September 10, 2013 by Stephanie

And the Birds Sing

It’s been awhile since Tyrone has graced the blog…

Such a great song! I am still debating on making it to one of his shows on his fall tour. Money and travel really do throw rocks in planning for funtivities. If you have him in your area, you really should try to go!

Anywho…

Recently, Tom and I had a painting date night. There is a really sweet little shop that hosts painting lessons a few times each week. The women who run the place, are adorable and definitely made the night super fun.

As with most social painting places, they provided the paint equipment and the canvas to take home. They do one design so you have to pick a night that you like what’s on the menu. You are able to change the colors and little details, but the underlying subject is the same.

Tom signed his with the Rakkasan symbol in the corner, and he ended up taking it to work for the office they all congregate in. He has even recruited several other guys to go with us the next time. Awesome right?

It was a fun night, and we have planned to do it every couple months for fun.

The rest of my post will be a plea to help someone I know further his education.

Dan is a student I worked with at Iowa State. He has entered the Dr. Pepper Tuition Giveaway for his grad school endeavors. He is a super talented person, and I am glad I had the pleasure of working with him. He was intentional with his conversations and made sure everyone he spent time with knew that he was present and they were his main priority. I was always amazed at his tenderness and capability of serving others. He is going to be great at his profession of choice!

This was a conference trip we went on together for housing. (I am the one in the yellow cardigan in the right hand corner.) Shout out to the Cyclones this week against Iowa. Let’s go Iowa State!

In order to reach his goals without the financial headache, he needs help in this contest! If you are ever so kind, it just takes a second to vote! Just click on the link and hit the thumbs up. Once it is circled in green, you have voted!

http://www.drpeppertuition.com/profile/1483130943

Again, he is a great human being who needs a little help! Thanks a million friends!

September 7, 2013 by Stephanie

I’m a Little Teacup

One of my favorite things is perusing thrift stores. My mom used to take my brother and I all the time as a kid, and it was always fun to see what treasures we could find. And usually I could find an elephant somewhere to add to my massive figurine collection.

I still love going even if I have no plan in mind of purchasing anything.

And lucky for me, there are scads of awesome thrift stores here in Clarksville. It makes sense though if you think about it with it being a college and military town, there are always people moving around and downsizing before loading up those moving trucks. This means that there are great finds everywhere.

And come to find out there is a thrift store on base. Tom and I had been driving past it for months, but we just realized that this random big white building next to the PX is a thrift store. So we went a couple weeks ago on our tour de thrift store Saturday.

I actually did have a project in mind. My partner, Lesle, in the Carabox exchange, loves tea, so I thought it would be cute to make something out of tea cups. I got this idea from my sister-in-law who made these last year. Thanks Em!

And apparently tea sets/china does not make the cut for moving lists. There were hundreds of tea cups at every store we went to. I got this cup and saucer for a couple dollars.

It’s too bad I didn’t know about this last year since I know several people who were searching all over for tea cups for party decorations.

This project is so simple, just super glue and some time.

Just glue the teacup to the saucer. Let it sit for the recommended time.

Then you have a sweet little jewerly holder/coin holder/candle holder/etc. Super easy, yet effective.

It’s too bad that I am not fond of tea, because I think tea sets are adorably sweet. And tea parties are super fun, and make you feel like you are a lot more sophisticated than you actually are. (Thanks Katy for hosting a beautiful one back in Iowa! You really are that sophisticated though!)

I also want to say thanks to the ladies who nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award over the past few weeks!

Elizabeth, Amanda, and Lauren, I really appreciate the shout out, and I love all of your blogs dearly! I am so glad to share this with you all!

I hope you all have a great weekend. I have a great surprise starting tomorrow so I hope you come back and visit!

For now I must finish watching my Clemson Tigers! CLEM in Cadence Count!

This will be my kids…

September 4, 2013 by Stephanie

My Container Store

With the Cara Box exchange, I really wanted to make everything for Lesle.

Here was my train of thought.

She had said that she loved labeling and organization throughout her blog, so I thought I would create containers that had really cute labels on it.

See doesn’t that look cute?

That is not how they turned out. Here was the sequence of events.

I had tried mod podgeing scrapbook paper labels I made, but my sample one looked atrocious. The mod podge I used did not dry clear as I had thought. It was cloudy and streaky, and just plain ugly. The pictures don’t show the injustice of the mod podge, so it is not even post worthy. But the jar still works, so we are still using it…in the closet.

So nix the label idea.

I decided that I was going to paint chevron stripes on the remaining containers I had because that was something else Lesle had mentioned.

I bought the new chevron painter’s tape they have at Lowe’s. Genius! Fairly pricey, but so worth the headache I had endured before trying to do chevron.

So I painted my merry little way all over the jars.

Then I tried peeling off the tape.

Curse of the ugly jars. The tape just took off the paint with it. I will admit, I should have used different paint, but I was still upset. It basically turned to rubber cement on the jars and was easy to rub off.

So try three…

I started scrambling through my craft closet to see what I could come up with.

I found some decorative buttons and frilly ribbon and pulled out the go-to hot glue gun.

And this was the final and perfect product!

I think they turned out pretty swell considering how many try overs I had. And bonus, I used these to hold all the other goodies I sent her: tea, crocheted scarf and dog treats for her dog.

So it maybe wasn’t the labeled goodness I had envisioned, but hopefully she can still use my Pinterest fail to be organized in the house!

August 19, 2013 by Stephanie

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

I am still feeling a little woozy and under the weather, so it will be pretty simple tonight. I have some meatier things on the docket for later this week, and I have lots of upcoming crafts to share!

I have had this mirror since my freshmen year of college, so ten years ago. It has made it through over 15 moves across the years, and it had the scars to prove it. There were random paint and scratches all over it.

So needless to say, it needed some updating or we would need to part ways. I chose the former.

I got felt from Hobby Lobby and buttons that I already had. You need more felt than you realize. I ended up having to go back for more. I think I ended up with around 30 sheets total.

You need two sizes of circles. The smaller circles you do not need as many. It is a 6:1 ratio (6 large circles for every 1 small circle).

Luckily, my hubster was really helpful and cut most of the circles! He is a super good craft husband.

First thing for the “petals,” fold a large circle in half.

Then you fold it into an ‘S’ shape.

Then you glue 6 of these triangles onto a little circle. It will look like a pie chart. This is the view from the back.

Then you just fluff the petals up. You can leave it like this.

Or you can jazz it up by hot gluing a button or jewel of some kind to the middle.

This took a long time to make all of these. We spent a few nights working on this project. I also messed up a tray table with the felt and hot glue, so be careful what surface you make them on.

Once you make all the flowers, you just glue them to the mirror. You will need more than you think because they squish together. I thought I was done several times, only to find that we needed to cut more circles. Hubster to the rescue!

We may regret choosing this color, because I am not sure how the felt will hold up to dirt, dog hair, and dust. But for now it is super pretty! And hey, we are into the second decade of this bad boy, so I think we can afford another mirror.

August 5, 2013 by Stephanie

Talks with Tom #6

This weekend was tax free weekend here, which apparently in TN is like another Black Friday event. They throw out tons and tons of sales around here to coincide with the tax free time. One of the gals at work went at 5:30am on Friday to hit up some stores for her little tykes to get some of the hottest new school items. I don’t remember this much hoopla in any other state I have lived in.

So Tom and I went to the mall yesterday to take advantage of some of the excitement. We had a great time shopping together.

After Tom selected his new pair of tennis shoes for work, he lingered near the shoelaces display rack.

Tom-“I have a dazzling new pair of shoes, should I get shoelaces to match?” His eyes were sparkling and lit up with glee.

Me-“Really?” (I have married a 5 year old. We might as well have gotten light up shoes.)

Tom-“Yea, I need to branch out from blues, greens, and all the earth tones.”

Me-“I think you will be ok with just the ones the shoes provide.” (which are yellow and black)

Amidst his rugged and sometimes obscene personality, he has his moments as a sweet and endearing hubster. We broke ways so I could go into Maurices while he went to Radio Shack. I like shopping in peace, so this works out in our favor. Moments after perusing some of the new skirts, Tom pops up and says, “You’ll find me at Mr. Bulky’s.” And I am fairly certain he skipped away to find his Jordan Almonds.

Resisting the urge to buy a few items, I left a few minutes after to follow him to see what kind of sugar coma he was about to go under. My heart melted when Tom pulled away from the cashier with an ICEE. He told me I could choose between mint chocolate truffle and the ICEE. The choice was obvious. ICEE all the way! The thought of the mint chocolate was sweet too, since I love most things with mint and chocolate. Love him.

Also, if you have never been to ROSS, you need to hurry up to your nearest store. It must be a southern store though, because I have never seen them back in the Midwest. It is a fantastic place to find some hidden deals for clothes and household items. We have been in desperate need of rugs, but weren’t willing to shell out the ridiculous amount of cash to do so. Our floors are bare no more! We bought two door mats, two long hallway ones, and one large one for our living room. We spent about $75 for all of these! And they aren’t just cheapo rugs either. Elsewhere you could have spent at least $25 for the small ones, and well over one hundred for the large one. Win for us!

Other highlights from the weekend:

Our family was in town. Five extra people in the house and another dog for Gracie to play with!
BBQing
finding the best local pizza place in town by accident (Luigi’s-the crust is delightful)
Farmer’s market, even though it was raining-I had the best soft pretzel!
My niece, Ava, teaching me how to play My Little Pony’s correctly and everything about the “Elements of Harmony”
introducing Ava to Mulan
watching the wedding episode of the Office-Love Jim and Pam!
people watching at the mall

I got out the fancy camera to practice some of my manual modes. Ava was a great subject! I still need to get a good editing program, so these are all before editing. Even though it was practice, I was able to get some fairly good shots of a few moments.

Grace loved having her cousin in town!

We went to the museum on base. Ava wanted to read to us.

We went to the park right next to our house for the first time.

Playing hide and go seek, she would whistle “youwhoo” if you didn’t find her fast enough or if she got impatient searching.

It was nice to have them visit and not have to do the driving. Someday we will live much closer so there isn’t as much time in between visits!

I have another curtain project for you today. Remember the torn bed sheet?

I decided to dress up this bathroom with it.

See how boring and WHITE it is? Again, we don’t want to paint or cover our walls with holes.

So I bought a cheap tension rod you find in the bathroom sections.

Very similar to the other curtains, I had to pin my edges down before I started sewing. This was a little different because I did need to sew all four edges, and the sheet wasn’t exactly straight so I had to work some magic to get it to look the way I wanted to.

Again, this is a great way to start sewing because it is just straight lines.