Shabby Apple Sale!

Just stopping in to let you all know about an awesome sale going right now over at Shabby Apple!


As an extra bonus for the holidays Shabby Apple is adding an EXTRA 20% off items already on Sale! If you love fabulous dresses and looking amazing-go check it out!

20% Off the Sale Section at Shabby Apple and Free Shipping with Code 'WINTERSALE'

5 Pinterest Inspired Projects

I know, I know-I'm supposed to be taking the week off. But it's really hard not to post!! At the end of the day I feel like I forgot to do something because I'm so used to either working on a post or posting every day....

So even though I'm on "vacation" I'm taking a few minutes to share 5 things I found on Pinterest that I am determined to make for my house this year. If you haven't yet, you can check out my boards {here}.

I found this awesome Clothespin Wreath just the other day and fell in love! I'm hopefully going to start on this sometime this weekend. I think it will be awesome with another project I'm half way through already....

Just a hint-this isn't going to be hanging on my front door! :) 

I'm not sure when this is going to get done-but it's definitely on the list. I love the idea of covering my box spring with fabric. When Mojo and I moved into our cement bunker apartment in May-it was snowing and my box spring got really dirty. This would be the perfect way to cover up all the parts I couldn't get clean again.

I know I've mentioned it on the blog before but this week I'm actually doing it. I am painting my living room chairs white! I have been obsessed with this idea ever since finding it on Pinterest months ago. For the full tutorial check out Hyphen Interiors but come back here next week as well-I'll be posting how I did mine. I start this project on Friday-wish me luck!

I've actually already started on this project as well (I generally have 3-4 projects going on at one time). I love how they wrapped these letters in yarn and it inspired me to do something similar for our bedroom-I can't wait to show it off to you guys. Hoping to get it done this weekend as well (ya for long weekends!)

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And finally, I love the scrabble theme that has been floating around Pinterest for a while now. I found these pillows a few months ago and knew I wanted to make some for my living room makeover (which is getting closer and closer to being done). Of course without a sewing machine I new they would be hard to do-but this lucky girl got an awesome Brother XR6060 for Christmas from the in-laws! You can buy the pillows {here} but if you stick around I'll show you a cheaper to make them yourself!

Of course my projects will have my own twists on them and I'm making a few changes to make them my own but I have been inspired by each of these photos. 

This is just the beginning of a very long to do list! But, I'm excited for a new year filled with awesome projects like these! What has Pinterest been inspiring you to do lately?

2011-what a year!

It's amazing that 2012 will be here in less than a week! It seems to me like it was just yesterday that 2011 New Years Eve was here and I was waiting for a certain someone to pop the question. Now in just 5 days it will be a whole new year, in 6 weeks I'll be a year older, and in 6 months my little sister will graduate from High School!

I know I said I was taking two weeks off from blogging to get stuff done-and I am-but to be honest I missed blogging! I missed you guys! So I decided to step in and write a quick post about my favorite 2011 posts.

This year had a lot of changes for me-the biggest one obviously is I got married! December marked our 7th month of marriage-we're practically pro's at this whole married thing by now. This is also my first year blogging-the very first post on this blog was actually done by Mojo, it was the proposal story from his perspective.

This blog has gone through a lot of changes in the 11 months it's been around. It started out as a weeding blog, a place our guests could go for information about the wedding, where they could send us their addresses for an invitation, and where they could check out what Mojo and I were up to on the wedding front.

From there I was inspried by my SIL Sallee, who blogs {here}, to become more involved in my blogging. And once I did a whole new world was opened up to me-I had no idea blogging was such a big thing! So I jumped in with both feet and started trying to find my blogging "niche".

I had a blast participating in fun weekly twitter link ups from The SITS Girls and I joined in on the Ultimate Blog Party from 5 Minutes for Mom where I found a lot of the blogs I love to read now.

It was through the Ultimate Blog Party that I was introduced to craft blogs and I fell in love. I realized as I looked at all the amazing projects around the blog-o-sphere that I could do that to. So once again I jumped in with both feet and turned this blog in a crafting blog.

Here are my 5 favorite projects from 2011:

#5-The initials we used as decorations for a wedding become one of my favorite front door decorations-

Summer Initials

#4-The very first project I ever did and the one that started my addiction to crafting and making things my own

My Dot Painting

#3-I loved it when I made it and I love it now. I'm actually working on a new and better version of this for a guest post I'll be doing in February. 

My Crepe Paper Wreath

#2-My nightstand was my first furniture up-do and I loved it. 

Nightstand Updo

And #1-Keeping with things in my bedroom-we have my Ikea Lack Bench up-do. I did this as my entry into Sew Dang Cute Craft's Crafting with the Stars Competition. Even though it wasn't picked-I still love this bench!

Ikea Lack Table Upgrade

Here's to an even better 2012-with bigger projects, better pictures (thanks to my new camera), and just as much fun!

Thanks for all of my amazing readers and the support and encouragement you guys give me. You are seriously the best!

New 3-part giveaway winner!

Unfortunately I never heard from our previous winner so I got to pick a new one this morning.

So according to random.org our new winner is..

And the 19th comment belonged to...

Congrats Nicole!! You have 48 hours to email me your information before a new winner is announced.

Thanks again to everyone who entered the giveaway and who participated in the "10 Days of Christmas" Series. I hope you enjoyed both!

Since Christmas is officially less than a week away I've gone into overdrive to try and get everything done on time. I'm starting to panic that my homemade gifts aren't going to happen this year....!

I've decided since I need all the time I can get and because I want to spend Christmas making memories with the ones I love the most-to take the next couple of weeks off from the blog.

So from Mojo and I to you

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And I hope you have a

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See you in 2012!

Feature You Friday #4

Before I get into our fourth Feature You Friday it's time to announce the winner of our 3-Part Giveaway!! Thanks to all who entered-if I could have, I would have entered to win myself!

And the lucky winner is...

Cameron from Cameron Homemade!!

Congratulations Cameron! Email me your information at kari {at} morganandkari {dot} com!

Alright, I'm pretty excited to show off another blog to you this week-I have been following this blog from the beginning and I mean the very beginning. She's an amazing writer and she's one of the first blogs I read in the morning. 

In my personal opinion her little girl is one of the cutest out there and I love how much she makes it on the blog. 

Say hello to Sallee from The Highly Educated Housewife-she's an amazing women in every way and I just happen to be married to her brother.

When I was deciding which blog I wanted to feature this week I knew it had to be Sallee's-not because she's my sister-in-law but because she is such an awesome blogger! She doesn't put on a "blogging show" to make it seem like she has the perfect life, she's very real-the person you read about on her blog is the real Sallee. Trust me, I would know.

I love it when she shares the awesome-and not so awesome-mommy moments. Her recent post Reality Bites-is perfection in every way because this is how Claire acts weather she's at home in San Diego or hanging out here in Utah.

And if your a reader you'll love the book club's she hosts every month. This month they are reading the amazingly beautiful but not in an obvious way Jane Eyre. One of my favorite books!

If you met Sallee in person you would realize that it's hard not to love her-and you get the same feeling when reading her blog. 

Do me a favor hope on over to The Highly Educated Housewife and just read the "About Me" section-do you get what I've been saying now? Even her about me section is amazing!

So if you've only have a few minutes or you have a few hours-take some time and check out Sallee's blog. You won't be disappointed. 

Oh and did I mention that Sallee and Claire are getting on a plane tomorrow afternoon bound for Salt Lake? Ya, we're pretty excited about it!

P.S. Can you believe it's the last weekend before Christmas? I'm not ready for it-I'll be busy trying to finish all my homemade gifts in the next few days so forgive me if I'm a little M.I.A. 

Tutorial Tuesday #34

I have no idea what is going on with blogger right now and why it's decided to delete a bunch of my pictures. It's SO frustrating! If there is one thing I can teach any other bloggers it would be to SAVE YOUR STUFF! I had read it on other blogs and didn't pay attention-now I'm stuck scrambling to find pictures I posted MONTHS ago so I don't have a bunch of exclamation points all over my pages.

Please bare with me as I try to put my site back together again without pulling my hair out! Because of this latest problem I'm seriously looking at switching to word press. I don't love the layout of word press but it just has less problems and blogger has been so frustrating! So morale of the story, save your stuff, I'm sorry that my site doesn't look great right now I'm working on it, and this blog may be making the switch pretty soon.

Thankfully I've got my best IT guy on it and Mojo is doing everything he can to figure it out.

In the meantime let's get started with Tutorial Tuesday-here's some of the fun posts from last week's holiday edition.

Homemade Glamour shared an amazing tutorial on how to make enough soup for a year-the best part? It only cost her $4! You have to read it to believe it!

Smallgood Hearth made this adorable vintage Bingo Advent Calendar-so cute! Pair that with book page ornaments, a burlap Christmas Tree skirt, and presents tied in brown shipping packages and you've got a gorgeous vintage Christmas!

The Elephants Trunk  shared a recipe for yummy looking potato rolls-we're big bread fans over here so I'm excited to try this recipe out with some red pepper soup later on this week.

Thanks to everyone who linked up last week. I just want to ask you guys a quick questions. When I started doing Tutorial Tuesday's I would just find awesome tutorials throughout blog land and share those instead of doing my own link party. 

So my question to you-would you like me to continue to have link parties where you can show off your stuff or would you like me to show off some awesome tutorials going on that week throughout blog-land?

Let me know your thoughts! I hope you all have a great Tuesday and keep creating awesome stuff! Don't forget to enter the 3 PART GIVEAWAY going on till Thursday. There are still really low entries which means you have a HUGE chance of winning-you can enter it {here}.

Now it's your turn-show off all the fun stuff you've been up to this week!

Cement Blocks and Christmas Decorations

Good Afternoon all (almost evening for some of you). Sorry this post is really late in the day-yesterday morning Mojo got hit by a really nasty bug and last night around 6 I got it as well. I'll spare you the dirty details...but it wasn't pretty.

So since I'm obviously not really feeling up to doing any crafting today I thought I'd share some of the fun Christmas decorations I've already got up.

Mojo and I bought this bookshelf for $5 from another person living in our complex. I've got some big plans for this baby after Christmas when I've got a little more money, but until then here it is all dressed up for Christmas.

The Happy Holidays sign and Skating Iceman I found last year at a local thrift store and the awesome antique books in the left hand corner? I got each of those for .25 at a book sale at my Universities library-it was such an awesome score!

I found that awesome printable on Pinterest-you can find it {here}. I bought the pine cones at the Dollar store because they smell like cinnamon-mmm sooo good! And I did the yarn-wrapped styrofoam balls myself, during the rest of the year they're part of my coffee table display but I thought they would look great with the pine cones for my holiday display.

After taking the pictures to show off my gallery wall Christmas decorations I realized that I never showed off my new gallery wall to you guys! The wall is still in the process of changing-remember when I said I was changing the whole color scheme of my living room? It's still under way-but a whole room transformation takes a long time on a $15 a month budget...

Anyway, here's my new (still being tweaked) gallery wall

(sorry for the grainy look-I'm still trying to figure out how to use this new camera :) )

Some of you will remember the Merry Christmas sign from my Christmas family pictures-you can check those out {here}. I stole the idea of hanging the stockings up on the cement wall from another family who lives in the Village-love it!

And to end it all-here's a picture of Mojo and I's very first Christmas tree being married!

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season this year and that you all stay healthy and well! I'm starting to feel better so I'll be up and crafting again tomorrow. 

If you haven't yet be sure to check out the amazing three part giveaway going on right now {here}!

P.S. Don't forget to come back for Tutorial Tuesday tomorrow which I promise will be up nice at early!

Link Parties:
Show Me What Ya Got
Take a Look Tuesdays
One Project at a Time
Show and Tell
Show and Share
Thrifty Decor Chick

Day 10-3 Part Giveaway

***************GIVEAWAY CLOSED***************************************

It's been 10 days of amazing guest bloggers getting us all excited for the Christmas season and I can't wait to share the fun giveaway I've got planned to end it all.

Have you ever taken the time to check out the amazing sponsor's Newlyweds on a Budget has? Their over there on the left hand side....

Well if not-here's your chance we have 3 different sponsor's participating in this giveaway today which means 1 person gets to win 3 amazing prizes.

First up we have Angie from Gathered and Sown. Angie has to most amazing handcrafted bags-each one is so unique and beautiful. 

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Angie is graciously offering one Newlyweds on a Budget reader a $15 credit to her shop-I'm sure you'll have a hard time choosing, all of her bags are amazing!

Next up we have the amazing and oh so talented Lindsay from Happy Potamus Designs. She is the brains behind my own amazing blog makeover! She was such a doll to work with and took all the elements I loved to make me this amazing blog design.

She has an impressive portfolio of the other blog's she's designed. 

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Lindsay has graciously offered a to give one lucky Newlyweds on a Budget reader a FULL blog design!! Such an awesome prize and worth quite a bit of money! And for those of you who don't have a blog don't worry, should you win Lindsay will create custom holiday cards for you to share this Christmas season.

And finally our third and final prize is from Hollie a Pampered Chef Consultant. I'm sure you all know what Pampered Chef is and are as excited about this as I am. I LOVE Pampered Chef! Mojo and I registered with Pampered Chef for our wedding and we are constantly using their stuff. 

Everything they make is the highest quality and comes with a lifetime guarantee. If you are a master chef in the kitchen or are just starting to learn the basics, Pampered Chef has something for you. 

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Hollie is offering our giveaway winner a $20 credit to Pampered Chef to go towards anything they want. And trust me-you'll have a hard time deciding, they offer hundreds of products!

Now you know the 3 awesome prizes up for grabs I'm sure your wondering what you have to do to win right?

Mandatory Entry:

1-Leave a comment telling me what your favorite Christmas tradition is in your family.

Optional Entries:

1-Visit Angie's Shop Gathered and Sown and come back and tell me what you would buy with your credit

2-Visit Lindsay's blog at Happy Potamus Designs and tell me what kind of style you would like your blog to have

3-Visit Hollie's Pampered Chef Site and tell me what you'd love to see under the Christmas Tree this year from Pampered Chef

4-Become a GFF or RSS follower of Newlyweds on a Budget (if you already are, leave a comment telling me so)

5-Like Newlyweds on a Budget on Facebook (if you already do-leave a comment letting me know)

6-Like Happy Potamus Designs on Facebook

7-Like Gathered and Sown on Facebook.

8-Share this giveaway via you blog, Facebook, or Twitter and leave a comment with the link

That gives you 9 chances of winning right there! The giveaway will end next Thursday, December 15th at Midnight MST. The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced on Friday, December 16th.

Thanks again to all the amazing bloggers who participated in our "10 Days of Christmas" series-you can check out everything they did {here}. Good Luck to all of you and I hope you've enjoyed our introduction to Christmas-now go enjoy the season!

Day 9-Peppermint Rice Krispies by Moi

Can you believe we only have 2 days left of the Christmas series? We have had some ah-mazing guest blogger's the last 8 days and I am so excited to share my tutorial along with them. If your new here-be sure to check out the other amazing guest bloggers {here}.

When trying to decide what I wanted to do for my holiday tutorial I thought of a lot of fun craft tutorials I could have done....but then I was reading one of my favorite food blogs-Our Best Bites-and I found this mouth-watering treat that I decided to do for our neighbor gifts this year.

Here is my version of Our Best Bite's peppermint Rice Krispies-yum!

Not pictured-Vegetable Oil and Butter, Opps :) 

Ingredients:

10.5 oz bag of Marshmallows
5-6 cups Rice Krispies
4 Tbs Butter
3 Tbs Semi-Sweet Chocolate
3 Tbs White Chocolate
1/2 Tsp Vegitable Oil (divided)
Red Food Coloring
A few drops of Peppermint Extract (or you can try to find peppermint marshmallows at the store-we didn't have any luck there so I just used peppermint extract)

First off be sure to cover your pan in aluminum foil and butter the foil so your treats will come off easily without sticking.

Melt your butter in a large bowl, add marshmallows and stir them until their fully coated. Then heat the marshmallows in 30 sec intervals until melted-I made mine in the microwave because I'm lazy like that.

When the Marshmallows are fully melted add a few drops of peppermint extract and the red food coloring. My first batch I did 1 tsp of red food coloring and it turned out super red-the second batch I didn't do quite as dark so it was a more pinkish red.

Once your Marshmallows are the color you want, add the Rice Krispies and make sure all the Rice Krispies are fully covered. Then spread them into your pan (I used a 9x13 and a cookie sheet).

In two separate bowls put the white and semi-sweet chocolate and 1/4 tsp of the oil in each bowl. Melt in the microwave 30 seconds at a time until fully melted.

Once melted add a few drops of peppermint extract and then using a spoon drizzle the chocolate all over the pan-don't be shy, put a lot of chocolate on there, it's delicious!

They taste fantastic and I can't wait to hand them out to all the amazing people we've met while living in the Village.

Thank to everyone who has participated thus far in our "10 Days of Christmas"-be sure to tune in for tomorrow....I've got an awesome surprise set up for you all!

Be sure to check out the other amazing guest bloggers {here}.

Day 8: Christmas Wreaths with Stacy from Not JUST a Housewife

If you haven't met Stacy yet-you are really missing out. She has an amazing blog, Not JUST a Housewife-where she has awesome giveaways and fun DIY tutorials. I'm a huge fan of Stacy's and she is on my daily read list so you can imagine my excitement when she said she would participate in my holiday series-Squeal! 


So without further ado here is the beautiful and oh-so talented Stacy!

I am happy to be guest posting here today! I am going to share with you how I made some easy wreaths last year :)

I bought 3 wreaths at the dollar store. They had bigger ones but because of where I was going to put them I needed them to be a little on the small side. I had pine cones from our backyard and I always have craft wire on hand. I used scraps of fabric. I ripped them into strips about 1 inch wide.

I tied the fabric on. I love the look of the rough edges.

Then I took craft wire and put it around the pine cone and then around the wreath and twisted it so the pine cone would stay on.

I used another strip of fabric to hang the wreath.

I tied it to the wire frame on the back.

I normally have frames hanging here with pictures of the kids but I love these so much I am tempted to keep them up all year! They match my front room decor (did you notice they matched my rug?) so I could totally get away with it.

These wreaths are so cute and a great way to decorate for Christmas on a Budget. Thanks Stacy for sharing these with us! We've had some amazing guest bloggers the past eight days and you can check them all out {here}. Don't forget we've got an awesome giveaway you wont want to miss coming up on Friday as the perfect way to end our holidays series.

I just wanted to make you all aware of an amazing opportunity Stacy had recently to nominate a military family to receive a $20,000 home makeover from The Home Depot. The family she chose is amazing and she needs your help to vote for this family so that they can win their dream makeover. To learn more about this amazing family and how you can help go {here}.

Let's all join together to help this family get an amazing Christmas present this year!