A Thankful Week and Celebrating Our 100th Post with a Top 10 Recap!!

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Amber Foster Smith

I have had the best week full of wonderful blessings and making great memories with my family. We had an amazing Thanksgiving and filled our bellies to the brim with all sorts of delicious goodies! I did a bit of shopping last night with my sister and we had such a great time together. While driving home listening to Christmas music in the wee hours of the morning I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I truly am. I have the most amazing family and friends that support me through everything I do. I have a husband who adores me and two children that are perfect in every way. I have a roof over my head and am blessed to have enough money in my pocket to buy a few new toys for my kids for Christmas. I am so lucky to have the life that I have. I just wanted to tell all of you, my wonderful readers how thankful I am for you. I started this blog as a creative outlet and it has become so much more. I have made so many new friends and learned so much along the way. So today I wanted to share a big milestone for the blog…OUR 100th POST! How exciting is that? I thought we could all celebrate today by taking a look back at my most popular posts along with my personal favorites!

One of my most popular posts is Emma Grace’s Weekly Photo Project which is one project I am so proud of. For all the hours and time that I’ve spent editing photos and preparing each shoot it is by far my most rewarding project!

Emma Grace’s Nursery reveal was also a very popular post including my personal favorite, the French Provencal Dresser makeover!

After being sick of my old worn out kitchen rug I gave it a fun facelift with a bit of creativity with the help of some paint!

An afternoon, a quart of chalkboard paint and waiting what seemed like forever and we have an awesome new space to jot notes and play tic-tac-toe!

My post about my journey to get my first tattoo has been my most viewed post and I received so much feedback I actually decided to offer custom designs in my Etsy shop!

I celebrated Hyperemesis Gravidarum Awareness Day by sharing my own personal journey with HG. It was by far my most difficult post to write but since I wrote about my story I have had several women who are suffering or have survived HG reach out to me. Their stories of strength and encouragement made it worth finally telling my story.

I have learned so much about photography over the past year and I was excited to share with you all some amazing pictures that I took at a friend’s wedding. That post along with the photos I shared from the very first wedding I was asked to shoot are some of my most popular posts!

I know everyone loves a pallet makeover and we had a great time turning an old pallet into a vintage soda sign for hubby’s birthday!

Hungry? We sure were when we made these AMAZING stuffed burgers filled with several cheeses, crisp bacon and sautéed onions! YUMMY!

Our free Fall Bucket List printable was a big success! For the rest of November I will be sharing with you how many things we were able to cross off!

I hope you have enjoyed my special 100th post recap of my favorite and most popular posts so far! Thank you for all of your support along the way and don’t ever be afraid to leave a little comment for me. I love hearing from you! If you want to keep up with what I’m up to outside the blog stop by and follow me!

Chalkboard Accent Wall :: Inspiration Wednesday Project Complete!

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Amber Foster Smith

A while back I wrote about how I desperately wanted to incorporate a chalkboard wall into our home. After some what of an epiphany, a couple quick coats of paint and what seemed like having to wait for forever for paint to dry completely…our family now has a fun place to play and draw!

The trickiest part of the chalkboard wall was trying to figure out just the right space in the house for it. Every wall was either too big, too small or was connected to another wall that wouldn’t work either. I just couldn’t figure it out! Then one day it just hit me and I kind of felt like an idiot. We have this one little wall that connects our breakfast nook to our kitchen that would make a perfect accent wall. It is small but it is in a great central location were I was sure it would get a lot of use.

I made a quick trip to Home Depot (one of my favorite places in the world!) and grabbed a can of Rust-Oleum Chalkboard Paint.

I also grabbed a new smooth foam roller (they are typically labeled for cabinets and furniture). This is important because you do not want a nappy roller. The smoother the better! It took me about three coats to get really good coverage. I’m sure that two coats would have been fine but I could swear to you that I still saw bits of tan paint peaking through so I went for a third coat. Once the paint dried I had to wait three days (per the instructions on the can) before I could do any drawing! The hardest part was waiting! Ugh…I hate waiting. Especially since it took no time at all to paint such a small space. Once the waiting game was over I conditioned the entire wall. This step is important because it will help with keeping your wall looking new and not leaving any phantom “ghost” marks.

While we are on the subject of phantom ghost marks as I like to call them, I learned an interesting lesson about chalkboard markers. I was so excited when I found out about them! I mean how cool is it that you can get thick, clean lines like a marker but in the form of chalk? Well I guess it was too good to be true in my case. Beware that if you use chalk markers you can only use them on a surface with a sheen to it. The chalkboard paint that I used was flat and will not work with chalkboard markers. Lesson learned. While awaiting the arrival of Nana we made a “Countdown To Nana” on our wall in chalkboard markers.

Although we do love Nana lots and lots it looks like she will now be with us for a while. The only way to get rid of the ghost marks is to put a fresh coat of paint over top! Ugh. Lesson learned right? Well I ended up using the chalkboard markers anyways to draw a couple of fun things that I want to keep on the wall permanently. At this point what can it hurt right?

Amour Vincit Omnia means Love Conquers All in Latin. It’s a little bit like a family motto around our house!

So there you have it. A little bit of chalkboard wall fun! Since we I finished it the wall has become a place for impromptu games of tic-tac-toe, a place to take newborn photos (don’t worry you will get a sneak peek soon!), a place to jot phone messages and most importantly a spot to write secret messages to each other!

Have you make a chalkboard accent wall in your home? Share it with us! I’d love to see it!

Bringing Chalkboards Out of the Classroom and Into The Home :: Inspiration Wednesday (jroxdesigns.wordpress.com)

Bringing Chalkboards Out of the Classroom and Into The Home :: Inspiration Wednesday

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Amber Foster Smith

Right now there is a chalkboard crazy sweeping the DIY world and I just think the idea is so much fun. There are chalkboard walls going into kitchens, playrooms and I’ve even seen them in nurseries! The more projects I came across the more and more I wanted one in our home! Jeremy and I have talked about putting one in our kitchen for the longest time but we couldn’t figure out exactly where to put it. I love this full wall but we don’t a full wall in the kitchen and for our space I think it would be too much.