Monday, January 12, 2015

Hitting the re-start button and welcoming 2015!

2014 was a crazy year for me. It had some up points but over all it was one stress filled year! I welcomed my Hubby home from deployment number 2, moved 3 times, had a lot of personal decisions to make about my future that were all accompanied by a lot of stress and on top of that I had some personal health issues that were not fun to deal with. Well now that it's 2015 and I have done the typical New Years reflection and have found that non of my 2014 goals were met! Partially because of the things listed above but mostly because of me. So...I have decided that this year is the year I make my goals achievable. 

My goals for 2015 are to not judge myself so harshly. In order to help me do that I want to get back to my yoga practice where I feel calm and centered. This feeling resonates into the rest of my life when I am actively doing yoga. It inspires me to take the time to enjoy life's beautiful moments and live in the present.I feel if I can get back to that I will judge less and enjoy more.  

In the process of being less judgmental about where I am in my life and what I am doing I have also decided that its truly time to throw myself back into this blog! I started it as a way to share myself with the world and it quickly became a place where I constantly judged myself because I was so worried about how I would come off. Well no more! I am over my writers block/self shaming and I am here to share and hopefully inspire. 

Below I have re-posted my first blog post about why I started this blog in the first place. I hope your read it, I know its lengthy but I hope when you read it that you get inspired too to hit the re-set button on a past project you put aside and never completed. Happy 2015 everyone and welcome back! 

Creatively Yours, 
Christina Marie

Back story on my passion for projects and why I created this blog

If you were to ask my Mom she would say "I'm my fathers child" because this passion to make things and the ability to visualize my projects started at a young age and it mirrors my Pops way of thinking. See my Pop, who is not so much a Mr. fix-it as he is a Mr. build it, taught me a lot about tools and not because he felt he had to... but because I would wander down into his wood shop in the basement and ask to help him. I started out learning how to use a good old fashion nail and hammer, then his belt sander and hand sander. By the time I was 10 I also knew how to use a table saw, jig saw and drill press. He always had neat little tricks to teach and he owns about every wood working tool you could ever want. He and I never actually didn't build furniture together but I helped him build shelves, shed doors and bird houses. He did however built me beautiful doll furniture when I was a child... but it was always a Christmas surprise so I never got to help out on those projects. 

Me and the man responsible for the maddnes...My Pop! 

Once I became a teen and through my college years, I didn't have the time or the need for all this wood working stuff. Except my college roomate use to call me "the husband" because I was the only girl in the house that owned and knew how to properly use a power drill LOL. But it wasn't until I got  married and my hubby and I moved away to our first duty station, that I realized we had no furniture! What I found at the affordable chain stores I absolutely hated! I loved the look of hard wood and old vintage furniture but most of the time I couldn't afford the finished pieces... So the wheels started turning, the tools came back out and the madness began! The other part of this is that as a military family we move... A LOT! My hubby and I were young when we started out and like I said, we had no furniture! What we did have was not great. Most of it was old stuff from family and friend that had been handed down...even today we still have a lot of "college" furniture in our house but most of it I have re-purposed or fixed up. I am slowly going through room by room, piece by piece and customizing and re-doing a lot of our old things. The hard part is you can't always paint walls, tile floors or do custom built in cabinets when you are in a rental unit...so I started having to tweak my ideas in order to have a "design to go" as I call it. The idea behind this is that you make custom pieces of furniture and decorate with accents that can travel with you. That way no matter where you are these pieces make the space your in feel like home.

Since we first moved 5 years ago I started slowly dabbling in projects and in the last year I have really started creating my own little identity with refinishing furniture and using salvaged finds around the house. In the few past year, since I've really started going to town on projects, many of my wonderful friends and family have ask for tips or advice. Which is how I got turned on to the idea of starting a blog. But what really pushed me over the edge to start sharing my ideas is the constant support of my wonderful family especially the encouragement from my amazing husband! 

Me and My Hubby

I'm lucky that my husband supports me in my crazy never ending ideas. He often jumps in to lend a helping hand with the building and manual labor. He painted homes professionally every year during his summer breaks from college. So luckily for me I have a great painter on my hands! (Did I mention that he dreads the day we actually buy a home in fear that I will make him paint every room in the house...which will probably happen LOL) But together we make a great team and we are slowly building our house (no matter where it may be) into our home. Yes even if it has white walls! 

This blog is a special place for me to share my creative ideas and design oriented mind with the world. I hope it will also help inspire all of you to slowly make your house into a home simply by putting your own creativity and elbow grease into it. Because like I always say, life is what you make it, so why not make it beautiful and your very own.  

Creatively Yours, 
~Christina Marie

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