Front Porch Season-- My Happy Place

It's that time of year again, time for me to bombard all my social media accounts with pictures of my front porch. I love my front porch, it is honestly one of my favorite places in the whole wide world.

It isn't fancy or full of expensive furniture, but it makes me so happy. Some of my porch feels inspired by Pinterest and some of it feels inspired by just loving being outside and being with my family. It is filled with beat up old chairs my mother-in-law gave me to refinish (which I never refinished or updated), a table we made out of a door we found (click here for the door to table story), a bench my great grandfather made for my grandmother and books and dogs and kids and sunshine (when we're lucky).

We eat as many meals as we can on the porch.

We play games on the font porch.

We say our goodbyes and hellos on the front porch.

We crochet on the front porch.

We read on the front porch.

We totally relax on the front porch.

We say hi to neighbors, watch the kids play in the front yard, and listen to good music on the front porch.

And occasionally I drink wine on the front porch.

The front porch is my happy place. I feel safe and so full there--peaceful, grateful.

Follow along this summer on Instagram (@JumpingWithMyFingersCrossed) using the hashtag #FrontPorchChronicles. 

Do you love your front porch? Or do you have another space where you feel happy? Did Pinterest inspire your style or did your style inspire Pinterest? Share your stories and pictures here in the comments or over on my Facebook page.  And come follow me on Pinterest.

Pom Poms, A Pinterest Poser Challenge

I've seen some cool places this summer, but nothing beats my front porch.  I love my front porch.  It's not fancy.  It's the front porch of our not-so-nice, plain, brown rental house.  It may not be fancy, but it's really my favorite place in the world.  

We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner on our front porch starting in late spring until it gets too cold in late fall.  We have family meetings and games on our front porch.  We read, we talk, we hang out, we celebrate on our front porch.

Last week we celebrated the first day of the last year of Tim's third decade. 

I love when I find them just hanging out together talking.
It is simply the best.

Reading with my girl.

Last year, we made our beloved door table.  This year, I added a few very cheap decorations which happen to be this week's Pinterest Poser Challenge.*

In an attempt at not being a Pinterest Poser,** every week I attempt and detail a project/idea/recipe inspired by Pinterest.
**My definition of a Pinterest Poser is someone who is all pins and no substance.  


Inspired by the folks over on the blog A Beautiful Mess, I made a tissue pom pom garland.  

I already had the tissue paper and the twine.  So, I put the Gypsy Kings Pandora channel on and started making my decoration.   

We had all kinds of craft projects going on on the porch that day.

I simply cut out small-ish squares of tissue paper (approximately 10-15 squares), stacked them and tied a piece of twine around the middle.  I then spread out the tissue paper and formed it into a ball.  I tied each tissue paper ball to a long piece of twine and then hung it above my windows with two pieces of completely un-fancy silver duct tape.

I love the pop of color it brings and how it makes every day feel like a party.

Have you made anything inspired by Pinterest lately? Share it here or on my Facebook page.  

A Delightfully Simple Birthday Party--click here
Make An Awesome Omelette--click here
Outdoor Lights Inspired by the show Parenthood- click here
Herb Garden with Chalboard Pots- click here
Backyard Graffiti Art with kids- click here
Happiness Notecards- click here

Gluten Free Rainbow Cake- click here

Fruit Roll-Up Fortune Cookies- click here

Make Your Own Magnets- click here

DIY Painted Clay Necklace- click here

Dixie Cup Lights- click here

DIY Ornaments-click here

Gluten Free Clay- click here

Make Your Own Stamps- click here
Birthday Shirt- click here
Gluten Free Pop Tarts- click here
Front Porch Kid Art Display- click here
Door turned into Table- click here

Summer Wish List Chalkboard-click here

Peanut Butter Nutella Cookie Sandwiches-click here

Painted Mason Jar Vases-click here

Cinco de Mayo Paper Flowers- click here
Earth Day Cupcakes- Click here
Nail Art-click here

Homemade Photo Booth Fun- click here

Fake Bangs- click here

DIY Subway Art- click here

Furniture Painting and Bench/Chest Makeover- click here

Thanksgiving-y Project/Gratitude/Holiday Countdown- click here
The Smoothie-click here

The Free Printable Turned Artwork in a Boring Hallway- click here

The chalk board-click here
Seven Layer Dip in Individual Cups (my favorite so far!)-click here
The pumpkin address-click here
The Kitchen Dancing Sign--click here

  Head on over and follow my Pinterest boards-click here!

Oh yeah, and come follow me on Twitter @AngelaYBlood and subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

Front Porch Chronicles

It's the end, the end of summer.  Our summer has been filled with so many ups and downs.  Looking back, the center of our summer story is our front porch.  Here is that story or what I like to call our Front Porch Chronicles.  On Memorial Day, Tim built a table out of a door to use on our front porch.  This table brought our porch to life like it was full of magic. 

We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner on this door that is now a table on our front porch.  Rain or shine, it was where we ate. 

We read books on our front porch.  I sobbed my way through the end of Where the Red Fern Grows (no spoiler alert, but damn, if you are the least bit sensitive be prepared) and started the Harry Potter series on our porch.

We played and played and played....
Hours of Rummikub.

And make-believe.

And a little bit of Monopoly.

I think it probably says a lot about me (and my disinterest in buying and selling) that I make up the rules to this game to make it more fun.

And Barbies.

We consoled and comforted, loved and supported each other on our front porch.  

We made big decisions (like keeping our puppy).  Grown ups had serious talks alone on the front porch about how much money could and would be spent on big stuff (like the puppy).  Kids had "time outs" on the porch when they hit their brothers or used the wrong tone to a grown up.  And did I mention we ate, a lot, on the porch?

Birthdays, friendship and anniversaries were celebrated on the porch with cake and presents and parties.

And since the front porch is our front porch, um, well there was music and there was dancing.

If we weren't watching the kids playing baseball together in the front yard, we were watching the major league players on TV through our window.  

We got stronger. We talked about our future, you know like middle school and fourth grade and football games and new friends and what that all looks like.  

We built things and figured things out.  Yeah, sometimes it was just banging nails into a piece of wood for the hell of it, but it felt good and we were together.

Being together, that's why it was our happy place, our home base.  That was the magic.  Our whole life was on that front porch.  

It wasn't this perfect-looking space, impeccably decorated with expensive pillows and candles.  

This banner is made of paper and taped to the siding with packing tape.  When it would get too humid the paper would curl up and the tape would lose all stickiness.  We just got more tape and back up the paper banner went.

If you look closely, you will see it's all kinds of imperfect.  The wicker chairs are broken but we still use them, we had an ant invasion twice, too many bees sometimes and it was always littered with sports equipment.  But the magic still happened.  

                    

"If we move, I want to build a porch just like this wherever we go," Lucy said at one point in the summer.  

"Oh you know it honey," I told her.  
You better believe we are taking this kind of front porch/door turned into a table/happy family  magic with us wherever we go, forever and always.

Here's where else we were this summer...

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