Kickin' Brass with Habitat ReStore

Habitat for Humanity ReStore is one of my favorite places to find project materials, they sell new and salvaged building supplies with the proceeds benefiting local Habitat for Humanity home construction. I always feel good about buying from ReStore because it's a way to support the Habitat mission while also keeping materials out of the landfill and saving on cost - it's a win-win-win!

Image Source: Habitat For Humanity Omaha ReStore

A couple months back, Tracie from Habitat reached out to me about collaborating on some posts. We decided to meet for coffee and immediately hit it off; she's crafty, I'm crafty, 'nuff said! Eventually, we got onto the subject of the light fixtures available at ReStore. I've purchased and re-vamped several over the years, including the fixtures in our dining room and bedroom. So, the ReStore has a ton of slightly dated fixtures that just need a crafty touch and we thought it might be fun to paint a bunch of them as a way to show their potential and spark customers' imaginations. 

Last Sunday, we met up with a group of volunteers and "Kicked Brass" for a few hours. It was a lot of work, but our volunteers were such fun go-getters! We assembled and dusted fixtures, hung them up, (Shout out to Negil and Patrick for cleverly rigging wires!) and went to town with spray paint.

Don't those fixtures look fab?! I think the red is my favorite! There are still several available at both Omaha locations and a bunch of colors to choose from. Stop by and scoop one up! I had so much fun with this project, and I really can't say enough good things about the folks at Habitat. I also wanted to let everyone know that I volunteered to teach a craft night at the ReStore later this summer. I don't have the date pinned down yet, but I'll share the details on Facebook as soon as I know. I'm really looking forward to it and I hope if you live in the area you'll come out and join us! 

Back from Vacation!

I haven't posted in almost a month, yikes! We had an fantastic time in Florida, but I didn't realize a vacation would mean a pause in projects for the week leading up to and the week following it. Next time (is it too early to start planning our next vacation?!), I want to avoid a big gap by having at least one pre-scheduled post. I'm chomping at the bit to finish a project or two, but I also can't stop reminiscing about our vacation...sigh!

We spent most of the week enjoying Disney World, but we also had a "Beach Day" at Fort De Soto Park, which was the highlight of our trip, hands down. The park is located two hours southwest of Disney, near Saint Petersburg. It's very quiet and family friendly (it's a dry park, so that probably helps a lot), admission is only five dollars per car and parking is free. They also have neat mid-century concession buildings picnic shelters, and showers.We set up camp at The North Beach, renting an umbrella and two chairs for twenty dollars from a friendly park employee. The white sand beach and clear, nearly-still water was so beautiful! I took about million photos.

For lunch, we enjoyed hot dogs, fries and snow cones at the concession stand. They also sell a few beach necessities like t-shirts and sunscreen; I bought a plastic bucket and shovel for the kids to use for sand castle building. Around two, the water started to get a little choppy and we'd had our fill of sunshine, so we packed up and headed out, arriving back at our hotel just in time for Happy Hour.

This was B's first trip to the beach and we can't wait to go back! Have you visited Fort De Soto or another family friendly beach nearby?