2013 |

Since we’re already over a week into the new year, I thought it would be good time to share my New Year’s Resolutions.

This year, BJ and are planning to take a step back from going, going, going and focus a little more time on ourselves as well as the smaller projects that have been on the back burner for some time.

So here is my list of 2013 New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Develop a weekly routine for BJ and myself.

BJ and I struggle with trying to get on a schedule each week. We are hoping that if we develop a consistent weekly routine, we can get a grasp on our morning and evening schedules and that will help us get more sleep, which we desperately need.

2. Develop a weekly meal plan.

This is another “routine” that BJ and I struggle with, as I’m sure many couples do. You get home each night and think “what’s for dinner?” Then, if you can’t decide, you go get fast food, order a pizza, or go out to eat. BJ and I constantly fall into the “I’m hungry now so let’s do something easy” trap.

Instead of worrying about dinner each night, we are going to plan out our meals on Sunday morning so we can make sure we have all the ingredients we need. If we are missing any ingredients we will add them to our grocery list for the week.

A sub set to this resolution is that we are going to try to buy less junk food. If we have our meals already planned out for the week, we will be less likely to eat junk until we decide what we what for dinner.

3. Update the look and feel of FramebyFrameStyle.com

One of my personal goals this year is to give Frame By Frame Style a fresh look. This includes a new logo, updated photo tags and visual upgrades throughout the site. Stayed tuned to see the changes as they happen!

4. Focus more time on smaller home improvement and DIY projects.

Since we moved into our house in 2010, we’ve made a few major upgrades. We added a kitchen island, installed in ceiling speakers and crown molding in the kitchen and living room, and we tiled the floor in the dining room.

Now it’s time to focus on the small projects around the house like organizing the laundry room.

As we make minor upgrades around the house, I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

5. Organize our closet space around the house

Our closets have been overtaken by stuff. Some of it we plan on keeping, some we just don’t know what to do with. This year, it’s time to take back our closet space and start giving/throwing away items we do not need.

So that’s my list!

Happy 2013 everyone! Here’s to sticking to our goals and making this the best year yet. Good luck with all of your resolutions.

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and a very Happy New Year. We’ve enjoyed the last week by spending time with family and friends.

I wanted to circle back to one of the Pinterest-inspired Christmas gifts mentioned here. Our second Pinterest-inspired Christmas gift was a set of DIY Scrabble tile coasters.

Here’s the Pinterest pin that inspired our Scrabble coaster Christmas gift:

To put our scrabble coasters together, I bought three Scrabble games. Two of which I bought on a Black Friday sale for $7, and the third game I bought on sale for $8, plus I had a $2 coupon, making it $6.

Before we started assembling the coasters, we spelled out beverage-related words with the tiles. The trick: words should be four letters to make sure your coasters are square.

Once we came up with the words, we started arranging related words together. We ended up only using two of the Scrabble games, but in order to make more four word coasters, it probably would’ve taken all three games.

For some of the coasters we came up with four four-letter words, for the others, we arranged two four letter words that shared one common letter.

To fill in the extra space on the two word tiles, we flipped the extra letter titles that were left over and used them as blank tiles.

Next, we super glued the tiles together and then sprayed them with a clear enamel like this one:

We used cork as the backing for the tiles. I found this role of cork in the school supplies section of Target.

We unrolled the cork and let it rest on the counter for a few days. We also placed bowls on the cork to help flatten it out.

Once the cork was flat enough to use and our tiles had a chance to dry, we measured the cork and cut it to fit each tile square.

For the last step, we placed the cork backing on each tile with Scotch double-sided tape. You can also use glue.

We stacked the coasters up and put something heavy (like a book or pot) on the tiles to ensure the tape had time to set up and achieve good contact to the tiles.

And there you have it.

Now for the finished product: