March Photo A Day Challenge Recap

I said in this post at the beginning of March that on I was going to do the March photo a day challenge on Instagram. I really enjoyed capturing the everyday stuff of life through this little challenge.  

The month started with "Up"on that beautiful first day of the month. 

2- Fruit {So thankful for so many fruit stands right outside our door}

3- Your Neighborhood {a little atypical, but we love it}

4- Bedside {nice & tidy}

5- A Smile {my favorite one these days}

6- 5pm {delicious coffee & american treats with visiting friends}

7- Something You Wore {still in a puffy coat, glittons, fuzzy hat & warm scarf with 3 long sleeve layers & long johns under my jeans because it was still THAT cold on March 7th}

8- Window {in flight}

9- Red {flags}

10- Loud {we've got a lot of these around here}

11- Some You Talked To Today {he's pretty good company}

12- Fork{our version}

13- A Sign {no shortage of good ones around here. all these are on the street outside of our house}

14- Clouds {glorious}

15- Car {closest thing to having our own here. a stinky smokey taxi in the middle of a traffic jam}

16- Sunglasses {we made a long stretch where I didn't think I would ever need them again}

17- Green {bull-frogs for sale in the meat section at Wal-Mart}

18- A Corner of Your Home {These 2 went hand-in-hand for a while during our dryer's trip to the repair man}

19- Funny {English translations, specifically on the cover of notebooks never cease to be quite funny}

20- Before/After {delicious iced caramel mocha}

21- Delicious {fruity pebble rice krispie treats}

22- Kitchen Sink {with lots of dirty dishes to be hand washed}

23- Moon {classic}

24- An Animal {lots of funny little street dogs that run around here}

25- Breakfast {sausage, egg, & cheese biscuits & grape juice}

26- Key {just 1 to unlock our bomb shelter door}

27- Your Name {staking claim to my water on the tervis}

28- Trash {One man's is another's treasure around here. Nothing goes to waste}

29- Feet {love this guy's chubby little ones}

30- Toy {my favorite little neighborhood buddy showing me his new one}

31- Where You Relax {with my feet socking hot water with lots of goo before getting a leg massage. This was my 2nd one in 2 days. They cost $3.}

Here are some other snapshots from the month. 

- A beautiful first day for our visitors at the beginning of March

- Marissa & I enjoying a beautiful day in the park

- One of the cutest babies I yet to find here. How darling are those little lips?

- A pretty Great Wall

The week after they left..

- We celebrated Hannah's 25th birthday over a tasty lunch 

- Followed by a fun dinner of Hot Pot with friends {complete with blood tofu}

- The weather improved significantly & all of the farmers selling meat & vegetables made their way back outside of our house.

- Couldn't get enough of that sunshine coming through the windows. 

- I found this cute coffee shop with some friends when I went to visit another city & enjoyed a relaxing afternoon there

- Eve sent Cadbury Cream Eggs & I've enjoyed every last one. 

- Dinner of XiaoKao on the street

- Soaking up the sunshine on a beautiful "no temperature" day

And finally, I was so excited to see that here in East Asia, we also celebrated Oreo's 100th birthday with these DELICIOUS cake batter Oreos. Yuuuummy. 

I hope you had a wonderful March and that the first week of April has been even better!

Joyfully Documented, 

My Spring Mantle

I love decorating for spring. So many possibilities.... Lots of bright colors, flowers, anything happy.... so i was pretty pumped to use all of those things for my spring mantle. 

I wanted to use as much fabric as possible.

SO I used embroidery hoops, and covered glasses with fabric for vases filled with the fabric flowers I made last year. {More on the vases later}

I also covered a small drinking glass in the polka dot fabric trimmed with ribbon to make a little votive. 

Once again, I used the yarn S. For our last name AND for spring.  

For the tabletop, I used little things from around the house. 

I think I've used this frame for printables for every season. 

I found this spring one here. I like that it's nice & simple. To contrast it, I used this springy scrapbooking paper to matte it. 

And to go along with it, I used my favorite little bird & nest from America. 

 I used the yarn wrapped bottle I made in the fall with a silk daisy from IKEA in it, and filled this vase with my random knick-knack orbs that I made last year. 

It's a hodgepodge of stuff, but I like it. 

Quite colorful and happy. 

{the pictures are so grainy.... our apartment is long & skinny, and only has windows on 2 ends & this is smack dab in the middle with terrible lighting. still trying to figure out the best way to take them without a flash, so either the ISO is really high (grainy) or the shutter speed is too low (blurry). i'll figure it out sooner or later.}

Joyfully Springy,

Linking up over at: {I Heart Naptime}{C.R.A.F.T.}