We had a productive/crafty weekend around here…finally!

First up, we got around to switching out some lighting around ye ‘ol house. I was positively giddy on Saturday after our new friend Mike hung four different fixtures and put in a bunch of dimmer switches for me.

My mostest, favoritest, bestest new fixture is the kitchen. It is so very pretty.

See the old fixture there in the foreground. Blech…but look at the new shiny pretty one! It has an Edison filament bulb in it, which regrettably doesn’t give off much light, but I don’t care. It really looks so nice. Let’s look again from another angle, shall we?

It is my favorite room, but I think the award for the biggest change goes to the dining room. This is the um…chandelier (?) that we had before. It is brass/glass/out-dated and just a little too busy for our room. As you can see…we have a lot of architecture and details, we needed simple – but a lot of light because it is a huge room.

And so we found this one. Love.

I’ll have to take a better shot of it tomorrow…but trust me, it is a huge improvement. Simple, elegant – goes with the style of the house with a bit of a modern twist. Love, love, love it!

But, enough with the house stuff…it is Valentine’s Day after all!

Thankfully the girls both wanted the same valentines for school…and I got a free download over here – plus they were simple assembly. Score all around.

I also “borrowed” this idea that I found on Pinterest and made these little Valentine candles for our mantle.

I didn’t have a book that I could sacrifice, so I used some scrapbook paper that worked just as well. I’ll light them tonight for our romantic dinner-in with the girlies. 😉

And I put together a birthday gift this weekend. My sewing machine was so happy to see me (and I was just as excited to visit it!).

This is for our sweet little Elizabeth who turned 3 last week! It is a placemat…

Flip it over, it is a chalkboard mat…

And roll it up, it is portable for fun on the go…

I’m not going to promise anything, but I might be making more of these, so maybe I can take photos and tutorial it soon. (Again…no promises!)

And with that…I’m off to some more house projects! What crafty goodness do you have for us this week?