Making a House a Home

About a week or so ago I was inspired by Compass, a technologically savvy real estate company based in NYC, from a new project they began entitled Starter Stories. 

The project is about bloggers sharing stories where they are/were starting out in a home, apartment, wherever, and how to make that place your own.

I wanted to participate, but didn't know where I would start or what I would share. I had lots of ideas floating around that were how-to's and DIY's, but one project from our past stuck out in my mind.

Since being married, my husband and I have moved 7 times so far.

Each place we have been in we have tried to make 'our own', but we weren't at most of those places long enough to do too much.

I'm so glad this project got me thinking though, because I started looking through old pictures and it brought back so many wonderful memories of our first home.

Here is a picture of our home on the left during building, and on the right was 5 years later when we put it up for sale.

We accomplished so many things in this home, and really made it our own, but one of our biggest accomplishments was this built-in entertainment center.

My husband and I had been married for about 9 months when we found this new community being developed.

No-Sew Quiet Book: Barn and Finger Puppets

We're making it through all of our quiet book pages.
After this one I will only have two more to post, so stay tuned!

I think this page one was my favorite one to make, I love the little animals hiding :) 

I had been thinking about making a 'barn page' for a while, I just didn't know what else I wanted to do with it.

I was originally going to make some animals and have a place for my son to velcro them on, but it somehow turned into finger puppets instead, and I am loving them!

Making the puppets is pretty easy, I have included some pictures below so you can kind of see how they came together.

DIY Magnet Board

Years ago I worked at a doctors office and in the waiting room there was an area for kids with a magnet board around the whole wall.

Ever since then I have wanted to make something like that for my kids.

Yes folks, this idea came before the days of Pinterest.

Gasp!  :)

As always, I've got lots of pictures for you on how this all came together!

(Sorry the pictures aren't the best quality, I used my phone for all of them. I know, I know...)

So here's a quick run-down of the supplies and where I got everything.

Quiet Book: Counting beads

I posted my Quiet book: Garden page a few days ago, and now I am back with another one!

Just so you know, I was originally going to combine all of the 'pages' together, but I think I like having each 'page' separate so my kids can play with different ones. 

Anyways, on to the tutorial!

(As with the previous page, this counting page is a no-sew version).

So as before, I used scrap pieces of felt that I already had in my stash.