A few months ago, a friend and former choir member at church who follows my blog asked me an interesting question:

“Where are the hymns?”

I must have seemed confused because she explained, “Hymns & Home – I’ve seen a lot of the home part, but where are the hymns?”

I explained that I chose the name “Hymns & Home” because I felt it well represented two major parts of who I am: a church musician and a wife/mom/homemaker. The blog was really just intended to be about home decor & DIY.

But it got me thinking… Why not?

Hymns and their rich, meaningful texts are such a big part of my life and who I am that surely there is some way they could be included here. Well, with all this pandemic stuff going on the last few months, my mind has been drawn over and over again to a particular hymn text: “I Am Trusting Thee, Lord Jesus.” Let me share a few stanzas with you:

I am trusting Thee, Lord Jesus, Trusting only Thee;
Trusting Thee for full salvation, Great and free.

I am trusting Thee to guide me; Thou alone shalt lead,
Ev’ry day and hour supplying All my need.

I am trusting Thee, Lord Jesus; Never let me fall.
I am trusting Thee forever And for all.

– Frances R. Havergal

This hymn speaks of the many ways Jesus provides for us and how we can fully trust Him to: grant us salvation, pardon and cleanse us from sin, guide us through life, give us His Holy Word, uphold and sustain us in this life and the next.

As much as this hymn has stuck in my head, I thought it fitting to create a FREE PRINTABLE for you all, just in case it would be of comfort and assurance to some of you! Just click one of the links below to download it. I am making this available to anyone – you don’t need to be a subscriber to get it. (For personal use only, please – no selling or modifying.)

God does not promise we will not encounter hardships in this life, but He does promise to be with us all the way. Most importantly, He promises us eternal life through the saving work of His son, Jesus Christ. I pray that wherever you are in the midst of this chaos that you would find peace, joy, and assurance from the One in whom we can fully trust.

It’s beginning to look a lot like…

…Winter!

It snowed here a few days ago! Like majorly snowed. It’s not a common occurence to have such a big snow before Thanksgiving around here. Maybe a few flurries, but not the kind where school gets cancelled and the highways are a mess. I do remember it snowing on Thanksgiving when I was really little.

Well, all this snow has me in full Winter mode, and I’m happy to announce that the Hymns & Home Winter Botany Printables are now available!

I decided to make Winter printables instead of Christmas ones for a specific reason: You know that time between New Year’s and Valentine’s Day that’s just kind of a decorating no-man’s-land? I try to combat that by using wintery decor as the base layer for my Christmas decor. I can sprinkle in some Christmas-specific stuff for Christmastime, remove it when New Year’s is past, and I’ve still got all the wintery cozy stuff around! These printables fall into that wintery category.

This season I’ve been loving all the little bottle-brush trees, flocked pine, and subtle use of berries. I drew inspiration from all those when creating these printables – they have the pine and a few berries, but plenty of clean white, like freshly fallen snow.

These prints are a marriage of vintage and minimalism. The drawings are definitely vintage – straight out of an old book – but I’ve kept the text and background simple and clean to give these prints a peaceful, wintry aesthetic.

I hope you enjoy, and as always, please don’t hesitate to drop me a comment or message if you have any questions or issues!

Click here to get the Winter Botany Printables.

I am SO excited to finally get to share this with you all today! I can’t believe it finally happened!

So, back in June, I bought this little cherry bench off Facebook Marketplace, or rather, my Father-in-Law picked it up for me and my in-laws ended up making it my birthday present (thank you both!).

It sat in the garage for a long while, because…

…once I got the layers of dust off it and my husband saw how pretty the wood was, he didn’t want to let me paint it! This was actually like a full-blown marital disagreement! I will admit that I wasn’t expecting it to be in such excellent shape, and I had no idea from the listing that it was solid cherry. Based on the photo and the price, I was expecting a rough old bench!

I was actually experiencing some major “wood guilt” about painting it as well. However, it was much too red for my taste and it completely clashed with our floors and everything around it! What good was that?

My line of thinking is this:

Something can be the nicest piece in the world, but if it doesn’t meet your needs and fit your tastes, it doesn’t do you much good!

Now obviously I could have just painted it in spite of my husband’s protests and been done with it, but for the sake of marital harmony, and because I too was having doubts, I decided to sit on it (haha, get it?) for a while and be sure it’s what I wanted to do – and give hubby time to come around to the idea. And he did.

Sidenote: The listing photo was very cleverly taken to hide the fact that the bench’s legs were completely crooked! It wasn’t mentioned in the description or anything. I had no idea that the bench was going to need repair until my Father-in-Law brought it to my house. (He was not aware that I didn’t already know about the legs being crooked.) Thankfully, my husband is handy and was able to pry the legs off and re-glue them all, but man was I annoyed! Please please please, if you’re selling something online, don’t be deceptive like that!

I mean, look at how crooked it was (please ignore the poor photo quality):

And the bummer about FB Marketplace is that once the seller takes down the item, you can’t leave a seller review. The seller took the listing down as soon as the bench was taken, so I couldn’t leave any feedback! Ugh!

*Deep breath*

Moving on…

My husband very kindly fixed the legs for me, and I gave it two coats of Fusion Mineral Paint in Coal Black. Just like that, the bench was transformed, and I couldn’t be happier!

Amazing what a little paint can do, eh?

I had originally considered painting the bench a charcoal gray, but when I saw Lauren at Bless’er House paint a darling vintage desk with Fusion Mineral’s Coal Black, I was sold! What she said about every room needing a “little black dress” is so true!

Oh, and if you’re wondering about those botanical prints on the wall, you can get them for free here on the blog!

Do you have any fun FB Marketplace (or Craigslist, etc.) stories? I’d love to hear them! Drop me a comment below!

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My post the other day featuring the Neutral Fall Botany Printables sparked some comments and questions (positive ones!) about our family room curtains. I had been planning to write a post sometime on this subject, but figured I might as well do that now since you all seem interested! (After reading so many blogs by southerners, I feel a great urge to use the term y’all, but feel like I don’t live far enough south to have earned that privilege, so I’ll stick to my Midwestern jargon. )

A few years ago an Ikea was built within reasonable driving distance, and I finally made the pilgrimage a few months ago. When I said I wanted to go check it out, my husband didn’t quite understand the appeal – he lived in Houston for a few years before we met, so he is plenty familiar with Ikea and probably associates it with his bachelor apartment furniture. He agreed to it anyway, and we made it a family affair – took the kids and everything. I have to say, that place could be pretty overwhelming if you’re not going there for anything in particular. If you try to look at everything, you’ll be there for hours. However, it was really fun to see all the different sections – they had items I never even imagined, like this blanket we picked up for baby girl – it’s now our favorite, or this bib which has worked fantastically.

Okay, I am getting off track here. Back to curtains!

I love the look of farmhouse curtains that have a ruffle at the top – I just think they are so cozy and charming! To get that ruffle, though, you either have to pay a pretty penny for ruffled curtains, or you can use one of many Pinterest-inspired curtain “hacks” to achieve the look. Any time I’ve seen this done, however, it’s always been with solid white curtains, white bed sheets, or drop cloths. I’ve never seen this done with a patterned curtain.

Well, we wanted something a little more interesting than plain white, but also didn’t want to break the bank. The Rosallil curtain from Ikea was just what the doctor ordered. Its thin blue windowpane design keeps it interesting yet airy and it has such a farmhouse flair to it when you add a ruffle! The material is thin enough that this hack still works, and when it comes to Ikea curtains, you cannot beat the price! I mean, two panels for a grand total of $17.99 (some designs are even less)? Win!

(Just FYI, the Rosallil curtains are not privacy curtains by any means – I would call them more “light filtering.”)

So here’s how this hack works:

Ikea curtains come at a length of 98″. With our 8-foot ceilings, I had plenty of excess fabric to fold the end of the curtain over to create a ruffle. I first turned the curtains upside down. Yes, you will actually be hanging them upside down. No, no one will be able to tell, don’t worry! This is so the rod loops will be at the bottom of your curtains and not end up showing on the ruffle. Next, I measured [read: eyeballed] how long I wanted my finished curtains to be, then folded over the excess material at the top to create a ruffle. The body of the curtains will be showing the “right side” of the pattern and your ruffle will be showing the “wrong side.” Make sense?

I used these clip-on curtain rings to hang the curtains, clipping them right at the fold. Looking back, I wish I would have gone the oil-rubbed bronze route to match our ceiling fan, but we already had the silver curtain rod and a silver floor lamp, and I didn’t think at the time to just paint the rod! Oh well, I can always redo that later, right? You live and learn.

The only downside to using curtain clips is that one’s toddler can pull the curtains off if he tries. Ask me how I know…

To be clear, the “wrong side” of these curtains is not 100% as bold as the front side, BUT it is close. If we were putting this in terms of image opacity, I would say the wrong side is at about 90-95%. It’s not quite as bold as the front, but if you don’t point it out to anyone (don’t), they’ll never know, especially when the curtains are bunched up with sunlight streaming in. When it’s dim in the room, you totally can’t tell at all.

If this is the sort of thing that is going to bother you because you just know that it is not 100%, I would advise skipping this and sticking with a solid-colored curtain. Or you could cut off the ruffle, flip it around, and sew it back onto the curtain.

Personally, I don’t even think about it, no one else has ever noticed (even family I have asked directly), and I’m thrilled I didn’t have to sew! Haha, I know how to sew, but I hate it. Don’t even get my mom started on the years of trying to teach me…sorry, mom.

I hope this little curtain hack has been of some help to you. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a comment or message and I’d be happy to help!

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