We Have A Secret To Share

I have a secret to share with you all today. Something near and dear to my heart and an announcement I have wanted to make for a long time.

We are in the adoption process to adopt a newborn baby. We've chosen an agency, have completed the formal application, pre-study documents, attended adoption training and are waiting for the next step of completing the home study.

We have started a blog to share updates on the process. It will be a central location for friends and family to check in and see what the latest info is. It is still private at this time but I will share the link here as soon as we have it ready for the public. :-)

Adoption has been on our hearts for many years. We have wanted to pursue it several times over the course of our marriage but always felt like it was not the time. Last summer as we continued to pray, we began to hear from the Lord that now was the time to take that leap of faith and start the process.

For several months we prayed, researched the different types of adoption, agencies, talked with adoptive families whose stories are all very different, getting as much information as we could.

In January of this year, we began the process with a Christian agency. It is exciting and somewhat terrifying all at the same time.

We have no idea of what all lies ahead but we know Who already has the plans laid out. We ask for your prayers as we continue on this journey.

And as most everyone is aware, adoption is a costly process. We will be doing a lot of fundraising and will make our friends and family aware of financial needs as they arise and how contributions can be made. We will be doing this via our adoption blog as well as on this blog sometimes.

God has provided abundantly already so early in the process and we look forward to all He has in store.

"Use What You Have" Spring Wreath

I've been wanting to make a wreath for our kitchen door. Something springy!

We had a yard sale last weekend and a couple straw wreaths were left. (They were donated by a friend.) So instead of donating them at the end of the sale, I decided to make some simple wreaths for our home. 

This one is my first attempt and I like it. It's different and used up some fabric from my scrap basket. 

My plan was to make a wreath with strips of fabric like this one. Then I saw these leftover yellow ruffles. They used to be on some giant square pillow shams that I thrifted and cut up for another project. I saved the ruffles because I love the color and print and well, I can't bear to throw something away that could be used for something else! 

That something else turned out to be this wreath. 

I gathered my supplies-- straw wreath, pile of ruffle pieces and a short piece of white ruffle left from a vintage pillowcase. I used some small pins and also some thumbtacks for securing everything. 

1. Iron all fabric pieces. 

2. Start wrapping the ruffle pieces on the wreath, using pin or tack to secure ends. 

3. Continue wrapping, taking care to overlap pieces slightly to cover raw edges of ruffle.

4. Wrap until wreath is covered. You can see I ran out of ruffles and there is a bare spot. No worries-- I have a plan for that!

5. That little extra piece of ruffle comes in handy here. I scrunched it up to look like a flower then pinned it to the wreath.

6. Next, I glued a few buttons on

to finish off the center of the flower. 

7. Last I added an aqua ribbon hanger. The ribbon coordinates with a light blue/aqua in the center of the flowers.

8. Done!

This was super easy-- took longer to post about the wreath than to actually make it. ;-)

I have this hanging in a sunny location outside so, yes, it will fade with time. The great thing is that by removing the pins, it'll be super simple to update with something else. 

Happy Spring!