Spoonful of Imagination

Add it to a Family for Something Beautiful

Pictures of my Day

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Have I told you how much I love instagram? I am on there a lot during the day. It has totally replaced Facebook, Twitter, and really pinterest for me. Although I still upload to those avenues, I don’t check them or update them nearly as often. Pictures are huge to me. I am a visual person, and I have loved the inspiration I have found from following so many awesome bloggers as well as feeling like I am getting to know some pretty cool people. If you follow me on instagram you will catch windows into…

what I am doing…

Magazine and tea

What I am buying…

Alphabet Sign

What I am making…

colorful heandbands

How we are…

Sick girl And just generally more about us! I upload several pictures a day, where I blog only half the days in the week (most weeks). I would love to have you follow me there.  Just search ericadeuel or click this link to be directed. If you leave your instagram name in the comments below, I will follow you back as well.

One other aspect of instagram that I am really excited about is that I will slowly start uploading some quick one time sale items there. One reason I have stopped uploading to my shop is the amount of time it was taking to take pictures, write descriptions, and upload every product (since all my products are slightly different). I am going to try to upload a few items every week that are just a one time, buyer who leaves email first for an invoice purchases.

I hope this helps you to feel more connected to me and that my creations are more readily available as well as bring in some extra fun income for me to help decorate our new home (info coming soon about this!?).

My instagram picture for today is this sweet set of three spring headbands.

Spring Color Headbands

Each hair bow is on an alligator clip, so they can be interchanged on the different headbands (or worn without a headband).  I love all the bright fun colors in these bows, and they would make a great addition to any little girl’s spring wardrobe. As of this morning they were still available on instagram, but the first person to leave an email for them will get them {$18.00 shipped}.  My prices will always include the shipping cost. 

Thank you for checking in today and I look forward to finding you all on instagram and following along with your days too!

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Give Thanks Blocks

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I have been so excited about today!  We are getting back to our Project Spotlight with these festive Give Thanks blocks. At the bottom of the post I’ll reveal our $50 Dancing Zebras giveaway grand prize winner!

Last week, we started our thankful tree, and it has been a lot of fun.

Every night at dinner, we go around the table and say one thing we are thankful for.  I write down these things and hang them on our “tree”.  It has been so inspiring to hear what each child is thankful for and to talk about these things together.

 

Even little Reagan is involved.  I’m sure she has no idea what she is saying, but when we ask her what she is thankful for, she always says something.  One of my favorites was when she screamed “Charleigh” this week.  Charleigh is one of her sweet cousins, who is in town visiting this week!  We are so excited to spend some good time loving on this little girl.

I wanted to make some blocks to put in front of our tree that would help remind us all day, and not just at our dinner table, to give thanks.  Here are the steps with on I came up with our give thanks blocks.

I started by getting a 2 x 3 board from Home Depot and measuring off 2″ slots.  I cut along those measurements and ended up with a bunch of rough blocks.

I sanded the blocks till their edges were smooth, and then I painted them a pretty fall color.

After they were a nice burnt orange, I decided I wanted to have a leaf outline on them as a watermark behind the letters.

I took a plastic leaf (I found a bag of these at the Dollar Tree and we are using them on our thankful tree.) to stencil around to have the outline of a leaf on my blocks. Using the Antique Gold paint, I lightly dabbed the paint brush around the stencil and edges of the block to create a subtle backdrop for the leaf. Once I had done this step, the blocks looked like this…

I made the leaves wrap around the blocks and painted them, rotating at different angles, with parts of the leaves “falling off” the block.  I love how they came out.  Next, I wanted the blocks to say “give thanks”.  I am not the best at hand painting fonts, but I decided to give it a try with this project.

I printed out my ideal font, and eye-balled the letters. To finish them off I lightly sanded around the blocks to give them a more vintage look. Finally I gave the blocks a coat of Mod Podge to seal everything with a slight sheen. They aren’t perfect, but I think they came out cute!

I love how they look in front of our tree.

Feel free to give these a shot for your Fall decor! What’s a special thing you do around your house to celebrate the Thanksgiving season?

Ok, it’s the big moment we’ve all been waiting for! Drum roll, please. The Grand Prize winner of the $50 Dancing Zebra Giveaway randomly chosen by Rafflecopter is, Kali Mallard! Congratulations Kali! I will be in touch with you on the details. In the meantime, you can go to my store and start window shopping for what you might like to have!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Our First Vlog

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Today, I am so excited to share with you my first ever vlog.  To be completely honest, I LOVED the idea of this video and interview, but I felt quite awkward with a microphone clipped to my shirt.  I’m so not good at being the one in FRONT of the camera, so special thanks to my amazing husband for his skills with this piece!!

Please take a look at my interview with two of the inspirations behind a lot of what I do.  Simply click on the video to watch, and afterwards scroll below to find out the winner of today’s burlap table runner.

As you can see, they are pretty cute.  I love their little hearts.  Thank you for checking in to see our first vlog.  I hoped you enjoyed it!  We hope to do those quite often.

Now, today’s giveaway winner (of one of these beautiful table runners) is Sally Peter!  Congratulations Sally!  I will be in touch!

If you haven’t entered the giveaway yet, wait for the Ralfocopter widget to load, and do enter.  This is the last chance to enter the giveaway for tomorrow’s grand prize!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I leave you with a few “behind the scenes stills” of our vlog experience…

The boys were pumped about their microphones.
This was a wee bit intimidating.

My Plans

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My plans for this blog are to try to stick to some kind of a writing schedule.  I know that may be a stretch for me, but I am prepared to try!  I have promised lots of things like traveling tips, seeing dresses I’ve sewn, and a series of posts about me.  Hopefully, this new writing schedule will bring some new routines that will help me be a healthier and more reliable writer.

First off, I would like to say a HUGE congratulations to Rachel Mango for wining this vintage sign.

Rachel, I will be in touch!!  Thank you so much for entering my giveaway!  It is not too late to enter!  Add your entries using the Rafflecopter widget below for your chance to win $50 to my etsy store.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now, I will let you in on the writing plans I have for this new site.

On Mondays, I want to write something personal.  It may be about me, my family, our birthdays, our faith, etc.  Of course, there will probably be kid activities, crafts or outing posts in here because those can all be intertwined with something personal.

On Wednesdays, I will write about our homeschooling adventure.  It may be a field trip, an activity, or a tip.  I would love to take you through a “normal” school day for us in a post, but of course, no promises :).

Fridays will remain my Project Spotlight.  In these posts I will show a craft I did that week.  Often they will be DIY projects that will allow you to have step-by-step instructions on how to carry the project out.

Although there are three main days of writing with a topic goal for each day, I know there will be days that I am late or my topics may be slightly off.  But, I have a goal, and that is progress!  I’m sure I will have blog posts on other days as well, but I want to commit to those days for certain.  I have bought a calendar just for my blog to help keep things straight, which I am excited about.

If you have been around here long enough, you know that crafts and DIY projects are a part of me.  So, although there are rough topic sections, crafts will pop up in all of these posts and days.

 

To kick this new style off, I am introducing a five-week series about me.  Every Monday,  for five weeks, I will unfold part of my story and let you get to know “pieces of me”.  The rough titles of these posts are:

  • 1 of 9
  • Formative Years
  • Early Bliss Years
  • Raising Kids
  • Today

I am excited about it, and I hope you are too!  If you have any questions that you would hope I answer through out this series, please leave me a comment and let me know!

Thanks for checking in today.  I hope you come back tomorrow to see if you are the daily giveaway winner and to see our first ever vlog, featuring two very special interview guests.  🙂