School Treats

Thought I would share some projects I had been working on the last few weeks.
I wanted to make something special for each of Dane's classmates & his teacher, but with a limited budget, things were going to have to be very creative. I lucked out & found some cute little summer buckets at Dollar General-3 for $1.00. There are 10 kids in his class counting him (I knew if I made something & took it to class & didn't have one for him, it would really hurt his feelings). I then found some pinwheels at Dollar Tree. Again, 3 for $1.00. Then I found various kinds of candy -a bag of Blowpops, Mike & Ike for a quarter each. And to really top it off, a bag of Crabby Patties at Dollar Tree! I filled the buckets with some shredded paper & printed a tag that read: Thanks for being my friend ~Dane Celebration 2008.

For his teacher, I bought a larger bucket from Dollar General, some lotions, a book, some of the candies & I made her a journal to write in. I lucked up & found the cover image in Mary Engelbreit's magazine. I then used various other papers & printed out a few more quotes.

The journal was really fun to make. I'm going to make another one for my "Musings" and one to keep track of all the books I've read & a brief recap of the story.
"No man ever really finds out what he believes in until he begins to instruct his children" ~Ephesians 6:4

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of anyone else" ~ Romans 15:1,2
I found the Live Well stickers at Dollar Tree!

I loved the colors of the buckets. Each three pack came in a red, mint green, & turquoise color. Great summer picnic colors. And they had a whole isle dedicated to the whole theme.

Some new looks

I've been playing around this morning. Added my shelf from Shelfari so you can see what I've been reading. And I've added a beautiful new picture at the very bottom of the page. Now I'm off to find some more goodies to list in the shop (need to update that too. I need to write a shop description-and I hate doing that).

My DH is off work today & he has a delivery to make so I'm hoping to make a day out of it & stop to eat somewhere new. I still need to add two more independent restaurants to fulfill my goal of eating at 12. You can see my whole list here.And can't forget the camera. You never know when you can find a good shot.

Hope everyone had a good Memorial Day. And hope the rest of your week is just as good :0)

Happy Memorial Day

Hello all my beautiful friends! Yeap, it's been awhile since I updated-sorry. But ya'll missed me, right? LOL!!
After the long weekend last week, I'm just now feeling like I've caught up on everything. And Dane's last day of school was this past Friday, so I had some stuff to do for that. But now school is over and I plan on getting A LOT of stuff accomplished!! I have some fun stuff planned that I would like to do with Dane (and Gracyn :0) this summer. First thing I would like to start is letterboxing.
"Letterboxing is an intriguing “treasure hunt” style outdoor activity. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and post clues to finding the box online on one of several Web sites. However, clues to finding some of the most highly-sought boxes are passed around by word of mouth. There are about 20,000 letterboxes hidden in North America alone. Individual letterboxes usually contain a log book, an often hand-carved rubber stamp and may contain an ink pad. Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp on their personal log book, and leave an imprint of their personal stamp on the letterbox's logbook ."

(I'm excited about doing it, I hope Dane enjoys it too.) Also, I would like to have a "dinner party" night once a week. Just an excuse to decorate the dinner table and have some fun. I thought that he could help me with this too. He loves to get the paint, scissors & glue out to make things. Plus it would give me an excuse to try out new recipes.
Speaking of food, we had our Memorial Day cookout yesterday because sweet hubby has to work today. But they close early at 5 pm so we can still enjoy the day. We grilled steaks and kabobs and corn ( my two men could eat their weight in corn-Dane having two ears yesterday! And it was so sweet-the corn that is :0)

Along with all of this, I've got to get working on my little business. I started selling some stuff on Etsy ( and some odd things on Ebay that don't fit into the Etsy categories). But to really make this work, I have got to dedicate more time to it. My brain gets so full of ideas, now I just need to put them into something tangible. And I feel that I need to have some kind of "style". I think I might have finally found it-Bohemian. A care-free, lots of layers, mixed up kind of style. Yeap, that's me. A style that uses various things from all kinds of different styles and periods. And a style that doesn't mind scratches and chips and nicks and dog hair! (I've added some pictures of Bohemian style throughout this post)

I hope all of you have a Safe & Happy Memorial Day! Ciao for now!

Kristalized

So I've really been trying to make a job out of selling on Etsy. I've been going through closets and boxes, finding treasures that I've had FOREVER and for some reason or another, put off selling them (it all goes back to my goal of one day opening up my own shop). So now I have the resources to have an on-line shop and I'm really excited about turning it into a little part-time job - full-time if you count the others hours devoted to taking care of the kids and hubby (don't tell him that I have to take care of him-he thinks he does that all on his own) and don't forget the dogs. I really have to add this one because I spend over an hour driving all over our neighborhood last night around 10:30pm looking for the two big ones. I finally found them a block up the road. Sasha had jumped into someone's swimming pool!! I had to let her get into my car all wet and I had JUST vacuumed and cleaned it yesterday! Indy had taken off again & I had to drive a little further up the road to get him. Sometimes, I wonder about those two. They will be so good for months & then BAM!

So back to my Etsy. I finally put a link to my shop here on the blog (Thank You Jennifer). And I listed a few things today. One of them was a sweet little vintage night light that I picked up at an Estate sale. It is a lady in a pretty pink dress with ruffles. As I was cleaning it yesterday, I realized that the ruffles were made of real fabric. But it looked like they had at one time been gold but had discolored. So after debating about it, I got out a paint brush & some antique gold paint & touched up the ruffles. Wow, did it really make a difference. So I posted it on Etsy today & then some more items on Ebay (if you need a pair of Petite Juicy Couture terry cloth capris, or parts for your Camaro, let me know :0) Then went back to Etsy to figure out how to upload the Etsy button to put on the blog & the little night light had already sold! In about an hour!! Oh, if I could just do that Everyday!!!!

Top part of dress is before painting, bottom is after I "Kristalized" it!

I took this one last night in the bedroom to show how it would look.

Now it's Bragging Time!!!

Isn't she too cute?!?

Graduation Time

This coming Friday, the 16th, Dane will graduate from Pre-K! I can't believe the year has gone by so quickly. I am truly blessed that the director, Patti Kilgore, hired me as a substitute. I had such a wonderful time & really wanted to go back but since they can't take babies younger than 6 months, I didn't have anywhere to put Gracyn.
And on Sunday, the 18th, my step-daughter will be graduating from high school! One graduating from Pre-K & one from high school, one in diapers- we really know how to spread them apart! I guess we'll have something to keep us busy for about the next 18 years or so LOL

I want to give a big Shout Out to my lovely Peep Heidi! She ordered one of my lightswitch covers off of Etsy. I know they don't seem like much, but for me personally, it makes me smile each time I see one of my covers in a room. Just so much nicer than that plain ole' white cover.
And I have lots more stuff to add today-some vintage clothing, a few cute vintage knick-knacks and my newest creations-crosses! I LOVE making these crosses. It has taken me awhile to get the whole look down that I wanted. But I'm happy with the way these turned out. And for a few of you reading this, act surprised when you get one this Christmas!!!

On the backs I've placed quotes that relate to Bible scriptures. This one reads: To know the will of God is the greatest knowledge, to find the will of God is the greatest discovery, and to do the will of God is the greatest achievement. ~John 12:26
I've used a mixture of vintage & new beads for the hangers. And different painting techniques on each one. I have another batch that I'm hoping to finish today if the weather allows.

Hope you all have a great Saturday & an early "Happy Mother's Day"!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

One Tequila
Two tequila
Three tequila
FLOOR!!!

That would so be me right now. I just can't drink like I use to. I did have a craving for a Corona the other day. And it tasted so good. But just one for me. But we still love to look at the drink menus when we go out. There are always such pretty drinks with such exotic names.

So, is anybody planning anything special~other than having tacos for dinner?! :0) We like soft tacos so I buy a large pack of flour tortillas and a can of refried beans. And I've just discovered the local grocery store brand of Spanish rice. It calls for a can of tomatoes, but since dear hubby doesn't like them, I omit the can. The rice still comes out yum-O!! I might throw out some decorations, we'll see.

Remember the Camaro we bought a while back? Well, Charlie has been so busy with work over the Holidays and such, he just didn't have the energy or heart to get working on it again. But this week, he's been doing a little each night after he gets home. And on Friday, he got all of the motor up back together & cranked up. And boy does it sound good! Wish I could put audio on here. So I was asking him what else needed to be done. He said he needed to take the seats out so he could take the carpet out to cut the center console for the shifter. So in an effort to surprise him, guess what I did...took the seats out myself!! He laughed & said he wishes he had a picture of that!! I told hime I could take something apart, it was just putting it all back together was the problem.
I took some pictures of him working on the car. I'll try to post them later.
Right now it's about time for me to get Dane up for school. He graduates from Pre-K a week from Friday on May 16th & their last day of school is the 23rd. And my step-daughter, Krystin, graduates from high school on the 18th. We're hoping we can drive up to see her, but Charlie has to see if he can get that weekend off first.

Hope everyone has a safe & happy Cinco de Mayo!!