Blog Button

I've gotta take a second here to give myself some major props here...because I generally stink at figuring stuff out on my own, and I'm OWNING lately at figuring out how to do stuff myself.  Woot woot.  

Anyways.  I always see other people's blog buttons on their sidebars, and have wondered for ages how you do that.  

Well, dun dun da dun, thanks to the magic that is Google, I have discovered the secret to creating my own blog button.

Voila.

Thanks to Photoshop Elements & { Birdesign }'s LOVELY frame sets, and some free online fonts, I created this beaut myself.

And thanks to { mypregnancybaby } it's now findable on my sidebar, for you to grab at your leisure. 

Hope you find this totally useful :)

Slobbity slob.

Alright, I've seen these outfit posts EVERYWHERE lately.

But...I suck at taking self portraits.  This is largely because I rely too heavily on my crappy cellular device for these photos, but I digress.

I'm also not generally dressed up cute enough to post a fun picture of my outfit.

Today is Saturday.  Lazy Saturday if you will...I've had a headache for three days and finally roused myself enough to actually shower and do makeup.  And decided I wanted to wear a dress.  Even though it's cold outside.  What's a girl to do?  Clearly, throw on some yoga pants and a sweatshirt too.  Duh.

Hi I have 4 eyeballs because I am crap at taking pictures.

You can't really tell, but my yoga pants are purpleeee <3

Shirt: {Roxy}

Dress:  {SO}

Yoga pants: {balance collection}

(for the sake of full disclosure, I bought both the pants and sweatshirt at Marshall's, cuz I loves me a deal.)

(what's Marshall's you ask? OMG only the greatest thing to happen to fashionistas since TJ Maxx.  Fun fact, owned by the same parent company.  Anyway.  Here:  {marshalls} )

Other fun and interesting information for the day:

I found a new wedding blog to ogle constantly!  Which means more groovy ideas, and fun finds.  It is here:

{Rock My Wedding}

I found a new fun clothing shop on Etsy that I'm dying to buy from.  Luckily, she's super wallet friendly and I already own shirts I want her to pretty up for me:

{PPP}

This shirt in particular I'm LOVING

Fitted Oxy

Alright lovelies.  Hope you have a spectacular weekend :)

Creative use of Color

Palettes.  Another wonderful time waster...I seriously love making these.  They're way too much fun!!

I totally stole this idea from

{dondalees}

The thing is, I have like a gazillion pictures of random stuff (like this heart shaped rock!!) lingering around for no real purpose...but I love all these pictures.  And now I can create color palettes off of any of them.  Super fun, right?  Eh, maybe it's just me. 

Neutral Palette

Softspoken Palette

I have so many more pictures to make into palettes, so you might get to see some of those pretty soon.

What fun new thing have you discovered this week??

Featured: One Stitch Designs

OneStitch has been one of my favorite Etsy shops to browse through for AGES.  She's got it all - cute hats & gloves, coffee cozies, and even adorable matchbook notepads. 

And she's kindly agreed to be my very first shop feature :)

Hot Pink Fingerless Gloves

Why did you decide to open an Etsy shop?

3 reasons

*My house was becoming a disaster zone of fiber goodness (but it's worse now :)

*I was in serious need of more money (you cannot live off of 10 hours a week min wage)

*And I really wanted to eventually throw off the chains of the corporate world - no more jobs where you are called 10 minutes before the end of your day and told you no longer have a job (this is my only income now :)

This thing has grown into 2 shops and a standalone website

Pixie Hat

What is your absolute favorite thing to make & sell?

My favorite thing to make would be clothing, actually. But I never actually sold a piece. My favorite thing to make that I've sold is the gloves- any of them. I've got a glove thing :)

Matchbook Notepads

Who/what is your biggest inspiration?

Pixiebell.etsy.com not in product inspiration, but in a "hey, you can make a living off of yarn" sort of way. Diane is really nice too :)

Purple Heart Gift Tags

In the event of a Zombie apocalypse (or any apocalypse really), which crafty tool or skill would be your greatest weapon?

Well as for weapons, I have several longbows and can make more. Plus many other weapons :) self defense isn't an issue here!

Survival - I can take any fiber, spin it, and then knit or crochet it to make something warm to survive winter :) That's almost as good as a double tap anyday!

.....

Seriously, how AMAZING is she??  Those gloves, to die for.  Everything she makes is just gorgeous.  Not even exaggerating one tiny bit.  Go check out her whole shop at OneStitchDesigns

Thanks so much, Steph, for being my first shop feature :) 

F is for Fat Bottomed Girls

The modern bridal shower stems from the time when a bride's family was expected to provide a trousseau bride. The trousseau was comprised of clothing, lingerie, accessories, and various housewares. So in effect, pretty much everything a bride gets at her bridal shower nowadays.  

This treasury is full of gorgeous lingerie every bride should add to her modern trousseau :)

Fat Bottomed Girls

Fat Bottomed Girls doesn't have anything to do with anything...except that there are underpants in this, and presumably an above average posterior would also need ample coverage.

<3

Three Hundred.

Just a little hooray because...

I have 300 "favorers" on Etsy.

I have no idea why they decided favorer was the correct verbage for people who like your shop, but still.  Three hundred.

Huzzah!!!

Celebrate

5 Lovely Things. Part Deux.

1:  Tonight is my (future) step-daughter's spring music recital!  (or concert...whatever it is they call it in elementary school).

actually an old picture...she's only like 6 here, but it's too darn awesome.

2: I found a $10 in my wallet this morning, allowing me to get a deliciously unhealthy breakfast from ye olde McDonald's.  Oh iced mocha, how I LOVE thee...



{via}



3: Did I tell you how much I adore selling on Etsy?  Like, when I actually make a sale?  Here's to you, random awesome Italian guy for buying so much pretty stuff!

{via}

4: Looking forward to getting this in the mail soon!

Noella Beautyworks

5: The loveeee.  <3

Like two days after we got engaged :)

Also, don't forget to enter the Spring Goody Bag Giveaway! over at DondaLee's!  You won't regret it...there are some seriously amazing goodies in that thing :)

Blessed.

I am not a religious person.  I wasn't raised in a household that went to church (I wasn't ever baptised), and only experienced church a few times when going to Sunday school with relatives.  Organized religion is a completely confusing thing to me.

But.

When I take a good hard look at my life, I have been truly blessed by someone or something.  There is not really much in my world that's bad.  And there is so much goodness in my every day.  Even the crappy days when I feel like feeling sorry for myself.  (Like yesterday, for instance...yikessss)

Every day I get to come home to a fiance who makes me smile so much my cheeks hurt.

Every day I get to see my dad and kiss him on the cheek.

Every day I get to wake up in my own home, surrounded by things of my own choosing.

Every day I get a chance to start fresh...

Today, I vow to

Be lovely.

Be amazing.

Be free.

Be faithful.

Be brave.

Buy this here: HareBrainedSchemes

Buy this here: PrintableScripture

Betcha want some free swag.

I know I always do!  Especially in a package this cute :)

I'm participating in a giveaway hosted by Donda Lee's.  My contribution was this:

And several others have graciously donated their goods to giveaway too.  You can find this awesome giveaway here:

Spring Goody Bag

Good luck lovelies <3

This week...

Vintage fabric that was once my great-grandmother's inspired this braided cuff.

finally busted out my new sewing machine...it's amazing.

hot enough for bare feet on my porch!

pink lipgloss and pretty hair.

new clutch, I've been working on designing these for ages!

This week has been pretty amazing.  My fiance and I met our wedding photographers and were able to put down a deposit, thanks to my mama!  They are seriously awesome people...I can't wait to do our engagement session!   I came up with so many more wedding ideas, and some new ideas and designs for my Etsy shop.  I'm expanding to include more fabric & sewn items...since I've figured out my new sewing machine, I want to sew everything!!  

<3

Strapped in Vinyl

Somewhere along this crazy thought train that keeps spewing out random wedding thoughts, I came up with the brilliant idea to make some vinyl record dessert towers from a tutorial I found on Bubby and Bean and decided to start scoping out local thrift stores.  

So I went on over to the Salvation Army that's right down the street from my place of employment...and BAM!  It was like record overload.  I generally don't look through the records because I never find anything good...and the first time I actually was looking for stuff that wasn't good (ya know, so I wouldn't feel bad about wrecking it to make dessert trays), I  came upon the motherload of records I needed to own.  

Seriously.  Commodores?  Olivia Newton John?  Captain and Tenille? HECK YES.

So now I have all these.

Plus a lot more, cuz I bought like 20 of the things...and four were Kenny Rogers (what can I say? I love his beard), and I have NO clue who Heino is (I think it's big in Germany, as the other records of his the Salvo had had German words.  Or German looking at least) (I just thought it sounded like "heinie" and he looks funny) but now I really need to get my awesome record player from my gramma's house...and figure out how to use it.

Oh, and that tutorial?  Maybe we won't do that...

So tell me:  Any ideas what to do with so many awesome vinyls that doesn't include destroying them?

What I do on Friday nights.

Two things you should know:

1: My fiancé (I never get sick of that word!) is a bartender.

2: We share a car.

The bar my fiancé (ahh there it is again!) works at is about a twenty minute drive from where we live, so on nights he works (ie, the weekend) I am left without a mode of transport.  Which isn’t a huge deal, and would be even less of a big deal if we lived somewhere say…within walking distance of anything besides a church and a cemetery.  And a fire hall.  But as we’re pretty much stuck out in the country, when he’s got the car, I’m stuck at home. 

After working all week long, most Fridays consist of me laying on the couch for a couple of hours catching up on my stories before diving into craft-land and making new pretty things for my Etsy shop.  Some Fridays I don’t even make it that far, and fall asleep on the couch first instead. 

This week though, on account of superbly unseasonable weather (where the high this time of year is usually around 40 degrees, it’s been hovering around 70!), my spring cleaning instinct has kicked in with a fury.  I’ve let all the indoorsy housekeeping type work alone for awhile…mostly because my fiancé (yay!) wasn’t working for a couple of months and since I was (paying all the bills and having to work full time AND deal with busy Etsy Christmas season) I was (trying to) make him take on more of the housekeeping work that I’d normally do.  Ummm…EPIC FAIL.  I love my fiancé (can’t stop saying typing it) but he’s not so cut out for the keeping things tidy.  Not that I’m the greatest, but I’m working on it.

So, this past Friday, having been bitten quite hard by that cleaning bug, I spent THREE hours (3 whole hours!) cleaning and rearranging my living room!  I must say, I’m quite pleased with the results.  The loveseat is now close enough to the TV for the fiancé (hehe) to play his beloved Xbox without squinting, and there’s a nice walkway through to the kitchen/dining room areas.  Much bettah!  I would totally have posted a “before” picture, had I thought of it…but oh well.  Here’s the “after”!

Alright.  In retrospect, it's clearly not *that* clean.  But in my defense, I totally lost steam when all that was left was clearing off the coffee table.  AND my man-piece had just used the couch as a bed, and the living room as his bedroom (hence the backpack, and assorted clothing stuff on the couch).  And he *might* be a bit annoyed at the totally unflattering picture of him shirtless, sitting on the floor (I have no idea what he was doing).


At least these pictures show off some of the awesome art on our walls.  You can find some here:
Farouche
Vol25
Roll&Tumble Press
NestaHome 
Little Canoe

Hope ya'll have a fabulous weekend!!

Bits of fact.

We've established by now that I enjoy talking about myself, right?  Right.  I just can't help it.  I'm the oldest of five siblings...I grew up needing to shout to be heard.  Talking about myself is just kind of a runoff of that.  Sort of.  Plus I'm reallllyyyy chatty.

Well, here are some random bits of info about me.  Because I can.

- I can't deal with sad endings.  At all.  In fact, I primarily read cheesy romance novels and sci fi because it's rarely deep enough to make you even THINK of something sad.  This is also the reason I rarely watch chick flicks.  Sooo not my thing unless there's a definite happy ending involved.

- I don't generally wear makeup to work, so I go about five days a week with a nekkid face.  BUT I am slightly totally obsessed with cosmetics in general.  I think I own about six billion different shades of purple eye shadow.  This store is my current fave:  SweetPea&Fay  Seriously they're amazing.

- My favorite part of getting to spend an evening with my man, is our spontaneous interpretive dance parties. Like, to this:

- I realllllyyyy love the Walking Dead.  Like, a LOT.  It's probably unhealthy.  & Not just the show, the comic books too.  Soooo much.  I'm already jonesing for the new season...and trying not to get through the books too quickly!

http://www.fanpop.com/spots/the-walking-dead/images/15760941/title/walking-dead-photo

Now tell me some fun randomness about you :)

F is for feathers

Today's picks for a fun Etsy wedding!

Shake your tailfeather :)

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NjgxNTE2M3wyNTMyNjEwMTA1/shake-your-tailfeather

Enjoy <3

A fine proposal.

You know I’m newly engaged and beginning to plan the Big Day, but of course you always have to know how the proposal went.  It’s the most romantic part, isn’t it?  And really, the biggest deal, since it’s the beginning of the rest of it. 

Firstly, I was the one to propose. 

I don’t know exactly what it was that tipped the scales.  I’ve known to the deepest part of me that he is my soulmate.  My absolute other half.  We were friends for ages before we started dating, beginning in high school and then just with MySpace and social networking.  Then came the fateful night that led to the dating…we ran into each other at a rock show.  Which led to more talking, then the invite to hang out, then the rest happened. 

In April of last year, he officially moved in with me.  We redecorated my little house a bit, and I gave him a man cave so he could have his own room (because I know how badly everyone needs private space…I know I do!).  So as it’s been occurring to us that we’ve successfully lived together for nearly a year, we’ve been making more and more jokes about getting married eventually and never really thought much about it.  We never figured there was a reason to rush it.   But if there's no reason to rush it, then there's also no reason to keep waiting.  Everyone could always use more money or a better job, but that's not a real enough reason to not marry your soulmate.  All of that stuff can change at any moment anyway, no matter how rich or poor you are. The only real reason I could even think up to NOT propose to him was that “the guy should be the one to propose”.  But why?  Nothing about us is traditional to begin with.  We’ve already been through rich & poor, and sickness and health.  And survived it. 

And then I found these:

http://spiffingjewelry.etsy.com/

Since my fiancé is such a huge Star Wars fan, I HAD to do it.  So I asked him. In my car. In our driveway. At approximately four am on a Saturday night (Sunday morning?)

And he said YES.

5 Lovely Things

Today is the first day of SPRING!

Every day, I try to come up with a list of five good things about the day.  This is especially helpful on days when I'm overly stressed, sick, or overall miserable.  It makes me take a moment to recapture my perspective and remember the many positives in life.

Today's Five:

1: First day of Spring!  The weather is super duper awesome, complete with sun and above average temperatures.  AND yesterday I found my first spring flower growing in my front yard :)

2: My hair looks amazing, thanks to this tutorial!  (Plus it's out of my face and off my neck, a great bonus to this hairstyle!)



http://www.asuyeta.com/blogs/news/5848784-hair-tutorial-boho-twist-side-bun



3: I painted my fingernails bright orangy coral over the weekend, and just looking at the bright color makes me smile.

4: I recently splurged on myself a bit and got some new cosmetics from SweetPea & Fay.  I'm wearing this awesome pink lip gloss called "Sailor's Delight".

http://www.sweetpeaandfay.com/#!lip-gloss/productsstackergalleryv215=10

5: I get to come home to this guy.

What are some of your lovely things about today?



I've been nominated for a Liebster Blog award :)

As I'm just beginning this new blog, and this new phase in my life, I am honored to have received the Liebster Blog award from Ruth at http://gabbysquilts.blogspot.com  Thank you so very much for honoring me!




I am nominating:

Sandy @  http://quiltincats.blogspot.com
Kristin @ http://rewelliottstyle.blogspot.com
Brandi @ http://thebeatniq.blogspot.com
Jeanna @ http://barnyardchic.blogspot.com
Sabrina @ http://thedoubtfulpixie.blogspot.com

Make sure to check out their lovely blogs <3




 

F is for Flowers.

At the beginning of the month, I became engaged to my wonderful boyfriend of three years.  Since then, my life has been a wedding planning frenzy! And of course, the first place I turn to is Etsy.  I have found so many wonderful ideas and DIY kits (not just for weddings!) since I started searching; it's so hard to not just buy up everything!  But since my mighty slim checkbook won't allow for that, I've been curating treasuries full of some of my favorites.  And since today is Friday, I figured I'd start off with an F: Flowers.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NjgxNTE2M3wyNDY3ODU1ODM4/f-for-flowers

Enjoy :)

A bit of randomness.

I realllllyyyyy miss Myspace.  Nothing used to entertain me for longer periods of time than filling out those long and obnoxious surveys that no one else probably ever read.

But the great thing about actually reading them when other people filled them out, was finding out incredibly random information about people that filled in the blanks of who that person was.

Thusly, some random q&a for ya:

What is your favorite key on your key ring? 
My leopard & zebra house keys.  Because they let me enter my house, and they're stylish.  Sort of.

Scariest thing you've experienced in the last year? 
Nearly losing the love of my life because he decided to get out of my car while it was still moving.  (By the way, you'll totally crack your skull open & need surgery to fix a brain bleed if you get out of a car going 20mph).

What was the last movie you watched at home? 
Currently watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets!  (Yes, I'm one of *those* girls)

What is your favorite quote?
"Do what makes your soul happy."

What is your current obsession? 
The Walking Dead.  Seriously, I do not want to have to wait half a year for the new season after the season finale this weekend!

Beginnings.

Spring is FINALLY in the air!  And what better time to start something new than spring?  It is a time of renewal, and of freshness.  Time to begin again!

I am abandoning my old blog in favor of this new one...mostly because I feel it is a time for change.

a flower from my front yard, last spring.

My favorite part of spring is when the grass begins to grow, and once again turn green.  Green is the best part of spring :)