Free art

  So I absolutely love to decorate!  I love to decorate for holidays & parties, but mostly, I love to decorate my house!  :)
 My husband and I always joke that he is going to send me to work outside the home, so I can have my own "decor allowance"  :)
 We bought our home a few years ago when we were expecting our 5th child. We were looking for a 4 bedroom house to accommodate our growing family. Around here houses are not exactly cheap, especially if you are looking for one with much space for a larger family. Thankfully, we were blessed to find one that was affordable & in very livable conditions, yet also has plenty of potential to make it ours. I dream of all the exciting things I want to do around here to give it the "farm house" look & feel that I want.  For now though, it is just that... a dream! :)  At this time in our life while we are working hard at getting out of debt, and raising our family, it's just not the time for house remodels.  I am content with this season in my life, however, I still always have an "itch" for decorating.  :)   My outlet..Pintrest.com.  It's endless possibilities & creativity are a decorataholics dream site.  Major plus.. it is usually stuff you already have just laying around the house or that you can find for pennies on the dollar. 

 So here are just a few little ideas I got off of there and used to decorate around the house. 

"Home is where the Art is"  This is some art work done by some of my children that we hung using clothes pins in old frames that were lying around the house that I painted black.  This is on a wall that is in our computer room

These are, again some black frames I just happened to have. :)  I painted them black and then hung inside of them some candle holders that I have had for years now.  It just gave it a little bit of a design inside to make it intresting.  :)

This is the fireplace in our dining room. I love this thing, it was one of the things that made me love this house when we first saw it.  :)  The picture wreath hanging at the top are different family photos that I printed and taped to some card board that I used to cut a wreath out of.

Our red front door.  :)  It's nothing fancy up here, but the plant stands I found at my neighbors house out by the road when they moved, so I brought them home and painted them a dark brown along with the two lights that are on either side of the door, they were a rather rusted white. You would never know now though, they look almost new! :)

Frugal living it up

  Okay, so I know that these days we're all learning to be more frugal. It can be different for all of us and of course depending on what seasons we are in life can depend on how we decide to adjust as well. 

 For us, we decided at the beginning of the year it was time to get serious and get out of debt! I regret all the time, that we have waited this long to understand the importance of living a life free of debt! However, I'm so thankful that we decided, in agreement, that now is the time to do so.  We went through a class that our church was offering called Financial Peace with Dave Ramsey.  It was a wonderful class that teaches you how to budget, save and be prepared for the future and all the "unknowns" that will come your way.  It will also teach you alot about yourself. It really makes you think and examine how you think about money, spending, saving, ect. 

I can be pretty- free spirited when it comes to money. I don't care much for budgets, savings, 401K, things like that. I do understand the importance of those things, I just like to think when I need it, it will be there!  :)  My husband, however, thinks very diffrently than I. He likes budgets, savings, and 401K's.  He is one who thinks that "we need to hold on to almost everything because we may need it again one day", where I think "get that out of my way, I won't need that again!"  It's funny how diffrent we are!    :)

 Okay, so in order to get out of debt we have to find some extra money somewhere! No problem, we were just wasting money anyway every month with luxury's like eating out, clothes, coffee, ect. 
I wish it were that easy!  Although there were times that we were wasting money doing those things it was always just going on the credit card, so it wasn't really money that we had to begin with.  After about 6 weeks of being in the class we cut up all of our credit cards, so that option is out the window... thank God!  :)

 Instead we just pray... lots of praying!  We began to pray that God will direct us into the direction that we should go so that we can achieve our goal of saving and getting out of debt.  I would love to say... "we're debt free!" but we're not there yet, not even close.  Instead He has been showing us step by step how to make this real for our lives, yet continually teaching us faith, giving, serving, and love.

 So I'll keep you updated with our progress.  :)  Getting out of debt, saving, just learning to live a life with more contentment, and "frugal" living it up!

 "Owe no one anything except to love one another."  -Romans 13:8

*How do you frugal live it up?