Glittered clothespins!

Did you have a good weekend?  Ours was awesome!  It flew by, but was still great.  We got a ton of stuff done around the house, ran errands and spent a lot of time outside :)

Today I wanted to share with you some fun glittered clothespins that the girls made last weekend.  I saw these on Twitter, I think.

The girls set up shop at their craft table with Mod Podge, clothespins and glitter.

The first step was to spread the Mod Podge on, a good thick coat.

Then sprinkle on a nice layer of glitter.

And knock off the excess glitter.

Your finished product!  A lovely glittery clothespin :)

What was awesome about this was that even Landry got in on the action :)

Thanks for stopping by today!  Hope you have a fab week!

Pen holder.

Happy Weekend eve! Today I wanted to share an easy pen holder I made for my office.

I had a leftover jar, from some red cabbage I think,  that I took the label off of and ran the jar through the dishwasher. Then it sat. For like months,  in my craft room. I knew I would find a use for it and finally did!!

I wrapped some burlap ribbon around the middle,  remember from the candle holders I made,  and then added some black ribbon too.

So simple and easy! I took lots of fun pens and pencils to work :) to add to my jar.

Thanks for the visit today!  Have an awesome Thursday!

Valentine countdown Up!

Happy Friday!  I just wanted to pop in and show you the valentine countdown,  all finished and up on the wall for the girls.  We're part way through it already,today is cookie baking day,  and they are loving it!

It's been a busy month,  Abie's birthday is this month too, but we're firing everything in somehow :)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Valentine Countdown

Hey there!! Thought I would pop in and show you what I've been working on.

I didn't do a Christmas countdown this year, life has been....crazy around here, to say the least, so I wanted to go all out for Valentine's Day for the girls.

I've done a countdown for V-day before, but this one is a little different. Each of the bags has a small gift, or card, or a fun activity we're doing that day.

I know they're going to love it!! I'll try and get a pic once I have it all hung up this weekend!!

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a great week!!

Modeling paste!!

Over the weekend I was hanging out on Pinterest and found a super easy recipe for homemade modeling paste. 

1/4 cup of baby powder, 1TBS of white glue and 1TBS of white acrylic paint.  Let me say this.  The mixture was TOO dry.  We added a bit of water and then kept adding paint and glue to get the exact consistency we wanted.

Abie immediately added some to her journal, with a stencil...

And after a few seconds with the heat gun, she had some awesome texture!

I used a different stencil and applied mine to some cardstock.  I applied mine very thin, so my texture wasn't as thick as hers, but still VERY cool and I can't wait to play around with this some more!!

We stored the mixture in an air tight container and, according to Pinterest, it should still be good the next time we go to use it :)

Have a great Wednesday!!

Pretty paperclips!!

Happy Friday everyone! Today I want to share with you some pretty paperclips I whipped up. A couple are brads and a couple are adhesive backed embellishments.

I simply hot glued the embellishment to the paper clip and then quickly added a felt flower to the back to add some stability.  These are great for my planner, a card or a scrapbook page!

Do you have big Easter plans this weekend? I think we are actually celebrating tomorrow, they are calling for rain Sunday so we will just do something with the girls on that day :)

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!! Thanks for stopping by!!

Landry's Valentine's.

So this year, when planning Landry's Valentine's it started a few weeks ago with this BLOG POST.  I knew I wanted to use the images in some way, I just wasn't sure how.

Then I went in to Dollar General and found packages of Valentine bubbles and the rest just came together.

I did all of the punching, Landry did the gluing.

Then, she trimmed all of the Baker's Twine and I tied them on to the bubbles after she wrote the to and from on the backs of the scalloped pieces.  So easy!

That's it for Landry's Valentine's!  Thanks for the visit today and I'll be back on Friday with another Valentine card.  Have an awesome Wednesday!!

Transitioning and a birthday 3x3

Oh my goodness.  I'm not quite sure where to begin so I guess I'll start with where I left off,  on Monday night Mike and I cleaned the excess lumber and debris from the basement and started prepping the floor for carpet.  On Tuesday Abie had volleyball practice and Landry had her first week of volleyball camp!  Wednesday night we had a surprise birthday party for our neighbor Bryan with a Christmas Vacation theme, so fun!  On Thursday night, Mike and I vacuumed the basement floor up and drew our chalk line out.  Friday night, he started in on the carpet!  He got a little more than a 1/4 of the basement done that night.

On Saturday morning Mike got back at it and within just a few hours he had almost finished the rest of the basement!

We bought carpet tiles for the basement.  We figured that if the kids and their friends are going to be down here there might be some spills and accidents and it would be nice to just pull up a tile and put down a new one!  Mike was really happy with the installation of the tiles and how quickly and easily it was to put in.  (excuse the sheet over there, that's the storage area and we don't have the doors up yet)

Saturday night we took the girls to see Christmas lights and came home and started moving furniture into the basement.  Then Sunday morning we moved the rest of the furniture into the basement, from the craft room.

This was the state of my craft room up until Sunday.

This is from the back corner of my room.  Yikes!

And from the doorway.  Holy moly!  The desk in front there is the girls :)

The worst part about all of this is the top of my desk...

Pretty bad, right? 

I did clear off a small corner Sunday morning and squeak out a small card for a birthday party Landry went to that afternoon.  A very SIMPLE card.

A pre-made 3x3 base with patterned paper trimmed to fit and a pre-made 3 dimensional sticker.  A dream when you're in a hurry or your craft room is a disaster!

So that's what I've been up to and where I've been.  I'm so excited to finally be getting the basement furniture OUT of the craft room and can't wait to get my craft room all organized and put back together.  It just might take me awhile.  So I, more than likely, won't have anymore crafty posts this week, because I don't have anywhere to make anything crafty.  Haha!

I hope you are doing well and I hope to be back to regular posting soon!  Thanks for sticking with me and thanks for the visit today :)  Have a great Monday!

Christmasy house warming gift.

We are back to our normal schedule again today after a wonderful break!  Only three more weeks until Christmas break!  Haha!  Mike made so much progress on the basement this weekend, we're getting so excited for that space to be finished and he's thinking it will be usable by Christmas break!

This weekend we have an ugly sweater party/house warming to go too and since it's the holiday season I thought I would Christmas up their gift.

I picked up this little wire basket and filled it with moss.  Then made a simple tag to attach to the side.

I took a large binder clip and adhered patterned paper and some ribbon to hold the gift card.  I attached a bit of scor tape to the back of the gift card to help hold it in place.

I bought candy cane scented soap and turned it into one of my favorite gifts!  I peeled the sticker off and added some rub ons and another piece of ribbon.

Lastly, I picked up some chocolates and wrapped them in more patterned paper.

Do you ever coordinate a holiday with a gift like this?  I don't know if I've ever done it before, but it was kind of fun!!  Another way to use my holiday supplies :)

Thanks for stopping in today.  I hope you have a beautiful Monday.  See you soon!!

Easy wrapping for small gifts.

Happy Friday!  Did you have a good Thanksgiving?  We had a nice time over at my sisters yesterday.  Thanksgiving is always the kick off for the holiday season, isn't it?

Today I wanted to share with you an easy way to package up money or a small gift.  I found these pillow boxes at Target, in the dollar spot, there were four in a package.

I wrapped some baker's twine around and then attached a simple embossed tag.

I found the cutest Santa stamp at Michael's and he fits perfectly in a 1 3/4" circle punch!  So after embossing him with silver powder, I punched him out, added a couple of banners and was done! 

These pillow boxes are just shy of being big enough for gift cards, but there are plenty of other gifts that would fit :)

Have you started any of your shopping or wrapping yet?  I have one more gift to pick up, but other than that, I'm done and working on my wrapping here and there.

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  I'll see you next week!

Not yet Thanksgiving but I'm sharing something Christmas anyway.

Don't get upset, it's not yet Thanksgiving, but I'm going to share the dividers I made for my planner today and guess what?  I made them out of Christmas paper!!  Haha!

I'm super excited about the holidays this year and I was wanting to make some new dividers for my planner, so I thought why not combine the two?

I picked up this, Teresa Collins *I think*, 12x12 paper pad at Michaels and I'll be using it for most of my holiday crafting this year.  I used my other dividers as a template and just traced around them with pencil.  Then trimmed them out.
 

I love opening my planner and seeing this!  Puts a happy holiday smile on my face every time!  Are there any special things you do to put yourself in the holiday spirit?

The other thing I wanted to share with you today is that a couple of weeks ago I won a book from TAMMY !!  I was so excited when I got her email, 1) because I've read these books from the very beginning, 2) because I just went to New Orleans in June (that's the setting of the series) and 3) I found out on Wednesday Mike and I are going to New Orleans in February!!!  There's just something about being in a city and then reading a book about that city, AND THEN going back there!  Love that!

When my book came from Tammy, it didn't include just the book.  She had included a beautiful card AND some scrappy goodies too!

I can't wait to read this newest book in the series!  Thank you SO much Tammy!

Thank you for stopping by today.  I'm looking forward to a great week this week.  Only one and a half days!!  Hoping to be super productive at work and at home :)  Have an awesome Monday!!

Cute idea, bad photo.

So the last few years I've made place cards for Thanksgiving.  This year I was debating on doing them or not when I walked into Target and my mind was made up.  I found cute place cards in the Dollar Spot on clearance for $.50!!

I added googly eyes (my favorite) and a gold Sharpie to write the names and I was done!  So easy, so quick, thanks Target!!  I have to apologize for the bad photo here.  I took these right on my desk and the lighting was super bad this day.

I'm looking forward to a quite Monday.  No volleyball games tonight as Abie's fall league is over.  We are just starting her club practice schedule now so Monday nights are free again :)  I'm hoping to finish up a little project tonight that I started yesterday.  I'll be back Wednesday with something new.  Until then, thank you for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful day!

Easy gift.

Yay for Friday!  Who's with me??  We have a busy weekend ahead, well, some of us more than others...  Abie has a birthday sleepover tonight and Landry is heading over to Grammy and Pa's :)  Mike is getting a tattoo to on his right calf to honor the marathon and I'll probably hang out with him for a bit, or maybe get some shopping in.  Tomorrow, Mike and my dad are working on the basement, this makes me SO happy!!  Then we have a birthday party for our little neighbor boy who is turning 1!!!  After that, we're dropping Abs off at another sleepover, this one for her volleyball team.  She's going to be exhausted!  Sunday will be a slow day, only Mike working on the mud and tape in the basement and then Dirk has puppy class.  I'm worn out just thinking about all of it!!  What are your plans for the weekend?

Since Abie is heading to her coaches house on Saturday, I thought she (the coach) might need some chocolate.  I pulled this little gift together lickety split on Wednesday night.

Just a simple Mason jar, filled with Hershey's kisses.  Then I wrapped twine around the lid and added a little leaf and button.

I added just a few embellishments to the lid.  A simple little circle and some hearts :)  I hope she enjoys it!

Thanks for stopping in on this lovely Friday!!  I hope it's a perfect one for you!  I'll see you soon!!

Grateful

Good morning!! Today I wanted to share with you what we're doing at our house this month to express all the things we're grateful for.

I threw this together really quick, but it means SO much! Some simple bags, from Michael's, I stamped on a few, and added the numbers 1-30. Then trimmed out cardstock to write on.

I hung up the bags and each day, we write down what we're grateful or thankful for :)

I have all of the card stock strips and a Sharpie in a jar on the china cabinet, right next to where the bags are.

At the end of the month, I'm going to bind all of these bags into a little book so we have a family grateful journal for 2013!!

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a beautiful Monday!

Test tube treats!

I'm so glad it's Wednesday!  Tonight is our only night home for the week and we have errands to run and a dress to find, for Abie's first dance!!!  I'm hoping to get the errands done right after school and then be in for the night :)  I have a little Halloween project to share with you today!

I made THESE treat bags for Abie to give out to her friends this year since she's in Middle School now and they don't have big class parties.  That way she's still getting to celebrate too :)  We filled the bags with different candies and then I also made these:

I bought the bottom three test tubes at Hobby Lobby in a package for $3.99.  The top one I got years ago from Oriental Trading.  BUY THE ONES FROM HOBBY LOBBY.  Why you ask?  The lids screw on and you won't lose your candy :)  These were super simple to decorate.  I wrapped a bit of washi around the middle and then tied some twine around the bottom of the lids with a die cut Halloween shape.

The die cut shapes were from an old Cuttlebug die I had.  These test tubes are just a few inches tall so I had to use the mini M&M's.  I think they would have looked more festive with black and orange candies though :)

Thanks for popping in today!  I'll be back tomorrow with my last Halloween cards for the year.  Then it's on to fall/harvest/Thanksgiving!!  See you then!  Have a beautiful Wednesday my dears!!

Chicago Recap.

Good grief, the time has sure gotten away from me.  I apologize.  We got back late last Monday and then I honestly don't know where the week went.  I couldn't get myself motivated to get this post up and I sure didn't have the motivation to craft (lazy).  So here it is a whole week later and I'm posting.

We had an absolutely amazing time in Chicago.  Not only because it was just the two of us and we had never been to Chicago TOGETHER, but because this was Mike's first marathon and it was pretty emotional for both of us.  Something really cool that we got to share together.

We got into town Friday afternoon/evening and didn't do much so I'm starting with pics from Saturday morning (and just giving you the highlights because I don't want to bore you.  Haha!)  We picked up Mike's race packet Saturday morning and walked around the Expo for awhile.  Nike had this really cool wall set up with these giant letters that said #ownchicago and everyone was signing their name.

This was the view from our hotel room.  It was awesome.  I could have sat there all day long and stared at the water.

And what trip wouldn't be complete without a lame selfie?  I know, Mike looks constipated, but in his defense, he always has to press the button, because his arms are longer and he has issues with that :)

We walked FOREVER on Saturday.  The one thing I wanted to see while we were there was The Bean.  When I told Mike that, he said, "what's the The Bean?"  Let me tell you, if you haven't seen it in person, it's MUCH smaller than you think.  At least it was smaller than I thought.  I can mark it off my list though.

We had dinner with his co-workers Saturday night and on our way back to the hotel, we took a detour from the group and hung out on one of the bridges that crosses the river.  I could have stayed there all night :)  But we had to get up SUPER early on Sunday so back to the hotel we went.

We were up at 4:45 AM on Sunday and made our way down to the south side of Grant Park.  It was kind of exciting to see all the racers getting ready.  I gave Mike a kiss and left him at the entrance to Charity Village, he was running for Ronald McDonald House, and we weren't allowed inside until 9AM.  One of the other wives and I headed to get some coffee and hopped on the train to follow the guys around the course for the next couple of hours.  I kept missing Mike and we were headed to mile number 20 to see him when we calculated his time and realized by the time we took the train there and then back to the finish line, I would miss him!  So I hopped off the train and ran over to Charity Village where I was able to find Mike!  I was yelling for him, he couldn't hear me he had his headphones in, and was on the other side of the street, but it was great to see him!  (he's the one in the white shirt, black shorts and orange shoes!)

After, what seemed like a lifetime, Mike made his way from the finish line to Charity Village and that's where I got to see him :)  I don't think I'll ever forget that moment for the rest of my life.  He had a beer in his hand and just looked so relaxed.  Seriously, after running 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 20 minutes.  So awesome :)

After hanging out and waiting for the rest of his team to arrive, for a couple of more hours, we finally walked back to the hotel.  I snapped this picture of the Adventure's in Babysitting building :)  Isn't it weird that it's white?  We hung out at the hotel for a few hours and then around 5:30 PM headed out to dinner.  We walked and walked again :)  I don't think either of us wanted the night to end, since it was our last.

Monday morning we headed over to Lou Mitchell's for breakfast.  See where it says they serve the world's finest coffee?  Guess what?  They serve Mike's coffee, the company he works for.  How funny is that?  We had a delicious breakfast here and were sad to go back to the hotel and check out.  We still had a long drive home ahead of us.

I couldn't help but think about KATIE over and over again while we were in Chicago.  What an awesome city to live in :)  

We were so grateful for my parents staying at the house with the girls and Dirk, he was a handful.  It really put our mind at ease knowing they were here.  The next couple of weeks are really busy here.  Volleyball, school conferences, school programs, Halloween, etc.  I know my posting will be hit and miss and I apologize for that.  I have kept up on my Project Life, but it looks the same as it always does and I think it's kind of boring :)  So other than that, I don't have much to post until I make something. 

I'm hoping to get some things made in the next few days and have a post later in the week!  I really appreciate the visit and I'll see you as soon as I can!!  Have an awesome Monday :)

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!