INSPIRATION CAFE'S GRAND OPENING!!! What Inspires Us

Welcome to Inspiration Cafe! 

The day is finally here!  Welcome to our Grand Opening!!! 

We've got loads of fun and creativity planned for the weeks ahead.
We would love for you to join us.

For this round of Inspiration Cafe each of our Contributors will be sharing What Inspires Us personally.  On the sixth Monday we will be launching our very first link party!!!   You must come join in!  The theme for the link party will also be 'WHAT INSPIRES US'.   So stop back each Monday to see what inspires each of us, and then on Monday, November 26th, come back and link up a project, a post, a tip...anything that shares Your Inspiration with all of us.  It can be anything that inspires you.  We will be featuring our favorite links from the party on our individual blogs, sharing teasers on facebook, and of course the overall winners will be featured on Inspiration Cafe!  Won't you share your inspiration with all of us?

And now onto what inspires ME!

Hi!  If we haven't already met...I'm Sherry.  :)  

I blog over at Pondered Primed Perfected.  I hope you'll come by and check out what we've been up to there.  I have been doing DIY projects with my husband for many, many years.  We are inspired to create something out of nothing, so to speak.  It really is rewarding for us to take something discarded, outdated, or unwanted and transform it into something new and useful.  We've rescued quite a few Roadkill Pieces over the years.  We've scoured thrift stores, made over Craigs List freebies, and even pulled things from trash piles.  Sometimes we just want to upgrade something we already have instead of throwing it away.  You should check out our Project Gallery to see some examples of our work!

BUT...

One of my biggest challenges is keeping my busy family organized.   And when everything is all chaotic and unorganized I have much less motivation to work on my projects.  So here's what I came up with recently:

A while back we went to a garage sale and I bought some stuff for my classroom.  As we were leaving the lady threw this corkboard in for free.  You should all know that I LOVE free stuff! 

It wasn't fancy, or fabric covered, or anything.  Just pure utilitarian corkboard, and that was okay.  The perfect spot for all of the school, sports, friend and family photos, as well as various schedules, appointments, and events.  Did I mention it was free!?

I'm not going to act all cool ~ like I'm ultra organized.  I'm not.  There have been times when I've struggled keeping up with a family calendar.  One that will keep us organized and where we need to be on time.  We lead very busy lives, like most families do ~ with work, school activities, playing sports, coaching, college courses, volunteering and keeping up with friends and family.  We like being busy, don't get me wrong, but it can be challenging keeping it all straight.  (It does help to be informed of events before it's time to leave...eh hem...not naming any names!).

Now...

I wanted to maximize this corkboard's usefulness.  It still needed to be utilitarian, but I was envisioning it being more ORGANIZED at keeping track of our appointments, events, important papers and notes, as well as keeping our favorite photos out for everybody to see!

Here's what I did  ~ Click here to read the entire post...

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Pieces of my Heart

I've always admired people who decorate their home for all of the seasons and holidays.  (How do they manage to find the time, the energy, the inspiration, and the storage space for all of those extra decorations?)


I only dream of being that organized and motivated. There's definitely not a shortage of ideas floating around in my head (and the magazines, catalogs, Pinterest and Blog-land).  It's just that...well...I'm busy.  I have more pressing things to deal with.  Like:

• Making dinner.  "What's for dinner???  and lunch, and breakfast, and snack, snack, snack?"...
• Going to the grocery store to get dog food for my pooch, Sadie (hopefully before she strains a muscle in her throat from whining so forcefully)?
• Washing, drying, folding and if we are lucky, putting away umpteen loads of laundry.
• Keeping the house somewhat clean and organized.  I say somewhat because I am no miracle worker.  I just am not really fond of clutter and (prepare yourselves for a dirty word) ~ dirt.
• Planning activities for the week to keep the toddlers and preschoolers engaged, challenged and content. 
• Planning activities for the week to keep my husband engaged, challenged and content.
• Chauffeuring my little athlete to all of his sporting events, activities and play dates...to keep him engaged, challenged and content!
• Paying the bills.  Yuck.  :(
• Working on a myriad of DIY & Decorating projects (to keep myself engaged, challenged and content).  :)  Yay!
• Making time to spend with friends and extended family because I miss them all so much.

So, theme decorating isn't high on my list of things To Do.  Not to mention, I wouldn't have the slightest idea where to store all of the out of season decorations?  Would we rent a storage unit???

Honestly, I feel lucky when we get the Christmas crates down from the attic space.  And, then I feel lucky again when we manage to box it all back up and get it up that ladder and into it's 11-months-out-of-the-year home, nestled among the rafters, insulation and cobwebs.  I refuse to go up there.  My life would be so different without Scott in it.  I'm so lucky.  He is amazing.  Don't get me wrong...I am very capable and independent.  We just have this unspoken agreement (like many couples I'm sure) that certain tasks are mine and certain tasks are his.  Mine fall into the shopping, cooking, cleaning type categories and his fall into the ladder climbing,  light bulb changing, fence fixing type categories.  Go figure.   It's like Happy Days around here.

But this little blog is edging both of us outside of our comfort zones.  It's challenging us to push ourselves further than we normally would in our everyday dealings.  And here is how I know...

This morning when I took the old photos down from the cork board and started adding the new ones I was struck with inspiration.  (Don't get all excited, I can't take credit for this idea...I've seen this done in some form, somewhere ~ in one of my magazines, catalogs, Pinterest, or while blog surfing.)  But that's not the point.  We have some creative genius...stick around long enough and you'll see, I'm almost promising!  I'm guessing that 99.97 percent of what we do is some form of imitation...greatest form of a compliment and all...yada, yada...

THE POINT IS that I took the time and intentionally added a theme as I pinned all of the new school pictures, snapshots and Christmas card photos to the cork board...placing them with love and care in the shape of a heart.  :) 

If you don't see yourself in this photo collage, maybe it's time for you to give us a new photo of yourself???

1.

So many of the people we love...it makes my heart do flip flops :)

This board is right next to the front door in our entryway...you can see the entry shelving we've recently finished.

Well, Scott finished his part, but I still have a cushion cover to sew, and maybe some paint touch up here and there...

But that reminds me...I never really showed you the crazy awesome thing about these entry shelves...the bottom doors open up like a bin and we place our shoes in there when we come in.  Then we close them up out of sight!

I'm not fond of a big pile of shoes right inside the front door so this was the perfect solution.  This is Scott and Alex's side.

And this is Vanessa's and my side.  Those are my new Sperry loafers.  I got a gift certificate for Christmas and picked these puppies up at The Rack.  They remind me of Junior High School and "boat shoes".  If any of you remember those days! Hahaha


May your heart and home be filled with love!

Sherry

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