmas to any corner of your house that hasn't been taken over yet! You can buy styrofoam pyramids at your local craft store anywhere from $2.00-$8.00 and use little bits and pieces of things you have around the house! I encourage you to be as creative as you can, fancy or fun!

Linen and lace- so classy

Covered in sparkles and put on candle holders!

Here are some other super fun Christmas crafts for you to try out!

I'm trying to make this Christmas as cheap and personal as possible. Needless to say there are lots of free/homemade decorations and packaging in our house!

Happy decorating!

Love-Lea

Thoughtful Thursday..... for Friday

-thank you-

Pinteresting Wednesday- That's a Wrap!

Finding creative ways to wrap gifts is one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season! I love, love, love wrapping with things I already have around the house because, c'mon... it's just going to get ripped open and thrown away! There are plenty of easy ways to make the gifts under your tree look just as pretty for basically free instead of spending extra holiday cash on wrapping paper. That's an extra $20-$30 bucks that could fill a stocking!

Here are some of my absolute favorites. Now, I know that in reality our wrapping jobs may not come out exactly like these pictures, but I'm positive they're still going to look great! Hopefully all of my Christmas shopping will be done this weekend and I can share with you my wrapping shenanigans! Enjoy!

never buy a bow again! (100layercake)

I am loving the doily and yarn wrapping! (soapdelinews)

Love, love, love  (francineclouden)

Oh, Martha...you can even make yarn look fancy! (marthastewart)

See why I loooove doily decor!  (olderandwisor) 

Loving these fun pipe cleaners! (ohhappyday)

Cupcake liners... do versatile! (thedecorologist)

I'm such a sucker for anything with fabric! (thethriftycrafter)

One of the blogs I follow She has some really great ideas!

(older and wisor)

I hope these have inspired you to go rummaging through your craft supplies! Good luck!

Happy wrapping!

Love-Lea

Fun Friday

Time to bring the mood of this blog back up a bit! I'm declaring today Fun Friday! What's that you ask?? Well, I want to share with you just some things, crafts, foods, etc. That I think are fun! Some of the other blogs I follow do something kind of similar so I thought that was a great place to start! Enjoy.

These two are from sunshine and carousels, aren't they great!?

Cute conffetti love! Found at stelabird 

Quite darling, don't ya think?

These look like so much fun to make! A great way to add a pop of color. Check it!

I just love homemade christmas decorations and yummy things to drink!

What are some of your favorite drink recipes? I'm looking for new ones!

Thoughtful Thursday

Note: I'm only getting this personal and deep because I don't want anyone to feel like they are ever the only one going through any stage of life. We should all be in this life together, encouraging each other and trying to find the silver lining.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Sometimes about specific people in my life, sometimes just about types of people in my life. I know the types of people I'm done trying to fit in with, I know the types of people I want to surround my life with, I just don't know how to make a smooth transition between the two. Or if that's even a possibility

I'm not gunna lie... I know it's going to hurt, and I know I'm scared. It's something that I have been avoiding for a long, long time now.

Sometimes the truth hurts, but it's still the truth, it's still fact. We still have to deal with reality whether we want to or not. Sure we can hide in our cocoons, our little shells we make our "home,"  but sooner or later we're going to have to come out and see what the world really has to offer us.

I don't know where this may put me in life, I don't know how bad or long it'll hurt, I just know that I will get through it, I will be happier, and I will be more of who I'm supposed to be. I know that the people who mean the most to me and truley care about me is who I will spend my time and energy on. I'm done spending my energy on everyone else, or trying to prove who knows what to someone who isn't even listening. I'm just so thankful that I get to spend all my saturday nights with my very best friend and I know he'll always pick me.

We're all in different seasons of life. One isn't more right or wrong than the other... they're just different. We fall in and out of relationships, we have different hopes and plans for ourselves. The hard part is knowing when to fight and when to let go.


Good luck to you on your journey through whatever season you're in. If it's awesome, soak it up! If it's not, don't worry. You'll get through it if you decide to, the good thing about seasons is that they change.


Happy Thursday!!
Love-Lea

Playing Catch up!

I know I've been a little MIA this past week with all of the holiday hustle and bustle, but just for the record I think it was worth it! Me and steven had an amazing first Thanksgiving together and a great 4 day weekend to go with it! We are way more blessed than we ever deserve to be and I'm so terribly thankful for that.

These bad boys... well, girls were one of the most exciting part of my weekend! (since most of it was spent doing NOTHING, glorious nothing...you can understand how this was the most exciting part, haha)

That's right ladies and gentlemen.... we officially have Longhorns!! Now I know that may not seem very exciting to most of you out there, but to someone who is slighlty obsessed with living on a farm and being a homemaker this is good stuff!!

We also decorated our very first Christmas tree as Mr. and Mrs. and spent the rest of the weekend curled up on the couch watching Christmas movies amd making ornaments (between Steven's epic Skyrim adventures of course) Like I said... great weekend!

I'm so blessed to have a husband who lets me have the fun, whimsical Christmas tree I want!! More shots of our house slowly becoming more and more "Christmasfied" to come!

Now I'm going to get my daily dose of apple cider in and think about doing some work (or get caught up on all my blog favorites...)

Happy almost December!
Love-Lea

Pinteresting Wednesday

I've been a little off lately in my routine, but hopefully this will be the begginning of me getting back on track. I've been waiting for life to slow down a bit to get back into the swing of things and try to have order in our life again! Luckily, we should have two vehicles again by the end of today and a 4 day weekend, thank the Lord.  I'm hoping for a calm, easy, breezy December. ( besides all of the holidays and parties and gatherings... but I love those so they don't really count!) So we'll see!

This week's theme is ...... Thanksgiving! ( real shocker, huh?)

lovely table decoration

festive treats!

Fancy smancy

Giving thanks is always in style

Love this craft for the kids!

Happy pinning!!

-Love-Lea

Love-Lea Creations

New creations just in time for Christmas! Check out the love-lea creations page for updates!

Thoughtful Thursday

Sneaky Peeky!

Here's a sneak peak at just a few love-lea Creations that will be at the open house on Saturday. If you're free stop by and get some Christmas shopping done early!! There will also be order forms available for customized creations.

Life lessons

I don't even know where to start so I'm just going to be honest.  My heart is breaking.

We decided that getting Hank wasn't the best decision for us right now. From Steven's truck needing much more work than we thought and not realizing how new and delicate our marriage really was, it just wasn't the right time to bring another living thing into our household.

I am so terribly sad. We just weren't ready for that kind of responsibility.

Our house is now a little bit quieter and little less smelly. It doesn't really seem that great.

In my last post I said I was thankful for a God who makes all my wrongs right in his own way and boy did he ever! I have learned so, so much from our short little week with our hanky panky that I know it wasn't all a mistake.

If I would have just listened and been honest with myself in the first place I wouldn't have this ache in my heart now. What did I expect to happen when I voluntarily stepped out from underneath God's umbrella of protection? Everything to go smoothly? If that were the case then I would never need to listen to Him.

Luckily, He knows how to make all of my wrong, selfish decisions work for the greater good.

I was worried that when I gave Hank back to the breeders that I would never know what happened to him or where he went. (It's crazy how much your heart can change and grow in 6 days) But now I don't have to worry! A lady in our office that I get to see everyday fell in love with Hank when he came to visit on Friday and was really excited about buying him from us. She even bought all of the accessories we bought for him. I know they will be so very happy together and she'll be able to provide everything he'll need. She even went out Friday before she came and got him and bought him all kinds of goodies. She said I can see him whenever I want and there'll even be a week in December when she'll need a puppy sitter!

Hank will still be in our life, which makes me extremely happy, we just won't be the ones that he relies on or needs, which makes my heart very heavy.

I am so embarrassed to be telling this story and I know my posts have been very bipolar, but that's what happens when I think I can make decisions by myself. So thankful my God is a loving, grace filled God who fixes what I mess up.

We now know what having a puppy REALLY means and we know that one day we'll be ready, just not now. I never thought I'd be giving up something I loved so much, but I know God has other things in store for us. Who knows, maybe one day we'll get a little puppy from Hank!


I'm embarrassed to have failed and to not have been able to listen to myself, but failure is the best way to learn and learn I did! I am going to keep his pictures and I hope his smell takes a while to leave our couch. He was a fun little part of our lives that I don't want to just push aside. If I just forget all of this ever happened it would've been completely pointless, and Hank will never be pointless

Thankful Thursday

Well this week has just been one for the books! ( And not in a great way) Besides not having a great night sleep since last Thursday this week has been even more exhausting. Let me break it down for you...

MONDAY
Steven's truck wouldn't start
We had to go get my mom's car so I could have something to drive
Late to work
Went home at lunch to let hank out and realized all of my house keys were with Steven....
Called Steven's mom to let me in our house
Realized that Hank's new food was hurting his tummy and he had quite the accident
Washed Hank and his toys and cage at lunch
Didn't have time to eat = popcorn for lunch
Worried about Hank all afternoon
Steven came home from work a little early because I had given his mom back her key...
Found hank had made a mess again! poor guy : (
Cleaned up the mess and made dinner for my parents so they would come look at Steven's truck
Came to the conclusion that his truck had to be towed
Had a terrible night trying to get Hank to go to the bathroom in the rain. Ended up standing outside with him

TUESDAY ( a little better)
Got to go home at 10:00 and 3:00 to let Hank out. MUCH BETTER!
Still struggling with whether or not we should've got him
Almost lost the only house key I have...3 times
Spilled water all over myself at lunch
Found more mouse poop...on my cook books!
Went and got the "old fashioned" mouse traps because our other one's weren't working.
Took ALL the food out of the cabinets and set traps in the kitchen and laundry room.
FINALLY caught that mouse!
Caught it on the cabinet, and it only caught his leg.... of course.
Then it ran towards the stove and got caught under the metal burner ( it wasn't on of course, just ridiculous)
Steven had to get it with tongs (gross)
Actually slept decent with the exception of taking Hank out twice.

WEDNESDAY
Got to go home again and check on Hank
Still struggling with whether or not we should've got him
Found out Steven's truck is going to cost A LOT. great...
Deep cleaned the kitchen at lunch and tried to give Hank attention.
Ran out of time = popcorn again.
Steven had to work late
Hank was being quite the little butt head all night!
didn't art...again.
Cried all evening about what we should do with Hank and the truck. ( Stress and lack of sleep FINALLY took over )

THURSDAY
And here we are....

Like I said... WHAT A WEEK! I'm soo ready for it to be over. If I can just make it to December I might be ok.

Even thought this week started out this way I'm trying to focus on all the things I can be thankful for. And this week has actually taught me a lot!

Thankful for:

-Steven's truck breaking in the driveway and not on the highway

-Being able to drive my mom's car

-Having a dad that made all the necessary phone calls to get the truck picked up and fixed

-Steven for being so loving and macho all at the same time, for dealing with me and my emotions night and day, for waking up with me when I can't sleep, and for helping me and supporting me in the decisions I make

-Having a job that is so close to home

-Having the most amazing support system in my parents and

Steven. I know I can get through ANYTHING with them there.

-Catching that mouse!! Now I don;t have to be worried it's gunna crawl across me at night.

-A God that loves me and still provides blessings even when I don't listen to a word he says. He makes all my wrongs right in his own way.