New blog - She Made It

For about the next two minutes, I will be officially caught up with my google reader. Meaning I have gone through each and every new post. Like I said, for the next two minutes. I have a ridiculous amount of blogs on my reader.

Anyways....I wanted to share with you a blog I just discovered. She happened to be posting at I Heart Nap Time but I added her to my list and I love her blog. She's adorable, she has two adorable daughters, and her ideas are...well...adorable. She showed off a super cute seasonal display.

Go check out She Made It you won't be disappointed!

Here's a couple of things that I loved!

Painted Rug I've seen a few of these floating around but she made it look really simple. I love the colors too!

Cheesecake I'm drooling on my keyboard now

Enjoy!!

One of those "am I old!?" moments

As you may or may not know, The Mister is currently in school studying for his nursing degree. Generally speaking he is older than many of his classmates which is typical for many community colleges, there is a wide variety of students attending.

Anyways, the other day he was in his Psychology class and the teacher was talking about...I believe it was called "snapshot memory". Basically it means the way we can so vividly remember things like what we were wearing, eating, listening to, who we were with, where we were, etc. during a major event.

She used September 11th as an example and begin asking the class what they remembered. He was shocked, over half the class has no memories of that day. However, as the questioning progressed it turned out that most of the people that don't remember are currently 16-20 years old which would make them about 6-10 years old when it happened.

Um yeah, do you qualify as old when something that was an integral part of your life, classifies as "history" to those around you?

The instructor then went on to ask if anyone remembered what they were wearing the day BEFORE September 11th. Only the Mister raised his hand. She figured he was joking and was really surprised that he actually knew. The funny part is, he happened to be working for the Department of Natural Resources that summer as a wildland Fire Fighter and for three months straight he wore a yellow shirt and green pants every. single. day.

Hehe, jokes on her!

Correction: The Mister just told me it's called a "flash-bulb memory" :)

Hitting the garage sales!! and other radomness

For those of you that live in warmer climates, I know you have been going to garage sales, well....all year. For those of us that live in the Pacific Northwest, garage sale seasoning is just kicking off this weekend. I love going to garage sales for a myriad of reasons, but mostly, you know, the prices rock.

I am meeting up with my mom and we are hitting a couple of big community sales tomorrow. I'm so excited! The weather is supposed to be awesome. I've been storing up so many ideas from around blog land this winter, it will be fun to start looking for treasures.

My poor Bubby needs summer clothes, or he's going to be one nekked little boy, and I just saw an awesome idea for making a shaggy bath mat from old towels (I'll try to post that soon) so I'll be on the lookout for some fun colors, my bathrooms both need some serious decorating help.

Otherwise, I don't think I'm looking for anything specific, but you know, I have a list a mile long at the same time! :)

Then Sunday is supposed to be 70 degrees!!!! I could sing. Seriously. In the middle of my office. At the top of my lungs! So on Sunday, I will be working in the yard. I actually enjoy it. We have lots of cleaning up and weeding to do but we are also getting our garden ready for planting and I am excited to try some new things this year. We had such good luck with the things we tried last year, we are expanding our repertoire this time around.

We'll also be working on my car, because it has taken a dive for the worst. But I don't want to talk about that now.

I hope you all have a prosperous and enjoyable weekend!

Scrapbooking supplies

I snagged this old letter press tray at a garage sale for $2.00 last summer. I have always been in love with these things. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but you know, whatever.

 I've been working on my scrapbooking area lately, which consists of a built-in bookcase in the office. I do most of my work at the computer desk since I'm typically using my Cricut at the same time. I finally decided to use the tray to keep all of my small embellishments in. I previously had them in various boxes and bottles and I typically forgot to use them because I could never remember what I had.

I left the tray natural, though I may decide to paint it at some point. I don't know if this will be a permanent spot for the tray so I want to see if it works out before I start coating it with paint.

 The bigger sections hold my ribbon, ric-rac, paper cutting blades, and Cricut pens.

 The smaller sections are perfect for the mini stamp sets I just picked up, brads, crop-a-dile accessories and small embellishments.

This is the beginning of my shelves. You can't see it because I have so much paper but I found a metal paper rack at a thrift store a while back. It has about twenty vertical slots so it's perfect for holding paper since it can't fall over and get bent up. 

The plastic paper holders on the far left came from Joann's (12x12) and they are really handy. I have one just for scrap pieces (I think I'm going to sort my scraps out by color though and come up with a better way to store them. I keep all of my paper on the very top shelf so the boys can't get into it. I also store my Cricut cutting mattes, and black sticker book here (on the far right).

You can see my 12x24 Cricut matte across the top also. I'm trying to come up with a good way to store this without rolling it up.

The second shelf down has the tray with all of my embellishments in it. 

The third and fourth shelves are still a work in progress. The will hold pens, scissors, glue and other supplies, along with my photo boxes and vinyl supplies. Right now they are a mess because I haven't decided how to organize everything yet.

I also keep my Xyron laminator and Purple cow laminator here along all of their supplies since I use these so often.

Bug Catching

 

Unfortunately, along with the sun came bugs. Bubby(5) spent HOURS trying to catch the flies swarming his slide. They seem to be attracted to the wood frame. Does anyone know why that is? He was using a fish tank net, which we typically use to keep the pool clean, and wasn't very successful, but he has a great time trying.

Texture

There is no rhyme or reason for this post. I was outside the other day and the sun was incredible!! I just started taking random pictures and I thought the color and texture in these were really neat. They remind me of those games in kid's magazines where they give you a picture of a part of something close up and you have to guess what it is.

The side of our fiberglass boat which is awaiting a sand and paint job.

Evergreen branches

Egyptian Walking Onions (I'll post about these sometime, they are amazing)

Bark on an apple tree

Moss on an apple tree

Tulips

I had to share some of our tulips with you. I have added hundreds of bulbs to our yard since we've moved in, but these guys were already here. I have yellow and red and they are incredible. I put my hand under this one so you could get an idea of the size. When they are fully open they easily cover my hand.

Do you have spring bulbs blooming? Please share with us what you have!

New on Etsy and a scrapbook layout

I finally have a scrapbooking area set up where I can leave my supplies out and easily accessible. I'm still working on making it cute so I'll post about it a little later. In the mean time, here's some easter goodies I've been putting together for the shop.

I loved the colors in this paper, so even though it's not Easter paper per-say, I went with it.

I also cut out a set for myself and put together an Easter layout from our celebrations last year. What do you think? You'll see I cut out the year as well and this isn't included in the store. I wasn't sure what year to include since many people may want them for previous years. If you do want the year to go along with the title, just include a note with your order and I'll throw it in for free. Please let me know if you want it in two pieces like the one shown on my pages, or as one.

Visit the store to purchase a set!! There are several options available.

Weekend wrap up

On Friday I posted a list of things I wanted to work on this weekend so I thought I'd follow up and let you know how I did! I didn't get everything on my list done (surprise surprise) but I did get numerous things done that weren't on my list. The boys had a great time celebrating Easter and we just spent the day playing together. I'll post more Easter photos soon.
One thing Bubby(5) received from the Easter Bunny was a set of Melissa and Doug play money (I love their toys!). We've have been playing "store" a lot with the "Zillions" cash register he received for Christmas. I especially like the Melissa and Doug money because while it is obviously play money, it does look real enough that it has been a great tool for teaching him about quantities and making change.
Anyways, back to the point....Here was my list....

Post several new items on Small Town Life
I listed some fun Easter and spring page sets. I also worked on several new items that will go up this week.
Finish my Easter scrapbooking pages from last year and start of a few more
My Easter pages from last year are completed and posted. I didn't get any new ones started. Oh well.
Finish my Theater Signs for the livingroom and get them hung up
These are done and hung up. I love them! You'll see a post on them later this week.
Put the new cover on the futon and decide if I like it
This is still sitting in the package.
Put together an animal I-Spy bottle for the boys
I finished this up late last night. I need to print the matching tag and then I'll get pictures posted.
Get next week's posts set up
I have something to go up everyday through Friday! I will be adding a few more though. I need to get our Easter pictures edited first.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with what got accomplished. I also finished a tray redo for our livingroom to hold all of our remotes (you'll see this soon), officially got caught up on the laundry, played numerous rounds of Frisbee with the boys ("fun discs" are Styrofoam rings covered in cloth. They fly surprisingly well and are soft so they're perfect for rainy day inside Frisbee matches.), introduced Bubby to the world of Mother Goose (he doesn't know any nursery rhymes. I'm such a failure), and ate far more than my fair share of Easter candy.

I hope you all have an enjoyable week!

Theater Signs

I finally finished putting together the theater signs for our livingroom. I love how they turned out! Here is a before picture of our boring blank wall

Here's an after picture with all of the prints hung up.

 

I showed the first three close up in this post. Here are the other three I added. The dimensions are 8x10 and 11x14.

The vinyl is plenty strong enough to hold up but will peel off easily if we decide to change the image for some reason.
These canvases weren't very thick so I had to come up with a way to hang them without putting holes in the back, and I didn't want to use anything that would stick to the wall. I used standard alligator picture hangers but instead of securing them with those little tiny nails, I used hot glue! It took about two minutes to glue them all on and hang them up. They are holding beautifully!
Just so you know, I tried Zots (glue dots) first, um yeah, that didn't work.

What do you think?

Easter Egg Hunt

We joined in the town's Easter egg hunt today. The local fire department hosts the event every year. The weather was perfect!! The boys had a great time.

Livingroom subway art

I've seen a hundred versions of this project floating around and decided to get in on the action. We recently added these display shelves to our livingroom wall (trim from the Habitat for Humanity Resale store, LOVE that place!) and we are still adding accessories to them.

 This wall is at the end of our livingroom and is basically a hallway since there are doorways on either side of it. I want to find a narrow table to go against this wall at some point.

This movie reel is some metal art I found and Joann's one time. Otherwise at this point there are just some records sitting up there. Yes, we do actually listen to them.

 I wanted something that would tie in our colors and be geared towards the "entertainment" theme we are going for. I used the titles from some of our favorite movies and shows, edited them to be various font styles, sizes, and colors then printed them on white cardstock from my scrapbooking stash.

  I already had these black 8x10 frames around so I just switched out the images and set them on our shelves. Easy peasy. Less then ten minutes, and absolutely free. Love that!

Weekend Plans

It's Friday and it's sunny!! What more could a girl ask for?

I have no big plans for the weekend but the Mister will be away most of the time so I plan on accomplishing a lot. The boys and I will be enjoying some fun Easter festivities including a morning Easter egg hunt. Bubby(5) still talks about last year's hunt, he thinks it is the funniest thing that the Easter bunny put eggs in all my candle holders!!

I have a long list of chores and such but here's a brief list of what I hope to get to (if you will be watching I'll have extra incentive to get things done):

Post several new items on Small Town Life

Finish my Easter scrapbooking pages from last year and start of a few more

Finish my Theater Signs for the livingroom and get them hung up

Put the new cover on the futon and decide if I like it

Put together an animal I-Spy bottle for the boys

Get next week's posts set up (Because I work fulltime outside of the home, I try to write all of my blog posts on the weekends when I have more time and can access my projects and photos easily. Then I schedule them in blogger so I have at least one new post everyday. I absolutely LOVE that feature!)

I do have Easter baskets put together for the boys and I'll post those soon. I'd love to say I made everything in them, but sadly I simply didn't have time. I did however skip the Easter themed toys and candy and all that sort of thing. I looked for items that would last more than 24-hours, were needed anyways, or inspired learning and creativity.

I hope you all of a lovely weekend!!

Mini alphabet stamps

On a recent trip to Michael's I found these little guys in the $1.00 bin. I had to contain myself, they had about seven or eight different fonts. I chose the four I liked the best and started with those. I have several ideas brewing for items to add to Small Town Life and some different things to do with the boys. I plan to keep them with my supplies so the various letters don't get lost, but the boys have a large collection of stamp pads and I think these will be fun for early reading activities.
I have several people in mind that these would make great gifts for as well (they also had various stamp pads for $1.00). I think I'll be going back to get more!!

 Just to give you an idea of the size of these little guys, the entire box is about 2" x 2"

Chicken with Spinach and Lemon Pepper Dressing

I found this recipe in Better Homes and Gardens a while back and we absolutely LOVE it! It really only takes about 15 minutes to put together and another few minutes to cook.

I pretty much just follow the recipe, one thing I do differently is to cook the chicken using olive oil instead of butter. Even my boys gobble this down, and I have a hard time getting them to eat green stuff. This also reheats really well and makes great leftovers.

6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1 cup flour

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 extra large eggs

1 1/4 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs

1/2 cup fresh Parmesan cheese (plus extra for serving) I have also used grated Parmesan out of a can and it worked just fine

Unsalted butter (I just use Extra Virgin Olive Oil to cook the chicken and make my dressing)

Good olive oil

Salad greens (we use fresh baby spinach instead of salad greens)

Lemon Vinaigrette

Lemon Vinaigrette dressing:

whisk together 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp of black pepper

To make the chicken:

Pound chicken until they are about 1/4" thick

Combine flour, salt, and pepper on one plate. Eggs and 1 tbs of water on another plate, and bread crumbs and Parmesan on a third plate. 

Coat chicken breast on both sides with flour, then eggs, then bread crumb mixture. 

Heat olive oil in a large pan and saute chicken breasts until they are cooked through.

Once chicken is cooked top with fresh spinach and lemon vinaigrette.

Enjoy!!

Garden Bucket

I typically only manage to grab snippets of time to work out in the yard and it makes me crazy when I can't find the tools I need. I am forever leaving my spade or clippers lying around somewhere, never to be found again. Plus I can never find a pair of clippers when I want to cut flowers or collect veggies. Seriously, I must be the proud owner of about thirty pairs of clippers.

One of my goals this year is to make my porch more appealing and welcoming. 

I found this old galvanized metal bucket at a garage sale last summer for a whopping $3.00!!

I used SCAL and my Cricut to cut out our house numbers from black vinyl in "Curlz" font.

(Vinyl tip: I purchase my vinyl from a local sign shop. It's heavy duty, made for exterior use and once it's on it's not coming off. I get a great price that way and they have tons of colors.)

Anyways....I simply applied the numbers to my bucket using transfer paper, super easy.

I'm going to hang it next to the front door where it will stay dry and keep my small garden tools within easy reach.

I have to find a hook, then I'll show you the finished product. Ha!

$1.00 Christmas

I realize it's only April but this is something you'd want to plan for so I thought I'd put the idea out there now. My sister read an article about cutting back at Christmas (if I could find the article I would post it here, but I can't, sorry) and one of the ways to do so was to limit spending on gifts obviously. In my immediate family there are eight adults and five kids. Numerous years ago the adults stopped buying presents for each other and only the kids did gifts, we changed a couple of years back to making homemade gifts amongst the kids and that has been really fun. This year we are changing things up a bit and decided to do $1.00 gifts for everyone in the family.
The whole idea of this is for it to be fun and cheap. We don't have to buy a gift for every single person if we don't find something. For that matter, a candy bar would be sufficient, or a batch of cookies. The whole family likes to thrift and so the basic idea is that we can keep our eyes out at garage sales and thrift stores over the summer for different ideas. Of course the item can be new (like those mini alphabet stamps I just picked up!), used, or home made. This also lets the kids join in, picking their own presents and spending their own money. While Monkey(2) is too young to get the concept this year, Bubby(5) likes to garage sale and I think he'll have a great time looking for things to buy. He's always asking if we can buy this or that for various people. 
I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!! Maybe I'll do a linky party in December for people that want to join in on the fun! First I'll have to figure out how to do a linky party ;). Hm.....

Theater Signs

Recently I saw this

A Girl and a Glue Gun

and this

Knock Off Decor

and received some major inspiration for my living-room. I'm having a hard time incorporating the theater/entertainment basis for the room while not making it seem "themey" (not really a word, but you get the idea).
I immediately went out and bought six pieces of white canvas in two different sizes. Walmart - $12.00 total. I also picked up two blues and one white in craft paint for my base colors.
This is where I get high tech. I threw some paper towels on the table, spread the canvas boards on top, found one of my kid's paintbrushes which is died permanently green and set to work. I tried adding a bit of water to the paint at first so it would have more of a washed look, unfortunately it only made the brush marks show up really really really bad.
So I just brushed a second coat over it making quick "x" marks all other the canvas so now I have a nice coat of paint. I left the canvases out overnight so they'd be good and dry.

I went back over each canvas with a "Coffee Latte" color and using a paper towel wiped the paint over the canvas randomly to give it more of an aged/vintage feel and tone down the blues a bit. I ended up with this.

I've come up with three of the designs already, I'm still working on the others.

The Olympic Club is a local theater/pub/restaurant that we LOVE. They have $3.00 movies and is extremely kid friendly during the day. The Mister and I love going there for dates too.

I just set up each design on SCAL, then cut them out of dark brown vinyl and adhered them to the canvas. 

 Hopefully I'll have the finished project to show off soon!

What do you think!?