Author: Brooke

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DIY Pebble Mosaic Fireplace: Fireplace Update

My sister Allie is back on the blog today sharing her DIY fireplace update! You may remember her travel blog post about her non-traditional European Honeymoon. I’m quite proud of her for this one. Take a look!

Hello! It’s Brooke’s little sister, Allie. I am great at planning trips, excellent at communicating with children, and am becoming a proficient chef. I am not a DIY-er. One of our home purchasing requirements was a house that didn’t need a lot of work, and once I didn’t change a light bulb in the (windowless) laundry room for 3 months because it required a ladder and screwdriver. So if I can do this, you can do this.

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Kinley’s Birth Story

Today, I am sharing our birth story! I can honestly say it was the wildest, most intense night of my life. But, gosh, was it worth it! Birth is incredible, and I found it helpful to read birth stories leading up to labor. Every birth is so different it was encouraging to read about all the different ways it could go down. I’m also writing this for myself, as I don’t want all these details to fade as mom brain takes over.

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DIY Stair Runner

Today I am sharing our easy DIY stair runner! The stairs on our carpet were so old, so dirty and literally starting to pull away from the steps. After we installed our vinyl plank floors on the first floor, which I LOVE, the old ugly carpet on the stairs really stuck out like a sore thumb. Well, one quiet Saturday we finally decided to rip them out and re-do the stairs! This project was fun, affordable and seriously only took us a day! I’m so thrilled with how they turned out, but we definitely learned a few do’s and dont’s along the way. Here is our DIY Stair Runner!

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Top 10 Disney Pro Tips: Tips To Make Your Trip More Magical

To follow up on our recent Disney Travel post, I wanted to share our Top 10 Disney Pro Tips that will make your time at the most magical place on earth even better. We had a crash course from our own personal Disney Pro (my cousin Blake) before our trip – complete with a 2 part power point presentation and a quiz so you know he means business. Here is what we learned!

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8 DIY Winter Wedding Ideas

This is a post I have been wanting to write for a long time! And since we are approaching our 5 YEAR wedding anniversary, I thought now would be a great time! I am really excited to share our DIY Winter Wedding details with you all. I poured blood and sweat (no tears though, I was definitely a Bride-chilla) into the making of white winter wedding for the 9 months we were engaged.

I began pinning every snow and snow flake inspired wedding pin on Pinterest. I quickly developed a vision for our wedding and off I went to Hobby Lobby and wholesale craft sites to get it going. For me, this was the pinnacle of my DIY skills. I felt I had been training my whole life for this! My mom worried that I was going to get overwhelmed because I wanted to do basically everything myself. I wanted personal, thoughtful details. I wanted to make my own center pieces, table chart and table numbers. I wanted to make my own snowflake chandelier with lights and tulle. And when I couldn’t find the votives that I had envisioned, well, I wanted to make those, too. And I did. Here are the best winter themed-DIY projects from our beautiful winter wedding!

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6 Day Orlando Universal & Disney Vacation

I am so overdue on this post… but I couldn’t NOT share about our magical Disney vacation in Florida!! My parents took the family for a 6-day vacation to Orlando in April this year. We didn’t have a ton of time, but we PACKED it in! If you want to know how to fit in ALL the magic Orlando has to offer in a short time, this post is for you. Here’s what we got up to in our Orlando and Disney Vacation!

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DIY Large Floating Shelves as a TV Stand

James and I had been talking about making a TV stand or table for a long time. We had an entertainment station that was given to us from someone’s basement, that we had literally cut in half to make more of a TV stand, because it was to small for our TV. Like, we actually cut the top half of it. It had saw marks, no backing, and flimsy shelfs. But it worked. James is really creative and I have seen him build some very unique pieces of furniture from wood, so I was basically leaving this project in his court. I knew he would come up with something eventually. One Sunday morning, he said, “I have an idea! Why don’t we do large floating shelves?” I loved the simplicity and openness of open shelving, too, so I agreed and off we went to Menards!

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DIY Spray Paint Countertops

James and I strongly disliked our bathroom counter tops. We initially thought, easy fix! They sell double sink countertops at Home Depot! James had replaced the countertop in our first floor bathroom, and it was fairly straightforward. But to our dismay, our vanity upstairs was NOT standard size. We think they used a kitchen cabinet, which are deeper than bathroom vanities by about 2-3 inches. Who knew?

Though we searched, we could not find a countertop that would fit our vanity. We thought about cutting off the back of the vanity to make it 2-3 inches smaller. But ultimately we decided there are too many drawers that would also have to be cut, too much hardware and not to mention moving the plumbing.  We thought about getting a whole new vanity, but man, that was expensive! So, I thought “why don’t I paint it!?”

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