{How Pinteresting} #12

I'm am so so so so so so excited about showing you this project!! It was super quick. Not permanent, if I ever decide I want to change it. Super cool. Makes a huge statement. And I'm so excited about it {did I say that???}

I pinned this amazing desk covered in PENNIES from Epbot

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Gorgeous! They're final piece is to die for!Around blogland I've seen other people cover small walls, floors, and countertops with pennies. So one day I was sitting watching tv and the little project light bulb went off in my head and said "put pennies under the glass on your coffee table". Woot! That's what happens when you have a mind that never shuts off and constantly thinks of more projects to do :)

Lucky for me, my dad throws all his change in these giant jugs and cashes them in like once every 10 years. My sis and I once took $40 in silver to buy a video game and he didn't even notice, if that tells you how much he has. So he brought over 11 pounds of pennies for me and I got to work.

Some of the lines got a little jacked up, but oh well. If it drives me that crazy I'll pick up the glass and redo it. They aren't glued down so they can be removed if I decide I don't want it anymore. It definitely takes a brown coffee table from boring to fabulous! Dad approves, and because he's a little math oriented he figured out how many pennies I used......1860. Not the cheapest project I've done, but not too shabby either. I dig it.

Updates

Yes, I am still alive!! I haven't posted in over a week and I feel SUPER guilty about that. I have a whole list of projects to share with you, just haven't gotten around to doing it. So here's an update about what's been going on that's kept me away from bloggy land.

My kiddo graduated 5th grade last week! AHHH!!! She looks and {sometimes} acts more like a 3rd grader haha. Hope she doesn't get eaten alive next year.

My much dreaded 30th birthday was last Friday! Eek! The good news is I didn't develop gray hair or deep wrinkles over night. The bad news is, I still don't like it. Here's the highlights {I'll spare you all the party pics and just show you the nice pics}

I got a Silhouette Cameo!!!!!!!!!!!! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!! {not that you can tell}

We had cupcakes with mustaches that my sister made. The cupcakes were to die for! Made with Blue Moon, Guinness, Pink Champagne......the best! And candy staches. We had a seriously fun time with these. She made 3 different kinds in tons of fun colors. I loved it!

Check out this potting bench my dad made me! It's gorgeous. I can plant flowers in the middle and it has seating on each side. He's so handy :)

And we had a new little one join our family in the last week. Her name is Zoey and she's just the most precious little girl ever.

I mean, seriously, check out all that CUTENESS!!! She's so darling. She is a beagle, whippet mix and we just love her. She has fit in really well at our house. I've even caught her and my old pitbull, Carmen, cuddling. I pretty much snuggle her constantly.

More great DIY/crafty posts are soon to come my friends..... Can't wait to show you what I've been working on!

{Sewing Tip Tuesday} #13

Guess what?? My birthday week has finally arrived. Friday I will be the big 30! Only 3 more days in my 20's. I have sense of doom upon me. But, I'm super excited for all the FUN we will be having to celebrate this weekend!! OK, on to the show....

This week's tip comes from Sew It Love It. Ilse made a list of the 12 most common mistakes when cutting fabric. I'm going to give you the list, but you'll have to visit her blog to get specifics on each point. I'm not trying to steal her post, mmmkay.

12 Mistakes to Avoid when Cutting Fabric:

1.   Forgetting to preshrink
2.   Leaving wrinkles
3.   Letting fabric hang off the table's edge
4.   Ignoring pattern layout instructions
5.   Fabric nap in the wrong direction
6.   Upside down prints
7.   Unmatched plaids and stripes
8.   Cutting on the right side of fabric
9.   Twisted grain lines
10.  Grain going crosswise, not lengthwise
11.  Using old or dirty shears
12.  Moving patterns

I found her article extremely useful. Hope you will too! Visit Sew It Love It and educate yourself on cutting fabric! 

Wordpress

After attending Bloggy Boot Camp I realized the importance for me to switch to Wordpress. When I first started this blog I didn't know any difference between using Blogger vs Wordpress, so I just went with what looked easiest.....Blogger. I also wasn't sure where this blog was going to go, whether I would enjoy it, or what it was going to evolve into. Sometimes I'm still not sure about those things.

I'm scared about moving my blog. I'm scared of losing content. I'm scared of losing followers. I'm not sure if the people that follow me with GFC will still follow me. Back in March when Wordpress announced they were no longer going to support the GFC widget, people went into a panic. I follow a ton of blogs through GFC and I seem to still get updates on everything. Does anyone know about that? I mean, I know I won't be able to put the widget on my new page, but will my existing people still see my content?? I hope so.

I was told at the conference to hire someone to move everything for you. Yeah well I would if I got the winning lottery numbers handed to me, I would.  Hiring anyone for anything is expensive. I'm savvy. I can figure it out. I'm actually taking an online class for $30 to show you how to move it yourself. Pray everything goes smoothly.

So if things look weird around here, or something tragic happens {hopefully not}, fear not, it will all get worked out. In the meantime, I might not have as many posts for you. But in the name of saving money, I will get this figured out. Thanks to everyone for sticking with me!! Without you, there would be no point in any of this!

{How Pinteresting} #11

Sorry this is a little late in the day. I didn't really feel all that great yesterday afternoon and didn't get around to posting this. But hey, better late than never, right?

We had some friends that had a baby last week {I'm jealous}. I saw this super cute embroidery hoop on Gwenny Penny

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Isn't that darling? I think her words are stamped. I don't know how to do that, so I embroidered mine.....not that I'm a pro at that either, but it worked :)   My friends' nursery is green, pink and brown. Here's my version

Oh how I wish I had a baby.....someday

Freezer Paper Stenciling Tutorial

You all know I just had my 2nd wedding anniversary. And you saw my gorgeous anniversary band Mr. Perfect bought. Well I don't believe I told you what I did for him. His main gift was this baseball gift basket I put together with tickets to the Royals vs. Yankees game. We had a blast! But there was something else....

Something a little funny and kinda an inside joke, but I'm gonna tell you about it anyway.

A couple weeks before the big anniversary, Mr. Perfect and I were looking online to see what the 2nd anniversary gift was. The traditional was cotton.

Me: (listing off various cotton gifts described online) Babe, it says clothes, linens, napkins, a bunch of stuff that doesn't sound like anniversary gifts.

Mr Perfect: Like a t-shirt that says "all I got for my 2nd anniversary was this lousy t-shirt".

And then we both laughed until we had tears coming out our eyes and couldn't breathe. See, so it's kind of an inside joke, but you might chuckle a little at it anyway. But seriously, after a joke like that, I couldn't not make a shirt that said that!!

I decided to make this my first try at using freezer paper to stencil something. I printed off on the computer what I wanted it to say and gathered my supplies.

I had decided to do 2 t-shirts that were matching so it could be a "his and hers" type thing. Plus, if I screwed one up, there would always be another one.

I cut 2 pieces of freezer paper the size of my printed paper and layered them on top. I figured I could cut 2 stencils at a time to save me from spending an entire week cutting out words for my stencil.

Then I got to work cutting out my stencil with an exacto knife. If you cut out words like this, you should probably rent a movie.....just sayin. Here's my stencils all cut out.

And here is the pile of dots and such for the inside of the "O", "A", "R" and "D". Can't forget about those!

Next all you do is iron your stencil to your t-shirt. Then paint! I used a sponge type brush and dabbed the paint on there. To make the shirt washable, make sure you mix fabric medium into your paint before you start applying it.

After it is all dry, tear the stencil off your shirt and you are done!

They both turned out great! So he got the navy colored shirt and I got the teal one.

Now here's how he reacted when he opened it.....

We were sitting there, each of us with a shirt sized box in front of us. We had both said this box we were giving each other wasn't the real gift (mine was the baseball gift basket and his was the ring). I think we were both thinking the same thing......that the other one had a gotten a t-shirt with that saying on it. He opened my gift first. And he didn't laugh very much or anything. I thought it was weird. He thought it was hysterical when we joked about it. So I opened his gift. He had made a t-shirt for me that said the same thing! He had printed on an iron-on transfer and just ironed it on a shirt. Not nearly as crafty as me, but hey, gotta hand it to the guy for making me a shirt!

I'm sure you are tired of my babbling and reading about my inside joke with my hubs. Hope I didn't bore you to death! On a crafty related note....I kinda like the freezer paper stenciling. Might be doing more with that here soon!
 

Shame on me

I am SOOOO behind in my blogging! I've busy doing projects, and watching tv, and just....life. This last weekend we had 3 birthday parties in one day! Then Sunday I had to photograph a graduation.....on Mother's Day.....what is up with that??

I have about a million projects I want to post about. I just need to find the time to do it. I need to focus in the morning when I'm most productive instead of watching reruns of Project Runway. I need a little personal assistant is what I need HA! I wish.

So to my readers: I am sorry I didn't have a week in Instagrams post. Honestly I didn't even take any pictures last week (which is usually what happens the first week I'm done with my day job every summer). I am so sick of being glued to my camera that I just quit taking pictures of everything for a while. But not to worry, I'm back on it this week! I'm sorry I didn't have a sewing tip this week. Fail! Next week, I promise.

Please don't leave me!

What beauty products do you use?

This post brought to you by Bloom.com. All opinions are 100% mine.

If you didn't know, I'm turning 30 this month. EEK! I've been having a little bit of a crises about it too. Seriously, who wants to be old? Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was having an especially difficult time because my skin has been breaking out a lot lately. I know it's hormonal {I've had some changes lately} and there's not a lot I can do about it, but I don't like it. I also have saggy bags and dark circles under my eyes that have haunted me for years. 

Between the teenage acne and the geriatric bags I decided it was time I changed my skin care routine. Oh and let's not forget I have blackheads, an oily T-zone, and my eye shadows always crease. I buy new makeup and skin care products alllll the time to try and fix all my problems. Here's the massive pile of makeup I've got in my bathroom right now

 

 

I wish I had had a personal consultant before I bought all that! Most of it I don't even wear. It either doesn't look good on me, or I break out, or I'm even more oily.

If you are anything like me, you are going to want to check out Bloom.com.

Bloom.com is a social beauty network that is revolutionizing the way that women find and buy the right products. Within Bloom.com you can read unbiased feedback on your Beauty Matches and what is trending in the social world. Bloom has 10,000 items from 150+ top brands. And guess what? Bloom.com is free to join!

It's pretty much like your personal beauty shopper. You set up your skin, and hair profile and tell them what you are interested in beauty wise. And they give you tons of recommendations on basically every type of beauty product! How sweet is that?? What I'm totally in love with, is that it will give you high end suggestions and "budget" suggestions. You all know how I like cheap!

They have some pretty awesome kickbacks too! Purchases come with free gifts AND 10% back in Bloom Dollars. If it's your first time purchasing you get 30% back on your first order!

Now for the really great part........ Bloom.com is giving you the opportunity to win a FOUR Girlfriend Luxury Spa Weekend in Vegas, all expenses paid at the luxury 5 star Aria hotel!! You can enter yourself to win by joining Bloom.com for free. And you get additional entries to the sweepstake for every friend who joins from your invite!!

I don't know about you, but I sure could use a spa weekend!!! Seriously people, go check out the site, you'll love it. And enter to win a free trip!

Win a spa vacation for 4 girlfriends!

 

 

 

 

{How Pinteresting} #10

It has been awhile since I've done one of these posts hasn't it? So sorry! It has returned!

Here's my "pin"spiration photo for the week. It comes from Mommy in the Mountains

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I think that rug is just stinkin cute! Our front porch needs some MAJOR lovin. It's so bare and not welcoming. We might as well hang a sign on the door that says "buzz off". I have tried to spruce it up with a cute wreath, but, ya know, they only do so much. We currently have one of those small, stiff, mats you can buy at Walmart or wherever that has 3 faded palm trees and the word Welcome. But, I live in Kansas, not California. That rug is on its last leg for sure! So into the trash it goes...

You remember me going to Ikea? I bought a plain rug to put on the front porch, with the intention of painting it. I can make it cute, without some cheesy palm trees. And it's actually a decent size without having to break the bank to buy it. Score!

Before I show you mine, let me just say.....I KNOW chevron is overdone. I KNOW ombre is overdone. But whatever, I still like it all anyway. And on another side note...all my pictures have a slight red ring around them. Uh, that happened in photoshop because I forgot to reset a setting. My bad. Ignore it because I'm not going back to redo all these pictures lol.  Anyway here's my rug

 I just planted the flowers a couple days ago so those really dress up the place too! And ignore the glare on the glass and harsh shadows....my house faces south....allllll day long.

Wanna make your own?? It's simple.

Start with your rug. Make sure you do this project on the carpet in your living room like I did, just don't tell your husband {hehe}  .......this is one of those moments where I'm sorta happy he doesn't read my blog......

Tape off your design, or use a stencil, whatever you want to do. Let me just warn you, these scratchy, high pile rugs are SO hard to tape. Like, the tape doesn't stick at all. It's barely just sitting on top of the rug.

Then paint! I used a nice stiff brush and tried to really work the paint down in the fibers.

Peel the tape off and voila!

What do you think? I love it. Mr. Perfect loves it. The kid has already wiped her feet on it. Guess that's what it's for!

I heart Pinterest