Ciao! Some various tidbits about me… My name is April Starr, and I want to learn and laugh everyday! Foremost I’m a Christian, then wife & mama. Farther down the list: artist, blogger, lover of spicy food, amateur explorer and worth very little in the early mornings. I hope I never lose my sense of wonder and that someday I’ll be a morning person. (I’m guessing the first is a lot more likely than the second.) I’m 27, married to my love, Tim, and so far we have one daughter who is 4. If you ask my daughter to impersonate … Read more

Time for week 3 of the adventure-a-week challenge! This week’s adventure is a little bit different and at first glance might not seem as obvious as an adventure. However, it did certainly feel like an adventure to my little one! 🙂 And it fits all the rules as outlined in the first post. Specifically, that it must be enjoyable, but doesn’t necessarily have to be entertainment based. I think we do ourselves and our kids a discredit if we think that enjoyment needs to always come in the form of entertainment. The entertainment industry tries to pump that into us, … Read more

Boring is not on the menu of my life. This is all about making home a more flourishing place – no more ho-hum, let’s do extraordinary! Let’s turn off the tv, and turn on life. Let’s go exploring, let’s experiment in the kitchen, let’s play, let’s flourish! I’m April and with my husband Tim, we are journeying through life, growing and learning together, raising a family, and above all trying to serve God. I want to make my home a place full of love and laughter, a haven for our family to learn and grow together. Does this mean we … Read more

As I mentioned in my launch post on Monday, I’m planning to continue my “Seek the things above” series on Wednesdays, which I started last week. I generally read my Bible everyday, but I’m trying to do better about spending more time actually *studying* my Bible, not just reading it. Writing these posts will be helpful to me to have a specific goal of study, and hopefully will be helpful to others. I welcome comments of course, but if you ever have a question or disagreement that you don’t feel comfortable posting in the comments, please feel free to drop … Read more

Time for week 3 of the adventure-a-week challenge! This week’s adventure is a little bit different and at first glance might not seem as obvious as an adventure. However, it did certainly feel like an adventure to my little one! 🙂 And it fits all the rules as outlined in the first post. Specifically, that it must be enjoyable, but doesn’t necessarily have to be entertainment based. I think we do ourselves and our kids a discredit if we think that enjoyment needs to always come in the form of entertainment. The entertainment industry tries to pump that into us, … Read more

Hello everybody! Tim the Husband here to introduce a new weekly feature on the Flourishing Abode. Every week at work I have to fax an RTW form to our warehouse, which isn’t even as exciting as it sounds. One day a few months ago I added some stick figures at the bottom of the page just to fill the void and to add an element of interest. Without intending to, these little drawings became cartoons and the cartoons became a pretty regular feature on my faxes. April asked me to share some of them here. They’re nothing special, but I … Read more

Well, it’s time for the final post of the Adventure-a-Week Challenge! It’s been such a fun project over the last several weeks. You can see a list of all the Adventure-a-Week posts here. (If you’re reading this in an email or reader and can’t see the video above, just click here .. the video is where the substance of this week’s challenge is! Plus there’s some new stop motion video, as well as the announcement for what the next challenge will be, now that the adventure challenge is over!) Below, is the set of Bingo printables – I’ve created 6 … Read more

I’m soooo excited! This is the beginning of the DIY blog design makeover series (which I’ve really been looking forward to!) where I’ll be taking one person’s blog and doing a 10-part complete redesign, makeover and transfer to WordPress — and giving tutorials and tips, as a graphic designer, on how to do your own blog makeover as well. I hope that any of you who are bloggers as well will find it helpful- at the end of this post there is a free printable worksheet, as pictured above, which I have made to help you start down this road. … Read more

Well, this past week was week one of my Adventure a Week Challenge, and I think we are off to a great start!  I made an illustrated free printable, and its available at the end of the post, for anyone else who would like to do this scavenger hunt adventure, so be sure not to miss it: Pin It When I first mentioned to my four year old daughter that we were going to have an adventure a week, she was thrilled. I told her we might do a nature scavenger hunt, and she said, “Ooooh, how about a pirate … Read more

Well, it’s the last week of the upcycling hack-challenge! The project for this week is an idea that Tim heard of a while back, and we were hoping to get to do at some point in the series, and luckily we found out a couple days ago that we would be able to get our hands on an old metal basin from a washing machine – just in time! 🙂 These metal basins make excellent fire pits because of the holes all over them, which allow in plenty of air and help keep a fire going strong with very little … Read more