spring decorations

We like to keep things festive around  here. But being on a budget means we have to keep things extremely inexpensive (or free). I went through our Easter items and found a few things we could hang up. It's nothing elegant or fancy, but we're enjoying our April look.

My mom gave us these cute buckets last year for Easter. Somehow we always end up with tons of buckets lying around the house. So I decided to decorate with these rather than add them to the toy bin. I love how they look up in the window. The felt bunny basket was in the dollar bin at Target last year. I grabbed a couple, then forgot to use them for anything. The bunny silhouette is from Party City. I did splurge and spent $6 on decorations this year. We'll reuse them for years, I'm sure.

 

I loved the simple, bright colors to add some cheer to the house. This set was $4 from party city. I'm thinking I can reuse for birthdays too. 

I wanted something for the table and then remembered the pink tablecloth I'd bought for Kapria's pink party. I'm so glad I got a reusable one and not a throwaway - it's definitely worth a few extra dollars to be able to reuse some things later. :)

Top: Girls' Easter baskets. We have a few extra baskets that I let them play with during the month, so I set these up high so it would be special to get them out on Easter day.

Top left: Do you have nesting dolls? I have found these toys to be a favorite of my kids. We have a few sets for different holidays, and they love playing with them. I got this cute animal set a few years' back on amazon, and this is the first year I thought to put them out for Easter decorations. I love the bright colors.

Bottom right: This is something I threw together really fast from stickers. I've had them since I was in high school! I never knew what to do with them. Then I thought, why not put them on a piece of paper and frame it? I used a frame that's been sitting in a storage box for months. Easy and free! 

So the mantle kinda looks lame, but I didn't have any money to buy something great. So I scavenged around the house for anything bright and festive.

See the bunny tree on the right? I got that at a white elephant party one December years ago - before we even had kids. Trav thought it was hideous, but I figured once we had kids they would love it. Saving it all these years was worth it. The girls love playing with the baby bunnies.

I used the word signs & pink frame that are normally in the girls' room to add some color. Maybe one day I can get some cute Easter statues. Or maybe not. I have a hard time spending real amounts of money on decorations. 

Happy Spring to you!

More Helpers

Mom and Grandma Schwoch came from CA to visit and help out. Nicole and Weston helped a lot too. (Well, Weston slept a lot.)

And the bathroom work continues

Matt and Deven helping with the plumbing and bathtub.

Tearing out the bathroom

Travis and Jeff working on the bathroom. Jeff helped us so much with our house! We are lucky to have such a great brother-in-law.

Scraping wallpaper

And so the work began...

We had so many people help us as we worked on our house. From September to December we tore out cabinets and shelves, scraped off the old wallpaper, textured walls, painted, and even remodeled the entire bathroom. We couldn't have done it all without the help of family and friends.

Backyard

This is what our backyard looked like last summer (minus all the stuff..that belonged to the previous owners).

Front yard

We haven't changed a lot of the front yard...but we did take out the rose bushes and the front gate.

Searching for a home...

This is what our house looked like the first time we saw it. We both knew pretty quickly that this was the one we wanted.