Stationery card

Picture Perfect Holiday Card

Create custom Christmas cards this holiday at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

My Craft Table

Friday, April 8th, I tackled my craft table.  This was another spot that became a drop zone for stuff.  I had all kinds of magazines, papers, Premier catalogs and other business stuff, scrapbooking stuff, etc.  I even had a large plastic tub full of books that I had in my bookcase growing up.  It was fun going thru that tub and keeping some of my favorite books so my girls can read them when they get just a bit older...like Nancy Drew and Babysitters Club.

At the beginning of the organizing:

The pile of books

And here's the after picture!  There was a lot of dust and papers thrown out.  A small pile of stuff went back to our bedroom to be organized and stored back there.  Maybe I'll move all my craft stuff back into our bedroom to my desk back there and then we'll have the whole living room back again...we'll see.  :)

I was finally able to get all the stuff I've been purging to the thrift store on Wednesday!  It felt so good to get all of that out of my house.  We had Jacob's birthday party on Sunday, so all the stuff was taken out to the van until we could get to town.  The house looked great for the party because of all the stuff we've been able to get rid of and for all the help cleaning on Saturday from the girls, Daddy, and Jacob.  :)

Computer Desk

Today I tackled our computer desk area...isn't it beautiful?!  This was a complete disaster.  I have figured out that we tend to pile stuff in the room we're currently in with the intentions of bringing that pile to where it belongs when we go there...but that tends to not happen.  I forgot to take a before picture even with having to move my camera because it sits on the desk as well.  I had many different piles laying on the floor around me...it was kind of crazy.  And then there was the dust!  It's amazing the amount of dust we have in this house...I could dust every single day and there'd always be work to do so you can imagine what the forgotten about places look like (think under the computer monitor stand).  I'm hoping we'll be able to keep it like this from now on, but it'll take some diligence on my part.

Bag count:
1 large trash bag
1 small pile for hubby to sort thru
1 small bag for thrift store

Hallway

I started a "photo a day for a whole year" project last year on January 1st.  I found 365 Project and throughoughly enjoyed posting pictures, getting comments, and following other photographers that were also participating.  One of the gals had posted a picture of a clever and great way to decorate and display her kids' artwork at the same time.  I just tried finding the picture of hers, but cannot find it. :(   Anyway, I had scanned the thrift stores for frames that I could spray paint black and use as the kids' artwork wall.  After painting the hallway, I knew the black frames would look great against the gray/khaki colored wall!  Late this summer/early fall, I had gather enough frames and spray painted them all of them black.  Now to just take the time to hang them...well that didn't happen until today!  I decided I needed to finish that project and get a place for all the school artwork that the girls bring home on an almost daily basis.  I measured the wall space where the frames were going up, then laid out a blanket on the floor in approximately the same size area so I could lay out the frames and get the look I wanted with all the different sizes and textures.  Then to find some artwork to hang.  I need to have the kids create some smaller pieces as I have about 3 or 4 frames that still need something in them.  Then, it was time to hang the frames.  This is where I really would like sheetrock walls!  The old wood paneling in this house and the lack of regularly space studs makes hammering a nail in a challenge at times.  I've had enough of that to last me for quite a while!  I think I'll try to wait to let Aaron help me with that kind of project from now on...maybe he won't bend as many nails. :)  Here's a few pictures of my organizing/decor project today!

Looking at the full wall of art!

I found this fun wooden frame out in one of the sheds here on the farm!

This was a gold metal frame...I like it better in black!

Happy 4th Birthday, Jacob!

My Little Man turned 4!  We celebrated on his birthdate with just the 5 of us.  We made homemade pepperoni pizza and then had fresh homemade chocolate chip cookies and ice-cream for dessert.  We followed up with opening a couple gifts and then finished off the night by watching Tangled.

Jacob surprised us all when he joined our family on April 1st at only 34 weeks weighing in at 6lbs and 20.5 inches long.  That day started our second 3-week long journey in the NICU.  We were much more calm with Jacob's stay in the NICU as we had just been there with Lexi 21 months earlier.  His first room was actually just on the other side of the wall from where Lexi's room was.  I was really glad that he didn't have the same room as I was having enough recalled emotions from her stay.  I actually had to keep reminding myself the first couple days that it wasn't Lexi laying in that isolet because they looked very much alike.  A few of the NICU nurses actually remembered Lexi when she was in there and commented on how calm and "easy" we were with the whole process.  I was comforted by the fact that they remembered my baby girl from almost 2 years prior and knowing that they did a wonderful job caring for her and knew Jacob would get that same care.  He stayed in the NICU for 22 days.  I went to the hospital at least once a day, every day to visit him.  Hailey was able to come with us a few times to see her brother, but Lexi was too young and not potty trained so she wasn't able to.  She first met her brother when we brought him home from the hospital.  That was a good day...our family finally together!

Jacob at 4 days old

April 23, 2007 - The day we got to bring our baby boy home!

Our 1st Family Photo

Hailey 3 yrs 21m  *  Lexi 21months  *  Jacob 22 days

An interesting note about the kids' birthdates:  they all share their birthdays with either a relatives birthday or anniversary.  Hailey was born on Grandma Doc's 75th birthday (July 2nd).  Lexi shares her birthday with my Uncle Red's heart & double lung transplant anniversary (July 8th), and Jacob shares his birthday with Aaron's Aunt Ramona's birthday (April 1st).  We had been commenting that it would have been fun to have Jacob share Uncle Red's birthday and Jason & Robyn's wedding anniversary (May 5th), but we were doubtful he'd stay inside that long (his due date was May 13th).

Magazines and Bubbles

My husband actually had a Saturday off!  While I was catching up on email and all the blogs I follow, he took the initiative to clean off the top of his dresser.  I seen him go back there and grab a trash bag, but didn't want to interrupt any work he was getting done by being snoopy, so I waited a little bit.  When I did go to check on what he was doing, I walked in to a surprise...he had completely cleaned off his dresser, wiped it down, threw out a bag of trash, and also did a load of laundry while he was doing this.  When he was taking out the bag of trash, he asked if it counted towards my 40.  :)

Friday afternoon, while putting away some of my hanging clothes, I went thru and purged out my closet.  I got rid of a few sweaters that I haven't worn all winter, a few shirts, and then organized the ones I have left.  It was nice to get rid of those things that were just sitting in my closet.

Not to be outdone by my husband (*smile*), I had to do come cleaning on Saturday.  I've been meaning to organize my magazines for a few months now.  We had even bought a few magazine racks/box things (like they have in the library for magazines) at Ikea when we were there last.  So, for a little while that afternoon, my living room floor was covered with magazines.  I never realized how many scrapbooking/cardmaking mags I had until then!  They completely filled two of my boxes.  Then, was my Rachel Ray in another box and then the last one has a few assorted magazines like the Ikea catalog, Uppercase Living catalog, Premier Designs jewelry catalog, and my newest magazine subscription Popular Photography!  I'm pretty excited about that one.  I also went thru our books some, too, and pulled out our duplicates that Aaron and I have from Bible School.  Thankfully, because the main book you study at AFBLS is the Bible, we didn't have very many duplicate books.
My favorite book and story from this purging was when I pulled out our copies of Larry Burkett's Using Your Money Wisely and looked at the 'bookmark' Aaron had in his copy, it was a receipt from him opening  credit card!  Don't get me wrong, credit cards can be good when used properly and you make sure you're paying them off every month, but for some they do more harm than good.  Aaron was one of them who wasn't the best at handling his money and if he (and I) would have actually read the book, we wouldn't have had as many money problems at the start of our marriage as we did.  I wouldn't give up those problems now because they did help us grow closer as a couple and helped us rely on God to provide for us and our family.  Our past mistakes have also made us see exactly what we don't want to experience again.  We have actually just started following Dave Ramsey's guidelines from Total Money Makeover and also his Financial Peace Junior for kids.  We are completely debt free (yippee!), have established our $1000 baby emergency fund, are saving for our family vacation out East this summer, and are working on establishing a separate 6-month emergency fund for in case Aaron ever lost his job.  Once that's established, we will start saving for our own house and for investing.  We don't want our kids to have money struggles like we did, so we're starting early with them so by the time they are to be responsible with a regular income, they'll know what to do with it.  The biggest thing we want them to take away from it is to tithe and never owe money to anyone.  The kids tithe off their commissions for the week and they give it to Sunday School.  It's been fun watching them put their money in their Giving, Saving, and Spending banks and also watching the kinds of decisions they make when we go shopping with them.  Wow...didn't know that was going to make it in this post!
I took Sunday off, as usual, and today.  It is actually feeling like spring around here...finally!  You can see a noticable difference in the amount of snow and the robins are back!  While washing the dishes this afternoon, I decided that I'd take Jacob outside to blow bubbles.  He seen the commercials for Crayola's color bubbles and wants them.  I told them I think we'll just stick with the regular ones and he seemed fine with that.  I took a few pictures of the kids while we were outside.  It was a lot of fun!

I snapped this photo while Hailey was spinning around with the wand.

Jacob blew a big bubble

Running after the bubbles to pop them!

Waiting for more bubbles to pop.

Trying to blow a big bubble.



More cleaning!

A couple posts ago, I mentioned getting clothes from a neighbor.  Well, that started the massive job of going thru my girls' clothes.  I have learned from past experiences, to do Hailey's first as it makes more work for me if I go thru Lexi's first.  It probably took a couple days for each girls' clothes.  We did an initial sort of the clothes with the girls telling me "keep" or "give".  The girls didn't do as well as I was hoping with the "give" because almost everything was "keep."  Hailey has told us many times that she doesn't like pink and to not get her anything pink anymore.  Well, a lot of the clothes she kept were pink!  I didn't understand at first, but then I started to notice a trend.  She was keeping everything that had any kind of embroidery, beads,  or sparkles on it irregardless of whether or not it was pink.  I had to keep telling her that if she wasn't ever going to wear it, then it shouldn't get put in their tubs/drawers and should go to someone who would wear it.  I also had to try to help her not worry about who gave it to her and to not keep it just because it was from so-and-so.
The last time I sorted the clothes with the girls, Lexi did a wonderful job of "giving" at least half, if not more, of her pile away.  I was so excited and really enjoyed that time and was hoping that was going to be the same case this time...but all it was, was wishful thinking.  She didn't do nearly as well as Hailey.  The whole time I was going thru the clothes with Hailey, Lexi kept commenting that Hailey was keeping a lot of clothes.  Then, she goes and keeps all but I think 1 shirt!  Silly girl.  She didn't think it was as fun when I kept commenting that she was keeping more than Hailey did! :)
Anyways, I was able to finally finish both girls' clothes and get them all back into their two tubs each.  We were given 5 not completely full garbage bags of clothes and we've replaced some of what the girls already had with the new-to-them clothes and have 4 full garbage bags ready to go to the thrift store.  It feels good to have that done, but not it's a matter of waiting for spring/summer to come so we can take out the new wardrobe.  :)

Purging Break

I took a little break from my 40 Bags in 40 Days this past week.  I've been following Craft Snob and she has some great tutorials on making all kinds of different things.  The latest that I wanted to try was making fabric flowers and on Wednesday and Thursday I finally sat down to make a couple.  I now have something new to look for when I stop at the thrift stores...buttons!  :)

Because I know I'll be asked how I made this one, I took the time to take some pictures of the process when I made a red one the next day.  :)

Start by cutting out 8 circles of the fabric you want for the flower.  4 should be about 2 inches and 4 about 1.5 inches (you could easily make these bigger if you wanted a larger flower).  You will also need at least one (I used 2) 1.5 inch circle of felt to attach the flower "petals" to.

I chose to "singe" the edges of the fabric by holding the edge near a candle flame to get the brown/weathered look on the edges.

Then, you start to attach the petals to the felt.  Fold each circle in half and then in half again.  Use a smal dab of hot glue to attach the first petal.  I actually put another small dab of hot glue in the corner of the 2nd fold to keep it folded.  Start with the larger circles, then the smaller on top of those.

Now it's time to add a center to your flower. I just used some that I had on hand in my scrapbooking supplies. I prefer the larger sized ones, but a smaller button would look cute, too.Next comes the step for attatching the pin to the back.  I chose to make these into a pin instead of using for a hair accessory or on a headband because I don't generally wear stuff like that.  My girls will probably wear theirs in their hair when I make them some, but that'll come in another post.  :)  I cut 2 small slits on one side of the 2nd circle of felt.  I used a safety pin and put the felt thru the pin and then hot glued the whole thing to the other piece of felt.

These were a lot of fun to make and I'm excited to try some of the other kinds of flowers that Sara of Craft Snob has posted!

Day #7 - Fridge Freezer

My organizing and purging didn't happen until this evening.  Aaron & I went to Grand Forks for the day for some thrift store shopping and to get groceries.  The shopping was a success: Aaron got 2 pair of pants for work, I found an orange summer t-shirt, a silk scarf, and an orange/yellow/brown/black dress for myself, and a brown shirt for Hailey to wear under her Easter dress.  We spent most of the day in Grand Forks.  It's almost like we transported to a different part of the country because they hardly got any of the snow from a couple days ago.  You could see all kinds of grass and landscaping...things we were starting to see before our 20 inches of snow!
On Wednesday afternoon, some friends (& neighbors) of ours took advantage of the snow day to clean out their daughter's "too small" clothes and asked if we'd like them.  I've gone thru the clothes with the girls and of course, they wanted to keep almost all of the clothes, so that means that I now need to get out all of their "to grow in to" clothes so we can weed out some more clothes that they don't want.  That is definitely one thing I'm looking forward to when they stop growing...not having to sort thru clothes at least twice a year for all 3 kids!  So that project is ongoing for at least another day...meaning it's taken over the living room couch and the floor in front of it!  At least it's the weekend, so I can have the girls tell me "keep" or "give" since they don't have school.
Back to yesterday's project.  So, after getting the groceries in the house, I started to put everything away.  We usually buy a large box of the sliced cheese and then put it in the fridge freezer.  I haven't defrosted it for some time and yesterday was just the right time to do it.  I couldn't find a place for the box of cheese slices, so everything got taken out and put out in the entry until I defrosted the fridge.  It's so nice to be able to get everything in there and actually know what's in it(sticks of butter, chocolate chips, homemade bread from Gma, juice, etc.)!  Here's a photo of the after (I forgot to take a before).

Another day

I'm so far behind on my 40 days!  Today was going to be another day of purging, but the winter storm last night changed those plans.  We got about 20 inches of snow!  The kids and I were outside this morning shoveling a path from our front door to the garage.  Then, Hailey and I went back out to help shovel over at Gpa & Gma's.  Actually, Hailey helped Gma shovel and I walked around taking pictures.  I tried to walk in the shallow snowbanks, but it was up to my knees!
After uploading my pictures from today, I decided to do some organizing of the older pictures on my external harddrive.  When uploading pictures off my cameras, it automatically files them by date taken.  I decided a better way to file them would be to organize them by day, month, and then year.  It's been a project that needed to get done and I finally made the time to do it today.

Lexi & Jacob waiting for Gpa to push some of the snow out of the way so we could shovel.

Looking toward our door from by the garage.

Funny snow cover up in the tree.

Go for a ride?  :)

You can see the river from up by the barn which means it's time to watch for flooding!

Perfect weather for icicles!

Day #5 - Kitchen Pantry

I tackled the kitchen pantry this afternoon.  I knew there'd be a lot of stuff throw out and I'm actually surprised that I fit all of that stuff in there!  I started by pulling everything out and putting it on the table.  I actually checked expiration dates as I took the stuff out so that I'd hopefully have enough room on the table.  I still ran out of room, but it was when I got to the paper products, so they just got put on the counter and were the last out and last put back in.  I also remembered to take some photos of the before and after, but the before was after I had emptied a few of the shelves (I forgot about it until then).

The stuff from the first couple of shelves (minus the expired food)

I look forward to actually being able to find things and to not have to worry about them being expired when I do!  For the day, I got two big bags of trash/expired food, filled up the thrift store bag from yesterday, and have a small box of food for the local food pantry.  I'll be dropping that box off on Tuesday when I head into town to help with the Fruits and Veggies program at the school.  Tomorrow is Sunday, so I'll be taking the day off.

Day #4

This whole purging the house thing would be a lot easier if I could ship my kids off for the remainder of the time.  I would never do that, but it's a lot harder to do  this when you have 3 children needing you or something as soon as you get started.  The girls didn't have school today, but I was determined to get something done today, so after lunch, they were sent to their room to finish cleaning up their bookcase while I set to work on one of the upper kitchen cabinets.  Jacob was content to have some time to himself playing with Thomas, Percy, and Emily on the tracks his set up in his room.  He even put himself down for a nap!  :)

The cabinet I worked on today was kind of the "junk drawer" cabinet.  It housed the extra batteries, tape, envelopes, certain kid crafts/toys, tons of bubbles, etc.  After a little organizing and moving the bubbles to the entry closet, it looks great!  The kids' crafts/stamps are on the top shelf; bottom shelf has the extra batteries, envelopes, tape, and our budget binder (which was formerly on the counter).

So, tomorrow is another day of balancing my kids and another day of cleaning.  I'm thinking I'm going to tackle the pantry tomorrow.  There's probably quite a bit of expired food and stuff in there that just needs to get out of our house.  The pantry is one part of the house that I have previously worked on, but it's been quite a while since I went thru it.  I'll try to remember to take a before picture this time.  :)

Bag total:

Trash: 1 grocery bag

Goodwill:  Part of 1 grocery bag

Day #3

I'm a little behind on posting an update on my cleaning progress.  At some point on Monday, our internet stopped working so my plan for posting about the day after the kids were in bed were delayed until now.  The internet was still not working all day yesterday, so I was happy that it's up and running again today!
So, day #3 was dedicated to the kitchen countertops on the other side of the kitchen.  This side looks pretty good now even with the few extra things sitting on it waiting for me to find a place in the cupboards when I get around to cleaning them out.
I started out by taking all the stuff off the counters and just piling it on the kitchen table.  Then, before I moved the microwave, I cleaned that out.  Best trick ever: 2 cup glass measuring cup half full with 1 Tablespoon vinegar.  Place in microwave and "cook" for 5 minutes (or long enough to get a nice steam in the microwave).  Then, I used the sponge for the dishes and pretty much just wiped out the splatters.  It was so slick and I don't have to worry about any "chemicals" being left behind in there to cook in our food.  I also tried the lemon juice trick (just google it), but it didn't work as well as the vinegar.  And, the vinegar didn't leave the house spelling like pickles as it was just a small amount and the slight scent disippated (sp?) quickly.
After cleaning the microwave inside and out, I moved on to the upper kitchen cupboards.  I washed down the outside of all my uppers.  I'll have to do some washing down when I get to cleaning out the inside of the cupboards, but at least the outside looks clean.  I also washed down the fridge and got rid of a bunch of magnets that I either didn't like or that the kids have destroyed (the free ones from business).
I also have two bins sitting on the counter with some craft stuff for the kids.  This is only part of the crafty stuff that I have for them, but it was nice to get rid of a few things in those.  Then, the Christmas cards.  Yes, I still hadn't gotten rid of this years Christmas cards we received.  They were all piled in once place (with my purse on top).  I'm not a saver of that type of thing, so they pretty much all went to the trash except 3 if I remember right.  Perhaps after I do the dishes today, I'll take some pictures and post them so you can see the clean and organized countertops.  Perhaps.  :)
Today was somewhat of a challenge.  The day started out well, but then my son wasn't feeling the greatest.  The poor little guy was running to the bathroom almost every 20 minutes.  I'd just get going again on the kitchen when he'd holler from the bathroom, "Mommy!  Can you come wipe my butt?"  His little bum is so red and he cries when I have to wipe him. :(  Thankfully he was doing better yesterday and so far today.  Now his little bum just needs to heal.  Thank God for bananas!  :)
Yesterday was a day off as Little Man needed some Mommy-time.  It was nice to just hang out and chill with him.  That's why I'm a SAHM!  Now, working on the motivation to do some more cleaning today, but have to be done by 3pm as my oldest has an eye doctor appointment today.

Bag total for Monday:
Trash: 2 grocery bags
Goodwill: 1 large bag

A Free Lablel Maker? Please let me win!

Enter for a chance to win a FREE label maker! This would be so much fun...maybe I'll label my children, too! ha-ha

IHeart Organizing: March Challenge: Project "Household Binder" {Label...: "So one of the very most important pieces of putting together our Household Binder, that I haven't touched on yet {yep, I have been holding o..."

Day #2: Kitchen Countertops

Today was a little more challenging in a couple ways.  First, this is where things start to get a little more sentimental.  I have piles of papers which also include my girls' school artwork and accomplishments.  The other way it was challenging was that it's Saturday which means I have 3 children at home instead of just Jacob.  The girls are much more nosy and concerned about what Mommy might be throwing in the trash where as Jacob just looks and then walks away (normally).
So, after sleeping in a little today and then getting started after I fed the kids lunch.  I figured it probably wasn't a good idea to not feed them all day! He-he.  I decided to start on the corner counter that goes between the stove and the sink.  This is usually the catch-all place for the mail, schoolwork, coupons, medicines used very regularly, and the dirty dishes so there was quite a bit to go thru.  I sorted all the papers into different piles on the table: save, trash, Aaron's, coupons, and "doesn't belong in this room".  Once I got the counter cleared off, I washed it and the wall behind it.  Then, the small 6 inch countertop between the stove and the fridge.  I also cleaned the toaster, timer, knife block, vent hood, tile behind the stove, and the top of the stove including the drip pans.  That took a lot of work to get them sparkling clean!  My arm will probably be sore tomorrow.  It's so nice to see the countertop!
Tomorrow is a day off for me.  Sunday is the Sabbath for me and I will not be spending it cleaning and purging; it will be spent with my husband and kids.  40 bags in 40 days will start up again on Monday with more cleaning in the kitchen.

Bag total over the last two days:
Trash: 2
Give: 1 large and 1 partial grocery bag

40 Bags in 40 Days: Taking Control of the "Stuff"

A friend of mine posted a link about 40 Bags in 40 Days on her facebook wall.  I found that interesting and took a look.  It's about purging your house of all the "stuff" we tend to accumulate.  Those low $$ purchases we make at the thrift store, clearance/sale items, the "I could use this later so I won't throw it out" things can add up and start to make you feel like the walls of your house are closing in on you.  I have totally been there and am currently there!  I realized just how much stuff we had and how ridiculous it was when we moved.  I was wishing the whole time that I would have had time to get rid of a bunch of the unwanted stuff.  Fast forward to now, 3 years later...I'm motivated to get rid of the stuff!  I'm going to go into it with the thought process of: If I like it, I'll keep it.  If I don't, it's either to Goodwill or trash.  I'm going to try to keep the sentimental factor out of the decisions, but I know that's easier said than done.  I have decided that if I can't get past the "who" it came from, that item will get put aside to re-evaluate it later.
 
Today was my first day.  I'm just a couple days behind on the "official start date" of the 40 days as it coincides with Lent, but I'm not being super picky about it.  :)  I decided to start off with a room that was a little "easier" as far as the sentimental aspect: the main bathroom.  I've been working on getting rid of stuff over the last year and this is one of the rooms I've gone thru before.  I also went into the room being prepared to spend a good amount of time in there purging, organizing, and cleaning!  I even put down some new contact paper in the bottom of the 3 vanity drawers.  I finished up the room this evening by washing the floor and putting the few things back in their place on the floor (trashcan, scale, rugs).  It feels SO good!!!
 
Tomorrow: starting on the kitchen.  I'm going to be spending a few days in there as we have a lot of cupboards.  I'm planning on doing major cleaning in there as well by pulling everything off the shelves/countertops and washing them down.  Maybe this will give me the motivation to do some painting in there this spring, too.  :)  I'm wanting to do before and after pictures, but I don't want any reminders or show anyone what it looked like before...it's embarrassing to me with how cluttered it is.  Lack of motivation I suppose and not being happy (for lack of a better word) with it, but that's what I'm hoping to change.
 
We are planning on living here for a few more years, probably.  We have started our Total Money Makeover recently and are excited for our future.  We're out of debt and have our starter emergency fund.  Now working towards our 6-month emergency fund and then on to investing and saving for our own house.  We'd love to pay cash for either a current house on the market or build a new house.  I'm leaning towards building because we've got a lot of needs and wants on our list!  All this to say, that I need to make this house feel like a home until we can have our own.
 
I think I've just decided where I'm going to start tomorrow with the kitchen...the countertops!  I can't really do much with what's in the cupboards if I don't have space on the counters to set stuff when I clean out the shelves.  Yay!  Looking forward to tomorrow!

Announcing the Happy 100, Happy Family Contest! | oohmoon.com

Check out this link. Enter for a chance to win a fun illustration of your family! Katie is doing an illustration a day and to celebrate her 100th, she's offering a free illustration to one of her fans. :) She's also a fellow North Dakota girl!

Announcing the Happy 100, Happy Family Contest! oohmoon.com

Craft Mode

So I've been in a craft mode the last couple days.  I found a link for making paper roses out of newspaper, which led me to making gifts bows out of magazine pages.  From there, I found another version of the bows, so I had to try both ways!  :)  Here's a couple pictures of my bows.

Here's the link for the websites: http://www.wholeliving.com/article/read-it-and-wrap and http://www.ecolizzie.com/2010/12/diy-holiday-bows.html

Then, I found a link for making a necklace from a t-shirt ( http://www.wholeliving.com/article/t-shirt-necklace? )  I'm going to have to find some nice cotton t-shirts the next time we're at a thrift store.  This afternoon, I decided to make a wreath that my friend Abbey had made a few months ago and needed an old t-shirt  for the project.  As I was cutting it up, I decided to see what the necklace would look in person and if I could dress it up a little with a couple of my pins.

Then I made my springtime wreath.  I needed some brighter, fun colors to add some cheer to our house.  This winter has gotten a little long and the little taste of spring we had a couple weeks ago didn't help the spring/cabin fever!  Here's Abbey's blog where she explains in better detail how to make the wreath: http://useitupabbey.blogspot.com/2010/10/our-lil-fall-wreath.html.  The key is to have a wire hanger you can bend into a circle, leaving the hook part to act as your hanger for your wreath.  An old t-shirt to wrap around the hanger...makes the ties not slide around and makes the width of the wire thicker so the wreath looks better.  Then to have the scrap fabric you can rip into strips to tie on.  I think the next time I make it, I'm going to just rip a bunch of fabric, mix those strips up into a pile that I just grap random pieces out of and tie next to eachother around the hanger...less strategizing where the colors go.  :)  I tend to overthink things at times and this time I did because I was doing this while Jacob was napping.

Added a lime green ribbon bow as an added embelishment.  May have to look for something else the next time I go to the craft store!

Valentine's Day 2011

Just finished making our Valentine's Day cards for the grandparents!  Get one 5x7 card FREE using promo code CARD4U through February 1st.

Triple Love Valentine's Day Card

Modern greeting cards and party invitations by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

New order of stationary cards from Shutterfly

Wild Flowers Orange Thank You Card

Thank you cards and notes at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Here's a copy of the one I just ordered...isn't it cute?!  :)