Where has the time gone?

Geez Louise! It has been a looooong time since I posted anything here. Life has been mighty crazy these days. Right now were on summer break, finishing up the new house, packing up this house, and getting ready to move. Lots of excitement... if only it would stop RAINING! UUUGGGHHH!

I was hoping to keep a record of sorts of this house building adventure on this blog, but since it's been months since I posted I think I've missed a step or two. ;) Good thing I've been taking pictures so we have something to look back on.

Here's a little bit of what's happening now... my new laundry room. I know a laundry room might seem boring, but I am soooo excited. Right now my laundry room is basically the mechanical room with a washer and dryer crammed in.... so my new space seems downright luxurious!

The walls are painted this color: (it's actually a very pale neutral green gray)



One wall is getting this super cute 1940's/50's looking wallpaper:



The cabinets look like this:



and the hardware looks like this:




I'm hanging up some cute retro artwork too: (maybe like these)



Oh yeah... there will be a washer and dryer in there too, along with lots of counter space to fold clothes. Ahhhh it's a dream come true! ;)

craft room

Hello! Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend! I thought I'd take a second to share some of my latest finds for my craft room. (by finds I mean things I'm drooling over and wish I had...;))

Ok, so I found all of these at Laurie Ann's Vintage Home. It's a super cute shop, you should be sure to check it out.

Look at this awesome rack! I want it to sit on my scrapbook desk to hold my must have handy tools, embellishments, inks etc. So stinking cute!


I love these chalkboard hooks. They would be great for display or hanging favorite ribbons and trims. I would also love these for my entryway, pantry (how cute would these be for holding aprons), and mudroom.


... now I am happy to say that these beauties are actually mine. I ordered 2 of these mercury glass pendant lights a few weeks ago. They came last week and I was soooo excited when I opened the box. They are beautiful... even better in person... and to top it off the lovely Laurie Ann threw in a freebie too! A gorgeous mercury glass candle holder. I will definitely be visiting her shop again!


Hope you like my finds! Have a great day!

Counting Down the Days!!!

Oh man oh man... I can HARDLY wait for the Farm Chicks show this year! It's terrible! I mean June is a not exactly around the corner and yet I find myself daydreaming about this amazing event. If you have never been you should make this year your first visit.(I say first because once you go you will want to come back every year) Go here to the website to find out the details and then check out the Farm Chicks blog on my blog roll to the left. If you love vintage, shabby chic, junkin, chippy paint on old furniture, glitter, and sometimes find yourself daydreaming about all the things you could do with some chicken wire, hot glue and an old window frame, this show is for you. NO ONE will look at you like your crazy when you pick up that beat up old milk pail and take it home to turn into a planter. No one will doubt your intelligence when you spend money on that adorable old beat up bench with 3 layers of chipping paint. They will smile, wave, and say, "Ohhhh that's soooo cute! I'll take it if you don't want it!" It really is a junker's paradise. Then of course there is the whole girls weekend, no husbands or kids to look after, no housework or cooking to do, out with my best friend having fun, laughing, and relaxing all weekend long. Unless of course we both spot that perfect vintage treasure at the same time... then it's every woman for herself! ;) Ok enough daydreaming, I'll just have to wait till June like everyone else!

Scrapbook Organization

Hello there! Well I don't know about you, but spring always makes me think of organization projects and right now I have scrapbooking on the brain. I just discovered an awesome way to organize my digital scrapbook products so I can be way more efficient. I'm using Picasa, it's a free photo editing and storage program you can download off the Internet, if you aren't already using it. I got the idea to use it for my scrapbooking supplies from this little tutorial on the Design House Digital website. Go here if your interested. It is working great for me!

I'm also trying to figure out how to organize my scrapbook supplies in our new house. I'm a little slow these days, so I JUST realized that when the house is finished and we move I will have almost NO scrapbook storage. Right now I have wonderful white cabinets that my hubby put up for me, but when we sell the house they go with it. So I'm on a major hunt to find some cheap and cute storage. Any ideas? I'd love to hear what you use or where you found some great pieces! The thought of having my stuffed piled on the floor makes me want to cry! ;)

A little scrapbooking

This last weekend was an extra long one for us. The kids school had parent teacher conferences last week so they basically had Thurs.- Mon. off. It was so nice! We hung out with family, kids played with their cousins, we spent lazy days reading and playing playmobil, we picked stuff out for the new house and spent an afternoon there, we built snow forts, tunnels, had a snowball fight,made ski jumps in the back yard, and I even got some scrapbooking in. So I thought I'd share some of the layouts I did.






I'm done with 2008 and halfway done with 2009... and boy oh boy it's feeling soooo good to get caught up! I'm always so worried I'm going to forget the stories behind the pictures (the stories are sooo important to me) so it is such a relief to be getting these older ones done before the memories become to faded. Good thing I often make little notes about events ect as they happen.

So I'd love to know... you scrapbookers out there, are you like me? Are you years behind with mountains of photos on your computer that you haven't even gone through? Or are you on top of things with only a few months worth of photos to print and scrap? If you are the latter, please let me know your secret! I just hope it's not "take fewer photos," because I'm pretty sure I'm beyond help on that front! ;) Have a wonderful Wednesday!!

Happy Valentines Day!

Have a wonderful Valentines Day! I'm off to bake goodies and make treats for school parties, bake some mini red velvet heart cakes for my family, and to whip up this super fun idea for Hubby and I tonight. Then I'm off to meet hubby and go the kids parties. Then it's homework, reading, and dinner for the kids (hubby and I are eating later). Next it's off to ballet, more Valentines in hand, and lastly home and bed for the kids.... then we get to start our couch picnic date night in. (you gotta follow the link above to understand) What are you doing today?

Valentine Freebie

Hey there! Well I thought I'd share this Valentine Freebie that I made, since I haven't reopened that shop of mine yet. Someday, I hope! ;) Maybe after we are in the new house!

Just click on the picture above to enlarge it then right click to save it. Please use this for your personal crafts, gifts, etc only. Thanks! Have a great Sunday!

Valentine Treats

I saw this adorable idea on the Farm Chicks blog. That Serena is so clever! If you like me, you've been seeing all kinds of "lollipops" appearing lately from paper lollies to ones made of cake. Well when I saw these Brownie Pops on Serena's blog I just had to try em. My version is a bit different from hers, mostly because I forgot I was supposed to be making this treats for my kids Awana class until late in the day. I didn't have time to let the brownies cool all the way before dipping them in chocolate so the kinda fell apart instead of holding their square lollie shape. So I grabbed some red candy melts from the cupboard and drizzled away. Then I added some fun Valentine sprinkles, wrapped them in cute polka dot bags and tied em up with curling ribbon. They turned out pretty cute for a rush job and the kids LOVED them. I think I'll make some more for school. What Valentine treats have you been making?

Valentines...

Hello there! Well we're back from a wonderful vacation in Disneyland! It was super fun and such amazing weather! It was around 78 while we were there. So warm and sunny, we kinda forgot we were coming home to Montana winter. Yah, I kinda convinced myself it was spring... then we hit the tarmac and the blustery 21 degree temperatures of home. My 3 year old was so convinced it had been summer that when we got back to our house, he told me we'd better get the Christmas decorations back out cause summer was over already and winter was back. ;) Anyway more on the trip later....

I thought I'd share the Valentines I made for the kids to give away at school. The kids help me make em in Photoshop. They picked out different digital scrapbooking supplies, colors, etc... it was lots of fun. (Well it was fun after I started over and asked them to help when they got home from school. Before that I was being Miss Picky Pants and spending way too much time on the design.)

Here is what we came up with for Parker:


and here is Maddie's:

The little aqua gal in the corner is Maddie. I used that silhoutte brush I made a while back. Man I LOVE those!!

The kids have been busy filling out names and signing them this week. This weekend we are going to punch some holes in the corners and use curling ribbon to tie them to Valentine suckers the kids picked out.

I just love Valentines Day! The kids are having some friends over this evening and I think we'll all make some Valentines cards and treats as a surprise for their parents. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Autograph Books

My family and I are feeling pretty lucky cause we are headed to Disneyland soon. Goodbye snow, ice, cold, and rain and hello sunshine, palm trees and Mickey Mouse! I made some autograph books for the kids to take and have the characters sign. I decided to digitally scrapbook them, that way if they get beat up on the trip I can just print out a new cover and replace the beat up one. They were super quick books to make... I just cut some 5x7 chipboard pieces for the covers, cut white cardstock into 5x7 pieces, scrapbooked, printed the covers to size, and stuck em to the chipboard, then used my handy dandy bind-it-all to put them together.


When we get back I'll probably add some ribbons etc to the binding and maybe a few keepsakes to the cover and inside pages. These little albums are so quick and easy to put together you could make em for all kinds of things. How bout some cute Valentine gifts for Grandma and Grandpa?! Just fill the book with black cardstock and put a cute black and white photo on each page. Hmmmm... I think I'd better get working on those! Have a great day everyone!

I feel pretty...oh so pretty

Ok, well I don't exactly feel pretty, but my camera sure does! I had to share this because I'm just so darn excited about it and I thought some of you might want one too! I take my camera with me all kinds of places but I get soooo tired of packing my camera bag and a purse whenever we go somewhere. I don't have a ton of camera equipment but I have a Canon digital SLR with a couple of lenses so I cant just stash it somewhere easily. So my WONDERFUL hubby got me this great camera bag/purse combo as an early birthday present. It came this week and boy I am so stinkin excited about it!!! It has padded movable dividers inside meant to hold my camera, lenses, charger etc and places for a wallet, sunglasses, lip gloss, etc. and the huge bonus is it's cute and looks like a purse! WHOO HOO!
It's really comfortable and has a couple of strap options... very nice for a bag full of heavy stuff.
Great adjustable insides.
A serious upgrade don't cha think? (Old camera bag on the left)
Thanks sweetie!
Ok so here are a few links for some cute camera bags:

Jo Totes
http://jototes.com/handbags

Epiphany Bags
http://www.epiphaniebags.com

I have a few more but cant find em! I'll check the laptop and share later. Have great day!

Just wishing and hoping and planing and dreaming...

Our little farmhouse is really coming along! I can't believe it! We are so excited... and I'm having so much fun picking everything out!


I LOVE this cabinet... I'm hoping to find something similar to make into a sink vanity for the kids bathroom.



I found these lights and was instantly smitten. They are made to look like vintage mercury glass... a favorite of mine. I'm hoping to get these pendants for my craft room. You know... that cabinet would be pretty great for the craft room too...hmmm... so many decisions!



I picked out tile for the bathrooms today and I don't know about you, but for me all tile starts to look the same after a while. (unless it's WAY outta my budget) Needless to say, I wasn't to excited about my trip to the tile shop. Boy oh boy was I in for a wonderful surprise after meeting the lovely and talented Cindy at Loren's Flooring in Missoula. I now have wonderful tile floors for our bathrooms in budget and I'm so excited. I wish I had a picture.... the tiles look like stone and are very light in color not quite cream or white but kind of a combo that will be laid in a brick pattern with these awesome teeny tiny clear cracked glass accent tiles.
These are the accent tiles... they will be like 1" square and give our floors a touch of glittery sparkle. Yeah! Maddie and I are cheering! Anyway just having fun with this process and feeling very blessed to be doing it!

Back in the Swing of things!?!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year! We had a marvelous time here. Yesterday morning came way to fast as usual though. Back to school, back to work, back to ballet, piano, and all the other after school activities, back to busy! It was so nice to have a relaxing break though... I just love hanging out with my family!

I thought I'd share a fun project I made for the gals in my family. These are necklaces made from dominoes and some vintage images. They were pretty easy and fun to make. I used some Tim Holtz alcohol ink to stain the dominoes, drilled a hole for the chain, printed and cut an antique image to size, inked, glued, and covered it all with diamond glaze. After it was good and dry I added a "hook" for lack of a better word and chain.


Please excuse the terrible picture! They were not so high contrast in real life!

Have a great day!