I turned an old muffin tin pan into a rustic, vintage styled centerpiece in no time flat. It just took a bit of paint and a lot of imagination to transform this old kitchen junk into a home decor treasure. Lately, I've been on a purging binge. Cleaning out closets and drawers. Donating, giving away and even selling items I no longer need or use. When the kids moved out, I sent a lot stuff with them, since I had so many extras. Of course, as a devout upcycler, this task isn't always easy .

When it comes to decorating, I've always been pretty confident about my skills. Oh, I've never had any aspirations to do it professionally and I've never had a desire to decorate for others. In fact, I regularly turn down requests. Why? Because when I say I'm confident, I mean that I know what I like . What will make me happy . And how to make that happen as I put a room together. Except.

I made a charming cake stand from a dollar store plate and bowl. It was an easy craft, super inexpensive. Plus it's both useful to serve food and looks lovely on its own as decor. Check out the full DIY. Every now and then, I see the cutest ideas online. Darling DIYs that I swear I'm going to make someday. I add them to Pinterest or I snap a quick photo. And then promptly forget about them. Sometimes for years. Then one day, in a fit of cleaning or organizing, I run into one of my saved items and decide to make it right away. Well today was one of those days.

Pretty dishes have always been my weakness. When I walk into a retail store or a thrift shop, the dinnerware aisle is my first stop. And we I see a plate that catches my eye, I can't resist. Over the last three decades, I've had more sets than I can count .

The bathroom door in our bedroom was worn, plain and uninspiring. It certainly didn't fit our beach cottage home. So we got creative and added a new door with style. And now our bathroom and bedroom are a cottage style dream. Earlier this year, on a cold, gray February day, we finally began working on one of my dream DIY projects. Ok, well that's not entirely true. What I should say is that's the day we bought the supplies for a long awaited renovation. And I do mean long awaited . You see, before that day there were several years of me mentioning, over and over again, to my husband {and super handy handyman } how we needed a new door for our ensuite bathroom. Then once the door was in the house, it took me another several months of not so subtle suggestions like - Hey, you know what today might be a great day for? - to actually get it started. My husband always says the reason most of my crazy design plans get done around here is because I can talk about them a lot long

Last week, I dove back into sharing, after an {unintentional} month long hiatus. Summer has been very busy around here. While we did take a lovely vacation, June wasn't all fun and games, I spent a lot of time on a variety of projects in the house. Ok, well, I actually do consider DIY and crafting fun and games , but you get what I mean. Anyway, I have so many things to share, that when I sat down at the computer this morning, I honestly didn't know where to begin. So I decided to start small and move on from there.

A little over a year ago, I started something new. I began sharing posts, during the first weekend of each new month, and called them little chats . I usually wrapped up of the prior month's projects, highlighting DIYs and crafts and then I shared a bit of what I'd be working on in the weeks ahead. Well, this month, as I got ready to write about June, I realized that I hit publish just one time in four weeks, and it was one of those "chatty" posts...where I did mention that since it was summer now, I may not be sitting down at the computer as often. But I never expected to abandon my laptop for so much time. I mean, I adore blogging. It's my passion. The decorating and the crafting are all secondary for me. My true love is writing. However.