Friend card.

Morning everyone!  Hope you had a nice weekend.  We had a rainy day Saturday and it was perfect!  I'm ready for slightly cooler fall temperatures and a few cloudy days here and there.  I don't want EVERY day to be like that, just a few ;)  Mike got tickets from a customer to go to the American Royal Rodeo Saturday, lived here all my life and I've never been.  It was pretty cool.  We had a great time!  On Sunday, I spent the day  cleaning, deep cleaning not my normal daily cleaning I've doing, and hanging out with Mike and the girls :)

Today I wanted to share with you a card that has been sitting on my desk for a couple of weeks, unfinished.  I had everything on it, but the sentiment.  I just wasn't sure how to finish it off.  Then it struck me to stamp a sentiment in the middle of the journaling card.  Genius, right?  Haha!  So I found the perfect sentiment, thought I would use black ink, so it would show up, and then I was immediately unhappy with the results.  I feel like the bottom line isn't clear enough and I really wish I would have used a different color of ink.  I'm also wondering if the font isn't appropriate for the style of card...

I really liked the way this card was BEFORE the sentiment and now I just like it okay.  Ha!  I'll just make a more awesome one next time!

Thanks for popping in for a minute today.  Abie has volleyball tonight so it's a quick dinner and then off we go.  Speaking of dinner, you see how I did that there?  I've been working on a meal planning notebook, post later this week, and I'm thinking about doing some freezer meals.  Do any of you do this?  Right now, we'll cook some things on the weekend and then reheat later in the week if we need something fast, but I'm wondering about the freezer thing.  Would LOVE your input!

Have a beautiful Monday friends!  See you tomorrow!

Baby card.

Hey there! Sorry to go missing on you for a few days, but this is one of those weeks when life had gotten in the way.

I did want to stop in and post a quick card I made Monday night for Abie's volleyball coach who just had a baby last week.

I was going for a banner look here and then realized I didn't really have any banner die cuts. Hmm, must go shopping. Haha!

I won't be around tomorrow, but I should be back at it on Monday. Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have beautiful weekend!

Fall lantern

Happy Friday!!! I'm so glad I decided to wait and post this today because it actually feels like fall today! The lady couple of days it's been in the 90's, but a storm moved through last night and it is nice and cool this morning!

A few weeks ago I picked up a couple of lanterns on clearance at Michaels for $2.50 apiece!  I looked up some ideas on Pinterest and this is what I came up with up.

I have one sitting on our kitchen table and the other is in our downstairs bathroom.

Any plans this weekend? We might be working on our deck... The dog is having daily parties under there so we are working on a solution to keep him OUT! I have several crafty projects on the agenda as well.

Thanks for dropping in today. Have a fantastic Friday and a lovely weekend. See you soon!

Lunch box notes

Happy weekend eve!! For as slow as last week was, this week is flying by foot me!!

My youngest loves to take her lunch to school and I love to put notes in her lunch box, but the start of this school year snuck up on me and I didn't have a stash ready to go. So imagine hire horrible I felt when she came to me and said, "mommy, why don't you put notes in my lunch anymore?". Aaahhh!!!!

I whipped up a couple to get me through, and thought I would share with you just how quick and easy they can be.

I made these in the perfect lunch box size, 3x6, added some washi and a card stock stickers. Bam, done!  Probably took me longer to write this post. Haha!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you'll come by tomorrow. I have a fun fall decoration I whipped up with a great clearance find!! Have a fabulous Thursday!

Polka dot gift card holder.

I'm happy to say I slept great last night!! Feeling refreshed today and so glad it's already Tuesday too!

Abie had a birthday party on Sunday afternoon, as usual, I put off making the gift card holder until the last minute. The friend is not a "Kraft bag" kind of friend. So I dug through my stash and found these polka dot bags I bought, actually for Halloween treat bags.

I thought it turned out perfect with just a bit of washi and some sequins!

I've got bug plans this afternoon people. Unloading the dishwasher and vacuuming! Jealous, right? ;). Thanks for stopping in today and I'll see you tomorrow!!

A simple layout.

Good Monday morning everyone. I had a rough night last night falling asleep and then a thunderstorm moved in, which was great, except the windows were open, so I was running around shutting them, by this time it was like 2AM. I'm hoping to at least stay upright today! Ha!

Today I wanted to share a layout with you that I started working on awhile back. I had many different ideas for this, including some stamping and embossing, neither of which happened.  I'm still happy with the result.  This layout goes right in our Project Life album.

Thanks for stopping in today. I hope you have a beautiful, upright, Monday ;)

Another thank you for my stash.

Finally Friday!  Thank goodness because I never thought it would get here :)  Today I wanted to share another thank you card I made for my stash.

I started out with golden orangey base and sprinkled on some Mr Huey's.  Then stamped my sentiment, added some twine and a wooden arrow.  It was super quick, but I love how it turned out!

Do you have any plans this weekend?  I think Mike is going to work on the basement.  We've been trying to finish the basement since January and we've just been so busy that not much progress has been made.  So hopefully progress happens this weekend :)

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have a wonderful Friday and a great weekend!  See you soon!

Planner pages and wood polish.

Oh man, this is the longest week ever for me.  Nothing bad, just looooong.  The weekend can't get here soon enough!! 

I wanted to show you before and after pages with my planner.

These are my decorated pages for this week.  All nice and clean and ready for the week ahead.  I list appointments and things to do on the right with a small box to the left, so that I can check or X it off after I've finished the item.

Here is last week.  I have a few items that I started with the week (ortho, Petco, library books, etc) but as the week goes on, I add items to the check list as needed for that day.  Then on the left side of the day, I make notes about things that went on that day for Project Life journaling.  That way, when I'm ready to work on my Project Life layout, I can flip to that page in my planner and see my notes.

I also have post it notes all over my finished week, shopping lists, blog notes things like that, but I took them off so you could see my checklists :)

The other thing I wanted to talk to you guys about was wood polish.  I found a recipe online using  1 cup of olive oil and 1/2 cup of lemon juice.  You mix it up really well in a bottle and then, using a cloth, dust your furniture.  It worked great!  The main thing I loved about it was that it's not harmful.  Guess who came into our bedroom and started licking our bed?  Yep, Dirk.  But I didn't have to worry about it, because it's all natural :)  Just thought I'd pass this along to you guys!! 

I hope you're having a great week and that you have an awesome weekend eve!  I'll see you tomorrow with a new card.  Thanks for stopping in today.

WOYWW

Happy Wednesday and happy WOYWW!  I'm linking up over at JULIA'S BLOG today to share what I have on my work desk today.  Go check out the link to see what everyone else is working on too!

Yes, those are Halloween stamps.  Too early?  I'm trying to be ahead of the game this year.  Every year I am so excited for fall and Halloween and every year I miss out because I put it off until the last minute.  So this year I told myself I wasn't going to do that.  Right now I'm just kind of playing around with the stamps, but I'm hoping to make some bookmarks for Landry's class.  I've also got my Filofax, which is never very far away, inks, scrap papers and an iced coffee, because it's still really HOT here.

Dirk gets his stitches out today, wahoo!  Two weeks, with a dog that has stitches and a cone have not been fun.  I'm so glad it's about to be over.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a fab Wednesday.  I'll be back tomorrow with my Filofax pages and a new wood polish I made and tried out.  See you then!!

My birthday boy.

Today is Mike's birthday.  We celebrated over the weekend, but I have a card for him today.  I was racking my brain trying to come up with an idea for a card and then I saw the anchor stamp that I picked up Michael's a month ago and the whole card just came together in my mind!

For those of you who have been around for awhile, you'll remember that last year, around this time, I got a tattoo very similar to this, behind my right ear.  I was so excited to make this card for Mike and I can't wait to give it to him!!

Dirk graduates from puppy classes tonight :)  he's been doing so well.  We're thinking about signing up for the next class to continue on with what he's learned.  He's still full of energy, but he's also only nine months old! 

Thanks for stopping in today and I hope you have a great Tuesday!  I'll see you back here tomorrow!

Sale tag thank you.

Hey!  Happy Monday!  I think every weekend should be a three day weekend, don't you?  Mike's birthday is tomorrow so we spent the weekend celebrating with him and trying to make him feel special ;) It's still super hot here, and I'm not really loving it.  Now that the kids are back to school and it's September and all, I feel like it should AT LEAST be 85 for a high, not 101.  Seriously.

Today I'm going to share with you a thank you card that I made.  I was just chatting with Tracy about how I've been using up my stash of cards and I need to build it back up.  Especially my thank you and birthday cards.

I started out with a bright green cardstock base and layered on a sale tag that I picked up in a variety pack at Hobby Lobby awhile back.  Then I flipped through my tray of discards, bits and pieces of die cuts, tags and things I've made that are all thrown in a tray.  Too good to be thrown away, but not ready to be used yet.  I placed the orange marquee die cut on top of the tag and then adhered the stamped label on top of that.  I stood back and looked for a minute and realized that the orange marquee was TOO orange and so I splattered some Mr. Huey's on there to break it up a bit.  I stamped my sentiment and added a stick pin to finish the card off.

Since most of the pieces were already made, from a previous craft session and just waiting to be used, this card hardly took any time at all!

Abie's volleyball practice starts back up again this week.  It's been such a nice break.  Tonight, we have no plans though and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it!

Let me ask you this.  When you're on the go, practices, in the car, etc.  what craft do you take with you?  I want to try and make the most of my time at practice this year.  Last year I would pack a bag of stuff, but it never seemed to work out well.  Just looking for some ideas :)

Hope you have a great Monday!  I'll be back tomorrow with a birthday card.  Thanks for stopping by!!

Cleaning.

Thursday all ready, can you believe it?  I love a good Monday holiday!  Today I want to talk for a second about, cleaning.  I know this is a crafty blog and I try my hardest to stick to that, but today I'm going to tell you about the coolest new mop I found.  Mostly because it has helped me out and saved me time, which means more time for crafting.  Right?

I stumbled across THIS blog a couple of days ago and instantly became obsessed!  She has a a daily checklist for keeping your house picked up and cleaned, which I have printed out and laminated, and yes, put into use!  The other thing I found on her blog was this mop.  She wasn't pimping it out or anything, like she does some of her products, but rather she found it and liked it.

It's the O-Cedar Pro Mist.  I found mine at Wal Mart for 19.99, but it had a two dollar off coupon on it!  Score!  The cool thing about this mop?  It has a bottle on it that comes off and you can put your own cleaning solution in it.  I clean my wood floors with apple cider vinegar, better for the pets, better for the humans, and have been using a regular old mop and bucket.  Yuck.  This is the perfect solution!  The other cool thing about this, it doesn't take batteries, unlike the Swiffer Wet Jet.  It has a trigger you pull and the solution comes right out through the front.  The mop comes with a microfiber pad that velcros to the bottom and it's machine washable.





I used this for the first time yesterday and it was awesome!  I couldn't believe how little cleaning solution I used!  And the floors dried SO quickly!  I'm not going to go all crazy and say I'm excited to mop again, but...  I'm totally not dreading it.

Sorry to go all non-crafty on you today, but I thought I would share my good fortune with you!!  Hope you have a fantastic Thursday!  Thanks for popping in for a minute and I'll see you soon!

Pumpkin Topiaries

Well I know fall isn't "technically" for a couple of more weeks, and we are still having hot temperatures here, but there is just something about Labor Day weekend that says end of summer to me and I always put up my fall decorations then.  How about you?

Several years ago I saw the most adorable pumpkin topiaries online, but I lost the bookmark (this was pre-Pinterest)  So last week I searched up pumpkin topiaries on Pinterest and found THESE directions.  Sunday I headed to Michael's and picked up all of the supplies (40% off the Funkins with an additional 20% off my entire purchase!) Michael's had zilch for urns or containers so I headed to Joann's where I found the pots for 40% off.

Sunday night, Mike drilled the holes in my Funkins and I assembled my topiaries.  I knew immediately that my pots were the wrong color and I would need some filler for in between my Funkins ;)

Here's what I ended up with.  I bought black and white pumpkins.  My pots were grey to begin with.  The whole look was a bit too Halloweeny for me.  So I spray painted the pots with a coat of black Fusion spray paint and a coat of Oil Rubbed Bronze.  Much better!  I used plastic grocery sacks to help balance out my pumpkins in the areas where they were leaning and then had to hot glue leaves in to cover up the bags.  I'm not sure how I feel about those leaves.  I may take them out and replace them with moss.  I also put gravel in the bottom of the pots to help keep them sturdy.  The dog was knocking these things over they were so light weight before I did that!

I wanted my topiaries to look fall-ish, not Halloween-ish so I went with green, white and a bit of black foliage to place in between the pumpkins.

I hot glued the leaves and things in place to make sure they'll stay.

Here's the other topiary.  I'll take a pic of both of them once I get some mums and other things for the front porch!!

Do you have your fall decorations up yet?  Are you making anything new this year?  I also picked up a couple of lanterns at Michael's for $2.50, oh yeah!  I pinned another idea that I'm going to make/decorate with those! 

Thanks for stopping in today.  I hope you have a fab Tuesday!