Wednesday, January 26, 2011

My Golden Birthday!

       On this date, 26 years ago I was being born. I don't feel that old. Well, not yet at least. I had a wonderful birthday to say the least, I woke up to a wonderful surprise from Josh, a birthday card, some itunes, and another gift which I will be sharing with you all soon. But I went to work like any regular day, only to discover that my little guy had bought me a birthday cake, and some yummy smelling lotions! What a wonderful gift!  This evening Josh took me to Murrays for supper. It was a very relaxing evening, and now Josh is giving me my space so I can blog. I love my husband, he is watching American Idol right now and I can hear him laughing over and over again, (at the bad contestants) I am certain that as I know it right now there is not a better sound in the world then that of my laughing husband.
        While the year didn't start off the best for me, today sure made me feel special, I had so many birthday wishes! After today, I will try to be better about saying happy birthday to people on facebook, as it really makes a person feel special, and the smallest birthday wish from an unexpected friend or family member can really bring sunshine to a persons day!

Decorating for Valentines Day

VALENTINES DAY

I heard on Channel 11 news that the two middle weeks in January were the most depressing weeks of the year for most people. The holiday cheer has wore off, there is no end of winter in sight, and the days are short. Since decorating always cheers me up I decided to go for it and put up a few decorations for Valentines Day.  I went down to my storage room and looked through my holiday bins all nicely labeled... Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Forth of July, Easter, and there it was: Valentines Day/St. Patricks Day, getting excited I opened the bin hoping to find some clearance decorations I may have bought the year before. I was wrong. Inside was nothing more then three wooden hearts and some window clings. I decided I would make my own decorations this year, and use things I may already have, as we are saving money for my brothers wedding in TX in one month. I figured I would share some of my ideas for others who may be on a tight budget. The first thing I did was wander around the house and gather all red, pink, purple items, I was surprised how many things I found! I looked for dishes, ribbon, silk flowers, candles, lamp shades, and books! I gathered it all up on my kitchen table and went to work!

As an avid children's book collector, I have books for each holiday and I love do display them with my decor! This book More Hugs has bright red on the cover and matches perfectly next to my red checked lamp!

Candy is always a cheap decoration, so I dressed it up by using some stickers I had to spell the "Kiss and Hug" tags, I just used pencils for the sticks, and wrapped them with red yarn to match!
I went through my big box of doilies that I had from both my Grandma and Josh's Grandma and found some colorful pieces that I probably would have never used except for Valentines Day, as they have pinks, purples and fun colors! I also found some of my great grandmothers vintage valentine post cards to display!


Of course I put out any colorful frames and flowers that matched my Valentines Day theme.

And of course I took out my Valentines Day Cookie Cutters! They are fun because they can hang on a wall or set on a coffee table to be displayed. I bought a set of alphabet cookie cutters a while ago, and it is definitely worth it! I can use them for any holiday, to spell out fun words or phrases!
I didn't have any colorful candles so I just took a plain white candle and put some scrapbooking stickers on it to dress it up!

I found this old Chocolate tin in a box of items we received from Josh's grandma when she passed! I love it! It is so colorful and it is fun to think that this may have been someones Valentine's Day Gift  to their sweetheart many years ago!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Paper Dolls

I have been wanting to do something with my American Girl Paper Dolls for a while now and I thought it would be cute to frame them with some of their clothes. I also have some other paper dolls I may try this look with. I thought it would be cute for a little girls room, or my doll room too:) I just used decorative scrapbooking paper for the background and small sticky tape to keep the girls in place in the frame.

Wedding Scrapbook

This weekend I made time to do something crafty each day! I spent Friday evening  working on some new ideas with some frames Josh had bought for me, on Saturday night I had a wonderful time scrapbooking with a friend, and on Sunday morning I scrapbooked all by myself. I adore weekends like this! If only I had this much free time every week! I am getting more and more excited about my wedding scrapbook with each page I complete. I have made the choice to include all types of things into the scrapbook, along with the pictures because I feel like they should be valued just as much as the photos themselves. I included our vows, that we each had written for each other, and the "thank yous" that we said to our wedding party at our grooms dinner. Along with the pictures, both Josh and I agree we never want to forget how we felt at that special moment in time, and how much we appreciated each other, and our friends. I can't wait for the scrapbook to be completed so I can share it with friends and family, it will defiantly be one of my favorite scrapbooks! Josh had a really good idea, he said we should look into getting a fireproof safe that we can put possibly the scrapbook and other important items into in case tragedy ever struck. It would be terrible to  not have a copy of our vows, wedding photos, and personal items we treasure. We will have to look into finding a safe or something. This weekend I focused on mainly the black and white pictures I had printed out so there isn't much color in the pages, besides the Farm Photo, but I cant wait to get started on some more colorful pages! Anyways, I hope you enjoy my most recent work!






Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Shadow Box

              Today, I worked only 6 hours instead of my usual 12, so I was so excited to get home and finish some things up around the house! One of those things was a shadow box that I received as a wedding gift from my childhood neighbor, Debbie Adams. It was a beautiful wooden shadow box, and inside Deb had already placed our wedding invitation and a yellow flower, against the green background. I chose the sentimental items to be placed inside this week!

         Some of my favorite items placed inside are: the cork from our first bottle of champagne we drank on our carriage ride, my great grandmothers hankie, my parents cake cutting knife from their wedding, and the yellow rubber ducky from the children's meal cups we had at our reception. I love this colorful display and I think that every time I look at this shadow box it will remind me of our wedding, and the love that was shared on that special day!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Morning Sunrise

In my attempt to do something for myself today, I made time to blog! I may also take some time to straighten up my craft room as well. While that may be considered cleaning to some, I would consider being surrounded by things I love another attempt at doing something positive for me. :) I was really excited to share a picture that I took this week of my little guy looking out the window at some deer in his backyard. It happened to be a beautiful morning sunrise and the way the sunlight glows on the little amount of hair he has is just adorable! I love nature and wildlife, and I feel so blessed to work at beautiful home in the suburbs that still lets me enjoy these things! My hope is that the little man (and someday my own children) will learn to appreciate the finer things that the great outdoors has to offer as well!