Colin's Green Dinosaur 3rd Birthday Party!

For Colin's 3rd Birthday he really wanted a Green Dinosaur Birthday Party! Here is the announcement I made for it. I let him pick out what he wanted on it and he really liked these dinosaur guys :)

I really wanted to attempt his birthday cake myself, but being pregnant with contractions, I needed to eliminate some of the stress and so that meant the cake had to be it. I have this awesome cake lady who I have had do cakes for me before and she is amazing! I just sent her a picture and she created this from it! Love her!

 One thing I was NOT going to give up on was this DINOsaur tail! I had seen it before, but wanted to make one for him to wear on his birthday! I found this tutorial on tatertotsandjello.com and it was really super simple. He loved it and wore it almost the whole day! We had also just put in a new sandbox that we hid some dinosaur bones in for the kids to dig up! That was the best part of the party! So much fun!

 I found this FREE Dinosaur Party printable at lovelyliving.com that made things super easy. It had all the banners, birthday hats, and straw flags as well as a whole lot more that I ended up not using. I used the idea from celebrationsathomeblog.com to add spikes to the back of the Dinosaur hats! I also made up some cute signs for all the table items that matched Colin's birthday party announcements. Everyone loved the Dino Droppings and Dino Bones! The Droppings were Junior Mints and the Bones were small straight pretzels with a mini marshmallow on each end dipped in white chocolate! Mmmmm. Those were yummy to make and went suuper fast!

Colin had a super fun Green Dinosaur Party and was in heaven the whole time! He even still refers to everything green as "like my Green Dinosaur Party" such a funny kid! Happy Birthday Love!

Black Bean and Cheese Flautas

If there is anyone who loves Mexican food, it is me, all the way! I get so excited about anything that looks yummy that has a Mexican ring to it! Mmmm. I found this recipe for Black Bean and Cheese Flautas and HAD to try it out! The recipe is found at peasandcrayons.com and if you're brave, you can make them with sweet potatoes, but I am not a fan, so I substituted my sweet potatoes for good ol' chicken. These were absolutely delicious! Try it out!

Manly Father's Day Plaque

For Father's Day this year, I wanted to make something special and I came up with this. I love this saying and really wanted to use it in a piece of décor that was somewhat manly. I found a tutorial on printing on burlap at domestically-speaking.com and got real excited about this! I ironed freezer paper onto my burlap and cut it into an 8 1/2 x 11 piece. It fit perfectly into my printer and printed great on it! I did have to push the paper through a little myself to get it started, but it worked! I was so excited until the top frayed a little more than I had wanted it to :( I just stained a piece of wood and hammered these cute brads onto it to hold it all together!

We hope you had a great Father's Day, Dad, and were so excited to be able to spend it with you this year! We love you!

Weding Invitation!

My cousin Kim got married in June to a wonderful man, Brett, whom we all love! I ended up designing her wedding invitation and I really love how it turned out! I wanted to share it with you! Here is the front:

 Backside:

We are so happy for you guys and love you tons!

Paper Medallion Bouquet

The end of Preschool was quickly approaching and I didn't have anything special for Cali's teachers. Cali had them for 2 years and they are good friends of mine, so I wanted something really special for them. I found this idea on createcraftlove.com and they turned out super cute for her to give her teachers! The website has all the instructions and they are super fun to make!

 You just take a strip of fun paper and fold it like an accordion and glue it on a stick! Then you take your wooden nickel and add a cute circle of paper on top of that and you're done!

 Cali wanted to make them with me and she did these all by herself! She is such a little artist!

 Here she is with all the flowers for her teachers!

A special thanks to her teachers, Mrs. Lisa and Mrs. Sham, for 2 wonderful years of learning and growing for my sweet baby girl! You ladies are awesome!

The Hive Boutique

Some friends and I love to go to The Hive Boutique together! A friend of ours, Melissa Quiggly, throws it at her house seasonally, a few times a year. She makes and sells the cutest stuff and has other vendors that come with things to sell as well! Check out her stash! You can also follow her at hollyhocks-honeybees.blogspot.com

Some of my friends I go with :)

 This is my stash I came home with this time! It is so much fun to decorate for SUMMER! Thanks for the cute stuff, Melissa!



Summer Pilllows!

I usually like to make my own pillows, but I found these turquoise ones at a local boutique and loved them! I really wanted a yellow chevron pillow to go with it, so I found this fabric at Hobby Lobby and snatched me up a pillow form while I was there and made this pillow cover! I love how the two colors compliment each other so well! Welcome Summer!

Sink Display

I have been trying to decide for a few years now what to display behind my kitchen sink, 'til I found these beautiful turquoise dishes at Tai Pain and fell in love! I LOVE the look it gives my kitchen and the whole space it is in! Especially when my Peonies are in season!

I don't know what it is about this color that just makes me smile :)

A Forgotten Project, Oh my!

I don't think I ever posted this one, but I made these Roman Shades for my Craft Room and I love how they turned out! I found some GREAT instructions on making your own custom Roman Shades on http://brownpaperpackagesep.blogspot.com! They really weren't as scary as they seemed and I am already making plans to make more for other rooms in my house!

I love when I'm in the middle of a project and my husband gets as excited about finishing it as I do! He got all the supplies, and together we got it all finished in one evening! Not bad! Thanks Paul! 

Long Time No See....

So, I apologize it has been a very long time since I have posted any projects on here.... life has happened. Literally. We are expecting a baby boy in less than 2 months and that has changed a lot of things in our lives. Since I have last posted, I found out I was pregnant, went on an organizing spree getting everything ready in my house for me to be sick and on bed-rest. The sickness hit and stuck around for longer than it was welcome for, doesn't it always?? Once it was gone, I knew my contractions would start immediately so my family took a quickie vacation to Moab, since our jeep wont fit another family member in it.... Fun times! Then, I decided we needed to plan another Treasure Trade event before I was put on bed-rest, and made a tight squeeze to fit that into our lives.... (pics to come) and then Summer hit! Busy Summer has kept me hot, tired, but running full speed with my 2 older kids. We haven't held back much and have done a lot of fun things and surprisingly my contractions have stayed under control! Yes! I have also gotten some fun projects done that I am excited to post on here in the next bit. BUT....Lets start with this picture...

This is a picture of my beautified laundry room :) It makes me happy, but hasn't always..... A week before the Treasure Trade was supposed to be held at my house, I was getting my weekly laundry day out of the way so I didn't need to think about it until after the Trade event was held and over with. Well, I had just had some company leave and I was doing like eight other things at once to get ready for this thing and I turned my mud sink (not in the pic) on to scalding HOT water to soak my clothes and walked away..... (for maybe 45 min or so) Since it was a busy day I had music blaring and kids watching TV and I was running around checking things off my list when I went down to my quiet basement to hear some water splashing.....not normal! I noticed, right under my laundry room, water spilling out into my basement in a hurry and I FREEEKED! I ran upstairs to find my laundry room and mud area full of HOT water!

 

Long story short, I had some amazing friends who came to my aide and we had it all cleaned up and drying in record time and luckily, there wasn't any major damage.....Thank you, thank you! We were able to get the whole thing dried out and put back together in time for the party thanks to an amazing hubby and father in law. AND I even got them to paint it for me! I had this can of paint sitting on the floor of the laundry room for probably a year, but nobody who wanted to move my washer and dryer out to do it! But no, I didn't flood it on purpose.....haha. Now, I have a happy laundry room that makes me happy :) ...Now onto decorating it! Thanks babe!



Craft Room Storage

Ok, so my craft room got a BIG new improvement this week including LOTs of storage. I wanted storage cubes, but a custom size to fit all of my craft room supplies. Paul offered to build me a custom storage cube shelving unit, so I took him up on that offer real quick! I LOVE how it turned out! It is my new favorite piece of furniture. I have had a creative block for a while and now that all my supplies are organized I can actually whip out some creativity!

My craft room still needs alot of work, but I love being able to design it exactly how I want! Thanks to my hubby for his hard work!

S'mores Cupcakes

I was in charge of making some yummy cupcakes for the Treasure Trade and I chose to make some S'mores Cupcakes and they were absolutely delectable! I found the recipe on yourcupofcake.com. I definately recommend them to anyone and everyone! YUM!!! There are graham cracker crumbs on the bottom of the cupcake cups as well as in the frosting and a creamy marshmallow filling! Oh my goodness, I'm in LOVE!

Try them out today!!

Light Banner

For the Autumn Exchange, we were each supposed to make a light banner and I chose to do one with paper cups. I was having a hard time finding cute Fall paper cups 'til my friend found these cups that were perfect because they were short! I just poked holes in the bottom of each and fished lights through them. They turned out super cute! They looked awsome when it was dark out!

Autumn Exchange Treasure Trade

My friends and I decided to host a Treasure Trade for all our friends to come and bring items they no longer want and trade them for items they did want! We called it the Autumn Exchange. We put alot of work into making it a fabulous night for all our friends to enjoy and it turned out amazing! Thanks ladies for a fun adventure!

 

 

 

I know these pics are a little late, since this was back in October, but it had been so long since I posted I wanted to get Christmas up before I did this

 

'Til next time!!

Family Christmas Card

This is our Family Christmas Card I designed for this year! I made it in Polaroid My Memories Suite

We hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!

Christmas Blocks

My sister bought these wooden blocks and left me a set in the Spring and I couldn't decide what to do with them until I realized there are 9 letters in Christmas! Yay!

 The blocks are 1 1/2 inches square and I started by spray painting them red. I mod podged some cute glittery Christmas paper onto them and used my cricut to cut out the letters onto black vinyl. I finished it off by using glitter spray paint to mist some sparkles onto it. Nice finishing touch, if you ask me :)

 What I love most about these blocks is you can arrange them so manu different ways! You can spread them out, or stack them up depending on how much space you have to work with!

 This arrangement happens to be my favorite! Love them!



Canvas Wall Art

I have been wanting something for Cali's walls that matched her bedding I made for her to help with the finishing touches in her room. I had a canvas laying around I found a while back at DI and I came up with this:

I covered the canvas with the main focus fabric from her quilt and added frills with other matching scraps. Then I found a wooden "C" that I painted turquise and sprayed with a little glitter spray paint, which is my new favorite thing! I can't wait to see it up in her room!

Our Christmas

This is what our home looks like this Christmas. I love the classic red and gold in my Christmas decorating. I love how the gold just glows with the lights on my tree

 I also love how my bulb wreath I made last year brings it all together so nicely

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Bathroom Re-do

Ever since Paul framed my bathroom mirror in our 3/4 bath, I have wanted the cabinets black to match. Here are my new black cabinets!! I love, love, love them! Thanks to my fabulous hubby!

 It just looks so nice with my black framed mirror!! We just sanded everything down really good and painted it black with a glossy black paint using foam rollers to make them look real nice. Love it! 

Thanks babe!